[Journey] Scaling an Authority website to 10K a month (and beyond)

Kikerinka said:

@some_nextman , @Dark Hat 007 and others.

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Thanks for the shout-out and for often checking my journey, I appreciate!! Things have been going well on my end.

blogmen said:

I saw this interview with a lady from yeys.com. She also said there's no ranking difference after testing edits/augmenting articles from her 25 blogs. So she just creates new content instead.

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I on the other hand have seen improvements a few times, I'm currently tracking a few that I updated three weeks ago, I should report back.

Dark Hat 007 said:

I on the other hand have seen improvements a few times, I'm currently tracking a few that I updated three weeks ago, I should report back.

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The improvements could have been from a number of reasons, like rankings go up over time by default, or adding keywords to an unoptimized article. But when you already create optimized articles and factor in aging, there won't be any statistical significance from adding content (ranking-wise).

mackdaddy88 said:

Congrats on your earnings and thanks again for your input.

I have a number of articles that are showing 'crawled but not indexed' in search console. These articles are all hand written by me and definitely of good quality. I'm using search console to request indexing but some still have the same issue.

Do you have this problem as well? And any tips on how to get my articles more readily indexed by Google?

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It is completely normal to see this for a (relatively) new website. Also the data in search console do not always reflect the reality of Google Search. On one of my smaller projects I see 26 pages as non-indexed, but when I check them in Google search they are there, often on the top for the keywords they target.

To sum it up, I would not bother with it too much at this point .

blogmen said:

That's amazing.

I saw this interview with a lady from yeys.com. She also said there's no ranking difference after testing edits/augmenting articles from her 25 blogs. So she just creates new content instead.

It's becoming addictive.

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- Thanks, I believe the "almost passive income" is not a myth, if you build your authority website the right way.

- Never seen that website yeys.com, but what an operation! Over 50 full time employees lol, that's totally different than my concept . In any case, with so many websites in her portfolio, the lady can definitely give good insights on what works an what does not. Props up to her for sharing it with others!

- Addictive in which way? In the way that you are addicted to growing it even more, and becoming one of the top TikTokers, or addictive in a way that you also waste your days on the platform?

What is most interesting to me is to see how you can monetize this traffic. I remember a few years ago talking with someone about TikTok, and he said there was no commercial potential in it, since only kids spent time there .
But last year during one particular trip where I spent a lot of time in hostels with other people, I saw many men and women in their twenties and thirties wasting hours on TikTok. And that demographic group definitely has money to spend.... now the problem is making them opening their wallet, for which no doubt the options on TikTok are limited.

AlexHL said:

All the best for this project!

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Thx mate, GL to you as well!

Dark Hat 007 said:

Thanks for the shout-out and for often checking my journey, I appreciate!! Things have been going well on my end.

Click to expand...

I can imagine, and now in December I think things will explode for you!!

Dark Hat 007 said:

I on the other hand have seen improvements a few times, I'm currently tracking a few that I updated three weeks ago, I should report back.

Click to expand...

blogmen said:

The improvements could have been from a number of reasons, like rankings go up over time by default, or adding keywords to an unoptimized article. But when you already create optimized articles and factor in aging, there won't be any statistical significance from adding content (ranking-wise).

Click to expand...

I think you both have a point here.

What happens is that when one prolongs an article in a meaningful way, that means not just adding fluff, but writing new paragraphs with new information related to the topic, or looking at the problem from another angle, or elaborating on some points more in detail, without really realizing it, they cover new secondary/long tail keywords in the process, and this alone can help with traffic.

But I also believe that adding more new content, in the same category, and hence growing the topical authority of the website, will have even a stronger positive effect on the existing articles in question. At the end of the day, I have seen this during the journey, and reported on it here.

Last but not least, I am 100% sure user experience is an important ranking factor. When the article is longer and the prolonging makes sense, the average time on page will improve. Not sure if it is alone enough for Google to push the post higher, but it definitely won't do any harm, and no doubt will help in combination with other ranking factors.

Kikerinka said:

Addictive in which way? In the way that you are addicted to growing it even more, and becoming one of the top TikTokers, or addictive in a way that you also waste your days on the platform?

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About growing sure.

