Pageviews TO THE MOON

[cryptoroger]

As a part of my quest to financial independence, I created a blog (on a non-financial topic) last year.

Since launching the website, my pageviews have grown by roughly 275% and are increasing by about 10% per month.

I'm currently at about 8,000 page views per month and earning about 1 cent per page view.

Here's a look at my pageviews and income over the past ten months:

1   3,090   $47
2   1,781   -17
3   2,398   $62
4   2,100   $22
5   3,718   $70
6   4,026   $106
7   4,279   $52
8   5,415   $47
9   6,188   $47
10   7,271   $131
11    8,500        $98

Still a paltry sum I know, but making progress. 

So, in order to keep myself accountable and to try and stoke the fire in other Mustachians, I'm inviting blog owners to join this challenge.

My goal in 2020 is to reach 30,000 Pageviews and $300 per month in passive income. 

I only have 24 articles on my site and have determined if I can create 50 new pieces of content (double last year's rate) I should be able to achieve this.

This would represent one new blog post per week.  That's my ultimate goal, but hope to exceed it. 

I will track my progress in this thread on a monthly basis along with updated pageviews, income and number of posts written.  I expect to come back in 30 days with at least four new posts under my belt, along with an increase of about 12% in page views per month.  I hope my estimates are conservative given that I have already established my site and will hope to double output.

Come join my Pageview Challenge!

[cryptoroger]

Alright, i'm back and figured since I hit the end of the month, I'd post an update.

For January, I hit a record for page views and hit a pretty big milestone, over 10,000 page views, actually hitting 11,401.  This was a whopping 34% increase over last month.

It was also a record month for revenues, $437, which i'm ecstatic with, but I doubt will be the norm moving forward.  Thus, while i'm cautiously optimistic, I'm more expecting something in the range of $10-$11 per 1000 views.

So how'd i get there?  I set a goal at the start of the year to have a minimum of one post per week.  I signed up for Stickk app which allows you to set a goal and then assign someone to which you have to pay a weekly amount if you miss your goal.  Thus, my wife will get $40 if I miss a blog post any week.

But, I exceeded my goals, posting seven new pieces in January.  Hopefully the momentum can continue in February!

1   3,090   $47
2   1,781   -17
3   2,398   $62
4   2,100   $22
5   3,718   $70
6   4,026   $106
7   4,279   $52
8   5,415   $47
9   6,188   $47
10   7,271   $131
11    8,500   $98
12  11,401 $437

[trygeek]

Love this good job and keep going.

[SugarMagnolia77]

Is the first line the first month that the blog existed? I知 curious about how you monetized it and was able to make money in the first month. Are you driving traffic with instagram and twitter as well? Affiliate linking?

[KathrinS]

Is the first line the first month that the blog existed? I知 curious about how you monetized it and was able to make money in the first month. Are you driving traffic with instagram and twitter as well? Affiliate linking?

PTF, as I'll be launching my new blog this spring.
I am also interested in these questions. And also, did you Bluehost like MMM suggests, or something else?

Congrats on your amazing success, your blog seems to speak to a lot of people.

[marty998]

  I signed up for Stickk app which allows you to set a goal and then assign someone to which you have to pay a weekly amount if you miss your goal.  Thus, my wife will get $40 if I miss a blog post any week.

But, I exceeded my goals, posting seven new pieces in January.

Your wife is not doing a very good job of distracting you ;)

[cryptoroger]

Is the first line the first month that the blog existed? I知 curious about how you monetized it and was able to make money in the first month. Are you driving traffic with instagram and twitter as well? Affiliate linking?

really good question...i actually launched it in June of 2018, went pretty hard after it for about four months and then took a break and came back to the site in March 2019.  I had some more stops and starts after that but have been much more focused since late last year.  I started with affiliate ads (not Google) and that is still my main source of revenue.  I just started a Twitter account and have a Facebook account.  But most of traffic has been organic via Google.   I've been thinking about Instagram and actually just listened to a great podcast on the Exposure Ninja podcast.  That game me some inspiration, so I might try to fit into future plans.  https://exposureninja.com/podcast/episode149/ 
 

[cryptoroger]

Is the first line the first month that the blog existed? I知 curious about how you monetized it and was able to make money in the first month. Are you driving traffic with instagram and twitter as well? Affiliate linking?

PTF, as I'll be launching my new blog this spring.
I am also interested in these questions. And also, did you Bluehost like MMM suggests, or something else?

