Update
Missed out on work yesterday due to a meeting. But on to the update..
Over the past few days of writing info content, I've quickly come to realize that
I suck at writing them. Or rather, I have no experience with them.
As a result, it's taking me much longer to write a 1500 word info article than it would take to write a Bext XYZ type. I haven't tracked the time it takes yet ( will do it tomorrow) but I feel it's somewhere between 2-3 hours.
But for some strange reason, I find more joy in writing them than I do writing commercial content. I think it's because I have to first learn the information and then put it in my own words.
Plus, for the main site niche, I've started getting into it myself and found that a few of the articles provided real information that I found useful to know.
All in all, I actually don't mind it as much as I thought I would as it's pretty rewarding to learn new shit. Granted it doesn't make as much money as affiliate content can.
Articles Written: 1,512 Words, 894 Words, 1,127 Words
Earnings Update: May 3-4
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I was looking into some analytics of the sites to see if I can find anything new. And I actually found a few things that I really never took note of to date.
My main site was 96% affiliate. Not that I've changed my mind about focusing mostly on affiliate content but when you look at things from a diversity standpoint it really shows. Take a look at these screenshots of analytics:
In the screenshot above I've filtered for affiliate content which is the bulk of the traffic when you compare it to my info content below:
You can also see the big difference in traffic from 12-13k per week for affiliate content down to 500-800/ week for info content. Also, look at the average time on page... there's such a big difference.
One thing to note is that I didn't write any of these info articles. I also didn't edit them or optimize them after getting them back.
My goal now is to spend a few months adding high-quality info articles that are fully optimized for snippets and traffic keywords.
If I can bring the info traffic up to 8k a week and recover the affiliate content this site would easily be making $600/day average.
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Another thing I was looking at is the difference in conversion rate and earning potential between the niches.
Here's my initial assessment.
One niche is a popular passion while the other is a necessity for a group of persons. I looked at them over the last 7 days since the traffic is coming around to the same numbers since site 2 is improving:
Site 1 - Last 7 Days
With site 1, people are spending lots of time on the page reading the reviews because they don't need the items as much and there are plenty of options available. So it only makes sense to see everything = more time on page. Most "Best" type reviews I go over 7-9 items.
Site 2 - Last 7 Days
This site, on the other hand, has shorter but more definitive reviews that say this is what you need. You don't have any other option and so no need to waste time. So the average time on the page is lower for some of the pages. However, check out the earnings for the site in the last 7 days.
Compared to the earnings for the main site over the last 7 days.
Both sites have items within the same price range and are on the same commission structure. But for site 2, people need those items no matter how much they cost far more than they do the items on-site 1.
So they'll browse Site 1 and instead of buying my recommendation, they go with something cheaper most times. On-site 2, the solution I offer is the only answer you'll find. You better take it cause you know you need it.
That's the difference between solving people's problems vs their passion.
I always request for indexing right after posting/updating. Why do you think it's better not to do this?
Have you hosted a second site on the same google console? Or have you created a new one?
I was only saying it for people that have been impacted by the recent Product Reviews Update. So far all the articles I've tried making better according to their guidelines actually fell far more in rankings even with minor tweaks.
I'd much rather let them slowly recrawl the page based on my site's crawl rate and get a few more days out of the page being ranked than reindexing and dropping positions immediately or a day later.
I host no more than 3 sites per search console. I have 7 sites but only two are fully built out. So 2 search consoles.
That's the goal of the google dance, to keep you on your toes
I don't mind a google dance. This is more like an earthquake. At least with the dance, you know that you'll have a direction but so far nothing is moving in a sensible way considering I did make changes in accordance with what they want. Yet 2 sentence reviews and summaries that were clearly written by kindergarten are fine.
That's amazing that you are still averaging over $100 a day. Hope it won't be hard for you to scale it.
Once you get used to making a certain amount anything below it feels like peanuts. As for scaling, it's just a matter of time. It shouldn't be too hard if given enough time and whether I feel like taking bigger risks.
Sorry to hear. I got hit as well. Another thing I would like to ask you about display ads. Did you find any drop in conversions when you put display ads on affiliate sites?
I'd say there was at most a 1% dip in conversions. However, the stability of ad revenue makes up for that drop so it is really hard to notice.
Affiliate commissions and sales fluctuate daily since people don't just spend $800 - $2000 for no reason every single day. But they won't have a problem clicking or viewing the same amount of ads every day.
So IMO the stability of "additional" ad revenue is worth the uncertainty of affiliate commissions.
One thing that did go down for sure is the number of clicks and site speed. But I believe that if you were gonna buy something you would buy it anyway. And if you weren't then it doesn't matter if you click on an ad.
Sticky On The Journey And Keep Working On It, Result Will Be Amazing.
No stopping for me. The journey of building something that allows me to relax and have things on my own terms is worth too much to stop.
Interesting about affiliate site. any free tools for find out low completion keywords?
I've only ever used ahrefs.
Yeah, seo is amazing. Like, you can grow it very big and even if you get knocked down, you are at a very decent daily earnings on autopilot
I agree. You'll still be earning more from a tanked website than you would on most dividend stocks or real estate rentals for a fraction of the cost it'd take you to acquire those assets.
