Fat Stacks Blog - a Podcast About Blogging, SEO and Traffic: Recent Episodes
Jon D.
Podcast about building a digital publishing business that includes blogging, publishing websites, website monetization with AdSense and other display ads, affiliate marketing, SEO and pretty much everything and the kitchen sink about launching and growing digital assets.
Joe, Mike and Jon discuss the how and why of the Leapfrog Rank n' Rent online business model which is essentially building and renting sites out for local businesses helping those local businesses get new clients or customers.
=> Learn more about Leapfrog Rank n' Rent here.
Learn more by getting my free 6-Figure Blogger Course.
Are you thinking of launching an email newsletter? If so, find out how to test quickly and inexpensively whether it'll work in the long run.
Learn more by getting my free 6-Figure Blogger Course.
I go through a list of website features you should consider incorporating for a better niche site.
Learn more by getting my free 6-Figure Blogger Course.
In this episode, I set out exactly how I would get my site to the magical 50K monthly visitors for Mediavine ads from scratch as a sprint... as fast as possible.
Learn more by getting my free 6-Figure Blogger Course.
I set out and explain the 6 blogging levers so that you don't trade money for time publishing niche sites and instead build up a successful online publishing business.
I discuss the number one mistake aspiring bloggers make and how to prevent it. I also go into unimportant mistakes vs important mistakes to avoid as a blogger.
Learn when and how to use this effective word on your website for more traffic and more engagement from visitors.
I discuss the pros and cons of operating what I call a crossover niche site which is personality and/or audience driven.
Join me with my SEO guy, Taylor Kimball as we tackle the question what you need to do to rank niche sites in 2023 & beyond!
- What's the best strategy to focus on for a niche site in 2023?
- Should you even be creating a niche site right now?
- The mindset shift that will boost your site's authority
-
The hidden advantage of niche sites vs broad sites
-
The costly mistake affiliate sites make
- AI content's Achilles heel that niche sites can exploit
- The sneaky way to get a topical map done for you
-
The inconvenient truth of Bing's AI search engine
-
The easy way to increase your CRT on Google
- The small shift in strategy you need to keep safe from potential AI slaps
- First thing to look for if your site traffic starts tanking
- What is a reasonable timeline for site recovery?
Get transcriptions here
🧰 Resources mentioned
- Fatstacks coaching program
- The Affiliate Lab
- Internet Marketing Gold
- Niche Site Profits
- Taylor's AI course (IMG)
✅Want more?
My best stuff is reserved for my email subscribers. It's 17,175 strong and counting. It's free and you get a starter kit to kickstart your niche site or blog.
I discuss merits of focusing on what you like in the blogging business and balancing it with running a business.
This podcast discusses a recent situation where a company asked about paying for a premium placement on one of my niche sites. I go through the entire analysis of this revenue stream.
In this episode I discuss how to reduce your risk to losing traffic if you have a one niche-site portfilio.
This episode explains why focusing on bigger sites is better in the beginning and my reason for moving one site and potentially more to Mediavine from AdThrive.
This episode reveals a new way I hire writers that it working out to be the best way to hire writers. I'm getting the best writers ever and it's easy and relatively fast. I also go over my plans for 2022.
Lately I've been publishing some very opinionated articles on my niche sites with strong views. Should you? If so here's how to go about it.
I explain how to create email newsletter content for regular niche sites that also benefits the niche site SEO and content production.
This episode goest through what I call the microscope keyword research method for finding great article topics for your website that doesn't require any keyword research software or tools at all.
This is a discussion about tacking on shoulder niches to existing niche sites, why I do it, how I do it with pivot cornerstones and the future of content niche sites.
This video steps you through my most important SEO methods for millions of monthly website visitors. It includes:
- Content strategies,
- Link building strategies,
- On-site SEO, and
- Keyword research concepts.
Learn more: Get my 6-Figure Baseline Blogging course (FREE)
Learn a LOT more with my paid course
Watch the demo in the video version of this presentation here.
This is just the start. Only two weeks ago did I start this new "affiliate lander" project for two of my niche sites and it's already shown revenue increases. The detailed video explains everything about why and how I build and use affiliate landing pages on niche sites, including informational articles to increase affiliate revenue, page views and improve user experience.
Learn more: get my free course on this stuff.
In this episode and break down building up niche sites into bite-sized chunks.
I end this episode discussing the results of a recent link-building campaign.
This video pokes a bit of fun at the SEO community going through the 12 types of SEO. Which type of SEO are you. I fall into 4 types.
This episode steps you through the 21 considerations for producing good niche website and blog content. Based on years of experience and recent Google algo changes.
I get a lot done fast when I work. It's a result of being very efficient. Here are my top 21 techniques fo getting more content published faster across my portfolio of websites.
I've ordered clusters, which are multiple articles within the same topic, only to end up with this big problem. It was my fault. I'm glad I spotted it. I figured out a fix and now it's not a problem. It's a widespread issue so watch out for it.
Resources mentioned:
- Passion Posts
- WriterAccess
What are the 8 purposes of content on a niche website? This episode goes through these 8 purposes that you need to know about and keep in mind for every piece of content you published because a website's whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.
Tools mentioned:
- Fat Stacks Bundle
- Niche Website Builders (Skyscraper link building)
- Converkit Email Software
- Convertbox Email Software
This episode steps you through exactly how I figure out how many words to order from writers or how long content needs to be to stand a good chance of ranking #1 in Google. It's more art than science but we can take some of the guesswork out of it.
Tools mentioned:
MarketMuse: https://fatstacksblog.com/go/marketmuse/
SurferSEO: https://fatstacksblog.com/go/surferseo/
WriterAccess: https://fatstacksblog.com/go/writer-access/
My free course: https://fatstacksblog.com/
Every day I'm faced with decisions. I've learned over the years, often there is no right way to go about things. The important thing to do is to make the decision and do something. You can always go back and fix stuff. I also delve into bird's eye view SEO logic, home pages and content production.
Learn about my two methods for improving content. There's the "Quick n' Dirty" Hands Off method and the "Full Workup - Swingin' for the Fences" method.
Show Notes:
1. Quick n’ dirty “hands off” method
Identify new sections/subheadings and sub-topics to add
Outsource the write-ups
Add as chunks to existing.
Listicles: New list or add to list. Keep old list at bottom.
- The full workup - swingin’ for the fences
Better intro - answer the main question right away (I’ve been doing this in a roundabout way for years)
Rewrite clumsy writing
- Dog beds are… Dog beds should… Dog beds…
New/better images
Full keyword analysis and injection
- Insert more long tails in content and as sections
Update any dates in the content/titles
Convert to Gutenberg and add more styling
Improve any Conversion Rate Optimization opportunities
Consider removing sidebar
Content enhancer opportunities:
- Facts/data/statistics (don’t forget tables and charts)
- Quotes - get quotes from industry experts in videos or articles (reference the links)
- jokes
- Anecdotes/stories/examples
FAQ section (don’t forget schema markup)
Improve interlinking
Improve referencing
Pagespeed analysis: If low page speed scores - remove embeds, compress images, remove scripts (quizzes, maps, videos, etc.)
This episode explains why your goal as a content publisher or blogger should be "get to boring." I explain what that means, how to get there and how to leverage a boring business.
I love shoulder niches. I tack them on like crazy to grow authority, traffic and revenue. Learn why and how I do it.
This episode analyzes the pros and cons of getting content for your niche site with writers directly (in-house) vs. using a writing agency vs. using a writing service. And yes, I explain the differences of all three as well.
See all the charts at the blog here.
This episode presents 3 scenarios compared by analyzing what could happen if you scaled up your website portfolio business by bringing on investors.
This episode discusses the formula for building up a successful niche site business ... includes attracting links.
References: The Hoth article about Nerd Wallet SEO.
Recently working with a group of writers I discovered a duplicate content problem. Fortunately, I discovered it fairly quickly, but it could have been bad. If you work with writers or write your own content, you need to watch this video to ensure it doesn't happen to you.
In this episode, I talk about whether it's okay to regurgitate info in content across your site. I run through several examples.
Why I loathe schedules and how I operate my publishing business with no schedule or expectations. I also talk about how I guard against that nasty bright shiny object syndrome.
In this episode I share a very simple way to increase ad revenue that's also good for visitors and SEO. In a nutshell I share a couple very simple ways to increase content length that increases ad revenue considerably.
Try this for blog posts - write a story or personal experience to inspire niche site articles. It's fun and it works.
I recently noticed an interesting phenomenon of how some articles on my sites keep getting more and more traffic. What's going on here? I discuss it.