Kikerinka said:

What is most interesting to me is to see how you can monetize this traffic. I remember a few years ago talking with someone about TikTok, and he said there was no commercial potential in it, since only kids spent time there .
But last year during one particular trip where I spent a lot of time in hostels with other people, I saw many men and women in their twenties and thirties wasting hours on TikTok.

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I am taking my time to figure out monetization. It should work at some point. Then I can try to scale but if scaling won't work I can use the viral videos for tk paid ads.

I have analytics in tk and I can see my audience. The 2 biggest demographics combined are between 25-44 yo, so definitely not kids.

It's easy to waste time scrolling but TikTok is huge, so you can find a lot of useful channels, like nutrition, fitness, arts, crafts, cooking and a lot of tiny niches that are pretty amazing.

@Kikerinka Hope you are doing well. How much did you make from ebook sales in November?

Small report for the month of November concerning my new site
30 articles published

what we notice is that the discovered traffic makes the activity of the site explode. Out of discover the traffic is not yet taking off even if it is slowly progressing

an analytics graph will be more meaningful

the orange curve corresponds to the discover traffic

as a reminder, the site opened in mid-September so half of the content is less than a month old
115 000 words published in 65 articles on 30/11



it goes up slowly, never fast enough for my taste, we persevere

Kikerinka said:

I can imagine, and now in December I think things will explode for you!!

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Amen, I really hope so!

blogmen said:

About growing sure.

I am taking my time to figure out monetization. It should work at some point. Then I can try to scale but if scaling won't work I can use the viral videos for tk paid ads.

I have analytics in tk and I can see my audience. The 2 biggest demographics combined are between 25-44 yo, so definitely not kids.

It's easy to waste time scrolling but TikTok is huge, so you can find a lot of useful channels, like nutrition, fitness, arts, crafts, cooking and a lot of tiny niches that are pretty amazing.

Click to expand...

I see now I have to be more open minded about the platform .
To me, the format always seemed to short to offer a possibility of sharing any meaningful and deeper message, in any niche, except of entertainment perhaps.

No doubt I can be wrong though, and the demographics data you shared here surprise me greatly.
If you do not mind, can share a bit on how tiktok ads work? What is the RPM for 1K or 1M video views for example?

unsungwarrior said:

@Kikerinka Hope you are doing well. How much did you make from ebook sales in November?

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Hey mate, thanks, not everything has gone my way lately, but that's completely normal in life...

Due to the events of recent past related to this journey, I will not be posting exact data on traffic/earnings/expenses etc from different sources here. Hope you understand that, and good luck to you!

bruce willis said:

Small report for the month of November concerning my new site
30 articles published

what we notice is that the discovered traffic makes the activity of the site explode. Out of discover the traffic is not yet taking off even if it is slowly progressing

an analytics graph will be more meaningful

the orange curve corresponds to the discover traffic

as a reminder, the site opened in mid-September so half of the content is less than a month old
115 000 words published in 65 articles on 30/11



it goes up slowly, never fast enough for my taste, we persevere

View attachment 234294

View attachment 234295View attachment 234296

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Mate all these charts look absolutely great to me, and the progress is obvious on all of them . Congrats, and thank you for updating!

Just keep on going, you will eventually get there.

Dark Hat 007 said:

Amen, I really hope so!

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First few days of December can be slow, since people are running low of funds after Black Friday/Cyber Monday madness.

Yet soon enough the lust will be back, the wheels of the materialistic world keep on turning, the shopping madness will conquer millions of poor souls, and I have no doubt that Dec 2022 will be your best earning month so far.
Take care mate, and looking forward to your updates!

Kikerinka said:

I see now I have to be more open minded about the platform .
To me, the format always seemed to short to offer a possibility of sharing any meaningful and deeper message, in any niche, except of entertainment perhaps.

No doubt I can be wrong though, and the demographics data you shared here surprise me greatly.
If you do not mind, can share a bit on how tiktok ads work? What is the RPM for 1K or 1M video views for example?


Hey mate, thanks, not everything has gone my way lately, but that's completely normal in life...

Due to the events of recent past related to this journey, I will not be posting exact data on traffic/earnings/expenses etc from different sources here. Hope you understand that, and good luck to you!


