Income School Project 24 One Year Review on 4 Sites

I signed up for Income School’s Project 24 on September 7, 2018, with four websites running and no real idea what I was doing. Twelve months later, here is an honest accounting of what actually happened to all four sites, what the numbers look like, where I went wrong, and whether the course was worth the money.

Most Project 24 reviews give you the broad strokes. This one covers all four sites individually, with real traffic figures, bounce rates, time-on-page stats, and the specific mistakes I made that held back growth. If you are weighing whether to join Project 24 or you are already inside it and wondering if your numbers are normal, this breakdown will give you a clear comparison point.

What You’ll Walk Out With

Real pageview, bounce rate, and time-on-page numbers for four Project 24 sites after one year
Why Site 1 barely shows up in Google organic despite having 95 to 100 blog posts
How Site 2 flipped the script and made Google organic the number one traffic source
What a bare-bones micro site with no images can teach you about organic search
Why LinkedIn is the most underused traffic source for content creators
The keyword research mistake that cost months of early traction
Whether Project 24 is worth the investment, plus a no-hype honest answer
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What Is Income School Project 24?

Project 24 is a course created by Jim and Ricky of the Income School YouTube channel. The name refers to the goal of replacing your income within 24 months using online content. When I joined in September 2018, the program was structured around 60 steps you could work through in sequence, primarily focused on blogging for affiliate marketing and digital product sales. Think of it as a checklist that takes you from zero to a functioning content business.

The reason I chose Project 24 over dozens of other courses was simple: Jim and Ricky seemed to give everything away on their free YouTube channel. They were not holding key steps behind a paywall or drip-feeding you just enough to stay curious. They laid out the full process. So the question became, why pay for the course at all? The answer turned out to be the community, the free theme they provided, the YouTube course they added, the Pinterest course, the weekly podcast, and the continuous updates they rolled out throughout the year. Over twelve months, the course grew substantially and the additions made the original price look like a bargain.

One thing I want to be clear about before getting into the numbers: Project 24 is not a magic pill. You can join the course, follow every step, and still not see results if you do not put in the work. The course gives you the roadmap. You still have to drive. The results I am about to share reflect the effort and mistakes I made, not a guaranteed outcome for every member.

Site 1: The Big Site and What the Numbers Actually Look Like

Site 1 is my largest property. After one year it had between 95 and 100 published blog posts plus about 40 YouTube videos connected to it. The YouTube channel for this site had 42 subscribers. Here are the traffic numbers for the period ending September 6, 2019:

Pageviews: 7,938
Unique page views: 6,150
Average time on page: 1 minute 20 seconds
Bounce rate: 69.93%

The bounce rate had dropped significantly since switching to the new Avocado theme that Income School provides free to Project 24 members. That is a real, measurable improvement tied directly to a course benefit.

The most surprising data point is where the traffic comes from. Google organic sits at number eight on the traffic source list for this site. Most of my visitors arrive from Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and social media. I use a plugin called Blog to Social that automatically pushes new and updated posts to all my social media accounts the moment they go live. That accounts for why Facebook appears in the traffic data even though I did not manually share every post. Quora and LinkedIn also drive meaningful traffic.

The geography of my audience lines up with what you want if you are trying to sell products online: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and India sit at the top. These are markets with the purchasing power and willingness to pay for solutions to their problems. If your goal is monetization through affiliate products or digital goods, those four countries are where you want your traffic to come from.

So why is Google organic barely registering on a site with nearly 100 posts? Looking back honestly, the keyword research I did for the first 30 to 35 posts was not good enough. I rushed through it because I was excited to publish content and I wanted to see results quickly. The allure of making money online made me cut corners on the step that determines whether anyone finds you at all. There are also one or two competitor sites in this niche that have written extensively on most of the keywords I targeted, and I did not fully account for their strength when I was picking topics. Those are the real reasons the site has not seen the hockey stick growth curve that Project 24 describes.

The competitive advantage I do have in this niche is the YouTube component. Competitors dominate the written content side, but the video side has room. Continuing to publish YouTube videos and funneling viewers to the site or to a landing page for email collection gives this site a path forward that pure blogging does not.

Site 2: Where Google Organic Actually Worked

Site 2 tells a different story. I added the first blog post on October 25, 2018, and by the one-year mark the site had between 35 and 40 posts plus 10 YouTube videos. Here are the numbers:

Pageviews: 1,905
Unique views: 1,770
Average time on page: 1 minute 59 seconds

The raw pageview number is lower than Site 1, but the story inside the data is more encouraging. On Site 2, Google organic leads all traffic sources by a clear margin, followed by direct, referral, and social. That is the pattern you want to see when building an organic content business. It means the keyword research on this site was better and the competition in this niche is thinner than Site 1.

