I’ve been full time online for 8 years.
I’ve been blogging in some capacity for 10.5 years or so (if you count my brick and mortar blog).
Along the way I’ve reached many milestones. At the time I didn’t appreciate most of them as I’m constantly striving for more. However, looking back, I can definitely recall the biggies.
Below are what I consider the most important, most thrilling milestones you can hit as a blogger. In some cases, the milestone is practical such as qualifying for premium ad networks. In other cases, the milestone is symbolic.
The 4 Firsts
- First published blog post: After all that struggle with new tech such as hosting and WP themes, you managed to publish a live article. It’s there – live on the Web for all the world to see. It’s very gratifying. An achievement few in the world (relative to population) achieve. It’s definitely a key milestone.
- First organic visitor: You did it. You managed to have Google send you a visitor from the SERPs. If you can do it once, you can do it again.
- First revenue earned: Whether it’s that first ad click putting $.23 into your ad account or first affiliate commission, this is huge. Like traffic, if you can earn something, you can earn more.
- First #1 ranking in Google: This is a mighty nice first because it means you actually published the best article for a keyword. That’s assuming Google is the sole arbiter of what is good content and let’s face it, Google is in many ways.
10,000 page views per month
What’s special about this?
When you hit 10,000 page views per month, you’re at 333 daily page views. Things are happening. You’re likely earning more than $100 per month. You also qualify for better ad networks like Ezoic which can double your revenue quickly.
That extra $200 per month pays for your hopefully meager expenses such as hosting. You can also finally pay for an article or two each month.
$1,000 revenue per month
What’s special about this?
Hitting 4 figures per month has a nice ring to it. It’s a sign you’re going to make it. You just need to do more of what you’re doing. It’s also a sizeable chunk of revenue you can reinvest into your online business to help speed up hitting the next milestones.
$1,000 per month is 8 to 12 solid articles. That’s an extra two to three published articles per week. You start to enjoy the passive aspect of the business.
100,000 page views per month
What’s special about this?
This is when you can access some premium ad networks like AdThrive. Mediavine recently bumped their minimum traffic threshold to 50,000 monthly sessions which depending on how many page views per visitor you get, notches them close the same requirements as AdThrive.
This is exciting because when you get in with AdThrive or Mediavine, you can be confident your sites’ ad revenue is earning at maximum capacity. It’s nice knowing that there’s no need to tinker with your ads because you’re confident your ad network is one of the best.
$3,000 per month revenue
What’s special about $3,000 revenue per month?
For me, this is/was huge because $3,000 per month is a full-time salary/income for many people. It amounts to about $17 to $18 per hour. Unless you have a huge debt load or live in a super expensive city, you could live off $3,000 per month.
Even if you can’t afford to live off $3,000 per month, it’s very symbolic just because many starting salaries are in the mid-thirties.
Going full time online
What’s so special about this?
Most people who start an online business do so while working a full-time job. The aim for many folks starting online is to one day quit their job/career and work in joyous bliss all day on their online biz.
Ironically, that was not my dream. I actually liked my chosen career (law). I just thought it would be fun to publish some niche blogs and see what I could do with them. Eventually, they grew to the point where I had to choose law or blogging. When push came to shove, I preferred blogging.
The problem with this milestone is it’s at a different stage for everyone. For a single person their 20s living frugally, this can come early. For someone with a family living in an expensive city, this may take a long time just because they need to earn a lot more money.
$10,000 revenue per month
What’s so special about $10K per month?
That’s easy. When you hit $10K per month you can afford to live a reasonable standard of living PLUS have funds to reinvest in your online business. For a blogger or niche site owner, that’s being able to plow a few thousand dollars per month into content. This is when scaling faster starts to happen.
$20,000 revenue per month
What’s so special about this?
This is when you are in a position to launch another site using your existing site to fund it. Your living expenses are covered as well as growing your bread and butter site with plenty left over to invest in another site.
Or, you can ramp up investing in other investment vehicles such as stocks or bonds.
The point is at this stage, unless you have a very high standard of living, earning $20K per month affords you a good living, plenty of money to outsource much of your work plus some extra for other investments.
$35,110 per month income
What’s so special about this?
$35,110 per month income is the amount that pushes you into the top 1% of US earners which is $421,327 per year.
It’s quite a feat.
This amount of income provides for a fairly good standard of living. You can’t quite charter private jets, but unless you’re foolish with your money, you shouldn’t suffer financial stress.
It also means you’re probably going to blow past it in due course. After all, if you can make $421K per year, it’s only a matter of time until you hit $1 million.
$100K revenue per month
What’s so special about this?
Having already reached a very comfortable standard of living, my aim for growing revenue at this point isn’t primarily to earn more personal income but instead to have more money to invest back into my online business as well as other investments. It’s a way to rapidly achieve financial security.
Financial security for me is having enough money socked away in reasonably safe investments that generates a sufficient income for me and my family to live off as well leave enough left over to continue growing the principle.
For example, $5 million after-tax would probably do it. I’m 45 years old. I would need to contribute to the principle every year or I’ll be penniless by the time I’m 80 (probably earlier). Assuming I earn a 7% return on that $5 million, that’s $350K per year. I’d want to invest at least $50K back into the principle each year leaving me $300K per year pretax. That would do it.
$1 million revenue per month
What’s so special about this?
Haha. Need you ask?
This is CEO and celeb level money. Not hedge-funder money but definitely upper-class income. Chartering the odd private jet is possible.
$30K vacations? No problem. luxurious houses? Yup.
It’s possible to blow it all which would be extremely foolish but $12 million per year is an extravagant sum that affords a fairly luxurious lifestyle while also being able to sock away millions for a rainy day.
If you play your cards right and manage to generate this level of income for 10 years, you’ll have in excess of $100 million.
Jon Dykstra is a six figure niche site creator with 10+ years of experience. His willingness to openly share his wins and losses in the email newsletter he publishes has made him a go-to source of guidance and motivation for many. His popular “Niche site profits” course has helped thousands follow his footsteps in creating simple niche sites that earn big.
