Last year I went on a site building spree. Tried all kinds of things including aged domains, new domains, buying sites (inexpensive sites) all in addition to growing my bread and butter sites.
Some stuff worked.
Some stuff is wait and see.
Some stuff tanked (but maybe not hopeless).
After nearly a year of throwing all kinds of new sites at the Web, I’ve come to the following conclusions:
- Keyword research matters.
- Good content matters. It doesn’t need to be amazing but it needs to be decent in most niches. That said, it’s possible my dirt cheap content sites could still work.
- Aged domains are hit or miss. When they hit, they can hit big. When they miss, it’s brutal.
- I’m a terrible fit for some niches… namely niches with fewer more competitive keywords. I suspect we all have our strengths and weaknesses. The faster you figure it out, the better. See new site 7 below. Yikes.
- Experimenting is good but should be done in moderation (I went overboard). Avoid having too many sites not earning money.
- Ad revenue per 1,000 visitors makes a difference. I’m more motivated to invest and grow sites that earn more per 1,000 visitors than the others.
- Seeding sites and waiting is a viable long term multi-site strategy. On the flip side to having sites not earning, I’ve launched some new successes that I may not have discovered had it not been for launching a good number of site.
- Luck plays a part. Sometimes some keywords work out that you didn’t expect and sometimes keywords you thought a sure thing are a bust. You never know.
Let’s break it down site by site.
I’ll kick this analysis off with my most successful new sites launched over the last 12 months. These are three new sites I’m focusing on for the next year (in addition to my established money makers):
Let’s kick off with the 3 winners
New Site 1:
New site 1 is doing very well. It’s earning $60 to $80 per day from ads with Mediavine. It’s increasing fast.
How many published posts? 496
Cost per post: $60 on average.
Secret of its success:
1. Good keywords: I found great keywords (hundreds of them… potentially thousands). I accidentally stumbled on the keyword concept but recognized it was a good opportunity. I had other plans for the site initially.
2. I figured out how to generate exceptional good content for this site for not a ton of money.
What would I do differently? Nothing.
In the end, this site came together nicely.
New Site 2:
Revenue: I’m getting Mediavine ads on it this week.
Number of published articles: 82
Cost per post: $80 on average. The articles tend to be fairly long (2K words on average).
This site is an example of how seeding a niche can work great. I seeded it with about 50 articles early on. Come early 2022, it proved to be a break-away site that is definitely worth growing. I have 100 more articles delivered and about to be published with many more article orders soon to be placed. I’ll be ramping up this site in 2022.
Secret of its success: Good keywords… I launched this site in this niche because I stumbled on a very good keyword angle for the niche. If it weren’t for that I wouldn’t have entered this niche.
Content quality: Decent. Not earth shattering. It’s good. It does the job, but certainly not awesome.
What would I do differently? Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but had I known this site would have been a break-away hit, I’d have not launched many of the other sites and instead put far more into this one.
Lesson learned: Gotta be patient to see what will work and won’t work (or at least won’t work as well).
New Site 3:
Revenue: No ads on it yet. I had to change Analytics from G4 to UA in order to apply to Mediavine. I’m waiting to get thirty days of UA Analytics traffic before applying. I may need to wait for traffic to be higher as well which I don’t think will take too long.
Number of published articles: 225
Cost per post: This is one of the cheapest per article sites I’ve ever published… for very good content. The cost per article for this site is around $23. Sorry, I’m not revealing how this was done because that gives away the niche. And no, it’s not AI content.
Secret of its success is also keyword selection and having found a way to produce what is excellent content for next to nothing in cost.
What would I do differently? Nothing except install UA analytics on it right away. G4 Analytics is fine except ad platforms like Mediavine require UA.
Okay, those are the successes.
Sadly, it’s not all sunshine and butterflies.
The wait and see what happens sites (borderline successful sites)
New site 4
Revenue: none. It’ll be a bit before it’ll qualify for ads.
Number of published posts: 70
Cost per post: $65 (a real mix of long and short content).
The traffic growth is okay but it’s a bit low for 70 articles compared to some other sites. It’s borderline. I know the niche decently so I think in the long run I’ll grow it. Lots of easy keywords but it’s not the most lucrative niche (hence my current reluctance to pour money into right now).
Lesson learned: It’s a great niche keyword-wise but weak on revenue so I’m not particularly keen to shovel more into it for now especially when other niches are more lucrative.
New site 5
Revenue: no ads yet.
Number of published posts: 14
Cost per post: $65 (a real mix of long and short content).
Traffic growth for only 14 posts is exceptional. That almost makes this site a big success. The problem is I can’t see my way to 500 posts… yet. I’m still figuring it out. I’m familiar with the niche and the revenue is potentially decent. If I can figure out a keyword research approach to get 500 good articles on the site, I’ll continue building it.
There’s a lot to learn about this outlier site. With only 14 posts it’s doing great. Content is okay (not awesome). It boils down to excellent keywords… problem is I’ve gone after all the good keywords I can come up with for now.
The absolute train wreck sites
Last year I launched 10 sites. 5 were either a success or borderline. 5 are so far dismal failures. That doesn’t mean they’ll never succeed but for now it’s not looking good. Check these out:
New Site 6
Revenue: No revenue.
Number of published posts: 33
Cost per post: $65 on average
33 posts isn’t very many to make a decision but it’s not exactly doing much of anything. That’s why it’s a continue wait and see. I have another 20 articles to be published to see if that moves the needle.
New Site 7
Revenue: None.
