Since 2013 I’ve been trying to take my hobby of blogging and really turn it into something of a long-term, stable. My ultimate goal is for the niche sites I create to generate several streams of positive passive income that will continue to roll in no matter whether I’m working, sleeping, or whatever I’m up to.
I consider all the extra income I make to be a huge blessing because its money that I made outside my job and beyond the budget we’ve set for our family. Plus – it’s a lot of fun to see how far I can take this entrepreneurial effort and see where it goes.
Unfortunately January started off with some pretty big delays due to my BIG recent health news. But what’s awesome is that despite hardly having any time to put into my sites they still managed to break four-figures this month. Now that’s passive income!
With that said, here’s where things stand and what I plan to do next.
Niche Website Income Report – January 2015:
Here is my income and expense report for the month:
Income Breakdown:
Here’s a closer look at my income sources for the month:
- Amazon = $255.18
- Clickbank = $233.79
- Google Adsense = $461.25
- iPage = $105.00
- Personal Capital = $100.00. (If you’d like to make money yourself by being an affiliate, you can sign up here).
- Private Advertising = $0.00
Notice this was another month where none of my income came from private advertising. While I would certainly welcome it, I point this out to help inspire other bloggers that you CAN make money beyond people emailing you with offers for sponsored posts or link sales.
Expense Breakdown:
Hardly anything to report here. My only expense was a domain renewal.
Earnings with Amazon Are Still Good!
One of the biggest things I was very interested in seeing this month was whether or not niche site 4 (NS4) (my music related site) was going to continue to make any money.
In our last update, I reported a phenomenal month of Amazon commissions (almost $500 for the month); that was the biggest haul for the site to date! This was not only due not only to the upswing in people buying things online due to the Christmas season, but it was also likely due to a lot of improvements I made to the website itself to improve such things as more content, better targeted keywords, higher rankings, etc.
So was December just a flash in the pan for NS4?
I’m happy to report a very fortunate no! Although we didn’t experience quite the same level of sales conversions, I was happy to see visitors in January still clicking and buying my recommendations, resulting in over half of my December commissions ($255).
And all this despite doing absolutely nothing with the site in January! What this tells me is that the site is doing an okay job standing on its own two legs and existing beyond being just sort of seasonal outlier.
What I’d like to do going forward is to monitor the site for at least another month and see how it continues to generate earnings for another month. If it does well again then that’s all the business case I need to re-invest some of those earnings towards producing more pages of content. In the blogging world, more valuable content = better chances for your website to be found in the search engines = higher earning potential!
To be honest I’m already pretty optimistic about the direction of NS4 and will likely spend some time with Long Tail Pro researching some good new low competition keywords that will serve as the basis for new articles.
Testing New Content Creation for NS1:
Another of the goals I set out to do last month was to build up my biggest niche site, NS1 (my retirement related site), to up and over +100 posts. I really would like to see if I can grow it into a true authority website.
Unfortunately like I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I didn’t get much opportunity this month to work on things quite as much as I wanted to due to my health problems. But even while I was in the hospital I did find the time to write at least one or two new posts.
First off I’d like to point out that I’m obstinately NOT using freelance writers for these new posts yet because I’m using this experience as an exercise. I’m trying to re-acquaint myself with works and what doesn’t when it comes to creating really great content, and I’m not afraid to take my time finding it out.
If you follow SEO news at all then you probably already know that Google has made a lot of changes to their algorithms in 2014. Articles that used to pass as “okay” and rank on the first page of the search results simply don’t anymore. It’s a lot harder.
A few months ago I started to become suspicious of my own content generating tactics when I kept noticing my rankings slip and my Google Adsense earnings going down. Going back and reading through some of my old articles I could see that perhaps they might have been a little too contrived and not really as exciting as they could be.
A number of really respected online marketers have seem to really taken a firm stance on the importance of really focusing on producing quality content.
- Spencer Haws from Niche Pursuits
- Neil Patel from Quick Sprout (check out his take on fewer posts with better content)
- And my personal favorite: This really incredible tutorial from Nate Tsang of Not Hat Digital. Seriously read through his article and really ask yourself if you’re doing what you need to be if you’re really serious about creating a business.
So far I can say that with the few new posts I’ve written I’m really trying to take in all this new advice and I’ve been very pleased with the outcome of the quality. My goal here is going to be to use this opportunity to make sure that the new content is top notch and worthy of front page results. In addition I’ll be doing a little more keyword research for new terms to write about on NS1.
If things go well and I can figure out a new formula that works, I’ll be glad to go back to hiring freelance writers that I can educate and help me to expedite the article writing process so we can take this thing as far as we can go.
Will Adsense Responsive Ads Make Any Difference?
If you’ve got a Google Adsense account then you’ve probably recently received an email suggesting that you change your ad formats so that they are responsive. That means that whether someone looks at your website from a large desktop computer or small phone screen the ads will automatically adjust to fit the contour of space allowed. According to the email I received, they seem to think changing to the new responsive ads will help increase CPM by 43%! If that’s true, that would be a serious uptick in revenue!
