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YUP! Love Google Updates - September Income Report ALL SITES
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Dec 1, 2023
YUP! Love Google Updates - September Income Report ALL SITES Here is how my blogs have done, how much money they earned and plans for the future. Join Ezoic: https://kevinsmak.com/ezoic 00:00 Intro 00:55 Recap of Sept Plan 10:34 Traffic Stats 20:52 Money Talk #AmazonInfluencerProgram #amazonaffiliate #YouTubetips #influencermarketing #mistakestoavoid #successandgrowth ------Store Info My Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/helpfultutorials My Amazon Website: https://www.helpfultutorials.net/ Full Disclosure: My Amazon links do earn me a commission. ------Socials Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/HFTutorials Threads - https://threads.net/helpfultutorialsnet Instagram - https://instagram.com/helpfultutorialsnet Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/HFTutorials/ ------Mailing Address
View Video Transcript
0:00
I know the video is a little late and that's because I really had to think about what's going
0:04
on right now with my websites. Life has been crazy with Google update after Google update
0:10
We've been through two since we've started. Another one's currently going on and there's
0:14
another one after that. It's just nonstop. Let's go ahead and get into this month report. We're
0:19
going to go over September, how it went. I'm going to actually show you pretty much all of my websites
0:24
that are getting traffic this time. And we're probably going to say goodbye to a lot of them
0:29
because they're just going to be shelved. I'm going to go through and try something different
0:34
and I'll talk about it more as I go through the video. I'll also show you how much money I made
0:39
and everything like that with the websites as I always do and of course division for the future
0:44
With that let's go ahead and hit the computer and get started. Here's my beautiful brick wall as always. We're going to be going through the sites
0:55
So what happened in September? Best playground sets, you know, I did go through and add 24 articles that were privated
1:03
They've been added. Formatting has been done on all of them. Pictures have been added. Really nice
1:09
So we've added 24 more. So we're up to 288. We still have 60 more I have in draft that I've procured
1:16
And basically, I'm going through and picking the best of the best to post. However, those 60 are going to sit for a while because I'm not sure if I want to go that route
1:23
especially with everything that's going on right now. Best Playground Sets is back up on the shelf
1:28
because it's probably going to calm down. Even though the site is seasonal, it usually bounces
1:33
back like January 1st, which is pretty interesting, but I'm just going to let it go for now because
1:38
we're changing things up. RC Ride On is interesting and nothing was added. However
1:44
there was a lot of work done on the site specifically to articles. Now, I'm not going to
1:49
say I spent a million hours on this because I've had a lot of different things, but I've focused on
1:53
a few articles that are already doing well to try to enhance them and make them even better
1:59
So the four articles I've touched have all gained traffic in the last few days. So they are now
2:06
getting more traffic every day as opposed to where they were at. I think that's really because I'm
2:11
doing things differently. I have a different mindset and we'll talk about that more after
2:16
we're done through here. Helpful tutorials, 40 are or added. Now keep in mind helpful tutorials
2:22
I have it set up to automatically pull videos from my YouTube channel, my wife's YouTube channel
2:28
to turn into blog posts. Now, they're very archaic blog posts. They're not that detailed
2:33
However, sometimes I go through and look at the best ones and I use ZimWriter and scrape the
2:40
YouTube video for the script. And then I take that script, rewrite it into an article, and then I add
2:45
that with some nice boxes to buy that product because these are all product-based. I've already
2:50
went over this in another video, but basically I'm just letting that on autopilot for now
2:54
I might grab another batch maybe later this month, like a 30 pack, just to go through an update. I
3:00
haven't really seen much difference in the site. However, I know sometimes it takes a certain amount
3:05
to do. I feel like the content will still be original because it's taking my words or my wife's
3:10
words and regurgitating them. So my ideas are in there. I'm not scraping it from a website, for
3:17
example, like most people are doing with AI on their websites and just regurgitating the top
3:23
ideas. However, haven't seen anything take off yet, so we'll see how it goes. Hobby site added
3:29
four articles, not to mention also added some cool things like calculators to the website
3:35
And yeah, we're going to talk about that site that has never steered me wrong and is currently
3:41
steering me wrong later. Shelf site, my pet site, it's, you know, it is what it is. No articles added
3:48
349. I don't really want the site anymore. I might end up selling it or I'll just let it go
3:54
because it's still earning me money. It's just slow. Wildfog's still one of my favorite websites
3:59
and I do work to it once in a while. I edited a few things. I made a new article that was needed
4:05
and I added a calculator to the website. My two info sites, not much going on. So I will show you
4:11
the traffic on that. Unfortunately, they didn't do well with the update. And I'm going to be
