My Biggest Journal Yet: Going 10x on SEO
- Thread starter SEOMadHatter
- Start date
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
I know I'm gett slow with the updates lately. I've had a couple of projects piling up at once and I'm still struggling to get back into full productivity mode. Slowly getting there.
Some good news. Site 1 broke a sustained 100/visitors a day lately between Pinterest and organic search. Baby steps but good to see. The YouTube channel for site 3 also had some consistent all-time highs.
My brother asked to borrow $10,000 for his home deposit. Was cool to be able to say yes without worrying about it too much. That will be motivation enough to get some work done but I'm going to take a day or two off while the weather is decent.
Content published:
Honestly, I don't know. I'd need to dig through to figure it out and half of them don't even have affiliate links in properly yet. I'm not expecting them to be profitable anytime soon so my focus is just getting the content up and the ranking process started.
Some good news. Site 1 broke a sustained 100/visitors a day lately between Pinterest and organic search. Baby steps but good to see. The YouTube channel for site 3 also had some consistent all-time highs.
My brother asked to borrow $10,000 for his home deposit. Was cool to be able to say yes without worrying about it too much. That will be motivation enough to get some work done but I'm going to take a day or two off while the weather is decent.
Content published:
- 1,700 site 2
- 1,600 site 2
- 1,600 site 2
- 1,600 site 2
- 1,000 site 3
- 1,000 site 3
- 1,000 site 3
- 1,000 site 3
- 1,000 site 4
- 1,000 site 4
- 1,300 site 4
- 1,400 site 4
- 1,300 site 4
- 1,200 site 5
- 1,300 site 5
- Parasites: 6,000 words
Honestly, I don't know. I'd need to dig through to figure it out and half of them don't even have affiliate links in properly yet. I'm not expecting them to be profitable anytime soon so my focus is just getting the content up and the ranking process started.
dlyhai
Elite Member
- May 31, 2015
- 3,499
- 513
Really nice, you will earn big I am sure
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
So what was that, like two weeks?
I've had two other projects take up more time than expected and (if I'm completely honest) I let some other real-life distractions slow me down far more than they should. Just as I was getting motivated to start going at it again Google sent me a wake-up call with its latest broad core update.
Without getting too off-topic I've had blackhat projects do a moon shot while my better quality projects took a slap. Not as bad as it could have been, but enough to get my attention. I was being lazy in some areas and spreading myself too thin trying to push too hard without being ready for a decent content manager.
So I'll do a quick wrap-up of where we are, what I'm going to do next and the last couple of days worth of work (before their core update).
How this portfolio did
Overall: Pretty dire looking.
Site 1 was making huge growth last week. New high after new high and consistent daily sales. I was looking for a dedicated writer to really start pumping that site. It took a 75% hit in search traffic since the update.
Site 2 organic traffic seems to have doubled. It faces the exact same potential issues site 1 did so the only reason I can see for this is sheer dumb luck or the competition for that niche just fucked it up even more than I did.
Site 3, 4 and 5 were both similar to site 1. Was making some big growth movement last week which got my attention and about a 75% hit now.
Site 6 doesn't seem to have shifted at all but it wasn't really big enough to notice.
What it might be
Most of my sites in this portfolio (and others not tracked here) have entirely different content writers and backlink profiles. So unless I'm just really fucking something up across the board the thing which really sticks out to me is I don't pay much attention to onsite metrics.
I know that's stupid in 2020 but it's been on my list to look at for months. I had poor load times, emails from users frequently about the sites completely timing out and just in general they're not well optimized in that sense. I could also build up some better content hubs to reduce the crawl depth which wouldn't take too much work.
So there are some easy wins here which I should have done already but I've been focused on just pumping out the content since that was working.
Latest changes
Made a bit of a push on content last week and ordered a couple of guest posts for two of the sites. None of the links are live yet so they won't be related to the hit.
Content published:
Not the cheapest week for an algo hit to start screwing with me but there's nothing I can do about that.
What now?
My immediate reaction was just to go all-in on blackhat projects again since they faired well with this update. There's still traffic and revenue here and if my assumptions are right this was an avoidable hit which it might bounce back from.
The real pain is if it was the issue I'll probably not find out for another couple of months. I might get some improvement because I should be doing this anyway but best case this is going to sting for a good couple of months.
I feel like I should be more demotivated than I am but I'm actually feeling alright with it. This was foreseeable, preventable with a bigger and more diverse portfolio and I still have a lot more in passive sales than I was making at my last day job. So we're far from done.
I'm obviously going to spend more time improving the onsite experience. Maybe we get lucky and bounce straight back but my expectation is it'll take a couple of days to finish doing that and then most of the sites I'll just leave sitting like that for a while.
My knee jerk reaction is to narrow my focus down to a smaller number of sites. If the recovery goes well then I'll finally sort a proper content manager out and only then do I go back to this number at once. I was just spread too thin before.
I'll get the obvious stuff out of the way for now and then decide which sites I'm going to focus more on. I suspect I'll be dropping sites 2, 3 and 6 for the moment and seeing if they cover with the metrics improved. Sites 1, 4 and 5 are the niches I'm more comfortable with at the moment so if I'm actively working with sites it'll be those ones.
I've had two other projects take up more time than expected and (if I'm completely honest) I let some other real-life distractions slow me down far more than they should. Just as I was getting motivated to start going at it again Google sent me a wake-up call with its latest broad core update.
Without getting too off-topic I've had blackhat projects do a moon shot while my better quality projects took a slap. Not as bad as it could have been, but enough to get my attention. I was being lazy in some areas and spreading myself too thin trying to push too hard without being ready for a decent content manager.
So I'll do a quick wrap-up of where we are, what I'm going to do next and the last couple of days worth of work (before their core update).
How this portfolio did
Overall: Pretty dire looking.
Site 1 was making huge growth last week. New high after new high and consistent daily sales. I was looking for a dedicated writer to really start pumping that site. It took a 75% hit in search traffic since the update.
Site 2 organic traffic seems to have doubled. It faces the exact same potential issues site 1 did so the only reason I can see for this is sheer dumb luck or the competition for that niche just fucked it up even more than I did.
Site 3, 4 and 5 were both similar to site 1. Was making some big growth movement last week which got my attention and about a 75% hit now.
Site 6 doesn't seem to have shifted at all but it wasn't really big enough to notice.
What it might be
Most of my sites in this portfolio (and others not tracked here) have entirely different content writers and backlink profiles. So unless I'm just really fucking something up across the board the thing which really sticks out to me is I don't pay much attention to onsite metrics.
I know that's stupid in 2020 but it's been on my list to look at for months. I had poor load times, emails from users frequently about the sites completely timing out and just in general they're not well optimized in that sense. I could also build up some better content hubs to reduce the crawl depth which wouldn't take too much work.
So there are some easy wins here which I should have done already but I've been focused on just pumping out the content since that was working.
