Building a $100k website: My 2026 strategy

Happy New Year 2026!

I’m officially back, feeling refreshed, and excited to kick off the very first newsletter edition of the year.

I have planned a lot for 2026, including some pretty ambitious 💰 goals, and I can’t wait to share the journey with you. 😉

If you care about growing websites, experimenting with AI SEO automations, or monetizing content, this year is going to be packed with useful insights. I’ll be sharing what I’m learning as I go, so make sure to stick around.

For now, let me walk you through what I worked on this week and how it’s already shaping my plans for 2026.

Let’s dive in!

In 2025, my website brought in over $40,000 through affiliate partnerships and sponsorships.

That was the year I stopped thinking of it as “just a blog” and started treating it like a real system:

In 2026, my goal is to make $100k from my website.

This newsletter is where I break everything down.

If my website shows what I’m building, this newsletter explains:

I want you to be part of this journey and learn alongside me, in real time.

The bigger goal is to turn this newsletter into your weekly behind-the-scenes notes on growing websites with SEO, monetizing content, and testing AI — all from someone actively doing the work.

As I mentioned in my December recap, figuring out AI-driven content workflows and SEO automations is one of my top priorities for 2026. I’ll be sharing what works for me along the way.

There’s not much truly useful information on this topic out there yet, so my hope is to bring more clarity and real-world insight.

I hope you’ll follow along with me this year.

Only a few days left until my website’s brand-new design goes live, and I honestly can’t wait.

This has been the biggest project of 2025 for me. It took months of planning, tweaking, and second-guessing, and seeing it finally launch feels huge.

The new version will be live next week, and I’ll be sharing the thinking behind the redesign and what I wanted to achieve with it.

In the meantime, I’ve already refreshed the newsletter to match the new website’s look and feel. 😊

The goal was simple: make it easier to read, more visually appealing, and fully aligned with the new brand.

And yes, green is my favorite color, so the color choice was never really up for debate.💚

The update is still ongoing, but you can already check my most popular editions in the highlights:

In 2025, my total creator income crossed $100k, combining revenue from my website, client work, and my new full-time role.

This year, I’m setting a new challenge for myself: turning $40k from the website into $100k.

This time around, I have a much clearer picture of how to get there and which partnerships have the biggest potential to move the needle.

That’s why I spent the first week of January deep into keyword research and building a content plan designed specifically to support my 2026 business goals.

These new goals also meant rethinking my site structure a bit.

For 2026, I’m narrowing my focus and doubling down on a few core content areas, which are now reflected as new menu categories on the site.

This year, I’ll be creating expert-led content around these key topics:

Semrush 101
Semrush is my top affiliate partner, helping me generate $15.6k in affiliate revenue last year. The monetization potential here is massive. My plan is to create expert-level content around Semrush so that anyone interested in the tool starts their journey on my site.

AI SEO
The two AI SEO pillar pages you can see in the screenshot below are already my top revenue drivers.

My goal is to maintain their rankings while building a full content cluster around AI SEO. SEO is going all-in on AI in 2026, and I’m not planning to miss out on this one.

Content That Ranks
This has always been the core of my site, even though it’s evolved over time. The “SEO tools” pillar page is on track to become another major revenue driver. This content cluster will support long-term rankings and further position me as an SEO content strategist.

Everything that took me time to figure out, I’ve shared here with you. I hope it helps you as you plan your website's growth and monetization strategy.

I’m genuinely excited to see where this approach takes me, and you’ll be the first to know how it goes.

Once the new website design is live, it’s time for some SEO magic. Stay tuned 🙂

In my last email of 2025, I mentioned Google’s not-so-fun habit of rolling out core updates right before the holidays — perfectly timed to stress out website owners before Christmas.

For context, this update kicked off on December 11 and wrapped up on December 29. If you want to dig into what changed, you can find more details here.

Based on data from Semrush Sensor, the biggest and only major ranking shake-up happened on December 13.

That’s when many sites likely saw noticeable changes, either drops or gains in search visibility.

On my end, I started seeing a decline in impressions and clicks around December 5. A few pages slipped down slightly in the SERPs, but overall, there was no major hit to performance over the course of the month.

It’s still unclear whether this was just a typical end-of-year slowdown or an effect of the core update. Either way, I’m already taking action by refreshing and improving the pages that saw a dip to help regain visibility.

How did your site handle the update? 🙂

💰 My website earned $45,455.28 in 2025, to be precise — all from affiliate commissions, with zero brand partnerships.

If you are interested in learning:

Join my Premium newsletter edition for a one-time $7.

Inside, you’ll find a breakdown of how many affiliate programs it actually takes to make this kind of income from a relatively small site, which brands bring in the most revenue, and more!

Already a premium member? You can jump straight in and check out affiliate reports.

Here’s what’s new in the content library:

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You can become a Premium member for just $7 one-time payment. You’ll get behind-the-scenes tips, real strategies I use to grow my site, and answers to your questions. 🧠💡

That’s all for now! Thanks for reading and being part of this journey — your support means the world. 💙

Victoria