AI Blog Case Study (0-$22,000+ Per Month in Under a Year with Mediavine)
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- čas přidán 30. 06. 2024
- I started a brand new blog in January 2023. Using heavily edited AI content, I grew this site from $0 to $22,000+ in monthly display ad income by December 2023. 👇
🤖 AI writing tool used in case study (Koala) ➡️ koala.sh/?via=bgyoutube
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Awesome video & thanks for sharing! I first heard about this on the niche podcast so I had to check out your videos 💁♀️💕😍
Thanks 🙂
This is incredibly insightful! Thanks for sharing these monetization strategies
My pleasure!
Hey, I heard about you from Ricky from P24 (it was a YT live stream on their channel), and thank you for sharing some insights from your journey! I am going to consider Koala. PS. Where is the excitement? I would be super excited 😀. Congrats again on your success!
Thanks! And haha yes it was very exciting but I was also pretty tired after grinding away at my sites non stop for more than a year straight! 😅
Hi Casey, somehow I found your website and I have to say you did an amazing job. Looks good, but more importantly, it doesn't scream Ai all over the place. There are posts where I can kinda tell, but probably it is because I know it is Ai. Keep it up 👍
Thank you so much! There are several now lol 😂
Thanks for producing this video Casey, I know I have asked you a lot of questions in the FS forum and I appreciate your time and feedback!
No worries Shawn! I'm happy to help bloggers any way I can. That's why I did this video (trying to address many questions in one central place).
@@CaseyBotticello Why are so many authoritative and influential marketers saying Niche Sites are dead?? I see recent case studies such as your own that show this business model is still alive and well. And by the fact you are currently ramping up multiple sites So many mixed messages, it's so irritating!!!! I understand this is a skill that is built over time but why so much doom and gloom.
@monetaryprotocol I get it. But keep in mind both things can be true at once. As I explained in the slide with costs, AI technology is what makes this model so attractive despite the risk. And there is risk, but that’s a natural trade off for the high rewards (even valuing my own time very highly, we are talking 30%+ annualized returns). If I had to spend 100x on a team of freelance writers, I wouldn’t ever go after these new and largely exploratory niches. I am still using writers and writing myself, but only for the sites that still make sense in a post HCU blogging future. I hope this helps!
@CaseyBotticello How do we learn to recognize what niches can be successful in a post HCU world. It it as simple as failing, or do the steps you provide in your guides still hold some nuggets that can be a barometer to choosing successful niches? And by successful, I mean from 5k per month and more. How do we keep from going through the insanity of throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, or has HCU mad this world all just chance?
@Dipmedia I don’t think my advice for niche selection has changed much from before HCU-avoid YMYL niches first and foremost, look for niches or topic clusters where there are clear gaps in topical coverage, and make sure your niche is narrow enough that you can build topical authority relatively quickly.
Just coming here after Ricky from Income School mentioned your case study in his YT live this morning. So encouraging! I'd like to transition to using AI to write first drafts for my future blog posts as well. I've been blogging for 10 years and only saw real success after following Income School/Project 24 methods the last 3 years. Would you be willing to share any advice about editing AI drafts and making them more human? (Besides adding in personal stories/experiences.)
Thanks @emilysego2400! I just went back and watched the Income School live stream and saw my mention-very cool and I would have missed that, so thanks for sharing!
In response to your question:
1. Use the right tool. While you can generate AI articles with many tools, the better ones have different “styles” or “personas” that you can select. This is one of the easiest ways to make your post sound less robotic.
2. Add lots of images, infographics, or other visual content. I added custom images to each post which I believe played a major role in making my content sound more natural.
3. Rewrite the intro and title completely. These are the sections that I find it most challenging to get AI tools to write in a catchy and compelling way. It is much easier to just use the ai content (with some editing) for the rest of the article but to completely rewrite the title and intro.
A few questions:
1. Why is it so hard to find editors? What is it about this particular kind of editing work that makes it difficult?
2. Where did the expert quotes come from?
3. How would the human-written intros/conclusions be different from what the AI created?
You know what would make a great video/blog post? Doing an '"over-the-shoulder" tutorial of this editing process from start to finish -- what you change/add, why you change/add it, and how you change/add to it.
Thanks for the video and sharing all this.
1. It is not so much that the editing work itself is that hard, rather, the ideal editor would have both subject matter expertise and understand where AI tends to fail. I don't think it's impossible to find or train someone on this, but it would drive up the cost per article significantly.
2. The expert quotes were from a few days where I did some cold outreach to professors, other bloggers, and professionals in the industry (usually via email social media). I just asked them a few simple questions on a number of topics, asked if I could use their responses in my article, and while only a small number agreed, those that did usually gave me several great quotes, that I could sprinkle throughout multiple articles.
3. The intros/conclusions that I wrote would usually strike a more informal tone and were less about synthesizing or summarizing content of article (which is what most AI tools do), and instead focused on quickly answering a question, while also providing some sort of hook to keep the reader reading. You probably could keep refining the intro or conclusion by themselves using ChatGPT and get something decent, but this was an area that AI seemed to struggle with, so it was more efficient to just do it myself.
I like your suggestions! I'll try to come up with some examples and do a video with it. It's just a bit harder to show this since I rely on my niche specific knowledge quite a bit in this process...but I'll try to find a topic that works for a video!
This was so cool! I love test cases like this. I have a lot of questions but will limit it to two. Is the site just one silo on one particular part of this tech? Or was it broader with multiple silos? I'm trying to determine how narrow to go. Also, what is the best tool to use to determine sessions? Thanks!!
