It's been a while since I published a case study update, and for a good reason - there's really not much to update you guys on.
(except that we're racking in even more dollars!)
Last time I wrote about our case study, the site cracked $100/month mark and was getting between 20-40 visitors a day.
Well, sh*t scaled, and we're now averaging 100+ daily visitors and netting $200+ in August alone.
This just reinforces the fact that it takes time to start seeing results. You simply can't create (or purchase)​ a website and expect it to start earning you money from the organic traffic within a month (or 2, 3...).
Our case study is a prime example of that.
We've invested a lot of time and money in the content and link building, and it took us almost 8 months to really start getting some decent organic traction. You need to stick with your project and not give up if you don't see the results after a couple of months - that's perfectly normal.
When we started this case study back in January, our goal was to break down the niche into eight categories (silos), start with the easiest one, get it ranked and then move on to the next one, rinse and repeat.
Eight months in and we've covered 6/8 silos and added around 80k words of general content to battle the potential disaster called 'Fred'.
This helped us increase the topical relevancy & start ranking for some long-tails that are further away in our content funnel (awareness stage). I'm really happy with how everything's playing out so far, and I have great hopes for this project.
Enough small-talk - screenshot time!
Traffic Numbers:
Total traffic numbers for 2017.
Traffic numbers broken down by acquisition channels
Organic traffic growth
Earnings:
Earnings in 2017.
Amazon earnings in August
​Domain Info & Rankings:
Domain information
Organic growth
Top performing keywords
As you can see, the site is developing nicely. My subjective opinion is that we'll pass the $1k/mo mark in October and be at/around $3k in December. $100k valuation is going to be a stretch, but I'll do everything I can to make it happen.
Here's our to-do list for 2017:
- Wrap up two remaining silos
- Tackle the sub-niches (buying guides for smaller items/gear)
- Continue adding general content with no buying intent
- Continue building links and scale our efforts in September
- Add a lead magnet and start developing our email list
- Start using social media platforms for traffic acquisition
- Consider selling the site if we reach the $100k valuation
That's it for now, folks.
I'll get back to work, and you can expect me to write another update in a month or so - after we crack the $1,000 mark ;).
Short and sweet update Andrew. It looks like you it’s going pretty well. May I ask you how many posts you have already published? Cheers and keep it up;-)
Thanks for the new update. Can you please write few more details about how you explored sub-niches to write new content?
Hi,
there’s a screenshot in the post. We’re at 158 posts.
Hi,
let’s say you’re promoting 8 types of cars. Sub-niches would be car parts and accessories
Hi Andrew! Congratulations on the stable traffic and income growth! Your case study is really inspiring to proceed with promoting sites that are still in the initial stages. A couple of questions if you don’t mind:
1. How to you manage to find keywords for informational (non-reviews) posts, or you prefer to use common sense when picking the topics for your posts?
2. As a subscriber, I checked the new links appearing , and these are not guest posts in most cases. Do you find sponsored posts (link insertion)? Or ask to add links to your sites for free? It’s interesting since I guess in this niche it’s hard to come up with some “epic” content to promote by just asking to link to it (skyscraper technique).
Thanks, Anton!
1) We mostly use common sense and BuzzSumo to find trending opportunities. No keyword research needed.
2) All of the above ;). We run a sponsored posts campaign, guest posts (not all of them have been indexed), broken link building, free link placements, etc.
Don’t know if you noticed, but we recently created an interactive piece of content (quiz) which we used for most of our outreach in August. You can the link to the quiz on the homepage.
Me and one of my friend started a website five months ago. Yes, we are 5 days to reach 5 months. We have reached $100 in this month and our target is $1k per month within next January. We hope we can reach our goal within the time period. I am following your strategy regularly. I am really inspired by your this series article. Thanks, Andrew. Hope you will write the next one very soon. Best of luck.
Thanks for the detailed answer Andrew! Looking forward to your next update 🙂
Hi Adrew,
Hi i got your email and looked at this site (wont post it here 🙂 ) and i was looking at the way you arranged everything i am confused about the silo thing i skimmed through the reference and i saw your chart but still not getting it. anyway i can private email you or respond to the emails you send out so i can explain what i see on your site and explain whats going on?
Thank You
Sure. You can send me an email.
Thanks i sent you an email please let me know thank you very much
You guys have managed to publish a lot of content and 158 posts is not a joke. What is the average word count for each post? And does it contain pillar articles?
Love your short and sweet updates and will be following your journey.
Hi Shafi,
thanks for stopping by.
Most of our ‘fun’ content is 500-700 words long (80ish articles), and the rest is 2-5k+ words.
Yes, pillar articles are included and there are 8 of them (6-8k words).
Hey, Andrew!
Just found your website and read through all the case studies. Great work so far and very useful content! I was wondering when are you planning to publish the next article regarding this case study? I am hungry for an update 🙂
Thanks!
Hi Ben! Thanks for stopping by.
I’ll publish the update early next week ;).
Hi Andrew,
Thank you for sharing this kind of case study.
Is your domain name new or not?
Regards,
Andro
It was a fresh domain when I purchased it.