My Physician Side Hustle, Part 3
I have tried to make a habit of publishing an update regarding The Motivated M.D. website with regularity. I have not quite figured out the best cadence. However, when I have the time and something worth reading…then I write. For My Physician Side Hustle, Part 3 we are looking at my decision to monetize the website, being featured on Physician on Fire, and my growing site statistics. If you have not already, make sure to check out both My Physician Side Hustle Part 1 and Part 2!
Keep on keepin’ on…
Most of my website creation has been from self-education either from other individual’s blogs with helpful articles or from YouTube videos. One of the most common recommendations from other successful blogs is to ‘just keep writing.’ So, I have done that. At this point in my busy life the best cadence for my publications has been once a week.
I have found a passion in writing. I am finding myself starting to veer away from the weekly personal finance articles and focusing more on the personal. Yes, I love talking about all things finance, but being able to use a personal story to make these posts more relatable has become a real pursuit.
I am continuing to find the time to write as often as possible. For those of you who have not gathered from my prior posts, I wear many hats. I am a father, a husband, a dog owner, a physician, and now a blogger. I find joy in every role that I play in my day-to-day life. As I am sure you can imagine, it can prove difficult reaching my internal expectations in each of these roles. I refuse to sacrifice being the father, husband, and physician I need to be. Therefore, blogging does take a back seat sometimes.
Always have a backup post
Since discussing in My Physician Side Hustle, Part 1, I tend to keep a reserve of approximately 2-5 articles at a time. Sometimes they all get published! Sometimes I will use one or two of those articles to send to other blogs in a similar niche for ‘featured posts.’ Websites with a higher domain authority have a much larger viewer base and more consistent traffic. A featured post on an established website can be a great way to advertise your blog and get a backlink or two. Lastly, I will often edit a post multiple times before publication and still feel that it does not meet my standard. These articles tend to sit lifeless in my ‘drafts’ folder…never knowing if they will see the light of day.
In keeping with the idea of featured posts. I was able to recently have a post published in Physician on Fire called What it Actually Takes to Eliminate Debt. This process generated approximately 600 new visitors in a single day! From here I have seen a few individuals subscribe to our newsletter, and who continue to return with some regularity.
Now that I have developed a few featured articles across the ‘physician personal finance’ niche I have created a page that houses all of my featured work. I will do my best to update this page every time I have an article featured elsewhere.
Blogging is less ‘passive’ than I thought
I feel like there are a few individuals reading this subtitle wanting to say ‘I told you so!’ I have learned that blogging really is not as ‘passive’ as I thought it would be. To preface, getting a blog/website on its feet is in no way passive. This process takes a lot of hard work, some up-front expenses, dedication, a portion of your free time, and a long-term outlook. Much like in medical education, you have to train yourself to delay gratification. The benefit with blogging is that the majority of the benefit comes from the writing process itself. Putting a thought on paper, editing that work to read succinctly and clearly, and releasing that to the world is therapeutic for me. The opportunities that come with monetization of the site are nice, sure, but secondary to what got me into blogging originally.
However, based on ample research, it appears that as the months and years go by, if you continue to publish valuable content, website traffic will grow.
Monetization of the site
As you can see just by navigating to the site, there are some ads placed in strategic places. This is not meant to distract from my writings. However, I am looking to turn my joy of writing into something profitable. Currently, it is far from that, but it is a start. My initial goal is to accumulate enough of an audience to ‘break even.’ When I say break even (see end of this post) I mean to create enough income to cover the costs of running this blog (i.e. pay for website hosting, pay for security add-ons, pay for email services, etc.). As you will see from My Physician Side Hustle, Part 2, I couldn’t be farther from achieving this, but hey… you gotta start somewhere!
I am often very motivated by sites like Physician on Fire and Financial Samurai as they have previously published transparent and informative posts looking at how their own site statistics have grown over the years. These have served to help tailor my own expectations and gauge how I should be interpreting my own site statistics.
Currently the only monetization method I am implementing is Google Ads (Google Adsense). I do have plans to later incorporate affiliate links as it pertains to the Best Physician Finance Books I Recommend as well as How to Refinance Student Loans and Make Money with Medical Surveys.
Current site statistics
Where do things stand at the time of publishing this post? Great question. Here are the most recent site statistics:
Age of website: 5 months
Total pageviews: 7,400
Monthly average pageviews: 1000-1500 (depending on the month)
Users: 4,600
Countries reached: 32 (No readers from South America or Antarctica…yet!)
Top posts:
- Top 5 Financial Mistakes New Attendings Make
- Plan for Forever, Live for Now
- How to Write a Financial Plan
- Best Physician Finance Blogs
- Graphing Our Loan Repayment Progress
Expenses:
- Google Domain purchases: $25.98
- Bluehost server hosting with WordPress (3 years): $298.48
- Transferring two domains from Google Domains to Bluehost: $58.48
- Mailchimp (free subscription): $0.00
- WPForms: $39.50
- Ad campaigns (Instagram): $30.00
Total Expenses since inception of website: $452.44
Income:
- Google Ads: $2.41
- Affiliate Marketing: $0.00
Total Income since inception of website: $2.41
Total net earnings from site: -$450.03
Just getting started
As you can see, my income from blogging is still lacking. This is expected as I only recently started monetizing the website. I honestly cannot expect to see any real profit until my domain age is at least one year old (or older) and until I see substantially more traffic. However, I am very content putting my thoughts on paper and hitting ‘publish!’ As I have said, this process is therapeutic for me and hopefully it offers value to those reading, or at least entertainment.
Future directions
As I alluded to earlier, I will try and update the My Physician Side Hustle series as often as there is news to share. Currently I am motivated by an inner sense of enjoyment. The writing is therapeutic for me and I love seeing others find interest in my musings. I have no intentions of slowing down. Currently I plan to continue to write about personal finance, physician finance, and money management. I will continue to update my household’s journey towards debt elimination and financial freedom!
Stay tuned for Part 4! As always…
Stay Motivated!
The Motivated M.D.
I hope you enjoyed My Physician Side Hustle, Part 3. If you did, don’t forget to check out all the parts in the series at My Physician Side Hustle. It would also really help us out if you would be willing to follow us on social media. You can find our social media accounts using the sidebar to the right (on desktop) or below (on mobile). Lastly, don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter. You will receive a FREE Excel budgeting tool just for subscribing!
Please make sure to leave your comments below. Have you started a physician side hustle? Have you worked on a blog, or thought about starting one? We would love to hear from you.
Standard Disclaimer: None of the information on this website is meant as individualized financial or medical advice. These posts may contain affiliate links.
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