[Journey] Niche blogging using Income School Concepts

olivier said:

Motivating to read.
I have also some blog ideas.
It's always so hard to motivate yourself to start and continue with yourself being the only reader in the beginning.

How much roughly from that 2700$ comes to your bank?

1500? 2000?

I'm just trying to get some estimates.
Nothing personal

Wish you all the best!
Keep us updating.

Btw, these adnetworks you use, how long it took for them to accept your blog?
I know that some networks require specific amount of traffic, to even be able to join

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Meaning how much of it is really paid to me? Or how much of it actually hits the bank account in the same month that you earned it?
The total amount listed comes to me eventually. There is a delay on adthrive payments, by 45 days, which is actually better than many ad networks, net-60 is common. Anyway, around the 10th-15th of each month I get my adthrive payment but it's from a previous month like earlier this week I got the money that was actually earned in July. So this money I earned in August will about 3.5 weeks from now, mid October. Adthrive makes money when I make money too, but the amount that they show me is just my portion, they don't get a cut of that number that I listed.

I don't watch the others as closely seems how they're smaller amounts of money I just don't watch them as closely. But some affiliate companies have a payment delay as well, I forget which ones. Some will hold your payment until you reach a set amount like $50 is the limit for CJ I think, and I earn very little through them (like $7 a month or something) so those earnings will probably reach me a few months from now...definitely slow. So yeah, different money comes in at different times but it all comes to me eventually.

Great journey buddy I'm procrastinating to start my blog have purchased the Domain

I wanted to know which theme do you currently use and would recommend . Generate Press , Astra or any other. Recommend any plugins too
Design wise I love this website



Also what do you think about pinterest traffic these days , some are saying good times are over and most accounts get limited traffic

notNewB said:

I'm amazed looking at your results. Congrats on your ultimate success, OP. Keep it up!

So, here are some points that interest me.

Can we know the type of articles you publish? Are they question form articles? Step-by-step guides? Comparisons? Faqs? How-tos?

Can you give an insight into the best article of yours that drives the most traffic? It's form, length, amount of images it has, how long did it take to get to the point where it is now in terms of traffic, are there forums, quora answers, or in short, low-competition indicating results in the top 10 search results by the keyword which is the main keyword of this page of yours. And most importantly, as an example, can you show an article in another niche that is similar to your top article.

Your answer is much appreciated. Thanks a lot.

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Sure. All of my articles are based on some sort of search query so most of them are answering some sort of question. I'd say most of my titles are questions. Not all, but many (most?) of my articles have subheadings/h2's that include additional questions and answers that are relevant to the main question.

A decent amount (maybe 1/4?) of my content is a how to X type of question with a step by step answer and those are certainly some of my most popular posts.

My most popular blog post is answering a basic question that is sort of a really key question for newbies in my overall niche. Like...if this was a sewing blog, it would be the equivalent of "how to get started sewing". I'll do a quick overview of my top 10 articles to give you a more through idea.

#1 is the super newbie question and a step-by step answer. 17% of my traffic goes to this post.
#2 is an odd one, it's actually not a question specifically but it draws people who aren't even started in my niche yet but are considering it. Using the sewing idea it would be something like...'Signs that you may be good at sewing." Not a spot-on analogy as nobody would search if they are good at sewing before they try sewing, and people do search this thing my post is about...haha. But I can't think of a good example that is similar enough. 9% of my traffic is this post.
#3 Is a step by step how-to of how to do something very basic in my niche. Sewing analogy would be how to set up your sewing machine. 5% of my traffic is this post.
#4 Is another how-to sort of, but it's not a step by step guide it's more of a list of different ways to do something. Sewing analogy would be "5 stitches you can use when making a dress". 5% of traffic.
#5 Is answering a specific question, problem solving a common newbie problem. Sewing analogy "why you're getting a birds nest when sewing and how to correct it" 4% of traffic.
#6 Another how-to that is rather basic/newbie, not a step by step answer but instead shows several possible answers and the different pros/cons of each. Sewing analogy "how to choose fabric when sewing a dress." 3% of traffic.
#7 Yet another how-to, it's actually four how-to's in one, and also I compare the four different methods. Lots of time put into this one but I knew it was a competitive result that needed a really thorough article to rank well. Can't think of a sewing analogy for this, so let's jump to cooking instead. It's like title "how to cook an egg" and then a step by step tutorials for tutorial for scrambling, a tutorial for frying, tutorial for omelets, tutorial for hard boiling, then comparing and contrasting the four outcomes. 3% of traffic.
#8 Answering a 'why' question, problem solving, again a newbie question. Sewing example "Why your stitching seams are coming out uneven" 2.5% of traffic.
#9 A routine post, step by step tutorial. No sewing analogy so I'll jump to a general beauty example? "Morning skincare routine for oily patchy skin" 2.5% of traffic.
#10 Another routine post, very similar to the above but just budget focused so similar to "Drugstore morning skincare routine for oily pachy skin, under $20 at CVS" 2% of traffic.


