If you’ve ever felt stuck with a blog that’s not growing — no traffic, no sales, no “Pizza Day” — you’re not alone.
Many beginner bloggers follow the right steps on paper: they start a niche site, publish 30 posts, and wait for results. But when the traffic trickles in slowly or the earnings aren’t enough to buy a pizza, frustration kicks in.
In this post, I’ll share my real experience from the Project 24 blogging system (created by Income School), the exact mistake that stopped my blog from growing, and how I’m fixing it by niching down properly.
If you want to make money blogging faster, this might be the lesson that changes your entire strategy.
🍕 What “Pizza Day” Really Means
If you’ve been following Project 24, you’ve heard of “Pizza Day.” It’s the milestone when your blog earns enough to buy a pizza.
It’s not about the pizza — it’s about proof. It’s the first tangible sign that your blog is working.
I was expecting to hit my Pizza Day around the 6-month mark after completing my first 30 blog posts. But that didn’t happen. My traffic was scattered, and my income was practically zero.
At first, I thought maybe I needed more time. But after reviewing my content and analytics, I realized something else was wrong. My site wasn’t failing because of the algorithm — it was failing because of how I structured my niche.
⚠️ The Common Mistake That Slows Down New Bloggers
When you start your first blog, the biggest decision you make is your niche — what your site will be about.
Most people (myself included) think they’ve niched down enough when they pick a topic like “football,” “fitness,” or “personal finance.”
The problem? Those are still way too broad.
Even if you move one layer deeper — for example, from “football” to “offense” or “defense” — you’re still competing with huge sites, entire teams of writers, and years of authority.
That’s exactly what happened to me.
🏈 My Example: The Football Blog Mistake
Let’s imagine your niche is “football.” Within football, there are many subtopics — offense, defense, special teams, coaches, history, and so on.
When I started my blog, I picked one of those subtopics: offense. It seemed specific enough.
But within “offense,” there are still dozens of systems — spread offense, wishbone, T formation, I formation, and more.
And here’s where I went wrong: instead of picking one of those systems and dominating it, I spread myself too thin.
I wrote:
- A few posts about spread offense
- A few about wishbone
- A few about the T formation
- A few about I formation
By doing that, I created a general “offense” blog instead of becoming the go-to resource for any one specific system.
As a result, my site didn’t build topical authority in any area. I was everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
🔍 What It Means to “Niche Down” the Right Way
If I could go back, I’d start with one micro-topic inside my niche and dominate it completely before expanding.
For example:
- Instead of “football” → choose “offense.”
- Instead of “offense” → choose “spread offense.”
- Instead of “spread offense” → go deeper into “air raid offense” or “spread offense in college football.”
That’s how you create topical authority — by owning a very specific conversation that few others are covering in depth.
When Google sees that all your content connects tightly around one idea, it starts trusting you faster and ranking you higher for those terms.
Then, once you’ve built that base of authority, you can move up the chain — from “spread offense” to “offense,” and eventually to “football.”
It’s the opposite of what most new bloggers do.
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🧩 How to Apply This to Your Blog (Step-by-Step)
Here’s a practical breakdown of how to niche down properly — using the Project 24 structure as a guide.
1. Choose a Broad Topic (But Don’t Stop There)
Start with something you enjoy or know about — fitness, cooking, tech, travel, pets, etc.
This is your starting point, not your destination. You’ll narrow it down several times before you find your winning subtopic.
2. Identify Subtopics
List 5–10 smaller sections within your main topic. For example:
- Fitness → weight loss, strength training, home workouts, nutrition, mindset
- Cooking → baking, grilling, meal prep, vegan recipes
- Tech → AI tools, smart home, gadgets, app tutorials
Each of these is a potential “offense” level topic.
3. Go Even Deeper
Now, niche down again until you find a micro-topic that’s underserved but has consistent search demand.
Examples:
- “Home workouts” → “resistance band workouts”
- “AI tools” → “AI tools for YouTube creators”
- “Grilling” → “smoked meat recipes for beginners”
If your topic feels oddly specific, you’re on the right track. That’s how you beat big competitors.
