In terms of my online business, that also means that I’m running out of time to hit the goals I had set with my niche websites before 2014 comes to a close.
Personally I feel like each of my websites has got a LONG, LONG ways to go. Which can be both a fun and creative thing. I’m not just talking in terms of making money. I also mean in developmental things like content, SEO, traffic, etc. Those are the kinds of activities that I believe will ultimately bring in the money if you do them right for the long run.
… even if no one wants to help you get those activities done (a funny story about that below).
Let’s recap the month and see what we were able to accomplish with my four niche sites in August.
Niche Website Income – August 2014:
Here’s the breakdown for August.
Most of this income was all from Google Adsense and private advertising. But to be honest – I’ve grown a little discouraged with myself for only allowing these sites to rely on these basic forms of income and not doing more to test other sources and diversify. And that’s partly why I’m thankful for what came next.
Rekindling the Spirit with Affiliate Income:
One of the best inspirations I had this month came from this post on Yakezie written by Financial Samurai. It was a motivational piece about why we should all be trying to work on finding the right affiliate products to promote.
By the end of the post I said to myself – Why not?
In the past I’ve had a real love-hate relationship with affiliate advertising. I loved it when it actually worked and I made money. But I hated it all the other times when I’d check my account and find I had made absolutely no money for the month.
The other thing I found difficult (more-so in my early days of writing) was sounding too much like a bad pitch-man in my posts trying to shamelessly promote this whatever product. (Fortunately I’ve gotten better about with this and have found much more subtle ways to promote products I actually use.)
However, despite all that I decided to give it another go with affiliate advertising. The Yakezie post was 100% right in that affiliate income is truly an amazing way to earn unlimited passive income. You’re only limited by how traffic and conversions you can get.
Thankfully Financial Samurai was able to hook me up with the Personal Capital affiliate program. I quickly spoke with the affiliate manger on the phone and ultimately ended up placing ads on 3 of my websites. (You can get setup with your own direct affiliate account too.)
How did that work out for me? See for yourself. Here are the results of my affiliate income versus Google Adsense:
vs
Hmm … $0 vs $257?
So why did I compare these two methods of income? Was it to try to show you that Adsense was better than using an affiliate program?
Actually – I did it to show you the opposite.
Notice that between 3 ads on NS1 I only made $257 in income. That’s an average of $86 per ad spot. The Personal Capital ad pays out almost 15% than that for just ONE conversion.
What are the chances of getting one conversion? Let’s play the odds:
Let’s say that over time for every 100 impressions, I get one person who clicks on the ad.
For every 100 clicks on the ad, now let’s say I get 1 conversion.
That’s 1 / (100 x 100) = 1 conversion for every 10,000 impressions.
Since NS1 gets over 10,000 impressions, that means statistically I should be able to pull in at least one commission per month from the ad!
1/10000 is also a generally pretty low assumption for a conversion rate. Therefore I’m assuming that this should be a minimum goal and I should be able to do better than this in reality. But time will tell the whole story.
The lesson learned: Even though I’ve had some pretty good luck being strategic with Google Adsense, there are more opportunities out there to make additional streams of income. As a matter of fact I’ve started rethinking about what other kinds of products I could be appealing to as part of my affiliate income strategy. So over the next month I’ll likely be applying for new products and experimenting with other affiliate relationships to see how we do.
It’s So Hard to Find Good Help – Failures for NS3 and NS4:
There’s nothing worse than when you’ve got good money to spend and people won’t take it.
That’s exactly the problem I had with hiring freelance writers this month. On two separate occasions I made attempts to find people to write large batch of articles for me. Unfortunately – they both failed!
Here’s what happened:
I got all excited when I read this post by Hayden Miyamoto on Niche Pursuits that talked about some of their recent successes with building niche sites that specifically targeted long-tail keywords. Thinking of how I could apply this my two struggling sites NS3 and NS4, I decided to do some new keyword research and unveiled some really juicy, high volume, high CPC, low-low-low competition keywords! Here’s a screen shot of the keyword lot I found for NS3:
(If you’re not using Long Tail Pro, click on the image to check it out further).
Boom! Now all I needed to do was outsource these post writing assignments and get these puppies published.
Unfortunately I wish it were that easy …
The first guy was producing 10 pieces of content for NS4. His first post was terrible and it required about a 75% re-write of the content. Then after a week of waiting on him to send me the second post, I follow-up and received a reply that “his computer was broken and it would not be fixed until 6 weeks later”.
What?? That contract was promptly canceled.
The second contract never even happened. I reached out to a writer I had used in the past to write for my NS3 site. Even though we emailed back and forth on it and seemed like we were all good-to-go, the writer never accepted my offer. Therefore no content was ever produced for NS3.
