Income School Project 24: My 11-Month Update Across 4 Sites

Eleven months into Income School’s Project 24, I had four websites, roughly 150 blog posts spread across those sites, and one number I was not proud to say out loud: five thousand two hundred and thirty-nine total pageviews on my first site since launch. That sounds grim. It gets more interesting when you understand exactly what caused it and what changed once I figured it out.

This is not a polished success story. This is a real look at what four niche blogs actually look like after nearly a year inside a course that promises to help you replace your income in 24 months. I started on September 7th, 2018. Below you will find the actual numbers, the actual mistakes, and the one competitive advantage that changed how I think about everything.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A full breakdown of Project 24’s course library (14 to 15 courses, not just blogging)
Real traffic stats for all four sites, including pageviews, time on page, and bounce rates
Why poor keyword research on Site 1 nearly locked it out of Google for over 11 months
How Site 2 got Google organic traffic as its top source with better early keyword targeting
The local advertising model behind LearnKenosha.com and why it makes sense for smaller cities
Why building four sites at once while working full-time was a mistake worth naming
The one traffic source beating Google organic on the oldest site after 11 months
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What Is Income School’s Project 24?

When I enrolled on September 7th, 2018, Project 24 was primarily a blogging course. The premise was clear: publish content on niche topics, build organic search traffic, and earn passive income through affiliate marketing and display advertising. Income School said you could realistically replace your current income within 24 months if you followed the process.

By the time I recorded this 11-month update, the program had expanded significantly. Project 24 now bundles around 14 to 15 separate courses covering blogging, a free WordPress theme for active members, a full YouTube course, guidance on hiring writers, photography instruction, and more. The common thread through all of it is building a real online business through content, whether written or video.

The 24-month promise is built on correct execution from the start. If you make early mistakes, and I made several, the timeline shifts. The most consequential early mistake for me was not doing keyword research carefully on my first site. That single error shaped almost every traffic outcome I am about to describe.

Site 1: The Original Blog (September 7, 2018)

My first site launched the same day I enrolled. I published fast. By the end of October 2018, I had completed 30 to 35 posts in roughly 45 days. Over the months that followed, I added around 60 more articles to bring the total above 90 posts. I also created somewhere between 25 and 30 YouTube videos for the same niche and built out Pinterest pins to support the content.

To handle social distribution, I set up a plugin called BlogtoSocial, which automatically pushes each published post to LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. That automation meant every piece of content I published was going out to multiple channels without manual effort on my end.

At 11 months, the numbers were: 5,239 total pageviews, an average time on page of 2 minutes and 9 seconds, a bounce rate of 85.33 percent, and an exit rate of 72.86 percent. Those traffic figures are modest for a site with over 90 posts. The reason is sitting in the traffic source breakdown.

Google organic barely registers on this site. Over the full 11 months, Google sent me roughly one or two visits per month on average. The organic search traffic that does come in arrives from Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo. Most of my actual traffic comes from social media channels: Facebook, YouTube referrals, and LinkedIn. BlogtoSocial was doing the heavy lifting.

The keyword research I did at the start was not done well. I was picking topics that felt right rather than targeting queries with low competition and real search intent. Google penalizes that choice silently. You publish, you wait, and you get almost nothing from search. Over 11 months on a 90-post site, that outcome is a direct result of early keyword targeting errors that compounded with each new post.

The one genuine bright spot: YouTube referrals. Despite inconsistent video publishing, my YouTube channel for this niche had sent 150 pageviews to the site over the 11 months, which placed it above Google organic in the traffic source rankings. YouTube was outpacing Google on a site that had been actively publishing for almost a year. That told me something important about where to put future effort.

Site 2: The Blog That Google Actually Ranks (October 25, 2018)

My second site launched on October 25th, 2018. I had somewhere between 30 and 45 posts on it, with the initial batch completed during the first week of January 2019. When I put Site 1 and Site 2 side by side in analytics, the contrast is almost embarrassing.

Site 2 at 11 months: 1,200 pageviews, 1,100 unique views, average time on page of 1 minute and 13 seconds, bounce rate of 91.72 percent, and exit rate of 81.43 percent. The raw pageview number is lower than Site 1. But the traffic source breakdown is completely different.

