How I Built A $13K/Month Blog Helping Remote Job Seekers
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
Hi, I am Sireesha Narumanchi, founder of Crowdworknews.com. I help work from home enthusiasts in finding legit online jobs, side hustles and other extra income options.
Remote work/location independent jobs are still a new concept in many parts of the world and my mission is to show them they can work from home no matter where they are in the world.
What started as a side hustle has grown into a thriving business now generating 5 figures a month. But in true terms what feels more surreal or a measure of success for me is being able to reach so many people like me and help them break out of the ‘9-5’ race.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I always wanted to do a job/side hustle which would be flexible, gives me a chance to be around my kids and definitely a passion of mine.
My first and the biggest mistake was to do everything myself when I started. I always believed in doing things myself but later realised it’s better to focus on the business rather than in the business.
Being able to spend time with my kids was the driving point for me to search for a remote job 9 years ago. During the process of searching for one I found that there are so many looking for such flexible job options.
That’s something that inspired me to start Crowdworknews.com. I know how hard it is to find a viable work option online and I wanted to create this in-depth resource for everyone to find unique side hustles and legit online jobs.
I have always been a blogger at heart, my blogging inspiration started with Darren Rowse, Yaro Starak and Pay Flynn. Starting a blog meant more than making money for me(I wasn't even thinking of money when I started). It was my way of communicating and solving the same issues I had when I started searching for online jobs.
Something that really helped me to understand my readers and their pain points was my own remote job experience of 9 years.
Describe the process of creating the website and blog.
It took some time for me to get everything set up in the initial days like selecting a theme, creating social media profiles, getting all the necessary plugins, understanding Wordpress etc. Blogging is a never ending learning curve(that’s what I love about it). Then came the writing part.
Being an entrepreneur means working all the time. No barriers between work and rest. Luckily I don’t follow this routine. I am a side hustle landscape photographer and love traveling. This is something that brings a balance to my work and personal life.
Usually people get stuck when they start writing content. I was full of ideas and ready to write when I started, which really got me going. Initially I had around 5 posts up when I launched and started posting content every week.
Describe the process of launching the business.
Though the idea of starting a blog was on my mind for a long time, it was in July 2016 that I finally took the step to do it. I get a lot of emails everyday asking me about ‘how to start a blog business’, the one thing I tell them is, take the step and jump in if you are passionate about it.
The good old word of mouth marketing was my launch pad initially. I reached out to friends, family and others who asked me earlier about online jobs.
I did not plan a big pre-launch but this approach really helped me in getting noticed in the first month and we had around 16k page views in the month of launch.
I am a big fan of passive/residual income. Affiliate marketing was always my first choice to start monetizing my blog. Though the idea of making serious money came in later, affiliate marketing was a perfect fit to make money from my niche. Display advertising is another way I monetize my blog.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
Since the launch, we have scaled our business a lot in terms of traffic and income. Income has gone up 5 times of what I earned in the first month, majority of which is affiliate income. Traffic also bumped up to over 250k page views a month.
There were some areas which I did not focus initially in the first year of blogging like email marketing but having your tribe is of immense value for any business.
Email marketing is a powerful platform where you can connect,help your customers and gain their trust. Doing this on a one-on-one basis is what makes email marketing a great way to grow a business.
I focused more on email marketing in the second year, took a really helpful course and created more optins/free email courses. Providing solutions for the reader problems in form of freebies was something that really worked for me. Giving immense value without any strings attached(like signing up for newsletter) can work wonders if you are keen to get targeted subscribers.
I also wanted to diversify my traffic and dive into SEO from the second year on. It’s a given that SEO takes a lot of time and you cannot see the results immediately. But the kind of conversions and traffic you get organically is of much greater value than social media.
Learning SEO is again a never ending process. I cannot say that I am self learner completely, I have had the insight and help of many resources like Brian Dean’s Backlinko and many more.
The two part SEO approach that worked for me was the right keyword research and focusing on on-page/off-page SEO.
My typical SEO process starts with finding a good keyword (with low difficulty and good volume), researching and writing the post with a LOT of information(more in-depth than my competitors), doing a through on-page optimization and finally putting my maximum efforts for off-page SEO.
I publish at least 5 posts a month, sometimes more.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
Right from starting our business, we have gone from earning $300 a month to 5 figures a month.
With over 250k page views a month, we get the majority of traffic from Google. We have grown our social media following to over 25k and have a subscriber base of 11k.
Major goals for our business are to develop a much more comprehensive resource for side hustles and online jobs and create a more in-depth solutions for remote job seekers.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
My first and the biggest mistake was to do everything myself when I started. I always believed in doing things myself but later realised it’s better to focus on the business rather than in the business.
It can be really overwhelming to think about starting a business but everything falls into place if you have a plan and learn along the way. I knew nothing about Wordpress or email marketing or even Google analytics when I started. But that didn't stop me from diving in to my passion.
Outsourcing tasks to people with more expertise was a major change I made. This change saved me a lot of time and gave me a better view of things that mattered in business.
The one thing that I really learned from my business was to become better at time management. I am a work-at-home mom and managing my business with my family is a big task. Having clear work targets and being flexible with my work (I only work when I am most productive) are somethings that help me to achieve my business goals.
Being an entrepreneur means working all the time. No barriers between work and rest. Luckily I don’t follow this routine. I am a side hustle landscape photographer and love traveling. This is something that brings a balance to my work and personal life.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
I love hearing the Side Hustle School podcast.
I love side hustles and it’s a great podcast with so many unique successful stories. It’s really inspiring.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
Entrepreneurs are all about ideas. If you have an idea, take the risk and start it. It’s all about taking the step.
It can be really overwhelming to think about starting a business but everything falls into place if you have a plan and learn along the way. I knew nothing about Wordpress or email marketing or even Google analytics when I started. But that didn't stop me from diving in to my passion.
Just start and learn.
Where can we go to learn more?
Website - Crowdworknews.com
Facebook - @crowdworknews1
Twitter - @crowdworknews1
Instagram - @sireeshan
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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