Too bad for these two sites. But perhaps I should interpret this misfortune as a sign from above to leave these 2 niche sites alone. Maybe?
Did I Write an eBook?
One of the secret projects I eluded too in my post about My Money Design turning 3 is that I’ve been quietly writing a whole eBook.
However I did something with it that you’re probably not supposed to do with an eBook. I published it all on NS2 for free!
Why would I do such a thing and decide to publish the whole thing as a blog post on my niche website instead? Here’s why:
- I don’t know anything about publishing / promoting an eBook.
- The eBook market for the topic I wrote about is already saturated.
- I really wanted to test this mantra that Google keeps preaching to us that bigger, better, juicier content will be rewarded in the Google rankings.
- I felt this would also be a very good opportunity to expand upon affiliate product promotion.
The post is truly a work of art. It’s over 7,500 words of completely useful material. However I probably won’t reveal it here since many other bloggers are in competition with me for the same keyword.
Currently my post is doing HORRIBLE in terms of the search rankings for my chosen keyword. However it’s still new and it’s receiving a trickle of comments from real people who are finding it to be very helpful. So perhaps by next month it will get the love and attention I feel it deserves!
(Plus let’s not rule out the possibility that some day I always could always re-release the content as an eBook.)
Readers – I need a little help here. Who here has had great luck with affiliate marketing on your niche website or blog? If so, what were your tricks? On a different note does anyone have any experience with publishing eBooks? Any advice for where to go after you have all your content?
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
This is a challenge for us every bloggers. Since Google has become so picky, we are encouraged to provide better content which I think is really rewarding for some who are really good at providing content with quality. Let’s provide quality content for better google rankings! 🙂 By the way, you really earn a lot for the month of August.
Thanks Jayson. It’s not as much money as I was hoping for, but I’ll definitely take it!
Yes, Google is tricky. I wish it was just as easy to publish an awesome +7500 blog post and sky-rocket to spot number 1. But the unfortunate reality is that its not just that easy. You still have to build links and make sure your post conforms to the SEO rules. Fortunately that part of the game is not that hard to work out either.
Yea I agree with you. I still go for white hat SEO though it gives most of the times slow progression. Still, we can assure we are making it there to the top and securing our right positions on Google. I also wish it were easy though.
May I ask what is the latest definition of “white hat SEO”? thx
I think everyone has their own view on what whitehat SEO is. All I know is that ever since I started playing the the realms of grey and blackhat, I made more money than I ever could by being a whitehat.
White hat SEO is like diet and exercise. Its painfully slow but you know its the right thing to do if you want long lasting results.
Glad you’ve given it a go again! It’s definitely worth trying for six solid months to see if anything happens. You might get a step function in traffic, and suddenly it’ll start blowing your Adsense and Direct Income out of the water. But folks should definitely try to see what they could do.
Good luck!
Sam
I’m eager and willing to commit to it. I’m not sure why, but I’ve got a good feeling about it this time around. Now that I’m focusing on the website content/traffic and the ads are secondary to all that (instead of the other way around), I feel like it might work this time.
I am just starting out and find it a very interesting process. I think there is quite a bit of a learning curve, if you do not have a technical background. There is a lot of information and ads options out there, just trying to sift through it all is a challenge. The affiliate’s I display are for are products that I use or think my readers will find useful. Thanks for sharing some advice to your readers it is very helpful. Your numbers look good to me!! I still have a long way to go.
Just remember that when you’re starting out the goal is to build the biggest and most valuable resource blog you can make. Once you’ve got traffic and people who believe in your endorsement, then the money will take care of itself.
Hmmm…I don’t think it’s a sign from above that you should ignore NS3 and NS4. If anything, it’s a sign that you should ignore those two writers haha.
Sorry I haven’t been here for a while, so I forget how far apart these sites were built. But if NS3 and 4 are quite a bit younger than NS1 and 2, then it makes sense that they’d be earning less, since their content hasn’t had as many months to mature as 1 and 2’s content.
I would just keep feeding them all with new content.
And I think it’s a good move to offer your ebook for free on NS2. If you haven’t already, be sure to put a sexy image link in your sidebar to push lots of traffic to that mega post and use it as link bait. It’s obviously good content that your readers find useful, so you might as well milk it and see if you can get them sharing it and linking to it.
Keep it up! There are millions of bloggers and Internet marketers out there who would drool over the numbers you’re making on just these 4 sites. That is something to feel good about!
Thanks Chris!
