Income School Project 24 Weekly Update: 4 Sites Report, August 24 to 30

Running one website is a job. Running four at the same time is a masterclass in patience, keyword research, and knowing which numbers actually matter. In this weekly update covering August 24 through August 30, Alston walks through real traffic data across all four of his Project 24 niche sites. No income claims, no fluff, just raw analytics, honest observations, and the kind of lessons that only come from doing the work for nearly a full year straight.

If you have been sitting on the fence about starting a blog or wondering whether Project 24 actually produces results in the real world, this update gives you a front-row seat to what realistic progress looks like. One site is picking up momentum after fixing its keyword strategy. One runs itself on barely any content and pulls nearly nine minutes per page visit. One is testing a local directory model that is completely different from standard affiliate blogging. And one is fighting a possible YMYL ranking issue that even the analytics dashboard cannot fully explain. This is what building an online business through blogging actually looks like in year one.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear picture of how four niche sites can each follow a different monetization and traffic strategy under one Project 24 system
The actual traffic numbers for each site, including page views, unique views, time on page, and bounce rates
Why switching to the Avocado theme dropped Site 1’s bounce rate to 15.12% and what that means for your own WordPress setup
What Blog2Social does and why it kept sending posts even after Alston disabled it on his sites
Why a site with fewer than 15 blog posts and zero images was still pulling 111 unique visitors per week at 8 minutes and 38 seconds per page
How Amazon slashing affiliate commissions from 4 to 10 percent down to 1.5 percent changes the math on every content site running Amazon Associates
What YMYL means for Google rankings and why one of Alston’s sites may be stuck because of it despite solid content
Not sure which type of site fits your background? Take the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com to find out in under two minutes.

What Is Project 24?

Project 24 is a content marketing course created by Jim and Ricky at Income School. The name comes from the goal of replacing your full-time income within 24 months through blogging and content creation. Alston joined the program on September 7, 2018, which puts this August update at just under one full year of building.

The course has grown well beyond a single blogging module. At the time of this update, Income School offers approximately 14 mini-courses inside Project 24. These cover blogging fundamentals, a free WordPress theme called the Avocado theme, a YouTube channel growth course that can be used to support a blog or run as a standalone channel, a members-only weekly podcast, and a private community forum where Jim and Ricky’s team actively answers questions from students. The community element is one of the things that sets Project 24 apart from courses where you buy access and then get left alone.

The core method is straightforward: research low-competition keywords, write helpful content targeting those keywords, publish consistently, and then wait for search engines to index and rank your posts. Monetization comes through affiliate marketing, display advertising, or direct sales depending on the niche and model. The results are not immediate, which is why Alston publishes these weekly and monthly updates. They document what months one through twelve actually look like before rankings start producing reliable traffic.

Site 1: The Largest Site and a Potential YMYL Problem

Site 1 is the biggest property in Alston’s portfolio. At the time of this weekly update, it has between 95 and 100 published blog posts and somewhere between 35 and 40 YouTube videos linked to or embedded on the site. The traffic numbers for the week of August 24 through 30 are: 4,474 page views, 237 unique views, 29 seconds of average time per page, a 15.12% bounce rate, and a 43.25% exit rate.

The bounce rate deserves specific attention. A 15% bounce rate on a content site is genuinely strong. Alston credits the improvement directly to switching from X Theme to the Avocado theme, which is included free for all Project 24 members. The Avocado theme was built for speed, and site load time has a direct effect on how quickly visitors decide to click away. The improvement in bounce rate is one of the clearest before-and-after signals in the update.

The bigger concern on Site 1 is Google organic traffic. Alston notices a significant mismatch between what Google Analytics reports and what Google Search Console shows. The two tools are telling different stories, and the organic traffic number in Analytics looks lower than it should given what Search Console shows for impressions and clicks. Some of that discrepancy comes from how Analytics categorizes referral sources, with some Google organic traffic being counted as direct. But even accounting for that, the Google organic performance has been slower than expected.

Alston suspects the niche may be on the edge of what Google classifies as YMYL, meaning Your Money or Your Life. Google holds content in the health, financial, and relationship spaces to a higher standard of authority and expertise before ranking it well. Sites without established credibility signals in those areas can rank slowly even when the content itself is thorough and well-targeted. Alston also acknowledges that the first 30 posts he published on Site 1 were not based on the strongest keyword research. He has since corrected that approach and the newer posts are more carefully targeted, but the early content is part of the site’s overall footprint. The keywords on those newer posts are now hitting the eight to nine month range, which is typically when Project 24 posts start seeing real movement in rankings.