On Site 2, organic search leads all traffic categories, and the organic traffic is coming from Google. Google ranks this site without issue. Keyword research on this site was done with more care at the beginning, and that care shows up every month in the analytics. When I compare the two dashboards, it is almost hard to believe they were built by the same person following the same course.

Site 2 also had a YouTube channel, but I only had about 10 videos on it. Despite that smaller video library, people were still finding the content through YouTube search. The lesson from that was clear: even modest YouTube presence contributes when the content answers real questions. If I wanted to grow this site fast, I could go back and add more videos and watch organic traffic respond.

The geographic breakdown for Site 2 made sense for the niche: United States first, followed by India, Canada, and the United Kingdom. When your content and your analytics geography line up, that is usually a sign that your keyword targeting is attracting the right audience.

Site 3: The Local Advertising Experiment (LearnKenosha.com)

LearnKenosha.com has the most unusual origin story of the four sites. I registered the domain back in July 2018, but I did not start adding blog content until January 2019. The gap between domain creation and content publishing was deliberate. I was still working out what I wanted the site to be.

The concept behind this site was a local advertising model. Kenosha, Wisconsin sits inside what advertisers classify as the greater Chicago and Milwaukee metro area. That classification means local businesses pay Chicago and Milwaukee advertising rates even though Kenosha is a smaller city with a smaller market. Local restaurant and retail owners get lumped into metro ad buys that are too expensive for what they are actually trying to accomplish.

My theory was to build a site that served specifically the Kenosha consumer base, build a real local audience, and then sell ad space directly to local businesses at a rate below what traditional media charges but still profitable. The pitch to a local restaurant would be: here is a targeted Kenosha audience, no metro rate card, reach people who are actually close enough to walk in your door.

At 11 months, LearnKenosha had: 621 pageviews, 560 unique views, average time on page of 1 minute and 4 seconds, bounce rate of 85.81 percent, and exit rate of 72.62 percent. The growth was steady but not fast. Google was finding the site without any issues, and I had built a real Instagram following around Kenosha photography that was driving a portion of the traffic.

The suspicious non-US traffic largely disappeared after I took down the contact page. Before I removed it, I was getting a lot of outreach from people trying to sell me services or pitch link schemes. After removing the contact form, that traffic category shrank substantially. If you run a local site, watch for that pattern.

The growth path I saw for LearnKenosha was to create a companion YouTube channel covering Kenosha events, interviewing local business owners, and highlighting community figures. Drive that YouTube audience back to the website. Monetize through direct advertising partnerships with local businesses who want a Kenosha-specific audience. The model makes geographic sense. Whether I would execute on it was a different question given the time constraints of running four sites simultaneously.

Site 4: The Micro-Niche Site (January 2019)

The fourth site is the smallest in the portfolio and the most neglected. I built it in January 2019 as part of a broader plan to launch a new site every two months. The site has six published blog posts. Of those six, I hired out four of them through a content writing service, which tells you how much creative attention this site actually received.

Despite minimal effort, the traffic numbers were respectable: 688 pageviews, 488 unique views, average time on page of 1 minute and 44 seconds, bounce rate of 84.08 percent, and exit rate of 66.77 percent. Organic search leads the traffic, and Google is sending those visitors. The geographic split was US, UK, and Australia, which matched the niche content well.

This is a true micro-niche site. There is a natural ceiling on how large the audience can get without expanding the topic into adjacent areas. Six posts with 688 pageviews is a positive signal. It means the content is relevant and findable. The question I was weighing was whether to invest time finishing it, or sell it to a buyer who wants a small, established, monetizable property without having to start from zero.

Selling a small niche site is a real option. Platforms exist where buyers look specifically for sites with modest but real traffic and some content foundation. A six-post site getting solid engagement and Google traffic has actual market value. If the goal is to free up bandwidth for the sites you care about most, selling is worth considering seriously.

