Nov 03 2009
Pushing 20: A List of My Websites
I’ve had a few comments over the past several months asking about how many sites I have so I figured now is as good a time as any to give a list of my websites. I’ve included little blurbs about each site, a bit about earnings and some hopes I have for the websites. This is type of information is something I always wonder about when I read other web developer’s blogs so hopefully reading this will give you some inspiration and a bit more insight into how I earn money online.
For some of the sites I haven’t listed the URLs beucase they’re simple ideas that would be pretty easy to copy. Most of my simple sites don’t really make any money but I am living in hope.
Travoholic.com - This is my first ever site that I started back in 2001 and it’s about budget travel. When I started it there were only a handful of sites about budget travel and backpacking and I felt I could offer something that was better. I always start out ambitious! I have always felt that where you stay has a big impact on your experience, especially if you’re a solo traveller, so I wanted to build a site with a focus on hostel reviews. The idea was a good one and I’m pretty sure it was the first site to use several different criteria to rate hostels. Unfortunately I was busy wasting my time in university and the site was neglected until 2005 when I started taking things a bit more seriously. By that point I had missed the boat and there were plenty of sites that filled the hostel reviewing gap. But this is when I discovered Adsense and after that first click for $0.03 I was inspired to improve my site and start others. Travoholic.com earns about $50 to $100 per month with Adsense, a pitiful $2 to $10 a month with Hostelworld.com and a small amount through advertising. I haven’t done a thing with this site in years but I have a few ideas for how to overhaul things. Because its an old, trusted domain and does well with Google, I think it has a lot of potential.
Working Holiday Info - This was my second website and it’s my favourite because of the little cartoon characters I’ve added. I totally went over the top with the artistic flair I added to the site, but it was fun. This site was penalised ages ago by Google and dropped down to PR0 so I haven’t had much success with advertising, although I haven’t really tried. I don’t have any affiliate programs on the site either so there’s nothing doing there. Adsense does well with around $80 to $100 monthly. This site could use an update and I could also see myself selling info packages specific to each working holiday country.
Nerdy Nomad - You’re on it! This is my only blog and it isn’t my aim to make money from this site. For me, blogs aren’t the way I want to earn online (I prefer to build a site and forget about it). I have this blog because I love connecting with people who are into travelling and web development. Plus it gives me a place to keep a few of my travel tales and it helps to have a place to ask questions and get feedback from you guys. I earn a bit through advertising deals but I don’t go out and look for them.
Stuck in London - This is my most popular site with over 350 unique visits a day. The site is focused on a specific niche that I know a lot about in a city I know a lot about so it is a great fit. Adsense has been the main income source with around $200 coming in per month and I am also starting to have high quality advertisers contact me about partnering up. I’m in the process of adding a few affiliate programs that seem like a good fit but time will tell if that works. The information on this site is of a high quality and I think that’s important for being able to keep attracting advertisers.
Travel Insurance Sites - I have three old travel insurance sites that focus on a specific niche and account for almost 100% of my affiliate earnings. I have recently finished another four websites that are targeted at a different niche in the travel insurance market. I know they are good ideas that will work but I need to get them ranking with Google before I see any earnings and that will take a lot of work that I don’t have time for just now. I’m considering an Adwords program but I probably won’t get to that until next year because I don’t know a thing about them and will need to do some research before I get started and a lot of tweaking once I get things going.
Adsense Sites - I have two websites that were created solely to put Adsense on them. I don’t like these sites but having seen a few net friends do well with them, I thought I would give it a try. I need to do loads more SEO for these sites to start performing and I won’t have time for this until after Indonesia next year. They’re on the back burner for now and don’t earn me anything.
Stuck in Beijing, Sydney and New York - These sites have been my attempt to get a little network of city sites going similar to my London site. The Beijing site is the oldest and ranks well with Google but doesn’t get as much traffic as I would like. The Sydney site’s content isn’t as good as I would like it to be but after a recent barrage of SEO it’s starting to rank. The New York site is brand new with good content but I haven’t done any SEO yet. For each of these sites I expect to earn a bit with Adsense but I’m hoping the main revenue source will be through city-specific advertising. These sites are all a work in progress and so far none of them are doing much.