When hiring in-house writers I look for this one thing.
Also, if I see another thing in the application, I avoid it.
I've now hired 4 great in-house writers as a result. It saves time and gets great writers on board.
Jon discusses a time when he handed over the keys too early to enjoy true passive income but resulted in a lot of problems. Includes when is the right time to enjoy the true passive income lifestyle from a website.
Yammer on about the "purist blogger" format of publishing websites. Great model but not for everyone.
I go into detail about all the disadvantages new niche sites have and how to overcome them.
Struggling to grow or scale your blogging (aka niche site) publishing business.
This episode discusses one solution.
What does it take to build up a successful niche site? You might love or you might hate the answer. Listen to the analysis from a unique angle.
This is the ultimate question: Do you like your own site? Would you be happy with it if you landed on it as a visitor?
I hate to break it to you but you're never going to figure everything out about blogging. Stop trying. Focus on what makes money.
This episode discusses leveraging your hard-generated content across multiple sites you own (if you own multiple sites).
This is the audio track from my video on this topic. In this episode, I discuss whether and how Pinterest is good for SEO as in ranking your blog and niche sites?
Learn more: Fat Stacks Training
I own a portfolio of lifestyle, tech and beauty blogs and niche and sites that earn $50K+ per month from ads and affiliate offers. It's all organic search and Pinterest traffic. I do NOT do any link building.
This detailed video steps you through the exact strategy that I deploy on every site.
It's a highly scalable strategy.
This is not email marketing. It has nothing to do with Fatstacksblog.com.
Most important it's a fun business.
Here's what's covered:
- Proof of revenue
- Keyword research / Content strategy (IMPORTANT)
- On-Site SEO
- Monetization
- Pinterest
- My lack of link-building strategy.
Show Notes:
Keyword Research
Keyword research is almost always time well spent.
No matter how good your list, there are always better opportunities.
My strategy: find low competition keywords/topics and publish in volume.
Why? Fly under the radar and get traffic easily.
Improve Existing Content
Maybe you don’t feel like writing a new article but you have enough gas in you to update existing.
Updating and improving content is almost always time well spent.
Inject more keywords, add data, update information… improve it for readers and search.
Conversion Rate Optimization
Suppose you have a few pages with affiliate links that get a lot of traffic.
Improving click through rate and preselling can increase affiliate revenue considerably.
It may be adding buttons, more clear call-to-action, better product info or all of the above.
Add schema markup where applicable
If you have recipe, how-to, review, FAQ or other articles that qualify for a specific type of schema markup, adding it can be a very good thing to do.
Schema markup improves you search listing appearance which can help rankings and click through rate from the SERPs.
NOTE: Do NOT try to game schema.
Create some charts and tables for your site
Gathering data and creating charts is a very different activity than writing.
This type of content can dramatically improve your content.
It’s pretty easy to do and it’s fun making pretty charts.
Improve average time-on-site
I consider average time-on-site one of the most important metrics.
Folks who stick around like your site. That’s a good thing.
Increasing your average time-on-site is a good thing.
Seek out additional earning opportunities
Some days it’s worth surfing the web looking for better earning opportunities including high-paying affiliate offers for your niche.
If you don’t look, you’ll never find.
Skimlinks list of merchants is a good resource, but so is Google.
Experiment with different pin designs
If Pinterest is in your traffic bag of tricks, spend a day playing around with new pin design concepts.
I’ve spent many days doing this.
It’s worked out well for me having increased my Pinterest traffic to over 300K monthly visitors.
Write a fun opinion piece for your site
Let’s face it, a lot of content we publish isn’t the most exciting stuff to write.
But expressing our opinion and backing it up can be fun.
You can opine about products, trends, styles, events, etc.
Inject some personality into it.
This could be just the activity to break up your “evergreen content writing” doldrums.
Professional development
Many professions and careers have professional development days.
These usually involve attending a seminar, workshop or conference.
It’s a nice break from the usual wear n’ tear.
There is no shortage of learning opps in our industry. Take a day and see what’s new. Just don’t do this every day.
Improve Site Speed
If you don’t have the bucks to hire someone to tweak out your site, read up on the topic yourself and then apply.
Site speed is becoming more and more important.
Every second you shave is worth every minute, hour or dollar you put into it.
Guest posting outreach
If building a few high-powered “blow your site to the top of the SERPs” is something you want to do, take a day and contact the biggest, baddest, most authoritative sites in your niche and pitch them.
Take time to cater your pitch for them.
I don’t guest post but if I did, I’d focus on a few of the biggies and put my best foot forward with an irresistible offer.
Learn more with Fat Stacks Courses
Show notes:
The 4 Firsts
- First published blog post
- First organic visitor
- First revenue earned
- First #1 ranking in Google
10,000 page views per month
$1,000 revenue per month
100,000 page views per month
$3,000 per month revenue
Going full time online
$10,000 revenue per month
$20,000 revenue per month
$35,110 per month income
$100K revenue per month
$1 million revenue per month
Sponsored by Ezoic
Show Notes:
I've done the dumbest stuff imaginable in an effort to scoop up Google traffic.
Let me tell you about one example that if there were a Google penalty Darwin awards, I might just win.
The year was 2011.
I owned a couple niche sites making decent money. I even won a free treadmill for selling the most treadmills as an affiliate.
I've used it twice.
I spent more time spinning content for link building software than publishing good content.
Flush with success with spinners ad software, I decided to tackle something bigger. I was invincible; a visionary SEO.
The reverse phone lookup niche.
CPA affiliate offers were plentiful. All people had to do was fill in a form to look up cell phone numbers and I earned money. In theory that is.
I had a plan.
My eyes were bigger than my stomach.
My plan was to target every town and city in the US With 50,000 or more people. That amounted to hundreds of pages which you guessed it, would have the same content.
Surprise surprise the entire site was deindexed before it made a nickel.
That's my sad story for the day.
That is also how NOT to publish article clusters.
What is a cluster?
A series of articles that cover a topic in-depth.
Reader question:
Keyword cannibalism. You say to carpet bomb a popular topic. So if I have a post on, say, X, would it hurt to use the same keyword X in multiple posts? Do I need to use long tail keywords?I am confused because I have heard from others NOT to reuse the same keyword or your overall ranking for that post will drop.
Keyword cannibalization is bad.
Duplicate content (similar articles on the same site) is bad.
Publishing the most thorough, in-depth series of articles on a topic is good.
Short answer: It is perfectly okay to include the same seed keyword in multiple articles. The long tail aspect of it will determine whether the articles are the same or different.
How do you determine if two long tail keywords are the same or different?
The answer is you must assess user intent. Fancy words for a simple concept.
When I'm considering two long tail keywords and whether they are essentially the same or different I ask myself "when people search both phrases, are they essentially seeking the same information or is it totally different?"
Here's an example.
Seed keyword: Ice cream
That's a big keyword weighing in at 328,000 monthly searches. There are many long tails that could and should form many different articles.
But let's start with an example of two ice cream long tail keywords that are essentially the same based on intent:
- Ice cream recipe
- How to make ice cream
While those two phrases are different, the meaning is the same. One person searching for "ice cream recipe" is looking for the same thing as another person searching with "how to make ice cream".
Now, here are examples of long tail keywords, all with ice cream in it, that could be individual articles with no threat of cannibalization because they are very different topics.
- Ice cream recipe
- The history of ice cream
- Ice cream brands
- Gelato vs. Ice Cream
- Ice cream vs. Sorbet
- The best vegan ice cream
- Ice cream truck song lyrics
- How long does ice cream last?
- Can dogs eat vanilla ice cream?
- Can you have ice cream on keto?
- The best ice cream maker
- You get the point.
Sponsored by Ezoic.
Fat Stacks forum member reported the following:
In 2 years:
- Published 400 posts
- Hit 11,000 DAILY visitors (that’s 330,000/mo.)
- Earning $7,830 per month
- Gunning for $10K/mo. In May
Think about that.
Out of thin air a full time income with a niche site in 2 years.
- That’s one article every 1.5 days
- 4.5 articles per week
- 825 monthly visitors per article
- EPMV: $22.36
- They wrote 95% of the content
- Former link builder
- Focused on content.
- Inbound links from 150 domains (naturally)
- Longest article: 4,553
- Shortest: 520 words
- Ads: $4,189 / Affiliate: $3,641
The Trajectory
- Published 200 posts before site earned $500/mo.
- Published 300 posts (in 1st ten months) before site earned $1,000/mo.