To be honest I’ve never given the “responsiveness” of my sites as much thought as I have until recently. Around Christmas time I noticed that some of my sites look kinda “weird” when you look at them on a phone or iPad, and so I’ve been making simple minor changes to the format to make them appear more naturally no matter what kind of media you’re using. Weird is not something you want people thinking when they first land on your website!
So I decided to give the new ad format a shot (just a few days ago). We’ll just have to see over the next month if the changes to our niche website aesthetics benefited my earnings in any way, shape, or form. If I can pull in close to 50% more revenue from such a simple move, that would be a pretty incredible gain! I’ll keep you posted in next month’s update.
Readers – How have your blog revenue generation efforts been going this first month of the new year? Is anyone else taking any drastic measures to really understand their content? Or are you working on any other big long-term improvement initiatives?
Image courtesy of penguincakes | Flickr
Impressive stats all the time! Congrats!
Thank you! I’m hoping that the new posts I plan to write and add will help improve traffic for 2015.
Great job on your blog income! I don’t have a niche site, but January was my best month ever for affiliate/AdSense!
That’s awesome to hear! What kind of factors do you think helped increase that success?
Great job on the income!! Especially considering it’s all passive!! I’m still trying to grow my readership, but I do have Google Adsense in place and make about $20-$30 a month so far. Not much, but I know by being consistent this will slowly increase over time. I don’t recall getting an email regarding switching ads to responsive ads, but I’m heading into my account now to check it out!
Hope you have a great February!!
You’ve got the right idea to focus on the readership first. Even if it takes months to grow and build, it will be worth it. Your traffic is your lifeline, and without it there aren’t going to be any chances for increased success.
I’ll let you know next month if the responsive ads have any bearing on my earnings. In my head it seems logical and should make sense to switch. I didn’t realize how silly my regular ads from before look on an iPhone.
Growing passive income can be a long, hard, and tedious process. But once you have everything in place, it is well worth it when you are enjoying the fruits of your labor. Congrats!
I can say its been wonderful to enjoy the trickle of money without me having to do anything or work on my sites hardly at all this month. It makes all the initial effort and investment well worth it.
Congrats on having a good month of passive income.
Thanks Jason. I’m really looking forward to reporting +$1,000 months every month throughout the rest of 2015!
January was pretty decent for me. Between my wife and I we managed to do pretty well. It wasn’t very passive though 🙁
Passive or not, that’s great to hear you guys brought in some decent revenue! I’m sure as I try to build my sites bigger over the next few months I’ll feel very active with my efforts.
Nice work MMD, especially with seeing how well NS4 did without much attention being paid to it during the month. I’m still trying to crack using Amazon and seeing some success with it but would like to grow it more. As for January I had the best month ever for affiliate so I was pretty happy with that. With regards to content I’ve started to go back to a handful of my older posts to try and refresh them and make them more focused on the reader and have seen some relative success with it so I think I’m going to continue with that. I finally bought a few domain names for a niche site I’ve had in mind for some time so now I just need to get started!
Regarding going back and refreshing those older posts, let me know how that’s working out for you. I’ve been tracking a few of the ones I did and am seeing some mixed results.
I’ll be excited to see what you come up with for a niche site idea!
Great job for your income!Congrats… it is well worth it when you are enjoying the fruits of your labor.
Thanks Amos. I’m pretty happy with the results this month.
Kudos MMD! Your numbers seems very impressive! Keep it up.
Thanks Jayson! I’m hoping those commissions hold up in February; less days to make those numbers work!
Great breakdown and the process is paying off now I see. I like the idea of a niche site, and linking it to amazon is smart as the online marketplace is only getting bigger.
Thanks EL. I am pretty happy to see that the content generation process for NS4 did actually work. I’m hoping that as I try it for NS1 I can see the same results.
Wow, I’ve never even heard of ad “responsiveness”. I’ve got to check this out for my blog. I have to change one of the ads around anyway and figure out how to place ads in the body of a post, so I might as well check this out too.
Great job with Amazon. I wanted to do affiliate marketing as well. Before setting up Angry Retail Banker, I wrote for a revenue sharing site called Infobarrel and used them for my Amazon Associates account. No one ever clicked on the affiliate links, let alone actually bought a product. My account was shut down as a result. I’d like to get my site a bit more popular before I sign up for a new account, but NS4’s progress is getting me raring to go on that right now!
Frankly, I love your Niche Site updates. Some people might find inspiration in Pat Flynn’s income reports, but his numbers are so high that they are impossible to replicate and thus just don’t seem like they could apply to the everyman. Your numbers, however, show that online success is possible for all of us.
Cheers!
It’s funny but I never really gave two cents about responsiveness before either. Now that I’m using my phone and a tablet more often, I can see what all the fuss is about. Some of my sites looked downright strange on the smaller screens, and I’m sure that’s not helping sales/clicks. I can see what everyone is talking about now when they say “make sure you’re mobile ready”. It’s actually good advice to make sure your theme and appearance work on all three screens.