Congrats on your amazing success, your blog seems to speak to a lot of people.

Thank you!  I didn't think anyone was reading so this gives me more motivation to keep posting here.

I actually use SiteGround for Hosting with a Wordpress site.  I've had pretty good experience with SiteGround.

For domains i would not use GoDaddy, i really like Google Domains and it gives you privacy for free.

[cryptoroger]

  I signed up for Stickk app which allows you to set a goal and then assign someone to which you have to pay a weekly amount if you miss your goal.  Thus, my wife will get $40 if I miss a blog post any week.

But, I exceeded my goals, posting seven new pieces in January.

Your wife is not doing a very good job of distracting you ;)

HAHA...this is a very good point

[cryptoroger]

Ok, here are the updated stats with February totals. 

Month/PageViews/Affiliate Income

1   3,090   $47
2   1,781   -17
3   2,398   $62
4   2,100   $22
5   3,718   $70
6   4,026   $106
7   4,279   $52
8   5,415   $47
9   6,188   $47
10   7,271   $131
11    8,500   $98
12  11,401 $437
13  11,909 $106

So, in a slightly shortened Feb month (29 days vs 31) I eclipsed my previous monthly pageviews, BUT the monthly earnings reverted to what I had previously thought would be a more normalized number.  That January total to date looks like a bit of an anomaly.  Admittedly it was a bit frustrating, but I told myself that I just need to stick to the plan and grow pageviews and it will all ultimately work out.

As for monetization, I'm currently only using affiliate ads (not Google or Amazon) so there is a lot of work to be done from a monetization standpoint.  I think I have an avenue for more potential income via paid display advertising (that I source) but I haven't had time to think about how I want to approach this.  I also know that there are ad networds which are supposedly much more profitable than Adsense (names i've learned about include Mediavine, Ezoic, Ad Thrive. I believe that Ezoic might be the only one that doesn't require over 100,000 pv per month.  I'm just slightly hesitant to add an ad network to my site that I don't control.  I know from experience that I hate sites that have all those annoying ads.  Plus I've read that it can slow down your site. Something I need to think about.

One thing I've been doing of late is revisiting some of my older posts to see what's not ranking all that well.  Of course all of this can be done via Google Search Console (formerly Webmasters).  I've also been on a one month trial of SEM Rush which is great for SEO analysis, but also expensive at $99 per month.  Trying to get as much value out of that before my trial runs out.   Also have been checking out an SEO course called hashtag by jeff which is $29 per month.  It's got some decent content and interesting webinars.  A lot I know already, but some of it is still pretty helpful.  For the cost it might be worth it for someone new to Search Analysis. 

So, I've been true to my plan of at least one post per week (nope my wife isn't any richer this month :)) 

In February, I published seven new posts, three more informational type pages, and cleaned up several others to try and improve search rankings.

I should also give a shoutout to Income School, which has a great (and free) YouTube channel and provides great advice for building niche sites.  I was following a lot of what they preach in initially building their site but didn't sign up for their paid course (Project 24) because I didn't feel like paying the $400 something bucks.  I signed up as an afflilate, so I cannot speak from experience, just in hopes I might be able to earn my way in.  If this isn't allowed, just delete it! 

Oh I should also note that I blew my $437 in income from last month on T-shirts for the site.  Maybe it was a dumb idea, but I figured I could give out some as promotions, and they look great, and are keeping me more motivated, when I have my shirt on and am typing away (PS -had a very good experience with Custom Ink).

That's it for now, let me know if you guys have any questions!

[KathrinS]

Thanks for the update and congrats on the continued high number of views. I'd love to see your blog if you're willing/able to post it on here.

[centwise]

Ptf. Thanks for posting, I'm interested in following your progress, and finding out what works and what doesn't! Good luck.

[cryptoroger]

Well....what a difference a month makes.

I had suspicions in January that we might be dealing with the 'coronavirus', but didn't exactly envision this sort of disruption to everyday life.  As for me, probably like many, we've been mostly forced inside for the last 3+ weeks.  Dealing with full-time jobs and trying to harness two small children has not been easy.  I know I'm not the only one, and for the most part we are healthy, although the uncertainty of it all is really weighing on me.

Thus, I will say that for the first part of March my efforts on my site were nearly nonexistent, and I was purely focused on survival mode--getting enough groceries, and well toilet paper!  Thankfully my mind has settled a bit and therefore I've been able to concentrate on my site when I've had a free moment--however this is ultimately a heck of lot more challenging at home.

