In this post, I want to share the progress I’ve had with my niche website portfolio.
Here’s what I’ll cover:
- How many niche sites I’m working on
- How much money they’ve made in total
- February 2021 traffic and income report
- Goals and plans to reach them
Let’s get straight into it!
Table of Contents
A Little Backstory
A few years ago, I got back into niche websites and started documenting my journey alongside Niche Pursuits Spencer Haws’ Niche Site Project 4.
I had several big life changes at the time and struggled to produce significant results.
I stopped posting my case study in February 2019 to focus on other things, but I continued to grow that site a little.
I’ve taken those posts down now and redirected them to this one as I don’t think they provided much value and I wanted to start fresh with this new article.
Why I’m Sharing Niche Site Income Reports
Mainly for three reasons.
First is to keep myself accountable. It’s easy for me to set goals, but when I only have myself to let down, it’s easier to fall off track.
Whereas if I post them online, social accountability creates more incentive for me to follow through.
Second, I’m sharing them to motivate and inspire you. If you want to create a passive income source through blogging and my websites do really well, it’s likely to encourage you to embark on the same journey.
And third, I’m really passionate about teaching. It’s kind of ironic, coming from someone who hated school and learning as a kid. Now, I’m obsessed with learning so I can pass the information on to others.
Overall Goals
My overall goal is to build a portfolio of niche authority sites that cover living costs and enable me to live as a nomad, traveling with friends and seeing the world.
Ideally, I’d like to hit $10,000 per month with 2-3 sites which I’d keep and then flip other websites on the side and as an additional income stream.
Income sources will be through affiliate marketing using the Amazon affiliate program and ads, starting with Google Adsense.
I’ll also experiment with direct affiliate offers, which I’ve found for specific products.
Other revenue could be made from digital and physical products, but it’s still early days, so that’ll be a consideration in the future.
Traffic sources will be from Google and social media.
Sites I Own vs Sites I’m Working On vs Sites Included in These Updates
I currently have six niche sites, not included the site you’re on right now.
But, I’m only working on three of them at the moment.
And I’ll be posting updates for two of these niche sites on this blog.
I don’t want to make these monthly updates too long and I don’t want to give myself too much work.
Yet, it’s a constant battle between avoiding shiney object syndrome and preventing bordem, so I’m trying to find a happy medium.
Niche site #1 is generating affiliate income and niche site #2 doesn’t have enough traffic or any affiliate links yet.
Also, no ads have been placed on either site, so the revenue is from affiliate commission only.
Let’s look at niche site #1 first and then I’ll break down niche site #2.
Niche Site #1 Details and Statistics
Niche: Undisclosed
This is a website I bought from Motion Invest last year. It was making around $20-30 per month when I bought it. I paid around $1200 for it.
In the first couple of months of buying the site, I changed the domain name as it was an exact match for a specific topic, so it didn’t have much growth potential.
Then a few month later I added around 15 articles, but I didn’t spend much time optimising them and the site hasn’t been touched for around seven months now.
Niche Site #1 Total Revenue
This is all the blog income made from the site from the time of purchase to the end of January 2021. I’ll post February’s stats separately.
Total Revenue for Niche Site #1 up to Jan 2021 = $189.24
| Niche Site #1 | Commission |
|---|---|
| Jan – Dec 2020 | $157.07 |
| Jan 2021 | $32.17 |
| Total | $189.24 |
Niche Site #1 Income Report for February 2021
Amazon affiliate revenue in Feb 2021 was = $28.01
I’m really liking that 18.87% conversion rate. Hopefully, I can keep this up as I grow the sites traffic.
Niche Site #1 Traffic in February 2021
Traffic is mostly coming from Google search, so I won’t share traffic source details until there’s more diversity between sources.
Total website sessions in Feb = 4,553
Traffic is relatively consistent, but I’ll need to increase this a considerable amount before the site becomes a viable asset.
Niche Site #1 Goals and Plans for March 2021
My first goal for March is to give the content a complete revamp. There’s quite a lot of content, but it’s either not well optimised or lacks buyer intent.
I’ll be going through each article and either updating them or removing them entirely.
I also want to change the theme and update its design as it looks quite ugly and the user experience is awful.
Other than that, I’ll be doing research on topics to write about and find good keywords I think the site can rank for.
The content that’s ranking well for this site is around really cheap products and I want to move away from these as I can’t see much opportunity for growth here.
After I’ve updated the theme and content, I’ll apply for Google Adsense and see if I get any ad revenue.
I have a minimal budget for these sites, so I’ll be writing the content myself for the first 3-6 months.
Niche Site #2 Details and Statistics
Niche: Undisclosed (for now)
This is a niche site I created years ago, added about 9 articles and pretty much gave up.
What I want to do with this site is announce the niche and domain in the next few months and use it to teach the niche site building process.
I want to share tutorials on my YouTube channel of starting a blog from scratch, from setting everything up, choosing a niche, blog design, keyword research, writing articles, content strategy, and SEO.
Niche Site #2 Total Revenue
As this site has hardly any content and I practically abandoned it, it’s income to date is zero, so nothing to show here and no income report for Feb.
Niche Site #2 Traffic in February 2021
Total website sessions in Feb = 14
I love how both these sites are in completely different stages of growth. I looking forward to working on both of these.
Niche Site #2 Goals and Plans for March 2021
The first steps with this site are like the other one, but on a much smaller scale. There’s very little content, and I’m undecided whether to update the content or just start over from scratch.
Because the site gets almost no traffic, my primary aim is to get as much content published on there as possible.
The niche is really competitive, so I’ll be focusing on finding low volume keywords to start with. If I can publish 10 articles this month, I’ll be happy with that.
I don’t have any expectations for this site in terms of growth. I mainly want to use it as a live case study and share the niche site process and tech tutorials on YouTube.
If it doesn’t generate much income because it’s too competitive, then it’s time not wasted because it’s kind of like a fun side project.
Also, the niche is something I’m passionate about, so I’m happy to invest time learning about it.
Wrapping Up
So there you have it. I’ve declared the niche site projects I’ll be working on for the foreseeable future and sharing the results right here.
It’s my aim to publish monthly income and traffic reports so you can follow along with the growth of each site.
One site will be private and the other I’ll be revealed soon so I can use it for YouTube tutorials.
I’m really excited to share these reports on my blog, and I’ll be looking forward to posting updates each month.