Welcome to BeerMoneyForum.com - BIGGEST MAKE MONEY FORUM ONLINE

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.

• 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

Revenue:

• not monetized yet

 

[ThulfWaatu]

I'm still waiting for the day when I can (intentionally) simulate falling off my chair after opening up the Amazon Affiliate's dashboard and seeing a surprise of high quantity of sales...

I think it would feel nice...

 

[ThulfWaatu]

One day...

 

[ThulfWaatu]

...
From time to time, I've noticed that people buy those "bad" products. I swear to god, I have no idea why they do that.
...

I found out one reason as to why the guy those cheapest ones...

They rationalize this consciously bad decision of a purchase by saying that the product "looked cute".

 

[ThulfWaatu]

UPDATE
August, 2019

Expenses:

• 2 domains: $65 (March, 2018 - March, 2020)
• VPS: $95 ($34.39 left of that $95, approx $3.60 per month)
• Outsourced content: $447.50
• Off-page SEO services: $56
• Total: $663.50 (585.87 €)

Earnings:

• Adsense: 101.97 €
• Amazon Affiliate program: 3,761.45 €
• Total: 3,863.42 € ($4,253.81)

 

[ThulfWaatu]

UPDATE
August, 2019

Expenses:

• 2 domains: $65 (March, 2018 - March, 2020)
• VPS: $95 ($34.39 left of that $95, approx $3.60 per month)
• Outsourced content: $447.50
• Off-page SEO services: $56
• Total: $663.50 (585.87 €)

Earnings:

• Adsense: 108.61 €
• Amazon Affiliate program: 3,977.45 €
• Total: 4,086.06 € ($4,473.26)

 

[ThulfWaatu]

UPDATE
October, 2019

I assumed October to be the worst month out of the year, but it ended up being a little worse than that.
However, I finally, after months of nagging, incorporated Ezoic onto the Hobby site.

Adsense -VS- Ezoic

​

About the Hobby site
I've been neglecting the hobby site for quite a long time now. Seeing how Ezoic makes that site cover the cost of gas and more, I'm more inclined to invest more of my time & effort into coming up and writing more content for the site.

Affiliate site
To think that the affiliate site almost made less than the hobby site... ^.^


About the niche site empire plan...
At some point I had 5 sites in total. I ditched 2 of them because I just couldn't see them working out. I would have ditched the 3rd site as well, but I had already invested some money into it, so I just kept it. Something happened to it which made me question the potential of those other new sites I had created but have now ditched. I'll write more about that ordeal in the corresponding post here.

 

[ThulfWaatu]

UPDATE
November, 2019

​

Expenses:

• 2 domains: $65 (March, 2018 - March, 2020)
• VPS: $95 ($34.39 left of that $95, approx $3.60 per month)
• Outsourced content: $448
• Off-page SEO services: $56
• Total: $664 (602.64 €)

Earnings:

• Adsense: 112.77 €
• Ezoic: $80.86
• Amazon Affiliate program: 4,134.72 €
• Total: 4,320.88 € ($4,760.81)

 

[ThulfWaatu]

That happened.

 

[ThulfWaatu]

So to clarify my last post:


The point being that it's a summer niche website...

And it's about right now that it's not warm in any of the countries I'm currently signed up for.

Australia being a big chunk of the traffic means I'm probably leaving a lot of money on the table right now by not being signed up for the Australian market...

 

[ThulfWaatu]

Since Australian region Amazon is NOT included in the list of OneLink options and I'm not too keen on changing ALL the affiliate links found on the site into Australian-only affiliate links, I'm just not sending Australian traffic over to Amazon via the affiliate links at all and miss on potential revenue from there.

 

[ThulfWaatu]

UPDATE
December, 2019

I fixed up the expenses to be more accurate.

​

Expenses:

• 2 domains: $65 (March, 2018 - March, 2020)
• VPS: $120 ($44.99 left of that $120, approx $3.60 per month)
• Keyword package: $20
• Outsourced content: $484
• Off-page SEO services: $56
• Total: $725 (644.02 €)

Earnings:

• VPS credit: $3 (2.67 €)
• Adsense: 113.83 € ($127.93)
• Ezoic: $158.14 (142.32 €)
• Amazon Affiliate program: 4,406.75 € ($4,949.26)
• Total: 4,665.61 € ($5,239.99)

Happy New Year!​

 

[ThulfWaatu]

I haven't touched the 1st affiliate site for the last 6 months (apart from keeping the plugins up to date).