Mate all these charts look absolutely great to me, and the progress is obvious on all of them . Congrats, and thank you for updating!

Just keep on going, you will eventually get there.


First few days of December can be slow, since people are running low of funds after Black Friday/Cyber Monday madness.

Yet soon enough the lust will be back, the wheels of the materialistic world keep on turning, the shopping madness will conquer millions of poor souls, and I have no doubt that Dec 2022 will be your best earning month so far.
Take care mate, and looking forward to your updates!

Click to expand...

about tiktok
khaby lame one of the most famous on the platform was turning last year around 400 000€ / month

he met some banker friends for investments...

thank you for your feedback

We continue the adventure

Kikerinka said:

No doubt I can be wrong though, and the demographics data you shared here surprise me greatly.
If you do not mind, can share a bit on how tiktok ads work? What is the RPM for 1K or 1M video views for example?

Click to expand...

I meant paying for ads myself in case the organic route won't work. But if you're wondering about the creator fund (adsense equivalent on tk) I know someone making 1 cent per 1K views in the UK. But you can get millions of views per day fairly easily.

The creator fund is not available in all countries, only a few, so I won't use it myself, but you should try because it's not super hard to make videos, you can simply create slideshows or just upload scenic footage and add music, voice or text.

Don't worry about the short format, they allow up to 10 min videos. People usually create part 1,2,3... whole series. You can build playlists too.

Kikerinka said:

First few days of December can be slow, since people are running low of funds after Black Friday/Cyber Monday madness.

Yet soon enough the lust will be back, the wheels of the materialistic world keep on turning, the shopping madness will conquer millions of poor souls, and I have no doubt that Dec 2022 will be your best earning month so far.
Take care mate, and looking forward to your updates!

Click to expand...

Haha!! I really really love the sound of this and this means a whole lot to me. How's your end though? I believe you are doing great!!

Kikerinka said:

It is completely normal to see this for a (relatively) new website. Also the data in search console do not always reflect the reality of Google Search. On one of my smaller projects I see 26 pages as non-indexed, but when I check them in Google search they are there, often on the top for the keywords they target.

To sum it up, I would not bother with it too much at this point .


- Thanks, I believe the "almost passive income" is not a myth, if you build your authority website the right way.

- Never seen that website yeys.com, but what an operation! Over 50 full time employees lol, that's totally different than my concept . In any case, with so many websites in her portfolio, the lady can definitely give good insights on what works an what does not. Props up to her for sharing it with others!

- Addictive in which way? In the way that you are addicted to growing it even more, and becoming one of the top TikTokers, or addictive in a way that you also waste your days on the platform?

What is most interesting to me is to see how you can monetize this traffic. I remember a few years ago talking with someone about TikTok, and he said there was no commercial potential in it, since only kids spent time there .
But last year during one particular trip where I spent a lot of time in hostels with other people, I saw many men and women in their twenties and thirties wasting hours on TikTok. And that demographic group definitely has money to spend.... now the problem is making them opening their wallet, for which no doubt the options on TikTok are limited.


Thx mate, GL to you as well!


I can imagine, and now in December I think things will explode for you!!





I think you both have a point here.

What happens is that when one prolongs an article in a meaningful way, that means not just adding fluff, but writing new paragraphs with new information related to the topic, or looking at the problem from another angle, or elaborating on some points more in detail, without really realizing it, they cover new secondary/long tail keywords in the process, and this alone can help with traffic.

But I also believe that adding more new content, in the same category, and hence growing the topical authority of the website, will have even a stronger positive effect on the existing articles in question. At the end of the day, I have seen this during the journey, and reported on it here.

Last but not least, I am 100% sure user experience is an important ranking factor. When the article is longer and the prolonging makes sense, the average time on page will improve. Not sure if it is alone enough for Google to push the post higher, but it definitely won't do any harm, and no doubt will help in combination with other ranking factors.

Click to expand...

Thanks

bruce willis said:

about tiktok
khaby lame one of the most famous on the platform was turning last year around 400 000€ / month

he met some banker friends for investments...

thank you for your feedback

We continue the adventure

Click to expand...

