170,000 Monthly Pageviews with >100 Articles (Seasonal Niche)
In January 2021, we noticed our garden website had great revenue for most of the year, but suffered in the winter. So, we set off to brainstorm ways to increase revenue during these months and found an idea for a niche for winter homes.
Here’s how we built it.
| Timeline | Number of Articles | Results |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 2021 | 0 | 0 Monthly Pageviews |
| Sep 2021 | 62 | 4,000 Monthly Pageviews |
| Dec 2021 | 62 | 61,000 Monthly Pageviews |
| Dec 2022 | 97 | 169,000 Monthly Pageviews |
1. Conception
We had our idea, but we needed a domain name. So, we used some domain name generators and found a great domain.
We stared at it for a several long minutes, unsure how this one was even available.
After checking the domain marketplace, and looking up the domain history, we were shocked. Here we had a short domain name, with the keyword in it, and it was aged for 17 years on a non-spammy site?
We somehow hit the jackpot for $12.
2. Seed
So, we set out building the website. It took half a day from buying the domain to installing the WordPress theme and designing a quick logo.
We had our winter site.
Now, we needed content.
We began doing some keyword research and identifying topic clusters. After finding about 30 topics, we started writing the first 15 topics ourselves to seed the site. These articles had to be on-point as they’d serve as the foundation for the entire site.
3. Delegating
Next, we set to hiring some writers to get some content in to rank before winter came. As it takes between 3 to 8 months on average for articles to rank, we had to work quickly.
So, we hired, trained, and managed the writers to output content with a goal of getting it to an 8/10 in quality (or as close to it as possible).
We juggled the few sites, publishing content for both, keeping the timing of ranking and the seasons in mind.
By winter, we had 62 articles.
And we started to see some strong signals our approach was working. Many of the articles were pulling in thousands of visitors per month, with one getting over 10,000 views per month.
Combine this with the high ad spend in Q4, and that the site was in the home niche, and it was generating a healthy income.
| Month | Results |
|---|---|
| Sep 2021 | 4,000 Monthly Pageviews |
| Oct 2021 | 9,000 Monthly Pageviews |
| Nov 2021 | 18,000 Monthly Pageviews |
| Dec 2021 | 61,000 Monthly Pageviews |
4. Compounding
With the first season over, and spring soon arriving, we shifted our focus to our gardening website.
After the summer, we knew we had to get to work on this site if we wanted the new articles to rank in time for winter.
So we assigned articles to our writers, and they added another 35 articles to the site. This, combined with the existing, aged articles, meant we saw a nice increase in the site’s growth.
The site ended up attracting 600,000 visitors in the first 2 years, with less than 100 articles.
| Month | Results |
|---|---|
| Sep 2022 | 30,000 Monthly Pageviews |
| Oct 2022 | 53,000 Monthly Pageviews |
| Nov 2022 | 94,000 Monthly Pageviews |
| Dec 2022 | 169,000 Monthly Pageviews |
Main Takeaways
We successfully made a site that off-set our income and stabilized the business during the fall and winter. While we lucked out with the domain name, most of the articles we targeted were winners and in most months were driving an average of 1,000 visitors per article per month.
This was done by carefully selecting topics that were related and could be internal linked easily. While many competitors were focusing on broad subjects and pumping out as many articles as possible, we niched down and had a tight 100 article group.
Today, the site is still performing well with about 15,000 to 20,000 monthly pageviews in the off-season. We’re looking forward to the winter months and seeing how the site performs this year!