4:15
straight up. Most of my sites did not do good with the updates. So pro gamers is, you know
4:21
it's staying steady. It went down a little bit from the updates, which is surprising because
4:25
as content I poured my heart and soul into to create all the articles were either created by
4:30
me or edited thoroughly through me because back then there was no, you know, shortcuts or anything
4:35
like that. I was really into the site until I found out how bad gaming EPMV is. Then I really
4:42
wasn't into it as much. And it's because it didn't really take off too much. But we're just letting
4:47
that sit. Streamlofi continues to dip. That is my website for my music. I have my own music
4:54
And the music on Spotify is still getting views. It's not making a lot. A few dollars a month. You
4:59
know, it is what it is. It pretty much almost pays for itself. However, it's probably a little short
5:04
However, I have my own music on Spotify that I can use at any time
5:08
It's copyright free. And if you're interested, streamlofi.com. Shielded VPN, I'm probably just going to go through and shelve and get rid of
5:16
I may not renew the domain this year, and I said that last year. However, there's also been some sporadic stuff with the Google updates
5:24
So who knows? Maybe it's even coming to life. I'll make that decision when it's time
5:28
So this month we did 69 posts. However, 40 were auto-generated. Four were thoroughly done through the hobby site
5:36
One was thoroughly done through Wild Fog. Best Playground sets is mainly AI content with really good formatting
5:42
And then RC Ride-On edited four articles that took me a very long time to edit
5:48
And what we're doing here is we have 69 posts. So good
5:53
This number is going to be a lot lower from now on because I'm no longer going on quantity
5:58
I'm going on quality. I feel like things have changed. I've been very mad at Google. I've went to the gym a lot. I've lifted lots of weights and now I have
6:06
calmed down and I've realized I just have to do better. And I'm going to go through my articles
6:11
one by one and improve them. And I'm sure I can do that. Basically, the idea is I'm going to now
6:18
focus on one website. I will still have a little bit of time for Wild Fog. However, it's mainly
6:25
just going to be my main website. If something breaks on another website or, you know, something
6:30
needs to be done, I may go through and, you know, take a look at it
6:34
However, my focus is going to now be on RC Ride On Cars because I feel like that's the
6:39
site that I have the most passion for. And what Google wants you to do now is live your passion
6:45
There a lot of these sites that I don have any passion for For example this info site here it not about gardening but I can give you an idea It in that general realm I guess you could say This site is very
6:58
boring to me. It does okay. It's just going to sit. I really like this site. I thought this would
7:03
be the one that's going to be my new passion. However, I just feel like I don't know enough
7:09
about it. If I do really well with RC Ride on one day, maybe I can go through and take a look at that
7:14
or Wild Fog will be my backup. Right now, RC Rhydon is going to be where it's at
7:20
Now you're probably saying, but Kevin, you really like your hobby site. You put a lot of time into that
7:24
Why aren't you going to work on that? Well, I'll show you because, you know, Google did some updates
7:30
First, the hobby site I did go through after it got smacked by Google pretty hard
7:37
I did update the theme to Popcorn version 2. Version 1 is actually like breaking now
7:43
So I went through and added version two. Version one is really old
7:48
You're supposed to update. I just didn't because I put version one on all my sites and then they updated it
7:53
And now I'm like slowly going through them. But now it's all set up and that issue is fixed
7:58
So there's no problem there. So I have the newest version and it's working well
8:04
It looks good and it's running smooth. So I'm hoping that's what the problem was
8:08
But since I went and changed the theme, I've not seen an increase
8:12
In fact, I probably saw a decrease. So we'll see what happens with the hobby site and where it goes
8:17
For now, it's just going to sit and see if it reverses itself. Request writer, we did have some orders coming in, which is good because it's been a while
8:25
I think people are starting to see that AI content is no longer the way and things need
8:29
to be edited and manually looked at. So I feel like the writer's market is starting to pick up
8:35
And you can even see that in real life. I mean, the writers went on strike and they got a lot of stuff to go through and start writing again
8:43
So if they could have been replaced by ChatGPT, you bet they would have been before they gave them all of that stuff
8:50
At least in my mind, I think that. So with websites, again, RCWriteOn main focus from now on after this video here
8:58
Plans for this month and more. I got a few new projects, kind of
9:02
Faceless YouTube channel is going to be continued to be worked on
9:05
Now, this isn't really a new project. However, I'm picking it back up
9:09
I've had a weird channel with RC Ride On's YouTube channel, and I want to go through and take it to the next level
9:16
It's about halfway to getting monetized. I think it has 450 some subscribers
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So if anyone wants to help, RC Ride On Cars is the name of the YouTube channel
9:28
And I really need to get to a thousand. I already have the watch hours easy