I point out the newbie stuff because Income School explains how search volume for more basic questions is almost always higher than questions that are more detailed. For most any hobby or topic, even, there are way more people who are beginners or newbies vs those who are novices. I do share some more detailed content for more experienced people too, but I've definitely found that they are right, the content for beginners is searched for most. My content that is more for people with some more experience gets decent traffic still but definitely not as much.

I can't think of a really great match to be able to give you an example of another article that is similar to my #1. I'd probably be okay with sharing my blog URL with you privately if you want to DM me. I don't want to be real public with my blog on here but I'm not afraid of sharing it with people who seem to have good intentions, either. My niche is definitely primarily for women so I doubt that most people on her would ever have any interest in joining my niche to try to compete with me anyway. It seems to be almost all men on here.

IncognitoSince2002 said:

Great journey buddy I'm procrastinating to start my blog have purchased the Domain

I wanted to know which theme do you currently use and would recommend . Generate Press , Astra or any other. Recommend any plugins too
Design wise I love this website



Also what do you think about pinterest traffic these days , some are saying good times are over and most accounts get limited traffic

Click to expand...

I put pretty minimal time into my blog appearance, honestly. I had purchased a genesis theme years ago so that's what I used on my new blogs just because I still had it so it was free. I got a customized logo on Etsy for like $15 and used picmonkey to incorporate it into a header that fit my theme size. My theme is kinda outdated so I would like to upgrade at some point, probably to one that is really well optimized for mobile but it just hasn't been a priority yet. I think as long as your site is easy to use on all devices, and doesn't specifically look bad, then it doesn't necessarily need to look super great. Function is most important in my book. Plus most people exclusively use their phones these days and you see so little of a website theme on mobile anyway.

While this blog was my first niche blog, I've been blogging since 2009 and my older non-niche blogs definitely used to see WAY better traffic from pinterest than I can get now. It's definitely declined in how beneficial it is for blogs, unfortunately. Pinterest has even outright said recently that the changes they're making are designed to keep people on pinterest longer. Which of course is a reasonable goal for them to have, but it definitely doesn't help bloggers if they are trying to avoid having people click off pinterest to go visit our blogs. I personally am still making pinterest graphics for the posts that I think have a chance of ranking well on pinterest. I still think pinterest is better for blog traffic than FB, twitter or Instagram. But it's definitely past its hay day and I do expect it to continue to get worse in the future. For now I still feel it's worth the time making the graphics.

Wow, inspiring thread. mann

Just finished reading your entire thread. Keep up the good work! I'll definitely be following you

@Anon9109 I would caution you regarding sharing your niche or site with others. You got approx. 2500 $ per month with ~60 articles. Many would try to outcompete you with similar content and/more backlinks.

What plugins do you use?
Do you still use easyWP host? My website is very slow, i want to move to other.
Thanks

dlyhai said:

What plugins do you use?
Do you still use easyWP host? My website is very slow, i want to move to other.
Thanks

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I try to keep plugins fairly minimal. I have a plugin for my adnetwork (adthrive), the classic editor plugin, contact form 7, monster insights google analytics plugin, manage WP, webstories, and Yoast. Those are the only active ones. Inactive I have ads.txt manager, akismet anti-spam, Autoptimize, favicon.

I am still using easyWP and have been super happy with it. I did upgrade to their bigger plan at some point. I was well over the traffic allotment that their smaller plan claims to allow and my site still wasn't slow or going down or anything. I just upgraded because I was tired of having to renew my SSL certificate all the time. So I upgraded to their plan that suits my traffic level as it comes with an ongoing SSL. I think it's $7 something a month where the smallest plan was $3 something a month.

Anon9109 said:

I try to keep plugins fairly minimal. I have a plugin for my adnetwork (adthrive), the classic editor plugin, contact form 7, monster insights google analytics plugin, manage WP, webstories, and Yoast. Those are the only active ones. Inactive I have ads.txt manager, akismet anti-spam, Autoptimize, favicon.