London 2012 Olympics - I love the Olympics, I love London and I love making websites. This one sprung from a conversation with my friend Mike who ran a site for the Beijing Olympics. It seemed like an interesting idea and I didn’t think I would ever get a match more suited to me than the London Olympics. I’ve had a couple of lucrative advertising deals but, other than that, I haven’t earned much. I expect to earn a lot through Adsense in the months running up to the Olympics but I will need to get cracking on the SEO for this site. I think there are other ways to squeeze a few bucks out of this site but will have to brainstorm and get to work soon.
Wanderstruck - I started this site last year as a pure travel blog. The plan was to have a place to write about my travels, post photos and keep friends and family informed. My aim wasn’t to make money off of the site. I have since realised that I don’t really like writing blog posts about my travels. I find them difficult to write and they were taking up far too much of my time and I always felt guilty for going weeks without a post. At the moment this site is empty but I’m working at building a site about travelling in Africa. This is a massive work in progress and it’s the site I’m most excited about.
Backpacker Niche Site - I have a website about a very specific type of trip that Aussies, Kiwis and Saffas take around Europe. I actually forgot to register the domain at the beginning of the year and had to buy it back which screwed me over for this year’s earnings. Normally this site earns well during the summer with Adsense and insurance sales. I also have a partnership with a company who is a perfect fit in the niche and they pay me a pretty high yearly fee to advertise. I have lots of ideas for how to improve this site but it’s one of my lowest priorities right now.
If you haven’t been counting along, here’s a summary of my sites:
- Travoholic
- Working Holiday Info
- Nerdy Nomad
- Stuck in London
- Stuck in Beijing
- Stuck in Sydney
- Stuck in New York
- Insurance Site A
- Insurance Site B
- Insurance Site C
- Insurance Site D
- Insurance Site E
- Insurance Site F
- Insurance Site G
- Crappy Adsense Site A
- Crappy Adsense Site B
- London 2012 Olympics
- Wanderstruck
- Backpacker Niche Site
Wow, I didn’t realise I had so many websites until just now. Like I said before, many of these are either brand new and doing nothing for me or they’re old and neglected and doing nothing for me. I’m an eternal optimist though and think that all of my sites have potential. I think one of my main issues is always wanting to move onto new site ideas before finishing the SEO and promotion work on the others. I love the building stage of web development so this will be a hard habit to kick.
I do think that having a network of sites is key in this business, at least in my experiences. Often one of my best sites will randomly start sucking for a month and another will come through with a great month to save my ass a bit. It’s strange how that works. Diversification is important with revenue streams (Adsense, affliates advertising, your own products etc.) and I think it’s equally important to diversify your sites by having a few different topics even if they are still a part of a broad niche like what I’m doing with budget travel.
I hope this has been helpful to people. Don’t feel overwhelmed because I have almost 20 sites. I admit that I have gone a bit crazy over the past few months. I think as few as four or five quality websites is fine. More sites doesn’t always mean more money, especially when you lose your focus and fleet from project to project without doing the SEO work.
Either way I hope this post helps. I would be interested in hearing about other people’s website portfolios. Do you dabble in the crappy Adsense sites or stick with one or two high quality ones? Blogs or static sites? What works for you and what is your ideal number of sites?
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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 felt I could offer something that was better” I think this is a key attitude required in our line of “work.”
I know it’s what drove me to start my second travel blog about Medellin, Colombia and that has worked out well. I know there’s more I could do with it, but I have to prioritize. The good news is I’ve actually got a Colombian guy reaching out to local hostels/clubs because I publicized my willingness to share any earnings from locally-generated advertising.
Pretty amazing what you can do with a blog/site these days!
I think I’ve developed a borderline addiction to it all.
