Everyone knows that niche sites can be fairly profitable. But how much can you expect to earn from a niche site in 2015? The answer, of course, depends on a few things.
Niche sites
Niche sites are simple informational sites (usually created in WordPress) that have been carefully crafted to fulfill search demand. Here’s the steps a niche site creator typically follows:
- Do some researching finding topics that people are searching for yet don’t have a lot of content. Pay special attention to the keywords that are in demand.
- Buy a domain and hosting for a new site. Typically pick a domain that has those keywords in it
- Create content for that site. Use a standard wordpress theme, and make 5-10 pages about your topic.
- Once traffic starts coming in from search, place some ads (usually Google AdSense) and let the money roll in!
What makes them so attractive is the amount of work required to run them. Usually there’s 20-30 hours of upfront work, but after that they typically run themselves and require very little maintenance.
How much do niche sites earn?
There are three factor’s I’ve found to majorly affect how much revenue these niche sites bring in.
Factor 1: Traffic
Hopefully you did your keyword research right, were able to obtain some backlinks, and your site rose to the top of the search engine results. If you get a lot of traffic, you’re going to get a lot of ad clicks, meaning more money.
Look at the difference in revenue based on traffic (using average RPM of $2)
| Monthly Visitors | Monthly Revenue |
|---|---|
| 100 | $0.20 |
| 500 | $1.00 |
| 2,000 | $4.00 |
| 10,000 | $20.00 |
| 50,000 | $100.00 |
Factor 2: Ad cost
If you picked a niche that has a lot of advertisers, they’re going to be paying a lot to advertise. That equates to a higher RPM (revenue per thousand impressions). Niches like insurance and real estate can have click prices of up to $100, yet niches with little advertisers like pencils or rubber bands are going to be in the pennies.
| RPM | Monthly Revenue (10,000 Visitors) |
|---|---|
| $0.50 | $5.00 |
| $1.00 | $10.00 |
| $2.00 | $20.00 |
| $5.00 | $50.00 |
| $10.00 | $100.00 |
| $20.00 | $200.00 |
Factor 3: Ad optimization
One of the biggest mistakes I see on niche sites is putting your ads where your theme designed them to me. Don’t do it! Designers want their themes to look pretty, not bring you income. From my experience some of the best places to put your ads is inside the content.
It’s also important to not use default Google AdSense settings. Changing the ad type, color, size, etc can make huge differences as well.
The key takeaway here is that you need to be testing different AdSense configurations to make sure you have the most profitable combination of placement, size, color, etc. If you’re not split testing, you’re essentially losing money!
Take a look at how running tests to optimize your ad config will give niche site owners increased RPM, and thus more earnings.
| Optimization | RPM | Monthly Revenue (10,000 Visitors) |
|---|---|---|
| Default settings | $1.00 | $10.00 |
| Optimized placement | $4.00 | $40.00 |
| Optimized placement + size | $8.00 | $80.00 |
| Optimized placement + size + ad type | $10.00 | $100.00 |
| Optimized placement + size + ad type + color | $12.00 | $120.00 |
Summary
These three main factors can influence how much you earn on your niche site. Traffic aside, it’s probably a safe bet to say you’ll get around $1-2 RPM out of the gate, which can be optimized up to $5-10 RPM on average.
Would love to hear your experiences – do your numbers match up with this?