January’s Neglected Niche Site Update

There are still a couple of days left to go as I write this, but I figured I’d go ahead with this update.

In November, the niche site I’d put up over the summer and then completely neglected made a bit over $11, up from $1.63 in October and $.12 in September. In December, the site made a bit over $21, proving me wrong in saying that November’s earnings were the cap.

In January, the site proved me wrong once again, earning over $35. There was a flurry of traffic in the mid to late part of the month, probably from the site peeking into the first page of Google for the primary keyword, and starting to rank well for associated long-tail keywords (e.g. product names).

I still think that the site is limited in earnings by a couple of important factors I neglected back in the summer when I created the site.

First, the main keyword traffic is minimal. The flurry of mid-month traffic in January was close to the limit of what I can expect out of the main keyword.

Second, the amount earned per click on Adwords ads is fairly low. If I were doing a site these days, I’d discard this niche and look for one that paid $1 or more per click, which would have nearly tripled my earnings.

So, while the site has paid for itself, and has earned enough in the last month to offset some membership fees I have as part of other Internet Marketing efforts, I wouldn’t call it an unqualified success.

I know more now about proper keyword research than I did then. I also, unfortunately, don’t have time to put together another one (I’m concentrating on adding content to a couple of quality niche sites) to see what happens with better research.

Anyone have any niche site success stories?