Latest changes
Made a bit of a push on content last week and ordered a couple of guest posts for two of the sites. None of the links are live yet so they won't be related to the hit.
Content published:
- 1,600 site 2
- 1,700 site 2
- 1,800 site 2
- 1,600 site 2
- 1,700 site 2
- 1,600 site 2
- 1,600 site 2
- 1,700 site 2
- 1,600 site 2
- 1,700 site 2
- 1,600 site 2
- 1,600 site 2
- 1,000 site 3
- 1,000 site 3
- 1,000 site 3
- 1,200 site 3
- 1,000 site 3
- 1,600 site 4
- 1,200 site 4
- 1,100 site 4
- 1,600 site 4
- 1,000 site 4
- Parasites: 20,000 words
Not the cheapest week for an algo hit to start screwing with me but there's nothing I can do about that.
What now?
My immediate reaction was just to go all-in on blackhat projects again since they faired well with this update. There's still traffic and revenue here and if my assumptions are right this was an avoidable hit which it might bounce back from.
The real pain is if it was the issue I'll probably not find out for another couple of months. I might get some improvement because I should be doing this anyway but best case this is going to sting for a good couple of months.
I feel like I should be more demotivated than I am but I'm actually feeling alright with it. This was foreseeable, preventable with a bigger and more diverse portfolio and I still have a lot more in passive sales than I was making at my last day job. So we're far from done.
I'm obviously going to spend more time improving the onsite experience. Maybe we get lucky and bounce straight back but my expectation is it'll take a couple of days to finish doing that and then most of the sites I'll just leave sitting like that for a while.
My knee jerk reaction is to narrow my focus down to a smaller number of sites. If the recovery goes well then I'll finally sort a proper content manager out and only then do I go back to this number at once. I was just spread too thin before.
I'll get the obvious stuff out of the way for now and then decide which sites I'm going to focus more on. I suspect I'll be dropping sites 2, 3 and 6 for the moment and seeing if they cover with the metrics improved. Sites 1, 4 and 5 are the niches I'm more comfortable with at the moment so if I'm actively working with sites it'll be those ones.
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
It's been a bit of a learning curve but I've managed to get two test sites to 98/99 for both mobile and desktop on PageSpeed Insights which is presumably the data Google is going on.
It was in the back of my head I'd have to deal with this over the next couple of months since they were coming in 2021 anyway but I can't see a clear footprint between the sites other than these poor metrics so it's worth sorting. I've started to apply the changes to these sites. As a bonus it does improve the conversion rate so really I should have done this a long time ago but here we are. I should have all the sites updated in a couple of days.
We do still have organic traffic and sales here so it's not like things have completely died. It's hard to see all the blackhat traffic shoot up though. I wanted to move more away from that but it seems Google has other ideas. I do plan on working solidly on at least 1-2 of these sites with the assumption they'll build back up again but it's going to be tough to go at the same pace when black hat is less work and (currently) better paying.
I'll see how it goes.
It was in the back of my head I'd have to deal with this over the next couple of months since they were coming in 2021 anyway but I can't see a clear footprint between the sites other than these poor metrics so it's worth sorting. I've started to apply the changes to these sites. As a bonus it does improve the conversion rate so really I should have done this a long time ago but here we are. I should have all the sites updated in a couple of days.
We do still have organic traffic and sales here so it's not like things have completely died. It's hard to see all the blackhat traffic shoot up though. I wanted to move more away from that but it seems Google has other ideas. I do plan on working solidly on at least 1-2 of these sites with the assumption they'll build back up again but it's going to be tough to go at the same pace when black hat is less work and (currently) better paying.
I'll see how it goes.
Unreliable Witness
Senior Member
- Apr 21, 2016
- 837
- 627
Out of interest, how are your user engagement metrics? Not just bounce and exit rate, but also click through rates from those articles?
From looking at why certain pages have moved around as a result of this broad update, my suspiscion is that Google is placing more emphasis on user engagement, particularly on mobile.
The pages I see that have shown improvement in rankings over the last few days have poor load speeds, but good user engagement.
It may be worth looking at.
From looking at why certain pages have moved around as a result of this broad update, my suspiscion is that Google is placing more emphasis on user engagement, particularly on mobile.
The pages I see that have shown improvement in rankings over the last few days have poor load speeds, but good user engagement.
It may be worth looking at.
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
And I've managed to leave it over a month again. Honestly, it wasn't even that I was dealing with the Google update or too busy to update - I've just had real-world stuff going on it's been a bit distracting. I think that's all calming down now and I have some space to get back to work properly.
So all I've really done since the update is re-work the server and site speed side of things and post a little bit of content I had. Roughly 10,000 words to the parasites and 20 or so posts between two of the sites.
The Sites Currently
Site 1 is currently down about 50% of the search traffic it had however the Pinterest traffic is up about 300% and converting to leads. It's technically doing better than it was, but I'd still like to see that search go back up.
Site 2 is doing a little bit better than it was before. Really not sure why this one is different from the others.
Site 3 is doing well. I actually didn't notice until I checked just now but search traffic is higher than it was pre-update and both the Pinterest and parasite traffic has grown.
Site 4 has had a huge growth spurt from parasites and Pinterest but it's hard to tell with the search volume. The search volume for this site is low enough that little spikes screw with the trends. Looking at the traffic and the rank tracking I have in place for this one we took a slight hit with the update but it's built back up since then.
Site 5 had some really big growth when the parasites took off after the update. The little search traffic it did have is next to gone but it only has like 2-3 posts on there with the worst site structure. This will soon be my primary focus I think but I'll get to that in a moment.
Site 6 I'd decided to park a while ago because I wasn't a huge fan of getting into that niche compared to some of the others. The traffic it does get is up after the update though, I need to take an hour or so and set up the funnel properly because that will churn out some profit.
Some Other Changes
In the midst of all this, the server changes have improved conversions across the board. Responding to my slow load times for the sake of Google, the users are clearly having an easier time with the sites so the traffic I did lose has been mostly offset by the improvement in conversions. Should have done this ages ago but I was always putting it off.
The YouTube channel for site 3 had a huge growth spurt for a while. YouTube started promoting the videos everywhere and it's well on the way to being able to apply for monetization. I'm curious to see if it gets it but, in either case, it brought some traffic (and sales) to the website and might have a role to play in the rebuilding of the search traffic.
Moving Forward
Part of me see's an algorithm change like this and wants to go even wider instead of deeper. More diversity and I could fire up some black hat tactics which seem to have been my biggest growth since the last update.
The more restrained side wants to slow down a bit more. Leave some of the current portfolio to just sit and focus on improving the overall content. I want to be clear that good quality content got hit in this update as well. I've seen experts in niches get smacked down by my own blackhat bullshit and some of my content get beaten by generic crap on a broad high authority domain. Arguably white hat is more at the mercy of updates like this because you're so committed to a smaller number of sites.
