[Journey] Work harder, to work less.

I'm back with an update for March.

Site #1 -
Traffic: 23,468 organic (but had a tracking issue for about a week that halved my traffic)
Earnings: £920.67 Amazon UK + $248.12 Ezoic
Word Count: 356.4k
DR: 29

Site #2 -
Traffic: 744 organic
Earnings: $2.12 (7 ordered items, I know not a lot, but it's a start! - Amazon US)
Word Count: 144.5k
DR: 25

Site #3 -
Traffic: 82 organic
Earnings: £1.67 Amazon UK
Word Count: 30.4k
DR: 2.6

Site #4 -
Traffic: 46 organic
Earnings: £0
Word Count: 63.3k
DR: 5

Site #5 -
Traffic: 4 organic
Earnings: £0
Word Count: 26.4k
DR: 9

What I've done this month:

• Ordered a lot of new content across all the sites, about 100k has been uploaded
• Signed up for a PBN service here that's a monthly subscription, so there will be 5x new links across all my sites every month
• Finally got my 3rd (4th & 5th) sale on my second site and approved for Amazon US - woo

Moving forward, I need to balance the books a bit and pull back on the content slightly - I overexerted myself a little and need to save some for tax reasons. I still want to try and get all my sites to 100k words at least.

On site #2 I've roped my little brother in, he doesn't work and is just out of college so I want to teach him & give him a revenue split of a hopefully promising site. He will hopefully be writing all the content and uploading it, which will save me time too.

Site #1 -
Traffic: 25,785 organic
Earnings: £861.44 Amazon UK + $215 Ezoic
Word Count: 370.1k
DR: 27

Site #2 -
Traffic: 1,875 organic
Earnings: $26.21 Amazon US
Word Count: 156k
DR: 30

Site #3 -
Traffic: 112 organic
Earnings: £0 Amazon UK / AWIN - Lots of clicks, no sales
Word Count: 35.6k
DR: 2.4

Site #4 -
Traffic: 34 organic
Earnings: £0
Word Count: 66.3k
DR: 14

Site #5 -
Traffic: 20 organic
Earnings: £1.64
Word Count: 48.3k
DR: 9

All in, a little bit of a disappointment - I got let down by quite a few of my content freelancers for one reason or another and I'm still waiting on a good chunk of content that has been paid for in April to be delivered.

Slightly lower earnings, but I think that is mostly the change from winter to summer & the change in products people are buying - a good chunk was winter-related.

One I am pretty proud of that I think has good legs is site #5. It's only in its the second month, so for it to be earning is fantastic.

Sorry for the delay if anyone is interested in this, been busy! Here's an update from last month, but I'm going to have to start labelling the sites so I know which ones are which.

Site #1 (G) -
Traffic: 23,466 organic
Earnings: £602.64 Amazon UK + $209.89 Ezoic
Word Count: 389,274
DR: 23

Site #2 (S) -
Traffic: 3,329 organic
Earnings: $59.28 Amazon US
Word Count: 168,188
DR: 31

Site #3 (C) -
Traffic: 277 organic
Earnings: £0 Amazon UK / AWIN - Lots of clicks, no sales
Word Count: 61,577
DR: 2.5

Site #4 (B) -
Traffic: 84 organic
Earnings: £0
Word Count: 80,357
DR: 12

Site #5 (BO) -
Traffic: 363 organic
Earnings: £20.62
Word Count: 83,814
DR: 10

Total:

What I've done this month:

• A lot of content as always, across all the sites
• Added a new freelancer to my list of writers
• Kept with the 5 links per site monthly PBN links
• Bagged a few free links on here
• I've built two more sites ready for content - these again are UK based and going to be Amazon affiliates with 100k words as the goal.

Other comments:
My main site is struggling to really push forward, it had a tough month which I think is mainly due to weather (not hot or cold really here) so my winter articles haven't been doing as well but the summer based ones haven't really kicked on.

I'm amazed by the fact that the 5th site is starting to earn quicker than the rest, think I might have found a really good niche here if it keeps going at the pace it is.

Site #2 is progressing nicely and finely coming into it's stride, as it's about 8 months old now. Site #3 seems to be a struggle, I'm not sure on AWIN it's getting clicks, but little to no sales, I'll leave it longer but I'm concerned it might not improve. The 4th site, I'm not too concerned traffic is picking up and I'm sure sales will.

I'm in debt i also need to make $10K per month to be able to get a stable life, good luck in your journey.

Good luck mate. BTW, where you're hiring your writers, and what's the cost for a 1k word article?

share4win said:

Good luck mate. BTW, where you're hiring your writers, and what's the cost for a 1k word article?

Click to expand...

I hire them on Upwork now, after trying a few writers on here, the quality is significantly better for a lower cost but it's just a bit more labour intensive.