- 100 more articles + 14 mos. = $7,830
- Content + Time = Exponential Growth
Takeaways:
- Publish lots of good content
- Be patient
Brought to you by Ezoic.
Show Notes:
DISCLAIMER
I’m not claiming that the 6 things I’ll discuss nobody else does.
My point is what I do is not discussed much in blogging circles.
Plus, when you combine all the 6 together, it creates a unique approach
1. Unique Pinterest Strategy
- I used to do what other bloggers suggested when it came to Pinterest.
- I got nowhere.
- In 2020 I decided to take matters into my own hands and come up with my own strategy that works with the new Pinterest algo.
- It worked. I went from 74K Pinterest visitors per month to 300,000 in a couple months. It’s still growing.
- Never have I grown free traffic so fast.
2. Go for keywords other sites won’t touch
- Low search volume
- Low or no ROI (on the face of it)
- Avoid going toe-to-toe
How do I find low competition keywords?
- I use 11 methods.
- I show you every method in the Fat Stacks Long Tail Deep Dive course.
- Go to fatstacksblog.com/courses-training
3. Ditched Affiliate Marketing
- Okay, I still do it, but it’s gravy (not my focus)
- Most bloggers only talk about affiliate marketing because their only site is a site about “how to blog” which is ideal for affiliate marketing. They don’t own other sites so they don’t know anything about display ads.
- That created an opportunity for niche sites AND Fat Stacks
4. Ditch the list
- Everyone says build an email list.
- I did for 2 niche sites.
- I say ditch the lists unless you can print money from them.
- Making money from lists in many niches is not easy and it sure ain’t plentiful.
- Is your time better spent doing other things?
5. No link building
- As more and more Google updates crash sites, the more I’m thrilled I don’t build links… including guest posts.
- Guest posts for the most part are lousy link building practices.
- Short term gain for long term pain.
- That’s my 2 cents’ worth.
- I prefer publishing content that attracts links au natural.
6. Finance an op-ed
- I pay a writer very good rates to pen an op-ed column in a niche where op-ed columns don’t exist.
- It’s snarky, funny, informative.
- Visitors like it.
- It elevates the site.
- Yes, it can be done in any niche.
What’s the one thing that makes the biggest difference?
- That’s easy. Long tail, low competition keywords.
- Why?
- That strategy drives over 1 million monthly visitors from Google search.
- That cannot be beat!!!
- Learn more at fatstacksblog.com/courses-training
Sponsored by Ezoic.
Should you publish all content now or drip-feed content?
- Short answer: Publish it all NOW
- Long answer: It depends
When to drip feed?
- Drip feed when you have a readership; as in people who read your site regularly.
- Why?
- They like you but they don’t like you so much they want to read 50 articles all at once.
- You’ll get more bang for your buck drip-feeding it out.
Otherwise… release ALL the hounds
- Other than having a regular readership, there’s no sane reason to drip feed.
- Unpublished content earns NOTHING.
- Would you drip feed invoices to people who owe you money?
- Of course you wouldn’t.
But, but what about Google and fresh content?
- Doesn’t Google prefer fresh content?
- The whole fresh content thing is overblown IMO. It makes no sense.
- Google wants to rank GOOD content.
- Fresh does not mean good.
Hypothetical Time
- You are launching a new site. You have 200 articles planned out.
- You can either drip feed or sledgehammer the Web with all 200.
- What do you do?
- I would publish all 200 as fast as humanly possible.
- But but what about fresh content?
After the 200
- If you drip feed the 200, what then?
- If nothing, no more fresh content.
- Might as well publish the 200 all at once.
- You either plan on publishing content indefinitely or you don’t.
- Fresh content argument makes no sense.
One and done
- Another benefit of publishing everything as fast as possible is you can interlink everything all at once.
- One and done!
Unpublished content earns NOTHING
Sponsored by Ezoic.
Show notes:
- Just because you can make money doing something doesn’t mean you should.
- And no, I’m not talking about robbing banks.
- I’m talking about being able to make it legitimately but choosing not to.
- I choose to leave money on the table every day.
- Most good businesses do.
Here are some examples of how I leave money on the table
-
Sometimes I don’t drop in affiliate links (GASP!)
-
Conserve energy
- Not terribly lucrative
- MY FOCUS: Publishing content
2. I display fewer ads than I could
- Diminishing returns
- Visitors are people
- I want people to return
3. I send non-promotional emails
- I send out a good number of emails that promote nothing. This email is one example. This goes against the ABC of marketing which is ALWAYS BE CLOSING.
- I figure it doesn’t hurt sending out non-promotional content. More importantly, I like writing it.
4. I don’t publish spammy reviews
- I could leverage the authority of several niche sites and rank lousy product reviews that could make some money, but I prefer not to.
- Don’t get me wrong, I do publish product reviews across my sites, but only when I like the product and it’s a good fit for the site.
5. I gave up a large email newsletter for a niche site
- I had built up a sizeable number of subscribers for two niche sites that made money, but it wasn’t enough to justify the time it took to manage it.
- Again, that time and more importantly, energy, is better spent focusing on publishing content.
6. I don’t sell links
- Risky
- Too bad because very high profit/time ratio
- Instant cash
- BUT, Google doesn’t like it and it’s easy to discover
7. I don’t sell sponsored posts
- Hustle work
- I loathe hustling for deals
- The endless email thread
- It’s ALWAYS more work than you think
8. I don’t sell services
- It’s hustle work
- Telephone calls, meetings, emails, customer service… not for me
- That’s why I do what I do
9. I don’t translate all my content into multiple languages
- Jon, why don’t you translate your millions of words of content? Surely that would be a lot of traffic.
- Yes, it would but talk about a job I wouldn’t want to do.
- Ad revenue still low - not worth it for me IMO
Notice a trend?
Anything that veers from my main business model, I don’t pursue even if it means leaving money on the table.
I’ve fallen for the lure of “easy” money in the past but I’ve learned it doesn’t pay. Sticking to the game plan pays and the game plan is publishing as much great content as I can.
Whatever your game plan is, stick to it.
Sponsored by Ezoic.
“You don’t have time to think up there. If you think, you’re dead.”
Maverick in Top Gun
Applies to online publishing
Hyperbole? Yes but still fits
It’s too easy to overthink and over-complicate everything in this business.
Miss the forest from the trees.
Examples:
- Getting bogged down for hours or days with some finicky design tweak we want that nobody will notice and will make no impact on revenue is missing the forest from the trees.
- Agonizing over whether a Q and A should be added to an existing article or create a new article is again missing the forest from the trees.
- “Reading and learning” while has its place is too often a distraction under the guise of “getting things done.”
Cost me BIG time
- Lost out on publishing 1,000+ articles
- Wasted time on design tweaks, indecision, etc.
- Days can go by on this stuff
- Don’t let it happen to you
When in doubt...
- When in doubt, write an article. Or order one. Or do both.
- Instead of spinning your wheels overthinking and doing nothing, focus on publishing good content that targets low competition keywords.
- That’s it.
- If you do nothing else day in and day out, that’s okay because that’s what works.
This earns the money
- My cutesy design tweaks that I’ve wasted days on over the years doesn’t generate the $40K per month. It earns nothing.
- It’s the 4,500 published articles that earn the money.
- The only difference between a new site and a site that makes a $1 million per year from ads is a lot of good content ranking for tens of thousands of keywords.
Do this:
- Find low competition keywords
- Write and publish great content about those keywords.
- Rinse and repeat until you cash out.
Don’t be idle
- Factories don’t make money sitting idle. They make money pushing out widgets.
- It’s the same with a content-centric business. It makes money pushing out content. Let your ads do their thing. That’s the beauty of ads.
- The more you publish the more those ads fire. It’s the perfect business model IMO.
- If you think, you’re dead.
Sponsored by Ezoic
White Label Product Numbers
- Gross sales: $2,542
- COGS: $3.82
- Amazon’s cut: 30% = $757.30
- Profit: $1,125
- My 50% take: $562
- Future plans: rolling out 3 more products within weeks.
Strong Pinterest Growth
- 75,000 monthly visitors to 270,000+ monthly visitors (as of May 13, 2020)
Disclaimer
- All income report figures do NOT include any revenue or expenses for Fatstacksblog.com.
- It’s incomprehensible to me why I would include income from the very site that talks about this stuff.
- The POINT of income reports is to demonstrate that niche sites can be a good business.
- The POINT is NOT to show how much a site that teaches this stuff can make… otherwise you might as well just start a site like this.