I do feel like I've been spreading myself too thin. Trying to get a number of sites built up and through the index was hard work and I got less done for each site than I would have liked. My current plan is to leave sites 2, 3 and 6 alone for the foreseeable future.
Site 1 still has so much potential to it. The search traffic is building back up and there's just so much opening for Pinterest and parasites to continue to grow here. The funnel definitely needs some work but its sales are becoming pretty consistent and the quality of the content is definitely one of the weakest. I'm planning to rewrite a lot of this myself for the foreseeable and I'll try and find a dedicated writer for it further down the line.
Site 4 is seeing some slow growth but converts well and has a writer who knows the niche. I'll be putting some time in to tidy up the structure and some of the older content but for the most part I expect this one to keep growing.
Site 5 had some growth from the parasites which got me working on the conversion side of things. It's a decent earner now so if I build up the traffic there I know it's going to make a solid return. I have a writer in mind for it but I'm planning on throwing some of my own time into this one as well for now.
So with my focus on these three sites, I want to focus on three areas:
As for the sites on hold: Sites 2 and 3 are slowly growing themselves I'll try and set up a bit more of a funnel over the next fortnight or so but for the most part I'm just leaving them be. Site 6 will get a rough funnel setup this week just to make something from the traffic it has but I'm not planning to chase that traffic at the moment.
I'm keeping the goal at 100,000 words a month. That includes editing old content for the moment (since it's honestly the worst part of this job for me) and once I clear through that backlog that'll all be new content from myself and a smaller team of writers. I feel good about that number and I really should be able to do a lot more but we'll see how it goes.
Let's get back to it.
TL;DR Pausing 3 of the sites for the moment to focus on improving quality and non-search traffic to the other 3.
Honestly, I don't know. My tracking for onsite metrics was a bit wonky and with some recent changes, I lost what old data I did have. I have made some changes that will improve these metrics but I also feel like they're one of the easier ones to game if you wanted to fuck with your competitor's metrics or boost your own. I'm not sure how much weight Google puts behind them but I'd be curious to test this more.
So all I've really done since the update is re-work the server and site speed side of things and post a little bit of content I had. Roughly 10,000 words to the parasites and 20 or so posts between two of the sites.
The Sites Currently
Site 1 is currently down about 50% of the search traffic it had however the Pinterest traffic is up about 300% and converting to leads. It's technically doing better than it was, but I'd still like to see that search go back up.
Site 2 is doing a little bit better than it was before. Really not sure why this one is different from the others.
Site 3 is doing well. I actually didn't notice until I checked just now but search traffic is higher than it was pre-update and both the Pinterest and parasite traffic has grown.
Site 4 has had a huge growth spurt from parasites and Pinterest but it's hard to tell with the search volume. The search volume for this site is low enough that little spikes screw with the trends. Looking at the traffic and the rank tracking I have in place for this one we took a slight hit with the update but it's built back up since then.
Site 5 had some really big growth when the parasites took off after the update. The little search traffic it did have is next to gone but it only has like 2-3 posts on there with the worst site structure. This will soon be my primary focus I think but I'll get to that in a moment.
Site 6 I'd decided to park a while ago because I wasn't a huge fan of getting into that niche compared to some of the others. The traffic it does get is up after the update though, I need to take an hour or so and set up the funnel properly because that will churn out some profit.
Some Other Changes
In the midst of all this, the server changes have improved conversions across the board. Responding to my slow load times for the sake of Google, the users are clearly having an easier time with the sites so the traffic I did lose has been mostly offset by the improvement in conversions. Should have done this ages ago but I was always putting it off.
The YouTube channel for site 3 had a huge growth spurt for a while. YouTube started promoting the videos everywhere and it's well on the way to being able to apply for monetization. I'm curious to see if it gets it but, in either case, it brought some traffic (and sales) to the website and might have a role to play in the rebuilding of the search traffic.
Moving Forward
Part of me see's an algorithm change like this and wants to go even wider instead of deeper. More diversity and I could fire up some black hat tactics which seem to have been my biggest growth since the last update.
The more restrained side wants to slow down a bit more. Leave some of the current portfolio to just sit and focus on improving the overall content. I want to be clear that good quality content got hit in this update as well. I've seen experts in niches get smacked down by my own blackhat bullshit and some of my content get beaten by generic crap on a broad high authority domain. Arguably white hat is more at the mercy of updates like this because you're so committed to a smaller number of sites.
I do feel like I've been spreading myself too thin. Trying to get a number of sites built up and through the index was hard work and I got less done for each site than I would have liked. My current plan is to leave sites 2, 3 and 6 alone for the foreseeable future.
Site 1 still has so much potential to it. The search traffic is building back up and there's just so much opening for Pinterest and parasites to continue to grow here. The funnel definitely needs some work but its sales are becoming pretty consistent and the quality of the content is definitely one of the weakest. I'm planning to rewrite a lot of this myself for the foreseeable and I'll try and find a dedicated writer for it further down the line.
Site 4 is seeing some slow growth but converts well and has a writer who knows the niche. I'll be putting some time in to tidy up the structure and some of the older content but for the most part I expect this one to keep growing.
Site 5 had some growth from the parasites which got me working on the conversion side of things. It's a decent earner now so if I build up the traffic there I know it's going to make a solid return. I have a writer in mind for it but I'm planning on throwing some of my own time into this one as well for now.
So with my focus on these three sites, I want to focus on three areas:
- Tidy up the content on site 1 and push for new content on sites 4 and 5.
- Push Pinterest a little harder for all three sites. It's been a solid performer lately in terms of traffic and conversions.
- Push parasites a little harder for these 3.
- YouTube channels. Site 3 was a test and it's performed well so far, I'd like to get this done properly for these three.
As for the sites on hold: Sites 2 and 3 are slowly growing themselves I'll try and set up a bit more of a funnel over the next fortnight or so but for the most part I'm just leaving them be. Site 6 will get a rough funnel setup this week just to make something from the traffic it has but I'm not planning to chase that traffic at the moment.
I'm keeping the goal at 100,000 words a month. That includes editing old content for the moment (since it's honestly the worst part of this job for me) and once I clear through that backlog that'll all be new content from myself and a smaller team of writers. I feel good about that number and I really should be able to do a lot more but we'll see how it goes.
Let's get back to it.
TL;DR Pausing 3 of the sites for the moment to focus on improving quality and non-search traffic to the other 3.
Honestly, I don't know. My tracking for onsite metrics was a bit wonky and with some recent changes, I lost what old data I did have. I have made some changes that will improve these metrics but I also feel like they're one of the easier ones to game if you wanted to fuck with your competitor's metrics or boost your own. I'm not sure how much weight Google puts behind them but I'd be curious to test this more.
yesofcourse
Power Member
- Feb 15, 2015
- 584
- 304
Are you manually adding pins to Pinterest or you use some kind of automation and how often do you post there?
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
Altered my sleeping pattern a bit to allow for a 7 AM yoga class (Zoom class. Firm lockdown here in Scotland.) so I'm a little slower while I adjust but I've got started with the new focus.
