Jon runs the place around here. He pontificates about launching and growing online publishing businesses, aka blogs that make a few bucks. His pride and joy is the email newsletter he publishes that’s “the best blogging email newsletter around.”
Hyperbole? Maybe, but go check it out to see what some readers say.
In all seriousness, Jon is the founder and owner of a digital media company that publishes a variety of web properties visited and beloved by millions of readers monthly. Fatstacks is where he shares a glimpse into his digital publishing business.
Awesome case study Jon!
Andrew and Ken great work thus far, hopefully we get an update another year out 😉
I very much like how you tackled going after snippet traffic. I think the fact that you went after rich snippets is one of the reasons your site is doing so well organically. Several webmasters are behind the times in basic schema, so having your site packed with useful meta data is only going to help you rank more over time.
Keep it up!
Thanks Brent. I too ignore basic schema. Working with Andrew and Ken on this opened my eyes more to how effective snippets can be.
Well I remember you mentioned you were using rich Pintrest Pins so you were still doing a lot more than most!
This was a really helpful article… many fine points.
My main takeaways were the “featured snippet” thing
as I always wondered about those… and of course the emphasis, once again, on high quality articles.
It’s great to hear about success without link building too…
Thanks Jim. I agree the featured snippet angle is enlightening and something to keep in mind when crafting content.
Well written as usually, Very impressive strategy for ranking naturally and gaining Powerful backlinks.
I have started applying your Niche tycoon course on my site, I’m seeing an increase in the traffic gradually.
Good work for both of you
Please keep posting case studies like this one it’s very informative ??
Thanks Tarek for your comment and feedback about your success!!
Love seeing successes like this. Super inspiring. Nice work 🙂
Yup, I agree. Super inspiring and some smart effort too.
I’m curious about their Amazon affiliate disclosure placement in their pages. Are they placing it above their content, in the sidebar, footer or a combination?
Hey Christina,
the amazon affiliate disclosure is on every page in the footer. That’s where I put it on my sites too.
nice post. That is a lot of content to get written. Just curious did they just use a writing service or something like Upwork ? For decent researched content I would expect at least $20 per 1000 words to 600 article @ 1000word a piece adds up for initial site……but good to see content still performs well with no outreach
We did not use a writing service. We tried a few and it was garbage. We have an ex-pat friend living abroad (native speaker) and family.
But the pricing is about right–Yes the $12K is about what we put into it–more or less for writing. We lost money in 15′ and made a little in 16′–but reinvested. But this is where having a partner helps–as we both have demanding jobs unfortunately. It helped having the financial part and also the “keep you honest” and on track for the site–even when work/family does not leave a lot of free time. I think you can find good writers on upwork but people you know are a better option.
Hey Brian,
Andrew was kind enough to explain their content source in a more recent content. In a nutshell he said “We did not use a writing service. We tried a few and it was garbage. We have an ex-pat friend living abroad (native speaker) and family.”
Congrats on their success! I am curious about the author names on the author box of the articles. Do they show them or just keep them empty? If they are paying low rates and producing a ton of content then they probably are the type of website which prefers not showing the name of some random author from Text Broker or some content agency, e.g. Health Ambition. I am also struggling with this subject and debating which route to take with this. Thanks for sharing the experience!
Hey Wannapreneur,
No author box as far as I can tell… but I didn’t review every post. I think this is legit as content falls under website content. I do this too on niche sites. However, publishing under a pen name or real name with author box is obviously good too. It’s a choice. I suspect having a personality behind a site/article can be beneficial, but not necessary.
Some useful tips Jon. I would like to know if Andrew used a content outsourcing company or a writer’s marketplace for finding his remarkable content. I’m not shy about paying for content because I know the long term value of a great piece of content.
Hey Gary,
Andrew left a comment on this after your comment. He wrote “We did not use a writing service. We tried a few and it was garbage. We have an ex-pat friend living abroad (native speaker) and family.”
