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.
March brought along some fun gifts, in Ezoic I was able to upgrade Premium to the next tier about mid-month which brought up income nearly $5 a day in addition to what it was prior which was a nice jump overall for income.
Then I decided to take the plunge and I chose to take their deal and sign a 3-year contract with Ezoic for the current sites on their service which basically means I can’t move them onto another ad service until the contract expires but I don’t pay another monthly fee for 12 months which will save me a minimum of $220 a month for 12 months which is around at least $2640 in minimum value.
While this may seem apparently like a handcuff, I believe in AI as I use it non-stop at my day job to make life-saving decisions and I have seen plenty of proof that in providing more views and higher monthly visits you get fewer ads and more income over time, both things I want from my sites.
I have begun investing in real estate through an app called Fundrise, this just allows me to begin building up some passive income from real estate without the active property management side.
Goals For Income Breakdown By 2023:
- Ads: 50%
- Affiliate: 40%
- Info Product: 10%
I have been pushing to move all my sites to a minimum of 100 posts as I feel this is the best level to see what Google feels about your sites and gives them the best chance to grow towards the 50k sessions and to my bigger 100k pageviews mark and a push into event larger ad revenue.
With that being said, Welcome to my March 2022 Income Report!
March 2022 At a Glance
March was a month of pushing content across the main drivers of my current portfolio, working to get post counts and traffic up on the big earners to then focus on bringing others up to the 100 post area where I want to leave incubating sites.
It was nice to move out of February as the shortest month always ends up giving me poor results year over year, now it is back to the more standard months which make comparisons better as nearly every site should be up in traffic this month with 3 more days.
As to content, I am focusing on growing sites and I have a few that are just getting posts as I find time as I haven’t found good writers on complex topics, in addition, Outdoor 4 is my personal interest site where content won’t be outsourced though later, like 12 months out, I could sponsor people for content in return.
I am very happy with the growth though which has been happening this month and I am working to balance out the content generation across all sites and not just to have one site get the bulk of the additions, barring the money makers who will get their push independent to grow.
Why 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 go look back historically and can see where I was along with my thoughts back 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 that 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 would suggest joining the Income School Project 24, it can help you when you have no clue to get solid footing for a really good cost.
If you aren’t sold on them then you can look at another well-detailed affiliate marketing class and many others which are available 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, I work with Jasper when it makes sense, and then I outsource whatever I can afford to help keep the gas pedal pressed down hard.
- Fitness – 3 posts
- Garden 1 – 0 posts
- Garden 2 – 18 posts
- Outdoor 1 – 0 post
- Outdoor 3 – 10 posts (P24 Method Case Study and YouTube Series)
- Outdoor 4 – 9 posts (Part of Emilia’s Project Icarus)
- Electronics 1 – 11 posts
- Backyard – 7 posts
- White Hat Blogging (This Site) – 1 posts
- Hobby – 0 posts
- Travel – 0 posts
- Business – 6 posts
- Popcorn Site – 0 posts
- Finance – 0 posts
- WHB YouTube – 1 Video
Total Posts for the month: 65
Monthly Income Breakdown
| Income Source | Income Amount |
|---|---|
| Ads (Ezoic) | 941 |
| Ads (AdSense) | 53 |
| Amazon Affiliate | 273 |
| Avantlink | 78 |
| ButcherBox | 245 |
| Other Niche Affiliate Programs | 277 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - BigScoots | 0 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - Jasper.ai | 95 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - Cloudways | 5 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - Project 24 | 0 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - SurferSEO | 0 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - Ezoic | 150 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - Fiverr | 11 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - Passion Posts | 0 |
| Blogging Affiliate Programs - Amalinks Pro | 0 |
Monthly Expense Breakdown
| Expense Source | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| Hosting - Cloudways | 52 |
| Amalinks Pro | 14 |
| Link Whisper | 10 |
| Outsourced Content | 625 |
| Ezoic Premium | 110 |
| Canva - Images | 10 |
| Project 24 Subscription | 10 |
| Frase.io | 115 |
| Jasper.ai (Formerly Conversion.ai) | 100 |
| Trellis | 30 |
| Ahrefs | 99 |
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 that 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 analytics has always been mixed with many other sites so I decided to just pull the trigger and create the totally fresh GA account so that if I was to sell it down the road I could transition it alone instead of having many sites within one container.