The niche for Site 2 is significantly broader than Site 1. I estimate the potential audience is roughly five times larger. That broader market means more keyword opportunities, more search volume to tap into, and more room to grow before hitting a ceiling. When you are picking a niche, audience size matters in a direct and practical way. A niche built around a topic that only a few hundred thousand people search for each month will plateau much sooner than one with millions of monthly searches.

This site still uses the old X theme rather than the Avocado theme. I have not made that switch yet, and based on the bounce rate improvement I saw on Site 1 after switching, there is likely a meaningful improvement waiting on Site 2 when I get around to it.

The traffic geography on Site 2 follows the same pattern as Site 1: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and India. Consistent with Site 1, these four markets represent the highest purchasing power and the greatest willingness to solve problems by spending money, which is the foundation of affiliate marketing and digital product sales.

Site 3: The Local Site Built Around a Tourist City

Site 3 is different from the other three in purpose and structure. I created this site in July 2018 to cover the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin, a tourist destination in the summer months and a suburb of Chicago. The idea was to build a local content site and sell advertising to local businesses. Because Kenosha sits in the Chicago metro market, ad rates are higher than cities of similar size elsewhere in the country. A local site that captures consistent traffic from people visiting or living in the area becomes a valuable advertising property for local businesses who cannot afford Chicago-level ad buys elsewhere.

Traffic on this site has been steady but plateaued. Since February the site has not grown past roughly 800 pageviews per month. There are between 10 and 20 blog posts covering various aspects of the city. The traffic sources for this site are direct, organic, social, and referral, with Google organic and LinkedIn both showing up as meaningful channels.

The big untapped opportunity for this site is a YouTube channel dedicated to Kenosha events. The city has Catholic festivals nearly every weekend in the summer, a diverse calendar of seasonal events, and no dedicated YouTube presence covering any of it. Being the first person to document Kenosha events on video would create a genuinely uncopyable position. If you are from Kenosha and watching this, that gap in the market is sitting there right now.

The traffic for this site skews heavily domestic, which makes sense given the local nature of the content. Visitors from outside the Midwest are a small minority and generally not the target audience for local business advertising.

Site 4: The Micro Site That Nobody Touched

Site 4 is the smallest and the most interesting from a practical standpoint. I launched it in January 2019 with fewer than 15 blog posts and then essentially left it alone. No images. No featured images. No aggressive promotion. Just text and affiliate links added recently. Here are the numbers for a site that received almost no attention:

Pageviews: 1,353
Unique views: 1,131
Average time on page: 2 minutes 47 seconds
Bounce rate: 88.73%
Exit rate: 79.90%

The bounce rate is high and the exit rate is high, which reflects the fact that most visitors find what they need on a single page and leave. That is actually normal behavior for informational micro sites. The more important number is the average time on page: nearly three minutes. When visitors do land on this site, they are reading. That tells you the content is doing its job even without any visual polish.

The traffic source breakdown for Site 4 shows Google organic leading by roughly a three-to-one margin over the next source, followed by direct, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and Facebook. This is the cleanest organic signal of all four sites. The keyword research for these posts was apparently done well enough that Google is finding and ranking them despite the site having no images and minimal off-page effort.

The lesson from Site 4 is that small, well-targeted micro sites can generate real organic traffic without constant maintenance. The site was essentially on autopilot for most of its existence and still produced over 1,300 pageviews. Keyword research and clean content can carry a site further than most people assume.

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How These Sites Make Money: Three Revenue Streams

Across all four sites, the income comes from three primary sources. Amazon affiliate marketing sits at the top. When visitors click affiliate links in my posts and buy products on Amazon, I earn a commission. This is the most consistent revenue stream and works well for content sites that review or recommend physical products in a niche audience is already shopping for.

Digital products are live on three of the four sites. A digital product, whether a guide, template, course, or checklist, has a high margin once created because there is no inventory or shipping cost. The challenge is building enough traffic to generate consistent sales, which is exactly what the Project 24 content strategy is designed to do over time.

Display advertising through Google Adsense runs on three of the four sites. I removed ads from Site 1 intentionally. Display ads pay based on impressions and clicks, which means they require high traffic volumes to generate meaningful income. For newer sites with lower traffic, ads can clutter the reading experience without producing much revenue. Removing them from Site 1 was a deliberate trade-off to prioritize user experience while that site grows.