I've got a writer started on new content for site 4. Availability allowing they'll also be picking up work for site 5. For the moment I'm doing some content for site 5 just to get the basic layout sorted and the writer can take it from there. It took a bit of time to fix the structure of the site from the mess it was before.
This site has much short content of 700-1,000 words and not the 1,500-2,500 word posts I was doing before. The niche just doesn't need a lot of content to give the best answer so I'll pump out 100 pages for the site and that'll be site 5 ready to sit for a while so I can focus back on site 1.
The last time I worked with Pinterest was some fairly large scale botting with a ton of custom automation and accounts.
This time I'm doing something very unlike me. It's all manual and sporadic just because I've put so little effort into it. Pinterest has been an afterthought and the only thing I can attribute to this spurt of traffic is sheer dumb luck or the fact Google or just throwing traffic at pins for the last 7 months or so.
I'd like to make more time to look at Pinterest again properly but it's probably not on the cards at the moment.
I've got a writer started on new content for site 4. Availability allowing they'll also be picking up work for site 5. For the moment I'm doing some content for site 5 just to get the basic layout sorted and the writer can take it from there. It took a bit of time to fix the structure of the site from the mess it was before.
This site has much short content of 700-1,000 words and not the 1,500-2,500 word posts I was doing before. The niche just doesn't need a lot of content to give the best answer so I'll pump out 100 pages for the site and that'll be site 5 ready to sit for a while so I can focus back on site 1.
The last time I worked with Pinterest was some fairly large scale botting with a ton of custom automation and accounts.
This time I'm doing something very unlike me. It's all manual and sporadic just because I've put so little effort into it. Pinterest has been an afterthought and the only thing I can attribute to this spurt of traffic is sheer dumb luck or the fact Google or just throwing traffic at pins for the last 7 months or so.
I'd like to make more time to look at Pinterest again properly but it's probably not on the cards at the moment.
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
A couple of updates:
Site 1 is at a new all-time high from Pinterest. It's converting but I'm surprisingly un-excited by this. The goal was search traffic supported by traffic like this, not the other way around. Haven't had a chance to work on the content for this site yet.
Site 3 hit a new all-time high from SEO yesterday. It's seeing growth from Google but also big growth from Yahoo/Bing. It's an older and less tech-savvy demographic so that makes sense and chasing a lot of longtails which works better there than Google.
Over the last couple of months, site 3 had a bunch of new content, links, speed improvements and the YouTube channel picking up. So I've no idea what to attribute this growth to but it's still sitting on the back burner at the moment but this is good to see.
Site 4 is the exciting one at the moment. The writer for it has been slow this week but it's still growing and hit some big search traffic gains this week. Higher than it ever had before the last algo update. It's selling a little but I'm happy with the passive growth at the moment and I'll be looping back to this in a couple of weeks with a couple of ideas.
Site 5 is where I've been spending my time this week. Trying a SILO structure with this one and it's all shorter content. Bit of a change from the other sites but it lends itself well to this niche. Made some improvements to the funnel and a real push on the parasite traffic.
The real sticking point is how long this content is taking me to do. I've no passion for the niche and took 4+ hours to produce 700 words at one point. I don't agree that you need (or even should) work with your passions but producing content for this niche is going to be slow.
Trying to find and manage too many writers at once for too many sites was a headache and made it too likely to sacrifice quality. Trying to do the content myself is just not an effective way of spending my time unless I have nothing else to do. Going to put some time into finding a decent writer to handle site 5 for me.
Site 1 is at a new all-time high from Pinterest. It's converting but I'm surprisingly un-excited by this. The goal was search traffic supported by traffic like this, not the other way around. Haven't had a chance to work on the content for this site yet.
Site 3 hit a new all-time high from SEO yesterday. It's seeing growth from Google but also big growth from Yahoo/Bing. It's an older and less tech-savvy demographic so that makes sense and chasing a lot of longtails which works better there than Google.
Over the last couple of months, site 3 had a bunch of new content, links, speed improvements and the YouTube channel picking up. So I've no idea what to attribute this growth to but it's still sitting on the back burner at the moment but this is good to see.
Site 4 is the exciting one at the moment. The writer for it has been slow this week but it's still growing and hit some big search traffic gains this week. Higher than it ever had before the last algo update. It's selling a little but I'm happy with the passive growth at the moment and I'll be looping back to this in a couple of weeks with a couple of ideas.
Site 5 is where I've been spending my time this week. Trying a SILO structure with this one and it's all shorter content. Bit of a change from the other sites but it lends itself well to this niche. Made some improvements to the funnel and a real push on the parasite traffic.
The real sticking point is how long this content is taking me to do. I've no passion for the niche and took 4+ hours to produce 700 words at one point. I don't agree that you need (or even should) work with your passions but producing content for this niche is going to be slow.
Trying to find and manage too many writers at once for too many sites was a headache and made it too likely to sacrifice quality. Trying to do the content myself is just not an effective way of spending my time unless I have nothing else to do. Going to put some time into finding a decent writer to handle site 5 for me.
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
I'm sorry to anyone who was watching this thread for updates. My productivity has kind of fallen off over the last couple of weeks. I wasn't doing as well in lockdown as I thought and it took a toll on my work ethic more than I expected. The last couple of days have been better, I've cleared a few things off my plate and I'm going to try and get things back on track.
I did grab myself about $10k in profit last week from the GME madness. I'd got in around the $30 mark and sold around the 350-400 range. That was a surprising one but I'm planning to start a new project with that over the next couple of weeks.
Current Traffic Growth
As for the current portfolio, I'm a bit all over the place with the tracking. I'm going to take some time this week to sort out the analytics and spreadsheets properly so I know what's being spent where. Overall sites 2, 3 and 4 are still strong organic growth and all-time highs for SEO traffic. Site 5 only had a few posts so lost the tiny trickle of traffic it had but more than makes up for it with the flood of parasite traffic it's been getting since December.
The only problematic site is site 1 - which still makes consistent sales from the shit ton of Pinterest traffic but it's still way down from December traffic. It's also the one in need of the most content improvement however so I'm not hugely surprised.
Profit and Conversions
The sites have only partial (or in some cases no) monetisation in place yet and we're averaging about $5-700/month in profit which is a good start. We're still far from the green but there's a lot of work to be done and (hopefully) the traffic growth continues.
This is where I'm hoping to spend more of my time over the next couple of weeks. Sticking a proper funnel in place took a small $100/month affiliate site to $6k+/month with the same amount of traffic. If I can do something similar with these sites it means a better return and I find it a lot more fun than just producing content unless I'm passionate about the niche.
Scaling and Traffic Growth
December was a hiccup but overall the sites have been seeing some good growth and I'm feeling pretty good about scaling going forwards. I've cut most of the writers down but I'm working on finding new ones better suited to the sites I want to work with.