It’s really 3-4 closely related silos. They are distinct subtopics but lots of overlap between them. You could argue they all art part of a single silo within tech. Just different styles of articles (tutorials, tech news, industry players, reviews, etc.). If you can start with a single solo though, this is closer to what I did and it worked really well for fast initial growth. I only use GA to track sessions (prior to getting into MV/Raptive, and then I use those dashboards too, but they are based of Google Analytics data).
Great to see the case study working so well showcasing advantages of edited AI articles. Few questions though
1. Seems like traffic has been going lower towards the end of the year. Did it come back up? or is probably a temporary dip ?
2. Do you think EEAT signal matters more from the website homepage(physical address and phone number) or author bios?
3. Am I right to conclude that content on a branded named domain will work better than a generic named domain(both being niche specific names though)?
1. It was just the normal end of December drop. It will reach its previous ATH in terms of traffic or get very close in January.
2. I have seen enough sites without any EEAT signals do well, that I’m skeptical of it overall. That said, for making any site appear more like an authority, things like addresses and phone numbers help, although I only used an address on this site. I think having a persona with all the profile backlinks and schema set up correctly are more important.
3. This is my general experience (assuming the content is also high quality). But I have other sites that are EMDs doing well too so it’s hard to say. It does seem to help CTR which is definitely an important metric.
"Absolutely blown away by this AI Blog Case Study! 🌟✨ I'm eager to dive into the details and apply these insights to my own strategy. Kudos on the incredible success! 🙌💡 #AIBlog #Inspiration"
You're so welcome!
Hey, Casey, congrats on your work in general and on this endeavor in particular! Well done, it's highly motivating! Did you by any chance use one of these SEO optimization/helper tools such as Surfer? Thanks.
I don’t use any on page seo optimization tools. So I don’t use Yoast, surfer, or any tool that might encourage me to change my article and make it more SEO focused. You don’t need to be an amazing writer to edit the content-but make sure you answer questions up front, customize titles and intros, and make sure you are offering asides that a real human writer would include ( information gain) that is not in any competing articles.
@@CaseyBotticello Awesome, man, many thanks for taking the time to reply. Best of luck with your other projects!
@@helvecioguimaraes Thanks! And likewise!
Impressive! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for watching 🙂
Hey Casey, thank you so much for sharing, this was super insightful! I just started a recipes blog and it's a very competitive niche, do you have any tips & tricks on how can I make it a success?
I’ll admit I have limited experience with recipe blogs but I’m in a few masterminds with food and cooking bloggers, and I’d suggest:
1. Niching down-don’t let your recipe blog become a lifestyle/parenting/fashion mega blog. If anything, dive deeper into the diets and nutritional preferences of your audience.
2. Hold off on display ads until you can get into MV or Raptive. You can get very high RPMs on these networks.
3. Focus on building an email list, driving some social traffic, or creating video content. Organic search traffic is still probably the highest roi but it has become more volatile. One nice thing about recipe blogs is they are very conducive to Pinterest boards, Facebook pages, or video.
Hope these help!
Great overview Casey. Two questions if I may. 1. Where are your thoughts on applying this strategy to an established site that's in the, say, DR40 realm, and already ranking for tons of KWs? I can't think of any reasons why this wouldn't work (so long as content quality is decent), but keen to hear your thoughts. 2. Regarding your content mix, did you / do you plan to add any affiliate articles (round ups, etc.) along with what I assume are predominantly info articles?
1. I completely agree-I don’t see why this wouldn’t work.
2. I did some affiliate style listicles (just a few) but I just skipped inserting any links. But now that I have some time, I’ll go back and try to find a few high paying programs! But yes, probably 90% of content would be considered info content.
Thanks for sharing! Seeing the RPM was super helpful. I've got a blog with AI content with 1m monthly sessions I haven't monetized yet. Looks like I'm leaving a huge pile of money on the table!
Glad it was helpful! And wow with 1 million sessions I’d say you’re definitely leaving money on the table and should monetize! Congrats!
@@CaseyBotticello Thanks! I applied to mediavine, do you think they'll accept a site whose content is mostly programming? (Python, Java), or would you recommend something else?
@@CaseyBotticello thanks, appreciate it! Got some basic tags set up today but trying to get into the other networks you recommended in your videos. Any ideas if programming content such as python pays well or if any specific network is good for it?
@@IOFLOOD Programming tutorials are a fantastic niche, and I can almost guarantee you'll have a high RPM. I'd still aim for Mediavine or Raptive, but if you don't want to wait you could always try Google AdSense just to get a very rough sense of where your RPMs are at.
@@CaseyBotticello Great! I've applied to both. Hope to get approved soon, fingers crossed : )
Hi Casey,
Thanks for the wonderful insights about AI blogging and showing us that this can all be done successfully with the correct strategy!
Since niche selection is extremely important, are there any specific niches you think wouldn't work with an AI writer? Examples like hobby sites such as fashion, pets and etc?
Thanks for watching! I'm not sure if there are specific niches that won't work with an AI writer (because with enough editing, anything can be perfected). But some of the niches I'd avoid would include news or current events, anything with political or social commentary, or any YMYL niche (less because an AI writer couldn't do it, but more because these niches are highly scrutinized by Google anyway).
Great info, thanks! What Wordpress theme and Plugins are you using on the site that you spoke of?
On all my sites I use something super light weight (I’ve since switched the theme a few times on this site) but I usually start with/use GeneratePress, Trellis, or Kadence. These are all comparable in speed. I also tested astra which was good but required more plugins.
