How A Mechanical Engineer Runs A $2K/Month Finance Blog Side Hustle
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
I am Sascha the founder of Konto-Kredit-Vergleich.de. It is a German finance blog which specializes in loans, banking accounts, and car leasing and subscription accounts. Another vertical worth mentioning is a special type of bank account which protects money after a garnishee order has been received.
I started this site 4 years ago, and it took me around 1.5 years to generate some traffic. The most impact was researching what people needed and identifying content gaps in Google. To wrap my head around this concept took me the aforementioned timeframe of 18 months, and I am still learning to write better copy, that educates my readers but also drives sales home.
Today, I am making a nice side income from this blog. On average, it is more than 2.000 USD monthly.
The biggest lesson I learned was the importance of creating articles that solved real-world problems for my readers. I shifted my focus completely from writing what I thought people wanted to read and researching what people were struggling with.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I'm a mechanical engineer by profession, but I already had a soft spot for finance when I was a kid.
So this, and my affinity for websites and the online world led to the Finance blog Konto-Kredit-Vergleich.de.
I had quite an aha moment when I published an article at the beginning of the corona crisis when I reframed the article (which was almost already finished) to the current situation.
The article was an immediate success and pulled in 200 readers daily, while I had only around 10 readers a day around that time. This was an awesome breakthrough after I had invested a significant amount of my free time without getting any traction.
Even though traffic went back to previous levels after a few more days elapsed, this was the first time I was sure that I am somehow on the right track (18 months after I started). This is the article, if you want to check it. It's nothing special, but the initial publishing timing was perfect, and it just worked in March 2020.
Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.
Konto-Kredit-Vergleich.de is a finance blog that tries to reach as many users as possible. Therefore, it is of utter importance to research the market and to know what the users want and need.
When I founded my business, I fancied affiliate marketing as a way to make an income, because the annoying part of an E-Com like logistics, packaging, shipping, complaints, and support stays with the vendor. Even though affiliate marketing is over-saturated in many niches, affiliate marketing is still a very viable business model, where you can make a good amount of money if you focus on the high ticket or digital items.
Describe the process of launching the business.
My launch was simply installing a WordPress on a cheap rented webspace.
Because I did everything myself, there were no costs associated with the launch.
For 18 months, I did not know in which direction I was going with the blog. I could not figure out a concept, because so many pieces of the puzzle on how you create a successful blog were missing. I just wrote what came into my head, and nobody cared about my site.
The biggest lesson I learned was the importance of creating articles that solved real-world problems for my readers. I shifted my focus completely from writing what I thought people wanted to read and researching what people were struggling with.
In comparison to my corporate job, there is a lot more actual work to be done and a lot fewer meetings and discussions, which fills up most of my days there.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
I don't run any ads, have only minimal social media, and focus mostly on just content.
What works best is solving problems for people and making the answer as easy to understand as possible.
If I find a topic I want to write about, the first thing is usually to check some metrics like traffic, PPC, and domain authority of the other sites.
If the metrics are promising, I am going to research what other people have written about this topic already. When I feel like I can add or improve something, I go ahead and plan out a new post.
For instance, recently, I researched the possibilities of how to finance a motorbike. The top-ranking sites had 4 options. I knew that there are more than just 4 options, and I came up with this post, that shows 7 options of how to finance a motorbike in Germany.
I also put some effort into gathering a few links. While I managed to gain a few good links, I regard the link-building efforts as not successful. The work was so tedious, that I believe, if I had just spent the time creating content, I'd been better off. Also, I didn't experience a traffic boost after I gathered the links.
Before the May Google update, the site did well and brought in $$$. Unfortunately, these times passed, and the site has around 200 visitors daily currently. The only thing that worked consistently for me to get traffic was to write better articles than anybody else. Easier said than done, of course!
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
While this is still a part-time gig, it brings in enough cash to live off it already.
That being said, the income is of course highly fluctuating.
The site has evolved from a yearly turnover of USD33 in 2019 to a moderate five figures in 2022.
Plans are mainly to stabilize the income because the swings are crazy.
I want to achieve this by improving existing content and publishing a few new posts. Unfortunately, the site has lost quite a bit of traffic recently, because of harder competition.
Long term, I can imagine doing this stuff full-time.
In comparison to my corporate job, there is a lot more actual work to be done and a lot fewer meetings and discussions, which fills up most of my days there.
Some affiliate commissions are truly rewarding. In the guide Earn money as an affiliate: will it work in 2022? I put some screenshots of how rewarding affiliate marketing can be in the finance niche. I have received commissions of more than 400 € for a single sale. You can find the program, with which I achieved this in the link above (It’s a credit affiliate program for the German market) Additionally you get paid every 14 days without delay. Here’s a screenshot of my recent payment dates with the said program:
Affiliate Payments arrive biweekly if you have the right program. Here’s a screenshot of my recent payment dates.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
I have learned so many things from this business, that I don't even know where to start. Examples include content creation for market fit, keyword research, creating graphics and pictures, learning how the WordPress ecosystem works, and last but not least understanding our complex German tax systems a lot better. And of course, I also learned a ton from writing 200+ articles.
Some poor decisions I made were not focussing enough on the problems of my readers and instead "writing blindly in the void".
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
I try to keep everything as simple as possible and do not use too many tools. Also, I try to keep recurring costs low. For Keyword research I use the free Ahrefs tools, Seosurfer, and my data from GSC, which is often the most valuable.
Other tools I love are Yoast and Rankmath. Just because I like both tools, does not mean you should choose both as that will mess up your sitemap, which both of the tools create. Even though both are awesome, I like Rankmath a little better, because it has more options and does not focus on keywords used in headings as much as Yoast.
Also, I use a rating plugin for WordPress, which has the additional advantage that a feedback query pops up if someone leaves less than 5 stars.
This gives me the chance to optimize my posts, based on the received feedback from the users.
For pictures, I like working with Canva. I try to batch picture creation and create a Canva pro account only for a short period of time.
Another great tool I found by coincidence recently is the Ranktracker App. It’s a tool you connect to your GSC and it triggers warning messages if any of your tracked keyword positions declines in rankings. Many paid tools do the same, but the Ranktracker app is the only one I know that does this job for free, and it works flawlessly.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
I would like to give a shoutout to mrmoneymustache who was one of the first blogs I read and who inspired me, that a 9-5 is not the only option to make a living, there is.
I also like the Reddit subs r/entrepreneur, r/juststart, and the #seofomo newsletter by Aleyda Solis, where I have gotten some tips on how to implement SEO measures.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
What I often see when I follow people's stories is that they jump from idea to idea way too often and thus never really start doing anything. So my advice would be to not jump ship all the time. If you have an idea, stick to it. Focus on executing, instead.
This is 100x more important than having a perfect idea. Just start already!
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
I am looking for skilled writers who have a basic understanding of finance and writing blog articles using SEO.
Where can we go to learn more?
- My recommended affiliate programme, for anyone with serious endeavors in that space (and some german knowledge)
- Website
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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- 4,818 founder case studies
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- 8,628 business ideas
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- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
