Niche Site Lady - OCTOBER INCOME REPORT ($61,668)

Hey hey!

Is it just me, or is there a real lack of income reports this month?

I get it.

Sharing the downward graphs isn't as fun as sharing the upward ones.

And thanks to recent Google updates, it seems MOST of us have downward graphs right now.

But nosey parkers like me like to see them all, good and bad.

So here's mine...

(right after the ad break that makes it possible for me to write these emails)

- PAID AD - 

- END OF PAID AD - 

1: My Travel Blog

First, let's take a look at the travel blog.

This is the basket that all my eggs are going into right now, and it's where most of my income comes from...

• Revenue - $53,887 (down 12%)

• Page views - 918,719 (down 11%)

• Site age - 4.5 years

• Articles - 807 (+53)

• Page views per article - 1,138

• Revenue per article - $67

• RPM - $59

• Monetisation - 81% ads, 12% affiliate, 7% sponsors

• Traffic sources - 67% organic search, 21% organic social, 7% direct, 4% email

The traffic is still dropping each month for this site. 

That's seasonal to some extent,

But, when I look at the year-on-year data, the Google organic search traffic is now flat compared to October 2022.

And that's not good. At all.

My plan to reverse the decline has two key parts:

1. Continue to update old articles

The tools I use for this are Query Hunter and KW Hero.

I'm seeing some big and fast improvements from making old content better.

I'll admit, it's a grind though.

2. Go after other traffic sources

Organic social traffic is up from 3,333 in Oct 2022 to 162,972 in Oct 2023. (Woohoo!)

Email traffic is up from 10,062 in Oct 2022 to 27,735 in Oct 2023. (Not bad!)

Next on my list to attack is Pinterest.

If you have any good resources/courses/people I should go to for Pinterest, please let me know. I'm a total n00b in this area.

2: My AI Test Site

This site shouldn't be doing well, but it is.

I made it to test AI tools and I only allow myself to work on it while I'm watching trash TV in the evening. 

(A 60-minute episode = one new article)

• Revenue - $255 (up 383%)

• Page views - 10,944 (up 112%)

• Site age - 6 months

• Articles - 60 (up 6)

• Page views per article - 182

• Revenue per article - $3

• RPM - $19

• Monetisation - 100% ads

• Traffic sources - 92% organic search, 6% direct

My strategy for this site is to copy and paste info from other websites into ChatGPT and ask it to use only the facts I give it to create articles.

Is this a long-term strategy? Probably not.

But to make $255 while watching TV and drinking wine is pretty cool.

It's basically free money.

So I'll keep going with this while it works.

3. My paused sites

I've paused work on my sites on gaming, environment and leisure.

There's no point in going into detail on the reporting on these, because I'm not working on them. 

Together, they made $7,780 in October.

That's passive income at this point.

4. My new site

In last week's email, I told you all about the new site I'm launching.

I have this agency creating the content,

This agency doing the link-building,

And a real niche expert doing the editing.

I'm excited to see the site progressing - the content is great.

The Bottom Line

Overall, my sites made $64,493 in October.

$56,459 of that was profit.

That's about $8k less than last month, but I'm absolutely fine with that!

I've adjusted my mindset in a good direction this month.

I went to the gym 22 times.

I picked the kids up from school most days and we ate dinner as a family.

I joined a networking group and made new friends.

And I'm generally feeling less stressed.

These aren't metrics I would have paid any attention to in the past, at all.

But really, the P&L is just one aspect of a business.

All this other stuff matters, probably more than anything else.

Next week, should I do a week-in-the-life style email to show you what my day-to-day looks like?

Let me know if you'd find that interesting.

I'm a nosey person, I like stuff like that.

Or if there's something else you'd rather me share, let me know!

Until next time,

NSL

Affiliate disclaimer: To cover the cost of my email software and the time I spend writing these emails, I do sometimes link to products. Please assume these links are affiliate links. If you choose to buy through my links then THANK YOU - it will make it possible for me to keep doing this.