Hey everyone!

December is here -Tis the season to be jolly, falalalala lalalala!

Welcome to my first income report! In this post, I will give a recap of how my blog has fared on so far. I started posting barely a month ago in a bid to keep track of a Niche Site Experiment I am doing. Today, I am introducing my “income reports” section on my website.

On the “income reports” section, I will be providing an overview of my traffic stats both to this blog and the experiments I will be doing. Particularly, I will be covering three things:

1. Overview of the things I did on my blog
2. Traffic numbers
3. Strategies I used to drive traffic (as well as my sources)
4. Income generated
5. Expected plans for the next month

Let’s get started with my Niche Site Experiment website.

Niche Site Experiment  Website

My current income experiment is on building a niche site. (Read about it here). Honestly, I have been moving very slow with my niche site. At least not at the speed I wished. But the important thing is that I have been making progress.

In a nutshell, here are the activities I’ve done so far on my Niche Site experiment:

• I made a bold move to start a case study (Trust me, this is really important)
• I researched the niche/market I wanted to target
• I bought the site’s domain name (using NameCheap.com) and Hosting (Using JustHost.com)
• I’ve installed a WordPress theme (Gonzo from Themeforest)
• I’ve customized the WordPress theme I’ve installed to suit the kind of site I have in mind.

That is all I have done on my Niche Site.

Results so far:

So, like you should expect, traffic to the site is zero. And so are my earnings.

NS Experiment December Goals:

• Set up the basic pages of the website (contact us, about, privacy, etc.)
• Create a content strategy for the site.
• Create 4 in-depth reviews of the products I am targeting.
• Create a Facebook and Twitter account for the Niche Site.
• Find a list of traffic sources and link building opportunities for the site.

I am keeping my goals small because I am not doing this Niche Site Experiment as my full-time job. I am a freelance writer and my freelance work takes most of my time. So, I prefer to set goals that I will be able to achieve.

And this wraps up our discussion for the Niche Site.

DonModekali.com Website

I started this blog last month. While I had purchased the domain name in the second half of September, I made my first post in first week of November.

I introduced myself to the blogosphere by deciding to start a Niche Site Experiment. Here is an overview of what I have done on the site:

i) I took the decision and decided to start blogging.

ii) I set up my website using Thesis (Marketers Delight Theme) instead of Genesis. I’ve heard good things about Genesis but I just liked Thesis better.

iii) I made 4 posts on this blog. Below are the posts I made in November:

• Introducing My Niche Site Case Study
• 3 Characteristics of a Profitable Niche
• Niche Site Case Study: My Niche Revealed
•  Episode 1: Domain Name, Hosting and Website Theme

iv) Building my email list

I signed up for a FREE 60 Day Trial with Constant Contact. However, I had some problems getting their email form code to work on Thesis. I sent some tweets asking questions and  their support team jumped in. They were extremely helpful.

Finally, I realized I couldn’t get their code to work on Thesis without a lot of customization. So, I decided to go with Get Response.

I would have gone with Aweber, given that most of my favorite marketers use it. However, I stumbled across a discussion at QuickSprout forum about Aweber vs. GetResponse. Someone asked Neil Patel the following question:

And Neil recommended Get Response with his reply…and this is why I’ve gone with it.

I know many people will come in defense of Aweber but I urge you to do the research for yourself. You can test Aweber at $1 for 30 days and see if it will be good for you. Alternatively, you can test GetResponse for free (NO Credit Card Required) for 30 days and see which one will be good for you.

v) Social media

Other than the above, I have decided to become more active on Twitter (Follow me:D) and I also opened a Facebook Page for the Blog (http://www.facebook.com/donmodekali)

Traffic Statistics

I did not do any promotion of my posts in November (which I know is suicidal). I only tweeted the posts after I had made them. Most of the traffic came from Twitter, although a few came from some blogs I had commented on like CloudIncome.com

This month, I will increase my promotional efforts.

In particular, I will focus on driving traffic through social media (Facebook and Twitter) and blog commenting. (I may stop by your blog to give you my 2 cents!)

Here are the traffic stats for November from my Statcounter Dashboard:

The Numbers:

• Blog visits: 93 visitors
• Facebook fans: 2 (click here to like my page)
• Twitter followers: 196 (click here to follow me on Twitter)
• Affiliate Earnings: $0

December Goals

My goals for December include:

• Publish 4 posts (at least a post per week)
• Set up an email auto responder
• Focus more on content promotion
• Finish setting up the blog design (you can see the blog is pretty raw)

That’s a recap of what went down in November. Clearly, not a lot. I’m hoping December things will be much more exciting.

Until then, I’ll keep experimenting.

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