This made the stats useless for this month but based form last month traffic is about even and I have started to write a few posts per month myself to see if it can jump-start the sites ranking, as you can see the 3 posts themselves aren’t vast but it has started to move overall ranking around with 14 posts moving into the top 100.
My focus is to just keep adding new layers to the site, working hard to get it moving forward, and hopefully sparking the huge jump once I hit a topic that is needed as fitness and nutrition are not easy when you don’t have the ability to generate a vast quantity of content fast.
Overall the dip at the end of the quarter matches every other year of existence, the people who chose a new years pledge have given up and the amount levels back off.
Monthly Traffic
SERP Rankings
Search Console
Plan For Next Month
Continue to write on any low competition content I find hoping to pull in more eyeballs to get a better appearance in Google and hopefully start making this site start building up.
Site – Garden 1
I am really torn with this site, I do want to get it to around 100 posts to see where it can go but nothing that I have targeted has ever provided a lot of traffic, especially paired with specific knowledge required to write the posts this site is a oddball.
Monthly Traffic
SERP Rankings
Search Console
Plan For Next Month
If I can find someone who understands the niche then I can start to outsource some posts otherwise I will continue to write content as I find time as this site doesn’t make much and my focus is on the sites providing real income per month.
I would be interested to see where this would go with a lot more TLC, maybe next year as this is the year of 100kX3, the focus to get 3 sites to 100k pageviews means leaving these in the dust and letting them just age longer.
Site – Garden 2
The focus on this site is to get to the 100 posts line, after this the site may be up to age and grow while I figure out finding writers and getting longer and more comprehensive content to explain more about specific plants.
I do have more generalized posts and could bring this site to 200+ posts which may be the goal as I move through this 100kX3 year goal, I don’t know what the top out point will be on this niche but if it continues to grow at 25%+ month-over-month it shows me there could be good potential overall.
Currently, I rank in the top 100 for every keyword I have targetted which either means I am going too deep down or that I have found the big gaps that exist in the niche, nearly everything I posted has made the top 10 which feels good but it hasn’t led to the traffic levels I would have hoped.
Monthly Traffic
SERP Rankings
Search Console
Plan For Next Month
Currently, the site is at 84 posts, so I have 16 more to do which will more than likely come from around 8 this month and 8 next month before I give it some time to see if there is potential to reach higher PVs and get sweet ad income.
Site – Outdoor 1
I am at a crossroads on this site, I wrote about 150 posts, and it’s always been fun to write on but for some reason, I am having a hard time finding where the right cracks are to move this site forward.
For now, I am working on the sites that are actually growing and moving forward and I do plan to re-attack this site once I can wrap my head around how to approach it to get more views as I still think what I wrote was better than the others in the top 10 but Google doesn’t appear to agree.
Monthly Traffic
SERP Rankings
Search Console
Plan For Next Month
I am leaving this idle while I re-think my overall approach on this, I don’t want to pump in more content that goes nowhere which leaves me at an odd crossroads at the current time.
I will start to look again at writing on this site once I find cracks and entries into the niche, otherwise, aging may just be the next best thing, and being patient is a skill well learned.
Site – Outdoor 3
The P24 case study is moving forward and finally got everything basically in the index for Google where it had been stuck for a while, this has helped the top 100 content numbers grow by 24 posts this month which is amazing and gives me hope for this season!
The growth of 78% MoM is incredible and I am excitedly interested to see where summer brings this site, now I just need to make sure I have them monetized with affiliate offers.
Monthly Traffic
SERP Rankings
Search Console
Plan For Next Month
I will continue to stay aligned to the public timeline posted on P24, which is another 10 posts for this upcoming month. I do intend to supplement this with some monetization pages to hopefully provide some other value and diversify the income away from ad focus only.
