How My Business Content Site Is Navigating Huge SEO Changes ($21K/Mo)
This is a follow up story for eBiz Facts. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 4 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
I'm Niall Doherty and I started eBizFacts.com in 2018.
It's a content site about different ways to make money online.
We publish several profiles each week, showcasing online entrepreneurs and their businesses. We share those profiles in a twice-weekly newsletter (22k subscribers) and sometimes monetize that with sponsors.
We also research and review "make money online" courses, and those are monetized with affiliate partnerships. Those partnerships provide the bulk of our revenue.
Back in May 2020 we were averaging about $4.2K in monthly revenue.
Last year we pulled in $306,000 overall, but things have been trending down for the last several months as a result of Google Search updates. As our search traffic declines, so does our revenue, so we're trying to adjust to the new landscape.
Still, our average monthly revenue so far this year is $21,000 with a 62% profit margin.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?
The business was growing quite steadily up until this year, from an average of $4000 monthly revenue to $25,000. Peak revenue was $36,000 last September.
Now traffic and revenue are declining somewhat.
SEO has long been the main way we brought traffic to the website. Since that's very much in flux right now with Google updates and competition from AI-generated content, we're looking to build up our social profiles and see if we can be less reliant on Google.
Our business has long consisted of two main parts.
One is the reviews of "make money online" courses, which continues to be our primary driver of revenue. Back in 2021 we made a big shift and started combining our own editorial reviews of those courses with reviews from students.
We developed an algorithm to fairly and accurately rate each course. Into that algorithm we feed data from our own research on each course, and also the data gathered from students.
We've now surveyed more than 1000 students and analyzed more than 17,000 data points.
In the last 6 months we've been overhauling the design of our reviews to make it more obvious that we've done all that work. Hopefully that will help us stand out from our competitors and get us back on top of the Google rankings.
The second main part of our business is our twice-weekly newsletter.
Each edition is full of profiles of online entrepreneurs, detailing how they built their businesses. The goal is to provide ideas and inspiration for the reader.
We have grown the newsletter to 22k subscribers. We have a sponsor or affiliate offer in each edition, but it hasn't become a big source of revenue for us yet.
Meanwhile, the team has grown considerably. My wife and I now work with several contractors, helping us with everything from research and content production to various day-to-day tasks.
What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?
The biggest challenge has been finding time to do everything.
I always have lots of ideas for how we could grow the business, but I often struggle to delegate and automate.
For example, revamping the design of our reviews has taken six months already and is still not complete. I figured initially that it would take about half that time.
And I likely could have gotten it done much faster if I'd been better at delegating and automating certain tasks.
Also, my energy levels aren't what they once were.
Back in the early days of the business in 2019-2020, I was able to work double the hours I'm able to nowadays.
So I have to be a lot smarter about how I spend my time.
My advice to other entrepreneurs would be to make hay while the sun shines, then bank a good chunk of that hay so you can endure a long winter if one comes along.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
The biggest lesson has been not to rely so much on Google for traffic.
I always knew it was a risk to depend on them, but that has become more apparent in the past several months.
The challenge ahead of us now is to diversify our traffic sources, which we're going to try to do by producing lots of video content and posting to social.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
The business could well be in a transition period right now.
It's hard to see our SEO bouncing back and traffic flowing easily from Google again, but we're going to keep our fingers crossed and work with that assumption for a few more months.
In the meantime, we'll try hard to build up a good following on social media.
By the end of the year, it should be clear whether we should keep investing in SEO or shift focus.
If the latter, we're considering building out our own products and moving away from the affiliate model.
What’s the best thing you read in the last year?
Business wise, I enjoy listening to the My First Million podcast. It's a great mix of info, inspiration and entertainment.
Matt Giovanisci's podcast is also great. I relate to him because he also runs a content site and strives to be the best in his niche, and he's quite thoughtful about how and why he does things.
Away from business, I've taken to reading British detective novels every night before bed. Peter Grainger has a series of books that I absolutely loved. Very nuanced and realistic. They help me get my mind off work before going to sleep.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
At home in Ireland, my dad has made a living for years selling and installing garage doors. He had a lot of competitors in the early 2000's, before the recession hit.
Most of his competitors went out of business, but he'd always been conservative with his spending and focused on serving the customer well and generating referrals and repeat business.
So he was able to survive those few lean years when times were tough. His business wasn't very profitable during that stretch, but it always earned enough to keep the lights on.
Now I feel we may well be at the beginning of a recession for SEO-dependent content sites like mine.
Following my dad's example, I've been fairly conservative with spending in my business the last few years when times were good. So we are in a good position now to survive some hard times.
So my advice to other entrepreneurs would be to make hay while the sun shines, then bank a good chunk of that hay so you can endure a long winter if one comes along.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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