Where Site 1 Traffic Actually Comes From

Rather than Google organic, Site 1’s traffic for this period comes mainly from Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Quora, Facebook, and YouTube. The Quora traffic is consistent because Alston spends time answering questions in his niche on Quora, linking back to relevant posts on his site. That type of organic community engagement drives a reliable stream of targeted visitors who are already looking for an answer to a specific question.

The Facebook and YouTube traffic comes partly from the Blog2Social plugin that Alston uses to auto-distribute content across social platforms. He also notes that geography of visitors matters for monetization strategy. If you are running an affiliate site, you want visitors who are buyers, not just people looking for free information. The Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo audiences tend to skew toward US and UK consumers, which is a positive signal for affiliate conversion even while Google organic traffic builds over time. Alston compares his Analytics data to Search Console as a habit, and recommends that any blogger do the same because the two tools rarely report identical numbers and understanding why they differ helps you read your traffic more accurately.

Site 2: Solid Google Traffic and the Blog2Social Plugin

Site 2 launched on October 25, 2018, and has between 35 and 45 published blog posts at the time of this update. The traffic mix here is much cleaner than Site 1: Google organic accounts for 70% of traffic, direct traffic makes up 11%, and the remainder is split between Yahoo, Facebook, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. Google actually trusts this site, and the keyword research discipline from the start has paid off in the form of consistent organic search traffic.

The 11% direct traffic is a meaningful number. Direct traffic usually means people are returning to the site on purpose, typing the URL directly or using a bookmark. That signals the content is useful enough that a portion of visitors want to come back. For a site that has been publishing for less than a year, that kind of repeat audience behavior is a good sign that the niche selection and content quality are working.

Alston does not disclose the niche for Site 2, but the traffic breakdown and the fact that Google is sending 70% of visitors makes it clear that the site is in a space where Google feels comfortable ranking new content from a newer domain. That is a meaningful contrast to Site 1’s YMYL challenge, and it illustrates why niche selection matters even before the first post goes live.

Blog2Social: One Setup, 52 Weeks of Automated Distribution

One of the more practically useful tools Alston mentions across his sites is a WordPress plugin called Blog2Social. The concept is simple: after publishing a blog post, Blog2Social automatically promotes that post across your connected social media accounts on a schedule you set in advance. Alston has posts scheduled for distribution over a full 52-week cycle, meaning each piece of content gets promoted repeatedly without any ongoing manual effort.

The detail that stuck out in this update is that Blog2Social was still sending out posts and notifications even after Alston had disabled the plugin on all of his websites. He is not alarmed by this, just noting the behavior as something to be aware of. The plugin has a free version and a paid premium version. Alston describes it as one of the few premium plugins he has actually purchased, which is notable given how many free alternatives exist in the WordPress plugin library. If you are spending time each week manually posting your content to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or other platforms, Blog2Social removes that task almost entirely. The Facebook traffic numbers on Site 1 and Site 2 are at least partially attributable to this plugin doing its job in the background week after week.

Site 3: learnkenosha.com, From Local Directory to Content Site

Site 3 is a different kind of experiment entirely. The site is called learnkenosha.com and it is a travel and local directory site focused on Kenosha, Wisconsin, which is where Alston lives. The original monetization plan was not affiliate marketing. It was direct ad sales to local restaurants and businesses listed in the directory. That is a fundamentally different revenue model from the standard Project 24 affiliate blog, and it comes with a different set of growth challenges and advantages.

Alston started adding blog content to learnkenosha.com more recently as a way to build organic search traffic that the directory listings alone would not generate. Traffic is down during this weekly period compared to earlier, which he notes he will dig into more thoroughly at the year-end review. The traffic that does arrive comes from Google, Bing, and Facebook. Any traffic coming from outside the United States is almost certainly bots or completely off-target visitors, since the site serves a hyper-local audience in a specific Midwest city.

What makes learnkenosha.com interesting as a model is that it shows you do not need a national or global niche to build a content site worth owning. A local directory with editorial blog content can serve a genuinely underserved audience. Competition for local search terms is almost always lower than for national keywords, and geographic expertise is an asset that outside competitors cannot easily replicate. If you know your city well, there may be an opportunity there that nobody in your market is building yet. The monetization path could eventually include affiliate links through hotel booking platforms, direct partnerships with local businesses, or paid event listings in addition to the ad space model Alston originally planned.

Site 4: The Smallest Site That Earns Nearly 9 Minutes Per Visit

Site 4 is the most surprising data point in this entire weekly update. It has fewer than 15 published blog posts. There are no images beyond a logo. The design is a plain background with basic text. Alston started adding content in February and has not touched the site since. It runs completely on autopilot. Yet for the week of August 24 through 30, the site pulled 120 page views and 111 unique views, with an average time on page of 8 minutes and 38 seconds.