Site – Outdoor 4
This is the site I love, I write all the content for it, and the average posts are much longer than other sites with my average being around 2500 words and the longest being over 10k.
When I write I intend to win the topic so there is much more time and effort put into the organization of the headers and while the traffic shows down the organic is actually up to it just lost the Discover traffic I was getting.
This site is intended to be very blended for income with sources from many directions, it currently is on AdSense with a maximum set of 8 ads and it will stay here until I hit Mediavine as this site will give me mass experience in AdSense along with another diversification away from Ezoic only.
I have 65 posts live and working hard to build 10+ high-quality posts per month, most of these are much meatier and take time to create versus shorter 1000 word super long-tailed posts.
The traffic cross was bound to happen at some point and I am very happy to see the organic metrics continuing to climb and the average time growing by 50% from just over 3:30 to over 5 minutes means people are engaged and reading longer.
The discover traffic always ends up having shorter read times than organic so I view this as a positive with many of the top posts having times of 10+ minutes on mobile as well as desktop.
Monthly Traffic
SERP Rankings
Search Console
Plan For Next Month
I am continuing to write content and cover the huge variety of information available within the niche while I continue to focus on filling in gear and best xx for yy content that can help me grow affiliate sales overall.
I’m aiming for 12 posts each month as an amazing month but 3 posts per week can be highly difficult when you are writing 2500+ word posts so if I manage 8 posts I consider it a victory with 12 being amazing!
Site – Electronics 1
This site is always fun to write on and is simpler to outsource as there is a lot of general information that can be completed with just having enough time for solid research, then cut out the fluff others have and publish and move on.
Growing by nearly 20% is nice and I am hoping to see this website push towards that 50k pageviews level as this is one I feel has the potential to reach the 100k pageviews this year if everything comes together.
The only unfortunate on this site is that many people in tech run ad blockers which does limit ads so I have been refocusing on setting up the affiliate pages to get the best conversion on affiliate income to bouy the money and EPMP the site can provide.
As to Google GSC data, more impressions, more clicks, better CTR, and better position overall are very positive notes and I am continuing to push this site up and hit that 100k PV goal.
Monthly Traffic
SERP Rankings
Search Console
Plan For Next Month
I am still working to solidify consistent writing on this site, I don’t build writing teams as then I feel like I have an anchor where I am forced to manage it and not free to adapt as family and time requires so I use services like Fiverr to do most the bulk content creation and then I edit and clean it along with adding voice, images, and links where needed.
Site – Backyard
I am continuing to try and add more content to maximize the seasonality that comes with backyard and in general “hanging out” outside, this site isn’t one I would consider as a site I plan to have for the next 5 years but it continues to grow and provide very solid ad revenue.
Traffic is up 30% which mirrors the way traffic begins to grow form last year as the start of spring and more warm weather begins to hit and people start to think about how they want to spend their summers and soak in those sun rays.
As to content, much of the non-top 100 content is new fresh content I have added in the last 3 months so I am holding out that it will rank in time before the season kicks into full gear and my focus is now transitioning to finding winter content to stop the humongous PV drop after the season ends.
Monthly Traffic
SERP Rankings
Search Console
Plan For Next Month
I am working on content that is more cold season, or winter in general, to help make sure the site continues to get some form of traffic through the down time later this year.
If it isn’t done this is a site that makes a lot in 4-6 months but then has a 6 month time where it will make very little, this isn’t bad as I like more money in summer for my own vacations but it is sub-optimal.
Site – WHB
As always, this site is where I track progress and while I would love to rank for content here I don’t have the staff nor money nor time in general to put in 80+ hour weeks to grow this little blog on blogging.
Considering I don’t have a course or other “sellable” asset this site is more a place for me to list wins and fails and then share useful and actionable information with you to hopefully help you make better decisions on your online blog businesses.
Monthly Traffic
SERP Rankings
Search Console
Plan For Next Month
Post if I find content that makes sense, focus on my blogs and make money by doing work and not by selling hope and dreams to other people.
