When I started this blog, it wasn’t out of intent to make money. It was more to document my journey to FI. Writing about what I believe will help me toward FI. If I had wanted to make money from the beginning, I wouldn’t start with personal finance, as it is a very competitive niche.
So somewhere along the way, I found out that certain types of content seem to yield more organic views. Organic views are the ones that can help you get accepted into a Ads program to earn Ads revenue. So I started branching out to writing those types of content.
And from there, once I had the views I needed, I applied to Ezoic and a few others. But only Ezoic came back with approval. But with Ezoic, you need to pay a fee in order to get into their premium Ads partner (the ones that will pay you more per view). You will get notified when you reach that tier, and it usually make sense to pay for it, cause you will earn back the fees plus even more ad revenues.
How much can you make from blogging?
Honestly, it depends. I’ll explain.
One of my content on crypto blew up, and at one point, I was getting 30k organic views from this site. At that point, I tried applying to Mediavine, but was sadly rejected. I think it was because more than 50% of the views were from this single post.
Anyway, during this point where I had my highest views, I was making almost USD$1000 (after deducting the fees). This the highest I’ve earned.
Since crypto winter, most of my views also went into winter mode. I now make around USD$25 (after deducting fees).
So the problem with this site is, I write topical content. It means that most of what I write will no longer be relevant in a years time. With crypto content, it’s even shorter. I need to be constantly finding trends in finance to write in order to keep up with the page views. At some point, it just seem like another job I had to do.
Blog number 2
As this blog was growing last year, I decided to start another blog at that same time. I grew smarter. I picked a niche that is evergreen and is also low competition. I managed to start ranking for those keywords that I was targeting.
My page views are doing great. I recently added more articles in sep, which is why you see the increase.
There is only 1 problem. I have absolutely no interest in this niche. Which is why I have only written 9 articles in the 1 year plus. ( I think i only had 4 posts published for a year, until I added more in sep)
If I have to been writing as regularly as I have in this blog, I think I would have been able to apply for Mediavine again.
Blog number 3
With the lessons learnt from these 2 blogs
- pick a niche that you have interest in
- pick a niche that you can write evergreen content
- pick a low competition niche
Here I am again, trying to start another blog for the 3rd time.
I started a 3rd blog last week. I think it hits the first 2 points, however, it is not as low competition as the 2nd blog, but definitely lower than the personal finance niche.
I have so far published 16 articles. And none of those are on the 1st page of SERP for the keywords I’ve targeted.
Here’s how it’s faring so far. No clicks so far. (ignore the 4 clicks, as i clicked on those to make sure my site is working)
It is probably too soon to know if this site will work out or not. I’ll update in a years time.
Summary
I think I got lucky with this blog, to be able to even make some money out of it.
To find a niche that is low competition, interests you and be able to write evergreen contents, is hard. To make money out of it, is even harder. You have to publish content regularly, in order to find out what works.
And once you find that certain type of content it attracting organic page views, then you have to continue and press on for at least a year to be able to see any results.
Writing content is not as easy as it seems. A lot of hidden work that goes on behind a blog. If you are planning to monetized a blog, be prepared to put in hard work, before seeing any money rolling in.