For over five years now, I’ve been building a “business” around my websites (which I call blogs or niche sites most of the time).
It is hard to tell what the exact term for this kind of business is, but I like to treat it as a creator business or one-man media company.
But yeah, since I wear all the hats around here, I am not just a blogger. I guess I am a “solotechnocreativepreneur,” or whatever we call it these days, haha!
My journey started in January 2021, and since then I have built three websites monetized with display ads and affiliate marketing. They generate semi-passive online income that grants me a level of freedom my younger, employed self COULD ONLY dream about.
No alarms. Working from coffee shops. Going to the gym whenever I want. Taking a day off without asking the boss’ permission.
While all this seems like a dream come true, the reality is I’m still NOT quite where I want to be financially or in life.
In fact, I still struggle.
Sometimes when ad rates fluctuate, I fall short on paying my bills.
When random unfortunate events like war, energy crises, or inflation happen elsewhere, people reduce their spending. That leads to fewer sales, which hurts the income I earn through affiliate marketing.
And honestly, I have already caught myself praying hard for “a great era of world peace” so I and everyone else can prosper…
Indeed, building an online business comes with so much uncertainty.
And if you’re in the content business as I am, I believe that the looming AI apocalypse for human creativity or ever-changing platform algorithms worry you, too.
I confess: without my family’s support, our rental business income, and a weak local currency against the US dollar, I wonder if I would still have the courage to pursue this online business full time with all these uncertainties.
Truth to be told, there were already instances when I questioned this life decision, especially during those months when Google wiped out 90% of my blog traffic without any sign of recovery.
Freelancing crossed my mind as a backup plan because the money coming in simply could not cover my daily expenses.
Despite everything, I did not throw in the towel on my websites.
I knew in my heart that my dreams are far too important to give up on. I need the freedom this online business provides. Working for someone else is not for me.
Most importantly, this business allows me to spend more time on what matters most, which is God, family, and living a life without regrets.
Told myself, I gotta make this business take off no matter what.
In addition, I GENUINELY LOVE what I do.
Blogging. Writing. Graphic design. What else?
Growing my website excites me. Providing value to others in the most natural way to me fulfills me.
I wake up excited every morning to build this business, and that alone makes all the difference.
Thankfully, I gained my traffic back, especially for my second website, WanderInEurope. That allowed me to keep going. This time, to build a more sustainable online business, which you already know asExplore to Thrive.
Even so, I would have used my savings if that recovery did not happen.
I was (and I am still) willing to go ALL IN. And that is because I cannot think of anything else, a job, a business, or whatever, that would make me as happy, driven, and fulfilled as this.
Take all this away from me and it feels like you have killed me inside.
It’s never easy to explain what I’m feeling to “ordinary” people. They won’t get it. Even my parents don’t get it. To most people, this sounds like I’m going crazy.
But as I reflect on what this “passion” is doing to me, I can’t help but notice the resilience and relentlessness born from doing work you love for goals that truly matter.
They create this “undying spirit,” unfazed by any setbacks, challenges, or uncertainties…
I’m sharing all this not to say I’m better or more fortunate than anyone else. You’re reading this because I want you to NOT ONLY win, but ALSO enjoy every day of your life.
This letter is a gentle, friendly reminder.
And I hope you’re working on the things you love to achieve the life you want so much.
In one of my previous newsletters, I gave you steps for finding a goal that truly matters to you.
This time, I’m going to share how to find the work, craft, or skill to develop that you will always enjoy and never get tired of to reach your goals. I’ll help you determine what will make you resilient, relentless, and enthusiastic to make your dream happen.
But before we get into it, I need to mention that this method came from my own experience. There is no guarantee it will work 100% for you since everyone is different.
That said, I am confident this approach will help you figure out what works for you… one way or another.
The good news? This activity is pretty simple and only requires your time.
To get straight to the point, this method centers on exploration.
You need to explore to find out what works best for you, because firsthand experience is the only way to know if a specialty, field, discipline, or whatever you choose to call it is a good fit.
Only by giving it a shot can you realize things like:
“Man, I want to keep doing this,”
“I feel so much better doing this,”
“This is super cool and I’m learning a ton,”
“I totally lose track of time,”
“This gives me a burst of energy,” or
“This is so fun it doesn’t even feel like work!”
Now the big question is, where do you start looking?
For me, I began searching for successful people who shared my goals. I figured that if I learned what they do, I might become successful as well.
Like, you have no idea how obsessed and eager I was to try everything Pete was doing on his blog, bucketlistly.blog, when I stumbled across it.
He is a really successful travel blogger who does all kinds of stuff like video editing, website design, affiliate marketing, photography, YouTube, Pinterest, etc, etc…
(Fun fact, it’s where I got the idea to use the “.blog” domain for my own first blog, engineeringtravels.blog.)
Anyway, exploring crafts and skills you are interested in because you heard they are therapeutic and fun is another good place to start.
BUT if there is anything you should TOTALLY AVOID, it is work or skills that only bring in a quick buck.
For example, anything involving algorithm games, cheap tactics, schemes, or skills that do not bring real value to people. They are a complete waste of time because they do not help you grow and are not fulfilling at all.
With all that said, the whole idea is to figure out the thing you will do every day for your ultimate goal so you feel like you are winning at life even before you reach your big goal.
Time flies when we chase our dreams. We might reach our goals, or we might not. Regardless of what happens, if we love what we do, we know we will not feel regret in the end.