Also dropped a couple of other active projects in order to have more time for this. I don't want to spend too much time editing content so I won't be keeping sub-par writers but it's going to take some time to find and vet the writers and improve the conversions.
Site 1 is still one with some major potential. It makes a couple of sales a week but with a real funnel it could become a real earner. The onsite content would need tidied up before I'd be too comfortable putting more into it content wise though. So it's on the list but not a priority at the moment.
Site 2 was the risky play, pretty sure I mentioned this one early on. It's in a competitive niche and I'm honestly surprised it gets the traffic it has. The growth has been so consistent though.
I have writers on the wings for this niche but the current plan is to add some actual monetisation (there's none at the moment) and see how it gets on. It's certainly a niche which could make money so I'll see how conversions go before I put more into this.
Site 3 is another weird one. It actually might be the weirdest niche of any of them. It's shown steady growth on both the site and YouTube channel. The content is cheap and easy enough to produce and it's made a couple of sales - however the conversions are really needing some work for this site.
The plan is to test a couple of quick conversion changes for this one with the current traffic.
I have writers and someone to handle the YouTube videos. The growth rate is encouraging, this one would probably be profitable with display ads but that's not generally my game. I'll see what I can do with the affiliate sales and decide if we keep scaling the content from there.
Site 4 is an easy one. Steady growth and conversions. I could leave it now and expect that site to be ROI+ but there's definite conversion work which could 10x that site even with the current traffic.
I have a writer on board for this one currently. They're good and they know the niche so I don't have to edit much, however they've been a little inconsistent recently so I might have to try and get a replacement. Either way, this one is being scaled.
Site 5 is probably the highest earner of the whole set at the moment. Again, it could probably see some decent growth with some work on the conversions but there's also plenty of potential with the traffic.
99% of the sales are coming from organic parasite rankings. I've begun trying to find a writer to handle the content growth for that site and I'm probably going to continue to grow the parasite traffic while I focus on improving the conversions as well.
So the current goal is to vet a few new writers to keep the content scaling while I work on improving the actual conversions. Once I'm happy with where the conversion testing is at we can start looking at revamping site 1 and/or adding new projects to the portfolio.
TL;DR The sites have been growing and making money. Now I need to keep scaling.
I did grab myself about $10k in profit last week from the GME madness. I'd got in around the $30 mark and sold around the 350-400 range. That was a surprising one but I'm planning to start a new project with that over the next couple of weeks.
Current Traffic Growth
As for the current portfolio, I'm a bit all over the place with the tracking. I'm going to take some time this week to sort out the analytics and spreadsheets properly so I know what's being spent where. Overall sites 2, 3 and 4 are still strong organic growth and all-time highs for SEO traffic. Site 5 only had a few posts so lost the tiny trickle of traffic it had but more than makes up for it with the flood of parasite traffic it's been getting since December.
The only problematic site is site 1 - which still makes consistent sales from the shit ton of Pinterest traffic but it's still way down from December traffic. It's also the one in need of the most content improvement however so I'm not hugely surprised.
Profit and Conversions
The sites have only partial (or in some cases no) monetisation in place yet and we're averaging about $5-700/month in profit which is a good start. We're still far from the green but there's a lot of work to be done and (hopefully) the traffic growth continues.
This is where I'm hoping to spend more of my time over the next couple of weeks. Sticking a proper funnel in place took a small $100/month affiliate site to $6k+/month with the same amount of traffic. If I can do something similar with these sites it means a better return and I find it a lot more fun than just producing content unless I'm passionate about the niche.
Scaling and Traffic Growth
December was a hiccup but overall the sites have been seeing some good growth and I'm feeling pretty good about scaling going forwards. I've cut most of the writers down but I'm working on finding new ones better suited to the sites I want to work with.
Also dropped a couple of other active projects in order to have more time for this. I don't want to spend too much time editing content so I won't be keeping sub-par writers but it's going to take some time to find and vet the writers and improve the conversions.
Site 1 is still one with some major potential. It makes a couple of sales a week but with a real funnel it could become a real earner. The onsite content would need tidied up before I'd be too comfortable putting more into it content wise though. So it's on the list but not a priority at the moment.
Site 2 was the risky play, pretty sure I mentioned this one early on. It's in a competitive niche and I'm honestly surprised it gets the traffic it has. The growth has been so consistent though.
I have writers on the wings for this niche but the current plan is to add some actual monetisation (there's none at the moment) and see how it gets on. It's certainly a niche which could make money so I'll see how conversions go before I put more into this.
Site 3 is another weird one. It actually might be the weirdest niche of any of them. It's shown steady growth on both the site and YouTube channel. The content is cheap and easy enough to produce and it's made a couple of sales - however the conversions are really needing some work for this site.
The plan is to test a couple of quick conversion changes for this one with the current traffic.
I have writers and someone to handle the YouTube videos. The growth rate is encouraging, this one would probably be profitable with display ads but that's not generally my game. I'll see what I can do with the affiliate sales and decide if we keep scaling the content from there.
Site 4 is an easy one. Steady growth and conversions. I could leave it now and expect that site to be ROI+ but there's definite conversion work which could 10x that site even with the current traffic.
I have a writer on board for this one currently. They're good and they know the niche so I don't have to edit much, however they've been a little inconsistent recently so I might have to try and get a replacement. Either way, this one is being scaled.
Site 5 is probably the highest earner of the whole set at the moment. Again, it could probably see some decent growth with some work on the conversions but there's also plenty of potential with the traffic.
99% of the sales are coming from organic parasite rankings. I've begun trying to find a writer to handle the content growth for that site and I'm probably going to continue to grow the parasite traffic while I focus on improving the conversions as well.
So the current goal is to vet a few new writers to keep the content scaling while I work on improving the actual conversions. Once I'm happy with where the conversion testing is at we can start looking at revamping site 1 and/or adding new projects to the portfolio.
TL;DR The sites have been growing and making money. Now I need to keep scaling.
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
Site 3: Major Improvements
Spent a few days revamping the funnel and tidying some of the older content for site 3. It's one of the worst-performing sites at the moment but the newer funnel has picked up a few conversions and it's seeing steady growth. The market is probably the biggest out of any site in the portfolio and I had a peek at some of the traffic my competitors are getting through social media and I'd be able to leverage some of this organic traffic to get started there.
I'm really liking the idea of narrowing my focus to one site a week or something so I can make these kinds of changes.
Another day or two I should be done flushing out site 3 a bit more. I'm running a small Facebook ad to pump a little extra traffic into the funnel to do some quick testing and I'll do a bunch of keyword research so I can leave the writers chewing through that one. There's been some great growth over the last 90 days, I'm looking at letting the writers run that one up to 200 posts.
Next
Editing content is taking a little more this week than I'd like. Trialing some new writers and that's always a headache but for the most part, site 3 should be left to itself for a while after this. So what's next?
