Bogan’s Money Making Secrets
Chapter 04 of 10

Build Your Shopfront

A website and a few socials, done cheap and done fast. A good website doesn’t have bells and whistles. A good website makes you money.

By now you’ve got an idea, maybe some cash in hand, and somewhere to put it. Time to give people somewhere to find you.

4.1 A website that makes money, not noise

The average Bogan does not want to deal with the WordPress and Wix confusion. You don’t need it. What you need is a page that loads fast, says what you do, and tells people how to pay you or contact you.

What a good site actually needs
  1. What you do, in one sentence, above the fold.
  2. Who it’s for.
  3. Proof — a photo of your work, a review, a before-and-after.
  4. One clear thing to do next: call, book, buy, or join the list.
  5. Your contact details and your ABN.

That’s it. A good website doesn’t have bells and whistles. A good website makes you money. Period. Full stop.

OptionBest forRough cost
CarrdA sharp one-pager, up in an hourFree, ~$19/yr for a custom domain
Canva SitesYou’re already making graphics in CanvaFree tier
Google Business ProfileAny local business. Do this even if you have no websiteFree
ShopifyYou’re genuinely selling physical productsFrom ~$40/mo
WordPressContent-heavy sites you want to own outrightHosting from ~$5/mo
Get a Bogan to build itYou’d rather work on the businessAsk nicely

Buy the domain name early even if you’re not ready to build. They’re about twenty bucks a year and the good ones go.

Poida says

Being a Bogan, I don’t want to pay out too much money. Keep it free or close to it while you’re testing. Once you’re making money, then you get help from the Bogan Brothers who build web pages properly. Not before.

4.2 Now let’s bolt on the turbos

Time for socials. Make every account with the business email from Chapter 1, and keep them strictly business. Don’t mix them with your personal accounts — you’ll post the wrong thing eventually, everybody does.

PlatformWhat it’s actually forWorth it?
FacebookGroups, Marketplace, local reach, and the over-35 buyer with a credit cardYes, still. Marketplace alone earns its keep
InstagramAnything visual. Makes you look establishedYes, if your thing photographs well
TikTokReach from a standing start — the only platform where a nobody still goes viralYes, if you’ll actually make video
YouTubeLong-tail. A good video earns for yearsYes — highest effort, highest payoff
X (Twitter)Fast conversation, niche communities, crypto and financeDepends entirely on your niche
LinkedInSelling services to businesses. Deeply uncool, quietly lucrativeYes, if your customer is a business
PinterestHome, food, craft, weddings, fashion, DIYYes, for those niches only
Pick two

Don’t do all seven. Pick the two where your customer already is, and do those properly. Five dead accounts look worse than one good one.

4.3 The ten-minute rule

Once the accounts exist you need to add content regularly. But no more than ten minutes on each platform. I usually spend about two minutes each, generally while I’m on the throne.

Don’t waste your life in here. All we’re doing at this stage is building a following, making contacts, and collecting emails. At this point in time that beats paid traffic, and our total costs so far have been near enough to nothing.

What to post when you’ve got nothing to post

  1. The problem. Describe the thing your customer is annoyed about, better than they could describe it themselves.
  2. The fix. Show it done. Before and after beats any words.
  3. The mistake. What you got wrong and what it cost. Best-performing post type there is, on every platform.
  4. The behind-the-scenes. The ute, the workshop, the pile of stock, the market stall at 6am.
  5. The answer. Take a question from Chapter 2 and answer it properly.

Five post types, rotated weekly, is a year of content and you never stare at a blank screen.

4.4 Where AI actually helps

Use it as a tool, not an author. It’s genuinely good at:

Where it’ll bite you

4.5 Hold an event

“But Poida, what about Facebook Ads?” We’ll get there. Not yet — ads take money and, more importantly, they take knowing exactly who your customer is. Spend money there before you know that and you’re just donating.

Instead, hold an event. Eventbrite, a Facebook event, a Meetup, a free webinar, or a live stream. Free or nearly free.

Even if it’s four people — my mum, my brother, my sister and her boyfriend — hold the event. Tell the world how you’re going to solve their problem with what you’re selling. You’re building a crowd, you’re getting interaction with like-minded people, and every single attendee is a name and an email for Chapter 6.

4.6 Look what you’ve got

You now have an online presence: email, a website, a Facebook page, a couple of socials, maybe a blog.

Here’s the bit that surprises people. Within 10km of where you’re sitting, there are businesses with less than that. The local dentist has a basic site and no socials. The newsagency doesn’t know what “online presence” means. The sparky is booked out purely on word of mouth and has no idea what he’s leaving on the table.

You could contact those businesses and tell them you can help. They already know they need the internet — that’s not a sale you have to make, it’s a problem they’re already aware of.

That’s Chapter 5.