Nicely written. But i still don’t get the whole concept of keywords and how to use then. i’m new to blogging but already have close to 200 post. Although i created 2 years ago and i didn’t go near it for like a year and some months. Ever since i started managing the blog, traffic has been really poor but somehow i managed to get google adsense approval and i’ve been trying to maximize my traffic but nothing has worked for me. Maybe if i understand the concept of SEO and keywords, maybe i can improve in my traffic. Please help me on this
I volunteer in an organization that promotes public health by helping people understand evidence-based medicine. One thing I’ve learned is that you do actually need to have experts in the scientific field in order to read and summarize scientific studies. A layman usually lacks the overall context to do that properly and usually lacks the ability to properly assess a study as well.
I hope these guys also employ a physician and/or scientist that goes over their content and makes sure it really is in line with evidence-based medicine. Just “based on studies” isn’t nearly enough. Everyone thinks they’re “based on studies”, including homeopaths and anti-vaxxers. I have no idea what their niche is but since they’re doing such a great job reaching a growing audience, I hope they’ll read this and consider getting an actual scientist or physician with an evidence-based approach to overview their writers’ interpretation of the studies.
Hi Jon,
Thanks for putting out this case study and thanks to Andrew and Ken for being willing to share.
After following your coaching as well, I feel like I am right on the heels of where these guys are and it’s very motivating, since we all tend to work in a vacuum in internet marketing and don’t hear much feedback like this.
Hopefully, there will be another progress report soon…..if so, I look forward to it!
Hey Mark,
Thanks for your comment. Yeah, I too find the case studies very helpful for me and the feedback from readers proves it’s a popular type of post for sure. I have another one in the works.
An excellent post Jon,
I like the way you made a detailed analysis of the strategy. A question: “Sticky Ezoic Ad” – since Ezoic also uses Adsense ads, it doesnt go against their TOS right?
According to Ezoic, it’s fine as long as the sticky ad is through Ezoic. Ezoic is a certified Google publisher and they’re able to get exceptions for their publishers. I’m currently using Ezoic’s sticky ad in sidebar and yes it does dispaly AdSense ads.
Excellent strategy to build a niche site , It’s nice to see that you have generated a lot of traffic from Pinterest. Thanks Andrew and Ken for sharing the knowledge with us. Always content is king , and content marketing and keyword research plays a vital role in ranking on search engine. This is some great detail you’ve provided in this post. I appreciate you sharing your work with us and providing some good food for thought!
Hey Jon,
Indeed a great case study.
I have recently started working on some amazon niche sites and this case study will surely be helpful, although it is not directly related to amazon sites, but still very helpful points mentioned.
And of course thanks to Andrew and Ken for being inspiration.
It’s impressive that people make pretty good amount of money from their website. You are really an inspiration for me in blogging.
These case studies are really helpful for me. I am looking for such information so the I could direct my site in the right path.
I’m in blogging for more than 3 years and I’m implementing such strategies from you people expecting that it would be benefitted. Thank you!
Do you know if Amazon will introduce cross device tracking for affiliate commissions as there are so many people who start purchasing products on their smartphone but finish their order on a desktop or other device? Amazon does not pay commission in this instances so affiliate publishers are missing out on 60% of potential earnings..
Hi,
Great question. It is a problem and I have no idea if/when Amazon will do this. ShareASale and CJ.com do offer this and it’s a reason I promote more and more merchants from those networks.
I love this post. That give me some inspiration how to succes with blogging. Anyway.. I’m also blogger but still under performant. I now try with my effort to go like you.
Thanks anyway
Seems to be the case with everyone with brand new sites. The first 6-7 months, Google really keeps you out of the game, the once Google takes you off their newbie list the traffic starts to trickle in. I always wondered about Media.net.
Great case study! Fascinating that they are able to get so much traffic from Pinterest. Do they use large image and infographics at all or just standard photos?
Just slapping a few references to studies does not make it a quality site. If you study their Analytics stats closely, you will see that their pages per visitor are pretty low and their average session is not that long. Also, if they were a reputable health site citing studies, research papers, etc, why are they having an Amazon Native Shopping ad at the bottom of all their articles? You will know that Amazon often promotes herbal/natural pills for some of the conditions, which would instantly lose the site credibility in the eyes of the visitors.