[Journey] Start and Grow a Content Site From $0 to $$,$$$ in 12 Months or Less

[iamb]

I have been intrigued lately by few examples of bloggers/affiliate marketers successfully launching informational niche sites and grow them to the tune of 5-6 figures a month.

This made me wonder if their process/approach could be replicated by any content marketer and hopefully generate the same results. Hence my current project.

The Project

Start and Grow a content site from $0 to $$,$$$ in 12 Months or less.

The main goal of this project is to test few hypothesis pertaining to SEO, Ranking and Traffic:

1. Can a brand new site ranks on Google page 1 without any backlinks?
2. Can a brand new site reach 50,000 page views per month within the first 12 months and generate a 5 figure positive ROI?

Project Start date: September 1st, 2021

Overall Strategy

1. Research and publish informational content on long tail and low competition keywords with search volumes 0-50 / month.
2. Furthermore, keywords should have a keyword difficulty (KD) of 0-5 as per Ahrefs’ metrics. Just an indication not a fast rule.
3. Focus mostly on questions related keywords.
4. Articles length will average 750-1500 words.
5. Each post will be SEO optimized and have at least 1 outbound link to an authority site and 1-5 internal links.
6. Content will be 100% outsourced except for the standard/legal pages of the site such as Privacy Policy, Terms & Services, About Page, Contact Page.
7. Front load the first 3 months with content e.g publish at least 100 articles.
8. Monetize the site primarily with Display Ads and other relevant affiliates offers but only when it reaches a 200+ pageviews / day.

Investment / Budget / ROI

• Domain name registration: $0.58/month with namecheap.
• Website hosting: $24.99 / month with wpx.
• Content outsourcing: $350/month with hirewriters and textbrokker (average of 33-34 articles per month).

Anticipated Average monthly investment: $375.57. Not included: personal time in setting up the site, editing content and publishing.

This means if everything goes according to plans, I will end up with a total investment of $4,506.84 by month 12.

Some bloggers have built successful niche sites based on similar concept before. Shaunn Mars built an informational intent site but also built some backlinks. Read More here on this forum.

My project is inspired and mimics that of Phil from earningfinancialfreedom.com (that's his website). He’s managed to earn a total of $8k+ within a 12 months period with roughly 442 published articles.

For the first 7 months of 2021 e.g Jan-July, Phil published an additional 127 articles and has already earned $15k. That’s an impressive success story in my opinion.

I hope to do as well as he did if not better. If I stick to my 33-34 average monthly content publishing schedule, I should have between 396-408 published articles by month 12. Hopefully my earnings should sit around $8k or so if not more.

That would be an ROI of approximatively 43% and a take home of roughly $3.4k.



Reporting

Monthly update on this forum including:

1. Main activities progress
2. Number of articles published and words count
3. Ranking update
4. Traffic update
5. Insight / Tips / Recommendations / Lessons Learned

Planned Activities for the first 30 Days or Month 1 September 1 – September 30, 2021

1. Niche selection, including assessment of income potential
2. Initial keyword research and site structure planning
3. Domain registration and web hosting
4. WordPress (site) setup
5. Initial 34 articles ordering and publishing

Next update: October 2nd, 2021. In the meantime feel free to share your views, comments, insight or ask questions for further clarification.

 

[Graybeard]

Keep us posted as you develop things ... start your engines

 

[iamb]

Keep us posted as you develop things ... start your engines

vroom, vroom.... will post update 0 next week -initial site setup

 

[iamb]

Update 0

I started this journey to assess whether or not one could take a brand new domain, rank it on top of Google without any link building campaigns and grow it to a 5 figure / month revenue site. This journey was inspired by the work that Phil from earningfinancialfreedom and many other bloggers have successfully accomplished. Including Shaunn from this forum with the exception that Shaunn uses link building campaigns.

For the month of September I set out to perform the following activities:

1. Niche selection, including assessment of income potential
2. Initial keyword research and site structure planning
3. Domain registration and web hosting
4. WordPress (site) setup
5. Initial 34 articles ordering and publishing.

