Debbie Gartner: How to Make $20,000 Per Month With a Niche Blog

Welcome to the Scaling Success Stories series!

If you’re new to this series, I ask online entrepreneurs questions regarding growing and scaling their business.

This is the series description:

You can get your fill of online business tips by reading the other interviews on the Scaling Success Stories page.

Interview with Debbie Gartner from The Flooring Girl

It was my pleasure interviewing Debbie Gartner, founder of The Flooring Girl. Debbie blogs all about flooring and painting and has established herself well as a prominent home decor blogger. She has been blogging since 2008 and has learned a thing or two about blogging in the meantime, especially with SEO.

Check out what Debbie had to say to my questions!

Watch the Video Instead

If you’re on the run and would rather listen to Debbie and I chat about:

• How she turned a brick and mortar job into an online niche
• How she went from $68,000 in debt with no income while living in a high-cost area of living to becoming a successful blogger
• Success tips on how she systemizes her business
• How she figured out what ‘the need’ was for her industry
• What she has to offer to help other bloggers

You can listen to the video!

This is a video recording and you can always watch it later.

If you’d rather read the transcript, it’s formatted below like all my other interviews.

1. Why did you start an online business and how does your passion still drive your business’ growth today?

My main site is The Flooring Girl and I actually just bought another one, Healthy, Savvy & Wise. So, as of a few months ago, that’s officially ours, too.

I used to have my own business, which specialized in flooring and shopping for the home. I originally started my site to just get a local customer.

That’s it, and it worked very well.

I was able to get about five customer appointments a week pretty quickly.

I just continued to blog. I blogged about what I knew very well, which is all things flooring.  Sanding and refinishing, carpet, and runners.

I’m no longer really doing flooring, although I occasionally do it. But, I had a website that was doing very well and I turned it into what is now my online business.

What I write about flooring is not only from the heart, but very importantly, it’s technically correct, unlike some of the incorrect information I find all the time, which drives me nuts.

I’ve been doing this for, I don’t know, 12 years or so, since about 2008. I know a lot of it like the back of my hand.

How does your passion drive your business growth after you’ve been doing it for 12 years?

Basically, I really, really wanted local customers because I had no way to service all these people across the country.

I would write blog posts on the questions that my customers had and as I got better and better, I would write it more for the types of customers that I really wanted.

For example, I prefer higher-end customers that have, you know, larger houses and more money and everything like that.

You start to learn the questions they have, versus the questions that the general public has, so I started to tailor my articles towards them.

My blog kept growing.

I got to well over a thousand pages without monetizing — I did not even know monetization was a thing, nor was I trying to do it or get traffic.

I simply wanted those local people. And, as I wrote for them, it brought in the rest of the crowd.

I always enjoyed doing sales calls because they were not sales calls. They were basically consultations.

I was advising my customers on what to do and explaining it to them. I always wanted to empower people, especially women, because there are lots of dishonest contractors out there.

For me, I would understand what they really wanted and advise them on colors, styles, polyurethane types, and really just understand their needs.

My customers were very curious and they would always say that it was different talking to a female expert.

The feedback that I would get indicated that I was providing extra value. Now, that just continues and all the posts that I write are geared towards teaching people and showing people.

On my blog, I get tons of comments. I mean, I can’t even keep up with the questions. I am now more than 800 comments behind. You know, people would email offering to pay me for my advice, even though I don’t even ask them.

Sometimes I have random strangers just buy me a Ko-Fi, or they’ll buy me three Ko-Fis or five Ko-Fis or whatever. Now, I also do some design consultations on the phone and just hearing people’s voices, they’re so surprised when I answer it.

I’ve had random people in coffee shops come up to me and say they recognize me.

Some guy from Long Island in a coffee store was like…

Oh, I know you…you’re the Flooring Girl. I’ve been reading your blog you do on home improvement and it’s been very helpful in my project.

I get a lot of really positive feedback and a lot of this stuff was years ago before I was even as big as I am now.

2. At what point did you realize that your business was “taking off” and that you could really make money from it?

Oh, yeah, so I had no idea at the beginning.

I had some bad circumstances. Without going into details because I have a non-compete, I basically had to part ways with my former franchise and I had a two-year non compete. I was not allowed to do flooring for two years.

I was basically out of business and $68,000 in debt without a means of income and living in a very, very high cost of living area right outside New York City.

And, I didn’t know what to do.

Thankfully, I learned about a year before that you could money from your blog. So, I wanted to try to make that work.

Initially, I was just hoping and praying. Of course, everything takes three times as long and you see the results three times later.