Your lifestyle has a lot in common with those who use the words like lifestyle design, location independent, internet marketing, freedom, etc. to describe their mission. I think you know who/what I mean. The difference is that you are the ONLY one who lays out how much you’re actually earning, and how you do it, rather than making vague unverifiable claims (since getting specific might damage their ability to make money off telling other people how to make money online - their primary source of revenue). It’s really helpful, thanks!
It’s awesome to see a post like this, it’s what everyone wants to read but everyone is too scared to write about. I commend both you and Dave for doing it. I’m planning on having 10 sites, when they are better developed I’ll do this type of thing but as you know, early on and sometimes even later its just to easy for others to copy them.
@dave I’m really glad to hear your Medellin site is doing well. That was pretty fast, too. I think having tha tColumbian guy on board will pay off for sure. I know what you mean about the addiction!
@sanuk I couldn’t agree with you more. I’m suspicious of anyone who sells a ‘make money online’ type of ebook and doesn’t disclose their own earnings. Then they might go on to say they’re making thousands a month but fail to point out that most or all of these earnings are because of book sales. That’s not my scene and I try to be as transparent as possible with everything I do. If I’m not, I will tell people why I won’t give out certain types of information. It’s not for everyone but I feel like the good will outweigh the bad about being so transparent. Maybe I will get burned, who knows, but I believe in karma!
@dan I’m glad you like the post. I remember being frustrated as well with the lack of posts like these and I like to write about things I would like to read myself, so here it is.
Interesting article! My web portfolio currently consists of a grand total of 1 site - at the moment its about photography and backpacking, but looking at this list, I feel like I should have more
My travel funds at the moment are coming from my photography, not the blog, but who knows, that may change in future!
Wooah nelly, thats a lot. Like everyone else said, so glad your comfortable laying it all out on the table for people to see. Really helps me grasp the idea of making money through websites and adsense. Makes me want to shift my priorities. As Dan said, once I have a portfolio worth showing, I’d love to post it! Thanks again for the tour through your work. Keep up the great work
Great post Kristy! Always a big fan of your stuck in london site : )) think you will do very well with your “stuck in” sites in a couple of months!
Thanks for doing this. Its motivating to see how many sites you have and what they do. I thought you had a lot more. The ones I have seen are put together well
Do you keep all your travel sites on one hosting account, and your other adsense ones on another?
Yeah I have one or two websites: my self-titled one is really the only real blog ie my unvarnished views on life. I am also now running netmarketingtoday.com as a new venture to buy/sell websites - to that end I have rather a lot of websies at the moment - 67 in total. The others spilt between niche websites (Adsense or affiliate sales) and support sites. Although all are running on WordPress most arent “real” blogs ie the content is not regularly updated. I also have quite a number of sites on web 2.0 properties such as today.com, blogger, wordperss.com etc - these are mainly support sitess as well.
Big thanks for your inspiring post. I haven´t got a portfolio because the few sites I have gotten online I lost again due to neglect. The site I was proudest of and the only one worth showing I made in 2002, lost the name a year later to a pornographer who used it to direct traffic to his main sites. Thankfully it´s just a domain hoarder who has the name today.
Basically it was made up of hundreds of streetviews I photographed in Reykjavik on a digital camera, interlinked in such a fashion that one could click on the forward button and be presented with the view ca. hundred steps ahead, the back button and see the view behind (and to turn around), the left button or the right one. Google made something similar but more hight tech a few years later.
A few fragments of the original site survive on archive.org (slow) and they give an idea of how the site worked:
The home page: http://web.archive.org/web/20020331020806/http://visualreykjavik.com/
Example of streetview 1: http://web.archive.org/web/20020330232610/www.visualreykjavik.com/syndarveruleiki/grandagardur/04.htm
Example of “street”view 2: http://web.archive.org/web/20020624174514/www.visualreykjavik.com/syndarveruleiki/grandabakki/01.htm
Thats pretty awesome of you to share the websites Kristy, I know that takes alot of courage, because even I myself am afraid to reveal my websites even to my friends, thats how much I guard my websites. But as far as what websites I run, I have a mix of high quality websites, and what some may call crappy websites, but all of them are mainly run using wordpress, a few still using static html, but for the most part I’ve gone to wordpress for most of them.
