I was thinking about my lack of success so far in building profitable niche sites, and decided to go back and see when I started. Even though I have not kept this blog active, I am glad I started it as the first few posts helped give me a timeline.

Sometime in September of 2008 I stumbled upon the Warrior Forum and came across a brand new program called The Niche Blogger by Amy Bass. This program has become fairly popular (I believe) in the IM world, so I won’t go into any details. But basically the program offered help in an area I was interested in getting involved in – niche site building.

I only stayed with the program for 3 months as I didn’t feel it was worth the ongoing monthly membership cost, but the first 2 months of content were important in getting me started. First, I knew almost nothing about Wordpress so the program was very helpful for getting my first WP sites up. Second, being involved with the program kept me motivated.

On the downside, I don’t think The Niche Blogger program was very good at helping me choose keywords to develop my niche around, specifically when it came to choosing a domain name. So I have temporarily abandoned some of those early sites I made (despite the time and cost) to focus on the sites I created later with better keywords.

Anyway, I would say that October 1st was when I got started building my first niche sites. Out of the first batch I am only still actively working on one. I created a better batch a month or two later, but still not great (I’ve learned more about keywords). But going off the October date, that is 7 months of inconsistent site building and my profit has been negligible mostly due to lack of traffic. Not good.

So why the lack of at least some success? Well, I can’t say for sure, but there are many things at play.

1.    Online earning success is not as easy as the “gurus” make it seem – I knew this already so I haven’t been terribly disappointed. I built my first (and only) site in 2005 on a more personal niche. I didn’t pay that much attention to timing, but I know it took awhile (over a year) to start seeing decent traffic. Websites need to age.

2.    Keyword selection – I alluded to this already. If I could go back with the info I have learned over the last few months I wouldn’t choose the same keywords. Live and learn and try again.

3.    Inconsistent effort – I work full-time and have 2 kids. I do what work I can as I have time so some of this is out of my control. However, I have also followed some rabbit trails over the last few months instead of focusing on one target to be profitable. I’m actually okay with that as I think I learned a lot along the way.

4.    TIME – back to point #1, I think success online just takes time for the vast majority of people. Google likes an aged site and it takes time to build content and links. Luckily I don’t need to make cash from my sites yet so I can afford the lack of profit, but it can be difficult to stay motivated.

5.    Lack of luck – I think part of profitability online is stumbling onto the right formula for YOU. That doesn’t negate research and hard work, but most of the successful IMers admit that some of their efforts don’t pan out for no obvious reason.

Now the question is – what to do next? For the most part I will just keep plugging along with what I am doing as I do feel I have made great progress in learning what is important in creating a profitable niche site. I feel very optimistic that my hard work will pay off eventually and hopefully consistently.

The great appeal to building niche sites is the passive income. If I can create a profitable site, even if it takes a year to turn a profit, it is my hope that the profit will continue to roll in with minimal maintenance. Getting the real estate (domain and ranking) is the first step, and the hardest step, but after that the opportunities are wide open.

My only problem now is deciding whether I should focus on one site and get it profitable, or continue working multiple angles at once. I kinda go back and forth between those two options week to week and probably will continue to not focus unless I see a clear opportunity. The reasoning is that I am sorta waiting for one of my sites/approaches to be profitable and then I can put more effort into that site/approach rather than spend my time on something that may never pan out.

So 7 months since I started this blog and I have made progress, but almost no profit. But my goal remains the same – working towards home and I am excited about how far I have come despite the lack of monetary success.

Related posts:

1. Niche Site Building – Progress Update
2. Refocusing My Approach – Niche Site Building
3. I Hope I am Back