But, anyway, I took on two part-time jobs.  I was a freelancer. I worked with some local businesses. I did blogging and SEO for them because I knew how to do that.

I had some steady income coming in from there as I was making $4,000 a month on that for about 12 hours a week.

I even begged a painter for a part-time job and even though it was the wrong season, he took me on and trained me for when the leads would come in. That’s how I know painting and why I blog on it today.

Making money on my blog took way longer than I expected.

In the beginning, I made maybe $1,100 dollars in the first month. A new blogger, they’d be thrilled. But for me, I was not because I already had over 100,000 page views.

When it went up to $1,500, I thought I was making progress, but then it just flatlined for months.

I really questioned myself at that time.

In month 11, I started to make some money. It increased to around $3,300. The next month it was $4,100.

I started to get it. It was affiliate marketing.

It takes a while because you have to learn how to write articles that will not only rank in Google, but that will bring in money and provide value to a customer.

I knew the right stuff to recommend because they were the products I used in my business.

From there, my revenue kept increasing.

Around 18 months, I made roughly $10,000. I knew I could make that work and the rest would be a bonus. 

Right after that, I hired a VA and the next day there was a Google algorithm update and I was devastated. It was like someone had burst the balloon. For 12 months, I had gradual growth.

I had decreased to maybe $8,000.

Two months later, it was stronger than ever and then the next month, I earned $11,000. I knew I could weather the storm at that point.

And, I knew that I needed to continue to diversify more, build what I had, and create more layers to avoid being hit again.

3.  At what point did you realize you were living the life you wanted to?

I don’t think I am living the life that I want at this point because I have so much debt. But, the fact that I feel that I can make it has reduced my stress.

I got through the $60,000 of debt I had in April when I paid off that last bill and transferred all the money we needed.

But, I still have this $160,000 debt from before and it was a ticking time bomb — it has to be paid by September 2022. I don’t know if that’s September 1 or September 30. So, I’m now making progress on that, I have that down at 151,000.

If I continue doing what I’m doing, I can pay it off at that point. And, you know, in a little over three years, I will be living the life that I want.

I feel very comfortable with my income now because I’ve made over $20,000 per month for the last three months. At those rates, I know I can pay off my debt faster and have some money for myself.

I am no longer about to lose my house like I was two and a half years ago. I didn’t even have enough money to network with a client at Starbucks. Or, gas money.

It’s a night and day difference and a huge stress relief.

I even got my hair done yesterday!

4. One of the biggest fears of outsourcing is trusting the people you hire to run your business the way you would. How did you overcome this and where did you find the right freelancers and employees to help you grow your business?

I have several freelancers who help me in various different ways, each with their own specialty and each as they come up with new tasks.

I think we all know at a certain point that it’s the right thing to do because you need to scale your business. You cannot do this all by yourself. It’s just impossible.

I knew from my last business this was true because my smartest hire was a VA to just answer the phone. Within two weeks, it had paid for itself.

I started that first person at maybe 10 hours a week or something because I couldn’t afford to pay, but I couldn’t afford not to.

It was the same concept with my blog.

The first person I hired was someone I knew. I can tell on the phone how quickly people pick things up. A few people I had coached became really good friends and one of them happened to be interested in becoming a VA to get extra income.

I started outsourcing when I made $10,000 and when I could trust that friend. I figured out some tasks and she did a good job.

After that, I started gradually adding on more tasks, including content and Pinterest.

It wasn’t a matter of needing someone to do it better. It was a matter of needing to free up my time so I could work on other higher-income activities.

I hired you at some point. I like keeping eyes on people I think about hiring.

Another person just reached out to me for extra income and she wanted to learn from me. I love that kind of synergy.

Editor’s note: Dustin Heiner and Carly Campbell also believe that outsourcing is really important.

5. A common myth is that as you grow and scale your business, you have to sell your soul to make money, especially when you venture into paid advertising. How do you debunk this myth in your business?

I actually make money from display ads. It’s one of my pillars. I make around $7,000 a month just from ads being on the site. I see it as I’ve created a platform that has high value for people, including the advertisers, so they’re paying for my real estate.

That aside, I don’t like having lots of ads, because I think it takes away from the consumer experience.

I generally do not have ads in my content. I have them on the sidebar and then at the bottom so that hopefully, the user experience is better.

And I hope that it doesn’t impact my SEO too much. Maybe when I make more money, I’ll remove them, but some posts aren’t monetized through affiliate income, so all I get from them are ad revenue.

Now, I’m not a big fan of sponsored posts. That to me is where I feel that people sometimes feel like you’re selling your soul.

I’m not saying that they are wrong. I’m saying they are not for me because I’m an expert in my field. A lot of cheap places ask me to do sponsored posts, but I wouldn’t use their products.