For plugins, I keep it the bare minimum. I usually start a site with Yoast, a redirection plugin, WPMU DEV Dashboard, and Asset Cleanup Pro. I’ll use other various plugins for a day or two when editing, like WP meta, smoosh, or other image compression themes, but once I use these plugins for their purpose, I make sure to remove them to keep bloat down. Asset CleanUp Pro (and even free version) are great for stripping bloated code from plugins and CSS minification.
Wow, this is helpful 🙏@@CaseyBotticello
This was great no hype info. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for the details! 🙏@@CaseyBotticello
@@rauldablaing Thanks! That means a lot as that was my intention!
Thank you so much Casey! It was like a pulling the curtain back on your case study. I found lots of tidbits that should help my own AI site! TY! *since you hit your 750 article plan, will you continue to add content or just let it sit?*
I’m glad it was useful! I’m going to add maybe 5-10 posts per month, covering topics I enjoy or are somewhat newsworthy. Maybe try to get some of that discover traffic 😂
@@CaseyBotticello I've heard discover traffic is addictive, haven't figured it out yet, but FB is definitely becoming addictive for me! I love the almost instant feedback with my audience ❤️
Same here! I’ve had some luck but no consistent replicable strategy for discover. Facebook is also on my road map to learn more about so maybe I’ll test that a bit and report back my findings!
@@CaseyBotticello I'm calling my FB strategy "spaghetti on the wall". I'm trying lots of different things to see what works and doubling down on what does work. So far I have found a few that work and are building week over week. After 6 weeks I have a very engaging audience of about 1400 (from zero). Not too bad and it's now #3 for a traffic source behind Google and Pinterest.
you are inspiring us, great job
Happy to hear that!
Hey Casey, I really appreciate this case study! It gives us all an example of what's possible. I'm starting a media blog covering current events and considering using AI for writing. Do you think I need to do keyword research for each article? I'm unsure where to focus my attention.
I just now read through the comments and saw where you advise to avoid current events (culture, news, politics) as a niche, which is unavoidable for me given that I do an online show on these topics. All of that said, do you have any advice on how to "slay the dragon"?
I think current events are harder since the rpms are usually lower and there is lots of competition…that said, if you took some time and figured out AI content production-there has arguably never been a better time to generate articles synthesizing current events using AI to allow an individual or a small team the chance to compete with larger media companies.
While the content might not be evergreen, you can cut costs using AI, and I’m sure you could make this profitable (especially if you throw in some Google news and Discover traffic).
You will still probably benefit doing some keyword research but part of why I like this strategy is it is much more creating high conversion catchy content and less pure long tail keyword research (which is definitely in a period of major decline right now).
@@CaseyBotticello Oh, wow. Thanks! That's not something I had even considered. I'll definitely be implementing this. Thanks again.
great video Casey :) you mentioned this is something we can do today, and you have launched a few more like that early 2024. How are your new sites doing with the recent update? And with this update, would you still build your new sites the same way? If not, what are the changes you would take to monetize them within 6 months? Thanks for your time.
So far (update is not over yet), they are all doing pretty good. There has been some traffic drops and spikes, but nothing more than 30% either direction and no penalties so I’m generally happy with how they are holding up given how many people were nuked during the past few days.
Your CTR is very high. Congratulations. Would you mind sharing a title and meta description of one of the web pages?
I have a similar CTR on my site Blogging Guide (www.bloggingguide.com), and I generally follow the same structure as these titles and metadescriptions, so if you want examples, this would be the best place to look.
Thank you. I’ll check it out.
Any video where you have shown the keyword research strategy? Would appreciate :)
No, but I'll add this to my "to-do" list of videos :)
Thank you! Do you research an outline manually? Or you let Koala do that? 👍
Both! Sometimes I can see Koala is t taking article in the direction I want so I need to step in. But other times, if Koala is at all close, it’s easier to quickly remove extraneous sections from outline and then edit.
Hey just finding your content and it is exceptional and high quality. Only negative I would say is that you speak a tad slow and monotone for me and I had to bump up speed to 1.25x. I know these results vids can be a bit boring for you as its an hour long of you talking, but just thought I would give some feedback. Subscribed and looking forward to more high quality feedback.
Appreciate the feedback and thanks for watching!
Hey Casey, a very informative video you have there with lots a tips and motivation for someone like me who is considering this strategy.
I've got a couple of questions though and i will be happy you get your insights on these questions.
First, do you use the default outline provided by Koala when generating an article or you use your own custom article outlines?
What GPT version do you prefer using for generating articles - 3.5, 4 Turbo or 4 Legacy?
Do you include the FAQ section and Key Takeaways in your articles?
Also do you use extra prompts for your articles or you just allow Koala to do its thing?
Many thanks.
Thanks for watching!
I use the default outline in most articles. Sometimes I will edit the structure if it’s missing what I think is an obvious section. But since I’m editing the content so much, it make sense to let it generally over produce content and just delete extraneous content.
I used ChatGPT 3.5 for most of this site in Koala. I did this partially because of the cost, but also because 4 and 4.5 didn’t exist for much of this case study.
But I’ve since tested them extensively. And on new articles (or if I’m going to completely update an article) I really like 4.5. At the current credit price, this makes sense for more complex articles (so now I pretty much never use 4).