April Income Report: Revenue
- Niche Site 1 Revenue: $38,152
- Niche Site 2 Revenue: $5,348
- Niche Site 3 Revenue: $1,103
- Niche Site 4 Revenue: $650
- Niche Site 5 Revenue: $20
- Niche Site 6 Revenue: $40
- Niche Site 7 Revenue: $106Total Revenue all 7 sites: $45,798 (March: $45,548)
Expenses
TOTAL: $8,316
Significant expenses:
- VAs: $4,874
- Hosting (Kinsta): $1,833
- Shutterstock: $400
- Others: Ahrefs, OptinMonster, Cloudflare, Amazon AWS, Canva, Nitropack, Tailwind, etc.
NET INCOME (Before content): $37,103
Content Investment in April
TOTAL: $10,256
- WriterAccess: $8,000
- In-House writers: $1,096
- Content Strategist: $1,160
Net Income after content: $26,847
Sponsored by Ezoic.
Show Notes:
Friend and fellow publisher sent me this:
I found a topic in Google Search Console for one of my posts so I decided to produce an article on it.
AHREFS says the Keyword Difficulty is 0 and the Search Volume 30.
They report traffic on the site as 2.4 over the last 30 days.
Published on Feb. 20, 2020
So far the organic in the last 30 days is 2,690 organic visitors
Overview of My Small Site (that’s chugging along)
Date domain registered: September 2016
Total # articles published: 39
Date first article published: Nov. 19, 2018
Date last article published: March 9, 2020
DA: 16 / DR (Ahrefs): 2.9
of Referring Domains: 28 (all natural)
Traffic last 30 days (Apr. 2020): 12,423 Users
Yesterday (Apr. 29, 2020): 542 Users
Strategy
Fairly broad niche
Content quality: Mid-grade
Long tail keywords
Long form content (listicles - nothing to write home about)
Monetized with display ads (Ezoic)
EPMV: $6.02 (I need to improve placements - quickly slammed them up)
Takeaways
DA not the be-all and end-all
Long tail, low (or no) reported search volume can actually result in very good traffic.
Other sites will link to you in time if content decent.
It doesn’t take tons of powerful links to get traffic.
The simple secret to growing traffic...
In high school there was this guy who was tough. Liked brawling.
He joined the wrestling team which I was part of.
We became friends. Turns out he’s a super nice guy with a fearsome reputation.
He did brawl his fair-share. Seemed to like it. Always won.
Not that I was a brawler, but I asked what was the secret to winning in brawls.
His advice: “Never stop swinging.”
Applied to blogging and niche sites:
Never stop publishing... good content
Sponsored by Ezoic.
Show Notes:
Detailed video showing you the 4-steps I go through when choosing a niche, picking a domain name and launching a niche content site.
Show Notes:
Concept: Go Broad, Dig Deep
Plan for expansion
Name your site and get domain that gives you WIGGLE room (and lots of it)
- Automobiles is broad (GOOD). Domain autobuddy.com (GOOD)
- Minivans is narrow (BAD). Domain: minivancentral.com (BAD)
Why?
Give yourself options. With Autobuddy.com you can focus on minivans with options to expand. With minivancentral.com you’re stuck with minivans.
Step 1: Choose a Vertical
With this approach, there really aren’t that many niches. Here’s a list:
Tech
Vehicles/Transportation
Sports
Home
Beauty
Travel
News
Business / Money
Health / Fitness
Relationships
Self Improvement
Entertainment
Food
Fashion
Science
History
Religion
Pets
Hobbies
Politics
Law
Parenting
Philosophy
Writing
Exceptions (there are always exceptions)
Hobbies are the exception
Revenue potential & strategy consideration
Do you prefer affiliate marketing, display ads or both?
This will narrow down your options.
Revenue per 1,000 visitors consideration
Revenue is dictated by revenue per ad impression/click and traffic.
Some niches pay very little for ad impressions but potential traffic is ridiculously high.
Some niches are the opposite.
Many fall somewhere in between.
Your ability to “knock it out of the park”
Can you cover the vertical well? Better than other sites?
Can you establish credibility and authority?
If you plan on hiring writers, can you hire writers with the ability to knock it out of the park.
For example, I enter topics because I find writers who can knock it out of the park.
Step 2: Plant a few trees, but dig deep
Once you settle on a vertical and have a domain name, it’s time to publish content.
My approach is to “plant a few trees, but dig deep”.
What this means is I choose a few topics within the vertical and publish a cluster/series on those topics.
Why cover multiple topics out of the gates?
I like hitting multiple topics because I never know what Google will favor. It’s an attempt to see what “sticks”.
What I’ve noticed over the years is that in time, Google will favor one or two topics on your site above others.
This is the data you want.
Once you see a topic outperforming, cover that topic extensively including going after more competitive topics/terms.
Step 3: Plant more trees (topics)
While carpet bombing the winning topics within the vertical, continue publishing small clusters targeting more topics.
Over time, some topics you cover will outperform. Again, those are what you focus on.
Rinse and repeat.
Step 4: Build authority for exponential growth
Traffic drives traffic.
Good things happen when you get traffic, even a little bit. When you get traffic, you will attract links.
Links build authority which ranks more topics and keywords.
It’s a self-fueling cycle.
But always focus your efforts on topics that work! Let Google tell you what to publish.
Example: Tech Site
Bad domain: Sheetshq.com (as in Google Sheets)
Good domain: Techtitan.com (broad - can reasonably cover anything tech-related).
Initial cluster topics to try (I’m thinking of moving from Apple ecosystem to Google):
- Google sheets tutorials
- Google Pixel phone How-to’s (plus throw in a review for fun since you own the phone)
- Google Chromebook How-to’s (obscure troubleshooting tu
Sponsored by Ezoic
Show Notes:
1. AdInserter Plugin
What does it do?
It manages display ad placement sitewide.
Actually, you can insert anything sitewide with it including shortcodes.
Cost: Free with premium version.
2. Elementor Pro
What does it do?
Creates nice-looking content. It’s a page builder.
I only use it for custom archive pages (tag and category pages) and landing pages.
You can bolt custom archive pages to the archive URLs (i.e. /tag/your-tag-name
Cost: Free with premium version.
3. OptinMonster
What does it do?
Provides opt in forms for your site to build an email list.
It’s costly, but it works flawlessly
Every type of form imaginable: Welcome mat, exit pop, regular pop, ribbons, sidebar, in-content, bottom, etc.
Total placement control.
TIP: If not building an email list, the exit pop is a great way to send visitors to other content.
4. Grow by Mediavine
What does it do?
Displays share buttons on your site.
Very easy to use. Formerly Social Pug. Now owned by Mediavine. You do not need to be in the Mediavine network to use it.
Plenty of display options including Pinterest hover button.
Simple, free and it works.
Free and paid versions.
5. AMZImage
What does it do?
Inserts Amazon product images in your post via Amazon API.
Can insert fairly large product images.
Automatically linked to the product with your affiliate link.
Add captions to the images (if you want).
Very fast and easy to use.
Free and paid versions.
6. Mammoth Docx. Converter
What does it do?
Imports Docx. into WordPress visual editor and strips out all the bad code while retaining formatting in the document.
It’s free.
Huge time-saver.
NOTE: you’ll need to rename the images because they end up with generic file name and will be the same across all posts which is a nightmare.
7. Q2W3 Fixed Widget
What does it do?
Makes it super easy to create a sticky widget (aka floating or fixed).
Great for creating a sticky sidebar ad.
NOTE: Do not do this with AdSense ads. You must use an ad network like Ezoic.
Free
8. Shortpixel Image Optimizer
What does it do?
Optimizes your images as you upload them into WordPress.
Can bulk optimize existing images.
Optional: Convert to WebP format.
Huge time saver and speeds up the loading time for images.
You pay for the number of images you optimize. It’s very reasonably priced.
9. Table of Contents Plus
What does it do?
Creates a clickable table of contents.
Place via automatic placement or via shortcode [toc]
Can customize the design.
Free
10. Thirsty Affiliates
What does it do?
Creates affiliate links so you can control the affiliate link code sitewide.
Huge time-saver.
Example: If you promote X product and then X product changes its affiliate code on you, instead of changing the code in 20 blogs posts, you simply change it once in the Thirsty Affiliates dashboard.
11. ManageWP
What does it do?
Automatically updates plugins, themes and WP version.
You can schedule the updates - I schedule it for once per week.
It’s free. However, there are paid options such as daily updates.
12. Yoast SEO
What does it do?
Makes it possible to customize your page SEO title and meta description.
Schema Markup for your site and articles.
Sitemap.
Control whether archive pages are indexed or not indexed in Google.
Cost: Free with paid upgrade version.
