20365 Page Views in May 2022 For an 8-Month Old Website (Old Fluff Faints)

Okay, I’m going to be very quick today (I've just read back, I sooooo WASN'T QUICK, LOL), and simply provide an update on the website that Diane (Scorpio aka “Old Fluff”) and I created back in October 2021.

Oh, and just to add, if you’ve sent me a PM I will get round to eventually answering it, I’m not ignoring you.

Actually, that was a LIE, in fact I AM ignoring you, but only because my inbox is full, LOL.

Sorry!!

I’m not around for the next few days, but I promise I’ll get back to everyone some time next week.

How’s the Website Going?

Yes, the new website is chugging along just as I expected.

And what’s fantastic is that we haven’t even hit that real “growth spurt” yet.

As I’ve mentioned many, many, many times before, any articles published on a new website will typically require 8-9 months to achieve their traffic potential.

Basically, if your keyword research is good, you should rank fairly quickly for the main keyword that article is written around.

However, this is NOT your traffic potential for this article.

Remember that every single word you write in an article can be considered a keyword.

So, in effect, there are literally 1000s of keywords that every article you write can rank for.

And this is also how traffic to ONE article grows month-on–month, you’re basically ranking for more-and-more keywords as the article gets older.

Then, when you hit that 8-9 month mark you’ll have an idea of the potential of that article.

That being said, not all articles will follow in this type of linear fashion, some articles may reach their full traffic potential after a couple of months, whereas others take years.

But, in the main, allow your articles 8-9 months to “come to fruition”.

Anywhere here’s the traffic stats for the new website for May 2022.

So, in our 8th month we’ve received 7,234 visitors, and these visitors have viewed a total of 20,365 pages between them.

Now, as my main business model is premium ad networks, it’s the page views that are most important here.

Basically, most premium ad networks require a certain number of page views as their minimum requirement (except Mediavine, which requires 50,000 SESSIONS over a 30-day period).

We haven’t actually monetized this website yet…

Gasps of horror from the Wacky Affiliate members…

“But, we like to monetize immediately, even in our very first article, even though WE’RE NOT GOING TO GET ANY TRAFFIC FOR MONTHS” (Well, organic traffic that is).

However, as I’ve mentioned, we haven’t even hit that proper growth period for the site yet.

I’ve spoken many times about the “hockey stick effect” on your Google Analytics graph when you view it for the first 12 months.

Your traffic graph is almost a flatline for many, many months, and then it starts curving upwards (hopefully) towards the end of that first year.

(You can almost see this on the traffic graph for the first 8 months of our website, but I expect that curve to keep rising on the right-hand side of the graph up until the 12-month mark. Plus, you can see that a high percentage of our traffic came in May 2022, this should prove the point of website traffic dramatically increasing from month 6/7 onwards).

Realistically, you should be seeing your traffic increasing by at least 50% month-on-month (often 100-300% some months) from around month 7/8 until month 12.

Therefore, we still have a whole 4 months of the “growth spurt “ to go this year.

Realistically if traffic is only increasing 50% each month for the next 4 months, we will still have achieved approximately 35,000 unique visitors and approximately 100,000 page views FOR THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER 2022 (Okay, I may be oushing it trying to achieve 100,000 page views in just 12 months, but ALL THE SIGNS ARE THERE).

I‘m willing to bet that adding this website to my Adthrive account in October 2022 should produce $20+ per 1,000 page views.

I just wanted to add that there was a new Google Core Update released on 25th May 2022.

I have seen fluctuations in traffic on all my websites, some good, some not so good.

However, I know that I just have to ride this out for a few weeks, and hopefully things will return to normal (I have found that I’ve never yet, fingers crossed, been badly impacted by a Google update, but this is probably because I’m using Google for research and writing articles based around what the Google Search Bar, People Also Ask, and Related Searches, tell me.

If you use the source for information, they’re unlikely to punish you.

That said, the new website has been getting 50-75 LESS visitors per day over the last week or so.

I’ve actually followed a few threads on Reddit and the BlackHatWorld Forum and I see that many people have experienced the same.

Someone actually pointed out that they seemed to have lost all their Featured Snippets, but were still ranking on page one.

I haven’t checked (Old Fluff scurries off to check), but due to the way I write my articles, I have always managed to get literally 1000s of featured snippets (position 0 in Google, right at the top of the page, usually has a “snippet” of what the article is about, as well as a thumbnail image or video next to it), so it could be the case that the drop in traffic is due to losing the Featured Snippet, but still being ranked on page one, but further down the page.

RELATED===>How to Write the Perfect Blog Post

But, as I say, there’s no point in panicking during a core update or immediately after… weird things happen (another website has suddenly started to get 300 ADDITIONAL visitors a day from Google Discover - weirdness!!)

Just sit back, watch the core update, laugh at others who are panicking, and enjoy the ride.

Here’s a Recap of What We Did

So, clearly I went against all the usual “rules” when it comes to keyword research, article writing, SEO, etc.