Eight minutes and thirty-eight seconds is a remarkable number for any content site. Most content sites celebrate anything over two minutes. The fact that visitors from Bing, DuckDuckGo, AOL, Yahoo, and primarily Google are spending that long reading posts on a site with no images and under 15 articles means the content itself is genuinely useful and well-targeted to the search queries that brought people there. The traffic skews toward the UK and other developed countries, which suggests real human visitors who found specific answers they were looking for.

Alston includes Site 4 in the update specifically as motivation for people who are just starting out and worried they need to have everything perfect before launching. You do not need a beautiful design, a full content library, or a monetization plan figured out on day one. You need keyword research and content that actually answers the questions people are searching for. Site 4 was planted in February, left alone for six months, and it is still pulling in visitors and holding their attention. That is the core promise of the Project 24 method working in its simplest possible form.

Not sure which type of site or niche fits your skills and goals?

Take the free two-minute quiz at finder.platformproof.com. It matches your background, schedule, and income goals to the model that actually fits you, not whatever is trending on YouTube this week.

Real Numbers: All 4 Sites Side by Side

Here is how all four sites compare for the week of August 24 through 30, based on the numbers Alston shares in the video:

Site 1 (largest): 4,474 page views, 237 unique views, 29 seconds per page, 15.12% bounce rate, 43.25% exit rate. Between 95 and 100 posts. Avocado theme. Traffic from Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Quora, Facebook, YouTube. Possible YMYL ranking issue with Google organic.
Site 2: Between 35 and 45 posts. Traffic: 70% Google organic, 11% direct, remainder from Yahoo, Facebook, Bing, DuckDuckGo. Cleanest Google traffic split of all four sites. Uses Blog2Social for social distribution.
Site 3 (learnkenosha.com): Local travel and directory site for Kenosha, Wisconsin. Traffic down this week. Traffic from Google, Bing, Facebook. Monetization through direct ad sales to local businesses, not affiliate links.
Site 4 (smallest): Under 15 posts. No images. Plain design. Last updated February. This week: 120 page views, 111 unique views, 8 minutes 38 seconds per page. Traffic from Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, AOL, Yahoo. Audience from UK and US primarily.

Honest Drawbacks: What the Numbers Are Not Showing Yet

Alston is transparent about where things are falling short at the one-year mark. He admits he does not track income carefully enough to share a precise number. Between Amazon cutting affiliate commissions and removing Google Adsense from Site 1, the revenue picture is lower than it probably should be given the traffic volume across all four properties.

The Amazon commission change is worth breaking down specifically. Under the old structure, if someone clicked your affiliate link for one product and then bought a different product in the same browsing session, you earned the full commission rate for whatever category that second product fell into. Rates ranged from roughly 4% up to 10% depending on the product type. Amazon changed this structure so that purchases of items different from the one clicked now pay out at a flat 1.5% regardless of category. For a site where visitors commonly browse and buy multiple items in a session, this was a significant revenue cut. It also changed how thoughtful content builders approach product selection. Targeting products in high-commission categories and ensuring the content directly leads visitors toward those specific products matters more now than it did before the commission change.

The YMYL concern on Site 1 is the other honest drawback in this update. Google does not send you a notice when it decides your site falls into a YMYL category. You find out through slow and confusing ranking behavior, inconsistencies between Search Console and Analytics, and traffic that never quite materializes the way keyword research predicted it should. The path through it is building authority over time: consistent publishing, links from credible sources in the space, and user behavior signals like low bounce rates and high time on page that tell Google real people find the site useful. There is no faster workaround.

What Early Keyword Research Mistakes Actually Cost You

One of the most useful admissions in this update is that Alston’s first 30 posts on Site 1 were not based on strong keyword research. He knew it at the time and has worked to correct it with newer posts, but those early posts are a permanent part of the site’s content foundation. They represent months of writing effort that produced less search traffic than the same time invested in better-researched topics would have generated.

This is one of the most common and costly mistakes new bloggers make in the first three months. The keyword research step feels slow and uncertain when you are eager to start publishing. You know your topic well and you want to start writing. But the difference between a post targeting a keyword with 200 monthly searches and low competition versus a keyword that sounds good but has too much authority in the top results is often the difference between ranking on page one and never ranking at all. Alston’s Site 4, with under 15 posts, is likely outperforming those first 30 posts on Site 1 in terms of traffic per article precisely because the keyword selection on Site 4 was more careful. Get the research right first, then write.

Find Your X

This weekly update covers four sites with four different models: a large affiliate and YouTube-supported authority blog, a Google-organic-driven content site, a local directory with direct ad sales, and a minimal content experiment left to run on its own. What they all have in common is that Alston built each one around something he already knew, whether that was a niche subject, a local community, or a content strategy he wanted to test. The method came from Project 24. The niche came from his own knowledge and situation.

