September was….a month to forget. 

My sites weren’t hit too hard by the recent “helpful content update” (HCU) as I’ve gotten away from primarily info sites, but that doesn’t mean I got out of it all without a scratch. 

The biggest positive this month: Website 10, which is one that’s primarily AI content has increased to $350/mo in earnings.  Granted it’s not a huge amount of money, but continual progress is a very big positive.      

The biggest negative this month:  OHP – the site you’re on right now – earned 24% less than last month.  I attribute this to some folks using parasite SEO in my niche, paired with me losing rankings through the numerous updates that Google has.  

Here are the numbers behind my business for the month:

• Revenue: $12,502 (This includes revenue from all sources)
• Expenses : $7,512 (This only includes business expenses. I no longer include my own pay, healthcare expenses, or 401k investments here as it’s all a distribution of revenue that no one else reports on either)
• Net Income: $4,986

I should mention before we begin, if you’re looking to start your own blog, make sure you check out my free IGNITION course today.

Another thing to mention this month is an easter egg in this report that I don’t discuss, which hints at a new business venture.  If you think you see it, comment and let me know!

September overall was a pretty chill month.  We spent the first week in Mexico on a well-deserved family vacation.  Once we returned, my mother-in-law stayed with us for three weeks which made taking care of our baby girl easier.  I was able to dive deeper into my projects and get things setup for the future.

That’s all for the personal update.

OHP site traffic increased slightly, and it’s a bit weird how it all went down.  For the month, traffic was up about 10%, but the OHP site had a positive result from the core update of about 30%, then was hit by the HCU a loss of about 25-30%.  Because of this, things basically remain unchanged. It’s very annoying that a site could be considered great from its core algorithm update and then be dinged by the HCU so quickly.  These updates were days apart, and it’s very telling of just how ridiculous Google has become with their updates as of late.

That said, I know a TON of people who saw losses of 50-60% with this update, so overall, I’m pretty happy that I wasn’t on that end of things.

PLAN:  I’m going to increase my content output on this site moving forward.  The goal is between 12-15 pieces per week and we’ll see how that does in the SERPS moving forward.  Beyond that, I have a staff member that’s updating up to 4 articles per day as well, which definitely keeps things updated/fresh on the site.

Traffic fell a bit this month, but earnings increased by around 45%.  Skewed a bit because it was never making that much money, but this site seems to have benefited from the HCU.  The weird thing? 

I haven’t published anything on this site for about two years. Why Google feels that now the content is helpful and overall “good”?  I have no idea, but I’m not complaining.   

PLAN:  For now, we’re going to let this site sit and see what happens organically with Google.

This site got crushed by the HCU.  It’s reported a 30% loss in traffic for the month, but I think it’ll be closer to 60%+.  The good news?  Not a big deal to me, I haven’t touched the site in over 1.5 years. 

PLAN:  No future plans for the site, I just want to let it sit and see what happens.

Another solid month for this site.  Traffic increased about 51% and earnings increased to $350.  We continue to publish about 15 articles a week here and it seems to be working, so we’re going to keep on this content schedule for now.

PLAN:  Continue on with 15 articles per week.  I previously focused on commercial-intent content, but as of the last few weeks, we’re 100% focused on informational content.  This is increasing the traffic to the site, so I’m going to stay on this path until it makes sense to adjust. 

Link building continues on this site with HARO and constant resource link building where I can find the opportunity.

I’m also working on some link-building campaigns as well.  A big part of it will be HARO, but also some other tactics I’ve used in the past that tend to do well.

MoM traffic increased 41% on this site to 1,673.  This is a pure AI site, and I think it might be a winner based on what I’m seeing.  As of now, I’m letting content sit, but soon I think we’ll be scaling up production here.  I did throw ads onto the site at the end of the month, and I’m seeing a solid $19 RPM for ads thus far, which is a solid number. 

PLAN:  I’ll let this site sit for a little while longer and monitor how it does.  Now that it’ll be bringing in some revenue, I’ll happily have my VA produce more AI content and get it published. 

MoM traffic decreased 9% to 1,513.  Similar to website 11, this is another pure AI site, and it’s also looking like a winner.  What’s interesting here is that a month ago, I published 150 new blog posts in quick succession to see if we could get a traffic boost, and oddly it resulted in the opposite effect.

PLAN:  I have applied to have ads on this site as well to gauge what the RPM is.  This will help me understand just how valuable the site can be.  I have not been approved for this site yet, but hopefully, I will be soon.

The OneHourProfessor YouTube channel continues to sit.  Subscribers/earnings/views are all falling, and I understand why but still can’t go back to it.   

PLAN: Things still on hold here.