Niche Website Profit Report

Profitable Pets?

My pets-themed niche website, which I started just over two years ago, is doing very well so far. It always picks up in the spring and summer months and slows down considerably in the winter. March earnings are outpacing last month, so I'll be sure to report on it again in April. But I thought I would share my income sources for the site in case it would be helpful to anyone working on niche sites for residual income.

Pets Niche Site Earnings in February 2011

• Google Adsense:                                                            3.11
• Clickbank ebook sales commissions                               .09
• Amazon book & product sales commissions                   .10

Total                                                                                         3.30

When I say "pets theme," I'm being intentionally vague as to the exact niche. It's a site on a specific type or breed of pet, and my url is a three-word well-searched keyword phrase in that niche. Currently, I have 22 content pages (articles with unique urls) published on the site.

Encouraged by my pet site's success thus far, I've made it one of my top priorities for this spring. I'd love to have it earning ,000 a month this time next year. To that end, I have some work to do.

Niche Site Plans and Goals

• Site redesign: I built this site on a free template back when I was brand new to website creation. Seriously, the site is not pretty, and its template is a bit bulky and problematic to work with. Whether I buy a quality template or hire a designer to create me something practical and attractive, this is one of my top priorities for the site. 
• More content: Its earnings are impressive for having a couple dozen pages, so adding more content both to improve my readers' experience and to add income possibilities is a no-brainier.
• Forum posting: I have a profile on a niche-specific forum and need to increase my posting there to drive traffic and create backlinks to my site.
• Social media interaction: Adding a Facebook Like button is one thing I'm hoping to implement and currently researching. 

Are you building residual income through niche sites, or planning to start? What are you working on this week?

Pets Niche Website Profit Report

In my last post about niche website earnings, I promised to update with March's data once the month closed. As I noted, this particular site tends to see its highest earnings in February through May, with its lowest months in the fall and winter.

In the slow months, I didn't ignore my site. I added a few new pages, created some backlinks and started a Facebook page that links to the site and has generated some conversation on topics of interest to this type of pet owner.  But in March I was busy on other projects, so this is true passive/ residual  income.

It's interesting to see how much the site's traffic and income has grown in the past 12 months -- for contrast, my pets niche site made only 2.81 from Adsense in March 2010; this March it made almost triple that in ad revenue with a healthy 0+ in affiliate commissions as well.

Pets Niche Site Earnings in March 2011

• Google Adsense:                                                       6.24
• Clickbank ebook sales commissions                          9.03
• Amazon book product sales commissions                    .42

Total                                                                   4.69 (+1 over Feb.)

Traffic stats for March : Just over 24,000 visits counting for nearly 68,000 page views.

I'm still working on implementing the improvements I mentioned previously (new website design being paramount), and this week will add Facebook "Like" buttons on my pages to increase social network traffic to the site. With Google's recent algorithm changes, social links seemed to have gained importance. I'm already pleased to see people "liked" the Facebook page I made and socializing on the page. It's a more fun way to bring traffic to the site than just writing content articles, for sure.

If you haven't started a niche site and want recommendations for getting started, check out my new Tools & Training resource page. In a nutshell, that's what I've used to educate myself and build a site that earns. 

Are you working on a niche site? What are your goals for it?

Book Review: How to Write & Sell Simple Information for Fun, Profit

I've just finished reading How to Write & Sell Simple Information for Fun and Profit: Your Guide to Writing and Publishing Books, E-Books, Articles, Special Reports, Audio Programs, DVDs, and Other How-To Content by Robert Bly. The book not only earns its long title through a plethora of detailed information on each topic covered; it over-delivers on the reader's expectations.

The author knows his stuff, which is clear from reading the book and from the fact that he makes over 0,000 a year through his writing and has earned six figures as a freelance writer consistently for several decades. He's weathered the transition from print-based freelance writing to online content and multimedia (audio CD's, DVD material, software and more).

He gives an excellent overview about becoming an accomplished how-to writer and an expert in your chosen niche. It's important to specialize and become well-known in one niche or a small handful of related ones, he says, given the nature of today's information-hungry climate and the social nature of the internet. Rather than spread yourself over many different subjects, it's better (and arguably more profitable) to learn one area very well and to share information in that specific topic.

Chapters most relevant to my interests were those on writing and selling books, ebooks and articles. My plans for future residual income generation include Kindle self-publishing as well as a traditional hard copy book. Bly's advice in this book has been invaluable, and I'm keeping his book on my shelf to reference as I go.

The only topic he didn't address that I think would have been within the scope of his book is publishing how-to information on your own website and earning money from ads and other monetization methods, while giving the information away for free. I imagine this isn't something he focuses on, but he does have a section on membership sites as a method of earning money from how-to writing.

Have you read any books pertaining to freelance/ web writing or internet marketing lately? I'd love to get your recommendations -- please share what you think in the comments section, below.