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and I'm going to go through and putting more videos out on it. I'm going to be trying faceless videos that are there to educate
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So it's not just going to be, you know, faceless stuff that has no meaning or anything like that
9:44
There's going to be education behind the ride on that niche. And I think it's going to go through and help
9:50
So I already hired a script writer and a videographer for that
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I'm going to go through and try it this way. If things go good, we'll stay how we are
9:58
I feel the videographer. I've already tried him and his stuff is good
10:02
So the script writer's new. If it doesn't work out, I will get a new script writer till it does
10:07
Or I may also get someone that can help me to make sure I'm serving the right topics to the YouTube channel
10:13
So that's a lot of stuff. And I know it's not website specific, but it is a YouTube channel for my website
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So I wanted to go through and mention it. I also got a new idea for Amazon, which I'll put that in my Amazon review video
10:28
which will probably be a week from the day this drops. As I said, we're going to focus on one website to rule them all
10:34
Let's go and break down the stats. So here we are with RC Rhydon. Now it's going to look really confusing because September, an update came out, the first update
10:43
and it was really good for the website. The website really jumped up
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It got out of the whatever zone it was in. Now remember, I've done a lot to this website
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I've even removed my ads. So this doesn't even run ads. This is strictly affiliate now, and I'm keeping it that way to see what happens
11:00
And it did unfortunately get hit again on the second update. So it did go down some on that
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The third update that's currently running, I haven't noticed anything yet, but it is still early
11:13
I think it's a spam update. Unless the spam update's already done and we're into the next core update, which it could be
11:19
Right now it is Saturday afternoon. So let's go through and take a look and see what's going on on Performance Console
11:27
This will paint you a much better picture so you can see here. Update hit, we blew up
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Update hit here, we went back down. However, we are still higher than where we were, so I still have a lot of hope for it
11:40
And the articles that I'm focusing on are really going through and improving
11:44
I'm putting my own personal touch on each article. I'm taking my time
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Basically, I'm working on one article and then I do it until I have an idea for some originality that can be added
11:55
Once I have that idea, I start looking at the next one and I start thinking how I can come up with an idea for that
12:02
Meanwhile, I'm implementing it on the one prior. That way, when I get to that one, maybe I'll have an idea of what to do
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So it's been working well. Right now, I'm currently also focused on affiliate articles because one, they bring me the money
12:17
And two, products are going in and out of sale for like crazy lately
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And this website, it happens all the time. I can put an amazing ride on car up and it could be sold out the next day and never come back
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They are always changing listings. They are always changing models. It's very frustrating and it's not easy to, you know, find out, especially when most of mine are long roundup posts
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But I'm really excited for the future of this site, especially because it's more of my passion
12:47
Like I said, I think I'm going to do really good with it now that I'm starting to understand what Google is looking for now
12:54
And, you know, I always wondered, should I do a lot of websites or should I do one website
12:59
You know, if you're starting today, there is no doubt about it. You do not do more than I would say two websites at max, but most likely you want to focus on just one website
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If you're really not sure where your passion is, you could start to see which one you like the best and which Google likes the best and kind of go from there
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So now I'm going to show you something a little different than usual. we're gonna look at a few more clicks here. And we're gonna look at how we're doing in Bing
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Why are we looking at Bing? Well, you know, Bing's traffic has went up 80% for since the beginning
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of the year So it it getting better And I feel like Google results really suck lately Now I know it really crazy that I looking at this but I really hope that another search engine comes up And don forget Google is currently going up with a lawsuit with
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the Department of Justice. They are trying to go through and split Google up. If Department of
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Justice wins, who knows? This may make room for other search engines like Microsoft Bing. Because
