Progress Update At End of Level 2 Training!

Encouraging Success

Ahoy there fellow pirates! :P I'm closing in on the end of Level 2 of the main Training here at WA, and it's not only informative and easy to follow, but enjoyable as well!

My Progress

My progress includes hitting the first page of Google search for the main keyword of my niche (Pirates CSG; CSG stands for Constructible Strategy Game), getting my website more well-known in the community, and more. I've now got some comments going and look forward to getting more. I've got a small handful of people signed up at the forum, which I will continue to grow and optimize. Perhaps most exciting, I'm already making money from some affiliate links! (I'm not quite to Level 3 of the training, but understand basic link placement/etc via the eBay Partner Network and sometimes Amazon Associates - the niche is just way more available and cheaper at eBay.)

My Niche

You could say I'm working within a "micro niche". Pirates CSG is pretty much my #1 passion in life, so naturally I can develop content and strategy around it. It's basically a naval board game (without the restrictions of a board) about gold and glory in the Age of Sail. When I signed up for Premium earlier this year I planned to develop more than one website at a time (Baseball and Health are other niches I hope to explore), but now I see the folly in that idea because my time was split and not being used effectively. Pirates CSG is my main passion and will be my main focus going forward, which is already paying dividends!

My Successes

Along with what I mentioned above, I have already started making some money by providing eBay affiliate links on my website in addition to forums where the game is discussed (where I have been active since 2011, long before I knew what affiliate marketing or WA was), and the game's two Facebook groups. This has worked out well, as I have totaled about $106 from May through October so far this year! This has been a great motivator going forward as I now see that "it works". :D It's not a lot, but here are my earnings from October in this tiny niche from reasonable effort and not all that many links:

3 Month Plans and Goals

• Optimize Pirates with Ben to get it faster and easier to access
  
• Work on forums so fans of the game can discuss it right on my site
• Complete the rest of WA Training and monetize my site
• Rank and hit first page of Google for a variety of keywords

6 Month Plans and Goals

• Make income from a variety of sources, including high Google rankings and various strategies including Youtube and ePN
  
• Boost community engagement and maximize comments
• Figure out where to go from there!

Thanks for checking this out! Any questions about it or the Pirates CSG game, just ask! :)

PS: I love that I just discovered that WA uses typical keyboard shortcuts in their text formatting! (ctrl+i for italics, ctrl+k for links, etc) Should make things nice and easy going forward - yet another thing to love about this site! :D