I am always excited by the first sale of any affiliate niche sites, no matter how small the amount may be. I revealed one of my newer niche site in this post on creating multiple income streams. Yesterday, it made its first sale selling a kids gps tracker, which is exactly what I was promoting. The victory is small but sweet!

The biggest challenge of exploring any new niches is not knowing whether there are any profits to be made. Despite all the market research, you can never be 100% sure whether the new site is going to make any money. The best way is to just throw out something and let the numbers reveal the reality. This is exactly what I did.

I created a very small site, comprise only 4 articles. My intention was to see if this was enough to generate any traffic and sales. I am not expecting a lot but if a small site can made sales with just a few articles and minimal promotion, that means a proper site can make more. That is how I test new niches. Anything with minimal effort that can generate sales means anything more serious can bring in more money.

I learn this from painful experiences in the past. Let me share one particular experience. I created a recipe site that has over 50 articles from real stay at home mums who knew how to make a particular dish. It did well in the search engines, bringing in close to 10,000 unique visitors per month from search engines alone. Money earned? USD12. Yes, that is how low the conversation rate is for the recipe niche. This taught me that not all niches can be profitable and the worst thing anyone can do is to put in a lot of effort in a niche that isn’t responsive to sales.

This is why I now start any new sites with just a couple of articles and 2-3 links. I then sit back and wait to see what will happen. Most of them will tank but a couple will become winners. A winning site can make a sale with less than 10 visitors per day. People in such niches are strong buyers and it is worth putting in more effort in growing the small niche into a much bigger one. Of course, most people will not reveal these winning niches as they are hard to find and the site owners will want to keep them in secrecy as long as they can.

In summary, this is how I build up my income streams for early retirement. It is a tough road but one that I enjoyed. I don’t have a high paying job currently that put a lot of money in my bank account every month. I also didn’t save a lot when I was younger. This means I need to find my own path now that I am 34 and looking to retire before 40!