As expected, these sites continued to get a boost from some of the seasonal posts.
I always loving having these big earning summer months, but when you have too many sites in the same season, you end up with some dry months.
Luckily, my portfolio is more diversified than it used to be.
Anyways, let’s get into the details of these three sites.
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 June
Content, content, content – that was the theme for the month.
I added tons of content to existing sites and I even created a new site that I added some content to.
I outsourced a lot of it at Writer Access, even though I still think content agencies are rubbish. And yeah, I had to rewrite a fair bit of it.
It’s weird to think about now, but I don’t think I’ve done any link building other than HARO for more than six months now.
And I’m not just talking about these sites – I mean across my entire portfolio.
I was supposed to be creating a new course, but since I’m back in Vegas it’s already Hades-level hot and there’s no air con in my makeshift recording studio…there was no new course.
So, yeah, I’m a wee bit behind on new courses.
But, let’s focus on these sites for now, eh?
The Sites – June 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
It’s gone from my portfolio.
So, no more updates on this one.
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
Though I really intended to load this site up with content, I only ended up putting a single new post up.
Despite that neglect, things are still going well here.
Had a skeptic tell me my screenshots were suspect since I didn’t include the date, so here ya go, Simon.
You can’t tell it from the screenshot, but the month over month difference was a 5K increase in sessions compared to May.
Boom.
Love seeing the results of adding all that recent content.
And if you remember back to my previous update, that time it was a 3K increase, so this is even better at a 5K increase in sessions.
I basically need to double traffic to qualify for Mediavine. So, that’s where I’m at with this site right now.
New posts for this site: 1 ( from Writer Access)
New links for this site: zero
Total income for this site last month: $416.05
Last month’s income is a mix of AdSense, Ezoic, Amazon affiliate, and other affiliates. I use the AAWP plugin on this site.
Summary for site #2: A nice boost in income with a good rise in traffic.
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$4,500 - 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 and then AdThrive. 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
This site has really been seeing some ah-may-zing growth lately. In fact, I’m considering holding onto it instead of selling it at year’s end.
I know, I know, just last month I was ready to sell it for less than I originally wanted. What can I say?
As of today, I’m like only a few hundred pageviews from qualifying for AdThrive and you best believe I’ll be applying as soon as I reach that magical number.
But, back to June’s data.
What you’re looking at there is approx. 21,000 more sessions than the site got in May.
Yup, 21,000 more sessions just 30 days later. what?!
Yeah, I’m seriously stoked about that growth. And I’m really stoked about the possibility of it continuing.
It helps that this is an older site with good age and decent authority, but the credit is likely due to all the fresh content I’ve been publishing lately.
Just a quick reminder that this site is still pulling in around 15% of its traffic from Pinterest. (I just use Tailwind for that.)
New posts for this site: 45 (wrote some and some outsourced to Writer Access)
The articles were all informational.
New links for this site: none
Total income for this site last month: $5,360.80
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 a lot and income went up quite a bit. Overall an awesome 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
Another month of me doing nothing on this site cause I was focused on other sites.
Traffic is down by around 150 sessions, so no big drop there.
I just can’t find the time to take away from other sites to focus on this one right now.
Part of the reason no work is being done here is because I only want the highest quality, which means writing it myself.
And I’ve just got more important sites to focus on right now.
New posts for this site: zero
New links for this site: zero
Total income for this site last month: $7.43
Only has one post live with an affiliate link, and AdSense is bringing in the monies.
Summary for site #4: Zero new posts, traffic down just a teensy bit, income from AdSense doubled compared to last month.
New Expenses for June 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 June 2021:
Site #2
- $6.50 Vultr server at Cloudways (two sites on this server, so I split out the cost for just this site)
- $135.70 in content from Writer Access
Site #3
- $22.45 hosting with BigScoots (this account is split with another site)
- $2726.08 in content from Writer Access
Site #4
- $6.50 Vultr server at Cloudways (two sites on this server, so I split out the cost for just this site)
Final Thoughts & Summary
Overall, I got nothing to complain about with the performance of these sites.
I’m really happy to see how the content push is going for sites 2 and 3 so far.
Anyways, here’s a look at overall expenses and revenue:
And remember, these 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 monthly update 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.