Welcome back to yet another update for my profitable niche site case study. This past month (March 2020) has been both wildly successful and also disappointing at the same time.
As expected, the main issue with this past month was the coronavirus situation which has caused global destruction and completely ruined my plans for these websites (and the conversions I’m used to getting).
While both sites I’m tracking in this case study both had record-breaking traffic (some of the highest % increases I’ve seen since I started this adventure), earnings did not reflect the same rise (although niche site 02 – which you’ll learn about below – registered a slight increase in ad revenue).
As usual, I will first give you the numbers for each website, and then dive into what I did in the previous month and what I plan to do in the upcoming month (April).
Next month will be the 12th month of this running case study so I will be giving you a slightly different update and taking a look at all that has happened (both wins and failures) in the first year for these two affiliate websites.
Let’s get started…
Niche Site 01: STSP (Name & URL TBA)
- Pageviews in February 2020: 15,612
- Pageviews in March 2020: 22,956 (new record)
- Earnings in March 2020: $253.06
- New Posts Published in March 2020: 5
- Total Posts Published: 87
- Total Words Published: 177,481
- Average Word Count Per Post: 2,040
Thoughts on March 2020:
As I said in the previous update, for this website I was planning to launch a new digital product I can sell to this audience. It’s with great pleasure I announce this project is complete and the course is now launched.
No sales yet, but I can see that interest is rising and I’m sure I will be able to earn some money from this product in the coming 30 days (more on this below).
As you can see above, the traffic for this website did increase significantly compared to the previous month, but unfortunately, sales (and conversion rates) did not rise up with the traffic.
One possible cause of this was the fact that the high-ticket items I’ve been working very hard to promote (and had started succeeding with in previous months) are the products that got disrupted the most since they’re manufactured in China.
I also planned not to publish any more content on this website as I wanted to work on website 02 (see below) but seeing how the course I’ve just created and started selling requires a specific type of traffic, I decided to unleash 5 new blog posts targeting very specific keywords with the hopes of getting more traffic to sell the course.
I also managed to create an email list for this website and so far, I have about 100 email subscribers. I’ve also created a 20-day email sequence for these subscribers and so far, the open rates and click-through have been promising (but again, still no sales – yet).
This is something I want to work on next month…
Plans For April 2020:
I do plan on publishing a few more posts on this website in April, although not a lot. Instead, I want to focus on growing the traffic using Twitter and Pinterest and also continue growing my email list which I’m sure will be a money-maker in the near future.
The only work I’ll be doing is heavy-promotion and I’m working hard on also growing my Twitter audience (using HypeFury) to grow my reach and followers.
I am aiming to have at least 5 sales of the course I just launched, which will result in about ~$250 and also earn a few more $$$s from the current affiliate programs I’m partnered up with.
Although this site has HUGE potential and has everything ready to be a big money-maker in the future, this pandemic has hit it hard. I just hope the fruits of the work I’ve been putting into it will flourish once all this is over.
Niche Site 02: TSCC (Name & URL TBA)
- Pageviews in February 2020: 14,083
- Pageviews in March 2020: 23,792 (new record)
- Earnings in March 2020: $103.25 (new record)
- Posts Published in March 2019: 9
- Total Posts Published: 109
- Total Words Published: 168,494
- Average Word Count Per Post: 1,546
Thoughts on March 2020:
March 2020 has been fantastic for this website! Traffic rose by nearly 70% compared to the previous month and it shows no signs of slowing down.
The good news is that this sudden increase in traffic is coming from Google, which means this is traffic I can rely on having for a while not and I also added more fuel to the fire by publishing even more content, although not as much as I hoped since I also had to go back to publishing on site 01 again.
The monetization strategy for this website has always been premium ads, and I’m glad to report the site earned $94.09, with an impressive $27.28 EPMV from Ezoic.
(NB: I don’t have ads set up for the whole website as I don’t like having too many ads, which is why the current EPMV does not reflect the traffic/earnings you see above).
Besides the Ezoic ads, the site also earned $9.16 from the Amazon affiliate program which is great to see considering how very little Amazon linking I actually did. I do not rule out leaning more on the affiliate side of things in the future, but for the time being – ads will remain the primary income source.
Overall, this site has been amazing and I’ve fallen back in love with it now that I see this tremendous growth in traffic and I’m sure April 2020 will yet again be another record-breaking month both with traffic and also earning.
Plans For April 2020:
Next month should be another record-setting month for TSCC and I expect to see at least 30,000 views by the end of it. This will qualify me to join Mediavine which was the original goal for this website from the very first month I started this case study.
The funny thing about this is that when I was planning out the ad revenue for this website, I was expecting to be earning a $10 EPMV from Ezoic and hoping for a $25 EPMV once I get on Mediavine.
As you can see from the images above, this site is already earning a $27+ EPVM so I’m not sure if Mediavine will return higher earnings, but I am willing to test it out once I reach their minimum threshold to join, which is 25,000 monthly sessions.
How To Start Your Own Affiliate Website (Step-By-Step Course)
That’s all from this case study update.
These are unprecedented times we’re living in and I really don’t know what to expect from these websites as this coronavirus pandemic keeps on evolving.
One thing I do know is that my entire online business (not just these two case study website) have shown great strength and I’m glad to say earnings have remained rather steady for me.
This is why I would highly recommend you look into creating your own affiliate website if you’re interested in doing so. Get it started.
I have a free training course for you right here which you can join and you will have access to everything you need to;
- Get started,
- build traffic – and;
- make money with your own affiliate business.
As always, if you have any questions about this (or anything else related to affiliate marketing) be sure to let me know in the comment section below.
I’ll leave you to it.
See How I Built Up This Case Study