Site 2 probably has the most traffic out of anything in this portfolio (so far) and has no actual affiliate links setup yet. The next step really should be to take a day or two and get something set up here. I might manage to cobble something together tomorrow but it's going to be a fairly high ticket niche so I'm not expecting much from a rough draft.
Site 3 is the one I'm really eyeing up. It makes a couple of sales a month with the rough copy it has in place. The organic traffic has been growing well, the writer for it is sorted and I'm pretty confident that site is going to pull $2-3k/month itself at this rate.
Site 5 is my biggest earner but it's also the furthest behind in terms of organic SEO traffic. It's all driven from the parasites at the moment. I've been publishing content and (slowly) working on finding a writer to handle this niche but it's going to be a whole lot of time before it sees much growth so I don't want to do too much with it yet.
Published and Spent:
Site 3: 6,000
Site 4: 19,750
Videos: 3
Sent a bunch of content to writers for sites 3, 4 and 5.
Spent: $898.50
Spent a few days revamping the funnel and tidying some of the older content for site 3. It's one of the worst-performing sites at the moment but the newer funnel has picked up a few conversions and it's seeing steady growth. The market is probably the biggest out of any site in the portfolio and I had a peek at some of the traffic my competitors are getting through social media and I'd be able to leverage some of this organic traffic to get started there.
I'm really liking the idea of narrowing my focus to one site a week or something so I can make these kinds of changes.
Another day or two I should be done flushing out site 3 a bit more. I'm running a small Facebook ad to pump a little extra traffic into the funnel to do some quick testing and I'll do a bunch of keyword research so I can leave the writers chewing through that one. There's been some great growth over the last 90 days, I'm looking at letting the writers run that one up to 200 posts.
Next
Editing content is taking a little more this week than I'd like. Trialing some new writers and that's always a headache but for the most part, site 3 should be left to itself for a while after this. So what's next?
Site 2 probably has the most traffic out of anything in this portfolio (so far) and has no actual affiliate links setup yet. The next step really should be to take a day or two and get something set up here. I might manage to cobble something together tomorrow but it's going to be a fairly high ticket niche so I'm not expecting much from a rough draft.
Site 3 is the one I'm really eyeing up. It makes a couple of sales a month with the rough copy it has in place. The organic traffic has been growing well, the writer for it is sorted and I'm pretty confident that site is going to pull $2-3k/month itself at this rate.
Site 5 is my biggest earner but it's also the furthest behind in terms of organic SEO traffic. It's all driven from the parasites at the moment. I've been publishing content and (slowly) working on finding a writer to handle this niche but it's going to be a whole lot of time before it sees much growth so I don't want to do too much with it yet.
Published and Spent:
Site 3: 6,000
Site 4: 19,750
Videos: 3
Sent a bunch of content to writers for sites 3, 4 and 5.
Spent: $898.50
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
A couple of pretty big updates today.
I think I've said this before but I'm a fan of funnels. A basic funnel took a little affiliate site making about $300/month to over $7k+ with just a few tweaks. Generally, I prefer figuring out how to sell to a niche rather than figuring out how to get enough traffic to make ads make that kind of money.
(To be clear - I don't disagree with anyone pumping traffic and making money with ads. I don't think one is better than the other. I just like fucking with funnels and would like to get more into paid traffic with it in the near future).
I would like to take a bigger focus on some of these sites now they're starting to build up some traffic. Flush out the content quality, build more towards social media and (of course) hammer together a profitable funnel so they make a better return on the traffic they get. However, I have to balance this against getting content published which is still time-consuming to manage writers and edit posts. The ideal would be to just hire someone to manage the content while I focus on the other stuff but I don't think I'm quite there yet.
So as part of trying to find this balancing act I've made some changes with sites 3 and 4 (details below) and I'm dropping site 5 as an SEO project for the moment (details below).
Site 4 Revamp, Earnings and Growth
Site 4 was probably the safest choice out of all these sites. The content production has currently slowed to a crawl since the writer is far less available but the growth from the content I published over the last couple of months is paying off. The sites saw some big growth lately so I took a few days to tidy things up a bit and do some work with the conversion side of things.
Content is slowly still being produced for this site and I am talking to someone about creating a YouTube channel for the site. The niche has a lot of YouTube traffic and it would support the website's rankings so I might be getting that handled in the near future.
Based on the numbers from the last week or so - the site should be making anywhere from $500-700/month at the moment. As the traffic continues to grow (which I do expect it to bar any major algo changes) it should easily break the four-figure mark. That said the affiliate offer it's using kind of sucks. It's going to be a bit of a time commitment and maybe $1.5k or so but I'm looking at having a couple of products created. It'll be a pain for a week or two but I'm pretty confident the site will make more in the long run to see a return. Plus, I like a bit of diversity away from affiliate offers sometimes.
So hoping to get that channel started soon and I might put some decent time into this site myself for a week or two to get things moving along.
Site 3 Content Scaling
I've put some work into site 3 over the last few weeks. The organic traffic has almost doubled and the YouTube channel is doing well with another big spike in views and subscribers recently.
The funnel changes I made... somewhat worked. It's making more than it was but is still probably the lowest-earning site apart from site 2 which is still missing any ads or affiliate links. It's maybe going to be making $100/month at the moment but I still think there's potential to the niche.
I have a Zoom meeting later today with the content creator for this one. I want to put a bit more money into scaling the content towards 200 posts and really pushing the YouTube channel more. If I can get them able to make a few tweaks then I don't mind putting some money into it and it'll be handsfree for me for a couple of months at least.
Site 5: Dropped (Temporarily)
Site 5 makes some pretty consistent sales (over $100 yesterday) but 99% of the traffic comes from parasites.
Over the last couple of weeks, I've been publishing some content and got a couple of backlinks. The new pages seem to be indexing alright but (for whatever reason) they're not even showing on the top 100 results yet for some pretty low comp keywords.
If I can get it to rank, this niche could easily become a good ROI and the conversions would blow something like site 3 out of the water. However, it's the furthest behind in terms of actual SEO traffic by itself. I do plan to do a two or two on it before the end of the month just to test out some funnel stuff but I can't justify putting the time into growing the SEO traffic until I've got sites 1-4 in a better spot.
Other: UpWork Can Bite Me
When I trial writers I always pay a full rate. Unless they're literally copying and pasting content from another website (which has only happened once), even if they're awful writers I'll pay them right away.
But it's not my job to coach bad writers on how not to suck. If I trial 10 writers I don't have the time or inclination to give them all feedback or coaching. I give training materials and feedback to the writers I think are decent and I want to continue with. The rest I pay, thank and end the relationship.
Someone complained to UpWork who then reached out to me to get me to talk to them. Almost spat my coffee out when I read that. Unless UpWork is offering to pick up my invoice for some 1-1 coaching I'm not taking the time to tell a writer they should be able to run a basic fucking spellcheck.
The Next Week
Site 5 is on the back burner, but I think I need at least a day or two to make some conversion changes I want to try and then I can completely leave it alone for a while.
