Here we are on the first of October (my favourite month) which means we’re due for another Profitable Niche Site case study update.
I’ve had plenty of ups and down with these sites this past month, and I want to share with you everything I’ve learned, did and tried to hopefully give you a better understanding of what it takes to launch a profitable affiliate marketing website.
I’ll go into more detail about each site down below, but here are the major events of this past month (i.e September 2019)
- Sharp traffic increases across the board.
- One site (STSP) continued making money (up 65% from the previous month).
- Started 8 new websites (basic set up).
Let’s dig a little deeper and see what really went on behind the scenes.
Niche Site 01: STSP (Name & URL TBA)
- Pageviews in August 2019: 4904
- Pageviews in September 2019: 6883 (an increase of 40%)
- Earnings in September 2019: $239.40 (an increase of 65% from the previous month)
- Posts Published in September 2019: 10
- Total Posts Published: 40
- Total Words Published: 70,002
- Average Word Count Per Post: 1750
Thoughts On September 2019:
September was a weird one for this website.
Although traffic did increase exponentially to my “money posts” – sales didn’t.
The total sales of the main product I am promoting earned me $89.40 – down from $145.45 the previous month – however; I also got paid a $100 for a sponsored post and I also made another $50 with another side-affiliate program.
This brings the total earnings for September to $239.40, which is not bad at all, but I was hoping to make more than that (at least $300) given how much more traffic I got to the products I am promoting.
Overall, I can’t complain.
$250 per month makes the website worth at least $7500 in my book which already puts me in plenty of profit.
Last month I told you I want to get this website earning at least $3000 per month before I try to sell it (eyeing a $100,000 exit) and I still believe this site has the potential to reach that goal sometime in 2020.
My Plan For October 2019
The plan for October is to continue publishing new content. That’s all.
Ideally, I can get another 20 blog posts up which will bring the total to 60.
The ultimate goal would be to get it to 100 blog posts and then walk away from it and let the content do its job and keep earning me money. Hopefully, I can achieve this by end-of-year 2019.
Whether that would be enough for the site to be earning $3,000 is something which I would have to measure down the line, but as I said above – I do like my chances with this website.
Niche Site 02: TSCC (Name & URL TBA)
- Pageviews in August 2019: 2220
- Pageviews in September 2019: 3627 (an increase of 63%)
- Earnings in September 2019: $0
- Posts Published in September 2019: 0
- Total Posts Published: 80
- Total Words Published: 115,611
- Average Word Count Per Post: 1445
Thoughts On September 2019:
TSCC a respectable 63% increase in traffic and that’s not too bad considering I did not publish any new content here.
Sadly, while I do believe this site has the potential to get a lot of traffic and good money (especially if I can get it on some premium ad networks) it’s been massively underperforming.
This website currently has 80 posts published, and that’s where it’s going to stay for now. I will consider doing another round of 20 posts in December to get it to a perfect 100.
Once that is done, I will then analyze the traffic – try to figure out what’s holding it back – and then set it aside and let it mature as it needs to without further effort from my end.
My Plan For October 2019
I won’t be doing any work whatsoever on this website but I do want to get the email marketing up and running (something I was hoping to do in September).
I’ve also just started testing AdSense on this site. I doubt Adsense will make any money, but I do want to test out a month of ads to see how it performs.
The goal, as hinted above, is to get it on a premium ad network and that’s what I’ll be holding out for. Unfortunately, the site only received 3000+ page views, which is far off from the 10,000+ benchmark I need to join Ezoic.
I’m honestly a bit confused as to why this site is growing so slowly – it just doesn’t have that momentum.
As I said, I’ll leave it to mature for now and in December I may add 20 new posts and see what happens then.
All 8 Remaining Websites Are Up & Running
In September, I’ve also go the remaining 8 websites of this case study up and running.
All of them have WordPress set up and *most* have at least one piece of content that’s indexed and ranking in Google.
Am I over-reaching here with building and reporting on 10 websites?
YES, I am – do not try this at home.
I won’t be doing any much work on any of them for now, but I’m glad they are up and running maturing out of the Google Sandbox for when I’m ready to pour fuel onto them.
For now, I’d like to keep my focus on the two main websites mentioned above. I want to get them earning at least $500 each before I fully commit to growing any of these newer websites.
Final Words
So there you have it.
Month 5 of the Profitable niche site case study.
I am very much looking forward to the 8-12 months mark since that is typically when affiliate sites really start to show their true potential.
So far, it’s been a pleasure working on these two sites and I am sure they will eventually be big moneymakers in the near future, earning me a comfy income and a six-figure exit when I’m ready to part with them.
But we’ll just have to wait-and-see how that goes.
I’ll leave you to it.
If you’d like to read the previous case study updates, you can do so here:
- The “Profitable Niche Site” Case Study – Update 1
- The “Profitable Niche Site” Case Study – Update 2
- The “Profitable Niche Site” Case-Study – Update 3
- The “Profitable Niche Site” Case-Study – Update 4
PS: Want To Build Your Own Profitable Niche Website?
Check out the Affiliate Starter Pack bundle offer where I give you all you need to know to build an affiliate website that earns $1,000+ a month, for just $19. Don’t believe me?
Check out some of the student results here >>