Time for another exciting installment of how are the case study sites doing?
As I was compiling the data for these sites so I can give you update, I had a few thoughts.
Thoughts like, isn’t February the worst month of the year? It’s too short and too cold.
And thoughts like, I know that a lot of people reading these updates are relatively new to site building, which is why I’ve been playing on beginner mode with these sites….
But I think that’s going to change.
Cause here’s the thing – you gotta know that I don’t normally build sites while playing on beginner mode.
And I really feel the itch get into my normal rhythm with building out sites for these.
So, know that in April I’ll start accelerating things.
But, let’s go ahead and dig into February, yeah?
Remember, the sites in this report are only a portion of my portfolio and not the only sites that bring in revenue.
**And as always, I’m an affiliate marketer and this post contains affiliate links, meaning I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links
What Happened In February
Despite being a short month, there are a few things that happened.
I recorded and released two new courses on flipping websites for profit. If that’s your jam, you can find them here.
I also got an out of the blue offer on site #1….and I accepted it.
So, we’ll get into that more in a moment.
The Sites – February Update
In case you missed it in the announcement post, or just can’t remember, I’ll be recapping the basics of each site before I give you the details on what the month looked like for each site.
Site #1
- Niche: Professional services
- Monetization: display ads + info products + sponsorships/direct ads
- Income Goal: I’ll be happy with $2,000/mo but I think it has the potential for
low tomid to high four figures monthly (if not more). - Growth Plan: HARO, joining niche relevant groups/forums for traffic leaking, ebooks/books, social media marketing. This will be a large site/brand.
- The case study angle: building a successful non-affiliate site
So, I only managed to get a couple of new articles up on this site before I got that offer to sell the site.
Why did I end up taking the offer when my goal was $2,000 month? Because it felt like the right thing to do at the time.
And I really wasn’t interested in the topic all that much.
If you recall, I wasn’t going to start a site in this niche but COVID fucked my plans for the other niche I was going into.
Traffic for this site was on an upward trend, with it getting around 100 visits total for February.
How much did I sell it for? $5400.
What will I do with the money? Invest 100% of it in content for site #3.
So, going forward, there will only be three sites left in these updates.
Site #2
- Niche: Transportation
- Monetization: affiliate (Amazon + others) + display ads
- Income Goal: I’ll be happy with $1000/mo but I think it has the potential for mid four figures monthly based on a conversation I had with someone in this niche.
- History: Site has been earning steadily and is profitable. It was sitting, neglected, when I decided to pick it back up this year.
- Growth Plan: hit it with lots of informational articles to optimize content for ad money (first goal = Ezoic and eventually Mediavine). I also need to update old content & utilize more non-Amazon affiliates with longer cookies. I may end up testing Pinterest on this site to see how it performs.
- The case study angle:
prioritizing links over contentprioritizing content over links + expanding beyond Amazon + beyond Google traffic
I told you that 2021 was going to be all about content for this site, and I’m keeping that promise.
A total of 30 new posts went live for this site in February. All 100% outsourced to Word Agents.
That’s over 35,000 words of fresh content hitting the site.
Traffic for the month is up slightly. You can see that it starts rising up as the month progressed.
Some of my new articles started ranking well and bringing in traffic later in the month, so I expect March traffic to also increase.
I’m still planning on focusing on content production, but I’m also going to start testing some stuff with Ezoic to see if I can’t boost my site’s RPM.
New posts for this site: 30
New links for this site: zero
Total income for this site last month: $88.29
Last month’s income is a mix of AdSense, Ezoic, Amazon affiliate, and other affiliates. I use the AAWP plugin on this site as well.
Summary for site #2: A slight drop in income with a slight rise in traffic + lots of new content added.
Site #3
- Niche: Health/Fitness
- Monetization: affiliate (Amazon + others) + display ads (and maybe products?)
- Income Goal: Looking to sell once I’m stable at somewhere around $7500-$8000/monthly
- History: Site has been earning steadily and is profitable. It is somewhat seasonal, though the niche is evergreen.
- Growth Plan: Hit it with lots of informational articles to optimize content for ad money. This site has enough traffic for Ezoic, but I’m holding out to qualify for Mediavine. I also need to update old content & utilize more non-Amazon affiliates with longer cookies/higher paying offers. HARO is the only link building that I currently have planned for this site.
- The case study angle: prioritizing content over links + building a mailing list + monetization diversification + alternative traffic growth
February was also about content production for this site.
A total of 35 new posts were published to this site in February. All 100% outsourced to Word Agents.
That’s over 45,000 words of fresh content hitting the site.
Analytics is showing less than a one percent drop in traffic compared to January…but February is a short month so that means it’s not really a drop.
However, income is down a bit compared to January. That’s not entirely surprising, and matches the history of this site.
The good news is that for 2021 this site is performing better than 2020.
New posts for this site: 35 (outsourced at Word Agents)
The articles were all informational.
New links for this site: zero
Total income for this site last month: $1,451.82
Last month’s income is a mix of AdSense, Amazon affiliate, and other affiliates. I use the AAWP plugin on this site as well.
Summary for site #3: Traffic increased, but income fell slightly. Overall a good month for this site.
Site #4
- Niche: Lifestyle
- Monetization: display ads + affiliates + products + info products (+ possibility for real world business offshoot)
- Income Goal: I think I’ll be happy with $2500/mo but I know of a few people in this niche making $20K+/month.
- Growth Plan: Right now I’m all about content creation. Next up is traffic diversification and this niche does well on Pinterest. For link building, I haven’t decided yet. There are a lot of guest posting opportunities in this niche though.
- The case study angle: mega authority site from day one to mega status –> building a brand from the beginning with long term growth focus on diversifying traffic + monetization
Only managed to get a couple of new posts up on this site since I was so busy with the others.
Even though my work on the site was minimal, it did manage to grow in a traffic a bit.
That puts it around 100 more visitors than the previous month. But with February being a short month, that means the growth is even a bit better than it looks.
One of the new posts contains the first affiliate links I’ve put on the site. (it’s not Amazon)
New posts for this site: two
New links for this site: zero
Total income for this site last month: $0.00
Only has one post live with an affiliate link.
Summary for site #4: Added some new posts and traffic increased.
New Expenses for February 2021
If you want to know about any recurring expenses or previous expenses, then refer to February 2020’s report in this section.
Here’s new expenses for the sites for February:
Site #1
- $7.00 Digital Ocean droplet at Cloudways (two sites on this server, so I split out the cost for just this site)
- $77.40 in content Word Agents
Site #2
- $6.50 Vultr server at Cloudways (two sites on this server, so I split out the cost for just this site)
- $1,811.16 in content from Word Agents
Site #3
- $22.45 hosting with BigScoots (this account is split with another site)
- $2,332.32 for articles via Word Agents
Site #4
- $6.50 Vultr server at Cloudways (two sites on this server, so I split out the cost for just this site)
- $92.88 in content from Word Agents
Final Thoughts & Summary
Final Thoughts & SummaryFebruary was focused on making a big content push across the sites. Sadly, I only managed it on two of them, due to other commitments.
And, I got a surprise offer to sell site #1, which I took.
Anyways, here’s a quick glance at revenue and expenses for these sites.
Month summary:
And remember, these four sites are only a portion of my portfolio 🙂 I also want to remind you that sites #2 and #3 were existing sites that have been earning and ranking before starting this whole thing.
Got any questions? Requests for other data in future updates? Let me know.
Hey, I’m Shawna. I make a living working from my laptop in places like London, Sydney, Dubai, Rome, Oslo, Bangkok, Las Vegas, Barcelona, and Amsterdam. I share how I do some of that on this website.