The July 2022 Traffic and Revenue Report

Nothing but a short on-point report on my quadruple case study

Oh my, we’re already more than a week into August, and I haven’t published last month’s progress report on my quadruple case study!

I’m going to make this a quick report, then.

The July 2022 Monthly Traffic and Revenue Report

A quick recap:

I own a portfolio of more than 20 content sites, monetized mainly with display ads. Today, my web publishing business makes around $190K in monthly revenue.

I documented my progress in this blog, including detailed monthly reports covering all my sites. In 2022, I switched to reporting traffic and revenue on four new sites.

You can read the initial report here. That post includes more information about my web publishing business and an FAQ. Please check it out first if you have any questions.

My system in a nutshell

My system is not very complicated.

  1. Find suitable topics.
  2. Create good content.
  3. Scale by outsourcing, using a good workflow.

I blogged here about my workflow.

If you want to learn how to find suitable topics and produce the right content, check out the courses on my resources page.

I won’t repeat each site’s story – only the basic stats. Please refer to the initial report to learn more about a site.

Site #1

  • Niche: General (the site does have a unifying theme)
  • The first post was published on April 2, 2021
  • Number of published posts: 214
  • Monetization: Display ads + Amazon

We decided to put more content into site #1 and site #2 because their revenue per post numbers are good. It’s a gradual process, with only four new posts published on site #1 in July.

The traffic looks fine and steady, with a slight increase compared to June. We’re basically back to the same levels as the previous few months.

July RPMs are consistently low, so the additional traffic did not translate into more revenue.

Site #2

  • Niche: Home & DIY
  • The first post was published on June 11, 2021
  • Number of published posts: 233
  • Monetization: Amazon & display ads

It’s a very similar story with site #2. We added a few new posts (they’ll take some time to rank, of course). Here too, lower RPM rates meant that overall revenue went down in July.

Site #3

  • Niche: Pets
  • The first post was published on May 18, 2021
  • Number of published posts: 119
  • Monetization: Amazon
  • Special circumstances: I created the site on an aged domain I’ve had for about 20 years as an in-house experiment. I knew the domain was clean, and all incoming links were on topic.

Site #3 is showing a slightly more pronounced increase in traffic per post, but overall the numbers are still very low.

In this case, lower RPMs meant revenue stayed about the same.

Site #4

  • Niche: Home & DIY
  • The first post was published on August 23, 2021
  • Number of published posts: 214
  • Monetization: Amazon

Site #4 keeps slowly growing but is still at the low end of the traffic spectrum.

Finally, site #4 is making some progress!

Traffic increased by around 75%, and we decided to start monetizing the site at this point. Woohoo! That’s always a fun stage!

Ads went up in the last week of July, so the daily averages and revenue per post numbers are skewed. I can’t wait to see what they look like by the end of August!

There you go, that’s the report on last month’s progress for these four sites.

I’d love to get some feedback on these reports, by the way.

This is what the reality of web publishing looks like – I find it exciting, but some people might think it’s not very interesting. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

27 Comments

  1. Anne, with all due respect, these reports are much less interesting than when you shared the status of your entire business. These basic reports are a dime a dozen.

    No one (or very few publishers) is sharing information such as: how do you decide when to add more editors to a site? How do you deal with hiring, training, and paying hundreds of editors and writers? I know you have touched on these topics lightly in other posts but getting into the nitty-gritty of running a publishing business is something seriously lacking on the web.

    I see lots of posts in the Mediavine facebook group asking for VAs, outsourcing instructions, etc. I think you are underestimating the amount of bloggers who are making $5k+ a month and are looking to seriously scale their business.

    Personally, I am making $20k a month from my blog, but I am stuck as to how to grow it to $100k. There are more of us than you think, even if we don’t take the time to comment.

    Thank you for writing this blog. All best.

    • Hi Sarah,
      I appreciate the feedback! I’m sure there are many people out there who are already making $5K+ a month. I think that’s great. Getting from zero to $1K is the hardest, IMO.
      As for growing from there to the $100K a month range, I’m not sure I have a secret sauce for doing that, really. Once you start scaling, it’s a question of scaling a system that already works for you, so your way of doing that may differ than mine. I’ll give it some more thought though – maybe come up with a post with tips about the challenges I faced when scaling and what I did to overcome them.

      These reports of the smaller sites are not geared towards readers such as yourself. I’m hoping that there are plenty of people out there who may still need the encouragement on that zero-to-$1K journey. I’ll probably run them until the end of the year and then stop with reports altogether. Or I might stop them even sooner, we’ll see. They’re time-consuming to make and if people don’t like them, there’s no point in going on with them.

  2. Thanks, Anne for sharing such earning reports. I do really appreciate you! However, the total earnings you shared above are they purely Ad revenue or affiliate? Thanks again and happy summer!

    • 90-95% of revenue is from display ads. The rest is from Amazon affiliates. The exact percentage changes month to month but that’s the big picture.

  3. I see you have good RPM for less traffic sites too. Do you have any special deal with premium networks where they let you approve on small numbers?

    • Hi Deepak,
      Yes, we have premium status with both Adthrive and Mediavine. That means you can submit new sites much sooner – typically between 5,000 and 10,000 pageviews a month. They still have to review each site.

      • Hi Anne, you inspire me.

