Here we are in part 3 of the “Profitable Niche Site” case study and I have to say; things are going well, actually; better than expected.
If you’ve missed the previous two updates, you can see part 01 here and part 02 here.
I highly suggest you take a look at those updates first if you are interested in learning how to consistently build up “small-yet-profitable” affiliate websites online.
So far I’ve built 2 (and started 5 more) from the desired 10 I want to have up and running by the end of this year.
Here’s what happened with the first 2 sites this past month (July):
- Both of the sites have seen impressive growth in traffic
- I now have plenty of “good data” coming in (that’s giving me good indicators to keep feeding these sites) and
- Starting from August 1st 2019 (today) I will be monetising these sites – ahead of schedule – with affiliate links (and Google Adsense ads).
I will tell you more about this below, but let’s first take a look at what’s been happening behind the scenes:
The Profitable Niche Site Case Study – Update #3
Niche Site 01: STSP (Name & URL TBA)
- Pageviews in June 2019: 742
- Pageviews in July 2019: 3085 (an increase of 315%)
- Posts Published in July 2019: 5
- Total Posts Published: 26
- Total Words Published: 41397
- Average Word Count Per Post: 1586
Thoughts On The Previous Month:
This is by far my favourite “new” website.
It’s in the adult toys niche (I will reveal the name and URL for this in a few months) and it is seeing some impressive growth (mostly from Google SEO traffic) and it’s also ranking for some equally impressive keywords.
This site is doing so good that I have decided to monetise it ahead of schedule and I am 90% sure this site will start earning *some* income in the coming month (August 2019).
Part of the strategy I use to build up these sites is I don’t monetise them at all until they start getting some decent traffic (you can see why here).
However, since I have outbound link tracking set up in Analytics (which you should also do), I can see people are clicking through to the linked products (only the links are not my affiliate links).
Starting from this month – I just finished adding new affiliate links this morning – this site is now fully monetised and as I said; I do expect to make money off this site. Not much, but enough to prove the whole concept of why I chose this specific niche.
Regarding content, my initial goal was 30 posts, and I’m currently 4 short of that goal but after seeing the type of rankings I am getting, I will invest more time into it pushing that goal to 50 posts in total (then re-evaluate from there).
That’s the update I have for you regarding site #1. Be sure to check back in next month to see if this site actually made any money – I’ll be very surprised (and disappointed) if it didn’t.
Let’s now move onto site #2, which has seen equally impressive growth this past month.
Niche Site 02: TSCC (Name & URL TBA)
- Pageviews in June 2019: 504 page views
- Pageviews in July 2019: 1635 (an increase of 224%)
- Posts Published in July 2019: 21
- Total Posts Published: 60
- Total Words Published: 79619
- Average Word Count Per Post: ~1300 (on blog posts only)
Thoughts On The Previous Month:
Given the topic of this website (skincare), I am leveraging two traffic sources to build it up, those are:
- Google SEO and
- Pinterest.
SEO traffic is growing well (it jumped from 32 in June to 163 in July) but I can sense this niche will be a bitch to rank for the keywords I am targetting so I will have to give it more time (maybe 6-8 months) before I can measure the site’s potential.
On the other hand, Pinterest is also growing, but I’ve had plenty of issues with the data there and I semi-believe Pinterest has some “shadow banning” thing going on with this site.
At the beginning of July, the site was actually “suspended for spam” and after getting in touch with Pinterest support, I was told the ban was a mistake from their end and they lifted the suspension.
However, after the suspension was lifted, I still could see the amount of work being put in is not equalling the results I’ve come to expect from Pinterest.
I naturally assumed this is some “hangover effect” from the suspension and as it turns out, I was right.
When I approached Pinterest support about this, they acknowledge that there are some issues and “they are working on fixing this asap”.
Time will tell if they actually do fix this (but I’ve been seeing better results with Pinterest this past week).
Regardless of all that’s happening, I am still going ahead and semi-monetise this website.
I have added one AdSense banner to the sidebar (just to test the waters) and I also created a resource page with links to beauty products on Amazon.
I’m not expecting much at all from this website, but I do believe it will make *some* money.
Just in case you’re wondering, the only reason I am in this niche is that my girlfriend (which is also employee #1 for me) is a certified beauty therapist so she’s handling all content creation.
What I’ll Be Working on in August
This “Profitable Niche Site” case study is actually me building 10 new websites this year and documenting all that is happening.
This means that while I already have 2 up and running (and hopefully making money after 3 months in), I should already be working on the next sites, and I am.
This past month (July) I have started 5 new sites but the only thing I did with these sites is I published one post, set up Google Analytics and also Google Search Console.
The goal for each website is to get them to 30 posts (in line with my strategy for this case study) but for now, having the sites “set up” with one blog post each is enough for me.
While I don’t have much time to work on them this month (I’m currently away on vacation), at least they’re ‘up and running” now and all are hooked up with Search Console gathering useful preliminary data for me.
This data will dictate the approach I take with the content and it also gives the sites enough time to “get out of the Google Sandbox“.
I will let you know next month if anything has changed at all with these websites.
Final Words
So that’s the end of part 3 of the “Profitable Niche Site” case study.
Again, I would highly suggest you check out part 01 and part 02 to get a better understanding of what I plan on achieving with these sites and how.
I wholeheartedly believe these sites will be winners given enough time and by following this case-study, you will be able to see what’s working for me, what’s not and the benefits & challenges that come with building sites in this manner.
While I would never recommend anyone new to affiliate marketing to start 10 new sites at a time;
I highly recommend you at least start testing the waters with one, and you can learn how to build it with the same training course I’ve followed (link to my review).
I’ll leave you to it.