13. Yoast Video SEO Plugin
What does it do?
Adds video schema markup to embedded videos.
Wh
Sponsored by Ezoic.
**Show Notes:
When I started niche sites online...**
- I listened to the wrong advice
- Many bloggers (in the “how to blog” space) said “AdSense is NOT worth it.
- I failed to realize there’s a huge difference between “B2B” and “B2C” sites.
- Fortunately, I eventually saw the light.
My Results from Niche Sites for March 2020
Ads
- $36,680
- 81%
Affiliate Marketing
- $8,868
- 19%
Note: Does not include Fat Stacks revenue
Ads vs. Affiliate Marketing
Overall, I prefer display ads over affiliate marketing. However, each have their pros and cons.
Exceptions
=> B2B sites (ex. Fatstacksblog.com)
=> Lead gen sites
=> Cost per action sites: ex. Credit card promotions
=> Others?
Can you do both?
=> Yes, both is a very a good monetization strategy.
=> I do both on most sites.
=> I focus on display ads, but when appropriate, include affiliate links.
=> Long term: build up domain authority to make ranking buyer intent easier.
Sponsored by Ezoic.
Show Notes:
Multi-Niche Case Study
=> Bought established movie review site in 2015
=> 8 years old at the time - well established
=> 20,000 published posts
=> 250K to 500K monthly visitors
=> It was losing money (yeah, I know). I paid $10K anyway (yeah, I know).
=> I thought I could increase ad revenue. I was WRONG.
I had a GREAT idea 💡
=> Couldn’t decide on a more lucrative related niche
=> Decided to turn it into a multi-niche site.
=> Tech, lifestyle, travel, fashion, food, animals, listicles, biz...
=> More ambition than brains
=> Poured on the content
=> When the smoke cleared I had added 460 articles
Where is at now?
=> 4,000+/- daily visitors
=> $1,430 revenue in March 2020
=> Value: 30 x $1,400 = $45,000 (ad rates very low right now BTW)
=> Cost of content: $30,000+/-
=> Earned revenue to date: $25,000+/-
=> Paid $10,000 for the site
=> Net profit: $30,000 (plus my time).
=> Not the best result, but better than a kick in the teeth.
Morals of the story...
- Everything and the kitchen sink sites probably not the best strategy.
- Only buy a site if you have a plan for it.
Sponsored by Ezoic.
This is the income reports for Feb. and March 2020. Includes niche site revenue, expenses and content investment.
Show Notes:
New Developments
- Pinterest - doubled traffic from Pinterest in one month (from 4,000 to 10K).
Feb & March 2020 Revenue
Feb. 2020
- Niche Site 1: $39,794
- Niche Site 2: $5,355
- Niche Site 3: $1,694
- Niche Site 4: $954
- Niche Site 5: $41
- Niche Site 6: $42
- Niche Site 7: $90
TOTAL: $47,970*
March 2020
- Niche Site 1: $37,978
- Niche Site 2: $5,261
- Niche Site 3: $1,430
- Niche Site 4: $707
- Niche Site 5: $31
- Niche Site 6: $41
- Niche Site 7: $100
TOTAL: $45,548*
*Does NOT include any revenue from Fat Stacks.
Feb. & Mar. 2020 Expenses
February
- Ezoic premium ads: $575
- Kinsta: 1,200
- VAs: 3,350
- Plus a handful of software I use (Ahrefs, Tailwind, OptinMonster, etc.)
TOTAL EXPENSES: $6,857
NET INC. $41,113 (before content investment)
March
- Ezoic premium ads: $575
- Kinsta: $1,200
- VAs: $4,435
- Plus a handful of software I use (Ahrefs, Tailwind, OptinMonster, etc.)
TOTAL EXPENSES: $7,799
NET INC. $37,749 (before content investment)
Content Investment Feb. & March 2020
February
- WriterAccess: $10,000
- In-House writers: $3500
- Podcast content: $750
TOTAL: $14,250
Feb. net income after content: $26,863
March
- WriterAccess: $5,500
- In-House writers: $900
- AskWonder: $960
- Podcast content: $750
- Content Strategist: $1,520
TOTAL: $9,630
March net income after content: $28,119
Sponsored by Ezoic
Short Answer to “How Much You Should Pay per 1,000 words?
- $60 per 1,000 words
- Why that much?
- Because it’s what I pay.
- Correct answer: It depends.
The Range
- Lowest rate for something workable: $27 per 1,000 words ($.027 per word)
- Will likely require editing.
- Where? Textbroker
- Limited research
- BUT can build up a list of decent writers to improve quality for the same rate.
- What about spending less?
- I did once and it was atrocious. Don’t count on it unless you really luck out with a hire.
Diminishing Returns
- On the flip side, spending $250 per 1,000 words for general content is overkill UNLESS you’re:
- looking for conversions.
- in a highly technical niche that requires high-level expertise such as law or medicine.
- creating a link-bait piece of content.
- have more money than you know what to do with and want to publish the best-written site on the planet.
The Sweet Spot is...
- $40 to $80 per 1,000 words.
- I primarily use WriterAccess plus a couple in-house writers and that’s the range I pay.
- I pay $40 per 1,000 words for simple. Includes a little research.
- I pay $60 per 1,000 words for the lion’s share. Includes finding images and research.
- I pay $80+ per 1,000 words for more technical work when I seek out a writer with credentials.
If I was forced to pick ONE rate it would be:
- $60 per 1,000 words.
- This seems to strike the best balance among quality and ROI.
- I’ve paid $27 to $350 and everything in between.
- TIP: Hire writers directly to save.
- Since I use a content agency, the agency takes a chunk.
- You can hire writers directly at Problogger and Craigslist.
Don’t forget that you can reduce average cost of content by
- Writing some of it yourself.
- Outsourcing is not either/or.
- You can do both.
- I started writing everything.
- I then outsourced a little.
- I now outsource a lot but still write for my niche sites.
Sponsored by Ezoic
Show Notes:
-
Link Images to Merchants with an Affiliate Link
-
One of my favorite methods because visitors click images.
- Add a caption with text to the effect “Click image to learn more” or Click image for pricing”
- I use AMZImage plugin (there’s a free version in WordPress plugins)
-
Amazon: must embed images via API. Most Amazon affiliate plugins will do this.
-
Poll Links
-
Can work well when used in “buyer intent content”
- Example: Do you prefer white or red sneakers?
- Each response when clicked sends visitor the either white or red sneakers at merchant.
- Kind of sneaky - some visitors won’t like it.
- Best reserved for content that is preselling very close to a purchase.
-
I’m currently not doing this, but have.
-
Quiz Link
-
These can work amazingly well.
- Create a quiz that helps people narrow down their choice for a particular product within a product line.
- Example: Smartwatch purchase
- Q1: Phone type: Apple, Samsung or Pixel
- Q2: Your budget: $100 to $200 / $200 to $300 / $300 to $500 / etc.
-
Drill down until you can make a reasonably good recommendation.
-
Quiz Links (con’t)
-
The quiz result makes one recommendation with an affiliate link.
- Best used in “buyer intent” content and for more complex purchases.
- IMO you should have used several products in the product line to create such a quiz.
-
I currently run several quizzes doing this.
-
Text Links
-
Standard stuff - Still works
- => Arrows can help CTR.
- Be sure to underline it and use a different text color
- Call to action:
- Click here
- Visit
- Learn More
-
Check Pricing
-
Buttons
-
Buttons CAN work better than text.
- Image file or use a shortcode.
- If you use a page builder, use the button options.
- Deploy a hover effect
-
Text matters - test different button text.
-
Native ads with affiliate links
-
Amazon’s native ads is the best example
- Can earn reasonably well due to Amazon’s ability to display relevant products (some of the time - depending on the content)
- You can certainly create your own image product grid with your own affiliate links.
-
I use Amazon’s native ads.
-
Skimlinks
-
Carpet bomb your site with affiliate links
- Automatically turn every merchant link into an affiliate link
- Convenient and fast.
OR
- Create individual product links with Skimlinks’ link building tool.
-
I currently use the Skimlinks link creation tool.
-
Email Sign-Up Redirect
-
Works best with software.
- Need free version with premium upgrade options.
- Offer free software for visitors’ email and redirect them to the free software.
-
I’ve done this on and off. Currently, I’m not doing this.
-
Menu Link(s)
-
Create affiliate links in your navigation menus.
- Menus are prominent, site-wide links.
- Should be very relevant to your entire site.
-
I used to do this with one sit
-
Social media links
-
I haven’t done much of this.
- Why not?