Still, conceptually, when I’m picking articles or even topics for an entire site, I look for topics that work with 3.5. Given how much cheaper it is (and for some topics it doesn’t produce noticeably worse content) and the fact I can still use the other Koala features like internal linking, I think finding this “3.5 friendly content” is a great strategy.
Other settings in Koala:
I don’t use faq sections or takeaways on this site. But I am using takeaways on other sites (I think it’s a useful feature, just not as applicable to most of the articles on this site).
I generally let Koala do it’s thing but I use different tones (usually friendly or professional) on many articles. I also add a few basic custom prompts like limiting paragraphs to 3 sentences and special instructions on title formatting.
@@CaseyBotticello Thanks for your insights mate, they were really helpful and answered my questions perfectly. I guess it's time to really get my AI journey started then ;-)
@@CaseyBotticello Hey Casey, sorry I forgot to ask one more thing.
How do you go about featured images? Do you just download them online, generate using AI, design your own custom featured images or go with no featured image at all?
@@r3sh99 I am a big believer in custom featured images and include them in almost all my posts. I didn't use AI for the images on this site but that is definitely a good secondary option!
This video really is motivating and and, can you talk a bit more about the Special instructions on title formatting. What do you mean by that. Thanks
Thank you for this podcast - very insightful! Just wondering if you think it's worth building out a content piller in this way rather than starting from scratch? I'd quite like to add a relevant new niche to my existing site - and it will make it easier to ride on some of the traction I've seen already. Are there any disadvantages to doing this? Would love to hear your thoughts and look forward to the next video. Thanks!
It’s tricky-if the new content cluster is pretty closely related it might be fine. But if it’s starting to cross into a new niche or makes your sites focus less clear to Google, you might be impacted negatively down the line. Topical authority is hard to build, so I am always hesitant to recommend someone dilute this value in their site by adding what’s essentially a new niche. If you are ok will some volatility and you really want to cover it, it may be ok. But usually what happens is you see short term success (since your existing site has relatively high DA and ranks well in Google) but at some point you go too broad and during an algorithm update your site might be at greater risk at getting hit. Again, it may not occur for 6-12 months, but it’s definitely worth debating before doing. Very hard to resurrect a site hit by Google.
@@CaseyBotticello thanks that's interesting. I actually don't have a very high DA and my site's only really just taking off. The niche is relevant to the original site, vbut
I guess it may look a bit lopsided going all in on it like your case study! Just really don't want to start from scratch again!
@@hannahspl I totally get that and if they make sense together on one site (and you plan to cover both topics extensively) it may work out well. Just wanted to note that going broad can increase algorithmic volatility in search overtime.
Hey Casey, Thanks for the great Case Study. Can I ask for your seed content, (1) what sort of content did you post - was it broad content on the niche or did you focus on a particular area? (2) was it quality content (3) what number of articles did you do? (4) what was the seed timeframe (sorry if I missed that!). Just interested to get a feel for the extent of the content required.
Great question! It was a broad homepage covering several of my ideas for this site (I originally thought I might make it an ecommerce store as the name was broadly catchy and could have been used for a few business models). But the pages were pretty drilled down topic wise. I was able to keep most of them after I narrowed the site focus. Some page ideas like this that tend to work are: statistics pages (industry stats), pages contextualizing major players in space, maybe one broad post defining you niche, a post with your unique perspective or origin story to niche, and a few broad posts that outline products or services that you’ll eventually edit once you get to those articles. I wrote these myself or had my best writers so it was pretty high quality. I think there were like 10 posts or custom pages + legal, about, author, contact pages. I put these up pretty quick (less than a week) because I wanted to submit them to GSC asap!
@@CaseyBotticello Awesome answer - thanks Casey....this points me in the right direction for sure! Thanks, Simon
Hi! Congratulations on the project! It was a total success as return on investment suggests however your meticulous strategy was the winning card for sure!
Do you mind if I include this video to my humble Medium Post on AI?
Thanks! And please feel free to include the video! Tag me on Medium and I’ll check it out too (@caseybotticello)
What security do you use for your sites? Thanks, I learned a lot from this, great work.
The most important security feature imo is having multiple backups of your site (ideally through your trustworthy host and that you export to a third party service like AWS and have a physical copy of your blog backup data). This makes any hack or even error easy to fix.
Beyond that:
- Reconfigure your login page URL to reduce the chances of hackers finding and attacking it.
-Get rid of old or unused plugins. This is where many hacks come from. And keep all software updated.
-keep access to WP limited to current freelancers and use plugins to monitor what they are doing and restrict what they can access. These plugins generate temporary passwords that you can revoke with one click. Never share your login info to WP, hosting, domain, ad network, or other crucial service!
Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my question. @@CaseyBotticello
It's amazing 🎉
Thanks!
I’m a bit confused on the topic of topical authority. It’s often suggested that we niche down to become an authority in a specific space but I guess my question is that when we do niche down, how far exactly should we be niching down? For example, if I wanted to create a blog about protein powder, which is already a sub niche within the fitness supplement space, would I then need to niche down even further to whey protein to gain that authority? The reason I’m a bit confused is because at this point I feel I’d now be going after a micro niche instead of a sub niche and I wouldn’t want to unnecessarily limit myself just for the sake of niching down.
Good question! Obviously you can stick with the larger topic (protein powder), but even this topic will require thousands of articles to cover the niche in its entirety. This means it takes longer to achieve some degree of topical authority. TBC, protein powder is perfectly fine, but if you are just starting your site today it may be too competitive.
If you go narrower in topic, you can cover this micro niche much quicker, and if you really are ambitious can expand into new adjacent topics.
