3 Years At WA (and not going anywhere anytime soon!)
I just realized tonight that this month I've been here at WA for 3 years now. Time for a quick look back, assessment of the "now", and a peak at the game plan for what's ahead!
When I joined WA back in August 2016, I had a 3 year old and a 1.5 year old... and I needed something to keep my sanity. I'm a Stay At Home Mom, and if there are any of you out there with busy littles at home that you care for 24/7, and you feel your brain is slowly dying sometimes, you'll know what I mean. Learning the affiliate marketing ropes has kept me stimulated mentally, which was really great.
After I joined, I started my first website, and jumped into the learning. I really enjoyed it and stuck with it, building up that website for about 18 months. At the end of that time, I had about 80 posts, generating about 100 visits per day (mostly from Pinterest), and was making only about $30/month. It wasn't climbing quickly, nor did I anticipate it doing so in that niche.
I grew frustrated.
But I didn't want to give up. I believed in the system... and that affiliate marketing COULD be a perfect fit for me and our family situation (allowing me to bring some money in, while remaining a stay-at-home-mom, being there for our kids). And thankfully I have a supportive husband. :)
So I did some reading, learning, and asked some questions of the experienced folks here in WA, and with the advice I got, I decided to simply start over with a new, more profitable niche, writing posts that were much more specific - "Best Of" reviews and product reviews.
My initial website I just left alone, updating plugins when necessary. Without adding anything to it, it still now makes about $30/month, a year and half later.
My new website? 18 months into THAT one, I'm at just about 40 posts, long and indepth ones. I get about 500+ visits per day, ALL organic, and last month was a record month of commissions around $3300 USD (and to be honest, I haven't had much time to touch it this summer... so it's just blown me away).
And what is the future of my website/affiliate marketing business? I'm not sure. I plan to keep building out this website, I think. There's a lot yet to write about in my niche.
Next month my youngest starts school part time, so finally I'll have some daytime hours to work on this... for the last 3 years, all I've had are evenings and the occasional "quiet time" - I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens!
Cheers!
Recent Comments
16
Congratulations! Marlaine on your 3 Years at WA :)
Your website is 1.5 years old and you have only
40 posts.
Making $3000 + with only 40 posts is really amazing.
How many blog posts you publish per week?
Out of the 40 articles how many of them are
"best of" posts? and the word length of articles.
How you build any backlinks/link building?
How you used social media or the traffic is
mostly organic?
To write the best of/product reviews do you buy
the products or the article is just based on research?
Also, can you share the product review template
you are using?
It will be very interesting if you create a blog post
or video training showing the detailed growth of
your website from scratch.
Thank you, Marlaine
Wow! What did you do that was different from the other site? Was it different niche? Was your content better? I always have so many questions for those of you who finally reach that goal?
Congrats on your success!
Thanks! There are 2 main differences between my first and second sites. 1) The niche. My first niche was focused on products that cost under $50, and got me a commission of about $0.30/average. So I had to have a TON of traffic before making a decent amount. My second niche focuses on products around $500, so commissions are much higher for the same amount of work! 2) The style of my posts. I write MUCH longer, more focused, more helpful posts. They are a lot of work, but they convert much better. Product reviews and the like. Hope that helps!
Love the post. It is inspiring and definitely gives me something to reach for as far as monthly goals at some point.
I can relate as far as time to work on WA, evenings and some quiet time on my days off.
Thank you so much for sharing this.
All the best,
Colleen
Thanks Colleen. Even with limited hours, we can do it... we just have to be realistic about it taking us longer to "get there" than the person who can devote hours a day! :)
This is encouraging and makes me realise I am on track so thank you so much and keep on being awesome!!
Vicki
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Awesome work, congrats Marlaine!!! Best of strategy certainly works ;)
Thanks Zarina! Yes, it does!!