- It’s best for influencer/personality social media channels.
- My sites aren’t influencer/personality sites. They are corporate brands.
A Few More Tips
- Don’t mislead
- Deploy tests on high traffic / high affiliate earning pages
- Affiliate links work best in “buyer intent” content
Sponsored by Ezoic.
Show Notes:
Types of Affiliate Networks
- Networks: ex. ShareASale
- In-House: Amazon
- Custom Arrangements: Set up custom landers or some other tracking
- Local Lead Gen: Make a deal with any brick and mortar
3 Criteria
- Chance of approval
- Chance of success
- Ease-of-use
6 Best Affiliate Programs for Beginners
1. Shareasale
- Chance of approval: High
- Chance of success: Reasonably good – although it varies by merchant. The plus side is you have 1,000s of merchants to choose from. That said, you are approved on a merchant-by-merchant basis.
- Ease-of-use: Very easy to use. It’s by far my favorite affiliate network user interface.
2. Skimlinks
- Chance of approval: Good
- Chance of success: Very good – although again it varies by merchant. The plus side once approved with Skimlinks, you are approved with every merchant. That means you have a lot of promotional opportunities at your disposal.
- Ease-of-use: Very easy to use. It’s a very slick and easy-to-use interface.
3. Amazon
- Chance of approval: Good
- Chance of success: Very good. If you can send visitors to Amazon, you can generate commissions. Of course, the more aligned your content with the products, the better you’ll do, but even sending people there randomly will result in commissions.
- Ease-of-use: Very easy to use. In fact, there are many plugins that help promote Amazon. Amazon also offers many tools you can use as well. All-in-all, it’s a dead-simple program to use.
4. Software
- Many offer recurring commissions,
- Software converts well,
- If you choose the right niche, there are many with low competition. That said some have high competition such as email software and website hosting. I stear clear of those. I look for super niche software that most people have no idea exists.
- Relatively easy to get approved. If your site aligns with a particular software, they’ll approve you. I seldom get rejected. Most are very happy to get affiliates on board and are willing to work with you.
5. Custom affiliate arrangements
- “No or little competition!”
- ‘Nuff said
6. Clickbank
- Chance of approval: Very good
- Chance of success: Moderate. I say this because it’s mostly info-products and it must align very tightly with your audience. If you do successfully sell CB offers, you can make a lot of money because the commissions are high.
- Ease-of-use: Very easy to use. You can get affiliate links with a few clicks of the mouse. It’s a well designed affiliate portal.
Difficult Affiliate Programs for Beginners
Most of the following are in this list because they are difficult to get approved for. They should not necessarily be avoided!!!
- CJ.com
- Viglink
- Credit Cards
- Lead Gen
- Impact Radius
- Walmart
- Finance Offers
Don’t forget about display ads
- Affiliate marketing rocks, but so do ads
- Ads make it possible to monetize almost any content - not just “buyer intent” content.
- If you’re a newbie - try Ezoic.
Brought to you by Ezoic
Not my idea
- Ashley Pearce of Future State Media posted this info in the Fat Stacks Forum.
- He said I could tell you about it.
- So here it goes...
Question: How much does my site make per 1 million words?
- Answer: $40,000 to $70,000
- Type of site: Amazon Affiliate
- Question: Is this good?
- Answer: Yes
The breakdown
- So from 1,000,000 visitors:
- 200,000-400,000 clicks
- Resulting in 20,000-40,000 sales
- Take an average product value of $30
- An affiliate commission of approx 5%
- 5% of 30 = $1.50
- 20,000 * $1.50 = $30,000
- 40,000 * $1.50 = $60,000
- Assume $10 per 1,000 visitors in display ads (assuming worst case of 1 page view per visitor)
- That’s also $10,000 in display Ad revenue.
- Assuming $50 per 1,000 words budget for writing.
That’s $50,000 to get the site to 1,000,000 words.
Applied to Jon’s biggest niche site
Analysis (Case Study)
- Here are my numbers for 2019:
- Total words published on the site by December: 7,100,000 (this is total words published, not just the number of words published in 2019).
- Total revenue in 2019: $568,624
- Revenue per 1 million published words in 2019: $80,087 ($568,624 / 7.1)
- Revenue per 1,000 published words in 2019: $80
Which means...
- Paying my current average rate of $.06 per word is worth it.
- I’m earning that back inside of one year.
- Of course, that’s partly a result of having plenty of older content earning quite a bit… but that’s the point. Aggregate content value grows as earnings stack.
What about traffic from 1 million words?
Ashley’s goal (that he achieved):
- 1 million words = 1 million annual visitors
Jon’s results:
- Total words published: 7.1 million words
- Total traffic in 2019: 9.3 million
Considerations
-
Site size: This analysis is much less helpful for sites less than one year old and/or with less than 100,000 words of content. However, keep this email in your hip pocket for when you get there.
-
My site earns above-average ad revenue per 1,000 visitors. It also earns a little from affiliate promotions. The analysis should result in more money per 1 million words for sites focusing on affiliate promotions.
-
Established: My site has considerable domain authority which helps in ranking. It’s an established site which skews the results favorably.
-
Site sale: The above analysis doesn’t take into account the additional proceeds realized when a site is sold. It merely looks at revenue generated, but as you can see, when also including the value of the site, content sites can be very lucrative.
-
Passive income: I use the term loosely. Over time, older content will be less effective. I do not suggest that content will earn forever.
How to count ALL the words on your site?
Very carefully - one by one.
There’s a plugin for that:
WP Word Count at wordpress.org/plugins/wp-word-count/
Sponsored by Ezoic
Show Notes:
My Ad Revenue is DOWN
- March ad revenue wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible.
- April 1 came and it was a disaster. Down 40%.
- Probably going down more.
Why?
- April is the start of Q2. Many companies slashed ad budgets for Q2.
- Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
What I’m currently doing to deal with lower rev.
- Cut content investment by 50%
- Writing content myself (again)
- Building out affiliate clusters: Digital products, Software & Lead Gen
- Improving older content
- Junk content
- Good content sitting pretty in spots 5 to 30
Need cash now?
- Consider freelancing: writing, graphic design, link building, etc.
- Saved my bacon when Google Penguin hit in 2012.
- Many people jumping in? Likely
- Publishers ordering less content? Probably. I am.
- Easy? No, but possible.
- But, many established freelancers can’t take on as much work - kids at home.
- It’s not instant cash, but faster than building out a blog.
TIP: Offer services that you’re best at. Take time to hone them now.
Your freelancing advantage
- If you’re listening to this presentation, you probably started a blog, have written articles and know a lot more about working online than other people.
- This is your advantage. You know more than you think.
- Again, not an instant cash solution, but it’s better than nothing.
What do I do if ad revenue drops 60%+?
- At that point, I pretty much have no content budget.
- I will keep my VAs on payroll at all costs. I’d rather have no content budget than let VAs go. They’re my team. They are great folks.
- I have a plan in place: Focus 100% on content and website improvement.
Content and Website Improvement Tips
- Design: Normally I preach spending time on design is time wasted until you have massive traffic, but in this case, it MIGHT be worth doing.
- Improve decently ranking content:
- Look for content ranking in spots 5 to 30 and improve them to give them a chance for higher rankings.
- Improve old garbage content you published when you didn’t know any better.
How to improve content… fast and for free
- Charts, graphs and stats
- Images
- FAQ: Answerthepublic.org / Ahrefs questions / Textoptimizer.com
- Quotes from experts
- Add videos
- Add internal links
- KW research
See: 29 Ways to Improve Content
Improve content via KW research
Drill down:
- Run what you’re currently ranking for in your favorite KW research grinder to find more long tails.
- Enter those KWs in Google and check the “Related Terms” at bottom of Google.
Add content sections targeting those new long tails.
- Quick n’ Dirty: Clearscope / Textoptimizer.com
How much can a single article earn?
Short answer: LOTS
My niche sites have 2 strikes against them when it comes to high revenue per article. They are:
Display ads: The lion's share of my revenue is from display ads, which are at the bottom of the website monetization food chain. The plus side is I can publish on any topic I want within my niche, target low competition keywords and rank for plenty without a bunch of off-site SEO shenanigans.
Low search keywords: I intentionally target lower search volume keywords so I can rank them without link building. This will naturally result in a fairly low revenue per article overall.
The Numbers
- Top 50 articles ad revenue over the last 30 days: $8,048 (24% of total ad revenue / $160 per article).
- Top 10 articles ad revenue over the last 30 days: $3,361 (10% of total ad revenue / $336 per article).
