Project 24 Income School November 2019 Update: Real Numbers From 4 Niche Sites

I joined Project 24 by Income School in September 2018 with four sites running at once. By November 2019, those four sites were telling four very different stories. One site had nearly 100 blog posts and was still underperforming on Google. Another site had only ten posts and was pulling more traffic than the hundred-post monster. This update walks through all four of them with actual numbers so you can see what the method does and does not do in the real world.

If you are thinking about starting a niche blog or already inside Project 24, this breakdown is useful. The numbers are from November 2019 Google Analytics. Nothing is faked or inflated. I am going to give you the traffic sources, the bounce rates, the geography, and the hard lessons I learned from trying to run four sites while holding a full-time job.

What You’ll Walk Out With

What Project 24’s 60-step framework actually looks like after 14 months
Real November 2019 traffic numbers for all four sites, side by side
Why a 10-post site beat a 100-post site in traffic and time-on-page
How niching down (or failing to) affects Google rankings over time
Why Bing outranked Google as a traffic source on my biggest site and what that signals
How YouTube and Pinterest factor into a blog’s organic traffic strategy
What I would do differently if I were starting over with one site instead of four
If you want to know which online income path fits your actual skills right now, take the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com

What Project 24 Actually Is

Project 24 is a course built by Jim Harmer and Ricky Kesler of Income School. The idea is that if you follow their 60-step process for building a niche blogging site, you can replace your income within 24 months. When I joined in September 2018, the course was primarily focused on written content marketing. By late 2019 they had added free courses on YouTube, Pinterest, digital products, and competitive analysis. All of those extra courses come included with your membership.

The 60 steps are structured so that you pick a niche, do keyword research, create your site, write posts in a specific order (response posts, staple posts, and pillar posts), and build out a YouTube presence alongside the blog. The theory is that Google wants to rank sites that demonstrate topical authority in a focused niche, and that organic search traffic is more sustainable than paid traffic or social traffic because it keeps coming in without ongoing ad spend.

I built four sites following this method. Here is exactly what happened by month 14.

Site 1: The 100-Post Site That Google Barely Noticed

This is my largest site. I created it on September 7th, 2018, which made it just over a year old at the time of this update. It had somewhere between 95 and 100 published blog posts, which is a significant body of content by any measure.

Here are the November 2019 numbers:

Page views: 2,787
Unique views: 1,353
Pages per session: approximately 2
Time on page: 30 seconds
Bounce rate: 8.26%
Exit rate: 44.31%

That bounce rate of 8.26% is very low, and I credit the Avocado theme that Income School provides for free to its members. The theme is built to keep people on the page and clicking to related content. So the on-page engagement numbers look decent. The problem is where the traffic is actually coming from.

For an SEO-focused niche blog, you want organic search to make up roughly 85 to 90 percent of your traffic. On this site, organic search was probably 50 to 60 percent, with the rest split between direct traffic, social, and referral. More damaging than that: Bing was my number one search engine source. Google was number six. In a month, I was getting about 43 visits from Google, which works out to roughly one or two a day. For context, at certain points earlier in the site’s life I was pulling maybe three or ten Google visits per month, so it had grown, but Google being sixth place on a year-old site with 100 posts is a warning sign.

After doing an honest assessment, I traced this back to three problems. First, I did not niche down far enough when I picked the topic. The site is broad enough that it is competing against authority domains that have hundreds of posts and years of history. Second, my keyword research was not tight enough. I was targeting phrases that were more competitive than I realized. Third, I did not do a proper competitive analysis before writing. I was not asking who is actually ranking for this keyword and can I realistically outrank them in the next 12 months.

Jim and Ricky have since released a competitive analysis course inside Project 24 that specifically addresses this problem. I used their earlier guidance, but the more detailed framework they built later would have changed my decisions on this site.

Site 2: The Niche I Won’t Reveal, But the Numbers Tell the Story

Site 2 was created on October 25th, 2018, about six weeks after site 1. I finished the 60-step process on this site in the first week of January 2019. By November 2019 it had somewhere between 30 and 50 blog posts. I also had 10 YouTube videos attached to this site, though I had not updated those videos since around October 2018.