I am still using easyWP and have been super happy with it. I did upgrade to their bigger plan at some point. I was well over the traffic allotment that their smaller plan claims to allow and my site still wasn't slow or going down or anything. I just upgraded because I was tired of having to renew my SSL certificate all the time. So I upgraded to their plan that suits my traffic level as it comes with an ongoing SSL. I think it's $7 something a month where the smallest plan was $3 something a month.

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Thanks, very detail information, why you don't use cache plugin?

dlyhai said:

Thanks, very detail information, why you don't use cache plugin?

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I don't really know what a cache plugin even is, to be honest, haha. My boyfriend is far more tech savvy than I am. When I make new blogs he sets them up for me.

Sept 2021 update (month 13)
Total pageviews: 111,750 (down 17,243)
Total sessions: 72,875 (down 8584)
Total blog posts: 76 (2 new in September)


Total organic visits 44,220 (77.80% of my traffic). Down 6,422 vs August.


Pinterest traffic: 5199, vs 5477 last month. Down by 278.

Google search console screenshot for September


Income results:
Income results:
Adthrive $2,271 (down $332).
Amazon affiliates $53.99 (down $18.33)
Impact affiliates 8.92 (down .37)
Rakuten - $0 (down $90)
Total: $2333.91 (down 440.70)


Random thoughts...

Of course, it stinks to see my traffic and income go down rather than up. For one of my other blogs, November and December are extremely busy, and I have to start prepping for that busy season in September, plus I moved in early September. So I've had less time for my niche blogs, unfortunately, and while that doesn't impact my traffic seems how it's mostly search-based traffic anyway, I haven't really dug into my analytics or looked up where my posts are ranking to find specific answers to why my traffic has gone down. Just from this quick overview, it's clear that 5-6k of the drop is from less search traffic, so I assume I've slipped in the ranking on some posts, or maybe just one of my bigger posts.

Just today, I started seeing an increase in traffic to a post that I did a couple months ago that is Halloween themed. So hopefully that post's extra traffic this month will assist with traffic for this month, at least.

I also noticed that my average season time has dropped from a little over 2 mins to about 1.5. I took advice from someone at adthrive who said I should enable interstitial ads (Ad that you have to click off when going from one page on my site to another) and I'm wondering if that has decreased my time on page. It didn't seem to help my earnings a whole lot, so if I can look at my analytics and see if that change happened around the time that I enabled that change in my ads, I'll probably disable that ad type.

Hopefully sometime this month I'll have time to figure out more details about why my traffic has dropped a bit and when I find answers I'll share with you guys.

Anon9109 said:

Sept 2021 update (month 13)
Total pageviews: 111,750 (down 17,243)
Total sessions: 72,875 (down 8584)
Total blog posts: 76 (2 new in September)

View attachment 187396
Total organic visits 44,220 (77.80% of my traffic). Down 6,422 vs August.
View attachment 187397

Pinterest traffic: 5199, vs 5477 last month. Down by 278.

Google search console screenshot for September
View attachment 187398

Income results:
Income results:
Adthrive $2,271 (down $332).
Amazon affiliates $53.99 (down $18.33)
Impact affiliates 8.92 (down .37)
Rakuten - $0 (down $90)
Total: $2333.91 (down 440.70)


Random thoughts...

Of course, it stinks to see my traffic and income go down rather than up. For one of my other blogs, November and December are extremely busy, and I have to start prepping for that busy season in September, plus I moved in early September. So I've had less time for my niche blogs, unfortunately, and while that doesn't impact my traffic seems how it's mostly search-based traffic anyway, I haven't really dug into my analytics or looked up where my posts are ranking to find specific answers to why my traffic has gone down. Just from this quick overview, it's clear that 5-6k of the drop is from less search traffic, so I assume I've slipped in the ranking on some posts, or maybe just one of my bigger posts.

Just today, I started seeing an increase in traffic to a post that I did a couple months ago that is Halloween themed. So hopefully that post's extra traffic this month will assist with traffic for this month, at least.

I also noticed that my average season time has dropped from a little over 2 mins to about 1.5. I took advice from someone at adthrive who said I should enable interstitial ads (Ad that you have to click off when going from one page on my site to another) and I'm wondering if that has decreased my time on page. It didn't seem to help my earnings a whole lot, so if I can look at my analytics and see if that change happened around the time that I enabled that change in my ads, I'll probably disable that ad type.

Hopefully sometime this month I'll have time to figure out more details about why my traffic has dropped a bit and when I find answers I'll share with you guys.

