Back in July I discovered that I still had content on an old Christmas site and that I did, in fact, still own the domain. Starting in August I’ve posted content on that site consistently after a modest redesign. This past week, I received my first glimmer of the site’s upcoming success.
When I clicked on my stats in Amazon, I noticed that I had 8 clicks on my ads, 2 items purchased, and over $15 in commissions. And it’s only September.
My Christmas site is up and coming and I expect my earnings to increase. I am sure that in the weeks and months to come, traffic will pick up as more and more people go online to do their Christmas shopping. I’ll also add more content.
In an ideal world I would have an assortment of niche sites on a variety of topics including evergreen ones (good all year long) and seasonal ones. So far I only have two sites, both of which are seasonal.
What my modest success tells me is that starting a Christmas has a lot of potential for being lucrative. There are several different methods you can use. My best advice is to choose a general Christmas domain name such as planchristmas101.com (no clue if it is available) and write posts that both come from the heart and feature products on Amazon. For example, you can write about gift ideas, ornaments, wrapping gifts, etc.
What was my approach? I find that keywords such as “handmade glass ornaments” and “Christmas gift ideas for couples” do pretty well in the search engines. I usually post one random Christmas article with no affiliate links (such as, My Top 5 Favorite Christmas Carols) for every two money related posts with affiliate links. So far, that routine is working pretty well for me.
To promote it, so far I’ve only used pinterest. I started a business Pinterest account just for Christmas. If I have some time I may start article marketing with Ezine Articles and even making blog comments on other Christmas sites. I also post some of my better posts on twitter (but I don’t share every single one that I do).
How many of you have started a Christmas niche site? How have you done with it?
Don’t know if you still blog here, I found this blog via a comment you made on Tiffany Lambert’s blog and I saw a comment you made in one of Erica Stones WSO threads.
I’m curious now that Christmas has gone ages ago how much you made on that site for November and December, I have a Halloween site but I think it will earn similar because it is seasonal but I have a long time to wait yet.
I might do a Christmas site for this year though.
Hi Ash – I do still blog here! I just posted a new article, in fact. The site that I created for Christmas made me around $30 this year but truthfully, I didn’t post as much on it as I would have liked. To get ready for next Christmas, I am going to stick with the same routine and get rid of the dates on my posts. Then, I am going to make sure I write at least 100 new articles. Plus, the domain will have had a chance to age. Next Christmas will be the true test. I’d get started on the Halloween site from now!
I think you can do a lot better this year for sure if you keep blogging and as you mentioned the domain would have time to age and your posts will rank better than last year.
The Halloween site is already started, last year actually but I think I left it too late aswell as I only earned $50 in October but this year I’m aiming for a few thousand…we’ll see!
Any reason you’re taking off dates?
I’m hoping for a few thousand, too. We’re off to a good start! We’ve proven the site can make money. 🙂 I’m using a plugin to take out the dates because the content is evergreen, and I don’t want people next Christmas to ignore the content I created this year, thinking it’s too outdated. I need to make a solid effort to stay with the sites I’ve created that have actually made me money. Sometimes, I let them go and I don’t know why!