One additional income path that came up organically was people reaching out through the contact form on these sites to ask about ghost writing or guest posting. I declined those offers, but they are worth mentioning because they represent a fourth revenue stream that content sites can tap into once they have established a visible audience.

LinkedIn: The Traffic Source Almost Nobody Is Using

One of the clearest insights from this year of data is that LinkedIn drives real traffic and almost no one in the content creation space is talking about it seriously. Most advice you will hear focuses on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. LinkedIn gets treated as a job board and nothing more.

Here is why that framing misses the point. LinkedIn’s audience is made up of business professionals. They have disposable income. They are already in the mindset of solving problems and advancing their skills. When you publish blog post snippets on LinkedIn and link back to the full post, you are reaching people who are predisposed to engage with information and take action.

There is also a secondary benefit that most content creators do not consider. Everything you post publicly online builds a digital record of your skills. Videos prove you can present ideas clearly to an audience. Written posts prove you can organize and communicate thoughts. LinkedIn makes that record visible to employers and potential business partners in a way that Instagram and TikTok do not. If you are building a content business while holding down a day job, LinkedIn lets you build your brand in a professional context that other platforms do not reach.

LinkedIn Groups add another layer. Participating in groups related to your niche puts your content in front of engaged audiences who are actively interested in your topic. That is not something Facebook Groups or Twitter threads replicate with the same professional signal. If you are building traffic to a content site and you are not using LinkedIn consistently, you are leaving a meaningful channel untapped.

Honest Drawbacks: What Held Back the Results

This section is where most Project 24 reviews go quiet. Here is what actually went wrong over the first year.

The biggest single mistake was rushing keyword research on Site 1. The first 30 to 35 blog posts targeted keywords that were either too competitive or too narrow for the site to rank on. By the time I recognized the pattern, I had a year’s worth of content sitting below the first page of Google results. The work was not wasted, it taught me what keyword research actually requires, but it cost months of organic growth that a more careful approach would have captured earlier.

The second issue was misjudging the competition. In the niche for Site 1, one or two established sites had already covered most of the obvious keyword targets with extensive content. I did not do a thorough enough competitive analysis before choosing my topics. Knowing that those sites existed and dominated the keyword landscape should have pushed me toward YouTube-first content for Site 1 from the beginning, rather than blog posts that would struggle to outrank well-established competitors.

The third gap was not creating content consistently enough across all four sites simultaneously. Spreading effort across four properties sounds like diversification, but it also means no single site gets the full attention it needs. Site 3 and Site 4 both have room for significantly more content, and the traffic data suggests that more posts would likely produce more growth.

None of these mistakes are failures of the Project 24 course itself. The course covered keyword research and competition analysis. The mistakes were mine, made while learning. But if you are considering joining Project 24, go into it knowing that the quality of your keyword research in the first few months will shape your results for the next year or more. Slow down on that step even when you feel the urge to rush.

Is Income School Project 24 Worth It?

Yes, for this year it was worth it. The direct answer is that the course changed the way I think about building an online business, and it did so faster than years of watching free YouTube videos had managed to. Before Project 24, I had made money online through Udemy courses, physical product sales, and affiliate marketing in various forms. But I did not have a clear system for creating content that compounds over time. Project 24 gave me that system through the 60-step process, and having a sequential checklist made the work feel manageable rather than overwhelming.

The additions Income School made during the year increased the value substantially. The free Avocado theme alone justifies a significant portion of the course price when you consider what a premium WordPress theme costs on the open market. Add the YouTube course, the Pinterest course, and the weekly podcast, and the value of the membership at the price they charge is genuinely underpriced. Jim and Ricky could double what they charge and still offer a fair deal compared to what other course creators charge for similar content.

The community inside Project 24 is also worth factoring in. Having access to other members who are at different stages of the process, asking questions, sharing wins and setbacks, provides context that free YouTube comments cannot replicate. When you are in the middle of a frustrating stretch where traffic is flat, knowing that others have been through the same plateau and come out the other side changes how you relate to the work.

One Year Across Four Sites: The Real Numbers

Here is the full picture across all four sites at the one-year mark so you can use these numbers as a benchmark for your own Project 24 journey.

