Welcome to month 10 of the Low Fruits case study!
If you’re new here, last October, I started a BBQ affiliate website called Barbehow.
My strategy is simple:
- Publish high-quality content on low-competition keywords
- Have more informational content than commercial content on the site
- Do keyword research exclusively in LowFruits
Each month, I report here on the progress.
And this month, I’m happy to report that July was the first full month of monetization!
First Full Month of Earnings
July was the first full month of monetization for the case study website.
The site took in $370.28 this month:
- $362.03 from Ezoic (I am an Ezoic Premium publisher)
- $8.25 from Amazon Associates
Considering we’re in month 10, this is a good amount.
An interesting finding: The 4th of July (Independence Day in the US) is a really strong day for websites in the BBQ niche.
On that day alone, the site had 1,829 page views and brought in $29.81 in ad revenue:
The ePMV—Earnings per Thousand Visitors (a metric Ezoic uses to calculate how much you earn per every 1,000 visits) —was $18.93.
Considering that Ezoic’s AI typically takes 12 weeks to optimize your ad earnings, this is a good figure!
There are still only 3 commercial “best X for Y” articles on the site.
How to Increase Website Revenue
Since I want more affiliate income, I’ll double down before Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the fourth quarter by:
- Publishing more commercial articles (“Top” lists, “Best X for Y” articles)
- Covering more higher-value items
By the time these big-spending events come around, I’ll have articles prepared & ranking.
Talking Numbers: Steady Traffic Growth
The site also got a steady bump in traffic this month!
There were 21,000 page views in July (up from 11,000 in June). I attribute some of that to the unveiling of the website.
The 4th of July also provided quite a boost. Still, growth is growth—and you can see this clearly from the Google Search Console data:
- July clicks: 12.9K (up from 6.68K in June)
- Impressions: 504K (up from 291K)
- Average CTR: 2.6% (up from 2.3%)
- Average position: 17.1 (up from 17.4)
LowFruits Tip of the Month: More Keyword Ideas with Double Wildcards
You really need to check out one of my new favorite LowFruits features: the double wildcard.
Previously, you could only use one wildcard for your LowFruits searches.
For example: “can you drive a car without *.”
Now you can do searches with two wildcards:
- Can you drive * without *
- How to prepare * on BBQ with *
This takes your keyword research to a new level!
If you’re a LowFruits subscriber, you’ll get a boosted version of the double wildcard search with more keyword ideas. Discover more low-hanging fruits every time you do a search!
What’s Next?
I plan to continue posting at least 6 articles per month.
Summer is not over yet, and I expect a strong August in terms of traffic and revenue.
I’m curious to see if August will be stronger than July. And then how the metrics will change in the fall and winter.
There’s only one way to find out, so thanks for following along, and stay tuned for next month’s update!
Metrics Over Time
Traffic
Time Period | July 1, 2022 – July 31, 2022 |
Monthly Pageviews | 21,000 |
Avg. Engagement Time | 1m 03s |
Engaged Sessions / User | 0.57 |
Pageviews / Published Post (PPP) | 185.84 |
Source: Google Analytics
Content
Rankings
Date Checked | August 6, 2022 |
Avg. Position (Google, USA) | 18.96 |
Top 3 | 59 / 113 |
Top 10 | 90 / 113 |
Top 30 | 102 / 113 |
Top 100 | 106 / 113 |
As a reminder, I switched the ranking tracking from Ubersuggest to SERProbot, so the numbers between months 1-9 and months 10+ won’t match perfectly.
Source: SERProbot
Earnings
Time Period | July 1, 2022 – July 31, 2022 |
Total Revenue Since Start of Site | $484.98 |
Total Revenue YTD (2021) | $484.98 |
Monthly Revenue | $370.28 Of which $362.03 from display ads Of which $8.25 from affiliate programs |
Monthly Revenue / Published Post (MRPP) | $3.27 |
Source: Ezoic, Amazon Associates
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