We picked up the pace a bit this month with much more in-depth articles but hit a huge speed bump in terms of potential earnings through display ads.
This niche might not be as profitable as I thought.
Key Metrics
| Total Posts published | 107 |
| Posts published in month 1 | 23 |
| Posts published in month 2 | 50 |
| Posts published in month 3 | 26 |
| Posts published in month 4 | 7 |
| Possts published in month 5 | 19 |
Rankings
Another month of huge jumps in the ranking, no complaints here!
| Date Checked | February 4 2023 |
| Avg. Position | 11.2 (15.8 prev) |
| Position in Top 3 on SERPS | 180 (58 prev) |
| Position in 4-10 on SERPS | 342 (156 prev) |
| Position in 11-50 on SERPS | 3,800 (1,668 prev) |
Traffic
Some expected bumps from all the new keywords.
Expenses
Expenses went up accordingly to the faster publishing schedule, and I think I might have to be looking at upgrading my hosting plan in the next few months.
| Time Period | Feb – March |
| Writers | $700 |
What I’ve learned this month
My initial goal for this site was to build traffic and get recurring revenue through Google Adsense. I was curious about the payout in this niche but was hugely disappointed when I ran a test this month and saw the numbers.
This is mostly due to the content on the site being non-transactional (people aren’t searching for something to buy), and the rates reflect that.
It’s so low that I don’t think Adsense would be sustainable for the long term, so I’ve been thinking about how to pivot into a model.
At the same time, Mediavine is known to pay out considerably more than Adsense, but I need to get to the 50k sessions per month before I can apply.
Plans for next month
I’ve got to cut down on expenses, so I’ve told my writers to pause all content until I figure out what to do next.
I’m going to continue to put together some content myself in order to keep traffic going on.
I still think the site can still be a decent side business, but it’ll take some significant reworking.
Good lesson learned nonetheless.
I think it’ll be pretty slow until I reach that 50k mark. I’ll do another update next month, but then will hold off on the next one until I hit the new traffic goal.
Related
Starting a niche site from scratch
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