November 2019 numbers for site 2:

Page views: 2,147
Unique views: 2,017

The unique view count being very close to the page view count suggests people are visiting one page and moving on, which is typical when the Avocado theme is not in use or when people are finding a specific answer and leaving satisfied. The more important data point is the traffic source breakdown. On this site, Google is number one. That is exactly what the Income School method is designed to produce. Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo follow behind Google, and even YouTube is driving some traffic, which shows that those 10 videos, even without recent updates, are still working.

The traffic is also coming in from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and India. Income School stresses aiming for first-world country traffic because those audiences have a demonstrated habit of spending money to solve problems online, which matters if you are running affiliate links or selling digital products. A large niche will naturally pull in a broader international audience, and this site is in a larger niche than site 1.

I am not going to name the niche. That is a deliberate choice. When you build content around a specific topic, someone who knows your niche can copy your structure, target the same keywords, and undercut you. I am not going to hand that to anyone watching or reading this.

Site 3: The Local City Site in Kenosha, Wisconsin

Site 3 is a travel and local information site for Kenosha, Wisconsin. I include it in these updates because a lot of people ask about travel sites: do they work, how do they perform, are they worth building? Kenosha is positioned between Milwaukee and Chicago on the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan, so it draws visitors from both metro areas.

This site had fewer than 20 blog posts at the time of this update, which is the smallest content base of all four sites.

November 2019 numbers for site 3:

Page views: 129
Unique views: 114
Bounce rate: 86.27%

The site uses the Listing Pro theme rather than Avocado, because I originally built it as a directory site and then attached a blog section to it later. The high bounce rate reflects both the theme and the nature of local travel content: people come in, find what they need, and leave.

On the positive side, Google is the number one traffic source, which is the right signal. The site is also getting traffic from Facebook, Pinterest, and Bing, which shows that even a small site with under 20 posts can pull from multiple channels when you do the work to set them up. I had promoted this site on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Pinterest in particular is a platform that Income School recommends alongside YouTube as a traffic source, and you can see it showing up here.

The honest assessment on this site is that it just needs more content. The Google signal is there. The problem is volume. With fewer than 20 posts covering a mid-size city, there are only so many keywords to rank for. The path forward is clear: write more posts, keep going. But I had not been consistently adding content here.

Site 4: Ten Posts, More Traffic Than the Site With 100

Site 4 is the most interesting case in this entire update. Pound for pound, it is my most successful site. It had exactly ten blog posts in November 2019. Ten. And it outperformed my 100-post site on nearly every meaningful metric.

November 2019 numbers for site 4:

Page views: 2,621
Unique views: 2,417
Time on page: 4 minutes 51 seconds
Bounce rate: 88.92%
Exit rate: 90.19%

The bounce rate and exit rate look alarming on the surface. Nearly 89 percent of people are bouncing. But pair that with a time-on-page of nearly five minutes and the picture changes entirely. People are arriving, reading almost everything on the page, getting what they came for, and leaving satisfied. That is a healthy pattern for a content site. A low bounce rate only matters if the time on page is also reasonable. Here, people are staying close to five minutes, which tells you the content is actually serving them.

Google is the dominant traffic source by a wide margin, followed by Bing and Yahoo. The top four or five traffic sources are all search engines. That is exactly the structure you want from an SEO-first content site. Social and referral are minimal, which means the site is not dependent on me actively promoting it. It is ranking, and it is holding.

The lesson from site 4 is not that ten posts is some magic number. The lesson is that niche focus and keyword selection at the start determine how quickly Google takes you seriously. Site 1 had ten times more posts and pulled roughly the same raw traffic, but with Google barely in the picture. Site 4 had ten posts and had Google as its clear number one source within a reasonable time window. The difference is how carefully those ten posts were targeted from day one.

Not sure which online income model fits your skills and schedule?

The free quiz at finder.platformproof.com matches you to a realistic starting point in under two minutes.