Site 1: 95 to 100 posts, 40 videos, 7,938 pageviews, 6,150 unique, 1:20 avg time, 69.93% bounce rate. Google organic is the 8th traffic source. Lesson: keyword research quality in the first batch of posts defines the organic ceiling.
Site 2: 35 to 40 posts, 10 videos, 1,905 pageviews, 1,770 unique, 1:59 avg time. Google organic is the top source. Lesson: a broader niche with thinner competition produces cleaner organic results even with fewer posts.
Site 3: 10 to 20 posts, local focus, ~800 pageviews/month steady since February. Lesson: local sites plateau without a YouTube companion channel driving discovery.
Site 4: Under 15 posts, no images, 1,353 pageviews, 1,131 unique, 2:47 avg time, 88.73% bounce rate. Completely hands-off after publication. Lesson: a small, well-targeted micro site can sustain organic traffic with almost no maintenance.

Find Your X

One year into Project 24, the clearest thing I can tell you is that the method works but the speed depends entirely on how well you match your niche to your keyword research and your competitive analysis. The biggest variable in the equation is not the course, the theme, or the number of posts. It is picking the right topics from the start and writing content that answers questions people are actually asking in a market that has room for a new voice.

If you are trying to figure out which online income model fits your specific skills, time, and situation before you commit to a path, take seven minutes and answer the questions at finder.platformproof.com. It will tell you exactly which model is the right fit and why.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to see real traffic from Project 24?

Income School’s own data suggests that most blog posts reach their traffic peak around nine months after publication. That means the first six to nine months will feel slow. Site 1 in this review had nearly 100 posts at the one-year mark and was starting to see traffic grow, but had not yet hit the growth curve. Site 4, with far fewer posts but better keyword targeting, was already showing strong Google organic results. Timeline depends more on keyword quality than post volume.

Is Project 24 only for bloggers?

When the course launched it was primarily focused on blogging for affiliate income. Over time Income School added a full YouTube course and a Pinterest course. The current version of Project 24 is genuinely multi-channel. You can build your business around blog posts, YouTube videos, or a combination of both. This review covers four sites that all combined blogging with YouTube to varying degrees.

What is the Avocado theme and do you need it?

Avocado is a WordPress theme created by Income School specifically for Project 24 members. It is included free with membership. Site 1 switched to Avocado during the year covered in this review and the bounce rate dropped measurably after the switch. Site 2 and Site 4 still use the older X theme. The Avocado theme is optimized for the type of content Project 24 members produce and the reading experience it creates is noticeably cleaner than a generic theme.

Can you run more than one site with Project 24?

Yes. This review covers four sites managed simultaneously under one Project 24 membership. The tradeoff is attention. Spreading effort across four sites means each site gets less content per month than it would if you focused on one. For beginners, starting with one site and getting it to consistent organic traffic before launching a second is probably the better path. This review demonstrates that dividing attention across four sites produces slower progress on each one individually.

What traffic sources work besides Google?

This review showed real traffic from Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Quora, LinkedIn, and Facebook. The Blog to Social plugin was responsible for most of the social traffic by automatically pushing new and updated posts to social accounts. LinkedIn stood out as the most underused channel with genuine business-professional reach. Quora also drove traffic when relevant questions in the niche were answered with links back to detailed blog posts.

What does the Project 24 community look like?

The community includes an active forum where members share traffic updates, keyword research questions, and site reviews. Jim and Ricky participate directly. The community aspect provides accountability and real-world examples of what other members at similar stages are experiencing, which is qualitatively different from watching YouTube comments or forum posts from strangers who may not be applying the same method.

Does niche size matter for Project 24 results?

Yes, significantly. Site 1 in this review is in a narrower niche with strong established competition. Site 2 is in a niche roughly five times the size with less competition at the keyword level, and it produced cleaner organic search results with fewer posts. Niche selection affects how quickly Google organic starts contributing traffic and how high that traffic can grow before the site saturates the available keywords. Bigger markets with genuine search demand give you more room to grow.

Is Project 24 still active and being updated?

As of the period covered in this review, Income School was actively updating the course. During the year covered here they added the YouTube course, the Pinterest course, the Avocado theme, and the weekly podcast. Jim and Ricky were also posting regularly to their YouTube channel with content that supplements the course material. The consistent additions were one of the reasons the value proposition held up over the full year of membership.

Sources

Income School YouTube channel: Project 24 course overview and 60-step blogging process
Google Analytics data from Site 1: 7,938 pageviews, 69.93% bounce rate, September 2018 to September 2019
Google Analytics data from Site 2: 1,905 pageviews, 1:59 average time on page, October 2018 to September 2019
Google Analytics data from Site 3: approximately 800 pageviews/month plateau, July 2018 to September 2019
Google Analytics data from Site 4: 1,353 pageviews, 88.73% bounce rate, January 2019 to September 2019
Blog to Social WordPress plugin: automated social media distribution