1k = $7, well for most writers, I have one or two that would be $10

imataza said:

I'm in debt i also need to make $10K per month to be able to get a stable life, good luck in your journey.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry forgot to acknowledge this. That's quite a bit for stability! However, get going & make a journey for motivation

I'm struggling for time now a days to keep this updated, so going to tweak how I report on a monthly basis.

Here's my June update

Traffic:
Site #1 (G) - 25,098
Site #2 (S) - 4,233
Site #3 (C) - 516
Site #4 (B) - 241
Site #5 (BO) - 550

Earnings:
Site #1 (G) - £542.35 + $189.52
Site #2 (S) - $94.12
Site #3 (C) - £1.15
Site #4 (B) - £1.67
Site #5 (BO) - £15.92

Updates:
I've now completed the 100k on-site 4 & very close to site 5. Site 3 is still lagging behind, about 25k off the 100k mark.

Site #3 is the only one using Awin, and it's simply not generating income - despite getting quite a few clicks, there are no sales. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but losing a bit of faith in it.

I've built and done the research for two new website, content with the freelancers so hopefully launching them soon! Getting closer to my portfolio ideal of 10.

Do you buy expired domains?

following..

I like the overall strategy that you have in mind.

I have the same goals for myself; I want to work less but produce better results.

And the way to do this, of course, is to pay the price up front.

As you have said, “work harder to eventually work less.”

I'm not quite there yet, but I can definitely get a lot of inspiration from the statistics that you have shown.

I especially like the nice progression of income that you're showing for the year you’ve made over €2,000 from both sources of income—looks awesome, man!

I definitely agree that the way forward is to build a system that will pave the way for you working less but getting better results.

I would suggest automation for keyword research and also some sort of system for sharing content.

But when it comes to actual content generation, there are some procedural steps that you can take, as well as some formats that can reduce a lot of the guess work, but it still has to be done by hand.

But the good news is if you build your empire on solid foundations—and just judging from the statistics that you've shared, you're well on your way there—things are definitely going to look up.

So the key is to be a little bit more systematic, and I wouldn't be surprised if you build a solid site with this journey.

I will definitely be keeping track!

Time for my July update

Traffic:
Site #1 (G) - 27,421 (9.26% up)
Site #2 (S) - 7,030 (66.08% up)
Site #3 (C) - 790 (53.1% up)
Site #4 (B) - 662 (174.69% up)
Site #5 (BO) - 956 (73.82% up)
Site #6 (USO) - 32

Earnings:
Site #1 (G) - £624.99 + $174.12 (roughly, Ezoic is messing up and the reporting is 404'ing)
Site #2 (S) - $97.27
Site #3 (C) - £2.98
Site #4 (B) - £2.85
Site #5 (BO) - £87.01

Updates:

• I've changed link provider, I've picked a PBN that I know shows up on Ahrefs / Moz, which I know isn't the best, but I'm hoping this way I can grow the link profile to get more guest posts as that revenue seems to have all but completely dried up. I'm spending a bit more too, $550 a month across 5 sites.
• I'm falling out of love with Site #3 - it's a pain in the ass, I hate Awin. The supplier who I was using suspended me due to not converting the traffic I was sending, I actually made one sale this month to very little value but it's meant that I have had to change all the links. Feels like I need to re-evaluate how to make money off this one.
• I've had a lot of freelancer trouble, two dropping out and two slower than I would like, so I've had to try and take some more on & haven't done quite as much content as I would have liked.
• Big positive, every single site did better this month in traffic
• Launched site #6 properly with a few bits of content on there now, site #7 is built, but no content yet

As always, any questions, just ask

nice, i'm following your journey

following, very good actually you are taking passive income method

That's the plan, it's not completely passive. I still have to upload, manage the freelancers, buy links and do the keyword research, but it's nearly there.

You're an inspiration my friend. Amazing

Thanks for the support.

I need to start seeing more movement on site #1 though, needs a bit more TLC. I'm not sure if I should restructure it & improve the design, as it's poor at the moment.

Also - anyone have any experience with Ezoic? I'm wondering whether I should turn it off for a month and see if I can achieve a higher CR on Amazon. Any case studies?

Love to see your progress! Keep it up.

I like your journey so far, congrats. I am inspired, do you use WordPress to build your sites? I am interested in building and am caught between using WordPress for my sites or just build them myself. I do happen to be a developer. would using my own framework make a difference.. thanks

bantu007 said:

I like your journey so far, congrats. I am inspired, do you use WordPress to build your sites? I am interested in building and am caught between using WordPress for my sites or just build them myself. I do happen to be a developer. would using my own framework make a difference.. thanks

Click to expand...

Thank you.

Yes, I do use WordPress for all my sites - it's just easy and takes me a few hours to throw up these sites. I don't put too much time or emphasis into the design, just get it up and get some content on it.