4. Write 30 Posts About One Micro-Topic
This is the core of the Project 24 model — 30 posts that target every angle of one niche.
If I were starting over, I’d write 30 posts just about spread offense:
- What is the spread offense?
- History of the spread offense
- Advantages and disadvantages
- When to use it
- Famous coaches who used it
- How it compares to wishbone or I formation
- Variations like the Air Raid system
That alone gives you dozens of connected content ideas that build topical authority.
5. Only Expand After You Dominate One Sub-Niche
Once you’ve covered one micro-topic completely, and it’s getting traffic, then move to the next related topic.
Example roadmap:
- Start with Spread Offense (dominate it).
- Move to Wishbone Formation (cover 30 posts).
- Then tackle T Formation or I Formation.
Over time, you’ll climb back up the hierarchy — from micro to macro — but with authority at every level.
📈 Why Niching Down Helps You Rank Faster
Google wants depth, not breadth.
A beginner blogger writing 30 random posts across multiple categories looks like a generalist. But a blogger who writes 30 deep posts around one specific topic looks like an expert.
Here’s what niching down does for your SEO:
- Improves topical authority: Google sees consistent relevance and depth.
- Increases internal linking power: All your posts support each other naturally.
- Simplifies keyword strategy: You focus on one cluster instead of dozens.
- Boosts reader trust: Visitors see you as “the person who knows everything about this topic.”
This is how small creators beat massive websites with millions of pages — precision and depth.
🧠 Lessons from the Project 24 Warrior Challenge
At the same time I was fixing my niche structure, I joined the Warrior Challenge — a goal to write 60,000 words in one month.
Each YouTube video counted as 2,000 words, and each blog post added to the total. By the final week, I was at 55,670 words with five days left — on track to hit my goal.
This challenge taught me that success online isn’t about perfection — it’s about volume, consistency, and focus.
Even if your first niche or first set of posts isn’t perfect, you can still adjust and improve as you go.
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🔄 Comparing Writing Styles: Human vs Outsourced
I also experimented with hiring a writer to help me create content faster.
My writer worked on a different sub-niche within my primary site so I could compare performance later.
Here’s what I discovered:
- Outsourced content helped increase output, but it required editing.
- The writing style felt different — sometimes too formal or off-topic.
- Readers engage more when the writing feels personal and relatable.
Lesson learned: if you outsource, make sure you provide clear outlines, examples, and internal linking instructions. Otherwise, your blog’s voice and structure might suffer.
🏗️ My Next Steps: Rebuild, Refocus, and Dominate
I’m now rebuilding my content strategy using what I’ve learned:
- Finish 100 total posts on my main site.
- Reorganize my existing posts by sub-niche (spread, wishbone, T formation, etc.).
- Track analytics monthly to see which micro-topics perform best.
- Scale what’s working — double down on the winning category before expanding.
This shift will help me hit Pizza Day faster — and eventually, build full-time income through my site.
💡 How This Applies to You
If your blog isn’t making money yet, don’t assume you failed.
You might just be too broad.
Go deeper, not wider.
Pick one angle.
Be the best resource on that topic.
Once you own that space, traffic and income start to follow naturally.
🚀 Final Thoughts: Success Comes from Focus
The reason I haven’t hit Pizza Day yet isn’t because Project 24 doesn’t work — it’s because I misunderstood what “niching down” really meant.
Now, I know better.
And if you’re reading this before you start your first 30 posts — you do too.
Success with blogging isn’t about luck or timing. It’s about focus, execution, and relentless improvement.
So, before you publish your next post, ask yourself one question:
“Am I dominating this topic, or am I just participating?”
Choose domination. That’s where the results are.
✅ Next Step
If you want to build a blog or online business that actually makes money, here’s what to do next:
- Join my free live webclass to learn how to turn your content into cash without chasing algorithms → https://www.platformproof.com/
- Subscribe to my YouTube channel for weekly updates on my Project 24 journey, SEO strategies, and content monetization.
- Join the Platform-Proof Profits Membership for full access to my systems, templates, and workflows for predictable growth.