October 2021 – Monthly Income Report

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October is a weird month, you are heading into Q4 which is a bountiful quarter for advertising revenue but at the start of the quarter it can frequently lag, add into this the pandemic issues and all the freight and delivery issues and there are fewer products available, especially good quality products.

I spent most of this month working on building up sites trying to reach my magical 100 posts mark, finishing up getting electronics over that mark, and starting to work on getting the P24 case study over that mark along with the garden 2 niche site.

November is going to be a lot slower for me in content production as I have the holidays upcoming, family inbound for a good chunk of the month, and work has been gearing up making a perfect storm for the end of Q4! This is when all the work for the year needs to pay off for you and I have nearly 500 posts out across all my sites for the year already.

With that being said, Welcome to my October 2021 Income Report!

October 2021 At a Glance

Overall it was a slower October than I would want but this frequently happens after I do a huge content push like the Content Warrior Challenge. There is always some level of recuperation that happens in the month following and it becomes well understood by myself.

My real focus for this month was to get the electronics site over 100 posts and to continue the building process and moving the other sites towards the 50 posts mark on newer sites and get those somewhat aged to the 100 posts mark.

I don’t find myself over time being that person who just craps out content to get to 1000 posts to make a site, to me that’s just a crap content site that can’t be updated and kept clean and functional.

Overall I think my goal will be to reach 200-250 posts and then spend the work and effort to continue to dial them into the best content on the web on the subject matter as this is manageable by a single-person business.

I’ve always been into this for the freedom of choice and the opportunities it can provide but I also want to be the best resource out there and not just another Jon Dykstra winning by sheer volume and hope of a homerun.

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 – 0 posts
• Garden 1 – 3 posts
• Garden 2 – 10 posts
• Outdoor 1 – 0 post
• Outdoor 3 – 11 posts (New P24 Method Case Study and YouTube Series)
• Electronics 1 – 8 posts
• Backyard – 0 posts
• White Hat Blogging (This Site) – 1 post
• Hobby – 0 posts (On Ice as just a 30 post incubator)
• Travel – 0 posts
• Business – 0 posts
• Popcorn Site – 0 posts
• Elite Content Publishers – 0 posts

• YouTube – 1 Video

Total Posts for the month: 33

Monthly Income Breakdown

Monthly Expense Breakdown

My Niche Site Updates

Let’s dig into each site and see progress, or lack thereof happens when you are working to manage a wide array of sites. Overall this does lead to a slower growth curve than a focus on a single site, but with this diversification comes a much better chance of safety from a Core Algo Update.

Site – Fitness

There is something to be said about just having patience and letting things age a bit, I did do some minor edits based on a small content audit I did earlier this month to see if it would yield some change to the site performance but it is still too early to measure.

I won’t be paying for more content on this site until it shows some semblance of growth as I am only making about $30 a month from ads on the site which will slowly at least move this site back to a positive balance.

Monthly Traffic

This month showed slight gains in traffic (.67%) but without any new posts, I am still hoping more content can move into the top 10 and start to build some traffic momentum into 2022.

SERP Rankings

Not much on the SERP front, I gained a few into the top 30 which is nice, I am hoping the newer edits will help move more as they were on content that wasn’t in the top 100 even after a year since publishing.

This site is the one that with some serious clean up could move fast if I can find a way to get some content to move into the top 10 spots as there is plenty of search intent in fitness year-round.

Search Console

The search console shows about 200 more clicks on 15k fewer impressions, this is a nice note and this pulled the average CTR up from .7% to .8% but I really need to get this into the 2-5% range and the clicks would be astronomically increased.

Plan For Next Month

The plan is the same as last month, the focus will be on auditing the content of the failures and then begin to check and rebuild, using Frase.

This time really looking at what I wrote and how it performed to understand why the other content in the top 10 ranks above me, is it just missed intent, links, or something else I need to focus on, only time can tell me that.

Site – Garden 1

I wrote three posts that I should be able to easily win as the content in the SERPs wasn’t on point and what was there wasn’t even long, like 300-500 words.

This was to gauge the overall ability and clicks that were possible but I had failed to have GA installed after all the issues from the WPX mess 2 months ago through a few relocations so I had to set them back up to track things.

I am hoping these new posts can show me that there is a heartbeat here and I just need to put in some time and crank out the content to get this site humming as it is nearly 24 months old.

Monthly Traffic

As you can see when I started these new posts I realized I forgot I wasn’t tracking traffic so I needed to go re-add in my UA tracking code to start gathering data again, that bump at the end was on the last post published for the month out of the three.