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if you think about it after Google, where do you go? I mean, I don't feel like there's that many
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other search engines that are good right now. Bing would probably be my preferred. People like
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Yahoo, but I feel like Yahoo is out of date. And to be honest, I haven't used it for years
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so I don't even know how good it is right now. But Bing, I do use from time to time
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especially when I can't find my answer in Google. Here we had 118 clicks this month. So in September
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we are still getting traffic from it. Now, don't forget on Google, we got 2,200 clicks
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So it's nowhere near that, but you're still getting a trickle from there. So I would make
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sure that you go through sign up for Bing Webmasters and track this, you know, because
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there's some articles that Bing will like that Google won't. And nowadays, I think it's really
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good to diversify your traffic, especially since Google is just kind of a jerk to us lately
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Here's best playground sets. We are down 8% in September and it continues to go down in this month already
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Like I said, we're on October 7th already. So we're just seeing a little more downward trend
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However, it's a little hard to know because this is a bit of a seasonal website towards
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the end of the year since it's about outside playground sets and things like that
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So January 1st, we'll see how it does when it recovers. You can see a little bit more here just to get an idea of it just being all over the place
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This is a 16 month graph just to give you an idea. So it looks like in 918 it tanked down
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And yeah, right about that time it went down again. So this is probably seasonal
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This might not be the Google update. It's really hard to tell since it did happen the last time in the same area
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We'll just have to wait and see. And again, this is shelved for now, so we'll see what happens
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This is Wild Fog, and the site is thriving right now because it is time for this site
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This site does really good in the beginning of October because it really focuses on fog machines
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So because of that, this month it's going to do awesome, and then it's probably going to fall off a cliff next month
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So it is going through bringing in some affiliate sales as well, which is nice
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And like I said, this would be my backup if I decide RC Ride On isn't working out
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Or I finish RC Ride On. Because to be honest, there's about 100 some posts on there
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And I don't really feel like I want to add too much more. I just want to make what's on there better
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Here's Wild Fog to give you an idea. We had an update in here
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It bounced up. Another update. It bounced back down. And then it kind of is ping-ponging around right now
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And there was more updates, but we don't see anything yet here. This is my favorite hobby site
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You can see here in September, we were down almost 50% and it's going to continue to go
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down because it gets really bad. The best way to show it to you is show you performance manager because performance manager
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I'm not having it calculate for one month. I'm showing you everything. So here we go
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You can see here, it just, you know, it looks like it spiked a bit in the beginning of the
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update and then just went down and then went off a cliff here
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and you could see 11 clicks all yesterday, two days ago. So that's pretty disheartening when you're looking at
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you know, I would say about 100 to 150 clicks a day
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It seemed to get pretty solid. The site actually does have some backlinks
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and they weren't built. The information I feel is so good on it that I actually got some people to link to my site
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without even asking, they just linked to it. So that's very important because that doesn't really happen in any of my other sites
