Pain & Numbness Led Her to a $30K/Month Business

Addison LaBonte runs the food blog Organically Addison, where she shares “easy healthy gluten-free and paleo recipes” 🥗

Addison started the site in 2018, but earned very little money from it the first few years.

💬 She revealed in an interview a few months back…

In March 2021, my website made about $300.

By December 2021, it made over $7K just from advertisements.

Since then, it has continued to climb into the mid 5 figures per month.

Let’s be conservative and assume “mid 5 figures per month” = $30,000 per month 💰

How Addison got started…

In 2016, I was diagnosed with Compartment Syndrome. Essentially, I was experiencing debilitating pain and numbness while running…

Thankfully, my aunt is a fellow marathon runner and gluten free eater. She recommended becoming gluten free to feel better.

I quit cold turkey. Within 7 days, my life was changed.

I had no more pain or numbness. I didn’t get weekly headaches or daily brain fog. I knew right then and there that I wanted to share my story.

But…

I knew nothing about websites, coding, SEO, or how to monetize an online business. It’s been incredibly rewarding to learn everything.

🐌 Addison was slow to monetize…

I didn’t start making money from my website until late 2020, early 2021.

Leading up to this, I had posted every single day on Instagram and Facebook to build an audience.

Finally…

My website exploded in 2020 when everyone was home cooking and looking for wholesome options. At the same time, I went from working 40 hours in finance to working from home.

That’s when she decided to treat her website like a business rather than a hobby 💪

Then…

I listened to a podcast about buying websites. I was skeptical but intrigued. In 2023 thus far, I have purchased 3 websites. This has forced me to outsource and build a team.

Today, I have a virtual assistant, two food photographers, and a content writer.

Sounds like that investment helped her get to $30,000 per month.

😕 But then came a setback…

In September 2023, three of my sites [out of 4] were negatively impacted by the Google Helpful Content Update (HCU).

Overnight, two of my sites lost 50% of organic traffic and one of my sites lost 30%.

It is very unsettling to lose that much revenue overnight. Seeing my revenue and page views go down so dramatically was sickening.

It reminded me that I need to diversify my income streams and not solely rely on traffic from Google.

So I’m guessing her revenue dropped to around $15,000 per month after that.

Which is still awesome, and I expect her traffic and revenue will grow again given time 📈

A good takeaway from Addison’s story: you don’t need to be super-knowledgeable starting out – you can pick up the necessary skills and experience as you go.

She says…

Starting a blog has taught me many, many things that I never thought I’d be doing.

Food photography is one of them! I had never picked up a DSLR camera before 2020, but I taught myself how to use one. One of my favorite parts about being a business owner is the constant and continuous learning.