I will mention that really across any industry--unless you are selling N95 masks, respirators or working on homeschool plans, there has been a big impact on search traffic across the board. Not surprisingly many are not thinking about leisure activities in times like these.  Therefore my traffic for April did suffer.  However affiliate income was reslient as I generated $182 for the month, nearly double last month's low total.  It remains to be seen how long this will keep up---with many now just worried about paying the rent and not looking to splurge on any non-necessities. 

I did create four posts in March, well below what I had been averaging, but well, ya know there were circumstances.  I have been sleeping horrendously as well, thus my productivity has suffered.  I had mentioned the hashtagbyjeff seo course last time, and I have found it helpful and fairly inexpensive at $29 per month.  You could probably subscribe for a month or two and get what you need.  The most important part that I've found helpful is the course's focus on organizing content and making your website better structured for both users and SEO purposes.  I've mostly been focusing on that over the past few weeks and have made some good progress on a new landing page.

Thus, I hope everyone out there is healthy and staying sane.  I don't know how much longer this might last, but the odds are that life will be disrupted for a while.  Try to turn off the news and enjoy the time with your family.

Oh, someone asked if I could share a link to my site.  I'm not sure if I want to do that just yet, but might entertain the idea at some point. 

Updated numbers through March 31 below. 

1   3,090   $47
2   1,781   -17
3   2,398   $62
4   2,100   $22
5   3,718   $70
6   4,026   $106
7   4,279   $52
8   5,415   $47
9   6,188   $47
10   7,271   $131
11    8,500   $98
12  11,401 $437
13  11,909 $106
14  11,037 $182

[SwordGuy]

Congrats on sticking to your blog and working up your content to a schedule.  It's not as easy to do that as it can seem!

That's why lots of people want to be authors but very few actually write...

Oh, someone asked if I could share a link to my site.  I'm not sure if I want to do that just yet, but might entertain the idea at some point. 

Well, anyone who accuses you of just being here to advertise your blog at this point would be pretty darn silly!  :)

Honestly, the ability to properly research a topic, cogently explain it, and lay out a plan of action to follow concerning it is a truly  useful skill in a host of endeavors.   It really doesn't matter what you're writing on if you're exercising those skills.   Having those skills can become real money in the bank in a host of careers.  (Did wonders for mine in software development!)

[KBCB]

What type of website do you have your blog on where you make money? I always wonder how people make money and have website when most places for people who are not computer savvy make a blog they use sites that charge to use templates.

[scantee]

This is great!

Late last year I started a blog on a niche topic that I was professionally involved in a few years ago. I致e made $1.65 so far...woohoo! Reaching $100 a month in revenue is my goal short-term goal.

How did approach learning SEO? That痴 a big gap in my knowledge that I plan to address once I have a  base of content on my site. There are so many SEO training courses out there that it is hard to choose.  I知 willing to pay a small amount for a basic course but it is hard to pick one when there are so many, too many really, to choose from.

[KathrinS]

I finally started my blog as well and am getting a few hundred views a week, which is quite motivating. Maybe next month I'll start to monetise it. I'd also love to find out more about what sites and resources you're using, cryptoroger.


I recently listened to an interview of a woman who worked on her online presence for years and never got much profit out of it - she was earning $1000 a month after 5 years. Now, 12 years after starting her blog, she makes multiple 6 figures and has been able to hire her husband. Sometimes staying in it for the long term pays off!

[cryptoroger]

Hello all,
I hope everyone is staying safe and is healthy throughout all of this madness.

For me, staying productive with my site has been a challenge.  I did make some meaningful improvements to my home page and cleaned it up quite a bit.  However, as I still work full time, being at home with two small children has been a test of my overall sanity.  I'm busy at work, thus trying to juggle work along with homeschool teacher, cook and cleaner (my wife is really busy at work too) has been really tough.  This has led to one of my lowest productivity months in terms of new posts --only three were posted in April.

However, in a shocker to me, this was my highest income-producing month along with reaching the most monthly page views since I've created the site.   And the $642 in affiliate income dwarfed my biggest previous month of $437.

So, what happened?  I can't say for sure, but I suspect that the combination of tax returns and stimulus checks led to increased buying activity.  Plus, with the spike in traffic, my presumption is that many are just sick of reading about coronavirus news and back to paying attention to their true interests.   So, I do think I had a lot of luck this month, and I'm not expecting this to be the norm going forward. 