Thanks for the compliment on the Niche Site updates. I also read Pat Flynn’s monthly reports and personally get overwhelmed at how I could ever pull in high-six figures every month. But they also give me hope. I tend to notice little things from those income reports like how much Adsense or Bluehost contributed to his income, and then I ask myself: Am I doing everything I can to max these revenue streams out myself? Sometimes he’ll have an income source on there I’ve never heard of and I’ll go check it out. Usually its not for me, but one of these times it will be something that I actually use.
Just a quick note on Amazon for ARB: Although you are certainly welcome to try Amazon on your site, I think it helps to think about first what drives conversions. For example I’ve had Amazon links on MMD for years and probably never made more than $10 in a single month. That’s probably because 1) PF books (most of my links) are cheap and 2) my audience isn’t really in the market to necessarily buy anything when then visit and read MMD. With NS4, the business model is totally different. The site is designed around organic keywords that one would use if they were just about to take the next step towards buying a musical instrument. That’s good because it means they were already half convinced that they wanted a particular instrument or similar one before they ever even clicked my site. Once they find my site, it doesn’t matter what page they click on because every single is dedicated to a different Amazon product (that would not be the case on a PF blog). That’s why niche sites that are very particular about certain products tend to do better.
Hopefully rather than discourage you to try Amazon links, this inspires you to buy a second domain and build your own niche site!
Thanks for the advice, MMD!
I have an idea for a niche site, but I don’t really know how commercial that is either. As for Angry Retail Banker, I have a lot of work to do on it (upgrading to a premium theme, getting a logo). My Achillies heel, unfortunately, seems to be keyword research. Maybe it’s because I don’t have Long Tail Pro or something, but I just don’t even know where to start with keyword research for my blog no matter how many posts and articles about it that I read. I tend to just write about a topic and figure out what the focus keyword should be when I’m at the SEO Analysis part. No good. Learning how to understand things like Google Analytics and getting set up with things like Google Webmaster Tools is also something that I need to get up on.
ARB,
I remember feeling like about using keywords. It will get easier!
Definitely the first thing to do is get yourself setup with Google Analytics and Google Webmaster accounts. Both are great free resources and there’s a lot of valuable information you can mine from them if you know how to use them correctly. After you do that, reply this comment and we’ll continue on from there.
I have both now. I signed up for Analytics right when I signed up for Adsense and “merged” the two (I think). Analytics still confuses me. I just signed up for Webmaster Tools in the last couple minutes. Haven’t gotten a chance to look it over yet.
Sorry that it took me so long to do it. A lot of things have been happening over the last couple weeks; and opportunities that could have been good have gone terribly, terribly awry. Things are still hectic, which is why my blog has seen zero activity in the past two weeks. That’s why it took me 10 days to reply to your comment.
Anyways, everything is set up now.
No worries on the delay. With blogging you get to go at your own speed.
The first thing you’ll want to do is get a feel for how many keywords your blog is ranking for now. This can be an eye-opening experience. Don’t be surprised if it isn’t many – that’s usually how it goes in the beginning.
Log into your Webmaster tools account. In the default home view, click on the center section “Search Queries”. Here you’ll see how many keywords you’re ranking for, where they rank in Google (over an average of 30 days), and how many clicks you get.
Ask yourself:
– Do I WANT to rank for these keywords?
– Are there other search terms that I want people to use to find my site?
– Am I happy with this level of clicks / traffic or do I want MORE?
– Have I written what I feel to be good articles that should be ranking a whole lot better?
This is the start of understanding how keywords and organic search traffic really DOES influence how well your blog does. And as you can guess, the big sites rank well for words that attract tens of thousands of visitors across multiple keywords.
The next step will be deciding what you want to do about it. Regardless of whether your goal is to make some money or simply attract more people, you’ll need to find some dynamite keywords that are what I like to call the perfect storm:
– Reasonable level of search volume
– Low competition
– Great CPC
These are the ones you have a chance of ranking well for.
There is the free route where you can use Google Keyword Planner (from Google Adwords) to research various keyword phrases. This will give you a very good idea of the traffic. But you’ll have absolutely no way of evaluating the competition without doing your own manual review of the top 10 search results for each keyword of interest. I don’t advise that! I tried that for about one day and it was a nightmare.
Honestly do yourself a favor and invest in Long Tail Pro Platinum. It does all this for you with a Keyword Competitiveness score in addition to everything else I’ve mentioned. It has seriously been well worth every penny spent.
For now let’s get you in the mode of getting comfortable researching and collecting good keywords. Then we’ll move on from there.
Great job!! I had a great month too and while less of my income is coming from advertising/sponsored posts, it’s awesome to be growing the other aspects of online income. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Fig. It has been really great to grow and develop the more “passive” streams. I still can’t believe I can go a whole month without making one single change to one of my websites and still they earn several hundred dollars.
Nice work!!
My Adsense income fluctuates all the time. One month I’ll kill it and then the next it will drop off. I still make decent money, but I wish I could understand the trend. In any case, January kept up the great end of 2014 that I experienced. Hopefully I can keep it up!