The hardest part for most people who want to start a content site is not WordPress or affiliate programs or keeping a publishing schedule. It is knowing what to build and why. If you are not sure whether a niche blog, a local site, a YouTube channel, or something else entirely is the right fit for your skills and schedule, take two minutes at finder.platformproof.com. The quiz helps you match your actual background to a model that makes sense for you, not just the one that looks most appealing from the outside.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Project 24 from Income School?

Project 24 is a content marketing course by Jim and Ricky at Income School designed to help people build blogging-based income within 24 months. It includes approximately 14 mini-courses covering blogging, the Avocado WordPress theme, YouTube growth, a members-only podcast, and a private community with active support from the Income School team. Alston joined on September 7, 2018, so this August weekly update falls just before his one-year mark with the program.

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

Based on Alston’s data across four sites, most well-targeted posts begin gaining meaningful search traffic somewhere between the eight and twelve month mark. Site 4 published content in February and was still pulling consistent Google traffic by late August with minimal posts and no site updates. Site 1’s newer, better-researched posts are hitting the eight to nine month range and traffic is beginning to grow. The quality of keyword research at the time of publishing is the single biggest factor in how quickly that growth arrives.

What is the Avocado theme and why is it worth switching to?

The Avocado theme is a free WordPress theme available exclusively to Project 24 members. Income School built it to load significantly faster than typical commercial WordPress themes. Site speed affects bounce rate directly: a faster page means fewer visitors leave before the content loads. Alston switched Site 1 from X Theme to Avocado and the bounce rate dropped to 15.12%, which is strong for a content site. If you are a Project 24 member still running a heavier theme, the data here is a good argument for making the switch.

What does YMYL mean and how does it affect a blog’s Google rankings?

YMYL stands for Your Money or Your Life. Google uses this classification for content that could meaningfully affect a reader’s health, financial decisions, safety, or wellbeing. Sites in or near YMYL categories are evaluated more stringently for author expertise, site authority, and overall trustworthiness before Google ranks them well. A newer site without strong authority signals in a YMYL space may rank slowly even with well-researched, high-quality content. Alston believes Site 1’s niche is on the edge of this classification, which is contributing to sluggish Google organic traffic despite solid overall traffic from other sources.

How did Amazon’s commission changes affect niche site income?

Amazon reduced commissions on purchases of products different from the one clicked to a flat 1.5%. Previously, if a visitor clicked your affiliate link for one item and then purchased something else in the same session, you earned the full category commission on that purchase, which could range from 4% up to 10% depending on product type. The change significantly reduced income for sites that relied on broad Amazon Associates traffic across many product categories. It also made precise product targeting more important because the cost of a visitor buying the wrong item is now higher than it used to be.

What is Blog2Social and how does it help with content distribution?

Blog2Social is a WordPress plugin that automatically distributes your blog posts to connected social media accounts on a schedule you set in advance. Alston has posts scheduled to go out over a full 52-week cycle, so each article gets promoted repeatedly without any ongoing manual work. The plugin has a free version and a premium version. Alston uses premium on at least some of his sites and considers it one of the few plugins worth paying for. The Facebook traffic appearing consistently across multiple sites in this update is partly the result of Blog2Social running in the background.

Can a local directory site work as a Project 24 model?

Alston’s learnkenosha.com experiment suggests it can, but with a different set of expectations. The monetization model for a local directory is direct ad sales and partnerships with local businesses rather than affiliate commissions. Traffic volume will be limited by geography, which means the path to income is getting a smaller number of local business owners to pay for listings or advertising rather than driving large volumes of affiliate-converting search traffic. Adding blog content to the site creates an organic search component that pure directory listings would not generate on their own. It is a slower and less scalable model than a national niche blog but it carries lower competition and local knowledge advantages that are hard for outside competitors to replicate.

Should a beginner start with one site or multiple sites like Alston?

For most people starting out, one site is the right call. Alston runs four sites primarily as an experiment to test different models, niches, and traffic strategies at the same time. He is also nearly a year into the process and has a workflow in place. His own update acknowledges that the first 30 posts on Site 1 suffered from weaker keyword research, and splitting your attention across four projects makes that kind of early mistake more likely, not less. Get one site producing consistent traffic before adding a second. Site 4’s performance in this update is encouraging precisely because it was built, planted, and left alone, not because it required active management across four parallel sites at once.

Sources

Income School Project 24 weekly update video by Alston Godbolt, covering August 24 through August 30
Income School Project 24 course, incomeschool.com
Google Analytics and Google Search Console traffic data presented in the video
Blog2Social WordPress plugin, blog2social.com
learnkenosha.com, local travel and directory site for Kenosha, Wisconsin
Amazon Associates program commission structure changes, Amazon affiliate documentation