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I'm very passionate about it. However, the hobby that it's about is I'm not doing, if that makes sense
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And maybe I need that for extra motivation. But for now, shelve to see if it ever bounces back or if it just dies
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This is helpful tutorials. I mentioned I'd kind of give you an idea. It was down 38%, so not doing too great
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Here is Search Console and all over the place. You know, we started having some of the old articles about iPhones
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which is what Helpful Tutorials was originally about, doing pretty well. And a lot of the ones that were doing well were created by me with pictures
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And then it just kind of, you know, went down here. Because the impressions are staying up pretty decently and the clicks went down
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that just means the ranking went down. And we can probably see here just by going through, you know, average position 28
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where we were more position 20 for a while, 19. So that site's going to stay how it is, though
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This is my pet site. It went down 23%, 1,200 clicks. Looking at the search console, you know, I don't really see that huge of a difference
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Yeah, it did go down a bit. Impressions went down a bit. Is it seasonal or is it what
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Is it because everything's tight? You know, I don't know. It could be either way
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I feel like this site still has some articles that are pretty popular
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If I ever wanted to, I think I could grow this more by changing the niche around to something a little different
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But it's a little confusing just because a few of my articles that have done really well have given me ideas for something else
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But this is a project I don't want to go forward with. So I'm just going to let it sit
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This is my kind of travel website that I'm pretty passionate about. That's new
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That was just going to be ads. and you can see it went down 34% and it's at 461
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I can kind of see it is getting colder and that could also cause this site to go down
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So we'll see what happens if it is a Google update. But when we look here, it does look like things went up
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and then they went down and down again. So I don't know if this is just a busy time of year
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or if these are from the Google updates. That's the thing, there's so many Google updates
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it's hard to tell what is what anymore. If it's a new site, you can't tell if it's seasonality
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because there's an update every other day. But, you know, you guys know all this already
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and I just need to let it go. Finally, the other site that I'm not that passionate about
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down 15% at 318 users in September. This was another ad-only site
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like kind of gardening-ish site, I said. And you can see here, definitely dropped in impressions big time And we look at the average position It looks like it stayed pretty solid but we had some losses again getting cold out And since it is kind of like Garden Sight
20:40
though it's not, this could affect it. So those are all my websites pretty much that I can think
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of that you'd want to see. And finally, let's go ahead and talk about the money. We're going to
20:50
start with Ezoic. So here we go with Ezoic. You can see here where we're at. We're a little less
20:55
than last month. So we made $141.41. Keep in mind, I did remove RC Rhydon. So that is why the site
21:06
did go through and go down a bit. Also, you know, EPMV, eh, you know, RC Rhydon was always a higher
21:13
RPM website. So because that's not on there anymore, that's going to hurt. So out of this
21:18
$141.41. $8.29 went to Google for mediation and there's $22 for premium ads. So I'm making like
21:27
$12.84 on the premium ads. It's also rough because I did go down a level. So I'm no longer a level
21:35
three Zoic member. I'm level two because I lost that traffic and all my other traffic kind of went
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down a bit with all these updates. So because of all of that, it is down some, but I am still
21:46
making money on it and it is still going through and generating something. So if you are interested
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in using a Zoic, I am an affiliate of Zoic again. So you can go through and click the link down below
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if you would like to join and check it out. The cool thing about a Zoic is you can get in at any