It would be a conflict of interest for me to do a sponsored post from places like that. I want to be in charge of my content. I don’t want anyone else to be.

People trust me and I get a lot of traffic, so I take my recommendations very seriously. If the offer doesn’t make sense, then it’s not worth my time.

I make more money from affiliate marketing than I do from ads and I don’t want the ads to detract. I think affiliate marketing is much more stable.

I also make money from my own products, too. At one point, it was almost like 40% 30% 30%. I’m not sure what it looks like this month, but I’d rather be that way. I never want to be dependent on it.

If you’re just making money from one stream, you’re very vulnerable.

I’ve been through this long enough to know that things change all the time. You know, I even have an affiliate partner that’s basically dying and I need to replace the income.

6. Why do you think most people fail to grow their businesses and what advice would you offer them to keep pushing, despite all the setbacks?

Well, first of all, they need to expect that it’s going to take a while and expect that it’s hard.

A lot of people that come in seeing people making big-time money and it sounds like it’s easier to do than it is. I will tell you, I have worked my butt off to get to where I am. Now, it’s getting much easier for everything that I do.

Try not to be misled by some of these bloggers who just want the affiliate sale.

You also need to write content that is relevant to their users. This means that your blog is not a personal diary.

You also have to think with the end in mind. If you don’t know how you plan on making money, it will be difficult to become profitable at a later time. 

The content that you’re publishing has to provide value to your user and you have to tell them the right thing to do.

I think about all the contractors who screw their customers and will tell them to use polyurethane because it’s easier for them or for their subcontractors. That is not the right thing to do.

Figure out the need.

Tell people that and then while you’re at it, tell them other things that will help them.

It’s hard to make a full-time living off just ads. Those people need to diversify.

For me, the key has obviously been search engine optimization (SEO). That was the first thing I did when I started blogging. Pinterest wasn’t even really around.

SEO was the key to everything.

I recommend that people learn SEO by month three of blogging. Get used to writing stuff and realize from there what needs to be improved.

When I first started blogging back in 2010, I did not know how to blog.

In fact, I hated writing. But, I pushed myself to keep writing. 

It made blogging so much easier. From there, it was all about how to get better at blogging. Most people get burned out and never see a return.

7. How important has niching down been (no matter how hard it hurts) to your business’ growth and profitability?

First of all, I think that it’s much easier when you have a niche. It allows you to rank better and faster on Google. You have more authority in your niche.

I can provide more value to my customers by being niched down. It’s the same for Pinterest traffic.

The more targeted you are, the better off.

Now, all that aside, I did not niche down completely, which is the opposite of what everybody else is talking about.

I started with flooring and then I found it challenging to monetize flooring from an affiliate standpoint because flooring is sold locally. It’s not available on Amazon, and there’s almost next to no affiliate partners out there that work with someone in New York because I do painting and flooring together.

I know that because all the time when I’m doing estimates for flooring, people want painting and vice versa. I started doing that and I started broadening so I could find products on Amazon and other places that just worked better than flooring.

So, I niched up, but it’s still relatively niched on its own.

Right?

I mean, I do have some blog posts on my blog that are off-topic, but they are hidden.

Why cater to less than 1% of my traffic versus the other 500,000? It’s just senseless.

I think you can rank much better and establish more trust with the user. As I said, you’re the expert. How many things can I learn in life? I mean, yeah, I was really good at math and science, but I’m not going to blog about that.

8. What do you attribute your success to and how do you explain it? Do you think the same strategies will help you reach your next monetization goals? Why or why not?

The first key to my success has quite frankly been SEO. Those visitors stay on my site longer, are more likely to subscribe to my email list, and comment more frequently.

You have to know SEO.

I get a lot of traffic from Pinterest, too. But, those people are not worth as much as organic traffic. And, search traffic is much more passive.

And once you get to a certain point, you spend less time doing it.

I only write like one post a week or so and sometimes I will skip three or four weeks. But, the blog keeps growing. Pinterest is a way to jumpstart my Google traffic.

It usually shaves off two to four months.

I think my next step is diversifying my income streams and creating products.

I have SEO books and am working on others soon.

I’m trying to do some home decor audits, too. I’m also trying email marketing.

I bought another site, as I mentioned earlier. The other site allows me to do some blogging about blogging. It’s more of blogging tips and more for affiliate marketing so I can help people who have already created great products.

I don’t want to compete with all my friends that offer courses on affiliate marketing and whatnot.

It’s a win-win because I can just promote something that another person has created if it’s a great product that I believe in. I prefer to promote them rather than create it from scratch and do my own because then I’m making a 40% Commission on that without putting in all the effort.

