Building a Niche Website to Earn Income

I have something fun I’ve started working on that I’m excited to share it with y’all. I’ve decided to relaunch my old website and turn it into a niche website. There are so many reasons I want to do this and you’ll see my reasons below. While I am pretty new to the personal finance blogging world, I’m fairly comfortable and much more confident in my niche world.

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The Backstory

I started making a physical product from home in 2007. I was really happy with the results and so were the end users. I began giving out samples of the products to friends and coworkers in return for feedback. After a few tweaks, I decided that I wanted to sell my product.

For months, I researched my competitors and purchased similar products. I worked with a photographer, graphic designer and other various consultants to make sure all my ducks were in a row before launching my product.

I launched my company and niche website in late 2007!

Aside from my website, I also sold my product in person via craft fairs and farmers markets. Before I knew it, I was selling my product wholesale and it could be found across the country in different shops.

Editors actually found me (I never did any real marketing) and my products were even featured in magazines!

I was extremely active with my business from 2007-2013. When I was laid off from my job in 2009 (thanks recession!) it was even my sole source of income for several months.

In mid 2013 I accepted a new job and relocated across the country. I made a decision to shut down my company and niche website.

To be honest, I was relieved.

I was exhausted from working around the clock trying to have my day job as well as fulfill orders. I no longer enjoyed anything about my business.

What I did wrong

I am really embarrassed about this. In fact, I am actually cringing at my laptop screen typing out these facts about my company and my website:

• • I never once monetized my website except to sell my own products

• • I received several offers to participate in programs that would have been extremely beneficial for my company, but I was too shy to accept any of them

• • I never fully understood Google Analytics nor the power of page views (and some of my page views were pretty awesome)

• • I never optimized my posts (and some posts had a lot of great content and views!)
  • I never optimized my images

• • I never had a newsletter for my blog

• • I never had a signup form where readers could subscribe to my latest posts

Even with all these things I didn’t do, I was still successful. Imagine how much more successful I would have been if I had implemented the above!

{Resource: 10 Ways Your Blog and Business Can Benefit from Pinterest}

Moving forward

In an effort to create more passive income, I have given my old website a lot of thought the past six months. I am going to relaunch my website but shift the focus of the product.

The bottom line is I still get overwhelmed when I think about relaunching this product. It is not something that can be sourced overseas (I’m a Made-In-America kinda girl anyways) and it would take some time to build up the orders before I could pay someone else to make this product for me.

Instead, I am going to focus on how to help people make my product themselves. I’m going to provide content, references, examples, you name it!

Not only do I want to share this information through blog posts, but I would love to create an eBook for my audience. To my surprise, there still aren’t than many books on this subject and I think it would really benefit and help other people.

Update: I created an ebook about side hustling. Check it out here!

My next steps to create a niche website

I’ve decided to document and share my journey while I relaunch and create my niche website. I won’t be hiding anything and plan on being completely transparent. I’m going to share the mistakes I make (hopefully there aren’t many) as well as the positives.

I plan on sharing my strategies for monetizing my niche website, the progression of writing my ebook as well as how to utilize my Pinterest account.

I have hundreds of posts that need to be sorted through and optimized with updated photos.

I’m going to discuss all aspects of building my niche website.

Update: You can get my complete guide to starting a website. Check it out!

In all honesty, this is going to be a time consuming and tiring process. I am going to have to use my time carefully since I’m already pretty busy with my day job and this site. Of course, I’m always on a budget and the less I can spend, the better!

I am excited to see where this takes me!

I went from making $40/month to over $4,000/month in the span of six months. That’s crazy! Here is a tutorial that walks you through how to start a blog.

Blogging has totally changed my life. I even share my online income reports so other people can see how I got started and how I am growing.

Would you be interested in reading more about a niche website series even though my blog is mostly about budgets and personal finances?

Kristin, is the creator behind Believe In A Budget. She teaches others how to start a blog and how to side hustle. Her course, Pinterest Presence, helps bloggers + businesses drive traffic to increase their website’s profitability. Click here to learn more! 
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