What Managing Four Sites at Once Actually Teaches You

I started building multiple sites because I thought having several fishing lines in the water at once would increase the odds of something breaking through. More sites meant more chances. In January and February 2019, after running four sites while working full time, I realized that logic was flawed for my situation.

Maintaining four blogs while holding a regular job is genuinely difficult. Each site needs fresh content on a reasonable schedule. Each site needs its YouTube component, its Pinterest presence, its internal linking. When you are splitting that attention four ways, every site gets less than it needs. Instead of one excellent site making real progress, you end up with four sites all moving slowly.

I scaled back. I slowed down or stopped writing on some sites. I looked at hiring writers but I was not at the revenue point where that made sense yet. This is not a failure of the method. It is an honest result of overextension. If I were starting over with what I know now, I would pick one niche, build one site, give it everything, and only spin up a second site after the first was generating consistent income.

Honest Drawbacks of the Project 24 Approach

Project 24 is a legitimate course and the method works. My four sites are proof of that, even with the mistakes I made. But there are real drawbacks worth naming before you decide whether to invest in it.

It takes time. The 24-month income replacement timeline is not guaranteed. My largest site at 14 months was not close to replacing any income. Site 4 was performing well but had 10 posts. The method is slow by design because organic SEO is slow by nature. If you need income in 60 or 90 days, this is not the right vehicle.

Niche selection is the whole game. The 60 steps can be executed perfectly, but if your niche is too broad or too competitive, you are going to spend a year writing into a headwind. Project 24 teaches you how to pick a niche, but you still have to make the call. I made a poor call on site 1 and I am living with the traffic numbers a year later.

Keyword research is a skill you have to actually build. Reading about how to do keyword research and then going out and doing it are two different things. My Google traffic on site 1 being sixth place after a year of work is largely a keyword research failure. The newer competitive analysis course inside Project 24 is better than what was available when I started, but you still have to put in the reps before you get it right.

Geographic traffic matters for monetization. If you are building affiliate revenue, you want traffic from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. These audiences are more likely to purchase products or services online. International traffic from outside those regions is not worth zero, but it converts at a lower rate for most affiliate programs. Understanding this early changes which niches you should even consider.

The YouTube component requires its own discipline. Project 24 recommends creating ten YouTube videos to accompany your blog. This helps Google recognize that your site is supported by a real presence elsewhere online. But YouTube is its own skill set. I was honest in the video that my YouTube content at that point was basically a reiteration of my blog posts and it was not great. If you are going to use YouTube as a traffic amplifier for your blog, it helps to actually invest in learning video production.

A Real-Numbers Breakdown: What the Four Sites Tell You About the Method

Here is a direct side-by-side of all four sites in November 2019 to make the comparison easier:

Site 1: 95-100 posts, started Sept 2018, 2,787 page views, Google is #6, Bing is #1, problem is poor niche focus and keyword research
Site 2: 30-50 posts, started Oct 2018, 2,147 page views, Google is #1, this is what healthy organic growth looks like
Site 3: fewer than 20 posts, local city site (Kenosha, WI), 129 page views, Google is #1, needs more content volume
Site 4: exactly 10 posts, 2,621 page views, 4 min 51 sec on page, Google leads by a wide margin, best SEO performance per post of all four sites

What the numbers show is that post count alone is not the deciding variable. Site 4 has one-tenth the posts of site 1 and more raw traffic. The deciding variable is how well the posts were targeted to keywords that a specific audience is searching for, and how tight the niche is around those keywords. That selection happens before you write a single word. Getting it right or wrong at that stage determines where you land 12 to 14 months from now.

Is Project 24 Worth It?

My honest answer is yes, with the right expectations. Project 24 is a good framework for someone who wants to build organic traffic through content and does not want to pay for ads. It gives you a process to follow when you have no idea where to start. The free courses they continue adding on YouTube, Pinterest, digital products, and competitive analysis make the membership more valuable over time.

The method works. Site 2 and site 4 are proof of that. The method also amplifies your early decisions. If you pick the right niche and do the keyword research carefully, you get site 4. If you skip those steps or rush through them, you get site 1: a lot of work with limited Google results to show for it 14 months in.