I should update all the posts, look over the market situation (new products released, old products updated or removed), and optimize my current pieces of writing...

My main money post has lost its 1st position. It is now sitting at a solid 4th position. If I did a major update, I'd probably get back the lost ranking.

There are now over 400 products in this niche!!! I'm pretty sure there weren't that many when I last checked the market situation in 2018. ^^ There's no way I can analyze all of them. These niche products are at a point now where marketing is actually important for standing out.


How am I to go about it? Last time I at least could make out which of them was a decent niche product and which was a Chinese knock-off. Now they all look really nice as if some actual effort was put into them. Hmm... I think it would be logical to compile the "best" list of newer models from the long-standing brands in the niche. Put more value in to brand image, aftersale service. Replace old models with new models, essentially. That's going to be a lot of work still. I wish it was a quick fix thing, but I think it's going to take me several days at the very least, assuming I actually put in the work and didn't just theorize what to do.

All in all, I can't believe it's something I'm complaining about right now.
It's like cursing the situation for having to just bend down to pick up the money... ^^

 

[ThulfWaatu]

When it comes to the 1st Amazon Affiliate site, I've now brought in a massive overhaul for the current main money post.

Since the market situation had changed quite a bit compared to early 2019, I had to totally rearrange the products in the "best" list article. I hope it was big enough of a content update change for google to notice (Google Freshness).

However, since the change was kind of that big, I now need to start pumping out new reviews so as to further give a hint to Google that I indeed know what I'm talking about and not just giving a vague copy of a product description with a picture and a link to Amazon... (Google E.A.T).

I should also fix up some other pillar posts that are outdated in this same fashion... But those I didn't bother to polish from the very start, so I'm not sure if I bother to update them at all given the history.... I hope the main money post that I've now update will carry me like it always has.

 

[ThulfWaatu]

When talking about the 1st Affiliate Site...

Things I need to do before summer:

• write or outsource more review posts (free traffic)
• fix up my secondary main money posts (increases conversion rate)
• wait for summer to get closer and closer (summer niche - profits through the roof)

Things I'm actually going to do before summer:

• occasionally look around for a decent enough low-price writer without ever finding one
• leave fixing up the content to the very last minute, and then not finish most of it because it's too late by then
• live in constant fear that as summer gets closer and closer, expected profits end up being smaller than last year's...

Extremely simple formula for profit:

• more posts = more money (real correlation)

All I have to do is create more content. Simple... That simple. The actual https://www.beermoneyforum.com/ am I doing instead? Thinking on how to do all that with minimal effort while maintaining maximum quality. Where's the golden middle? Why do I need the golden middle anyway? What if... A never-ending thinkering.

 

[ThulfWaatu]

A little update on the progress...

So I've been working through the new market situation and quickly determined where about each product was in the rankings overall (a LOT of products overall). I put together the pillar post and then started to do research for each of the new products in order to put together an in-depth review for each of them, one after another.

But then I came across that one new product that I suspected must've had something very fishy going on with it at first, but now that I've done the research for it in order to actually write the review, instead of that confirming my doubts, I was actually unironically mind blown instead.

It's priced as almost the cheapest product in the niche, but seems to have value comparable to that of the highest rated product in the niche... This can't be right, right? So I started to look for fatal flaws, but all I ended up with was a false descriptive information about one little thing about the product, and another thing to do with brand being a little basic, but that's to be expected for new players who only just started out. I've seen such new brands create a strong presence with the money their product sales generated after a while...



I found such a new player last year, too. And sure enough, I kind of feel proud having generated so many sales for that new guy they became the best seller in the niche. Now they're one of the top players in the cheaper segment, and other bigger review sites have now also included them in their lists this year. I think I've had a huge impact on the market situation. That's motivating.

With that said, I think I could make this new player yet another top seller in the niche.

 

[ThulfWaatu]

I'm just about done with the top priority review posts that are important for the "Best Cheap" pillar post. There's just so much more things I have to do...


Next up I was planning to update outdated review posts that got some organic traffic at some point. However, the amount of guilt I feel right now reading some of those outdated reviews that are talking about products that have been updated... I feel like I've let down the random readers who were hoping to find a review on the now updated version of a product. Because when I look around other places for more information, I automatically take the blame every time when it's clear the user has expressed dissatisfaction in their review on some things that have changed in the updated version they feel like they weren't informed about.

