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If you’re counting months since my last earnings report, 4 have passed that I’ve collected commissions for. I’m not going to go into great detail for each of those months. Long story short, the first two months were disappointing while the last two have really been quite exciting. I will share the earnings for September – December but all other metrics will just be for December. This where I believe I finally have broken through in terms of search visibility.

I knew I’d be facing some tough obstacles when starting my niche website. However, I expected to encounter the obvious difficulties that come with growing a website. Those being SEO, traffic, link building, social media and everything else that requires a great amount of effort. I never thought I’d be hit with such a nasty malware attack.

One year ago I started detailing my efforts for building a niche website in Part 1. I thought I would be in for a challenge but never expected it to be this difficult. My dreams of earning $1,000 a month in affiliate commissions at this point have yet to be realized. It’s not because of a lack of effort. Instead, it most likely has more to do with that fact that I believed I could rank keywords primarily with on-site SEO.

Perhaps the title of this entry is a little bit over-dramatic. However, it accurately sums up my state of mind as it’s been nearly a year since the beginning of this blog series. Countless hours of writing, designing, networking, and other various efforts have been poured into Kettlebell Krusher. Just a few short months ago things were heading in the right direction and earnings were increasing at a nice clip. However, this downward spiral continues to reach new lows and the fact is, for the month of June, a measly $22.55 was earned.

I’ll cut right to the chase. It feels like things are going in the opposite direction in regards to my niche website. Earlier in the year, I had a couple of earnings cross the $100 mark for certain months. This current month marks the 3rd straight decline in earnings.

I had high expectations of having another stellar month for commission earnings from Amazon. In last month's report, The Turning Point, I thought I had made a breakthrough. A couple of months in a row of earning $100+ and the increase in traffic had me believe that April would set a new high in earnings. Unfortunately, my niche website ended up earning much less than anticipated. Am I disappointed? Sure. It's a bit of a bummer when you work so hard only to take a step back. However, that's life. There are ups and downs and building an affiliate website...

What a month March has been. It's hard to top February, and although I didn't do so through earned commissions, there were some huge increases in traffic. I also connected with a respected figure in my niche who actually reached out to me! This led to a guest post opportunity for myself as well as an interview of this person that I posted on my site. It was a nice unexpected surprise for sure. That wasn't the only surprise. Another one of my pins took off with the most impressions and clicks that I've ever received. It was by far...

In the last two installments of Niche Dreams, I talked about how I wanted to integrate myself into my brand. It's something I probably wouldn't have been comfortable doing a year or so ago, but times have changed! I've learned a lot during these months of building up my niche website, and I figure using my experiences within the niche is the best way to get exposure. One of my goals was to create a video review of a product I use and promote on the site. That's been accomplished. I also finally set up my brand with Instagram and...

I can't help but occasionally search for other Amazon affiliate websites to help me formulate strategies for my own website. Recently, I found one whose domain is supposedly registered by a famous TV icon of years past. It's possible that the name might be coincidental, but I really don't think so. Before I dive into that, I'll go over this month's statistics, per usual. First, for the readers of Niche Pursuits, I just want to say, you guys are awesome! It's been several months now since the first report of Niche Site Project 4 and the remaining participants should feel...

There were only a few participants in last month's poll for whether I should reveal my niche website or not. I would have preferred a much larger amount of votes, however, a deal is a deal! The votes for I already know! might as well be yes votes. The site and my persona are so entwined it doesn't make any sense to tip-toe around specifics. Being able to provide detailed examples and explanations on certain parts of the website allows me to give the best insight possible. What I won't share are certain things such as keywords and other detailed...