SERP Rankings

Adding posts appears to have triggered the great and powerful Google god (or goddess?) to recrawl and retest content which was. a nice side effect to adding information. Gaining a solid mix of rankings from the top 3 to 100, here is to the new year and maybe one more exciting reclamation project!

Search Console

As you can see similar to the above rankings the overall crawl numbers started to solidly climb after the first new post was added this month which was very pleasant news!

I moved from less than 250 impressions a day to over 500 after the recrawl occurred so now the work will need to begin on building more of this content to see if it keeps growing.

Plan For Next Month

I am working on a list of 30 posts I researched that should all be easier to win and help me begin the process of reclaiming this site from the dead. I am excited about where this may be able to go over the next 12 months as it is a fun topic and niche.

Site – Garden 2

I was able to get 10 more posts out on this site as I move towards my goal of 100 posts, the focus is to maximize the value of each post and build strong inner links along with solid monetization throughout.

Monthly Traffic

I lost a little bit of traffic this month but it wasn’t from anything I can attribute on the rankings and placement side, it could just be a natural variation or a seasonal lull due to holidays but 3.4% is within normal variance but I was hoping to have overall gains.

SERP Rankings

I am very happy with this, every post is currently in the top 100 including the 10 posts from this month, I do worry that they are on some lower search volume phrases due to traffic but I am continuing to post and build this site as I feel it has strong performance waiting in the wings.

Search Console

I grew in clicks, impressions, and lost a bit in CTR due to the 6000 more impressions but only 40ish clicks. I am hoping this continues to move up as it ranks for more tangentially related semantic keywords.

Plan For Next Month

I was trying to make money posts but I think the right approach is to focus less on that when at 3000 pageviews and instead to focus on content creation and to push this site towards 10,000 and beyond before focusing on the other noise.

Site – Outdoor 1

I am letting this site rest, I am building out comprehensive gear tables as a resource to visitors should they choose to visit those pages but they can be done in Google sheets so I haven’t been into the site at all this month.

Monthly Traffic

I was very excited when I looked into the analytics that I have a nearly 24% growth on the site and this is leading into the new year so I am interested to see if this converts into real growth for this site in year 2.

SERP Rankings

Content is continuing to move its way up the SERPs so I am excited to see it continue this trend into 2022 as I love this topic and can write on it without tiring, it has just been super slow to rank against the heavy competition.

Search Console

As with everything else growing the clicks and impressions grew on the site in the month of October which is a very nice feeling and shows that patience is what is required in this process.

Plan For Next Month

As I said above, I am not focused on direct content, for now, instead, I am focusing on building out huge information spreadsheets to help the visitors find exactly what they need to make the right choices.

Site – Outdoor 3 (P24 Case Study Site)

I am having a blast maintaining building this site but I do have one issue, I chose a niche that is very summer-oriented which I think will make the next few months very slow and not as high performing as I would like.

I am going to keep the fight up and build content, keeping myself at the timeline and not pushing past it until it reaches 24 months, this will help show everyone what is possible even if you choose a wacky time to build your niche site, like the winter for a summer niche… dummy.

Monthly Traffic

I did get some growth which was nice as it is a real fight in the offseason to rank and get views so I am believing now that this may end up being a super slow winter into spring. I’m hoping though that there is a very speedy boost once the spring to summer hits though!

SERP Rankings

As expected it is hard to rank in the offseason, I am looking to find topics that I think would be highly searched in this offseason but I am still learning the niche overall and have some clues but nothing hard.

Looking at Google Trends the fall to spring drop from 70-80 consistently to like 10-25 so it’s a hard drop once the drop occurs, in the end, I think I may sell this niche just due to seasonality.

Search Console

I barely lost any positions yet I got no search clicks, this just accentuates if you can’t reach page one you will end up with no clicks, most of my traffic is all coming from Bing which is a nice sign hopefully that eventually, I will win in the Google world.

Plan For Next Month

I have ten posts due still to maintain the timeline, I will continue to push this site and maintain the timeline as it stands to show the results you can expect with no knowledge of the topic going in.

I am super excited as it would prove the ability to go from zero knowledge to a full-time income while also building your knowledge on a topic as long as you don’t lose focus on the project.

Site – Electronics 1

I am very pleased with this site, it has shown some tremendous growth fast as some of the content is ranking and gaining visits very fast, its amazing how much info content is avoided in favor of just monetized content!

Monthly Traffic

Last month we grew by like 55% so I tampered my feelings a little bit for this month but was enormously pleased to get a 31% growth this month which has pushed me over 10,000 PVs for this site’s first month cracking 5 figures.