I've wanted to fix such reviews already long ago, but I always went on a serious guilt trip and never actually got to fix things up at the end of it. It's a nasty spiral. And granted, a very stupid one, if I rationalized it, but I can't beat unintentional psychological reactions before they happen (I'm not a robot)...

...dirty money

​

So yeah... I'll just need to take some time to fix them up to a point where I can be happy again. Simple. right? But then I start to think about all the other things I'd like to do I won't be doing because I'm spending all that time doing that first thing. The cup is half empty situation (as opposed to being half full*).


I have almost an entire day to just go through with the plans one step at a time. I'm more of a big picture guy myself - I'm not interested in the details, I get bored discussing the little things once I've understood the big concept behind something - I only care about the details so that I could understand the bigger picture; so this undertaking is extra troublesome in my case. And before I know it, a fresh morning has turned into a sleepy late evening and I never got to the main task I was aiming to deal with. Any1 relates?

 

[ThulfWaatu]

I've started to hone in on the affiliate site this month... Since I've left it to collect dust after the summer season, I figured I might as well try and scale things up.

NB! Wall of text ahead.​

Finished updating outdated review posts.
Apart from 2 review posts, pretty much everything is up to date now. Those 2 I might deal with at some point, but since I've kind of burned myself out from dealing with such posts, I don't feel like doing them any time soon.


I've started to write new product reviews instead.
I opened up Google Search Console and looked up the keywords people have used in Google search to end up on my site. Turns out there are quite a few products that have no reviews on Google, essentially 0 competition, low hanging fruits. Mostly it's my pillar post that ranks on the first page for those random products for I mention all the cheap products by the brand at the end of the post. Just 1 word was enough to make me rank on 1st page for certain products in the niche that had no competitors. So I've been just writing a proper review for them one after another to get myself an easy 1st spot. The search volume for most of them isn't anything to brag about, but they add up eventually as I tunnel them towards the money making pillar post playground.


Researching material so as to put together an additional pillar post.
I've said many times that this 1st affiliate site is far from complete. There's a lot of room to expand on things. I've decided to expand into the accessory items supplementing the main product itself. Imagine that the niche was currently honed in on "basketballs" - so far I have the "best cheap basketball" and "best basketball" pillar posts, but there's more to basketball as a sport than just the basketball itself. I could do more of those pillar posts, but I've got something a little different in mind for now. Say then, for example, additional accessory items, right? That would be headbands, drinking cups... Something like that. In my niche the accessory items are quite a bit more handy and actually useful. I'm planning to put together a massive list of such accessory items and prey on shiny object syndrome, essentially. Psychologically speaking, when the main product costs upwards of $600, spending an extra $50 here and there for the accessory items feels like no biggy. They should sell themselves if I make them get hooked on the idea the accessory item presents to the the buyer.

As long as I tunnel all the visitors down the main money path,
the plan should come together.

marketing​

 

[ThulfWaatu]

UPDATE
January, 2020

Still need to prepare some much needed posts for the summer season... I've noticed that people start buying in late February and completely stop buying in comparison once September hits.

Expenses:

• 2 domains: $180.64 (March/April, 2018 - March/April, 2022)
• VPS: $120 ($41.39 left of that $120, approx $3.60 per month)
• Keyword package: $20
• Outsourced content: $484
• Off-page SEO services: $56
• Total: $840.64 (644.02 €)

Earnings:

• VPS Credit: $3 (2.67 €)
• Adsense: 114.52 € ($127.05)
• Ezoic: $202.88 (182.87 €)
• Amazon Affiliate program: 4,575.52 € (5,076.21$)
• Total: 4,875.58 € (5,409.11$)

For now I just want to see bigger numbers when compared to last year's.​

 

[ThulfWaatu]

How's it going?

 

[ThulfWaatu]

The storm that swoop across Europe is now followed by cold weather all the way from US.

I don' think it's been this cold throughout the winter so far;
(It's been the warmest winter that I can remember).

Sales started to pick up later February,
but with this cold they almost completely dried up again.

It would have reached € 400 this month...
At least I know the "summer season" has started;
I can expect decent amount of money for the months to come.​