Niche blog income report March 2023

($415.23) Niche Blog Income Report: March 2023

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After wasting away plenty of ad revenue in January and February on Newor Media, I moved my main site back to Ezoic and…

Well, the results continued to be as expected. Mediocre.

While affiliate revenue from Amazon was fairly steady, resulting in a total of $415.23 of niche site earnings from two sites.

That’s a 9.53% increase from February.

But the expenses for the month are pretty significant, more on that below.

Everything in these income reports is accurate to the “niche” sites I run. This doesn’t include any earnings or benefits from the “Niche Campus” brand.

To get more insights into my day-to-day tinkering with niche sites and other useful content, follow me on Twitter and get on my newsletter. You can also book a call with me.

What happened in March

March has been active and where I began knuckling down on some crazy PR ideas:

  • 5 new articles were published on Site 1:
    • One meaty product review with original images/content
    • One meaty informational article that surpassed the 4K wordmark
    • Two fairly simple informational articles were written by my assistant with heavy editing from me
    • One more article was published, which was helped by massive research by my assistant
    • One was a dynamic content page that I finally finished, hopefully adds more authority to the site as it provides essential info for the niche
  • Some updating older articles as usual, including improving product content with Lasso product boxes
  • Ezoic restarted on Site 1 in March. It has been producing the expected revenue
  • Built a PR project and launched it within 48 hours, started a big outreach campaign for it

Site #1 Google Search Console

Site 1 google search console for March 2023

Site 1 reached 20,600 organic clicks (+34.64%) and 927,000 impressions (+34.74%).

After seeing drops in GSC data for several months now, it’s nice to see a significant bump.

Although this is compared to the shortest month of the year (February), the numbers are still good with a solid 34% increase that is far higher than just more days in March.

It’s also positive that mid-March saw the latest Google core update, and traffic seemed to rise slightly during the first week and then stabilized. I haven’t seen any significant drops, just stable traffic, so it seems the update has most likely avoided the site altogether.

And I was hit pretty bad twice last year which halted progress, so here’s hoping I’m now on the nice side of Google.

Site #1 Analytics

Site 1 google analytics march 2023

Site 1 had 24,282 sessions in March 2023 (+25.68%)

Analytics shows a fair mix of stability and little spurts of growth, giving that quarter increase in traffic.

Again, this is the first improvement for a while.

In fact, February (last month) was the worst month for traffic since almost a year ago in March 2022. But more on that in the KPIs later on this report.

Site #1 EPMV (Ezoic)

Site 1 Ezoic EPMV March 2023

Site 1 is now back on Ezoic for March, so we can now see EPMV again. The height was a day in early March of $11.97 EPMV.

Site 1’s average EPMV for March 2023 was $6.96.

Site #1 Earnings (Ezoic)

Site 1 Ezoic Earnings March 2023

Site 1’s earnings for March 2023 from Ezoic were $169.81.

Site #1 Amazon Earnings

Site 1 Amazon Earnings March 2023

This site earned $155.91 from Amazon Associates in February.

$10 increase from February.

Nothing terrible, Amazon is continuing to be stable extra income that is challenging Ezoic (from far less articles) — just nothing extraordinary yet.

Site #1 Total Income

Here’s an overview of the total income for Site 1, as well as the two previous months:

January 2023February 2023March 2023
Ezoic$13.15$0$125.21
Ezoic Premium$9.49$0$35.69
Adsense$6.64$26.25$8.91
Newor Media$32.24$36.77$0
Amazon$244.24$142.92$155.91
Skimlinks$71.43$116.20$50.05
Direct Affiliates$22.67$0$16.56
Total Income$399.86$322.14$392.33
Running Total$5,756.36$6,078.50$6,470.83

Site 1 earned $392.33.14 in March (+21.79% from last month).

With Ezoic back on the site, earnings have increased from display ads. But in the same month, additional affiliate revenue coming in dropped a bit.