That’s my philosophy. I’m starting to email more and get a blogging and SEO audience. I think those are kind of the next things.

9. To scale, you really need to have a systemized business. What steps have you taken to build those systems and how do you optimize them?

Steps that I’ve taken are hiring some VAs, as you know, and that helps because I can give them more repeatable tasks or tasks that they can do equally as well as I can so I have more time to work on the stuff that only I can do.

Spending time on products is key for me to grow my business. So, I have VAs perform other repeatable tasks in my business, such as scheduling pins on Pinterest and writing backlink articles.

I’m also rearranging my systems. I think the key is to start documenting all the processes all the steps and making it routine.

The important thing is to look at your business, see what can be repeated, and what can be outsourced?

Do I have the budget that I would need to appropriately outsource that? And if not, then that’s okay. But, let me figure out how I can optimize that process in the meantime. So that when I’m ready, I can find someone quickly to do it.

If you’ve never hired before, figure out an onboarding system because that’s something that can take quite a bit of time. You know, getting acclimated to a brand it’s not easy.

One rogue freelancer can really destroy the progress that you have. 

Understand the payment process, too, as that’s a system that you have to work into your business.

And, to that point, I’ve started to get more organized with my week, too.

I have what I’m calling office hours on Wednesdays from 1:00-4:00 PM. That’s when I try to go through all my bills and what I need to do in QuickBooks. Make sure that people are paid on time.

Then, on the next Wednesday, I can do my mail, my personal crap, and then talk to my VA, like this is your chance if you got questions, you can call me during this time. It’s better to not get interrupted too much.

I had way too many Facebook messages and the beeping would drive me crazy. I learned how to turn off the beeping so it doesn’t bother me as much.

Still, I’m so honored that people want to ask me questions and want my opinion, but I can’t get my homework done.

By choice, I’m going to get three hours a week of chaos.

I’m now working on ebooks. It could be like chapter one, it’s gonna be between 10 AM  and 12 PM. I time myself and then take a break.

10.  If you could speak face-to-face with yourself when you first started your business, what pearls of wisdom would you impart?

It’s going to be okay — calm down, relax, and know what you’re doing. It takes time. Because I stressed about money.

If I knew then what I know now like how much money I’m making, I would have gotten so much more sleep and I would have been so much more productive.

The more distracted you are, the less productive you are as well.

So I think I would tell myself, it’s going to be all right.

I promise. I know it will be.

I think that’d be my big advice to myself.

About Debbie

Debbie Gartner has paid off over $112,000 of debt through profits from her blog, The Flooring Girl. She has been blogging since 2008 and receives over 500,000 pageviews per month. She’s been featured on Entrepreneur, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and on television shows such as Property Brothers. Debbie has coached over 100 bloggers on SEO and has two SEO eBooks you can buy today. You can sign up for her free SEO eCourse here.

Interested in Learning From Debbie?

Debbie has 2 flagship ebooks:

• Easy Backlinks for SEO
• Easy On-Page SEO

Here’s a little more detail about each!

Easy Backlinks for SEO

Easy Backlinks for SEO teaches you 31 ways to get backlinks to your blog without blogger outreach for stronger SEO.

Check out her secrets and how she gets 500,000 page views per month! The quicker that you have a strong grasp of SEO, the quicker you will get to your end goal.

Easy On-Page SEO

Easy On Page SEO teaches you how to optimize your posts so that they rank well on Google and other social media platforms.

You can get the exact template that Debbie uses to create her posts! SEO can seem confusing and overwhelming but Debbie breaks it down so it’s simple for everyone to succeed.

SEO eBook Bundle

If you’re lacking in SEO knowledge and are ready to get to the next level, Debbie’s SEO bundle may be exactly what you’re looking for!

The bundle will take you from novice to expert. You’ll learn how to avoid common mistakes and get Debbie’s checklist so you can be successful with every blog post!

The best part of these courses is that whether you are new to blogging or whether you’ve been doing it for a while, Debbie has tips that will help you succeed.

Get the SEO eBook Bundle!

Conclusion

Thanks for participating in my series, Debbie!

As you can tell, it’s NOT EASY growing and scaling an online business, but there are some things you can do to aid you in the process.

Inspired by Debbie?

Now, it’s your turn!

I assembled the Scaling Blueprint to show you how to…

• Outsource Effectively
• Systemize Your Business
• Shatter Your Revenue Goals

After working with six-figure and seven-figure clients, I know the difference between how they function.

Let me help you start scaling successfully.

Get My FREE Blueprint!

Cheers to future success!