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time. You don't have to wait till you get like 50,000 views a month or something like that. So
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you can get in, you could just join. So it's a great way to get started and earn a little extra
22:10
money early on. With that said, let's go and go through the full breakdown and give you the rest
22:15
of the money with the Amazon. All right. Amazon US offsite money, $826.22. Not bad, not great
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but better than it's been in the beginning of the year. So it's still doing much better than it was
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And we're looking at Canada, $24.41, Germany, $1.07, UK, $2,404. So the other areas did pretty
22:40
good there. Zero on Spain though. We'll take it. You know, anything over $20 is going to get
22:46
deposited in my account or anything that eventually gets above $20. So we'll just keep the other ones
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the little ones tacking on and hopefully at some point that'll work. Now Google ad revenue
22:57
it was actually $1,447 total for websites. And as I mentioned, Azoic $133.12 minus the Google ad
23:07
revenue that was displayed. So all together it was $1,023.33. And then we have some expenses
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We had a domain renewal $43.99. We pay $22 for Zoic. We pay $17 for KeySearch, which I use for
23:22
keyword research. $4.99 for SERP tracker. Content writing. I use my website RequestWriter and I use
23:30
my writer there. If you're interested in checking out RequestWriter, just go to RequestWriter.com
23:35
My main writer is there and he's available for work. So if you're looking to have any articles written, he is very knowledgeable and can go through and write them for you
23:44
I pay for a voicemail system and chat GPT, all AI expenses, which would include my AI API
23:53
And I also am with 11 Labs, which is a voiceover AI, which is only $5 a month
24:02
hard to beat. And also $5 for scraping websites. It's another plugin kind of for Zim Writer that I
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use. And after that, we have Upwork expenses, $105.33. That was all for someone to go through
24:18
and format articles on best playground sets. So that site looks really good now. I have a lot of
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articles updated with new formatting and the site just looks a lot better. It helps me see what is
24:30
possible and how I can take things to the next level. And I plan to do that. So all together
24:34
the profit was $7.41.10 and that's what we got. Now, don't forget, I do have other things. I do
24:40
Amazon Associates, which I will have a video about soon. Plus I also make money through YouTube
24:47
However, you know, it's been going down because the main channels I made the most money on
24:52
I don't post on anymore, which is like my Kevin Smack channel. Helpful Tutorials is still doing
24:58
good for that YouTube channel. And Kevin Stats, you know, I'm lucky if I make $20 a month. And I
25:03
know I've slowed down on videos and I'm really sorry about that. The money on Kevin Stats really
25:08
is not a thought for me because I'm doing this to keep myself accountable, keep my motivation going
25:15
And I said I wanted to always be real about everything and show you the goods, the bads
25:20
And, you know, this isn't OK. You know, it's OK. It wasn't great, but it was OK. There are so many
25:26
more expenses behind things that you don't even think about. For example, like just had to renew
25:31
my P.O. box. Taxes is a huge hassle. I pay over $250 a month for an accountant. And that also does
25:40
not include things like a QuickBook setup, which is like $35 a month for QuickBooks, which they use
25:46
as well. And then you have other things like taxes, any forms you need. I'm now on S Corporation
25:56
which basically means I pay employees now and there's just I have to pay for payroll
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There's just so much. So I wanted to have a company to protect things and everything like that
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And everything was doing good when we were making great money. But we've definitely pulled back
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Everything's faded a bit. Everything's becoming more saturated and just tougher to get into
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You just have to keep upping your game. But we're trying to make it through. So I'll let you know how it goes
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And we're just going to keep going. Sorry, this is late. Like I said, I needed an extra week just to kind of get my mind together
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I like to have these out on the first or second of the month and I needed a week to figure out
26:34
what was going on. And it took me a while to notice that I need to go ahead and make better
26:39
content. Yeah, I made good content, but I need to make it better and better and better. I need to
26:46
make it the best. I need to not just offer what everyone else is offering, but give them more
26:51
so that's what I'm trying to do every article and like I said one at a time a few days an article
26:57
it'll compound eventually and we'll see what happens if you made it this far make sure you
27:04
post champion in the notes definitely do appreciate it and thanks so much for the view
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