I am very happy with this growth and am hoping it continues throughout the Q4 time period as this would push it close to 20k before January which would be amazing heading into a drop for Q1 income.

SERP Rankings

This site grew in the top 10 solidly which is where the volume of click growth exploded from, looking at the drop in the top 10 most were new posts from this month so a little Google juggling makes sense so I hope there is more growth up through to the top 10 but with 2/3rds in the top its an exciting project!

Search Console

Nearly 50k impression boost on the previous month along with 1600 clicks helped to improve the CTR from 3% to 3.2% which is about the standard percent my sites sit around, I would love to get this closer to 5% but that will come with more moving into the Top 3.

Plan For Next Month

Optimize what I can for Q4, currently working on adding a banner on the top to point to direct sales and additional in content CTAs for programs like Amazon Black Friday and other company’s sales of popular goods.

Site – Backyard

It is the 4th quarter which is when this site has dropped off solidly each time, I am working on some posts to push this site to 100 posts like the others but trying to find angles that will yield solid returns and not just ranking vanity figures.

Monthly Traffic

As expected with a seasonal decline the traffic has solidly dropped across the board, there isn’t much I could do but try to target some keywords that are more off-season related but they are much higher competition levels to the niche.

SERP Rankings

As you can see I lost 26% of pageviews but gained massive positions on the SERP, this is another thing that points to the issue being the end of the season as I gained on keywords but there are just far fewer people searching anymore for the topics.

Search Console

As you can see just like the above the overall trend on the month is a gradual decline, welcome to school starting and people not enjoying their backyards as much anymore.

Plan For Next Month

I have some ideas to locate more winter-related content, the issue is that there is little time for them to rank versus the time in the offseason so I always get torn as the time to write offseason was 3-4 months ago.

Instead, I plan to write more content for next season and then once the season gets moving start and write those offseason posts to ensure next year I am more prepared for this slump on the site.

Site – White Hat Blogging

This site is frequently a pain, ranking in the blogging, SEO, affiliate niche is basically nigh impossible without lots of links and a lot of time. Most will do it only to sell a course or other income-generating things like tools, I keep this more to help people out and to post progress on my path to freedom.

Monthly Traffic

As expected cracking in anywhere to get traffic is near impossible, I continue to use this site to keep track of these income reports but hope still to rank content one day.

SERP Rankings

I am glad to see some content moving into the top 100, I don’t track these income reports on this list so these are just the useful content to visitors!

Search Console

Still continuing the trend upwards that is as slow as a turtle on a hardcore drinking bender, My one big happy moment was when I realized there was no 0 click days over the month which is normally my first goal on seeing a site grow.

Plan For Next Month

Honestly, still just an income report. Anything outside of that will be unique based on a question or keyword that feels rankable but these are definitely not consistently found and so they aren’t my focus.

Site – Hobby

I am just letting this age in, I don’t have enough time or money right now to throw at a site but once I get more of my base to 100 posts then it will be time to revisit this site after it has had some time to age in and to own some keywords for some time prior.

Monthly Traffic

With no posts for months we are apparently starting to move a bit so maybe the ghost town time is finally breaking as we gaiend 5% traffic without any work at all. I like signs like these.

SERP Rankings

Growth is nice, with 27 posts it will probably move much slower but if you want to run multiple sites it is always best to start these little incubator sites and get them to 20-30 posts and then you can see what the competition is like and how it may perform.

Search Console

I gained a lot of impressions but only a few clicks, I assume I ranked for some more tangential terms which made me show in search but not get the clicks which tanks the CTR numbers but nothing really changed much.

Plan For Next Month

I was hoping to focus on a Black Friday list but I am more focused on building content to get the pageviews on the other sites as with less than 200 visits the sales versus the time to make the Black Friday and Christmas lists will make 0 income.

Site – Travel

This site is fun to run, while getting a vacation to the area is off the plans for now building a site that allows you to take the vacation would be hard to pass up if you really want to go.

Who doesn’t want websites to pay for their vacations? Additionally, when you get to take this vacation you get to take your own images which adds more EAT to your website and helps it grow even more due to the unique content!

Monthly Traffic

Since I published nothing I wasn’t surprised to see no growth nor fall in the traffic, this site is on the path to 50 posts and could be the one that would go past the 250 posts mark due to the number of travel locations viable.

SERP Rankings

Sad to see a loss in the top 30 but am ok with it to grow in the top 10 and top 3. 28 posts is just not enough to see any solid explosion in traffic unless you get a lucky hit on a massively underserved topic.

Search Console

Still moving up consistently, losses int CTR don’t bother me as they come with growing impressions and clicks.