Click to expand...

You can check in your Adthrive dashboard exactly how much you've made from interstitial ads, to see whether it is worth having it on or not.

In my personal opinion, such ads look rather spammy and people associate them (consciously or subconsciously) with low quality websites (which are full of such ads).

Also, time on page and average session duration (the metric you display on your screenshots here) are not the same thing. Average session time drop has more to do with higher bounce rate, which can be related to the interstitial ads.

You can check if this is the case going to Behavior - Site Content - All Pages in your G. analytics, and seeing if the "average time on page" metric has also dropped, or not (by the way it is much more important metric than average session duration). If it has not, the new ads are almost for sure to blame...

In any case, GL with your journey and keep it up

Kikerinka said:

You can check in your Adthrive dashboard exactly how much you've made from interstitial ads, to see whether it is worth having it on or not.

In my personal opinion, such ads look rather spammy and people associate them (consciously or subconsciously) with low quality websites (which are full of such ads).

Also, time on page and average session duration (the metric you display on your screenshots here) are not the same thing. Average session time drop has more to do with higher bounce rate, which can be related to the interstitial ads.

You can check if this is the case going to Behavior - Site Content - All Pages in your G. analytics, and seeing if the "average time on page" metric has also dropped, or not (by the way it is much more important metric than average session duration). If it has not, the new ads are almost for sure to blame...

In any case, GL with your journey and keep it up

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Thanks .
I know I'm making a little over $100 a month from the interstitial ads. Longterm, I don't think it is worth it to me to have them for $100. I agree they don't look very good. I'm in a bit of a tough spot financially right now, to be honest. Last month I moved and bought a car. I need to buy a washing machine and a dishwasher this month, etc. So that's why I've put it on at least for now. However, I've still wondered if that is really gaining me $100 or not overall. What I've had a hard time figuring out is whether I could be losing additional pageviews, which may not make that $100 worth it. Like if people see the interstitial ad and leave rather than stay to read the additional article they were looking for. I don't know how to determine that, or if I can determine that from my analytics?

I enabled interstitial ads mid-day August 12th here is my 'time on page' screenshot with my cursor on august 12th to highlight the date where the change occured. It doesn't seem to have made a meaningful impact in my time on page. So that's good. When looking a monthly averages, July was 3:36, August was 3:28, September was 3:40 and October so far is 3:38.

Anon9109 said:

I'm in a bit of a tough spot financially right now, to be honest

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To the right buyer your site is probably worth $60000+ as is.

Hang in there. Good times are coming.

I was very impressed that you stick to your gut about quality content and that you moved into a 400sqf apartment.

Cheers!


Ps. As a test. I recommend instead of doing one long post next, try writing at least a dozen very short posts each on very long tail. Think of it as stubbing out the remainder of the 100 total pages. You'll be pleasantly surprised at the increase in page views.

Good luck with your journey

Anon9109 said:

Thanks .
I know I'm making a little over $100 a month from the interstitial ads. Longterm, I don't think it is worth it to me to have them for $100. I agree they don't look very good. I'm in a bit of a tough spot financially right now, to be honest. Last month I moved and bought a car. I need to buy a washing machine and a dishwasher this month, etc. So that's why I've put it on at least for now. However, I've still wondered if that is really gaining me $100 or not overall. What I've had a hard time figuring out is whether I could be losing additional pageviews, which may not make that $100 worth it. Like if people see the interstitial ad and leave rather than stay to read the additional article they were looking for. I don't know how to determine that, or if I can determine that from my analytics?

I enabled interstitial ads mid-day August 12th here is my 'time on page' screenshot with my cursor on august 12th to highlight the date where the change occured. It doesn't seem to have made a meaningful impact in my time on page. So that's good. When looking a monthly averages, July was 3:36, August was 3:28, September was 3:40 and October so far is 3:38.

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You actually need to check other numbers in Analytics to see how much you made (or actually lost ) because of interstitial ads. Average time on page is an important thing, but won't tell much about this particular stat.

Though it isn't actually easy to say exactly what happened, you can try to do the following:

1. Select data range from 13th August to 13th September, and compare it with "previous period" in G. Analytics. You can also choose 28 days period instead, if your niche have big difference in traffic patterns for different days of the week.

2. Compare the "bounce rate" for both periods. You can see your bounce rate in Audience -> Overview tab of G. Analytics, bottom right.

3. If the bounce rate remained the same (or very close to what it has been before 12th August), it is fine, and you are not losing any money because of enabling interstitial ads.

