Niche Website Challenge 2016 – July Update

Well it’s about time to update you on my niche website challenge and I haven’t got off too a great start.

When I launched my blog niche idea, I was full of energy and excited to be starting a new blog and although it started with a bang, as I managed to complete 5 blog posts and 1 page within the first week, I got busy again.

And by ‘busy’ I mean busy in my own head, trying to work out what I really want to be focussing on in the next year. This happens to me quite a lot and rather than focus on something for years, I afford myself the luxury of changing my mind. Albeit Regularly.

However, blogging is forgiving like that, and this is probably why I like to blog so much. I can change my mind and move onto something different without dramatically impacting my ranking. Just a little maintence is required here and there.

Surprisingly this niche blog challenge was meant to be an easy win as I had firm plans to outsource most of the writing, leaving me with just editing and publishing, but alas as I tried to work out the format, I began to enjoy writing the content too much. Doh!

Then when I got ‘busy’ and hadn’t established the outsourcing component this is where we are today.

Since my inital surge I’ve publish a few more posts and have written many more.

The ideas are never my problem, it’s the execution that lets me down.

However, life is journey, so I’m not trying to rush to the end.

Anyway, let’s get into the details.

Niche Website Challenge 2016 (July Update)

HTMS (Domain Name Revealed Later)
Established – May 11th 2016

NB: This domain is a non .COM extension.

Site Stats

DA – 1
Pages – 1
Posts – 10
Organic Traffic – 0

As you can see some pages are already indexed, but nothing near the first page, although this should change overtime.

Income Report

Nothing really to report here as I haven’t started outsourcing yet and I’m not turning on any ads until my organic traffic grows.

Domain Name Cost – $1.14 ( yes that’s correct it was a Name Cheap Special)
Hosting Costs – $0.00 (Using exisiting shared hosting with Bluehost )

The format of the blog is a simple 300+ word blog posts with a link to a YouTube video in each post.

The aim was to publish a post every day, but clearly this never happened in the first few months. And although a post a week for a blog is quite acceptable it’s not the blogging style I wanted to test.

So as you see I haven’t much to report and I know this isn’t going to get the results I was hoping for, but I’ll persist with this challenge as this is the reality of blogging.

You may start your blog with the best intentions, but sometimes life just takes over and your blog might suffer. But, it’ll always be there waiting for you when you get back to it.

And as a bonus your blog will actually continue to improve overtime with just a little maintenance every few weeks. It’s a much slower path, but worth keeping alive in case you suddenly free up time and need a safety net.

Of course I haven’t stopped blogging all together, as I’m just spending more time on a Blog + YouTube project that I predict will become a nice revenue earner over the next year. So for now I need to spend time nurturing that project.

So far my results with Blogging + YouTube projects have far exceeded my standalone blogs for raw organic traffic, so this is a path I’m moving along now.

The blogging landscape continues to change so it’s best to move with these changes. What worked last year might no longer work today.

Blogging is far from passive income but gives you the freedom to work wherever you like. Right now I’m 1700km’s from home, having escaped the winter weather in my home town for a few months and as long as I can find a steady Internet connection I can always blog.

And so can you.

If you’ve started a blog after May 1st 2016 and would like to share your Niche Website Challenge experiences I’ll be happy to have some company along this journey. Plus you’ll get a decent link back to your blog each month, which should help it to grow.