You may remember my post on Niche Site Duel 2.0 and my beautiful little Coon Hunter’s Blog. Well I haven’t updated you on that for a while so it’s time to spill it. To be quite honest I haven’t done any work to this blog since May 30th!
I have learned a lot through this process and am shocked at some of my findings.
Let’s take a look at the good, the bad, and what the future holds.
The Good
Surprisingly, the Coon Hunters Club is doing well with the search engines and gaining reader interest.
In fact, I had three people email me this month about coon hunting and coon dogs. One person even wanted me to come get raccoons that were scaring her cats! I think she may have been a bit confused though because I do not live even remotely close to her.
On the search engine front my little website is ranking for several keywords. And ranking very well for the two keywords that I had concentrated on: coon hunters and coon hunters club.
So, for the month of August the Coon Hunters Club received a total of 1,584 page views. That may not blow your mind but let me remind you – “coon hunters” and “coon hunters club” is not a highly searched for term, believe it or not. And, I barely did any SEO (search engine optimization) for this blog.
Visitors stayed on the blog for an average of 1:29 in the month of August. So, for the little amount of link building I did for this site I am actually pretty impressed it’s ranking so well in the search engines.
The Bad
Even though I am getting a little bit of traffic my way the monetization strategies aren’t going great. I did a log of Google AdSense and Media.net ads with this blog. While they do clicked on quite a bit the payout is terrible. I mean really, really low.
I need to remove all the ads from this site and focus more on affiliate marketing.
I did put up an Amazon store but have yet to make a sale. The next time I make a niche site I will definitely do more research on ad payouts beforehand.
Conclusion
I think this site could be profitable if I put more work into it, built an email list, and focused on affiliate marketing. If I could consistently make a couple hundred dollars a month I would probably just sell the blog since I don’t jack about coon hunters anyway.
But, I am a bit strapped for time at the moment. When I make the self-employment switch niche sites will definitely become a bigger part of my portfolio. And, hopefully the Coon Hunters Club will have a future.
Want to read about some niche site success? Check out fellow blogger MMD’s progress!!
Thanks for the update Alexa. I have been wanting to do a niche site but its not been a priority. Perhaps in a couple months b
Ah, this is the thing with niche sites… they take take and it’s easy to lose focus! I’ve sold most of mine off. The potential is there, but as I said, you will be so split that your brain will go nuts. That’s how it is for me anyway.
But yeah if you have an hour or two to throw at it, slap up an opt in box and start collecting emails. Even if you don’t email them right away, just put it there so it can do its thing. Then add offers to the autoresponder later.
Oh, come on! Don’t you want to make a road trip to get rid of that lady’s raccoons? Sounds like a great use of your time!
Very interesting, Alexa! I’ll be curious to see how things go when you go full-time into self-employment. Seems like the niche’ site stuff is working well for many people.
I have to admit that I’m pretty intrigued by the whole niche site idea, mostly because of MMD’s influence. It’s definitely something I want to learn more about. Sounds like you’ve learned some good lessons here so far. It’s not just about the traffic, it’s about what kind of revenue that traffic can generate.
Thanks for the update Alexa 🙂
Alexa – The Coon Hunter!! A new side hustle or reality TV show??
I have a few niche sites that make me a little over a hundred bucks a month or so…sometimes more, sometimes less. They are mostly monetized with Adsense but I do have one that also caters solely to Amazon customers and I make very little.
I will be updating my niches sites soon and building upon them as well and feel that they could generate at least a couple of hundred dollars a month or so.
Good luck with your niches when you hit the pavement running with your self-employment plan 🙂
Take care and all the best.
Lyle
Hey Alexa, thanks for the update. I used to have a niche site but, it was so easy to get rid of it when I did. I guess for me, blogging is best because you can always find something to talk about and, it tends to be easier to allow a blog to take on a persona than a niche site. None the less, I wish you all the best in your journey!
My only question is how many affiliate programs can you join in order to make it profitable? I don’t know anything about the coon hunting industry, so this is my main question.
Thanks for the update…I was wondering how your niche site was going. I just checked out the site. It looks good, though I know nothing about coon hunting. I’d be interested in learning more about building a niche site…just have to find a good topic!
Pat Flynn of SmartPassiveIncome.com is my favorite blogger when it comes to niche sites. He bares all on his site and he has an awesome podcast. Check it out!
That is certainly an interesting topic for a site. I know nothing about it, but I bet you could corner the market in a niche like that. Do you plan to continue to work on this site or will you let it go if you come up with another idea that might be have higher search potential?
Alexa, thank you sincerely for sharing insights into your niche site. I am interested in trying something like this (a sports themed site) but am similarly strapped for time. I barely make the time to keep up with my blog and the others that I follow. If you find a way to get the right approach (affiliate links, outsourcing, etc) I’d love to hear about it.
I’m doing another site but it’s not really a niche site. I’m worried about how to mange two blogs at once! Yikes!
Hi Alexa,
Now that you’ve started, you can’t give up! 🙂
I’m curious:
– About how many pages of content do you have?
– Where are you ranking in Google for the main exact match keyword?
+1500 pageviews while you did nothing with the site all month isn’t too bad. However, I do agree the income potential is probably pretty low. If the CPC for your search terms isn’t that great, you’d probably be better marketing specific products or services to the audience. What those are I have no idea. There would need to be some research. That’s why I always pick financial-type sites. The ads are always the same and usually have a high payout.
Perhaps another option would be to write specific organizations and see if they are interested in buying the site? And then there’s always Flippa. However if the site doesn’t’ make anything right now, the users of Flippa probably wouldn’t be too interested.
Honestly the secret to me getting anything done on my sites has been to outsource everything. I don’t know if you’ve tried oDesk, but its been very helpful (and cheap) for finding writers, post submitting , and link building.
Thanks a ton for featuring my niche building story. More updates coming up in September!
Hi Alexa,
I’m impressed…I want to do a niche site and I have ideas, I just haven’t spent the time to get one going. I’m still working to make my core site as good as it can be because that’s my true passion.
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