Till then,
Jean
I have 39 sites now and i’m building 9 more as we speak
Wow, 19! I’m still at about… (counting) 8. I’ve seen some of your sites and I’m sure there is still a lot of potential for more earnings. I’m just not sure if rolling out more websites is the way to go, since you keep telling that you don’t even get to maintaining your existing ones, i.e. adding content, doing SEO and finding affiliate programs. I would make that my focus for a wile. Yes, I know creating new sites is much more exciting…
Wow you are building up quite the travel empire Kirsty. That’s an impressive list of websites. Keep working on building those websites up and you are bound to succeed. I wouldn’t worry about expanding to any more websites yet though. Once you build up too many you will realize that you don’t give each site enough individual attention.
3 sites up, building 3 more, and 12 other domains already purchased.
I think building smaller sites and having your main keyword in your domain name helps a lot with SEO, so the actual number of niche sites you have doesn’t matter that much.
Its great to see a full list of websites that you own and how you make your money. It also keeps me going so that i can see one day i will be up to your level…
Thailand is where i will call home in a few years!!
all the best
steve
Wow, nice portfolio - Looks like the work has been paying off though, so nicely done
You… Nomadic Matt… how on earth do you do it??? I have Women on the Road - just one site and that’s enough to keep me utterly occupied. I’m missing a trick here…
Nice list Kirsty, I made last week 2 half decent websites in 3 days, its surprising how quickly they can go up if you focus. They are my first niche websites and already in top 10 google ranking for each one, not made any money, not sure what to expect really so I still have stuff to learn.
I will love to find out how others are able to manage so many websites too! I’m already struggling with 4 : ))
I wish I could post a list of my websites. I should work on this.
Nice list of sites, having networks of sites is the way to go for sure.
To be honest it is quite easy to maintain a number of websites. The key is to have some that don’t need much updating so avoid anything with a lot of current news on or frequent changes to legislation etc
I can update 10 sites in a day quite easily and in many cases thats it for a few weeks.
A blog can be updated in 15 minutes if you know your subject well, and herein lies
The pain comes when you have to renew them. $10 for a domain doesnt sound much but it soon adds up!
Sorry lost a sentance there…
A blog can be updated in 15 minutes if you know your subject well, and herein lies the key, make sure your sites are on a subject you know well or one in which you have enough interest to know well!
@Working Nomad, Domain Renewals aren’t that bad if you are making a profit on the website, and plus… it’s more like less than $8 for every website renewal if you use Godaddy Coupon codes
Till then,
Jean
It is easy to rank google pagerank, if you know how to do that. the main thing is you need time to do a lot of boring stuff. Recently, As a lot of friends required i build a blog to share you my Affiliate market making and motivate me to break out of my every months goal and a little bit of SEO, of course i am a traveler.
Love you blog !! Giannis
ONLY twenty sites? Ha ha. How do you keep track of all you have to do for each one? Don’t they all neeed attention?
Wow Kirsty, 20 sites? That’s truly an impressive number. I have my hands full with one and currently having a bit lazy phase where I question if it’s all worth to maintain. But then I don’t have to do it for the money, mainly for fun.
Anyway - your efforts definitely paid off and the income is encouraging for everyone, who prefers living a working nomad life, compared to living in a cubicle.
Cheers to that!
Chris
[…] Matt Kepnes (of nomadicmatt.com) and Kirsty Henderson (of nerdynomad.com) are good examples of people who have made this system work. By creating highly specific, keyword-optimized sites, both Matt and Kirsty generate enough money each month to sustain their world travels. Pretty remarkable, when you think about it. Oh, another thing. Once the site is set up, little to no maintenance is required. It’s a textbook example of passive income. […]