- Top earning article ad revenue over the last 30 days: $485 (1.4% of total ad revenue).
- Ad revenue for the 50th highest earning article for the last 30 days: $32.45 (talk about a quick decline within the top 50 articles).
- Page view volume range (last 30 days): 3,435 to 27,849
Observations
-
What's interesting is no single article accounts for all that big of a percentage of revenue.
-
My best-earning article accounts for only 1.4% of total ad revenue.
In other words, my Crank n' Bank content strategy ends up with a highly dispersed revenue distribution across my entire site.
Benefit
I like this because if I stop ranking for any single keyword, it won't have a big impact on revenue.
That's not to say that I'm not vulnerable. I am. If my entire site was denigrated in search, revenue distribution is meaningless.
Why do I tell you this stuff?
Because many Fat Stacks readers ask me these questions regularly… Inquiring minds want to know.
That tells me people are curious as to how other people are doing and I suppose what’s possible.
Learn more: https://fatstacksblog.com/
Sponsored by Ezoic
So, was January 2020 a disaster, success or meh? I reveal all the details for 7 of my niche sites here in this January 2020 income report installment.
Read full report here.
Sponsored by Ezoic.
Do you want to be a writer or a publisher? It's an important distinction and very important business decision. Can you do both? Yes, you can. BUT you don't have to write in order to publish a successful niche content site or a blog. I step you through how I transitioned from writing all content on my site to now being a successful full-fledged publisher.
Check out incredible blogging income reports.
Sponsored by Ezoic: https://www.ezoic.com/?utm_source=fatstacks_podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=jon_dykstra
Most website sellers make this huge mistake when pricing their sites. Discover one way to increase your site's valuation with this correct way of calculating your site's actual net profit used for valuation.
Learn more at Fatstacksblog.com
Sponsored by Ezoic
The "Crank n' Bank content strategy involves publishing as much content as humanly possible going after lower competition keywords. I love this strategy and use more than any other.
Read the full post here.
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Without question, I play Google's optimization game on my niche sites. Those sites aren't for fun; they're my business which means I'm relentless when it comes to on-site optimization, keyword/topic selection and content completeness.
I don't gripe. I play ball. Here's why.
Read original post at Fatstacksblog here.
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You need to get some blogging momentum to grow your niche site or blog. I discuss what you need to do in order to get that momenum for growth. I've had many ups and downs as a full time plublisher over the years. Here are my thoughts and simple steps you need to take to get results.
Read more: Fat Stacks Blog
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No affiliate program, no problem. Here's why you should promote products with no affiliate program. I also provide a few golden tips on how to do this plus a couple of work-arounds.
Learn more at Fat Stacks
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I rolled up my sleeves and crunched a pile of numbers looking at whether publishing more words per month resulted in more search traffic. I did the same with content length - how long or short are my best-performing articles?
See the charts and tables at the following:
Content volume here | Content length here
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I've joined the converted when it comes to the benefits of improving and updating older content. Check out examples of some big traffic improvements after updating content plus an extensive analysis of the benefits.
Learn more at Fat Stacks
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What would I do if I were starting an online business today knowing what I know? The situation is made more difficult because I now have young kids and I would assume a demanding job. Here's what I would do.
Learn more at Fat Stacks
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Even marathons end at some point.I'm not sure how I feel about finite websites. A finite site is one where at some point you've exhausted the topic. Usually, they're sites targeting a very focused niche.I currently don't really own such a site. Or at least I'm nowhere near any site being "finished". That's not to say there aren't niches where you actually could exhaust all topics. There are many such niches. Usually smaller niches.
Learn more at Fat Stacks
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Here are the tallied numbers for 2019 which includes total revenue for the year, expenses and content investment. I also set out my initial revenue goals I set in early 2019 and then discuss failures, mistakes and wins.
Learn more at Fat Stacks
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If I were forced to restrict my workday to one hour, here is what it would look like. Would it be enough to continue growing my online publishing business? While not ideal, I think it could work.
Learn more: Fat Stacks
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I use a niche site example to step you through how you can blow wide open your niche site tapping into unlimited topics to grow a true authority site.
Learn more at Fat Stacks
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Should you create Google My Business pages for your niche sites so you come across as "legit"? I was thinking about this for a couple of days and did some research. This post explains my position and how I go about it.
Learn more at Fat Stacks
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Blogging, just like any business, has serious risks and threats that you need to be aware of. I've "enjoyed" every problem under the sun in this business and rode it out. Here are ways to avoid risks and threats to your blogging business.
Read more at Fatstacksblog.com.
Sponsored by Ezoic.
It's not you. It's the industry. Your precious site hasn't been singled out to suffer an ad revenue collapse. January is Ramen and single-ply month for all publishers. Yes, even those precious few who have millions of visitors. While they make millions, they spend it all on blow and jets just as any reasonable person would.
Learn more at Fat Stacks
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If I called myself an SEO, the SEO community would scoff and rightly so. I'm not an SEO. I don't really do SEO in the technical sense, yet my sites get millions of visitors. What gives? Find out more here.
Learn more at Fatstacksblog.com
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Here's the income report for 7 of my niche sites and blogs for December 2019.
I also go over 3 new developments regarding my niche sites.
Read the full income report at Fat Stacks
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Ahhh, the dreaded shiny object syndrome. Most of us bloggers have fallen prey to this insidious condition. It can be enormously costly and should be avoided at all costs. While I've fallen prey to it over the years, it's far less often in the last 3 years. Here's what I do to avoid shiny object syndrome.
Check out Fatstacksblog.com for more great blogging info.
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I have an "Online Business Death Document". Do you? If not, learn about it here and how to make one.
Read the full post here.
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It's a wrap. 2019 is over. Now the deluge of "resolutions" and "game plan" articles. I'm in. Here's my 2020 blogging game plan.
Read the post at Fatstacksblog.com
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I publish many niche sites, most of which aren't huge earners. You might wonder why I'd bother adding and investing in more niche sites when I have one that is very successful. Wouldn't I be better off focusing on one niche site? Maybe yes. Maybe no. This episode explains why I think it's a good business decision to spread my resources and time across multiple niche sites.
Learn more at Fatstacksblog.com.
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I discuss how to tackle creative hobby niches for a blog. I explain what these niches are, traffic options, monetization options, what I like about them, content options and more.
See more niche ideas at Fatstacksblog.com
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I have nothing against people teaching people how to grow businesses as long as those people have street cred doing what they teach. In fact, I do it here. Fatstacks is all about how to plan, launch and grow niche sites, which is a business model unto itself. I sell courses on this and have published loads of blogs posts on this topic.
Read the full post here.
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Here's my ultimate guide and checklist for image SEO for bloggers and niche website publishers. I publish two massive photo-centric niche blogs and get quite a bit of traffic from image SEO. This is an easy-to-follow guide that teaches the most important aspects of image SEO.
Read the full post here.
Sponsored by Ezoic.
If you want something done right, do it yourself. Surer words have never been written when it comes to outsourcing content for blogs and niche sites. The amount of grief I've suffered over wasted time reviewing lousy articles, revision requests, more time reviewing and in worst-case scenarios, having to roll up my sleeves and write it myself after all that. My blood pressure is spiking as I speak.
Learn the problems with outsourcing and how to deal with them.
Learn more at Fatstacksblog.com.
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It's great having key earning sources on a blog, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't test additional revenue opportunities. Every little bit adds up. Here's a list of 17 ways to add incremental revenue your blog or niche website.
Learn more at Fatstacksblog.com
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Thinking of starting an online business? It's a great idea but you have several options. Find out what I think is the best online business to start, why I think so as well as cons to this type of online business.
Learn more at Fat Stacks.
Sponsored by Ezoic.
Learn how I took a minuscule risk that paid off to the tune of $287,000+ blogging. It's a no-brainer.
I've launched way more sites than I currently run. I've launched dozens - probably well over 100 over the years. Many (most) failed. That tells you that despite wasting time and money on failed sites, I've still earned far more than I'd ever make freelancing or doing any other job. The risk was worth it.
Visit Fat Stacks Blog
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Jon steps you through two examples of how to take one statistic and turn it into a fascinating article that if set up properly can attract inbound links naturally and on autopilot.
If you want to amp up your content game, you need good content ideas.I'm not talking about winding up your favorite keyword research tool for some spoon-fed topics. While you definitely want to do this for much of your content, there are other avenues for content inspiration. One of my favorites is digging up statistics for inspiration.
Listen as to why I think outreach promotion is futile for many articles and niche sites. Not always, but often.