Site 2 needs some monetization added. At least half a day just to get something in place for it.
Site 4 is probably where my time is going to be spent. Helping get the YouTube channel started properly and working on the product development for it. Probably the best place to spend my time and once it's done I can get back to working on traffic generation.
Site 3 won't need anything from me and site 1 is still very much on my mind and picking up a couple of sales a week but I'll get to it maybe next month. Once I've got these others squared away more.
Content Published
It hasn't been much but should pick up again in a couple of weeks.
Site 3: 7,000
Parasites: 6,000
I think I've said this before but I'm a fan of funnels. A basic funnel took a little affiliate site making about $300/month to over $7k+ with just a few tweaks. Generally, I prefer figuring out how to sell to a niche rather than figuring out how to get enough traffic to make ads make that kind of money.
(To be clear - I don't disagree with anyone pumping traffic and making money with ads. I don't think one is better than the other. I just like fucking with funnels and would like to get more into paid traffic with it in the near future).
I would like to take a bigger focus on some of these sites now they're starting to build up some traffic. Flush out the content quality, build more towards social media and (of course) hammer together a profitable funnel so they make a better return on the traffic they get. However, I have to balance this against getting content published which is still time-consuming to manage writers and edit posts. The ideal would be to just hire someone to manage the content while I focus on the other stuff but I don't think I'm quite there yet.
So as part of trying to find this balancing act I've made some changes with sites 3 and 4 (details below) and I'm dropping site 5 as an SEO project for the moment (details below).
Site 4 Revamp, Earnings and Growth
Site 4 was probably the safest choice out of all these sites. The content production has currently slowed to a crawl since the writer is far less available but the growth from the content I published over the last couple of months is paying off. The sites saw some big growth lately so I took a few days to tidy things up a bit and do some work with the conversion side of things.
Content is slowly still being produced for this site and I am talking to someone about creating a YouTube channel for the site. The niche has a lot of YouTube traffic and it would support the website's rankings so I might be getting that handled in the near future.
Based on the numbers from the last week or so - the site should be making anywhere from $500-700/month at the moment. As the traffic continues to grow (which I do expect it to bar any major algo changes) it should easily break the four-figure mark. That said the affiliate offer it's using kind of sucks. It's going to be a bit of a time commitment and maybe $1.5k or so but I'm looking at having a couple of products created. It'll be a pain for a week or two but I'm pretty confident the site will make more in the long run to see a return. Plus, I like a bit of diversity away from affiliate offers sometimes.
So hoping to get that channel started soon and I might put some decent time into this site myself for a week or two to get things moving along.
Site 3 Content Scaling
I've put some work into site 3 over the last few weeks. The organic traffic has almost doubled and the YouTube channel is doing well with another big spike in views and subscribers recently.
The funnel changes I made... somewhat worked. It's making more than it was but is still probably the lowest-earning site apart from site 2 which is still missing any ads or affiliate links. It's maybe going to be making $100/month at the moment but I still think there's potential to the niche.
I have a Zoom meeting later today with the content creator for this one. I want to put a bit more money into scaling the content towards 200 posts and really pushing the YouTube channel more. If I can get them able to make a few tweaks then I don't mind putting some money into it and it'll be handsfree for me for a couple of months at least.
Site 5: Dropped (Temporarily)
Site 5 makes some pretty consistent sales (over $100 yesterday) but 99% of the traffic comes from parasites.
Over the last couple of weeks, I've been publishing some content and got a couple of backlinks. The new pages seem to be indexing alright but (for whatever reason) they're not even showing on the top 100 results yet for some pretty low comp keywords.
If I can get it to rank, this niche could easily become a good ROI and the conversions would blow something like site 3 out of the water. However, it's the furthest behind in terms of actual SEO traffic by itself. I do plan to do a two or two on it before the end of the month just to test out some funnel stuff but I can't justify putting the time into growing the SEO traffic until I've got sites 1-4 in a better spot.
Other: UpWork Can Bite Me
When I trial writers I always pay a full rate. Unless they're literally copying and pasting content from another website (which has only happened once), even if they're awful writers I'll pay them right away.
But it's not my job to coach bad writers on how not to suck. If I trial 10 writers I don't have the time or inclination to give them all feedback or coaching. I give training materials and feedback to the writers I think are decent and I want to continue with. The rest I pay, thank and end the relationship.
Someone complained to UpWork who then reached out to me to get me to talk to them. Almost spat my coffee out when I read that. Unless UpWork is offering to pick up my invoice for some 1-1 coaching I'm not taking the time to tell a writer they should be able to run a basic fucking spellcheck.
The Next Week
Site 5 is on the back burner, but I think I need at least a day or two to make some conversion changes I want to try and then I can completely leave it alone for a while.
Site 2 needs some monetization added. At least half a day just to get something in place for it.
Site 4 is probably where my time is going to be spent. Helping get the YouTube channel started properly and working on the product development for it. Probably the best place to spend my time and once it's done I can get back to working on traffic generation.
Site 3 won't need anything from me and site 1 is still very much on my mind and picking up a couple of sales a week but I'll get to it maybe next month. Once I've got these others squared away more.
Content Published
It hasn't been much but should pick up again in a couple of weeks.
Site 3: 7,000
Parasites: 6,000
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
I have some training I give writers as they go. Some sites have specific formatting I want them to hit and often I'll set specific headlines I want them to include. Only takes a few moments and it's worth doing.
Sometimes if I trust the writer with the niche and don't have specific other phrases I want to hit, I'll just give them the keywords.
Of the top of my head I've no idea. Time in lockdown has been a bit of a blur. I've posted the domain age for each one as they've started throughout the journal.
I don't think the domain age really matters much unless they had some traffic or links already. Sites 1-4 have been posting content since around the start of the journal and that's probably the best metric of age.
If I left all of them alone I'd still expect the SEO traffic to slowly increase with plenty of content still to age in across the lot of them.
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
Oh: Typo in the last update. Site 5 is probably going to take 1 or 2 days to make the funnel changes, not 1 or 2 hours unless I'm insanely productive. I might try and get something a little rougher done and keep it under a day.
I'd like to get the site 2 and 5 funnel changes done within 2 days and give the rest of the time to building the site 4 product and YouTube channel. I don't really know how long that's going to take but I suspect it could drag into another week.
Yes, I'm splitting my time up too much but I'm trying to look ahead. If the funnels do well and the traffic growth continues then the revenue from these sites will go towards a content manager. Someone to help manage the writers and content for the sites so I can just focus on scaling and conversions without sacrificing on the content growth.
I'd like to get the site 2 and 5 funnel changes done within 2 days and give the rest of the time to building the site 4 product and YouTube channel. I don't really know how long that's going to take but I suspect it could drag into another week.
Yes, I'm splitting my time up too much but I'm trying to look ahead. If the funnels do well and the traffic growth continues then the revenue from these sites will go towards a content manager. Someone to help manage the writers and content for the sites so I can just focus on scaling and conversions without sacrificing on the content growth.
