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What It's About
By embracing her natural gray, this aerospace manager is making a lot of extra green.
Words of Wisdom
Katie has important advice for those seeking to start their own blog, “Learn SEO ASAP—it's more valuable than social media traffic."
Fun Fact
When your hair begins to turn gray is caused by genetics, and predetermined even before you were born! This means that qualities like premature graying tend to run in families, but most of the time, people start to notice gray hair in their late 30s and 40s.
Notes from Chris
Episode 1732
In 2015, Katie Emery’s world turned upside down. Her husband lost his job, and her son nearly lost his life. She says that those traumatic events led her to a period of “brain fog.” She didn’t feel like herself, and was constantly stressed. But she had always loved being creative, and so, facing the uncertainty of her husband’s career, she decided to find her way out by starting a new project. One day around that time, she was listening to the audiobook of “You Are a Badass at Making Money” by Jen Sincero when the book covered the art of getting paid through blogging. Katie was interested, so she began to learn more about Wordpress. Instead of learning on her own, however, she found a Wordpress tutor (yes, those exist!) and spent $300 to gain as much competence as she could. Inspired, she decided to start a new blog, Katie Goes Platinum, to document her journey of going gray and perhaps encourage others along the way. She spent about $100 on the hair necessities—$50 on a blog theme, $15 on a domain name, and $35 for web hosting. In July of 2018, the blog officially launched with a few posts. In an ideal world, she wanted to wait to launch until she had several in depth, well-written articles, but in the end she decided not to overthink it. Good choice! Three years in, about 50% of her traffic is organic, and she is hoping to continue to grow that number. Katie makes more than $6,000 a month from her side hustle, and she is still working her day job as an aerospace marketing coordinator. Katie says that above all else, she’s grateful that her side hustle has eased her family’s financial strain. Living in Los Angeles, the extra income has been critical. She’s also glad that this is the blog that took off, rather than one of her first two attempts. She hopes it will inspire others in their 50s to think outside the box. Coming up next: a line of e-books, and maybe even a podcast.MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Learn more about Katie and check out her blog, Katie Goes Platinum.
- IT Developer Creates Tech Blogging Dynasty: An experienced IT developer becomes a blogging superstar and builds a sought after agency thanks to his narrow, specific focus.
- Indian Personal Finance Blogger Rings Up $4,000/Month: Writing about money-saving hacks and passive income for readers in India yields big money for a software company employee.
- The Travel Blog That Pays for a House: A “Digital Nomad Wannabe” goes from aspiration to vindication, earning up to $50,000/month and eventually buying a home with the proceeds from her blog.
Quote of the Day
"Learn SEO ASAP - it's more valuable than social media traffic."
—Katie Emery #SideHustleSchool
