OVERVIEW
My last journey was a flop, but I learned a great deal from that.
With the experience I got by running that first site in 2017, I've created 2 new sites in 2018.
The hobby site will be monetized by adsense and the like; tech field.
The affiliate site will be monetized with Amazon mainly; outdoors sports. For June, the pageviews are around 1000 already.
PLANS
They are rapidly growing, which is motivating, but the problem is, I can't work on them in the coming 9 months starting from July (military service).
With that said, what I've done is I've layed a sort of groundwork only. I have not monetized them yet because I'm not sure how things will end up with me not being around to babysit and/or collect the money... I'm just going to let them sit like this and grow (including June's work) for those 9 months, pretty much. Maybe I'll get to do some maintenance on them from time to time, but that's about it.
TECHNICAL
The domains are bought via GoDaddy for 2 years. They are on a VPS (virtual private server, Vultr, $3.60/m) managed by ServerPilot hosting service (free). I've implemented https for both of them and they're using relatively optimized simple free themes (Best Simple and Wisteria).
SEO
I feel good about the SEO on those new sites. The hobby site has no SEO-level competition basically. The affiliate site has relatively low competition overall - there's some room to snap untouched keywords basically.
The on-page SEO for the affiliate site in particular has:
The off-page SEO is not something I'm overly concerned about. I feel like there's no need for it in all actuality. I'm pretty sure that simply having better content will do the trick over time. I'm in no rush.
MONI
All is paid in advance for 2 years. The affiliate site is sure to make at least some money, that's a given. Just needs more content and time...
I'm not quite sure how I'm going to monetize the hobby site though. The audience is not looking to buy anything in particular, but there are some potential ways to monetize it (adsense; contacting digital product sellers and suggest to give their solutions more visibility on my site by demanding a small monthly fee - right now the free solutions are at the front and most nobody needs to scroll past the free solutions on the lists of ways to do what they want to do; etc).
Expenses:
My last journey was a flop, but I learned a great deal from that.
With the experience I got by running that first site in 2017, I've created 2 new sites in 2018.
- Hobby site (3rd of March, 2018).
- Affiliate site (5th of April, 2018).
The hobby site will be monetized by adsense and the like; tech field.
The affiliate site will be monetized with Amazon mainly; outdoors sports. For June, the pageviews are around 1000 already.
PLANS
They are rapidly growing, which is motivating, but the problem is, I can't work on them in the coming 9 months starting from July (military service).
With that said, what I've done is I've layed a sort of groundwork only. I have not monetized them yet because I'm not sure how things will end up with me not being around to babysit and/or collect the money... I'm just going to let them sit like this and grow (including June's work) for those 9 months, pretty much. Maybe I'll get to do some maintenance on them from time to time, but that's about it.
TECHNICAL
The domains are bought via GoDaddy for 2 years. They are on a VPS (virtual private server, Vultr, $3.60/m) managed by ServerPilot hosting service (free). I've implemented https for both of them and they're using relatively optimized simple free themes (Best Simple and Wisteria).
SEO
I feel good about the SEO on those new sites. The hobby site has no SEO-level competition basically. The affiliate site has relatively low competition overall - there's some room to snap untouched keywords basically.
The on-page SEO for the affiliate site in particular has:
- 1500-4000+ word articles with pictures, short paragraphs, useful content, etc;
- interlinking to useful and relevant sources within the site itself with ultimate pillar content for each category;
- low competition keywords for the most part already bringing in users with buyer intent.
- (user friendly - useful yet simple and pleasant overall feel of the site(s))
The off-page SEO is not something I'm overly concerned about. I feel like there's no need for it in all actuality. I'm pretty sure that simply having better content will do the trick over time. I'm in no rush.
MONI
All is paid in advance for 2 years. The affiliate site is sure to make at least some money, that's a given. Just needs more content and time...
I'm not quite sure how I'm going to monetize the hobby site though. The audience is not looking to buy anything in particular, but there are some potential ways to monetize it (adsense; contacting digital product sellers and suggest to give their solutions more visibility on my site by demanding a small monthly fee - right now the free solutions are at the front and most nobody needs to scroll past the free solutions on the lists of ways to do what they want to do; etc).
Expenses:
- 2 domains: $65
- VPS: $70
- not monetized yet