But I guarantee you that if you pick the right sub niche within protein powder you will find there is still hundreds of thousands of sessions per month that you can rank for.
Was it all organic seo or some promotions on social media like maybe Facebook groups or something? Because this is super motivating for someone like me who has a lot of free time and wants to dedicate that to growing my blog. And I want to know if I can do that just by writing quality posts covering topical authority and the other things you mentioned
This was 95+% organic seo traffic. And the remainder was just people organically sharing it (not me doing active marketing).
Hi Casey. Congratulations on your success. Just wondering why you chose not to monetise with affiliate marketing? Although I think I might know the answer, I see that question got missed and I’m interested to hear what you have to say. Thanks!
I would have, but it was purely because this niche had such a high RPM, that it was easier to simply focus on optimizing content output. Affiliate monetization is something I'm working on now though :)
Hi casey, this was great saw your podcast on the affiliate school..
I got a question regarding content upload-
For topical authority it is recommended that you go category by category and im assuming technology niche must have more than 4 categories to target on your case study site.
So when starting out did you just started with 1 category completed it and then introduced another category?
Or it was other way around you started with 4 5 category populate them, then saw which one google liked and then started coverage from most liked category first and then the other one?
You can do it either way. The first posts that I seeded the blog with covered multiple categories but after those 29 posts I generally focused on one category at a time. If you are less confident in your niche, trying a broader range of posts may be worthwhile. But assuming you’d finish the posts either way, doing one category at a time is usually faster.
@@CaseyBotticello thanks sir, got the answer. 🙂
If possible can u do more niche selection video if possible
@@NikhilYadav-hg6sw any specific video topic requests? 🙂
@@CaseyBotticello i have two which comes to mind after watching this case study--
How to find low competition angle for a tough niche.
ex-
1.Personal finance (you did stealth wealth but im confuse on topics) how do you find topic within that scope?
Cuz if u go outside u will lose the essence.
2. Cycling
3. Home decor
U can create a video on these niches im sure not only me others would also enjoy this how to find less competition angle video.
2. Video topic - how you create article outline. You have a gem share it please😂
@@NikhilYadav-hg6swThanks! I'll try to work these in to future videos!
If you are a personal blogger simply using a beginner-level blog site - the theme is not so interactive but the content is - does it have anything to do with views and ranking?
Anything that keeps your readers engaged with your content longer is better for rankings and usually leads to higher display ad earnings. And rankings likewise affect views. So yes, having interactive content, even on a personal blog, can have a major positive impact.
Could you let us know how you edit your posts? How do you research an article? this will be valuable info, Thanks.
I generally:
- completely rewrite title
- rewrite most of into and conclusion to add personality and to directly answer questions for featured snippet in concise manner
- I edit transition sentences as these tend to be redundant
- Fact check AI content
- Create/add in original images, videos or audio
-do heavy internal linking to my other related posts
Research is more after the fact since AI covers most of the content (mostly shortening this content). But I do spend a lot of time planning out the bulk of the articles before I start writing based on my own working knowledge of this niche. If you were less familiar with topic you may need to do several weeks or even months of hands on research to make sure you understand what that audience really wants.
A lot of value in this reply. Many thanks, I'm actually going to screenshot this reply and read it from time to time.@@CaseyBotticello
Thanks for the video it's motivating! I'm confused I have a few questions.
1. Other than adding pictures, infographics, what else did you edit/add to the initial AI article?
2. Did you make silo structures? How many categories?
3. On my homepage I showcase my main product(instrumentals), testimonials, features, benefits, price etc. But I also want to make a separate page for the same product but I wanna include more details on that page(more features, more detailed pricing, more benefits etc), and it will be my main money page and I want to create a whole silo around it so it ranks (make supporting articles which will all link to that main page). How can I do that do avoid keyword cannibalization? I've been trying to figure it out for a while, the answer may be very simple but I can't find a solution.
Appreciate the help.
1. I added my own insights, rewrote portions of article, created tables, added quotes, video, and other information
2. I didn’t stick to a strict silo structure. I had like 15-20 main categories.
3. Keep the mention of the main product on homepage clear but brief. Li k to your money page from home page. Link from each supporting article back to money page. Doesn’t need to have perfect silo structure but internal link structure does matter. Also make sure page meta titles and descriptions are unique. And try to avoid reusing same text on homepage as on money page. This is always a bit tricky but you might be able to rank for both with little cannibalization if you focus on keeping content on money page and use homepage to direct traffic to this page.
@CaseyBotticello Thank you so much it’s clearer now. So, in general, what we just described, is it a common way to go about this "problem"? How do sites usually deal with these situations?
Can I have the pricing, features, etc. on both the homepage and money page, or should I just mention my product on the homepage and put pricing and features only on the money page?
If the focus of your site is selling your product you can list some quick pricing info on homepage but generally I’d put this on either the product/sales page or create a separate detailed price page. My main point was you want internal links from the top level page pointing to your money page.
@@lukemounthill699 Usually, if the purpose of the site is to sell a product or service, you have a Pricing and or Features page detailing what you are selling. The blog might drive most of the traffic but it is not the main feature on the site's homepage (basically, an eCommerce store layout). I would include pictures on both, but just 1-2 on homepage, and if you have more, include those on product page. More important, make sure you have a button or CTA to buy product on homepage, even if you have separate dedicated product/sales page.
@@CaseyBotticello Thank you!! Yes, the goal of my site is to sell my instrumentals(for musicians) and affiliate products within the music industry and earn from ads. Also I have to make sure the titles, h1s and descriptions of these 2 pages are different. That's what I'm struggling with.