Because when we love what we do, we enjoy every single day and feel happy, content, and fulfilled.
That’s the entire reason we are building a business.
Thank You for Reading
Explore to Thrive Newsletter is part of my personal mission to walk alongside fellow creatives and show that it’s possible to build a sustainable online business from your lived experiences and passion. It’s completely free and open to everyone.
If it resonates with you and you feel inspired to support it, I would be very grateful for a tip. Your support helps me build Explore to Thrive, a community and resource I dream of creating where no creator feels alone and where we can grow, learn, and truly thrive together.
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I share honest insights from building an online business with a blog from the ground up, lessons from my mistakes so you can avoid wasting time, discoveries that lead to wins, and methods that support long term success as a creator.
Progress Tracker
This section is where I share what I’ve been working on with Explore to Thrive Blog since the last newsletter. My goal is to be transparent about the process. And also to give a real sense of what building a creator business actually looks like.
What did I achieve?
Continued editing my website for the theme migration. It is done now so you can check the results at exploretothrive.com.
Mostly, I updated the synchronized patterns at the end of each post.
I cleaned them up so they look much better, like adding bright borders around the free info maps I share on my blog. I also rewrote the calls to action on the buttons for these patterns.
I made the descriptions clearer to highlight the value visitors get when they check out other posts and travel planning pages.
For example, for a button leading to travel tips, I emphasized that readers can avoid the mistakes we made and make the most of their visit if they read the guide. Other buttons did not have these kinds of descriptions before, which might explain why pages viewed per visitor did not increase as I expected.
While my non-travel posts are tagged with ‘noindex’ so search engines won’t include them in search results, I still updated them and their synchronized patterns. They still need to look presentable for anyone who wants to get to know me personally or professionally.
After the theme migration, I ran a site and SEO audit using Ubersuggest.
I discovered that one of my posts linked to the admin edit page of a Travel Planning Page instead of the public URL. I fixed the link immediately, as broken links act as negative ranking signals for search engines.
I also found that three of my Travel Planning Pages were indexed. I quickly added a noindex tag to those pages since they exist primarily for promotion rather than providing stand-alone content value.
Because the entire site audit is done, I’ve finally kicked off my next project: Bohol Travel. I started working with the project’s Travel Planning Page. This way, I would already have an idea what to promote and mention them on the fly as I write my blog posts.
In previous projects, I created the Travel Planning Page after some posts were already published. Because of that, when I created the Travel Planning Page and placed products to promote, I had to edit the published posts to create links to specific parts of the page. It was an inefficient workflow, so I fixed it.
Right now, I have finished researching products to promote, creating affiliate links, and writing their copy. Everything is currently saved in my Notes app and ready to transfer to WordPress.
I wrote the descriptions myself for items that needed a personal touch, while I used AI for the rest. Below is the prompt I used to write those descriptions.
If you are not yet subscribed, join the newsletter now so you will not miss out when I share the finished Travel Planning Page and the results soon.
Did I do anything interesting?
I wrote a prompt for smarter proofreading using AI, which I used on top of my default instructions for the Gemini Personal Intelligence feature.
“Act as a professional copyeditor and proofreader specializing in Substack newsletters. I will give you three paragraphs. I want you to edit the second paragraph. Use the first and third paragraphs as context for editing the second paragraph. Your second paragraph must make more sense, be conversational, and be easy to understand. Use vocabulary relevant to the topic being discussed. You may use incomplete sentences to keep the paragraph conversational. Here is the set of paragraphs → “
Did I run into any problems before this letter?
After I published my staging edits to the live site, I checked whether all my changes were reflected and noticed that the buttons looked wrong.
Instead of being brown with curved edges on the top-left and bottom-right corners, they appeared dark blue with curves on the opposite corners.
I knew right away this was a caching issue because everything looked fine when logged in as an admin. However, the problem persisted even after I cleared both the plugin and hosting dashboard caches.
I was already chatting with hosting support when I realized I hadn’t checked if the CDN was still serving old site files.
Fortunately, purging the CDN cache through my hosting settings fixed the issue instantly.
What do I plan to achieve next?
I noticed that I’ve placed too much emphasis on linking to other blog posts in synchronized patterns, so people are no longer clicking on my Travel Planning Pages (which are my main source of blog income).
To fix this, I plan to add more synchronized patterns that funnel directly to my Travel Planning Pages on every post, while also updating existing patterns to be more visual and eye-catching. Along with these visual updates, I’ll work on writing more compelling calls to action.
Anyhow, for the next project, I plan to publish all the posts together only after I finish the entire project. This is because I want each post to deliver complete value once my audience sees it.
For example, when someone on Pinterest discovers my post about the 1-Day Bohol Itinerary, they should be able to immediately access all supporting posts about visiting the Chocolate Hills, Tarsier Sanctuary, and similar topics for further planning tips.
This way, I can leave an impression that my site is comprehensive, genuinely helpful, and worth returning to or recommending. It is actually part of my brand building efforts.
Well, that is the plan, so now it is back to writing blog posts again. Below is the content plan for Bohol which I will follow for this project. It is possible that I might add posts, and I will let you know if that happens.
I’ll try to finalize 2 posts this week. Wish me luck!
That’s everything for now. Again, thank you for reading. :D See you next week.
Hiraya Manawari ✨
Ciao!
Thank you for sharing Eljon, it seems that you have been on quite a journey in the past 5 years. I hope that when I step out into the building of a business in the next 18 months I have the same patience and tenacity as you demonstrate.