        Quick question: have you graduated from Ezoic? Now that you can get deals with Adthrive and Mediavine for smaller sites with 5k-10k monthly pageviews?

        Would you still recommend Ezoic for newbies like me with no relationship with Adthrive/Mediavine yet? Or should I wait it out until I reach Mediavine’s required traffic?

        • Hi Paulene,

          I’m not sure what you mean by “graduated” from Ezoic? I haven’t taken their courses or whatever training they’re offering there.

          I used to have sites with Ezoic but we now monetize with Mediavine and Adthrive. I don’t like the tiers model of Ezoic and I also don’t like long term contracts. I can now board my sites to AT/MV early on, so there’s no point for me in getting sites on Ezoic and then moving them elsewhere. However, for new advertisers, I think Ezoic can work well. Considering it could take many months – and even a year – to reach the higher traffic levels, I see no reason not to monetize with Ezoic. I would just avoid any long-term contracts (with anyone). Good luck!

  4. Hey Anne, wonderful reports; in contrast to the last poster, these updates are, in fact, very interesting for me.

    I have sites in a similar niche with a similar timeline and love comparing as a benchmark of success. My one site in the same niche is very similar to your progress, except the post timeline is much slower and only recently hit 300 posts. Excited to see that jump after 6 months to a year of post-maturity.

    Great stuff as always!
    Andy

    • Hi Andy,
      Thank you for the feedback! I’m glad to see some people enjoy the reports! It keeps me going with them. And yes, I think too many people only publish their most successful case studies (often when trying to sell you a course). I’d like to hope that these reports show a more realistic view of this web publishing strategy. Good luck with your sites!

  5. Feedback: It’s great inspiration and very motivating. Since reading your site I’ve pushed myself to increase my publishing output. A few times, as I’ve built systems and gotten used to the mental drain of cranking out so many posts, I’ve broken through previous weekly publishing highs.
    I was having a bit of a fatigued day earlier and sitting in my chair checking my emails. When I saw your post, and that you’re currently on $190k per month, I instantly put my phone down and got back to work.
    Keep it up, it’s motivating to see you do so well.

    • Thanks Shaun! FWIW, I get the same kind of boost from looking at our own stats lol. My go-to dopamine boost is from the daily stats check. I sum up revenue for the month-to-date, divide by the number of days and multiply by the number of days in the month to get a projection. Seeing the increases helps me keep going. It’s not the money per se – it’s like watching the score points in an online game.

  6. I know I’m not good at math, but the sum of revenue for these websites definitely is not even close to $190k. I would love to hear more about your top-performing websites, not the smaller ones.

    • Hi Danial,

      Not sure about maths, but reading comprehension is also important 😉 There’s a link in these reports to the original January report where I explain why I’m only reporting these four and not all of them.

      I’m sure many people would love to hear a lot more about our top-performing sites but it’s not going to happen anytime soon. I share some insights based on my experience with the entire portfolio, but I’m not about to open up our books to the world at this point. Maybe if we ever become a publically traded company 😉 But not until then, sorry.

  7. Hey Anne,

    Love seeing the perspective of a high level publisher such as yourself work on new and smaller sites. I just started my second site which is actually a more ‘serious’ attempt at creating a profitable site. Already have more articles written on the second site than my first which was started over 3 years ago.

    I’m more of a lurker, but I just wanted to say please keep the reports coming! I love comparing numbers.

    Dasun

    • Thanks for the feedback, Dasun! Much appreciated! Sounds like you’re on the right path with your second site – good luck!

  8. Hi Anne,

    Please definitely don’t stop these reports. They are highly insightful and motivating! I am always eager to read them at the beginning of each month as they showcase both your overall monthly earnings and how your smaller/newer sites are doing. That’s very valuable information.

  9. Hi Anne,
    I am a silent lurker but I just thought I would chime in! Please leave the income reports. It’s great to have some numbers to give you an idea of what type of performance to expect for your own websites.

    • Hi Charmaine,

      Thanks for the feedback! I’ll definitely keep the reports going until the end of the year. We’ll see about next year (they are time-consuming to make…)

  10. Fabulous advice Anne. I am trying to follow your process and I have to say, you are an inspiration.
    These reports and growth figures are very useful to people like me so please keep doing them.
    I am in it for the long haul and if I could get 10 sites all making $1000 a month I would be ecstatic. I am not greedy to make more than that as it would cover everything. I have 3 sites that are only making a small amount at the moment but since I started following your advice, they are growing. So, thank you..very much.

    • Hi Tony,

      I’m so glad to hear your sites are taking off! I hope you’ll meet that $10K point soon enough (from three sites, or ten – whatever works for your business!) Good luck!

  11. Hello, I just watched your interview w/Niche Pursuits. By the way, GREAT interview! I have a quick? Do you guys build mailing lists and create revenue that way? If so, what% of your Net $ is it?
    Thank you in advance
    Bill

    • Hi Bill,
      So glad you liked the interview. And great timing for that question, as that’s what I’ve been working on for the last week or so. And by “working on” I mean learning about. It’s going to be quite a major shift in strategy, and one that I had been considering for almost a year. Considering Google’s latest volatility, I hope we can set up at least 2-3 properly funneled mailing lists by the end of the year where we can try selling info products down the road.

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