How Much Do My Sites Earn a Month?
After a recent post in the smingle thread on the a4u forum which recommended a domain name and gave a projected monthly income of around 150 a month if you got that site to number one in Google I decided to have a look at my sites and see how they performed each month financially.
It was pretty depressing reading.
I used the tracking IDs in Amazon Associates of which I create a new one for each site and then looked at the monthly reports. Out of my 30 or sites only one was earning more than 50 a month (and only during a certain season). The rest were bringing in around 5-20 a month. Some make a few sales via Affiliate Window but not more than they do via Amazon. I do have a couple of micro niche sites which looks like are my biggest earners and they are promoted via PPC but are still not bringing in anything to write home about.
According to the information given in the smingle thread my domains and sites all sound good in theory:
- Keywords with 8,000 – 20,000 exact local matches a month (sometimes more)
- Products that retail between 10 and 100 (more on some sites)
- Easy to navigate sites with product reviews and price comparison ECUs where relevant
- At number in one Google for their main keyword
But even with all that they are just not getting the traffic or bringing home the bacon.
A few people have advised me to find my best site and develop it further and to continue doing what I am doing as it working but I don’t really have a best site and what I am doing is too big to keep doing i.e. too many small sites not making much money and taking too much time to keep track of and up to date.
To make this year a success I need to shake it up a bit and try something new…
How much work does it take you to get a site ranking, is it just a case of adding a few nice links on your other sites.
I have the same set up as you really, but with every site its sort of set and forget, I have a checklist that looks something like this:
- market research
- buy domain
- content
- wordpress
- theme
- affliate links
- add backlinks from my other sites
then i never change or sometimes even look at that site again, i just move on to the next one.
I’m looking for each site to make me a £1 a day…. if that’s an average of all sites then that’s ok too (like one site makes £10 a day, and 10 make nothing)
All I know is that if I make more sites, I make more money, you should just keep ploughing and don’t look at the science too much.
The “golden metric” is how many sites have you build today
How much actual traffic does “8,000 – 20,000 exact local ” tanslate into if your No1 for this keyword? I think the niche your in is very important too, ie i have as site in the travel niche that is no1 for a keyword that gets “3000 – 4000 exacts” and it makes me around 200. The key is the traffic converts really well and the commission can be big.
By the way im off to Pattaya in one week, whoohoo!
P
Quality or quantity – take your pick.
Wooweb has a valid model, I’m cool with that. Some folk would say Google will detect it and wind it up eventually. I’m not convinced Google looks to hit networks until they’re well into the thousands of sites, so I think he’s OK. Time will tell. Check out bluehatseo for linking models if you want to take that route.
But I prefer quality. Yes, bang up lots of sites to test the water, but then pick one or two and go with them. Leave the others though as they’ll always bring in some residual income.
One of my nice little earners is an auto-generated price comparison site I put up years ago. Couldn’t be bothered maintaining it, so took all the prices and links off, and now when people hit it they have to click an adwords link to get out. Makes No 1 in Google for lots of products nobody sells any more. Never planned it that way, but I won’t turn the money down.
PaulB’s figures seem about right to me. But to my mind the trick is to build one site (or blog) you’re passionate about and build and build on that. This blog could be it – not many affiliates out there are prepared to share honest info.
Lots of content you write will never generate more than coppers, but it’s all adding integrity to the site.
Add linkbait pages. If you can write a page in less than half a day it’s probably not good enough quality. Make it so that people want to visit, want to read more than one page, and want to come back again.
Lots of people will disagree with me, and I know it’s putting all your eggs in one basket, but building a rep, a brand, and having something you can be proud of is a real achievement.
How about a big site – expats guide to Thailand or something like that. Include a blog, lots of photos, comments, guest posters, become THE expert in the field and think how many long-tail keywords you could target on different pages of that site.
To sum up – build something you’re proud of.
NB – awfully long comment powered by Bunnahabhain, ingested in liberal quantaties.
@wooweb That kind of was the model I was working to unintentionally : setup lots of sites and hope each one makes a few quid a day but even that didn’t really happen.
How many sites do you have and how much money do you make roughly? Is it scalable and does it have longevity? How long until the sites start dying?
@PaulB “8,000 – 20,000 exact local ” translates into, if your No1 for this keyword, not a lot in my experience. I usually get about 5% click through rate.
Have a good time in Pattaya, not been there yet, don’t think the mrs would let me!
@Marchamont I’m slowly moving towards that way of thinking (big site, brand) after months of refusing to go down that route due to not being able to decide on a brand/niche/idea and not wanting to put all my eggs in one basket.
I’ve got a couple of ideas I am going to work on for big sites and see how they pan out then focus on the best one.
Its funny you mention this blog as a possible. It is easily my biggest site with the most hits but I’ve no idea how to monetise it. I would imagine trying to sell affiliate products to affiliates it near impossible!
I did start a Thailand blog but again couldn’t think of how to monetize it. If you are already out here I don’t know what you could promote?
I do want to build a big site and have a brand and something to be proud of and able to show people when they ask what I do for a living. Have you built such a site?
Just a thought – are you using .org.uk extensions ? My own experience is that a .co.uk will get a better click thru rate.
The other thing is to work on your meta description to encourage click thru.
Agree with Marchamont. Bluehatseo is one of the best blogs on seo out there
At £400/ month that just takes you over your tax allowance. I guess your affiliate money is going through a UK bank account so you still have to submit a tax return even if you’re in Thailand?
Hi Rob, I filled in the p85 form to state that I am not a UK tax resident this financial year. I’m not sure if being paid into a UK bank account fill affect this. I’m sure they will get in touch if it does.