It’s been two months since I started my new case study on using Ezoic’s Big Data Analytics to make a profitable content marketing plan.
So, it’s time for an update.
The site I’m testing this on doesn’t have a ton of authority and gets around 10,000 monthly sessions for it’s traffic.
Ready? Let’s see how it’s going…
**And as always, I’m an affiliate marketer and this post probably contains affiliate links, meaning I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links
The Recap
In case you don’t remember the last update, or if you just don’t want to read it, then let me give you a quick recap.
The objective: Can I boost the income of my site by using Ezoic’s Big Data Analytics to identify the type of content that results in the higher ePMVs and creating a content marketing plan based on my findings?
The EPMV’s before starting:
- overall ePMV for January for this site was $10.37
- overall ePMV for February for this site was $11.54
The challenges:
- ad rates naturally rise at the end of quarters and as the year progresses
- ad rates usually drop in the first month of each quarter
- it takes time to rank the new content
The goal:
- reach $20 ePMV with this site
What’s Happened Since My Last Update
Based on what I discovered with my initial research, I spent some time outsourcing a lot of content.
I focused on two types of content that I’d identified as having high ePMVs:
- content with a legal slant
- content with a focus on luxury items
I haven’t counted it all up, but I’d guess that I’ve added somewhere around 100 posts to this site since my last update on this case study.
And it’s about a 50/50 mix of the two content types identified above.
Here’s the highlights:
- overall ePMV for March for this site was $12.99
- overall ePMV for April for this site was $13.73
How March Went
The first batch of legal-focused articles went up and one of them started ranking pretty well right from the start.
This was a bit of a surprise.
As a result, the top 10 posts for my site saw a slight shake-up with one of the legal articles placing in the top 10.
I’d like to have seen more, but this is still great news because the legal articles have a pretty decent ePMV. This one was at $15.05 for March!
Sadly, none of the new luxury focused articles managed to make it onto the list of top 10 posts for the month.
It was no surprise that the ePMV for March increased since it was the last month of the quarter, but still nice to see.
How April Went
More of the legal-focused articles started ranking well in April.
As a result, the top 10 posts for my site saw a bit of a shake-up with three of the legal articles now placing in the top 10.
That’s great news because they have a pretty decent ePMV. Between those three articles, they’re averaging a little over $14 for the ePMV.
Sadly, I’m still waiting on the new luxury focused articles to make it onto the list of top 10 posts for the month.
I was a little surprised that the ePMV for April increased since it was the first month of a new quarter, so that’s awesome.
It is worth nothing that the single new legal article that was showing a $15.05 ePMV in March is still my #1 post for April — and the ePMV only fell to $14.22.
That makes me think that these legal articles were definitely worth my time.
I just wish some of those luxury articles were ranking well because I think they’ll pay even more.
One of the luxury articles did get 134 pageviews in April with an ePMV of $26.24, so that’s looking promising.
Though 134 views is too small of a number to get a real accurate picture. I normally like to see at least 500 views for a more accurate estimate of ePMV/RPM.
With that in mind, I suspect that the true ePMV will settle slightly lower once this post passes 500 views.
How I Think It’s Going
Based on what I’m seeing so far, I think my initial analysis is spot on.
I’m going to pause on the legal-focused articles and see if I can get more luxury-focused titles live.
I also still need to test some travel-focused titles because I did previously identify those as having high ePMV potential.
You may recall that problem solving articles was on my list initially.
I don’t think I’m going to do any new titles with that slant because there seems to be quite a bit of volatility with the ePMV of my existing titles that have a problem-solving intent.
Looking forward, I expect the rest of the legal focused articles to start ranking in May, as well as the luxury focused articles that are already live.
So, I think realistically I can expect around $16 ePMV for May and possibly closer to that goal of $20 ePMV in June. Of course, June is the last month of Q2, so it’s already forecast to show an increase.
That means the real test going forward for this experiment is July.
Do I think I can reach $20 ePMV for July? Yes, if I can get that new content up!
But even if I can’t, then I think it’s going to be really close.
If you’re interested in keeping up with my progress on this case study, sign up for my email list below to get notified of new posts. And if you’re not yet signed up with Ezoic for your site, you can do that here.
Next update:
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.
Ezoic is a brilliant service and really speeds up my site and helped increase my revenue.
I had being running ads to my site with a ppc company. But not much traffic from Western countries so I stopped using it because the cpc was really low and time on the page.
Writing higher paying content articles really does help boost your income. But most have also extremely high search difficulty rankings. Good luck with your revenue increasing project.