I just wanted to provide this first update to confirm that I have started the process and already crossed off the following (boring tasks):

1. Niche selection and earning potential

I picked a niche that lands itself nicely to informational content with loads of questions. Without giving away the niche itself i can tell you that i drilled down to 3 levels. I wanted to remain in a sub niche but without going too narrow.
Just to give you an idea of what i mean, let me illustrate with an example:
- Niche - Level 1: Pets
-Sub Niche - Level 2: Dogs
-Sub Niche Level 3: Golden Retriever ---- I stopped here

You could drill down further but that could hinder your earning potential.

If you are not clear about where to start from a niche selection perspective with adsense like business models then check out the following information from Google (Adsense revenue calculator):

2. Initial keyword research and site structure planning

I used 3 tools to complete my initial keyword research:
- I plugged my level 3 main keyword into Google Keyword planner and exported the results into csv/excel
- I plugged in the same main keyword into the keywordshitter tool which is pulling from Google auto suggest results and dumped the results into a cvs file
- I did the same with Ahrefs tool (I have a paid subscription) and expored the results

I subsequently merged all 3 files, removed duplicates and run the result against ahref database to filter what i needed e.g:
- keyword within 0-50 searches per month results, mostly questions keywords AND
- have 0-5 difficulty rating as per ahrefs.

Not very scientific but i needed a place to start. I ended up with an initial list of 2402 keywords. Enough to keep me busy for the coming 12 months.

As for site structure, using the golden retriever example, i decided to create sub-sub niches as categories e.g Diet would be a category, Health would be another one, habitat and so forth. You get the gist.

My plan for the first 90 days is to focus on one category, cover it in length before moving on to the next one. So i started the site with only 1 category for now.

3. Domain registration and web hosting

I picked a branded domain name, short 2 words including one that tell people what my site is about. As previously mentioned i registered the domain with namecheap and hosting on wpx.

4. Wordpress setup

• Theme: GeneratePress
• Plugins: Classic Editor, Smush, Classic Widgets, Google Kit Site, Tablepress, Yoast SEO -- for now
• Created standard pages for Privacy Policy, Terms, Contact Us. Set them all to no index.
• Logo: designed it myself with canva.

5. Initial article ordering and publishing

I had to write the first article of the blog so that google does not index blank pages. That's the only one i will write as my initial goal was to outsource the content at 100%.

I have placed the order for 10 articles. I will be ordering/publishing in batches of 10.

I will provide another update in the first week of October 2021.

 

[keyslamma]

This is very interesting, I will look forward to following it closely! Everybody loves a zero to hero story. All the very best of luck to you.

 

[iamb]

​

I decided to build a content site blogging about a niche with low competition keywords:

• Publish as many low competition keywords optimized content as possible
• No link building
• See if the site can rank on page 1 and grow to a 5-figure site within 12 months or less

Initial Goals for Month 1

• Niche selection, including assessment of income potential
• Initial keyword research and site structure planning
• Domain registration and web hosting
• WordPress (site) setup
• Initial 34 articles ordering and publishing

Traffic and Earnings Stats

I had originally set out to publish 34 articles but as you can see from the stats above I only managed to publish 22 (21 posts and 1 lengthy page as a pillar article).

I found out that you actually get what you pay for when it comes to outsourcing articles.

I had to rewrite most of the articles I got from my outsourcers hence impacting my initial plan.

The number of page views is relatively ok for a month old site although I am a bit disappointed that there was no actual click to the site. as you can see on the below screenshot:

SEO Strategies

I did not do any backlinking or whatsoever. Just some basic on-page seo.

I did not even write any meta description for my articles.

I just ensured that the keyword was repeated once in the article and that was it.

Did some internal linking but not enough from my liking.

I also had at least one outbound external link per article.


Marketing and promotions

As briefly mentioned, i did not do any outreach or backlinking campaign.

I noticed through Ahrefs that somehow i have 1 backlink. Upon further review it turned out to be a no follow link from a scraping site in my niche.

You will also notice that i already rank for 5 organic keywords according to ahrefs:

The traffic is neglectable but a good sign for sure.

Google Page Speed

My testing show that i am doing better on desktop with a score of 93% while the mobile speed is at 79%.

