[Journey] Growing a Historical Blog from 100 Clicks to 10k Clicks a Month

Nice journey, keep going!

Hope you will be accepted in mediavine, some say that it is more profitable.

Don-Don said:

Hope you will be accepted in mediavine, some say that it is more profitable.

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yeah i've heard the same thing, I hope they accept me, I've also heard that they could approve me with my actual views

SEORANGER said:

good luck in your journey

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thank you!

You don't use SEO tools? How many hours do you spend working in a day?

Zoididan said:

You don't use SEO tools? How many hours do you spend working in a day?

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I don't use any paid tool, i usually use Seranking 5 free query a day, and that's it. I spend a lot of time on the project, I can't really tell how much, but a lot!

metlivewin said:

I don't use any paid tool, i usually use Seranking 5 free query a day, and that's it. I spend a lot of time on the project, I can't really tell how much, but a lot!

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That's a lot of work. I hope that you keep getting the results that you want. Goodluck!

Hello everyone! New update!

I GOT REJECTED BY GOOGLE ADSENSE, AGAIN! FOR THE 7TH TIME IIRC, DUE TO LOW VALUE CONTENT, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!

I really don't know what to do anymore at this point, I don't see adsense approving me anytime soon, so i must look for alternatives, please give me suggestions!

I'm also waiting for Journey by Mediavine, I put their tracking code on the 10th of January, so I should get a reply soon...

Here are the data from the last 28/30 days:





Bing is carrying it, on the 8th of February i hit my click record: 39! That's a lot!



Sessions and views are increasing, I'm really happy, also the time on page is really high!

These are yesterday's SEO clicks from Clarity (there also are hundreds from my domain, don't really know where it's coming from, i guess tracking scripts are blocked by adblockers or sum):




PLEASE, PLEASE, HELP ME WITH ADS, I already got rejected by basically everyone (adsense, ezoic, sovrn and many more)

Google is kinda saying that it dont want to pay for written content anymore. I wonder if your content was purely human written could it help with ads.

Don-Don said:

Google is kinda saying that it dont want to pay for written content anymore. I wonder if your content was purely human written could it help with ads.

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Yeah, probably Google is shifting towards something else. Some of my content is human written and other is AI generated but with human correction and supervision, but I don't really think that's a valid reason for the denial.

I've now started selling things (printable pdf versions of articles) and asking for donations on ko-fi. I hope to be able to monetize it this way, without interfering with user experience and load times.

I've also created a new game, history higher or lower, it's receiving great feedback from reddit, hope some of the traffic converts and explores the website. I also hope to get some backlinks with it. This is the game:

Hello everyone, new update!

I'm very happy with the growth of the website overall. I've managed to get some relevant backlinks that are also bringing traffic. I've also been accepted by ad ad network, TheMoneytizer, but I'm not really satisfied with the fillrate and rpm, it's quite terrible, but i'll talk about it after the stats from gsc, bing and analytics.

Google Search Console: last 28 days are not bad, pretty stable. My short-term goal here is to push past 600 clicks/month.



Bing: Last 30 days have been amazing. My pages get indexed almost immediately and rank very high! I even hit 50 clicks in a single day, which is a great milestone for me.


Google Analytics: my average time on page is hovering around 6.5 minutes. Students are literally using my site to study for exams, reading top to bottom.


So, back to the ad networks... I've been rejected AGAIN AND AGAIN by AdSense due to low value content WTF. In these last weeks I've added a quiz on each article (3 questions) and a downloadable pdf to print the articles easily.

These are the stats from TheMoneytizer:


So, back to the ad networks... I've been rejected AGAIN by AdSense due to "low value content" (the irony, given my time on page). In the last few weeks, I even added a 3-question quiz on each article and a downloadable PDF to make it easier for them to print, but still nothing from Google.

I got accepted by TheMoneytizer, but let's look at the harsh reality: 17 cents from 12.5k impressions. > I'm going to leave it running for a few more days to let it connect with 100% of the SSPs, but I'm starting to realize that standard programmatic display ads for an educational niche at my current traffic volume are just not worth the impact on UX.

The Pivot (Need your advice!): If revenues don't grow by next week, I'm planning to ditch display ads completely and pivot to highly targeted affiliates and direct monetization to leverage that massive 6.5-minute attention span. My ideas:

1. Direct Partnership: Contacting an online copy shop to create a custom discount code (e.g., 10% off). Since students need to print my summaries, I'd get a fixed commission for every use of the code.
2. The "Tip Jar": Adding a Ko-fi "Buy me a coffee" button at the very end of the text for students who just passed their exams thanks to my notes.
3. Book Affiliates: Native text links to buy used history manuals or audiobooks (Audible bounties) instead of flashy banners.

Has anyone here successfully transitioned a high-retention/low-traffic site from display ads to direct offline-to-online partnerships like the copy shop idea? Would love to hear your thoughts on this pivot!

please, I'd love to hear your feedback! thanks.

17 cents per 6 days, its pretty bad even adsence pays better.

Don-Don said:

17 cents per 6 days, its pretty bad even adsence pays better.

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yes, definitely! I've now removed all their ads, I'm waiting for something better.
Do you think that donations/affiliates would bring more?

metlivewin said:

yes, definitely! I've now removed all their ads, I'm waiting for something better.
Do you think that donations/affiliates would bring more?

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Hi, you should have considered monetization before starting a blog. At this time try amazon gift cards from your country or amazon ads. Try and see how it works. Or shift to affiliate offers from travelling etc. Or history books from amazon.

jamesvick said:

Hi, you should have considered monetization before starting a blog. At this time try amazon gift cards from your country or amazon ads. Try and see how it works. Or shift to affiliate offers from travelling etc. Or history books from amazon.

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You're probably right, but I had never thought that adsense would have rejected me so many times. That was my first (and almost only) option.

JUst give up on adsence you can create an ebook or advertise a history course on your site.

TheReviewer said:

JUst give up on adsence you can create an ebook or advertise a history course on your site.

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my target visitors are usually high school/uni students, they're probably not interested in buying a course, that's why i wanted ads

How do you account for your bounce rate?

Manchoph said:

How do you account for your bounce rate?

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I'm sorry but I can't understand what you mean, could you please explain it to me? thanks

im not replying to give advices ' i don't have any '
but i wanna encourage you to continue as your journey " while it seems small and not that much profitable " i believe its one of the greatest journey i've ever read ! kind of your motivation and your perseverence isn't normal at all ! i wish u a big success in the near future
i have got a small idea while writing here ... did you ever thought about a youtube channel ! u can place your videos on the website ! some students would like to watch the story better than reading it ! some people will also read from a video and not only read textes !