For almost three years now, I’ve been running a small portfolio of content sites plus one YouTube channel that is several months old at the time of this writing. Being a one-man show, I’ve faced all the challenges that one can face in this industry and I’ve made countless mistakes.
Nevertheless, I’ve learned all the lessons that need to be learned and most of my work is growing slowly but surely. This post aims to introduce something new that I want my followers and aspiring content creators to learn from. Lemme break it down for you…
Content Creation Case Studies
When I started this business, I made one big mistake among other smaller ones that I’m still paying for today—starting more than one site simultaneously. I currently have six content sites including this one and a faceless YouTube channel.
Each of these properties is holding the other back and I’m barely cutting a profit with the work I do. Working alone hasn’t been making things any easier. I plan to abandon three sites at least for a year and give the other two the attention they need.
So I’ll be documenting my progress at least monthly in terms of written articles and traffic growth among other tweaks that I’ll be making to ensure I get the best results. I’ll also do the same for the existing YouTube channel and my freelancing writing career progress. I’ll hopefully be able to turn these content creation study articles into YouTube videos on a second channel in the future.
In total I’ll be documenting four case studies;
- A tech/troubleshooting niche site.
- A localized general blog with evergreen guides and product reviews.
- A gadget unboxing faceless YouTube channel.
- My progress in my freelance writing gigs.
- E-commerce site (Still working on how to approach the business)
Below is a summary of what I want to cover in each case study. I won’t reveal the sites but it’s pretty easy to find and identify exactly which sites and channels I’m working on.
1. The Tech Blog
Here’s a little back story about this seemingly dying site. The site happens to be my first ever self-hosted blog, it’s what I used to learn everything about WordPress and writing blog articles.
This site grew to the point of bringing over 10,000 readers every month which I consider quite impressive considering it was my first site and I did everything without outside help. However, over the past year, the numbers started tanking after I made some grave mistakes.
I’ll not go into the details of exactly how I messed up but I’ll just mention what I did;
- I was accepting paid links.
- I was targeting keywords that were too competitive.
- I was writing incidental content despite not having the authority to outrank big publishers.
- I wrote a huge chunk of thin content.
- I wrote many articles without keyword research.
- I was paraphrasing content from other sites which is essentially plagiarism.
For the above reasons, I’ve had to cull over 100 articles on the site that are not up to the required standards. I’m starting from scratch at this point but I’m still getting a couple thousand readers every month.
2. The Localized Blog
By localized, I mean targeting a particular country which is Kenya in my case. It’s not too competitive and I can afford to cover a wide variety of evergreen content including product reviews of which the few I’ve already done are performing quite well.
The product reviews that I write are supplemented by the unboxing YouTube videos that I do of the same products on the channel that will be our third case study. My competitors aren’t also much of a threat so the only limiting factor I have at the moment is my article output.
I’m yet to embrace AI-written articles so I have to write everything myself. I have nothing against AI but I only use it to come up with catchy headlines and article outlines at the moment. Also, the topics I cover aren’t AI-friendly.
I’m bullish about this site’s success if I pump up enough published content. At just over 30 articles at the moment, about 20 of which I published in the last two months.
3. The Unboxing YouTube Channel
I uploaded my first video in September 2022 which has over 2,000 views and counting. I’ve made 19 videos in total plus one YouTube Short which has more than 3,000 views at the time of this writing.
My most viewed video has 8,000 views. Overall, the channel has 40,000 views and more than 200 subscribers as of June 2023. I’ll see what happens by the end of June and write down the first case study report with all the relevant numbers including my experience.
The channel is faceless and I’m yet to include voiceovers to see whether it can give the numbers a boost. As things stand, I’m pleased with the numbers that keep trickling in. Also worth noting is that I run my YouTube channel from just my phone.
4. Monitoring My Freelance Writing Career
Freelance writing has been a roller coaster ride for me from being paid peanuts to encountering dodgy or oppressive clients. I remember there was a time I used to be paid as little as 4 dollars for a 1,000-word article. It was hell, and sometimes a client takes off with your money or claims that you wrote a bad article yet they end up publishing it on their site.
With over 1,000 client articles under my belt at the moment, I can confidently say that for the same 4-dollar gigs I used to do, I can easily make at least 100 dollars or more without a problem. Also, clients who include some big publishers constantly reach out given my strong online portfolio.
Despite heading in the right direction as a freelance writer, I’ve been battling bouts of fatigue, procrastination, and even laziness that are holding my potential back. For instance, I can go for a month and only end up taking up as little as 3 client gigs yet the demand is high. I know I can hit 30 articles and above in a single month but it’s easier said than done for me.
For this reason, I thought writing a case study can boost my productivity even by just a little which I’m fine with. Funny enough, there were months when I used to hit up to 90 articles in a month.
If I manage to get half of these now, I can even be able to afford to hire a couple of writers to help on my sites. We’ll see how it goes.
5. My E-commerce Site
I’m not sure how to approach this business considering it’s not content-based like everything else I’m working on. However, I’m thinking of writing articles related to the products I’ll be selling on my e-commerce site.
I make all the products myself so it’d be easy to become an authority and hopefully convert my readers into buying customers. The business is currently physical but I’ll be doubling down on the online side over the next few months.
If all goes well, producing YouTube content will also be on the table for this business. But I’ll have to find outside help to avoid burnout and keep my content business running smoothly.
The Way Forward With the Case Studies
If you want to get into this kind of work, I’m sure my case studies can be an invaluable resource for you. Be sure to subscribe to my email list where I can send you an email or two per month to keep you up to speed on how things are going.
I’ll be offering everything for absolutely free—the only thing I may need from you is your email address so you don’t miss out on any important information that may be beneficial to you. See you next month.