LOL. I totally agree about forgetting about those other two writers. I’m already back on Elance and on the horse again looking for new qualified writers. Consider it a bump in the road.
NS3 is about a year old and NS4 is about 8 months old. Both “should” be doing better than they are. But they are not without fundamental problems. I unfortunately choose a very difficult niche for NS3. NS4’s problem is that the keywords don’t bring in enough traffic to make it worthwhile. However I do agree that size is one thing I have in my control and going bigger could result in potentially better opportunities for these sites to hold their own and show some better returns.
You must have read my mind about the image link for NS2. That is a must. Figuring out how to do this creatively is on my to-do list for Sept.
Good timing for this post. I am writing an update on my site about my niche site. I have the issue of good traffic, high ranking in Google for a number of by keywords, yet barely any income. I think I need to work on the affiliates some more. I have a few up in sidebars, but I need to get more proactive in finding others that might fit better.
It boggles the mind, doesn’t it? I’m having a similar issue with NS1. Great traffic, great ranks, but when compared to one of my other blogger friends who has a similar website, I’m way below what he makes. I guess the right affiliate product really does make a difference.
My friend and I are developing a website that will be pretty much 100% affiliate income based. On my blog I’ve had limited success with affiliate marketing. I’ve had about two great campaigns and that’s it. The rest is just small conversions for low dollars.
That sounds like a really interesting project. Hopefully you’re willing to share some more information about it as it progresses. I’ll be interested to know how it develops.
I think its becoming harder and harder for general topic personal finance sites like our own to make conversions. I’m finding the more niche your site is, the better your luck.
I hear you about feeling bad about being a pitch man. I’m awful doing that with glasses too. Even if I really, really believe in and use the product, it’s hard for me to try and sell it to someone else without feeling guilty. I guess it’s a good thing I’m not a car salesman!
In the past I had a hard time not making it sound cheesy. Fortunately I’ve gotten a lot better about being subtle in my suggestions.
I’m right there with you about ebooks. I offer once for free with my newsletter, but I don’t know much about marketing them and selling them all over the web. As far as affiliate marketing, I am starting to get into finding different products and services to promote. I’m just so picky, because I really want it to be amazing for me to promote it. I still think ads are a nice way for passive income, but affiliate marketing mixed in definitely helps. Like you mentioned on my site, money coaching is another great addition to an income stream!
More to come next week on the money coaching aspect! 🙂
I really suck at affiliate marketing. I’ve made a few bucks here and there and I had one really great month, but I honestly haven’t been able to make it a consistent income source.
It’s not the easiest thing in the world to figure out how to monetize your site. I’ll email you with a few ideas I have for your blog.
I certainly know what you mean about being let down by people when it comes to building niche sites. I’ve had projects get pushed back by weeks or even longer in the past when people decide at the last minute they can’t help.
Now what I do is…
1) Rehire past writers on a regular basis. While I’ll still try out new writers from time to time, I keep a note of my “team” so I can contact a group of proven writers that I’ve already worked with when I have a new project on. This greatly reduces the problems I’ve had in the past.
2) I demand the work of a project to be spaced out over time with targets. So if I need 20 articles, rather than expecting them all after a 4 week period, I’ll request 5 articles per week for a month. That way even if things happen down the road I already have *something* to show for my efforts.
Good points. Sometimes I’ll purposely rehire the same writers just to keep that “core” group in place for the times when I need them. It’s worked out wonders for me when I need a post to be written in a rush!
I’ve had limited success with affiliate marketing, but when it’s working, it’s amazing. Need to find more high paying programs that not everyone in the niche is using.
And I can’t resist, if you need a writer for a project, I’m available.
Finding the right high paying program is good, but I’m noticing that it is only half of the equation. Finding something that also practically sells itself is completely instrumental in driving up your income as well.
Thank you very much for the offer as a writer. However I think you’d be surprised at what I pay. Most people will probably be shocked at this, but the writers I hire on Elance work for about $5 per article. And believe it or not, when they actually deliver, the writing is often quite good!
I’ll have to start factoring that into my equation. I kind of do…only recommend products I have used or wish I had used, but still. And that’s awesome that you can get such a great product at such a low price!!!
There are certainly a lot of different products out there that are worth pitching. As long as it doesn’t put off your audience and you think it will help them, why not give it a shot.
It’s not the most convenient thing on the globe to determine how to generate income from your website. I’ll e-mail you with a few concepts I have for your weblog website.
Sounds good Simon. I’ll be interested to hear what you have to say.
I’ve had great success with Amazon as an affiliate program, but other than that it’s been nothing to write home about.
I’ll be interested to see how Christmas time works out with my Amazon site. I’m hoping for very good things!