Number of published posts: 100
Cost per post: $75 on average
100 posts for that traffic is a joke. Big failure. I can’t see this site ever working out. It’s a competitive niche. I never should have entered it.
New Site 8
Revenue: None
Number of published posts: 1,033
Cost per post: $18 on average. Some far less some a bit more.
I should categorize sites 8 through 10 maybe sites. It’s too early to know what’s going to happen. Any success they might enjoy is delayed due to early mistakes. Now that all three are on fresh domains as of February 2022, I need to wait at least 6 months to see what happens.
New site 8 is the 1 million words in three months site. It’s currently a train wreck in every way. I did manage to get around 1 million words published in 3 to 4 months which was cool. However, I did dumb stuff. I moved it to an aged domain in an effort to spike growth. After several months on the aged domain, no urls were indexed. I moved it to a new fresh domain in February 2022 (different than the initial fresh domain).
The plus side is that when I moved the 1 million plus words to the current new domain it was akin to launching a site with 1 million plus words all at once. I did not redirect any of the other sites to it. It’s a fresh 1 million word launch.
Here’s the thing though… the content is NOT great. I paid very little for the content (around $.012 per word). It’s a blitz build experiment. This might work out in the long run but for now it’s not looking good. I should have left it alone on its original fresh domain.
It was the success of my first aged domain site that inspired moving it to an aged domain.
New Site 9
Revenue: none
Number of published posts: 52
Cost per post: $18 – it’s another very low cost content experiment. I’m talking dirt cheap.
This site along with new site 10 below were both launched on aged domains. It’s also cheap content (lots more content coming very soon). The aged domain didn’t work so I moved both new site 9 and 10 to fresh domains February 2022. I did NOT do any redirects from the aged domains to the fresh domains.
I have 250 posts ordered for this site. I’m stretched right now getting it all formatted but should get it all published over the next month or two. I’ll then let it sit to see if it works.
New Site 10
Revenue: none
Number of published posts: 156
Cost per post: $18 – it’s another very low cost content experiment. I’m talking dirt cheap.
I also have 250 posts ordered for this site. Once published, I’ll let it sit and see what happens.
Sites 9, 10 and 11 aren’t necessarily write-offs yet. They’re experiments; potentially costly experiments.
Which new site is the biggest success?
Currently, New Site 1 is since it’s earning very well and growing but I have a hunch New Site 2 will eclipse it within 6 to 12 months. The only reason I say this is there are far more keywords to go after for that niche plus I expect it’ll pay far more per 1,000 visitors.
Which site is the biggest failure?
I’d have to say New Site 11. With 100 posts published it gets hardly any traffic after 8 months. A total bust.
Site 9, though, if it doesn’t get traffic could be the biggest flop financially given how much I shovelled into content and an aged domain.
Are any of the above sites in the Fat Stacks income reports?
Two of them are.
New Site 1 above is Site 11 in the income reports.
New Site 8 is Site 12 in the income reports (the 1 million words in three months site).
The rest aren’t included. They’re not even making money… yet.
Jon, as it currently stands, you’re batting .500 which seems like really BAD odds and that’s for someone who has done this for years. Is there any point to launching a site given those odds?
I can’t answer that question but it does give you pause, doesn’t it? Keep in mind that I wrote none of the content above. Three of the 5 failed sites are highly experimental (dirt cheap content launched on aged domains).
Three of the 5 successful/borderline sites were only really seeded to this point. I didn’t go all out. Had I launched just one site all those months ago, there would be more content on that one site.
If you’re concerned (and you should be), improve your odds as follows:
- Focus on good content.
- Choose a niche with tons of lower competition keywords. My biggest failure is a highly competitive niche with a limited number of keywords. Launch going after keywords you can rank for relatively easily.
- Play it safe with a fresh domain. Aged domains can work but they can fail too which can set you back many months and thousands of dollars.
While doing the above three things doesn’t guarantee success but I believe it’ll help. Also, if you’re building just one site, you’ll be able to publish more and better content than I could on my better quality sites. Those I just seeded to determine what would offer the best opportunity after 6 months.
If starting out, don’t launch multiple sites like
If you’re just getting started focus on one site. As you can see, throwing lots of content at sites is no sure thing and it’s hard to build out multiple sites at once. The only reason I do this is in an effort to diversify my sites, create some sites to flip down the road and curiosity to see what will work (hence some of the experimental sites).
What about my other established sites… am I still building those out?
Yes, I am. I’m focusing on two of them (Sites 1 and 9 in the income reports, both of which earn very nicely and continue to have good potential. They’re bread and butter sites). The rest I kick along. They’re little positive cash flow sites. The problem with two of them (sites 3 and 6) is that they don’t earn that great per 1,000 visitors. Again, how much a niche pays can make a difference.
Am I launching new sites in 2022?
I doubt it. I want to focus on the three new sites launched last year that are proving successful as well as grow my two established successful sites.
However, one never knows. It’s only February. Come fall I may get the itch to launch more.
When will the income reports be updated?
Hopefully soon. I got behind and that tends to snowball. I’ll get to them. In a nutshell, nothing much has changed since the last one published in September 2021.
Jon Dykstra is a six figure niche site creator with 10+ years of experience. His willingness to openly share his wins and losses in the email newsletter he publishes has made him a go-to source of guidance and motivation for many. His popular “Niche site profits” course has helped thousands follow his footsteps in creating simple niche sites that earn big.
Hi Jon,
Thanks for this great post!
Just one question, how do you get Mediavine ads on site 2 with less than 300 daily sessions? Are they more lenient with requirements if you already have a site with them?
Thanks!