80% promotion, 20% content. Sounds good when you're gonna sell a course for 2 large (as in $2K) resulting in a $300 website RPM. Or you sell $50/mo. software. In this case, every visitor counts (financially speaking). But what about the lion's share of us publishers who go after keywords with 200 searches a month and an ad CPC of $1?
Visit Fat Stacks here.
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Each month I have limited time and money for my niche sites. How do I go about deciding how much to spend on each niche site I own. How do I decide how much time to put into each site? These are difficult decisions to make. Here I set out 15 ways to approach allocating resources across multiple niche sites.
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Here's food for thought. A Fatstacks forum member posted this morning that 10% of his articles generate 90% of his ad revenue. His top 3 articles produce 50% of revenue. Talk about the 80/20 principle hard at work. I was curious just how much the 80/20 revenue principle was in effect with a couple of my sites.
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Recently a copyright trolling outfit emailed me demanding $44,000 USD for infringing copyright by publishing a variety of images. Here's what I did to defend the claim and end up only paying $600. I was sloppy which resulted in paying $600. Learn how I could have avoided that as well. All in all, not a bad outcome from what looked like a terrible situation.
Learn more at Fatstacksblog.com
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Have you ever worked so hard on your blog that you can't think straight? Many have. I have. It's burnout. I don't like it. It's not good for running a business. I avoid it now and do a good job avoiding it using these methods.
Learn more at Fat Stacks
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I have launched sites that looking back were a terrible idea. Many of them. I've tried nearly every shortcut imaginable. I've crashed and burned so many blogs I've lost count. Here's a retelling of 9 spectacular blogging failures.
Visit Fatstacks for more.
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Yes, there are 11 types of blogs you can run. I'm not talking about niche options, but instead different types based on audience and style options. Choosing a type is an important starting point when launching a blog. Get all the details here.
Learn more at Fatstacks
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Fun podcast episode using sports and music to illustrate how and why big, competitive niches are worth jumping into. Daunting? Maybe, but should not be overlookes.
Learn more at Fatstacksblog.com
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Here's a detailed breakdown of the 7 niche sites and blogs I feature in the Fat Stacks income reports.
Learn more here.
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Find out some big developments with my niche sites plus the reason behind a significant increase in ad revenue. I also invested quite a bit more than recent months in content.
I also discuss a new game plan for two niche sites that I'm kicking off right now and will deploy throughout 2020 which is a strategic response to losing 15% of my traffic to my biggest niche site from the November 2019 Google update.
- Learn more at Fatstacksblog.com
- Sponsored by Ezoic
A Fat Stacks reader emailed me after publishing November 2019 income report the following:
Hi Jon,
The kind of stuff we really need to know is how you got to this level. Like how you started. What did it take to finally build momentum where you made enough monthly to sustain yourself. How much time on average per week. The sacrifices you made. How many articles published were written vs bought. Stuff like that would be really helpful!
Maybe you already have something like that published?
Thanks for all your valuable content!I thought it a great question and would make for an excellent episode.
This episode steps you through my timeline of events of my online publishing career - how I got started to present-day.
- Learn more: Fatstacksblog.com
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Want to know how to make gobs of money blogging? As a mid 5-figure blogger myself with a fleet of niche sites I know what I'm talking about. I deploy 3 different strategies and set them out in detail here.
Learn more - $30K/mo. blogging report: Click here
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Want to know what I do every day to grow a site to $1 million plus? Here's my daily set of tasks I do day-in and day-out plus monthly and annual tasks.
Get my $30K/mo. from display ads special report: Click here.
Sponsored by Ezoic
Have you ever looked into the optimal length of articles for maximum ad revenue? I never did until today. Interesting results. In fact, I was surprised about what length of content by wordcount earned the most across my three highest traffic niche sites.
$30K/mo. from display ads special report: Click here
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I break down revenue and expenses for October 2019 for 7 niche sites own. Altogether they netted $38,158 USD net income in October 2019 which is up from September. I also discuss an ad network change, tagging project and answer questions from readers who had questions about this income report.
Learn more: Click here for my $30K/mo. report
Sponsored by Ezoic
Would adding FAQs along with rich snippet markup help or hurt SEO traffic on a niche website? I wanted to find out. 4 months ago I added FAQ rich snippets along with new FAQ sections to 59 articles on one of my niche sites. I let it sit and recently crunched the numbers to see whether traffic to those articles increased, decreased or stayed the same. Find out here.
Read the case study: Click here
Today's sponsor: Ezoic
For years I ignored applying tags to articles in WordPress until recently. I have a few sites with quite a few articles so it's been a big project but I spent time planning out and then applying tags to applicable content. The obvious benefit is for user experience, but this process revealed a couple additional big benefits. In this video I also provide some tips based on tagging plenty of content and what to watch out for.
Learn more: https://fatstacksblog.com/best-email-newsletter-ever
More training: https://fat-stacks.teachable.com/
What should you write about for your blog or niche site?
It's not always easy coming up with great article ideas... until now.
In this podcast I reveal one of my go-to article concepts for which I'm an expert and can crank out all kinds of outstanding content quickly in any niche. I explain in detail what this concept, how to apply it along with concrete examples.
The best part is you are also an expert with this method. I'm serious - you are. Listen to find out.
Read related blog post at https://fatstacksblog.com/the-funnest-article-topic-to-write-about/
Get on the popular Fatstacks email newsletter (read my $30/K per month special report):
https://fatstacksblog.com/best-email-newsletter-ever
Welcome to the first video income report BY Fatstacksblog.com.
This income report showcases revenue and expenses for part of my online publishing business featuring a few (7) sample content sites I own.
It does NOT include any revenue or expenses from Fatstacks which is a totally different beast altogether. September's income report steps you through my content publishing business (niche sites and blogs) and explains revenue sources (with screenshots).
Read the full income report: https://fatstacksblog.com/income-report-september-2019/
Learn more:
Grab my free $30K/mo. content publishing report: https://fatstacksblog.com/vault
More training: https://fat-stacks.teachable.com/
Check out my Ezoic ad revenue testing results here (lots of data). Need to monetize your website? AdSense alone isn't cutting it? Not sure where to put your ads? Enter Ezoic. Ezoic split tests different types of ads in different places and then provides insanely detailed revenue analytics for your website. Read my detailed Ezoic review and case study here to learn everything you need to know about monetizing your website with Ezoic.
Try Ezoic: https://fatstacksblog.com/go/ezoic/
Read my full review: https://fatstacksblog.com/ezoic-review/
$30K/mo. special report: https://fatstacksblog.com/vault
More Training: https://fat-stacks.teachable.com/
What would I do if I were starting my online publishing business today? I discuss the following:
- What online business model would I pursue?
- What would I do differently this time around?
- What would I do the same?
- How would I monetize my sites?
- What shortcuts, if any, would I take?
In a nutshell, if you're starting an online publishing business or any online business, find out what I would if starting over or starting today.
Learn more:
- My $30K/mo. niche site FREE special report: https://fatstacksblog.com/vault
- Fat Stacks Training: https://fat-stacks.teachable.com/
I operate in 9 different niches. Guess how many successful email newsletters I run? 2. Yup, only two of my sites are worth the cost and time of running an email newsletter. The sad truth is that not all niches or blogs warrant an email newsletter. This podcast sets out good and bad niches for email marketing. I also discuss the financial metrics to consider and argue against some of the commonly bandied-about financial metrics that you need to hit with your newsletter.
Speaking of email newsletter, get the Fatstacksblog.com newsletter (it's awesome, or so I"m told): https://fatstacksblog.com/vault
Also, check out the Fat Stacks Training: https://fat-stacks.teachable.com/
Detailed overview discussion of how to monetize a website.
I've tried and continue to use many of these monetization strategies including affiliate marketing, display ads, selling digital information, ecommerce, selling sponsored posts plus many more.
Learn more:
- My $30K/mo. niche site FREE special report: https://fatstacksblog.com/vault
- Fat Stacks Training: https://fat-stacks.teachable.com/
I publish several websites monetized with AdSense (five-figures/mo.).
I definitely have my preferred WordPress themes for AdSense websites, but it's more important to follow some key criteria when choosing a theme that will use AdSense for monetization.
This video steps you through a WP theme buying checklist guide for websites that use AdSense and other display ads PLUS I tell you my 2 favorite WP themes for AdSense websites.
If you want some detailed guidelines about what to look for when choosing a WP theme for ad-supported websites, this is the podcast for you.
Learn more:
- My $30K/mo. niche site FREE special report: https://fatstacksblog.com/vault
- Fat Stacks Training: https://fat-stacks.teachable.com/