I did start to reach out to some websites that I thought might be good advertising partners.  However, i only emailed a few as I figured this might not be the best time to go after advertising dollars.  Having sponsored ads on my site is definitely a part of my future plans however.

1   3,090   $47
2   1,781   -17
3   2,398   $62
4   2,100   $22
5   3,718   $70
6   4,026   $106
7   4,279   $52
8   5,415   $47
9   6,188   $47
10   7,271   $131
11    8,500   $98
12  11,401 $437
13  11,909 $106
14  11,037 $182
15  13,963 $642

So there were a few questions and I wanted to touch on those now.  Most were regarding what websites and resources I use.

Well, simply put my website is built using Wordpress and for nearly everyone that should be the one solution needed to get your blog going.  I use Siteground for hosting and find them to be quite reasonably priced and thus far very reliable.  Google Domains is what I use to buy my domain names.  I use Mailchimp for building mail lists on my website, and that is free for up to a few thousand subscribers.   I also use Thrive Architect as a website builder via Wordpress.  Some people have mixed opinions but I've found that is really helpful in building great content.  I will note that some people spend too much time worrying about the design and look of their website.  If you are just starting out, don't stress about that---over time you can figure out how to make your website look a bit better.

For SEO, I will stress one simple fact.  QUALITY IS THE KEY.  If you expect to create a website and get listed near the top of Google, you will need to produce quality that is better than anything out there.  If you want to rank for a specific keyword, do a search in Google and look at the top ranked sites.  Make your content 10x better than theirs.  And guess what--people will come!  It might take time but after a while, your quality will speak for itself.  Speak to the reader like you would a friend.  Don't try to sell them something.  Having ads and affiliate links is fine, but don't drown out the reader in links to other websites that get you paid.  If you do, make it something of value for your reader. 

As for SEO is also concerned, this Google SEO Guide pretty much tells you everything you need to know https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451184?hl=en

There are many paid sites out there which offer great tools --such as AHREFS, Moz, SEMRUSH, however for most beginners the costs are a bit prohibitive.  All of them do however also offer many good free articles and tools.  Go explore!   

I also have spoken about the hashtag jeff course--which is $29 a month.  He has some really good content--it is mostly targeted at food bloggers but is applicable to many other websites.  You could even sign up for a month and learn most of all you need to know and then cancel.  Income School has great videos on youtube and is great for beginners--they also have a $400 course if you feel like taking the next step. 

[Michael in ABQ]

I've got a blog but I only wrote a few pieces of content and haven't touched it much in a year or so. It still gets a few views every day and ranks on the first page of Google for a few keywords. It's a niche that doesn't have much monetization potential so it's hard for me to get motivated to work on it. I've put my focus in a side business selling on Amazon that's generating a few hundred in profit each month instead.

[cryptoroger]

I've got a blog but I only wrote a few pieces of content and haven't touched it much in a year or so. It still gets a few views every day and ranks on the first page of Google for a few keywords. It's a niche that doesn't have much monetization potential so it's hard for me to get motivated to work on it. I've put my focus in a side business selling on Amazon that's generating a few hundred in profit each month instead.

Hey Michael, yeah it's hard to get motivated if you can't really see the long term potential.  If it is ranking first page, it might not hurt to at least try to throw some affiliate ads on it (if possible)...but good to see you are following the path where you see the most success.  Good luck!

[Michael in ABQ]

I've got a blog but I only wrote a few pieces of content and haven't touched it much in a year or so. It still gets a few views every day and ranks on the first page of Google for a few keywords. It's a niche that doesn't have much monetization potential so it's hard for me to get motivated to work on it. I've put my focus in a side business selling on Amazon that's generating a few hundred in profit each month instead.

Hey Michael, yeah it's hard to get motivated if you can't really see the long term potential.  If it is ranking first page, it might not hurt to at least try to throw some affiliate ads on it (if possible)...but good to see you are following the path where you see the most success.  Good luck!

I tried to sign up with an affiliate network but I was rejected. Likely because there's only a few pages on the site at this point. The search terms I'm ranking on the first page for only get maybe 100-200 searches a month in Google and the highest I'm ranked is 5th or 6th.

[cryptoroger]

UPDATE for MAY 2020

So, May was a very good month. My highest income month to date on my website, generating $883 in affiliate income.  In addition, I reached my highest pageview total in the history of my site, with 17,491 pageviews, a 25% increase over last month's total.  Affiliate income can be pretty lumpy and I was at around $280 when a big whale came in and generated around $500 or so in additional income.  But I'm very happy with the month's total--I'm not sure if this is leftover pent up stimulus spending, but whatever the case I'll take it.