If you are considering Project 24 and you want a low-cost way to build an online presence without paid ads, it is a solid starting point. Go in knowing it is a multi-month, likely multi-year project, and focus your energy on picking one niche tightly before you write anything.

Find Your X

Project 24 is one path for building income online. Blogging and SEO work for the right person with the right niche and the patience to see it through. But it is not the only path. If you are not sure whether content marketing, affiliate marketing, digital products, freelancing, or something else fits your current skills and schedule, the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com gives you a specific direction based on where you actually are right now. No guessing. No generic advice.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to see Google traffic with the Income School method?

It varies by niche and keyword competition, but a realistic window is 10 to 18 months before consistent Google traffic appears. My site 1 was 14 months old and still getting very little Google traffic, largely because of a broad niche and weak keyword targeting at the start. Site 4, with better initial targeting, was showing strong Google results much earlier. The 24-month income replacement goal is a general benchmark, not a guarantee.

Is the Avocado theme actually necessary for Project 24?

It is not required, but it genuinely affects on-page metrics. My site 1 and site 2, which both use the Avocado theme provided free to Income School members, had noticeably lower bounce rates compared to site 3, which uses a different theme. The Avocado theme keeps visitors clicking to related content. If you are inside Project 24, using the Avocado theme is a reasonable default choice.

How many YouTube videos does Project 24 recommend making for your blog?

Income School recommends starting with about ten YouTube videos tied to your blog’s niche. The videos serve two purposes: they give Google a signal that your site has a broader online presence, and they create an additional traffic source. In my case, those ten videos on site 2 and site 3 were still driving traffic even after I stopped updating them more than a year earlier.

Can you run multiple niche sites at the same time with Project 24?

Technically yes, but it is harder than it sounds if you have a full-time job. I ran four sites simultaneously and found that each one suffered from divided attention. By early 2019 I had slowed down on some sites and effectively stopped updating others. The smarter approach, based on what I know now, is to get one site producing consistent traffic before starting a second. Spreading across four sites at once just means four slow-moving sites instead of one that’s actually gaining ground.

Why does geographic traffic matter for a niche blog?

If your blog is monetized through affiliate programs, the purchasing behavior of your visitors affects how much you earn. Audiences in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia have a demonstrated pattern of spending money online to solve problems. Traffic from those countries converts at a higher rate for most affiliate offers. Broad niches tend to pull in more international traffic, which is one reason tight niche focus often produces better revenue per visitor than a broad topic that ranks internationally.

What does a healthy traffic source breakdown look like for an SEO blog?

Income School recommends aiming for 80 to 90 percent of your traffic coming from organic search, with Google as the leading source. Direct traffic, social, and referral should make up a small share. On my best-performing site (site 2), Google was the top source. On my weakest Google performer (site 1), Bing was number one and Google was sixth after 14 months. If Bing is outpacing Google on a year-old site, it is usually a signal of broad niche selection or competitive keyword targeting.

Does Project 24 work for local or travel sites?

It can. My Kenosha, Wisconsin city site was pulling Google traffic with fewer than 20 posts, which is an encouraging signal. Local and travel sites have a natural traffic ceiling because the audience size is tied to the city or region. A local site will never match the traffic potential of a broad national niche, but the competition is also lower. If your goal is building authority in a specific geographic area rather than scaling to high traffic volume, a local site can work with the Income School approach.

Is Quora worth using to drive traffic to a niche blog?

It depends on how much time you can invest. In 2018 I spent significant time answering questions on Quora related to my site 1 niche, and by late 2019 that site was still getting referral traffic from those old Quora answers. The return decays over time as your answers get buried, but well-crafted Quora answers in a relevant niche can drive traffic for a year or more after you wrote them. It is not a primary traffic strategy, but as a supplemental channel it can produce real results without ongoing maintenance.

Sources

Income School Project 24 course and YouTube channel (incomeschool.com)
Google Analytics data for four niche sites, November 2019
Avocado theme, provided free to Project 24 members
Listing Pro WordPress theme
Jim Harmer and Ricky Kesler, Income School competitive analysis course