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The Biggest Mistake: Running Four Sites at Once

I will name this plainly because it cost me: starting four or five sites at the same time while working a full-time job was a bad plan. I laid out a schedule to launch a new site every two months. That sounds ambitious and organized. In practice, it meant every site got a fraction of my attention instead of focused effort on one thing at a time.

Content businesses reward consistency and depth. If you have 90 blog posts split across four sites, that is not the same as 90 posts on one site. Each site has weaker authority, fewer internal linking opportunities, and less signal for search engines to work with. You also spread your creative energy thin. The quality and intentionality of each post suffers when you are context-switching between four different niches every week.

The recommendation based on 11 months of living this mistake: pick one site and build it until it has real traction. That might mean 60 to 100 posts. That might mean building out a companion YouTube channel for that single niche. Once that first site is running on its own momentum and requires less daily attention, then start the second. Sequential focus outperforms parallel distraction in content businesses, especially when you also have a day job.

The exception is if you are doing this full-time with no other income requirements. With 40 to 50 hours per week dedicated to content creation, you might have enough capacity to build two sites thoughtfully at once. But if you are listening to this during a commute or watching it on a lunch break, pick one site and go deep before you go wide.

The Competitive Advantage Nobody Talks About Enough: YouTube

Here is the finding from 11 months that changed how I think about the whole strategy: YouTube referral traffic on Site 1 was beating Google organic search entirely. A site with over 90 blog posts, built following an SEO course over nearly a year, was getting outpaced on traffic by an inconsistently published YouTube channel for the same niche. YouTube referrals had sent 150 pageviews. Google organic had sent almost nothing over the same period.

That outcome is not a fluke. YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet. People search there for answers to real questions, exactly the kind of questions a niche content site is supposed to answer. A YouTube channel and a blog covering the same niche do not compete with each other. They feed each other. A viewer who finds your video follows the link to your blog. A blog reader who sees your YouTube channel subscribes. The two channels compound.

Income School recognized this shift and added a complete YouTube course to the Project 24 curriculum. The practical value of that addition is significant. And one specific point worth highlighting: you do not need to show your face on camera to build a YouTube channel. Depending on your niche, you can film B-roll footage, record a screen share tutorial, or use voiceover with relevant imagery. Many niche YouTube channels with real audiences operate entirely without a host on screen. The barrier to starting is lower than most people assume.

For Site 1, the plan going forward was to publish a YouTube video every Monday for that niche and let the traffic accumulate over time. For Site 2, which already had Google organic working, adding more YouTube videos would likely push growth further. For LearnKenosha, a Kenosha-specific YouTube channel covering local events and stories would serve both the content mission and the local advertising monetization model. YouTube is not a nice-to-have. For these content businesses, it is the competitive advantage.

Honest Drawbacks of the Project 24 Approach

Most update videos from course students stay relentlessly positive. This section does not.

Keyword research mistakes compound over time. If the first 30 to 40 posts on a site target poor keywords, you are not going to rank in Google. You can go back and revise articles, but the time cost is significant and Google takes additional time to re-evaluate changed content. Early keyword errors do not just affect those first posts. They slow the entire site’s perceived authority in search.

Revenue was not disclosed in this update. At 11 months, I did not have those numbers in front of me and said I would cover revenue in the next video. That is not a red flag for the course itself, but it is worth noting: traffic and revenue are separate outcomes. A site can have thousands of pageviews and minimal revenue if the monetization infrastructure is not in place or if the traffic does not have buying intent.

The 24-month timeline assumes correct execution from month one. Poor keyword research, running too many sites simultaneously, inconsistent publishing, and ignoring YouTube as a traffic source all push the timeline back. The course teaches the right process. But following the right process correctly takes practice, and early mistakes have a cost.

The local site monetization model requires sales skills. LearnKenosha.com had a genuinely interesting premise, but converting a local audience into paying advertisers means having actual conversations with local business owners, making pitches, and closing deals. That is different from the passive income model behind most niche blogs. Do not build a local content site expecting the advertising revenue to appear without direct sales work.

Find Your X

If you are trying to decide whether niche blogging, YouTube, local content sites, or something else is the right starting point for your situation, the answer depends on your skills, your available time, and what you actually want your business to look like two years from now. There is no universal right path. There is a right path for your specific combination of circumstances.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is Income School’s Project 24?