That's crazy. But as they rightly say, when there is traffic, especially tier 1 traffic, there is earnings potential. Perhaps it is only a question on knowing how to convert the traffic, and the Khaby guy you mentioned certainly knows how to do it

blogmen said:

I meant paying for ads myself in case the organic route won't work. But if you're wondering about the creator fund (adsense equivalent on tk) I know someone making 1 cent per 1K views in the UK. But you can get millions of views per day fairly easily.

The creator fund is not available in all countries, only a few, so I won't use it myself, but you should try because it's not super hard to make videos, you can simply create slideshows or just upload scenic footage and add music, voice or text.

Don't worry about the short format, they allow up to 10 min videos. People usually create part 1,2,3... whole series. You can build playlists too.

Click to expand...

If the fund is not available in your country, it is extremely likely it isn't available in mine either .

To be honest though, I still try to spend minimum time online while not working, hence I won't be joining TikTok anytime soon (or any other social network).

But it is good to broaden my horizons a bit here on BHW, and in the future you never know .

Dark Hat 007 said:

Haha!! I really really love the sound of this and this means a whole lot to me. How's your end though? I believe you are doing great!!

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Statistically December is the lowest month in my niche, in both traffic and earnings. But it isn't a big deal really, since seasonality is present in every niche... I will still make enough to survive I guess

Ok, so I am back with the Bob the link builder saga. The latest two updates have hit all the websites in the niche, but dear Bobby is the only one that got hit the least. So, his link building strategy worked, he's at the top. Now comes the dilemma. Should I invest 10k+ to build a similar backlink profile to his or to use the same money for creating articles. What would those wiser than me do?

Escehas said:

Ok, so I am back with the Bob the link builder saga. The latest two updates have hit all the websites in the niche, but dear Bobby is the only one that got hit the least. So, his link building strategy worked, he's at the top. Now comes the dilemma. Should I invest 10k+ to build a similar backlink profile to his or to use the same money for creating articles. What would those wiser than me do?

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Hey mate, this Bob story keeps evolving. Maybe one day you'll turn it into a novel. Or into a love romance. Just kidding

On a serious note, it isn't easy to give you some advice here. First of all, we should not forget how easy it is to mistaken causality and coincidence. Bob is building more links than others in your niche, but it isn't necessarily the reason why his website was less impacted than others. It can be the reason, but it may as well be something completely different. And he may simply be lucky.

On the other hand, with your current earnings, you have the budget to go for links no doubt. You know that I will always vouch for spending 10K on content, as long as there is still room for new content in your niche.
But other people, some of them no doubt wiser than me and with many more websites & experience in link building, would vouch strongly for links.
Hence it is up to you to choose. Or maybe call Bob and ask him for a beer to discuss things .

Kikerinka said:

Hey mate, this Bob story keeps evolving. Maybe one day you'll turn it into a novel. Or into a love romance. Just kidding

On a serious note, it isn't easy to give you some advice here. First of all, we should not forget how easy it is to mistaken causality and coincidence. Bob is building more links than others in your niche, but it isn't necessarily the reason why his website was less impacted than others. It can be the reason, but it may as well be something completely different. And he may simply be lucky.

On the other hand, with your current earnings, you have the budget to go for links no doubt. You know that I will always vouch for spending 10K on content, as long as there is still room for new content in your niche.
But other people, some of them no doubt wiser than me and with many more websites & experience in link building, would vouch strongly for links.
Hence it is up to you to choose. Or maybe call Bob and ask him for a beer to discuss things .

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I've been monitory Bob for a long time and it's the links. He got hit in May, got scared and a month later these stupidly expensive backlinks started popping up.
Obviously, I can't continue doing what I am doing otherwise the competition will outdo me, so for now I will push more content by finally getting a writer. It can't be more expensive than paying 2-3k per link. I also have some interesting ideas for backlinks. It's a bit sad that the camaraderie between websites is pretty much gone and everything is purely for profit. Even if you create a fun, engaging post which gets an insane amount of traction, huge sites do link to you but always nofollow.

Escehas said:

I've been monitory Bob for a long time and it's the links. He got hit in May, got scared and a month later these stupidly expensive backlinks started popping up.
Obviously, I can't continue doing what I am doing otherwise the competition will outdo me, so for now I will push more content by finally getting a writer. It can't be more expensive than paying 2-3k per link. I also have some interesting ideas for backlinks. It's a bit sad that the camaraderie between websites is pretty much gone and everything is purely for profit. Even if you create a fun, engaging post which gets an insane amount of traction, huge sites do link to you but always nofollow.