1. Can my homepage be my product page? But I guess it's not worth it because the homepage would be too long. So as we are talking I have to create a separate product page - and I'm going to rank it so I'll make a whole ''topical authority'' around this page.
2. ''you have a Pricing and or Features page detailing what you are selling. '' so in this case what sections should I have on my homepage? I already have a hero section at the top, then benefits of working with me etc
3. ''I would include pictures on both,'' pictures of the product? it's a digital product so I there's basically no pictures. I can only put a playlist of instrumentals on my homepage(and on product page as well)
A content plan with 750 articles is impressive. Even more so as you followed it through. Did you use ai tools to create the keyword list, did you also factor in keyword difficulty and search volume? Could you walk us through the process of creating such a big content plan. How did you prioritize the keywords/ articles?
This was probably the biggest factor-so good question!
You can check out my article on topical mapping, where I give some examples (bloggingguide.com/how-to-create-a-topical-map-for-your-blog).
I used various keyword tools to spot check he competition and gauge relative difficulty ranking, but as noted in my article I go out of my way to brainstorm article topics first, without any seo considerations. Only once I have my article ideas grouped do I try to pick an seo keyword optimized title.
I look primarily for topical content gaps (so material being missed almost entirely by current competitors). So kw tool metrics are not very useful for this.
That is why niche selection (and having a great understanding of your niche matters).
If I were going after a niche that I was less familiar with (as I am on some of my other sites), I’d higher a SME to walk me through topics they are surprised to learn are not being covered in Google.
I tend to prioritize the articles with the biggest content gaps first as they are usually the lowest hanging fruit (if nobody has written about it you can start to rank in just a few weeks). Do this 5-10 times you may get some fear snippets (for long tail usually low volume search terms) but this is a great signal to Google that your site is producing useful content that should be crawled more and indexed quicker.
@@CaseyBotticello thank you very much for the insights.
Thanks a lot for sharing this case study! Very instructive.
Did you use AI to help you brainstorm and cluster the 700 articles?
Can you share a visual map of the site?
Would you still put out 50-150 articles per month given the recent March 2024 update?
I used AI to brainstorm a bit but this was more of a month of manual research. I can’t share the actual map, but here is an article I created on topical mapping to help explain this:bloggingguide.com/how-to-create-a-topical-map-for-your-blog/
I would probably be a bit more cautious in terms of articles published (maybe 50 max per month) but that’s also how this site grew so fast. If you are covering a niche that is largely overlooked you can definitely be more aggressive adding content.
Thank you for the reply! That article on topical-mapping looks great. Will dive in later.
I understand why you can’t share a site map. I should have asked if you could share a generic structure map with link ideas that shows a typical silo structure, such as how many types of posts and how they connect together. I’m thinking of hub/pillar posts, how to posts, info posts, etc. No article titles, just types.
@@bobgeorgeffthe site began with a very tight topical map-3 main categories that stuck to a loose silo structure. Meaning I grouped content by category but did not follow strict silo structure in URLs. As I added more posts I tried to make sure I had plenty of hub pages to further increase articles being interlinked. I think having a mix of page types is key as this sends more of an “online business” signal to Google. I had maybe a dozen standalone pages offering free content. I tried to make sure each category roughly had at least 10 posts overtime (and if they didn’t-I changed the categories up to reflect content). Customer category pages always are a best practice (not just a blog roll but having their own featured images, additional text contextualizing key articles, and even videos). The site structure is similar to my site Blogging Guide if you want to see custom pages (I call these guides on BG).
Thanks you, Casey!
hey that was a great video. Can I have a quick question as I'm unsure about how to set up topical clusters/silos in WordPress?
1. If I use pages for all the content, should I use parent/child attributes? and will they be well categorized this way? As I can't put categories on pages(only posts).
2. If I use blog posts for content(instead of pages), then my main money page will be in 'Category' (and this will be probably the only page in this category) and all the supporting articles and other pages will be in the subcategory of this category? A bit confusing. How you do it?
The goal of website is to sell my digital products and affiliate items, and to establish topical authority across many categories with hundreds of blog posts.
There are several ways to do this but if you are creating product listings, these should be pages organized with parent child attributes (assuming you have a range of products).
The supporting content (which helps build topical authority) is usually in the form of blog posts. These should link to the various product pages.
I would create all the content first, products on pages and articles on posts, and then go back and see where your topic distribution lies, and based on that add categories. If you add categories up front and don’t have a very clear topical map you may end up writing content that purely focuses on fitting the categories instead of the most useful content for readers.
Either way, pages and posts should have lots of internal linking in my experience.
@@CaseyBotticelloThank you, that clears a lot of things.
1. So I'll create a Page called ''Buy Shoes'' and it will be my main money page, and to create a topic cluster around it, in the Posts section, I'll create a category called ''Buying Shoes Tips'' and create lots of Posts in this category and link all of them to that ''Buy Shoes'' Page (and link back). Does that make sense?
2. Also, let's say that within one topic cluster I have like 50 supporting informational blog posts and 5 product (affiliate or my own) pages. How do I do internal links within this topic cluster so I can rank these 5 money pages?
3. Affiliate pages should be in the form of pages or could be in the form of blog posts as well?
@@luciiii69071. Yes, exactly 🙂2. There is no set structure that will always work best-the key is to make sure that you generally try to link to money pages from pretty much every blog post. There should be links between posts as well. 3. You could do either. Usually I make my affiliate content blog posts, unless it is something high level. For example, I have affiliate links throughout my site www.bloggingguide.com, in various posts, but I do have a top level page (Tools) which is a stand alone page with affiliate links.
