I’ve been thinking of doing income reports for many months. But I always put it on the back burner as I didn’t want to commit to something new that could be time-consuming.
I also had other reservations about sharing my niche sites’ income online.
But after a lot of deliberation, I have decided to give this a shot – at least for a few months.
Since this is the first income report, it might be slightly longer than the ones that would follow this one.
Why Publish these Income Reports?
My idea is to have these as a written record of what I am doing, what’s working and not working, and what’s the result.
In the past 15 months, my work has completely changed from working on a couple of sites to working on 15+ sites.
The results have been encouraging, and I see that my system works. It inspires me to try new things and continually upgrade myself.
I am hoping that these income reports would also help some of my readers see that building a niche site is a profitable business and, at the same time, set some realistic expectations.
I do the monthly number crunching for all my sites anyway, so publishing these income reports is not a huge time suck.
And to be completely honest, I also hope to generate some extra income through this blog (Craft of Blogging), where I would be using some of my affiliate links of the tools and services I use.
What Sites are Included in the Income Report?
I have only included some of the sites that were started in or after 2019.
My aim here is to take a set of new sites and grow these to four/five-figure income business.
To begin with, I’m including six sites that have been started in 2019 and 2020. Since some of the sites are too new, I don’t expect to see income from these for the next few months.
But I hope that all of the sites to be making money by 2021.
Here’s more detail on each of the sites included in the income report:
- Site 1 (started in mid-2019) – This site is in the home improvement niche and relies mostly on display ads and Amazon Associates Program.
- Site 2 (started in late-2019) – This site is again in the home improvement/appliances niche and relies mostly on display ad income and the Amazon associates program.
- Site 3 (started in late-2019) – This site is in the Pet’s niche and has been a bit slow in picking up. It currently makes a few bucks with display ads. I expect the income to pick up in early 2021
- Site 4 (bought in early 2020) – I bought this site from one of the market places. It was only a few months old when I bought it and wasn’t making any money. It’s in the outdoor/hobby niche. It relies solely on Amazon associate for monetization as of now (and only makes a few bucks).
- Site 5 (started in early 2020) – This site is in the tech niche and currently relies on display ads to make money. It’s in a fairly competitive niche and I expect it to take some time before seeing some growth. As of now, it makes a few bucks with display ads.
- Site 6 (started in late 2020) – This is the newest of the lot. It’s in a broad niche that can cover multiple different niches. I don’t expect it to make any money this year (maybe by mid-late 2021)
While some of the sites are already making money (from a few bucks a month to low four-figures), There is no guarantee that all of these sites would succeed.
There is a possibility that some of the sites may not work. We’ll see how it goes.
Also, note that this does not include income from my other established sites that was started before 2019 (including Craft of Blogging).
A huge shout out to John Dykstra from Fatstacks for inspiring me to write these reports. You will see that my income reports structure is heavily inspired (some may say almost copied) from his work.
Now let’s get to the numbers:
Niche Site Income in August 2020
- Site 1 (Home Improvement) – $1,383
- Site 2 (Home Improvement) – $1,843
- Site 3 (Pets) – $32
- Site 4 (Outdoor) – $15
- Site 5 (Tech) – $0
- Site 6 (Broad Multi-niches) – $0
Some $$ screenshots:
As of now, most of the income is coming from the first two sites. It’s expected as these sites have more content and have also got more time to rank organically.
Expense in August 2020
I’m only including those expenses that have been made for these sites (i.e., it does not include any expense made for my other sites).
However, if there are any tools or services that are used by these sites as well as other sites in my portfolio, I will include that as an expense here.
- Content Writer from UpWork: $1,381
- Graphic Designer from UpWork: 103
- Integrately Lifetime Deal: $649
- ManageWP – $10.8
- Frase Lifetime Deal (AppSumo): $138
- ProWritingAid 1000 Plagiarism check: $200
Expenses related to hosting and some of the plugins/tools are paid yearly. I will add these whenever they come up for renewal.
All in all, not a bad month for a bunch of new sites, none of which is even 1.5 years old.
I expect the overall income to fluctuate in the coming months as I order more content from content writing agencies and UpWork.