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I like your thoughts on the camaraderie between websites. Perhaps I am not in this field long enough to fully appreciate the meaning of it...
But no doubt in the past people linked to other websites more freely, not thinking too much about SEO benefits for them, or for others. Perhaps everything had a more natural flow. And perhaps this applies to every aspect of life, not only to websites .
Now maybe everyone sees everyone else as their competitor, which, of course, is not true.

In any case, $2-3K a link to me is just unthinkable. That means that for a $10K budget you will get 3-5 links. For the same budget, even if you pay $100/article (which very few people around here pay, if any), you'll get 100 new articles.
Maybe I am biased by my long term approach to building websites, but I cannot imagine anyone choosing 4 links over 100 articles. Perhaps there are niches where it makes sense, but I haven't had an experience with such up to this point.

Kikerinka said:

I like your thoughts on the camaraderie between websites. Perhaps I am not in this field long enough to fully appreciate the meaning of it...
But no doubt in the past people linked to other websites more freely, not thinking too much about SEO benefits for them, or for others. Perhaps everything had a more natural flow. And perhaps this applies to every aspect of life, not only to websites .
Now maybe everyone sees everyone else as their competitor, which, of course, is not true.

In any case, $2-3K a link to me is just unthinkable. That means that for a $10K budget you will get 3-5 links. For the same budget, even if you pay $100/article (which very few people around here pay, if any), you'll get 100 new articles.
Maybe I am biased by my long term approach to building websites, but I cannot imagine anyone choosing 4 links over 100 articles. Perhaps there are niches where it makes sense, but I haven't had an experience with such up to this point.

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When you get investors and shareholders breathing down your neck, the passion of owning a website is replaced by blind focus on profit. Which is why the web is less interesting nowadays than it was more than a decade ago. I may just be getting old though. In any case, the 2-3K per link is from the biggest domains on the web and I think it's actually not that much considering their authority. I saw that a website not that much larger than my own with a slightly higher DA wanted 1.3K per backlink and it was considered cheap, so yeah... Just imagine how much the mega domains charge. If I want a link from CNET, I need to sell my car.

Escehas said:

When you get investors and shareholders breathing down your neck, the passion of owning a website is replaced by blind focus on profit. Which is why the web is less interesting nowadays than it was more than a decade ago. I may just be getting old though. In any case, the 2-3K per link is from the biggest domains on the web and I think it's actually not that much considering their authority. I saw that a website not that much larger than my own with a slightly higher DA wanted 1.3K per backlink and it was considered cheap, so yeah... Just imagine how much the mega domains charge. If I want a link from CNET, I need to sell my car.

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In my opinion, 95% of websites are still run by individuals and small groups of people, instead of companies with boards, shareholders, investors.

I feel the lack of natural links has more to do with the competitiveness and egoism, as I wrote in my other post. Everyone considers everyone else their competitor nowadays. What's more, if they keep getting offers for paid placements (guest posts/niche edits), why would they (with their mindset) link to some interesting article just like that, with getting nothing in return?

The passion of owning a website is another matter altogether . I definitely have this passion, but I also get an impression that many people are in only for money.

When it comes to CNET, I am honestly no expert on linkbuilding whatsoever. But I cannot imagine how a single link from that website (or from one with similar magnitude) would make a big difference for my website, and justify the expense.

My website has over 1K articles. Will this single link push the one post I send it to up a few places in the ranking? And what if the website which outranks me for that KW has DA 90+? I do not think the one link will make any difference in such a case. Sure, it may push my domain DA up, maybe some other posts rank higher, and maybe also they do not .

Perhaps you are in a niche with much higher RPMs. Perhaps in certain instances this can make sense... But I still feel, thinking about ROI, that nowadays links are incredibly overpriced, and for vast majority of website owners it just makes no sense purchasing them, especially with Google declaring that their value as a ranking factor is getting smaller with every new update...
To sum it up, I hope you won't sell your car to get the link from CNET