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 $202.81 from Adsense in March 2010; this March it made almost triple that in ad revenue with a healthy $200+ in affiliate commissions as well.

Pets Niche Site Earnings in March 2011

• Google Adsense:                                                       $586.24
• Clickbank ebook sales commissions                          $199.03
• Amazon book product sales commissions                    $19.42

Total                                                                   $804.69 (+$351 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?

Strong Google Adsense Earnings

There's been a good deal of chatter in the online writing world regarding Google's recent algorithm change, which basically penalized sites with low-quality content and gave more search engine favor to sites with original, high-quality material. Places like ezinearticles.com, HubPages.com and numerous "content farms" with duplicate content, PLR articles, spun articles and other cheap content saw their traffic suffer and even nosedive.

Conversely, websites with good and excellent quality control and all original material received a boost from the changes. My own niche site on pets was one of these -- its Adsense earnings for March are stronger than ever. My total Adsense for March is projected to be my highest month to date and should close at $700 or more. I'm still working on my goal to get that up to $1,000 a month by the end of the year.

How can online writers, especially those working to build up their residual income through niche sites and blogs, stay on Google's good side? What do you need to know to "write for Google"?

Don't write for Google. 

That's the simplest way to put it. Your website, whether monetized with adsense units, affiliate links, paid ads or a combination of these and other models, should have its audience (real live humans) as the primary focus when creating content, not Google (the robots).

Is your site helpful? Funny? Informative? Will the people who find your blog based on the keywords you're targeting find what they need -- whether its information, resources, product reviews -- if they land on your site?

Do you publish only original, creative, quality material, whether it's written by yourself or a paid freelancer? You should be -- for the sake of your readers and for your own success. I have never paid for PLR articles (the ones sold in packs to multiple buyers who then tweak them to make them "different"). I have never "spun" articles myself or with a program to turn copied content into something "unique." About 95% of my content, including the articles I post on article directory sites, was written by me. I've paid for a few articles but only from US-based freelance writers.

Ensuring the best of quality control on your site, in addition to a pleasing template and tasteful ads and links, is the best thing you can do for your online business and to increase your residual income. Position your sites so that these quality control checks by Google and other search engines improve your ranking and boost your earnings, not the opposite.


Did Google's changes affect you, for good or bad? What's your strategy to improving your online residual income?

August Earnings from eHow, Adsense & Affiliate Sales (and Bukisa)

I know how much people enjoy seeing earnings reports from writers and internet marketers -- it can be both encouraging and reassuring that making money online is really possible. When I was first starting out it was a real boost to my confidence to read updates from bloggers making $500 and $1,000 or even $10,000 a month. It was very inspirational to me. So ... here are some of my earnings from August 2010:

eHow                $1,825.05

Google Adsense   $332.77

cj.com                 $224.92

Amazon             $168.25

WA                   $110.00

 
Clickbank             $60.06

Bukisa                  $53.27

 Total reported here:             $2,774

(I also have miscellaneous earnings from single-company affiliate programs, my ebook, and a few other sources.)

August was a very good, although not record-breaking, month for eHow earnings. (The number here is just for my earnings under the WriterGig profile; I also have residuals from Demand Studios eHow articles and from another eHow profile not included here.) After checking the month's earnings, I found myself wishing I'd written just a few hundred more eHow articles than I did over the nearly 3 years the eHow Writers' Compensation Program (WCP) existed. Yes, I'm building up my own sites and blogs ... but these articles and pages take much longer than eHow articles did to start earning. You really can't beat eHow's great pagerank and traffic. But I digress.

Google Adsense was also strong, my second-highest month by a few dollars. This is encouraging as my main Adsense earner actually does best in the spring, so a strong August is very promising. My other niche sites are starting to show up with Adsense impressions and I'm looking forward to seeing these numbers grow as I add content and build backlinks.

My cj.com sales were more than $200, and the bulk of that is for a specific product I started marketing three years ago simply by adding a link under one of my eHow articles. I have four eHow articles that link to this product; those few links from 2007 have brought in over $2,000 in sales commissions. That is about as passive as income gets.

Clickbank is on the rise for me, which is a direct result of putting into practice the methods taught at the new affiliate marketing membership site I joined back in June (I'll blog more about this in an update post soon). It's great to see these sales, especially since they amount to $20 per sale. So three sales for the CB product I promote yields $60 ... I had to sell 123 products on Amazon in August to get the $168 listed here. But I'm not complaining about those Amazon earnings ... most of them are from years-old links as well and are a great boost to my monthly earnings total.

Was August a good month for your online earnings? Have you added any new residual income/ passive income streams this summer?

Lazy Summer Days

Just a quick post as I get ready to celebrate the Fourth of July with my family and friends. I hope all my work at home mom friends and fellow residual income entrepreneurs are having a great summer so far.

I've been taking the kids to the pool and to the park a few times a week, and my work schedule is on summer hours ... to tell the truth, I am looking forward to ramping things back up in September when the kids will be in school/ preschool three mornings a week and I'll be hanging out in the coffee shop with my laptop and an organized list of what I plan to accomplish this fall and winter.

Here's an overview of where I am these days:

• Google adsense earnings have increased for me almost each month and I have made payout two months in a row for the first time (May and June). This has encouraged me to increase my work on my various niche sites and blogs.
  
• Still writing eHow articles as time allows and I think of niche titles/ topics not already done to death on the site. Earnings are holding steady but not increasing dramatically.
  
• Experimenting with Squidoo, as I mentioned in my last update. I'm having a much harder time getting my Squidoo Lenses indexed by Google than I expected -- eHow has spoiled me.
  

My goal for the summer is to add a few niche site webpages each week, in addition to several content articles and some backlink building. I also need to monetize my nutrition website and add affiliate products to my niche sites.

What are your summer goals?