3 month progress report for this SAHM trying to "make money online"

byMarlaineB

779 followers

Updated 7 years ago

3 months have now passed since I started my website (www.kidslovedressup.com). It has been 3 months of learning, 3 months of working on it pretty much every nap time and every evening, and 3 months of being so immersed in the world of kids dress up play that I feel like I'm definitely becoming a bit of an expert on it. Even though truth be told, my two kids DO NOT play dress up all. day. long.

So here's what's up at 3 months - it will be interesting to look back at this later:

• Posts: 40
• Comments: 270
• Pages: 7
• Commissions so far at Amazon: $10.49USD
• Expenses so far: $635 CDN (1 domain, 2 months, 1 yearly.)
• WA ranking: not really concerned about this
• According to Google Search Console, I have 28 queries "in the top 10", and 13 pages "in the top 10" (many are tags though), although these numbers fluctuate a lot
• Traffic: less than 5 organic per day, with a few from Pinterest as well.

Frustrations:

• Getting traffic
• Having no real idea if what I'm doing is going to be successful at some point... are my pages ok?
• Finding enough TIME to do everything I want to do!! Being a SAHM (Stay At Home Mom) to two very busy kids doesn't leave much extra time.
• Knowing what to spend my energy and time ON. For example, is it more worth it to build up my Pinterest profile, to write new blog posts, or to do more comment swapping here? Or something else!?
• Not knowing if this niche (kids dress up) is worth pursuing full time, or if I should just "let it marinate" until nearing Halloween next year. Is it an "evergreen" topic??? The keyword tool says so, but I can't tell if they are yearly averages divided by 12 months, or if they are true monthly search results. The commission rate is pretty low for these items - I'm tossing around the idea of starting a new niche that has higher commission payouts. But... I think I should stick with this one full time for a while yet... at least past Christmas. We'll see.

Hopes:

• That Kyle is right that things start taking off at around the 3 month mark... I've been "counting" on it LOL. "Just get to 3 months..." Well... I made it! Let's hope he's right!
• To get "in the black... and then some" by the time I've done this for 1 year.
• To be able mentally and physically to keep at this, with 2-3 posts per week... we'll see!

Anyhow, that's about it for my 3 month report! A big THANK YOU to all of the kind people at WA for helping me out with answers to my questions and encouragement. And also a big cheers to Kyle and Carson for setting up this amazing place where there's so much valuable content and help! I'm so glad I found WA!

Cheers,

Marlaine