White Hat Blogging is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, in addition, I am an independent Jasper Affiliate, not an employee. I receive referral payments from Jasper and possibly other affiliates.
December built on November’s change to focus on fewer sites and to build a bigger moat around the sites I love and am truly passionate about.
This is a huge difference between my previous love of testing and building smaller sites but I feel that having too many sites caused a massive loss in focus overall and less progress in general.
The only people who waste time building random sites tend to be people with a course or something to sell you on, posing with free information to hit you with the expensive “course” once they can harvest you onto an email list.
The people with million-dollar businesses don’t have a range of sites, they tend to have one and maybe a second passion project that allows them to keep perspective, this is the fundamental change in my mindset.
Goals For Income Breakdown In 2023:
- Display Ads: 40%
- Affiliate: 50%
- Info Product: 10%
I was trying to focus on moving all my sites towards 100 posts to see who performs but I believe the course change and focus on my main website is the right path.
I still am working to keep the P24 case study moving forward but it isn’t something I dreadfully care about so when it gets moving I will look to liquidate it into cash for other investment opportunities.
With that being said, Welcome to my December 2022 Income Report!
December 2022 At a Glance
December continued the trend of loads of Google algorithm updates and SERP havoc that will probably cause many to quit the space in favor of less volatility.
My focus has changed to hopefully showcase my knowledge and expertise instead of trying to just volume-create commodity content that anyone could make with a little web access and cheap writers.
I did expect things to slow down hard this month as we were just after Thanksgiving in the US and then you have school out of session and then Christmas to New Year making time the biggest issue, especially in holidays.
Traffic continues to lag but I am on a huge editing spree and cleaning up everything that exists while also adding to the Outdoor 4 main site.
I will face hard competition from sites that pay writers $1000s a month so it is slow going but the money exists in the niche as the average for me is about $60-85 EPMP without any informational products.
Hopefully, this mental change will show some amazing results for everyone to view in 2023, I would believe I can reach the $10k a month in this niche with the clear-cut focus and elimination of splitting attention.
Why Do I Create Income Reports?
I can say that I don’t necessarily “enjoy” making these as they take a solid chunk of the day to gather and align, but they are very nice when I look back historically and can see where I was along with my thoughts at that point.
I started doing these income reports to show month-on-month growth and to provide some motivation to show that websites can be a solid income over time but that it isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme by any means.
Should you choose that you want to make websites for a living to earn the income, you need to be realistic that the work you do now will have a CHANCE to pay off in a year or more.
That being said, there is no other way to build an income that allows you the freedom with the time a blogger can achieve. This is my why, and it is the reason I work continually to improve my skills and my niche sites.
If you are an absolute beginner, I suggest joining the course from Income School called Project 24. It can help you when you have no clue to get solid footing for a terrific cost.
If you aren’t sold on them, you can look at another well-detailed affiliate marketing class from Affiliate Lab and Matt Diggity. If those don’t fit, then there is an excellent option from MoneyLab.co, which I am a member of, as there is high value in the users within.
Overall Content Generation Breakdown
Building content against a vast array of sites can be intimidating. I write what I can, work with Jasper when it makes sense, and then outsource whatever I can afford to help keep the gas pedal pressed down hard.
- Fitness – 0 posts
- Garden 1 – 4 posts
- Garden 2 – 1 post
- Outdoor 1 – 2 posts
- Outdoor 3 – 5 posts (P24 Method Case Study and YouTube Series)
- Outdoor 4 – 7 posts (Part of Emilia’s Project Icarus)
- Electronics 1 – 6 posts
- Backyard – 0 posts
- White Hat Blogging (This Site) – 1 post
- Travel – 3 posts
- Business – 3 posts
- Backyard 2 – 21 posts
- Travel 2 – 11 posts
- Course – 2 posts
- WHB YouTube – 1 Videos
Total Posts for the month: 53
Monthly Income Breakdown
| Income Source | Income Amount |
|---|---|
| Ads (Ezoic) | 576 |
| Amazon Affiliate | 233 |
| Avantlink | 76 |
| ButcherBox | 70 |
| Other Niche Affiliate Programs | 156 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - BigScoots | 0 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - Jasper.ai | 278 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - Cloudways | 6 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - Project 24 | 0 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - SurferSEO | 0 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - Ezoic | 236 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - Fiverr | 0 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - Passion Posts | 0 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - Amalinks Pro | 0 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - Frase | 7 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - The Affiliate Lab | 0 |
| LowFruits.io | 30 |
Monthly Expense Breakdown
| Expense Source | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| Hosting - Cloudways | 52 |
| Amalinks Pro | 14 |
| Link Whisper | 10 |
| Outsourced Content | 310 |
| Ezoic Premium | 0 |
| Canva - Images | 10 |
| Project 24 Subscription | 10 |
| Frase.io | 115 |
| Jasper.ai | 100 |
| Trellis | 15 |
My Niche Site Updates
Let’s dive into the site stats and details to help lend so usefulness to an income report. I am always interested in adding more details should anyone be interested but this helps keep me motivated and growing.
The benefit to this is people get to see where I feel like I have gone right or totally wrong and hopefully help some people skip these from occurring to themselves.
Site – Fitness
The little nudge at the end is me going through cleaning up content that has gotten old, this was removing fluff and focusing on getting the older content producing results.
I hope that the process of cleaning up hundreds of posts can kickstart this business into moving again and if I can get it decently restarted I will sell it as it is a solid brandable domain.
Monthly Details
Plan For Next Month
Revising all current posts, and tightening up content.
Site – Garden 1
Slowly adding 1 to 2 posts a week to grow while using it to show on videos for teaching.
