The month is over and it’s time for the 100K Project update. You can read the previous update here.
I just got back to working on the 100K Project website after an 8-months hiatus. Most of the things I’ve been doing are quite small to see the overall impact. In fact, at this time, I still have some nitty-gritty things that I’m handling for the site.
Let’s see what went down in May.
Project 100K May Recap
In May, I did not write any new posts for the site. Instead, I was taking stock to see what needs to be done as well as planning a lot
One thing I have to admit is that I’m an expert at doing stuff that does not move the needle. I like doing all the cosmetic stuff; logo design, theme design, and the like. However, when it comes to things that actually make money, such as writing content, I get lazy and tend to postpone them.
Here’s what I did in May.
KGR Keywords
I’ve just been collecting a bunch of KGR keywords that I plan to write articles around this coming month. The main plan is to have about 200 articles published on the website by end of the year. However, I think this is a low ceiling plan should I stick to working on one project alone.
After taking stock of things, I know it will be best to stick to one project until completion.
There is no payday for a half-done idea.
So far, I have about 200 KGR keywords in an Excel sheet that I plan to write. This is the easy part. The difficult part will be writing the articles.
Homepage Redesign
I’ve also redesigned by niche site’s homepage. In the previous updated, I indicated that I’d changed the theme to Ecommerce by MyThemeShop.
After going through what I need to accomplish in the short and long run, I’ve decided that starting to dropship products at this time will be spreading myself too thin. Therefore, I’m putting that on a hold. Instead, the main focus for the short run will be creating articles that will be monetized through affiliate programs.
With this in mind, I’ve redesigned the homepage to give it a more “bloggy” look instead of an “online store” look. I want the site to have a “bloggy” look for link building purposes. I think most bloggers would not link out easily to a site that’s a blatant online store. However, they are more likely to link to it if it looks more of a blog.
I’ve planned to launch my first link building campaign this month and I think the way that the homepage looks will play an important role on the number of people that will say “yes” to my link requests.
Lead Magnet
On the homepage, I’ve put an email capture form where I’m offering the eBook as a lead magnet. The form is integrated with BirdSend, my current email service provider. I’ll be offering the eBook on the homepage email capture form as well as selected informational content.
The eBook is just a PDF download that I made using MS Word.
By the way, BirdSend offers up to 5,000 contacts for FREE. If you sign up through this link, you get an additional 500 contacts for free.
Monetization
I had signed up for Sovrn Commerce (formerly Viglink) a while ago but never got to use it on any of my sites. Over the course of the month, I’ve been looking for ways to diversify the monetization strategies for the site. With dropshipping now put on hold, I’ve been searching for other affiliate networks to join.
I installed Viglink and went on to make $7! This came as a surprise as I only installed the code on my site about mid-way through the month.
I’ll see what the network has in store for my site this month.
Statistics
For some perspective, here are some stats for the niche site for May.
Ahrefs Stats
Nothing major here. I really didn’t expect anything significant since no content was posted.
Semrush Stats
For SEMrush, my traffic decreased by half. This is what I have at the moment:
Traffic Stats
The site is receiving an average of 10 visitors a day. Most of the visits are direct referrals are from Instagram but a few from Yahoo and Bing.
I had not installed Google Analytics code on the site before. I was using Statcounter. Here is what I had in May.
I’ve just installed Google Analytics on the site and will be using it to report future traffic stats.
Earnings
For earnings, I got a whopping $10 from Amazon and $7 from Viglink.
A total of $17. Cost of purchasing a domain recouped!
One thing I’ve noticed from the Amazon earnings report and the Viglink earnings report is the huge difference in commission. With Amazon, I sold items worth $285.81 and made $10.94. With Viglink, I sold items worth $83.72 and made a $7.56 commission.
Do the math; Amazon doesn’t seem to be worth it.
However, I have to admit I’m intriged by the many Amazon niche success stories I read everywhere. Therefore, I’ll continue monetizing the site with Amazon but will be shifting slowly to other networks.
Plan for June
For June, there are three main things I’ll be doing:
- Write more articles (I’m targeting 50 articles). I think I’ll manage this number if I commit to working on the site on a full-time basis.
- Pinterest. I haven’t really cracked the code on Pinterest. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the topic but I’m not seeing any results. Perhaps it’s my lack of consistency? I don’t know.
- Build backlinks. I have a private network of sites that I’ll be building links from. The links will comprise of a couple from real sites and others from my PBN network. Apart from this, I’ll be building foundational social profile links.
From my analysis, the bulk of the work is with content writing. I’ve hired two VAs to help me with link building and Pinterest while I concentrate on content.
My goal is to be writing and posting at least two pieces of content everyday. This time, I’m not waiting for the content to be perfect (proofread, links and images added, etc) to post it. Instead, I’m posting the articles in their draft state and will edit them later on.
The rationale of doing this is to get the content to age on Google as early as possible.
The above are my goals for the 100K Niche Site Project in June.
May the winds be fair to my competition!
Notable Links
- Viglink Affiliate Network
- BirdSend (Email marketing software)
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