Issue 1

First...

Welcome to the 1st Niche Surfer Newsletter!

Exciting times with this first send!

So you know what to expect, I curate and share links to sites that will help you on your niche site journeys. I will also share my own case studies, because I always find learning from real situations is the most impactful.

I want to focus on sharing links to items that will help us generate more traffic, which turns into more money. Whether you want visitors to view ads or you want to them click an affiliate link, you need traffic.

The main areas that you can expect to see here are Case Studies, Income Reports, SEO, Tools, and the all-important Writing Great Content.

We just began a new month, which means all of us niche site owners received our earnings stats for ads and affiliate commissions. I've collected a number of income reports from bloggers that I follow. I'll do this monthly and I hope that you get as much out of them as I do.

Oh, and my name is Yoyao. I blog over at yoyao.com if you want to stay up to date there too.

Note: If you have a good resource and would like to be included, please send it to me and I'll take a look!

Income Reports

Yoyao Oct. 2020 Income - $1,867

Of course, I need to add my own income report here! I earned a total of $1867.30 for October 2020 from 3 of my niche sites through ads and affiliate commissions. The majority of the earnings is from 2 sites. The biggest earner has had 14,161% growth in the 5 months I've had the site.

Do you like a good Case Study? These 3 sites are ones I'm creating Case Studies from. I want to share my process of taking these sites to where they are now, along with all the mistakes I've made. I'm in the middle of writing the initial case study overview posts, so I'll get them out soon.

Meanwhile, check out my first public income report with all the earnings, expenses, traffic, and November 2020 plans.

Fat Stacks Blog's Jon Dykstra Oct. Income 2020 - $76,389

One of the biggest earners, if not the biggest, who still shares his income every month. He shares income from 8 of his niche sites that earn revenue from Ads and Affiliate Fees.

His revenue for Oct. was a bit lower than Sept. revenue: $76,839 vs $81,488. But Sept. also had record revenue and traffic, so he expected Oct. to be down a bit. His video ad revenue is interesting and has me thinking about adding video ads on my own sites.

To earn that much through mainly ad revenue, he drives a lot of traffic. A lot. In order to drive and support the traffic, he also has a high amount of expenses.

The great thing about his blog is he shares all the details, so you'll be able to see all of his tools and resources. Definitely check out his Oct. income report.

Carl Broadbent Oct. 2020 Income - $6,680

A fast-rising YouTube influencer, Carl Broadbent earned $6,680.12 in October across 2 pet niche sites, 1 keyword service site, and 1 YouTube channel.

What's great about his income reports is the detail he gets into with his income and expenses. His income is spread out across multiple streams, which is interesting to see. He even includes his income tax to give you his final profit for the month.

Shaunn Marrs Oct. Income - $5885

Shaunn Marrs has been blogging and creating niche sites for many years now, so he's well-versed in all the past Google updates. He actually does weekly income reports too, so you can follow along as he discusses his daily earnings. Most of his earnings are from Amazon affiliate commissions.

This is an interesting one for you to check out as he discusses potentially selling all his sites that he's sharing income for. Find out why at the beginning of this video. He's a good follow in general if you're looking for good educational content.

.ficks Oct. 2020 Income - $920

.ficks made $920.14 (legitimately) and had his best months in ads and affiliate fees across 3 niche sites and his YouTube channel.

He shares all the numbers with earnings and traffic too. He's one of the rare ones out there who shares his domains.

.ficks is a YouTuber who makes well-produced sub-10 minute videos packed with information and goodies. He throws in so many pop culture references. If you're American, you'll love it.

Leon Angus Oct. 2020 Income - $402.77

Leon Angus is a YouTube influencer who seems to love to share and help others learn. He shares his $402.77 earnings from 1 site through ads and affiliate fees.

He just did a 301 redirect from a limiting, narrow domain to a broader domain name that gives him more flexibility and brandability in the future.

Interesting enough and out of pure coincidence, I happened to do a 301 redirect at the same time he did. I also did it because I had an EDM (Exact Domain Match) for the biggest earner of my 3 niche sites. Mine actually wasn't the biggest earner until I got a brandable domain and moved everything over to the new one. I'll share that process soon enough.

If you're just starting with niche sites, do check out his YouTube videos.

News

Be Careful Updating to WordPress 5.6 in Dec. 2020

Do you always update Wordpress and Plugins immediately when a new version comes out? If you haven't heard about Wordpress 5.5's update, it broke millions of sites in August 2020 due to removing the jQuery Migrate 1.x library. There's talk that the Wordpress 5.6 update in December may also break more sites.

Read more about what 5.6 and the dangers are at Search Engine Journal.