4. If the bounce rate got higher, then you have to do some more Math to see the exact impact. For example, if it was 80% before and now got to 85%, it means that on each 100K visits you are losing 5K page views.

With your RPM hovering around the $20 mark (for September), it would actually mean that while you made extra $100 on the interstitial ads, you've lost exactly the same amount ($100) on the page views you didn't get, because of enabling these ads (given that, for simplification, you had exactly 100K PV in the observed period).

Not sure if it makes sense, but I tried to simplify it as much as I could .

Kikerinka said:

You actually need to check other numbers in Analytics to see how much you made (or actually lost ) because of interstitial ads. Average time on page is an important thing, but won't tell much about this particular stat.

Though it isn't actually easy to say exactly what happened, you can try to do the following:

1. Select data range from 13th August to 13th September, and compare it with "previous period" in G. Analytics. You can also choose 28 days period instead, if your niche have big difference in traffic patterns for different days of the week.

2. Compare the "bounce rate" for both periods. You can see your bounce rate in Audience -> Overview tab of G. Analytics, bottom right.

3. If the bounce rate remained the same (or very close to what it has been before 12th August), it is fine, and you are not losing any money because of enabling interstitial ads.

4. If the bounce rate got higher, then you have to do some more Math to see the exact impact. For example, if it was 80% before and now got to 85%, it means that on each 100K visits you are losing 5K page views.

With your RPM hovering around the $20 mark (for September), it would actually mean that while you made extra $100 on the interstitial ads, you've lost exactly the same amount ($100) on the page views you didn't get, because of enabling these ads (given that, for simplification, you had exactly 100K PV in the observed period).

Not sure if it makes sense, but I tried to simplify it as much as I could .

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Thanks so much, that's extremely helpful. More advanced stuff in google analytics isn't my strong suit and neither is math, haha.

My bounce rate for august 13 - sept 13 is 75.23%. July 13-August 13th had a bounce rate of 73.90%. A 1.33% difference, so maybe that's from the interstitial ads but that minimal of a difference seems like it could be any number of other factors too, I'm sure a small degree of fluctuation in bounce rate is probably just normal. Though, even if it were all lost from the interstitial ads, I guess that 1.33% increase in bounce rate works out to around 1,300 less pageviews per 100k visits if I'm following the math correctly? So we're talking about a little more than $20 lost over 100k visits or so. Though in September I had 72k sessions, less than the 100k visits we used to calculate. So even if the full bounce rate change is due to the ads, they're making me 'lose' less than $20 a month, yet they're earning me $100 a month, so it's a net gain.

Does it sound like I calculated that right?

My current plan is to leave them on until I'm feeling a bit more secure in my fiances and then do away with it. Thanks again for your help!

Anon9109 said:

Thanks so much, that's extremely helpful. More advanced stuff in google analytics isn't my strong suit and neither is math, haha.

My bounce rate for august 13 - sept 13 is 75.23%. July 13-August 13th had a bounce rate of 73.90%. A 1.33% difference, so maybe that's from the interstitial ads but that minimal of a difference seems like it could be any number of other factors too, I'm sure a small degree of fluctuation in bounce rate is probably just normal. Though, even if it were all lost from the interstitial ads, I guess that 1.33% increase in bounce rate works out to around 1,300 less pageviews per 100k visits if I'm following the math correctly? So we're talking about a little more than $20 lost over 100k visits or so. Though in September I had 72k sessions, less than the 100k visits we used to calculate. So even if the full bounce rate change is due to the ads, they're making me 'lose' less than $20 a month, yet they're earning me $100 a month, so it's a net gain.

Does it sound like I calculated that right?

My current plan is to leave them on until I'm feeling a bit more secure in my fiances and then do away with it. Thanks again for your help!

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You calculated it somehow right , though the RPM is counted with page views, not sessions. Hence the "loss" due to interstitial ads was slightly higher than $20, bearing your numbers.

Knowing your way around Google Analytics and Search Console can help you big time btw, especially when you already have a website with decent traffic, and hence collect a lot of data. For example, it can help a lot with keyword research.

Anyway, you are right that bearing the numbers, the net result is a positive gain, let's say $70-$80. Perhaps you are right it is a good idea keeping them on for the holiday season ahead (with highest RPMs of the year).

Keep it up, and I will look forward to your next updates!

Can you tell how to find Facebook Groups in Luxury Items category for getting Pinterest "repin chores"? To get my Pinterest pins repined by other members. I searched on Youtube for it with Income School channel but couldn't find it.