Before planning to start a new blog, it is necessary to have a nice & creative blog name appropriate to your domain.

It has been too long since we announced the mortgage crushing challenge (MCC) to not have an update! But today I am happy to share how each of our sites are doing.

The short story is my site is now cresting over 1k visitors per day and on a nice growth trajectory but the earnings are not as good as I would like!

It was very clear at the time that there was A LOT of interest in how we would be building out these sites.

We have been working very hard on the sites(although not putting in as much time as we would like) and not keeping people updated as much as we would have liked! So I apologize for that!

This post is to give you a glimpse into both the mindset and stats for the site so far!

If you are building out your site I hope it is going well. If you are looking for some help to get started or keep things going have a look at these options…

• Niche Selection & Building of the Site – BrandBuilders.io
• Done for You Content Marketing – ContentRefined.com
• Backlinks to Push the Site – LightningRank.com

Jon’s Update:

What does this challenge mean to you?

Adding another solid earning affiliate site to my portfolio and one that covers mortgage payments would be great!

As my other projects continue to take up more and more time it is important that I keep testing and tweaking my site creation process to keep validating what is working in this space

How many hours a week do you work on your site?

Initially, I put in about 10hrs to really map out my project and then since then I have been putting in about 1hr per week which usually consists of checking my stats, completing additional keyword research and coming up with new monetization strategies.

How did you come up with your niche?

My niche is pretty general as I wanted to try my hand at building a larger content site focusing heavily on content that could truly be evergreen. So the site covers a very wide range of topics.

What have you focused on over the last 4 months?

LOTS of content and leveraging expired domains. For me it has been about putting out a LOT of content targeting super low competition but valuable enough keywords.

What has been a big challenge with your site?

There have been 2 major issues…

1. The amount of time I have been putting into the project is sub-optimal!
2. My earnings per visitor are weak and I need to improve this!

What are you focusing on for the next few months?

More of the same to keep pushing the traffic up and then I really need to start working on getting my earnings up! But right now the focus is in trying to keep pushing the traffic up on this site so that when I do focus more on monetization I have a TON of traffic to play with.

How are you monetizing it?

AdSense and only AdSense right now. Pretty boring and its not working well!

What’s your content creation plan?

Target low competition keywords that are evergreen in nature (will be searched in 5 years time at the same amount they are now). Keep pushing out a lot of content for the site leveraging the process we use at ContentRefined.com to create content that ranks!

What is your backlinking plan?

I have only leveraged expired domains. Both PBN links (10 site done for you PBN) and 3 301 building blocks have been leveraged.

Sites Data

• Cost to Date = ~$500/month
• Earnings to Date = $256

Google Analytics

So overall with traffic going to over 1k visitors per day I am happy with the traffic growth and will keep pushing on what is working!

Kelley’s Update

What does this challenge mean to you?

My husband and I have been renting for the last few years and we want to eventually buy a house. What I hope to get out of this challenge is not only to learn more about building income websites but I also want to be able to financially help us to get a home that we can buy. I hope that by the end of the year, I will be able to build my site up enough to be able to pay for my rent and eventually my monthly mortgage when we get a house.

How many hours a week do you work on your site?

Every week varies depending on the workload I have, however, I try to get in at least 2 hours a week on my site. Sometimes I would spend 3-4 evenings working on getting the content templates create for my for my writers, but usually I am around the 2-3 hour per week mark.

How did you come up with your niche?

I have always wanted to do the type of site I am creating. I had a few options in mind that were very specific but I choose a niche that will take quite a bit of ‘elbow’ work to make an impact in.

What have you focused on over the last 4 months?

Over the last 4 months my biggest focus has been on getting a good solid base of content created for the site.

What has been a big challenge with your site?

A big challenge I am currently having with my site is getting visitors to it. I have quite a few good keywords that I am ranking in the high 10-20’s that I have been trying to get onto page 1. I have started to get some link building in place so I hope I am able to see some movement from that.

What are you focusing on for the next few months?

Over the next few months I want to be able to continue to push out some quality content, while executing quality backlinks to those articles. I also want to improve the layout of my articles in order to make it more user-friendly.

How are you monetizing it?

Currently I am monetizing the site via Amazon. But due to the new advertising fee structure I may look to some other affiliate options on CJ or Shareasale.

What’s your content creation plan?

My current content creation plan has been to get a massive pillar article created and then get smaller supporting articles that can interlink the the pillar article. I also intend to do a lot more keyword research in order to find lower competition keywords in my niche regardless of search volume just so I can get more visitors to my site.

What is your backlinking plan?

I have done a variety of backlinking strategies over the last few months to try and get the site moving. I first started off with looking at some of my competitors sites to see where they were getting some of their links from to see which ones I could replicate. I did see that some backlinks were coming just from blog posting so I did the same thing. That seemed to help get the ball rolling. After that I did some research and decided to give the scholarship route a try. I sent out about 300 emails and got backlinks from 3 different schools. Not to great on the conversion but it was better than nothing. Currently I am using our Use My PBN service to help point some links to some of my articles that just need an extra little push.

During the next few months I am going to continue with the blog commenting (around 5-10 per week), possible get a few editorial links created, continue to use the Use My PBN service and I might outreach out to a few more schools with the scholarship route again.

Sites Data

Analytics

SerpFox

Maddie’s Update

What does this challenge mean to you?

• This challenge has really been about learning for me. When I started working with Kelley and Jon I had no idea what an “income website” was. I’m using this as a way to learn more about the “bigger picture” of the business so that in the end I can relate to my customers on a really real level. Some extra income is always nice too.

How many hours a week do you work on your site?

• I generally put around 2 hours a week in depending on how busy my week is. I do like to try and publish my own content as much as possible as thrive is always updating and I like to be up to date on it.

How did you come up with your niche?

• I came up with my Niche as it was something that I personally just really like. I wouldn’t say it’s a passion of mine but it definitely comes from personal interest

What have you focused on over the last 4 months?

• I’ve really just focused on getting quite a bit of content on my site at this point. I wanted to go after the obvious ones at first and I’m still working on that.

What has been a big challenge with your site?

• I know this is a really lame excuse- but time! Time has been such a struggle as I feel guilty using my time to grow something that isn’t of any use to the business. Content Refined was just launched in November and I’ve been working really hard on it. If I’m going to be on the computer working on something, it’s hard for it not to be Content Refined related!

What you are focusing on for the next few months?

• The next few months I want to focus on a better and more strategic content plan. I also want to start organizing my site a bit better as I have a lot of content and want to create some backlinking strategies with existing content etc..

How are you monetizing it?

• Well, I applied for google adsense a few weeks after I started ranking for Keywords and I got rejected, so now I’m going to apply for Amazon after I complete a full audit on my site. I have quite a few review articles on there now that are starting to rank so hopefully that will be a better strategy.

What’s your content creation plan?

• Initially I went after a bunch of the low hanging fruit for my initial round of content. Now that I can see what’s a hit and what’s not, I will create a custom content plan with about 4 different silos and build from there.

What is your backlinking plan?

• Currently I don’t have a backlinking plan. Once my site gets a bit bigger, I intend to buy a 5 site PBN package from lightning rank and get some consistent backlinking done.

Sites Data

Analytics