Plan For Next Month

Continuing the march to 100 by focusing on reaching 50 posts, I don’t think 22 is doable in two months but I will be aiming to halve this if at all possible, 11 seems quite viable if I focus well and don’t get shiny object syndrome.

Site – Businesss

With time being limited there are always losers to availability and this month it was this business site, this site has some strong income potential but a lot of the issues I have with pursuing it is that there appear to be zero other blogs.

This is worrisome so I have only been building slowly over time and not pressing hard and fast as I don’t want to put 100 posts on a site that ends up being mostly useless.

Monthly Traffic

This site like some of the others though is still growing regardless of adding far less content, it gained 50+% organic search traffic versus last month, this is nice to see and if this trend continues ther eis plenty to write about and push this.

SERP Rankings

This is a pretty strong showing for the site as I continue to gain ground and top spots, this is all very positive and it will help reinforce extra work if these rank changes bring in solid volumes of traffic as that is the primary worry.

Ranking 1st for a keyword that has 10 real searcher s a month is not beneficial, I am trying to find this out as it will be key to a move forward stance overall.

Search Console

No zero-click days from Google, good signs this may be worthwhile to age and build as an advertiser-heavy lead generator.

Plan For Next Month

There is no Q4 for this niche at all, so my efforts will be on other sites and less on this site for the next 3 months, this will be nice to see some of the rest of the content rank and see what the pageviews per post work out to be.

Site – Popcorn Theme Site

I have not had much time to push a lot of content out on this site but I am continuing as I find time to write this site as I am not outsourcing anything on this site.

I have patience and don’t need to see stats immediately as I have seen sites similar on Motion Invest make $500+ a month on Amazon and not use Ads, if I pair them together then it is esay to see this as a profitable site once more is posted.

Monthly Traffic

Considering no posts and very low posts in general a little loss can be expected, now I need to hold still until 2022 and focus on the performing sites while this one ages in a bit or I find some spare time.

SERP Rankings

New site and new results, definitely needs more content to have internal linking assist in the growth but this is a longer term project not my focus.

Search Console

Yay! A Click from Google, I am more excited for the impression spike at the end though as maybe I am gaining some favor on a post or a sub keyword.

Plan For Next Month

Like WHB, this will be to write when I find time. It isnt the future of a huge income maker but a good solid website that could be a dependable passive generator for years so when I can I will get work out on this site.

Site – Elite Content Publishers

Many people have asked how to make good quality content for sites, so I started this site really as a way to show methods to building content and why you want to write high-quality epic content.

This site is more to help out people as the focus is on why content, SEO, optimization, and tools like AI help you build a better visitor experience and why taking time to build high-quality content makes a big difference.

Monthly Traffic

Yep, month two, pretty close to zero still. 28 isn’t bad though for month two, I am working on more content to grow this as it is fun to discuss making better content.

SERP Rankings

I lost the top 10 from last month but as expected it is Google test time and things will move around a lot, here’s to moving more into the top 10 to gain some more solid search traffic.

Search Console

Look impressions, month two, still lulz.

Plan For Next Month

Continue to find topics that help explain the content generation and add more valuable information for people on how to write high-quality epic-level content.

Adding on more that has to do with topic clusters, silos, and the many other things a blog needs to become a valuable asset and not just an expense.

Overall Lessons from October

The longer I work at this the more I realize I have a mental budget as to what I can accomplish along with a time-based limit, I am not one of those who can or chooses to outsource thousands and operate in the red as the wife would kill me.

Due to this I have a focus to move those that are on the 50+ published posts to 100 and really let the under 50 posts total content age, this will help me get actionable results from work much faster than a fully distributed model.

As I stated before the fitness and outdoor 1 sites are just going to be mostly idle for the rest of the quarter as the other sites, while younger, are showing far more viability to be income earners in the short term and this is helpful.

Did I Meet my September Goals?

I hit 100 posts on electronics and moved the garden 2 site closer to the 100 posts mark which was my main goal outside of the continued movement of the P24 case study, I would call this month a win.

To myself the push to get Electronics within a sniff is a perfect match to my goals as there was no way to push multiple sites to 100 in a month but I cranked out 25 posts last month on this site alone to push right up to that 100 posts goal.

What Are my Goals for November?

This is easy, the October goals are to get moentization aligned for the Christmas holidays and be ready to hopefully collect a portion of this high spending opportunity from the masses.

As to content, I think my standard goal will be 30 posts a month between sites and that if possible to create more content but the 30 posts would be one a day for the month and is a good baseline.

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.

Josh Koop