Google Page Speed - Desktop

Google Page Speed Mobile​

Goal for Month 2 - October 2021

• Optimize articles for better rankings.
• Build more internal links.
• Look for ways to increase the page speed for mobile devices.
• Publish at least 34 more articles for the month of October 2021.

 

[Honeybadger]

1. Can a brand new site ranks on Google page 1 without any backlinks?

Yes
You need to answer unanswered questions
Provide highest quality answers
You can rank very fast with these two end points covered
All Google does is organize data
Provide the BEST data

1. Can a brand new site reach 50,000 page views per month within the first 12 months and generate a 5 figure positive ROI?

Simple answer
No bragging intended
Is that I did it with next to zero knowledge of affiliate marketing
Just figured if there's demand and I can access supply
Well shucks let's just give it a go
What's the worst that can happen right?
50k divided up by 30 days is 1,666 visits per day
Then it comes down to how many people are searching
Plus how good is your answer?
5-figure ROI you're talking $10,000
But do you mean $10,000 over the 12 months
OR $10,000 average per month
What do you mean @iamb?
Well done for starting
Now for the crux
--> 99.9% WILL fail here <--
KEEP GOING!!!

 

[iamb]

Thanks for the kind words @Honeybadger
By 5 figure i meant anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 per month.
I am using a slow burn approach, giving myself 12 months to see if i can hit the $1,000+ mark.
Let's see what month 2 brings in

 

[Honeybadger]

Thanks for the kind words @Honeybadger
By 5 figure i meant anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 per month.
I am using a slow burn approach, giving myself 12 months to see if i can hit the $1,000+ mark.
Let's see what month 2 brings in

2 months may not bring much revenue
After 3 months you should be earning
I was lucky to find a wave
High consumer demand for specific products
Not much competition
When you say $1,000 per month
Try to work out the formula for this
If product A costs $50 and your commission % is 10%
You will earn $5 per sale
You would need 200 sales
That's 7 sales per day
What's the search volume for the product?
If you get top 3 in Google you'll get a share of that search volume
Then you'll get sales
Work out how much traffic you need to get 1 sale
Then you'll know how much traffic you need daily for 7 sales
You end up with a formula to earn $1,000 per month
Also work in your NET payment terms
If you earn $1,000 when will it actually arrive in your bank account?
Now you can also work out your cashflow
But it's trial and error
The rules of the game are always changing

 

[hoangnam91]

$8,000 average per month

 

[iamb]

Month 2 - Update: I started this content site based on other successful stories about low competition keywords. More importantly rank on page 1 of google without any form of backlinking.

My Goals for Month 2 (October 2021) were:

• Optimize articles for better rankings.
• Build more internal links.
• Look for ways to increase the page speed for mobile devices.
• Publish at least 34 more articles for the month of October 2021.

My Results for October 2021:

I managed to publish 15 articles (way under the initial 34 planned) bringing the total number of published articles to 37.
I must admit that I got side tracked by other projects and my regular job. That's one of the challenges of working on a side hustle.
You have to burn many midnight oil to reach your goals.

Published articles:
September 2021: 22
October 2021: 15

I am not expecting any revenue for the first 6 months or at least not until i have a decent traffic coming to the site.

I optimized few articles that were getting impressions to increase their ranking. I will see the results on Month 3 (November 2021).

Traffic:

I had 395 impressions, 7 clicks and 21 unique visitors. Nothing to here to brad about. I was expecting this anyway for a new site. I need to keep publishing articles. Optimizing and see what takes off.

All the key indicators are on the upward trends: impressions 2233.8% increase, clicks 133.3% increase and 133.3 increase in unique visitors.
The screenshot above is from the Google Site Kit dashboard on the site.

My Goals for Month 3 (November 2021) are:

• Optimize articles for better rankings.
• Build more internal links.
• Look for ways to increase the page speed for mobile devices.
• Publish at least 34 more articles.

 

[reda5]

i give you my total support man, keep working and keep us posted.

 

[iamb]

​

Month 3 - Update: I started this content site based on other successful stories about low competition keywords. More importantly rank on page 1 of google without any form of backlinking.