@@CaseyBotticello Got it all now, thank you for the detailed responses! I appreciate that
For 0 or low search volume keywords, what word count did you go for?
Generally 800-1400 words.
good video ! what did you mean by "...not because Google has a pb with AI but because its gonna be derivative.." ?
I was just making the point that any time you have highly unoriginal content (whether human written or AI generated) this is bad for your site.
I've got some questions.
1. Do you still post regularly since I assume that you already written the 700 something posts?
2. How do you source/create images?
3. How do you manage internal links? Dping them by hand or....?
4. How is the site monetized besides mediavine?
1. Yes I add 5-7 new posts per month and plan to keep this up for the foreseeable future.
2. I take my own photos, use various elements from stock photos (or even free photos on Unsplash ) and create custom backgrounds, overlays and text, or I create infographics. The important thing is that they are all original enough that when I run a reverse image search there are no results (or that they add lots of value).
3. A mixture of using Koala’s internal link tool and my own editing.
4. Just Mediavine currently. Looking at adding an e-commerce element or some other add on business to it soon though.
@@CaseyBotticello thanks for answering. Isnt modifying stock photos "forbidden"?
@@sp00ky313 Assuming you paid for them, the license on most stock photos allows for customization/edits/modifications. In fact, in some cases you need to make substantial edits to a stock image otherwise you might run into trouble later (not super common but does happen on platforms like Canva depending on the image size).
does the success also depend on the site appearance?
Site appearance can definitely play a role. Both in terms of UX which affects how long visitors remain on your site and because site appearance can impact site speed (often times adversely). No single right answer but you generally want the site to look professional, be fast, and render well across desktop and mobile devices.
You dident answer if you only monetized by ads. Any affiliate income also?
Yes, this site was only monetized with display ads (Mediavine). I like the very passive nature of display ads, however, I am looking at adding new monetization methods in 2024.
@@CaseyBotticello i am already following the same metod you did with koala and SEOwriting with heavy editing. But in a an EU speaking country. It takes a lot time when i also add some affiliate links from the start like you Said 1-3hrs an article. But the traffic is already coming with 33 articles published since Jan 4. And 245 sessions i am pleased.
@@SnowiifrogTvChannel That's great! I'm glad to hear it's working so well!
Were you editing the content all by yourself in the months where you were generating over 100 articles per month?
Yes, I was! Only used anyone besides myself in the first month or so when seeding the site with content.
@@CaseyBotticello Jesus.. that’s very Impressive. You must have been working around the clock 😅. One more thing. Were you aiming for a certain word count per article based on the competition?
@@dnunn9475 it was pretty much a full time job (with long hours) for about 9-10 months. I’m glad it worked but with all the other projects I have, I was working every waking hour.
I generally didn’t worry about the length of competing articles. Most of the longer competing articles were lacking in the other areas that I focused on (adding custom images, graphics, videos,etc.)
@@CaseyBotticello I know people working full time making around 20k a year! So I'd say the time investment was definitely worth it. I may need to get on some type of one on one call if you offer that at this point but I have just one more question lol. Seriously this time though. And thank you so much for your time by the way, I hope I'm not bothering too much. When doing keyword research do you aim to earn the top position, to be in one of the top 3 positions, or just to be on the first page in general?
@@dnunn9475 haha no worries! I created this video to help bloggers, and I'm happy to answer questions!
I do offer consultation call (link in video description). But this is more for people with existing sites with questions about how to grow/improve their own site.
To answer your question though, for this site in particular, there was a major focus on winning the featured snippet. That's because I had a lot of custom images and I test a lot of meta descriptions.
That said, if something ends up at the bottom of page 1 it's not a total failure. But I will likely go back at some point and optimize the title, meta description, and featured image to give an article a second chance at ranking higher by increasing the CTR.
Pls what was the average monthly search volume you pursued for each keyword?
As mentioned in the video, I didn’t use kw volume to pick topics and many of the topics I brainstormed would have been “0 volume keywords “ that actually ended up being much more.
@@CaseyBotticello Wow. Thanks alot for the reply. I usually thought that if you pick keywords with no search volume, then your content may not get any traffic at all.
I will keep that in mind now. Thanks. I honestly appreciate you taking your time to reply me :) Have a nice day.
@@idehenebenezer802 You'd be surprised at how "wrong" many of these third party keyword tools can be. Definitely don't let these tools limit what topics you cover! I've had many "0 volume kws" generate 1000s of pvs per month!
@@CaseyBotticello Really? Thanks for the info
@@idehenebenezer802 yes! There are tons of these!
Hey Casey, were you too lucky to find a very high volume unserved niche and even a small portion of the traffic was sufficient for this success story? How big was your niche's volume? For instance, as December 2023 roughly what percentage of the niche's traffic do you estimate you grabbed? 🤔
I have no ideas how big the total niche's volume is, but my guess is if you include all the long tail keywords associated with it, that theoretically, there might be another million sessions or so per month. This would imply I captured about 30% of possible traffic. But again, only Google has this data.
You've done a great job.. 🏆👍 Hope you keep achieving and sharing successes like this.. 😇👍 @@CaseyBotticello
Where do you get your images?
Some are original photos that I take, some are heavily edited stock images (digital collage), and some are infographics or other custom visuals.