But, still, revenue is up on the record. Now just need to make much more of it!

Build the earnings, and build the authority. Both will benefit each other.

Here’s a summary of profit/loss for March 2023:

ItemAmount
Income (Month Total)$392.33
Expenses (Month Total)-$467.45
Profit/Loss (Month)-$75.12
Profit/Loss (All-Time)$373.54

The expenses are obscene for this month, and that’s what results in the first loss for several months.

I’m not happy about that!

But the reasons were that I put a lot of energy and money into a PR campaign I was working on.

Chunks of the money went on to domains, some AI tools to get it working, and outreach tools, all while other expenses have risen a little as well.

It was an interesting experiment, but sadly not one I think has presented the best results. Even so, I learned a ton from it.

With those learnings, I think I would be able to replicate similar strategies while spending a lot less in the future.

Site #1 Stats & Value

Here are some basic stats for the site for ending March 2023:

  • Articles published: 5
  • Total articles: 218
  • Blended RPM: $16.16

And here are some numbers on valuations for this site:

  • Last six months’ profit valuation: $6,494.66
  • Last six months’ revenue valuation: $16,836.75

Both these figures use the standard x35 multiplier for niche site valuation.

Site #1 Historical KPIs

Site 1 KPIs March 2023 update

An update to my KPI tracker, now showing the last year of progress.

Most numbers had been dropping since September 2022, but March is the first increase in impressions, clicks, sessions and revenue (although revenue drops Jan-Feb would have been avoided if I hadn’t dropped Ezoic for those months).

Any case, it is some solace in regrowth for the project.

The YouTube efforts in February have began paying off, as you can see a massive subscriber count change there and has been increasing every day. April will be another huge increase!

Site #2 Google Search Console

Site 2 google search console march 2023

Site 2 is pretty much flat.

I keep experimenting with this site, previously I talked about removing AI content (and I did that) but recently I’ve added a lot of that back and added a few more just to see what happens.

Site #2 Analytics

Site 2 google analytics march 2023

Site 2 had 3,102 sessions in March.

But there was an issue with Google Analytics integration for a few days, so it’s missing some data, but looks mostly flat on sessions.

Site #2 Income

Site 2 income march 2023

Site 2 made a little $22.90 in March 2023.

Overall Profit & Loss

Overall profit & loss March 2023

Here are the overall profit & loss stats for March 2023:

  • Site 1 had a $75.12 loss for the month and is $373.54 all-time profit
  • Site 2 had a $1.55 loss for the month and is $162.62 all-time profit
  • Sites 3&4 continue to include $2,595.42 profit due to being sold in May 2022
  • $76.67 loss for the month (ignore the month growth % above, I can’t be bothered to fix the calculation to handle loss!)
  • $3,131.58 all-time profit ending the month (-2.39%)

A bit of a downer this month in profitability, but with that in mind I’m committed to turning it around quickly in April.

There are some big expenses on the way, though, but I’ll be trying to cut costs wherever I can.

Final thoughts on March 2023

Back on Ezoic and glad to see Site 1 at least earning some reasonable income from ads.

I’ve put a lot of work into affiliate content recently, and it has slowed down a bit so I’m hoping for better things to come from affiliate across Amazon and other affiliate networks I’m using.

It’s at least good to see GSC data that shows Site 1 is making a bit of a comeback and showing a lot more in search results. It’s taken several months but it’s finally returning, closing in on 1 million impressions again which is where I expect it to be.

Next steps for April

Here are the current plans for April:

  • Working on a new PR project whereby I hope to finish and do outreach for it (but much more cheaply/strategic than before)
  • My assistant will start working on YouTube Shorts once again as the results there are picking up very fast
  • Continue improving affiliate content, updating them with Lasso product boxes, and writing new ones and trying out new types
  • I need to continue my research and improving my direction with topical authority for Site 1, as I know there’s plenty of work that can be done here to increase traffic and rankings
  • Keep costs low!!

See you next month.

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