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
I've answered this question the same way for years. It doesn't matter. I've had 5 figure monthly sites from CPA offers, Amazon and Clickbank. I've had sites that cross-promote all of them. Bring qualified traffic to an offer they're interested in. Getting free traffic and learning to convert it is the important part, the rest is just details.
dlyhai
Elite Member
- May 31, 2015
- 3,499
- 513
Thanks very much, how many aritlces in your site5? how many words for an article?
SEOMadHatter
Elite Member
- Aug 15, 2015
- 1,808
- 2,470
It's been a rough couple of weeks for productivity (still) but we've been (slowly) easing our lockdown restrictions and I've spent a few days out climbing in the sun. Feeling a little more recharged and clearer.
Made a couple of steps towards getting things going at pace again.
Recent Changes
Site 2 has a rough funnel in place. It's far from what it could be but it's picked up a couple of sales and the organic growth has been steady so I can leave this site for now.
Site 3 has someone handling the writing and video creation. They're going through some real-life delays at the moment but they've produced a couple of test pieces that will do nicely. The funnel will still need some work but it's picked up a couple of sales this week and the growth for both the site and the YT channel have been going well.
Site 4 has a new writer. Produced a couple of great pieces but I'm waiting to see if they stick around. I've got the first video work due for this site in a day or two as well so I'll see how that looks. The site has seen some big organic growth over the last two weeks and now that I have sites 2 and 3 off my plate I'm hoping to make a real push on product creation.
I've got an outline for what I want to do and someone to handle at least part of it but I need to set aside at least a bit of time to get it all put together. If I can get my head down I'm hoping to get it running by some point next week.
I've published some content but not nearly as much as I wanted. I have a decent backload of content to get published I'm going to try and clear through this week.
Parasites: 4,000 words
Site 4: 12,800 words and a 1,000-word guest post.
Minor stuff:
Site 5 is still on the backburner. Churns out a couple of sales a week and (briefly) showed up in the first 100 results for one or two of the new keywords. Publishing is still on hold for this one for now.
Site 1 is bothering me. It's made about $200 in the last 30 days and with some conversion work, I know that could be higher but the traffic has been stagnant and it's going to take a lot of work to improve the content. This site is high on my priority list to come back to once I can make the time.
Dealing with a small tech issue that is likely going to cause $2-300 worth of earnings loss. I think I have a handle on it but dealing with some of the slowest DNS propagation ever in trying to get it sorted.
Looking ahead:
At the moment I have too much capital and not enough motivation. I'm not for a moment complaining but I am earning way more than my lifestyle requires and I'm keen to keep investing in projects like this but I'm going to have to make some changes.
Just mass-producing half-assed content isn't interesting enough to hold my attention in the long run. It doesn't excite me and then I fall behind on all the little bits I want to do. I'd much rather find writers who know the niche. The effectiveness of this in terms of ranking is already painfully obvious with the current sites.
Sites with other forms of traffic outside of just organic SEO bring more diversity and I do think those sites perform better with Google. Sites 3 and 4 are some of my highest traffic sites and both have parasite traffic. Site 1 has a lot of social traffic but its completely mediocre content quality is responsible for its performance in the SERPS.
Getting content published moves the needle. A proper funnel is a pivot point that can greatly improve the earnings you get from a site but you need a good flow of traffic to test things in a reasonable time frame.
So while I enjoy working on the funnels, I need to get back on top of content production but with the focus on writers who know the niche. That keeps my editing time down and content quality high.
The goal is to clear my current backlog of content, get the product ready for site 4 and make a real push on hiring.
Site 5 has maybe two dozen articles on it. Some around the 1,500 mark but it's one of the few sites which has a few closer to maybe 600 words because the search term really doesn't require more than that.
It's not getting more content published at the moment as it's the furthest behind in terms of content age.
Made a couple of steps towards getting things going at pace again.
Recent Changes
Site 2 has a rough funnel in place. It's far from what it could be but it's picked up a couple of sales and the organic growth has been steady so I can leave this site for now.
Site 3 has someone handling the writing and video creation. They're going through some real-life delays at the moment but they've produced a couple of test pieces that will do nicely. The funnel will still need some work but it's picked up a couple of sales this week and the growth for both the site and the YT channel have been going well.
Site 4 has a new writer. Produced a couple of great pieces but I'm waiting to see if they stick around. I've got the first video work due for this site in a day or two as well so I'll see how that looks. The site has seen some big organic growth over the last two weeks and now that I have sites 2 and 3 off my plate I'm hoping to make a real push on product creation.
I've got an outline for what I want to do and someone to handle at least part of it but I need to set aside at least a bit of time to get it all put together. If I can get my head down I'm hoping to get it running by some point next week.
I've published some content but not nearly as much as I wanted. I have a decent backload of content to get published I'm going to try and clear through this week.
Parasites: 4,000 words
Site 4: 12,800 words and a 1,000-word guest post.
Minor stuff:
Site 5 is still on the backburner. Churns out a couple of sales a week and (briefly) showed up in the first 100 results for one or two of the new keywords. Publishing is still on hold for this one for now.
Site 1 is bothering me. It's made about $200 in the last 30 days and with some conversion work, I know that could be higher but the traffic has been stagnant and it's going to take a lot of work to improve the content. This site is high on my priority list to come back to once I can make the time.
Dealing with a small tech issue that is likely going to cause $2-300 worth of earnings loss. I think I have a handle on it but dealing with some of the slowest DNS propagation ever in trying to get it sorted.
Looking ahead:
At the moment I have too much capital and not enough motivation. I'm not for a moment complaining but I am earning way more than my lifestyle requires and I'm keen to keep investing in projects like this but I'm going to have to make some changes.
Just mass-producing half-assed content isn't interesting enough to hold my attention in the long run. It doesn't excite me and then I fall behind on all the little bits I want to do. I'd much rather find writers who know the niche. The effectiveness of this in terms of ranking is already painfully obvious with the current sites.
Sites with other forms of traffic outside of just organic SEO bring more diversity and I do think those sites perform better with Google. Sites 3 and 4 are some of my highest traffic sites and both have parasite traffic. Site 1 has a lot of social traffic but its completely mediocre content quality is responsible for its performance in the SERPS.
Getting content published moves the needle. A proper funnel is a pivot point that can greatly improve the earnings you get from a site but you need a good flow of traffic to test things in a reasonable time frame.
So while I enjoy working on the funnels, I need to get back on top of content production but with the focus on writers who know the niche. That keeps my editing time down and content quality high.
The goal is to clear my current backlog of content, get the product ready for site 4 and make a real push on hiring.
Site 5 has maybe two dozen articles on it. Some around the 1,500 mark but it's one of the few sites which has a few closer to maybe 600 words because the search term really doesn't require more than that.
It's not getting more content published at the moment as it's the furthest behind in terms of content age.