Jun 02 2008
Big Bad List of My Current Sites and Future Projects
I seem to be throwing money figures out there into the internet world without really sharing exactly what projects I have on the go to get those numbers. I thought it might be useful to give you guys a bit of information on what I’m working on now, what sites I already have online and what domains I might develop in the future so you can maybe compare it to your own group of sites and see if it gives you any ideas about how to move forward.
Currents sites:
- Travoholic - This is my oldest site (8 years I think) and Google loves it. I’ve neglected it for years but putting links on it to my new sites always gets the new ones listed really fast. It’s also a link sales whore and I have no plans at the moment to do anything with it.
- Stuck in London - This is my best site for Adsense and traffic and my favourite as far as looks and content go. It earned me $200 last month in Adsense but I haven’t really explored other monetisation options. I keep meaning to attempt to strike up partnerships with rental agencies and other London based businesses but so far haven’t made the efffort. I know several affiliat eprograms that might work too but need to add them still.
- Working Holiday Info - I lied when I said my London site is my favourite, it’s this one. I spent lots of time putting a personal touch on it with the cartoons and spent even more time researching dozens (or more) of working holiday programs across several nationalities. It has a huge Adsense clickthrough rate but doesn’t get as much traffic as I’d like, despite being at the top of Google for ‘working holidays’. The gap year, work abroad niche has a lot of companies operating in it so I think there’s some scope for teaming up at some stage.
- Wanderstruck - This was meant to be a travel blog, country guide, place for hostel reviews and oh so much more. I’ve been neglecting it lately though because I’m finding writing travel blogs posts difficult. If I can’t make them entertaining I don’t write them and I seem to be in an unfunny mood of late. But I love the domain name and it’s an ongoing project that isn’t really about making money.
- Nerdy Nomad - You’re on it! Just a site for fun, to share ideas and to explore the blogging world. I would like to be more involved in the blogging community but it seems like I read more blogs when I was chained to my desk at work with no other choice.
- Van Tour - This is a site I through up because I saw a gap in the market. I don’t really know much about it but just chucked up the little bits of information I do know. It’s very niche and only really gets busy around May and June when people start researching their trips. It’s been a good moneymaker because of affiliate programs and a partnership with a van rental company.
- Working Holiday Insurance - I have a site aimed at working holidaymakers who need to find insurance for their trips that covers working. It doesn’t get much traffic at all and I only get a few bucks a month in sales, if I’m lucky. Inexplicably, the site is PR5! I have no idea how that happened. I know for sure it has very few backlinks and it exists purely to pimp affiliate programs. Google is mysterious indeed. Not that I’m complaining.
- Super Niche Event Site - I have a site dedicated to a single day out in London that is attended by thousands of people. It gets 2000+ visits a day around the time of the event but I haven’t managed to make much off of that traffic beyond selling a few t-shirts.
- Traffic Driving Sites - I have two keyword rich domain names with one page sites on them that were built to drive traffic to an affiliate program. The program has been a success but I’m not sure how much it owes that to these sites.
Sites I’m working on:
- Beijing Guide - Identical in layout to my London site and with the same target market. I came to Beijing early to work on this site but have been lazy since it involves hitting the streets to snap photos and finding (and paying) content writers. This one won’t be done for several weeks at best.
- Working Holiday Insurance - I’ve created a copycat site of my other working holiday insurance site. No idea why since the other one isn’t really working that well. This one will be aimed at my favourite target market with my favourite currency - Brits. I just need to write a bit more content and she’ll be done hopefully within a couple of days.
- Mystery Mobile Site - I’m excited about this idea for a mobile phone site but have no idea how to monetise it. But still think it’ll be a great resource so I’ll worry about that later. The site will be stupidly simple but I need to do quite a bit of research. Fortunately I can get all the information I need from Google, other sites and online forums. I think I might be able to get this one up in a week if I work hard and can figure out a few coding type things without too much hassle.
Undeveloped Domains:
- Canadian Travel Insurance - I have a good .ca domain name for selling travel insurance but haven’t developed it because I haven’t been able to make a go of my other site and because there aren’t that many affiliate programs aimed at Canadian backpackers.