The bad part is that I only got two new articles posted, even though I have a goal to reach one new post per week at a minimum.  I will admit once again that working from home full time with two kids has been overwhelming to say the least.  I've been spending a lot of time revisiting my old posts to see what is working and what isn't to give me some clues as to what I should focus on moving forward.  I've also edited some of the posts which aren't ranking where I want them to be.

The key for me has been one thing.  Quality.  Plain and simple. If you create lengthy, and high-quality content that is better than your competitors, it will ultimately rank high in google.  Now keeping it there is a challenge especially if newer competitors enter the space.  That's why with SEO, you always have to be aware of who and what is out there, and to keep your best content fresh and up to date. 

I'm still thinking of ways to improve the diversity of my revenue--i'm 100% affiliate income and would like to at least get some banner ads going.  I did create a media kit, but haven't done a lot of outreach as of yet.  Anyways, happy with the progress so far and hope to keep it going!  Thanks for listening!


1   3,090   $47
2   1,781   -17
3   2,398   $62
4   2,100   $22
5   3,718   $70
6   4,026   $106
7   4,279   $52
8   5,415   $47
9   6,188   $47
10   7,271   $131
11    8,500   $98
12  11,401 $437
13  11,909 $106
14  11,037 $182
15  13,963 $642
16  17,491 $883

[alcon835]

I would love to hear an update on this. Been following this for awhile but forgot to click "notify". Well, now I'm covered and I want to know - is the website still going? How have the last few months been for you? Are you seeing the same growth you saw earlier or has it been slowing down?

[cryptoroger]

hey there, so sorry i hadn't been back to post again, but figured it would be a good time for an update.  Here's the updated progress for pageviews and income

1   3,090   $47
2   1,781   -17
3   2,398   $62
4   2,100   $22
5   3,718   $70
6   4,026   $106
7   4,279   $52
8   5,415   $47
9   6,188   $47
10   7,271   $131
11    8,500   $98
12  11,401 $437
13  11,909 $106
14  11,037 $182
15  13,963 $642
16  17,491 $883
17  14,512 $336
18  17,898 $563
19  21,137 $818
20  19,661 $715
21  23,258 $1019
22  23,078 $568
23  36,354 $1218

In this most recent month, I reached my highest point for pageviews and income.  I'm also on track to exceed $1000 for January, so things are progressing quite well.  I've also managed to leverage the leads to my website and earning affiliate money on these leads and that brought in an additional $5000 for the last half of the year.

My initial goal when I started the post was to reach 30,000 Pageviews and $300 per month in passive income, and I have exceed both, so that really has been a rewarding event for me.

My goal for 2021 is to reach a consistent $2000 in affiliate advertisement earnings per month along with 50K + pageviews per month.  The benefit to reaching 50K allows the addition of MediaVine which is a great advertising platform for content sites.  That will also bring in additional income.  I also believe that I can reach an additional $5000 per quarter in lead sales--that part does take a bit more leg work however.

So in order to reach these goals, it will be an attempt to create ten high quality posts per month.  One goal I did not fulfill was growing my Instagram page--I only have about 300 followers, but for my niche, I think a much larger audience could help drive additional revenues.  If anyone has good ideas on building a large Instagram following I'm all ears. 

Thanks for listening!

[alcon835]

That is awesome! I have been debating kicking back up a website soon, but it will probably just be a standard blog. Is your website targeted toward something? I'm not necessarily asking for specifics (but if you're open to sharing here or in PM, I'm very curious!). Writing and website work is something I genuinely enjoy and I think I'm relatively close to getting enough free time to add in a side hustle.

[Rhinodad]

hey there, so sorry i hadn't been back to post again, but figured it would be a good time for an update. 
So in order to reach these goals, it will be an attempt to create ten high quality posts per month.  One goal I did not fulfill was growing my Instagram page--I only have about 300 followers, but for my niche, I think a much larger audience could help drive additional revenues.  If anyone has good ideas on building a large Instagram following I'm all ears. 

Thanks for listening!

Cleavage always seems to work on Insta

[cryptoroger]

haha, yes this is very true, maybe I'll try to intertwine some bare skin in my business posts

[Stubblestache]

Very interesting to read, thanks for sharing the numbers. Are you blogging on something you're passionate about or something you've chosen specifically for the monetary potential?