How Hong Kiat Design Blog Makes Money
By Richard
I come across these types of blogs/websites all the time. Say you Google “beautiful minimalist wordpress themes”, and then there are all these sorts of showcase sites where they’ve spent time compiling the best design resources around.
Well, Hong Kiat is one such blog.
So yeah the site is pretty much a place where they curate things designers want to find; icons, themes, tools, graphics, wallpapers etc.
But it’s also a site where they have free tutorials on how to use software related to design, eg photoshop. With articles on just about everything from “15 tools for writing code online” to “20 best minimalist wordpress themes” you can just begin to imagine how many search terms they rank high for.
I think they said they get about 6 million page views a month! This all sounds great right, but how do they make money?
Affiliate income of course.
Say the minimalist themes blog post – every theme showcased is conveniently (for both reader and user) linked to. And since most links are to digital downloads – eg software, ebooks etc – the commission they’re earning on most referrals could be anything from 30% to 70%!
Amazing how much that differs to commission percentages you can get onphysical products that come with a real Cost of Goods Sold.
I will however say that this niche can have it’s pitfalls. For starters, it is a crowded niche – I mean how many freaking design & technology blogs are there out there?! It’s insane. And Hong Kiat for example is not really niched up, as it covers pretty much the whole design world.
The other pitfall is that people searching for this kind of stuff are generally looking for free stuff and hey designers etc are pretty cheap (I know, I used to be one). So when you’re thinking about your niche, don’t forget to reallythink about propensity to spend – think online entrepreneurs (not service providers).
PS It should please you to know that Hongkiat Lim, the guy behind this site, actually started the blog whilst he was still working, built it up and then eventually managed to quit his job to focus on it full time – and has since earned a nice 90%-passive income from it. Having a few guest contributors probably helps too.
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