@@CaseyBotticello thank you for your timely response, Casey. I’m guessing you’re editing the stock images so that they’re coming off to Google as being original as possible. Would you be able to tell me how you’d go about editing these photos or even where you’d be going to find photos?
@@hiphopfeed1238 Yeah, in general, I run a reverse image scan for each featured image and make sure that the version I post does not return duplicates. You can start with stock photos, but I would only use portions of the images (clip them using whatever graphic design tool you use), recolor other parts, add text, etc.
Hello did you use AI detector tools and bypass it ?
Nope! Google has stated it’s fine with AI generated content as long as it’s helpful so why bother with AI detector? None of them are reliable. When spot I checked some of the early articles they were usually 70% human written according to software…and this is before my edits (and similar to numbers when I ran 100% original content through it…so it doesn’t even work and more importantly, readers love it (high engagement, CTR, dwell time, etc.)
@@CaseyBotticello Hello, Thank you for your reply,
if you dont mind please make a tutorial video about editing AI content that google loves, from editing intro, body, and conclusion. You can use Koala as an example. From that video i think you will help alot of people :D
@@TheOzora86 Definitely! I've added this to my upcoming video to-do list!
Did you say revenue share for blog content creation?
Where did I mention this? I may have been referencing the rev share from MV which slowly increased as I got more traffic and ad impressions, and later, in 2024 when I got into MV Pro.
Hi Casey, can you please share the interlinking strategy for these articles?
First, I used Koala's internal linking tool, which did a pretty good job incorporating ~80% of articles...beyond that though, it's important to make sure that any page in your site can be reached in 3 clicks (making all pages easily accessible) so I tended to link quite liberally throughout my content. This includes linking to category pages, about pages, and other less common pages as well.
What if you are generating 100% unique content around a specific niche following a specific strategy, yet the views ain't stable?
Views will not be steady if you built a site using a fresh domain. It will take a long time to gain traction and then if you get lucky, you’ll see exponential traffic growth.
🙏🏼🙏🏼🔥✅
We need an update now about this website.
Here you go: czcams.com/video/BrO0nj3U_us/video.htmlsi=ds7-jBM_4RTyEhHM
what topics are underserved to start a blog?
Here are a few:
bloggingguide.com/low-competition-niches-for-bloggers/
Hi Dear Casey... Thanks for the informative video. Please let me know, are you doing any humanization in AI-generated content manually or tools like hemingway app, undetectable ai.
I’m glad you found it useful! I don’t use either of these since I’m rewriting a substantial amount of the ai content.
how did the March 24 Google update hit it?
I no longer have access to this site’s analytics but I know it’s generally down. The new owner also made some changes right before update I strongly disagreed with so it’s hard to know what caused what.
Congratulations! What's your plan going forward? You've created a baby that needs feeding and a full-time content creation job. How do you plan to move away from generating all the content yourself?
I’ve already decreased content production significantly. Since I finished posting the 750 posts, I’ve only added a few new ones and plan to add 3-5 per month at most going forward. I’ve basically covered the topic in its entirety so now I just cover the occasional news post. I’ll probably update content twice per year beyond the first year but most is evergreen and I plan to focus on other sites. I’ve only done one post in January and traffic is still growing (it will take 4-7 months for the last few months of content to fully rank).
Does your site survive recent google algoriths?
I’ve had mixed results across my portfolio of sites. It’s about 50-50 whether one of my sites saw a big change from update.
However I have some sites that saw growth in this group too.
This case study site was hit, but I don’t have access to GSC since I sold it. But I don’t believe it’s dead.
My other case study site on YT was basically unaffected by update, which is why I like to have many sites.
750 posts per year, it means you did about 63 posts a month for a niche website?
Yes, on average. Actual range was ~29-140 posts in any given month.
@@CaseyBotticello per website???
@@dzulhelmi81 This case study is only covering one website.
How many posts you did per day
It ranged from about 30-150 per month so 1-5 per day on average.
Hello Casey are you still looking for ecommerce sites to partner with? I have an established ecommerce site and would love to chat with you. My site/shop is going on 8 years old.
Sure! Send me an email and let’s discuss your ecommerce site 🙂
Hlo buddy this website affected by February update ?
I assume you mean the March update, and yes it was affected, but the causation here is tough, since the site was fine until new owner added thousands of automatically generated translated content which I believe may have played a role in the site getting dinged.
@@CaseyBotticello ok thnku for your reply and also one more question in my mind is it possible to make 500 per month niche website in 2024
@@AnkitSingh-go3nf Yes! I just released a case study that is approaching this $ amount (or more):czcams.com/video/Y3oVIBQtx6c/video.htmlsi=kq65mLNavLLGbxhS
@@CaseyBotticello thnku big brother
Is it only income from google adsense ?
From Mediavine
@@CaseyBotticello thank you so much, but I have no any option to apply mediavine
@@user-pn2lg3ct2x Then yes, you could replicate this process using just Google AdSense, although your RPM would almost certainly be lower (eventually, you'll get enough traffic to qualify for MV).
@CaseyBotticello the reason is the other that I am korean and MV is not serviced in here T.T
You look very excited about your success
It’s a good start 😉
idk but it feels like a marketing campain for koala lol
You can follow these steps using ChatGPT as I did in beginning for free (Koala didn’t even exist then). Or you can use another ai tool that you prefer. I can only explain what worked for me. The key was content velocity + topical authority + niche selection. Koala helped in my case with content velocity but the harder part was mapping out content in advance based on extensive niche research. No ai tool can do that for you.