This is the second update for my Niche Site Project, Keep It Simple, Steven.
The update includes my income report for April 2023, along with traffic stats and other things that happened in April.
Here’s a quick look at last month’s stats:
Quick Stats
Pageviews
1,240
Income
$41.77
Articles
29
To recap, I bought a website three years ago, kind of abandoned it for a while and now doing what I can to revive it.
It also got hit by the May 2022 Google core algorithm update 😣
The goal for this site is to grow the taffic and income so that I can sell the site for around $30,000.
You can find all past updates for this project here.
Let’s get straight to it.
Table of Contents
What Happened in April?
Last month I set myself the goal to publish 10 new articles and update 5.
How did I do?
Well, if you read the last report, you’ll know I had 27 published articles and I now have 29, so I missed it by a longshot.
I also only managed to update 3 posts, so not really the best start to this project.
I’m trying not to blame it on ADHD symptoms, but when the experts say, “I don’t care what you know, you won’t use it.“
This pretty much sums up my life. I have ALL the knowledge, but getting things done seems almost impossible sometimes.
That’s why I get certified as a mindset coach, because I discovered how much ADHD can damage a persons mindset.
It’s had a profound impact on my personal growth and opened up other ways I can serve struggling entrepreneurs.
Plans Moving Forward
Systems. I think I mentioned the importance of building systems last month. (I’ve learned a lot writing for Spencer at Niche Pursuits)
And this is what I’m currently developing.
I still don’t think it’s enough.
That’s why I’ll be using AI writing tools to assist with content creation for this project. I just need to get a good system in place.
I’ve been playing around with some AI tools for a while now (2 years!). But since ChatGPT and other tools cropping up recently, everything has changed.
The content is getting so much better.
I actually started posting AI content on a different blog last year and I got good results.
That blog is still growing and it’s a brand new blog and has very little content.
I also saw that Anne Moss from Yeys.com has made the decision to completely switch to AI-powered writing.
She calls it AI Human-Assisted or AHA for short.
And her business makes $180K per month from a portfolio of 25 sites. If AI Human-Assisted content is good enough for Anne, then it’s good enough for me.
My approach is similar to Anne’s but also different. I’ll be writing up my process soon.
For now, go read how Anna is using Koala to create content. It’s a fantasitc write up.
Detailed Traffic Reports
Search Console
Search Console shows the site received 808 clicks from Google and 42,500 impressions.
That’s less than the previous month, but not a massive drop.
Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing on the other hand has increased. I got 1,400 impressions and 61 clicks in April.
That’s 6 extra clicks and 400 more impressions that last month.
Google Analytics
April’s total traffic was 1000 visitors. That’s 100 less than last month, yet the site’s earnings were almost double.
More on how I increased earnings in a bit.
Pageviews in April were also lower than the previous month at 1,240.
If you’re new to these stats, a visitor can click on multiple pages in one visit. That’s why there are more pageviews than visits.
How I Increased Earnings
I shared a screenshot on Twitter to show I had almost doubled my Amazon affiliate commission, without gaining traffic.
This is what I did:
- Made a list of the articles getting the most visits and added them to a spreadsheet.
- Updated the intros to make them more compelling for the reader. Connected the intent of the article to a human need.
- Found a related product and added an affiliate link to the intro.
- On a few product review posts, I added 3 comparison boxes at the top of the article, after the second paragraph.
I’ll be doing this for more articles in May to see if it makes a difference.
Revenue and Traffic Goals
If my goal is to increase affiliate commissions to $300 per month, then I’ll need to be getting around 6,000 pageviews.
Just as long as I meet these metrics above, that’s how much I’ll be making. You can calculate your site’s earning yourself with my niche site calculator.
For ad revenue to hit $500 per month, I’ll need a lot more traffic. Around 28,000 pageviews per month.
Obviously, this all depends if I meet these figures. If my average product price and CTR is higher, then I’ll make more money with this amount of traffic.
The same is true if I manage to get a higher EPMV when I add Ezoic ads back to the site.
So, if I’m aiming for 30,000 – 40,000 pageviews per month, I’ll need at least 150 articles.
That’s if I average 200 pageviews per article. However, the nature of SEO isn’t that linear. I’ll likely add way more than 150 articles on this site. Maybe closer to 500.
Whether I’ll be able to hit this goal in 2023 is another story.
Other Stats
Rank tracking
I added some keywords to SerpRobot to keep track of their positions.
I’m not tracking every article yet, because some of the articles don’t show up until page 4 and beyond.
I also track 2 or 3 keywords for some articles to see if there’s a pattern when rankings improve.
As soon as I’ve updated all the articles and some of their keywords hit page 2, I’ll add them to this list.
It’ll be interesting to see how many keywords I’m tracking in 6 months time.
Income Report
Amazon earnings
I made $41.77 in Amazon commissions in April. That’s $17.69 more than March.
That’s close to half of my best month in affiliate commissions, which was in April last year for $107.85.
Ezoic still not active
I took down Ezoic ads in December as the traffic had dropped so much and I wanted to give the little traffic it was getting a better experience.
I’m not 100% sure when I’ll add Ezoic back. Maybe in June or July. I’ll see how the traffic improves first.
Expenses
Expenses for April were $36.45, which was for NameCheap web hosting and my favorite WordPress theme, GeneratePress.
That is a gross income of $5.32 in April 2023 and a net loss of $-645.20 for the entire project so far.
You can read the total income for the site in my project announcement.
Plans for May
I think the biggest bottle neck I’m currently stuggling with is needing to update a lot of the content and create new content at the same time.
Switching between these tasks are two very different processes and it doesn’t fair well for ADHD symptoms either.
Here are my plans for the site in May.
- Focus on updating as much content as possible (10-20 posts)
- Publish 5 new pieces of content
I’ll be focusing on updating any post that promotes an Amazon product.
Why?
Because, I’ve just been accepted for higher commission rates, which starts on May 15th.
The commission will be increased from 3% to 6%. That’s a huge jump!
Once all the current articles are updated, I’ll no longer need to think about them.
Each will be better optimized for SEO, have higher converting copy, improved internal links, and an FAQs section.
Then I can focus entire on cranking out new content and developing systems for it.
I think that’s all I’ll be focusing on in May. Got to Keep It Simple, Steven (constantly reminding myself this).
Conclusion
That’s it for this niche site update.
Even though I was a bit disheartened, I’m actually feeling quite excited to get stuck in this month.
These reports definitely help me reflect and know what I need to focus on.