Site – Hobby
Site is on ice while I work on my bigger project for the year, if I can reach my other goal then I can start to build up these other little starter sites more, for now this site is growing with very little attention while pulling in income so it could be a winner to grow later
Monthly Traffic
SERP Rankings
Search Console
Plan For Next Month
On hold for now in favor of focus on the 100kX3
Site – Travel
While I have had a fun time with this site it is on the back burner as wife isn’t sold on blogging still and I just don’t have the time to add on more to what I am already trying to accomplish.
Monthly Traffic
SERP Rankings
Search Console
Plan For Next Month
On hold for now in favor of focus on the 100kX3
Site – Business
This is a site I am working on and have a specific writer generating content to keep it moving forward regardless of my 100kX3 personal goal. All I have to do with this content is upload and schedule and this makes this an ideal background grower.
This niche has some limitations when it comes to solid affiliate offers and will be more focused on just a purely passive ad-based approach that could become lead-gen if I find more personal free time to adjust and work it out.
Currently I am happy to just see it continue to grow and if I can get it to keep growing by 35%+ monthly I would be a happy soul.
Monthly Traffic
SERP Rankings
Search Console
Plan For Next Month
4-6 more posts are already sent to the writer and now it is just to keep them being written and published while seeing what the benefits of a purely passive ad based site can do.
Site – Popcorn
I love the content and site but I just don’t have the time and this year was my year to promise myself to let myself not be as ADHD in my building and focus on building a real money system which could then be used to build these sites instead of muddling the build of too many at once.
This site will get more love but it wont be until much later this year or next.
Monthly Traffic
SERP Rankings
Search Console
Plan For Next Month
On hold for now in favor of focus on the 100kX3
Site – Finance
Like the above site, I love this site and I could see it doing very well but for now I just can’t afford to allow myself too many deviations, I want to make it to my 100kX3 and that can’t be done dabbling in the early days sites.
This site will get more love but it wont be until much later this year or next.
Monthly Traffic
SERP Rankings
Search Console
Plan For Next Month
On hold for now in favor of focus on the 100kX3
Overall Lessons from March
That when I focus on specific sites I can pull them up and get real performance markers out of them, when I allow myself to go crazy testing and playing I derail and lose progress or stay the same which is not how you want to go to reach 100kX3.
Family life has kicked back in more as soccer season kicks in and now there is school and outside soccer along with my day job which makes finding time much more difficult and that every hour I spend has to be spent in a smart fashion (why are you here writing Josh?!@?!?@#).
These posts sometimes are just a good way to let my brain let loose the hundreds and thousands of things I think all month long and hopefully at some point they help others not quit when it is hard, this isn’t a game for the weak willed.
Did I Meet my March Goals?
Personally I feel like I stayed the course, I am growing all the sites I feel have the potential to reach my 100k pageview mark and I am continuing to have content written that allows me to keep pushing the cart forward.
As more income is generated I hope to do more bulk content orders from the larger content shops like WeWriteBlogPosts, Content Authority, and Passion Posts as the content written performs well and requires very minimal editing for the most part making the extra investment well worth it.
What Are my Goals for April?
The push is real to grow three sites to 100k pageviews within a year, I know it is a stretch when most people will work exceedingly hard to just get one single site to 100k pageviews.
I am trying to continue to push out 60+ posts a month from myself and a few writers I trust with the main goal being to ramp out enough content to get the pageviews as in the end the only way to 100k pageviews is in focused content generation.
As you can see below to reach 100k for most will require somewhere around 250-300 posts, I am aiming to hit this marker around 200 as my personal goal is to reach 500 PVs monthly per post.
| Posts | PVs Per Post | Posts to Reach 100k |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | 3334 | (Near Impossible) |
| 50 | 2000 | (10 Year Vet With Luck) |
| 100 | 1000 | (Amazingly Skilled Content Selection) |
| 200 | 500 | (Quality Blog Keyword Selection) |
| 250 | 400 | (Above Average Keyword Performance) |
| 300 | 333 | (About Average Keyword Selection) |
| 500 | 200 | (Keywords Target To Small of Audience) |
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.