Monthly Details
Plan For Next Month
Nothing crazy
Site – Garden 2
I got to 100 posts but didn’t really have a clue which direction to go to keep moving which would need more specialization, looking to clean up and possibly sell-off.
Monthly Details
Plan For Next Month
Revising all current posts, and tightening up content, adding 1 post a week to keep it growing.
Site – Outdoor 1
My original site is still continuing to make an income but may go through a domain change and completely revamp moving into 2023 to open it up to more outdoor interests.
Monthly Details
Plan For Next Month
Still working on a plan and adapting and researching keywords to grow the site but no pressing move as the site continues to make income consistently.
Site – Outdoor 3
The Project 24 Case study site has been going through the down season which means it is pretty low and slow, continuing to post to the needs of the timeline with hope for the next season.
Monthly Details
Plan For Next Month
Continue to post the 5 posts to maintain the timeline. The 24 months end mid-summer so after this then may hit the accelerator to generate more content and hopefully prepare for growth and sale after 2024 summer.
Site – Outdoor 4
The site continues to grow but also lost as all Discover traffic has disappeared after removing the Trellis theme, worked this month to get all CWV green on desktop and mobile to see if it is score related.
Monthly Details
Plan For Next Month
Continuing to post 8-12 posts per month to grow the site, some topics covered come from FB and research on needs within the community that aren’t directly keywords.
Site – Electronics 1
This site continually gets hit, even when I edit and clean it just may be that since electronics is ever-evolving it is far less evergreen than I had hoped and that is now being exposed to me.
Monthly Details
Plan For Next Month
Still working on revising all current posts, and tightening up content.
Site – Backyard 1
Definitely seasonal and makes good money through the summer area, need to work on more off-season content to make more money consistently.
Monthly Details
Plan For Next Month
Revising all current posts, and tightening up content.
Site – WHB
Continue to add to income reports, not much to add outside this as a perfect way to track over time.
Monthly Details
Plan For Next Month
Continue to make new income report monthly, like this one 😉
Site – Travel 1
I doubt my wife will ever jump into this so now it is time to push some more content and grow this possibly to just sell it off and keep me focused on the main sites I want and drive my passion.
Monthly Details
Plan For Next Month
Unclear still, wife unconvinced that blogging can make money… still… sheesh.
Site – Business
I dumped a load of content onto this site to see how it would react, so far nothing fantastic out of it but hope to continue growing this site as it is unique.
Monthly Details
Plan For Next Month
Researching more keywords takes a lot of research now per post so it can be a little bogged down in the volume of content additions.
Site – Backyard 2
A more home-related site that fits with my life and can be written and added to with true-to-life experience along with providing more avenues to monetize.
I have been having a good time writing and creating content on this site as it relates to everything I do as a home owner and a husband and father and pairs well with a honey-do list.
Monthly Details
Plan For Next Month
Continue growing this site by posting 8+ posts each month.
Site – Travel 2
I have wanted to make a local site that catered to visitors or people looking for things to do around the area, this makes images and content easier to make, and now it is a perfect way to build content just through the regular day-to-day life.
Monthly Details
Plan For Next Month
Building content slowly and working on 8+ posts a months if I can find good real life options for images to pair up.
Site – Niche Building
Most people want to give back to the community as they grow, and helping to get others moving toward freedom is just as important as your own journey.
I am spending time building a free resource to get everyone moving forward on website building and answering questions to help everyone springboard into their side hustle.
Monthly Details
Plan For Next Month
Growing content and trying to make a central resource for total freedom for anyone looking to build a side hustle but not pay out thousands to “courses.
Overall Lessons from December
The more focused the better I can create meaningful movement, for far too long I was focused on diversification and now I am converting more to a core set of sites to build with and focus on.
Google continues to roll out even more damned updates and this made the SERPs volatile, especially when you don’t have a huge backlink profile behind your site.
I am enjoying writing staying more focused and less diverse and hopefully, this will show in income levels in 2023 for me nd my sites.
Did I Meet my December Goals?
I feel I met my goals, I have made about 24 Flickify videos and have been trying to grow the content on my sites to match the written content and strive to diversify my income streams.
I was highly focused on the core of my business and less on the outer edge sites, while everyone got posts some were just clean up and edits of drafts I had been holding.
What Are my Goals for January?
Continue to build out fabulous and engaging content on my main site (Outdoor 4), while traffic comes slowly it pays very well, so it is well worth the time and effort to me as I personally am invested in it as a hobby.
Outside of this the continued growth of the income streams and since we are nearing year end I need to start looking into how to add YouTube and video into my efforts.
My Recommended Tools For Results
From there, here’s a quick recap on some of the most valuable resources and things I recommend you check out. They’ve helped me in my journey and I think they’ll be valuable in yours.
- Jasper.AI – This is your personal writing assistant, offering you more information and helping prompt you in writing make magical and informative content.
- Frase.io – I use this to build out my outlines for posts and then once done writing to check how my content aligns to the Top10 and Top20 SERP results to make sure I cover all the key terms other sites do.
- Project 24 – A welcome change from the competition, focused for all with a purely content first approach, hands-down an awesome course for building a niche site or an online business that focuses on content.
- Ezoic – Once you’ve got your website and some content, think about these guys. They’re doing some amazing things – and have helped me earn several thousand dollars (in ad revenue) that I’d not have earned otherwise.
- LinkWhisper – Honestly without this plugin managing links within my content would be incredibly difficult, honestly one of the easiest things to re-up each year and highly suggest it.
- Cloudways – As hosting goes choosing Cloudways with a VULTR HF server is the fastest you will ever see a backend run, no more waiting for the new post to load it is as close to desktop speeds as you can probably find.