Project 24 is an online course program created by Income School that teaches how to build content-based websites and YouTube channels to generate passive income, primarily through affiliate marketing and display advertising. The name references the goal of replacing your current income within 24 months through consistent content creation. By the time of this 11-month update, the program had grown from a single blogging course into a library of around 14 to 15 courses covering blogging, YouTube, hiring writers, photography, and more.

How long does it take to see real traffic from a niche blog?

It varies significantly based on keyword research quality from the beginning. In this update, Site 2 was getting steady Google organic traffic as its top source after applying better keyword targeting early on. Site 1, which had weaker initial keyword research, saw almost no Google traffic after the same 11 months despite having nearly twice as many posts. Many content creators report that Google traffic starts building noticeably around months 8 to 12, but poor keyword targeting can extend that timeline considerably.

Is keyword research really the most important thing to get right early?

The direct comparison between Site 1 and Site 2 in this update makes a strong case for yes. Both sites followed the same course material and the same general publishing approach. The primary difference was the quality of keyword research applied at the start. Site 2 gets Google organic as its number one traffic source. Site 1 gets almost no Google traffic after 11 months. That gap comes down almost entirely to early keyword targeting choices. Getting it right the first time saves months of catch-up work later.

Should I build multiple niche sites at the same time if I have a full-time job?

Based on 11 months of trying it, the honest answer is no. Running four sites simultaneously while holding down a full-time job divided attention in a way that hurt every site. The advice coming out of this experience is to focus entirely on one site until it has real traction and is publishing consistently, then build the companion YouTube channel for that niche, and only start a second site once the first is operating on its own momentum. Sequential focus produces better results than spreading effort thin across multiple properties.

Does YouTube actually help drive traffic to a niche blog?

In this update, YouTube referral traffic on Site 1 actually exceeded Google organic search traffic over 11 months, despite the YouTube channel being maintained inconsistently. YouTube is the second largest search engine, and people search there for exactly the kinds of answers niche blogs are built to provide. A YouTube channel and a niche blog covering the same topic reinforce each other: video viewers click through to the blog, and blog readers find the video channel. Even a small, modestly active YouTube presence can outpace Google organic search while a blog is still building authority.

Do I have to show my face on a YouTube channel to build a niche audience?

No. Income School’s Project 24 curriculum addresses this directly in its YouTube course. Whether you need to appear on camera depends on what your niche requires, not on a blanket rule about YouTube creators. Depending on your topic, you can build an audience using B-roll footage, screen share tutorials, or voiceover with relevant imagery. Many successful niche YouTube channels operate without the host ever appearing on screen. The barrier to starting is lower than most people initially assume.

What is a micro-niche site and can it generate real income?

A micro-niche site targets a very specific, narrow topic with limited competition. The ceiling on total audience size is lower than a broad niche site, but so is the barrier to ranking in search. Site 4 in this update had only six blog posts and was still pulling 688 pageviews with an average time on page of 1 minute and 44 seconds, which suggests real engagement from the right audience. Micro-niche sites can generate income through affiliate commissions if the niche has commercial intent, and they can also be sold to buyers who want an established, ranked property without building from scratch.

How does monetizing a local content site work differently from a standard niche blog?

Standard niche blog monetization is largely passive: you place display ads through a network, add affiliate links to product recommendations, and income comes in without direct client relationships. Local content site monetization, as described for LearnKenosha.com, requires direct sales work. The model involves building a real local audience and then approaching local businesses with advertising proposals. Those conversations require pitching, negotiating, and closing deals with real people who run real businesses. The income potential can be meaningful, but it is not passive in the way affiliate and display income is. Plan for the sales work component before you start.

Sources

Income School Project 24 course (incomeschool.com)
BlogtoSocial plugin (blogtosocial.com), which auto-publishes posts to LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter on each publish event
Google Analytics data as shown in the original video, covering 11 months from September 7, 2018 through approximately August 2019
LearnKenosha.com, Alston’s local content site experiment for the Kenosha, Wisconsin area