Plus, Diane and I have currently not done more than about 40-50 hours of work each IN TOTAL in 8 MONTHS (well, Diane has definitely done more than me… but I love ordering people about and telling them what to do!!! LOL).

Therefore, all the figures, statistics, potential traffic and income comes from just 50 HOURS OF ACTUAL WORK IN TOTAL EACH (I bet some of you are doing more than that a week, never mind over the course of 8 months. I’ve told you, I like the easy life, so why complicate things - Lay-Z!!).

So, keyword research simply involved going to Google, typing in the seed keyword that the website is based around, and then adding “Question Words”, e.g. Why, Can, Should, Will, etc. a sprinkling of letters here and there, using Google’s own alphabet soup, and then waiting to see what Google Autosuggest came up with.

You should know by now that the aim is to find low competition on page one of Google, typically User Generated Content or websites with a Domain Authority lower than 20.

The articles we wrote were quick and to the point and answered one single question.

• All articles were between 600-800 words.
• We have not used an SEO plugin.
• We have not done any social media.
• We have not made the website “look beautiful” or “designed” it in any way.
• It’s all been about using Google Autosuggest to find REAL QUESTIONS typed into the search bar by REAL PEOPLE.

And then answering these questions in an approximate 700-word article.

THAT’S IT!!

A couple of things to add…

You’ll note that the “Time Spent on Site” is quite low in the above traffic images.

However, I rarely allow this or Bounce Rate to bother me.

Okay, I could potentially be earning more money by improving on these, but I like the easy life…

Keyword Research, Write, Eat, Sleep, Repeat.

Plus, the articles we are writing are specifically answering ONE question, so often people will turn up, read the answer, and leave the site, but completely satisfied.

Even if they spent 2 hours reading the article, this will still show as 0.00 seconds spent on site IF THEY DIDN’T VISIT A SECOND ARTICLE ON THE SITE.

However, Google is aware if a person checks a second result in the search engines for the same phrase.

If they do search for another article that is on exactly the same subject, this is a way of telling Google that I DIDN’T GET THE ANSWER I WANTED FROM THE FIRST ARTICLE.

If this is the case, it will typically affect your rankings.

However, if a reader is fully satisfied with the answer they received on your website, and didn’t need to search for the same query again, Google will know, and you may just be rewarded with higher rankings as your article SATISFIES SEARCHER INTENT.

We are still receiving rankings and traffic to our website articles, so even though visitors aren’t spending much time on the site, they ARE GETTING THE ANSWERS THEY CAME FOR - the result = maintained and improved rankings.

As for bounce rate, it’s never bothered me, especially with how I choose to make money online.

In fact, I WANT 100% Bounce Rate for many, many, many of my articles.

If a searcher comes to your article and immediately CLICKS AN AD or CLICKS AN AFFILIATE LINK, this counts as 100% Bounce Rate.

They HAVE NOT VISITED MORE THAN ONE ARTICLE ON YOUR WEBSITE (they have visited another website by clicking an ad or an affiliate link).

However, this 100% Bounce Rate can and probably will earn you MONEY.

Therefore, unless I specifically want people to spend ages on my website, then bounce rate doesn’t really bother me.

And as long as my ad income and affiliate commissions are increasing every single day then I have achieved what I set out to do.

Final Thoughts

That’s a Wrap.

As I say, I just wanted to give you an update on the new website, share some stats, as well as my own thoughts on what’s happening.

I know many people have recently spoken of difficulties ranking on Google, and even being unable to get their articles indexed.

For me, much of this is down to poor keyword research RESEARCH (yes, there is a second “research”, what this means is that you are perhaps completely trusting what a keyword tool tells you in term of rankworthiness without actually checking your competition on page one - a low QSR DOES NOT GUARANTEE RANKINGS).

As for indexing issues, this can be for a whole host of reasons, although this does seem to be sorted now.

My guess at the initial 18 months of poor indexing was perhaps due to the influx of AI-generated content.

If 1000 people are publishing 1000 articles a day, that’s a lot for Google to keep up with, plus they want to ensure that they are ranking articles based on favourable user experience.

So, I feel they may have slowed things down a little while they scrutinised published content a lot closer.

I will also say that indexing problems could be down to having much of the same content on your site, which makes it harder for Google to differentiate these.

As an example, if you’ve targeted the following keywords for 3 different articles:

• How to Lose Weight in 7 Days
• How to Lose 10lbs in a Week
• Can You Lose Body Fat Before Your Holiday Next Week

They essentially all mean the same thing, which means that there’s unlikely to be much unique content from one article to the next.

Additionally, if you’re starting a new website and everything you do has commercial intent, e.g. Reviews, Best Ofs, Top 10 Products, etc. then you may also be suffering indexing issues.

Google is literally saying, “Oh here we go again, Mr. Insincere is back, trying to plug all his different affiliate products on a new website. He doesn't care about actually helping people, but rather he’s out for himself, money, money, money… Well, I’m not having it… you can wait to be indexed, I may come back, I may not.”

As I always say, this is merely my humble opinion, it doesn’t mean it’s right or wrong.

Thank You For Reading

Partha