- Backpacker Party Site - I have what I think is a catchy domain that might make for a good festival/party guide type site but there are lots out there and Im not sure if I can do it better than them.
- London Pub Crawl - I have a domain which I was going to turn into an information site for the Circle Line pub crawl in London but lost interest.
- Another City Guide - I’m going to attempt to build another guide similar to my London site and plan to spend a few months living in the city in early to mid 2009.
Most of my sites are pretty high quality in their content. I’ve research everything really well and tried to provide really unique, informative information. I think it’s important to stick with what you know and I’ve done that, focusing on backpackers with a specific interest in the working holiday niche because I know a bit about it and, more importantly, I’m always interested in learning more.
I’m not really aiming to have a set number of sites. I’m not one of the people who want to have 100 dollar a day sites about stuff I don’t know anything about. I want sites that are complete, full of good information, complement each other and run themselves so that if I do decide to add another one, I won’t be struggling to keep up with my old sites.
So there you go, hopefully this puts my monthly earnings into context a bit and shows that I’m sticking to a niche I love. I know there are lots of other ways to do things but I’ve always thought that doing what you love will pay off in the end and so far it looks like things are working out for me. Yay to backpacking and working holidays!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
I've been travelling since January 2008 living off earnings from the web. Follow me as I bum around Asia and beyond, getting up to mischief and working online as I go. 
I’m so impressed with your creativity and ability to create and maintain so many sites! All of your sites are very informative and content-rich which is, IMHO what makes them big money makers because that drives traffic. Thanks for sharing your full list. I’m excited to hear about your mobile site and how that goes, it definately is the future.
Thanks Kirsty for listing your “pages”…
what a great portfolio of high quality websites.
Keep up this excellent work !
I came across your site via travel rants. Great content and loads of good information about blogging and getting paid for it.
I’m moving to Beijing in September. How is over there? Do you have a blog about your travels at all?
Thanks guys. I like to build them with the idea that I’m not just looking for residual income now, but also building up an asset that might be valuable down the road should I ever need some quick cash. Not that I expect that to happen but quality can py off in a lot of ways even if it takes a lot of time at the start.
Matt you’ve got a great site! I tried to post a comment but the form is all in Chinese so I’m lost. Beijing is fantastic, I wrote a post in late May about the costs if you’re interested. My travel blog is http://www.wanderstruck.com/blog or you can link to it from the map on this site. But it’s a bit neglected.
Hi Kirsty, great listing! Seems like maintaining a couple of sites that share a common theme is the way to go. Less need for research and you can easily crosslink between them (not sure if extensive crsslinking is good or bad for G****e though).
I found that once you have an established site it’s much easier to promote your new sites. I had an undeveloped site that was basically just a one page placeholder with a few keywords on it. It hat just one inbound link from a PR5 site and after a while got PR4 and even some search engine traffic. Nice. Must go and develop this one soon.
It would be great to hear more about your mobile site project but I can understand you don’t want to give away all your secrets. Personally I think mobile sites are not _the_ future but an important part of the future. They will not replace conventional sites completely, just open new opportunities.
Frank I totally agree. Sticking to a common theme is a huge advantage and having an older, trusted site is great for getting new sites listed.
I’ll be talking about my mobile site a lot once I finish it. Sort of as a case study, I guess. Plus I’m eager to see if you guys have any ideas for how I could promote it because I have no idea. It’s a simple site but the amount of research involved is huge. I’m hoping to get it up in a couple of weeks max and will pst here when it’s live and kicking.
I don’t really know what to think about the mobile sites thing but I’m interested to see how mine goes. I think I have a good idea only because it’s something that I would use. So I can only hope that it’d be handy for other people as well.
Kirsty, I think you have the right approach to the mobile thing. Building something that _you_ would use at least guarantees one user.
Seriously, many success stories begin like that… you searching for a solution for a particular problem, but you don’t find it and decide that there might be other people out there with the same problem who would appreciate you solving it.
Great list! It looks like you are hella busy. You’ve got some great places you blog about. I especially like the London site. Keep up the good work!