My Goals for Month 3 (November 2021) were:

• Optimize articles for better rankings.
• Build more internal links.
• Look for ways to increase the page speed for mobile devices.
• Publish at least 34 more articles.

My Results for November 2021:

I published 26 articles (under the initial 34 planned but higher than my October output) bringing the total number of published articles to 63.


Although I have 63 total articles published, only 29 are indexed. I have checked with other bloggers and it seems to be a general problem with Google these days. Nothing I can do about it for now but wait for Google to catch up.


Published articles:
September 2021: 22
October 2021: 15
November 2021: 26


As pointed out before I am not expecting any revenue for a while so just focusing on publishing more content.



Traffic:

I had 670 impressions, 22 clicks and 43 unique visitors.

The screenshot above is from the Google Site Kit dashboard on the site.

Impressions, clicks and number of unique visitors are on the rise.


One of my main experiment is to assess whether I can rank on page 1 without building any links.



Funny enough when I check my site ahrefs it shows 4 backlinks from 3 referring domains.

I did not build these links. A closer look seems to indicate that these sites linked back to my site naturally, which is a good sign to be honest.

Rankings


I have 39 keywords rankings but only 5 of those are on page 2 of google. No page 1 rankings yet.


My Goals for Month 4 (December 2021) are:

• Optimize articles for better rankings.
• Build more internal links.
• Publish at least 34 more articles.

 

[Honeybadger]

Although I have 63 total articles published, only 29 are indexed. I have checked with other bloggers and it seems to be a general problem with Google these days. Nothing I can do about it for now but wait for Google to catch up.

Google doesnt index every article on the web
Only articles which it deems relevant to index
This was reiterated by John Mueller last week
Watch Google SEO Office Hours
Goes out weekly and last around 1 hour
Google is not an index of all the web's content
This is an ancient myth
and it fuels the Sandbox Theory myth
Its up to you to prove to Google your articles are relevant
after all they have data centers to pay for

 

[iamb]

Google doesnt index every article on the web
Only articles which it deems relevant to index

Interesting concept. Are we implying that not all articles of a given website are indexed? I will check Mueller's video for sure. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Honeybadger]

It's a private company
They can do what they want
You can call it unfair, unjust, The Sandbox Conspiracy, whatever
It is what it is
My advice is keep posting "high quality, useful content"
From the horse's mouth -->
"Requesting a crawl does not guarantee that inclusion in search results will happen instantly or even at all. Our systems prioritize the fast inclusion of high quality, useful content."

Ask Google to Recrawl Your Website | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers

If you've recently added or made changes to a page on your site, you can request that Google re-index it using any of the methods listed in this guide.

developers.google.com

 

[PureLander]

Wow, bookmarked to read it carefully later!! Thanks for sharing!

- Samira

 

[Honeybadger]

@iamb
Sorry if I sound harsh
Sandbox Theory is a total myth
it's an excuse not to do anything
or to blame an external force
Google has well documented rules
one of these rules is not all content gets indexed
I GUARANTEE you this -->
High quality content gets indexed

 

[reda5]

Are the articles still based on outsourced work?, If yes, how is the quality?

 

[Honeybadger]

Everything is in Google databases, and indexed

All publicly available web pages
on the internet
and accessible to search engine bots
CAN be crawled and indexed (are they indexed?)
but are not always served, even on page 151
The Basics: How Google Search Works | Google Search Central | Google Developers
ps --> Sandbox Theory is a myth & human laziness is a true story

 

[Graybeard]

Everything is in Google databases, and indexed; but the client searcher will never see past page 50 or 100
So, if you are past page 10 you might as well learn SEO.

Seriously, how many times does your search go more that 3 pages

 

[Honeybadger]

Most of my pages are never crawled by SEO tools I have all these robots blocked. My theory is Google indexes everything that they can and then they decide what they're never going to show. So, if you're trying to game the googlebot Google has your number: they know who you are and they're never going to put you in the search again that's why they keep their index.

Google crawls --> all known web pages
Google indexes (internally) --> all known web pages
Google serves (externally/google.com) --> not ALL known web pages
Fact