Income School Project 24 October 2019 Update on 4 Sites

One year into running four blogs at the same time, the numbers tell a story that no income report or course sales page would dare show you. Site 1 had nearly 100 posts and organic traffic that barely registered on Google. Site 4 had fewer than 20 posts, no images, no social presence at all, and was outperforming Site 1 in total monthly page views. This is the October 2019 Project 24 update, and it is one of the most honest looks at what content marketing actually looks like during the building phase.

Project 24 by Income School teaches you to write quality content and let Google find you over time, instead of chasing backlinks or guest posting like most SEO courses recommend. Alston had been following the method since September 7, 2018. By October 2019, four sites were live and collecting data. Here is what the real numbers looked like across all four, what was working, what was not, and why the newest, smallest site was the pound-for-pound winner.

What You’ll Walk Out With

The exact traffic numbers for all four Project 24 blogs in October 2019
Why Site 1 had a 10.23% bounce rate while Site 2 was at 92% — and why both numbers make sense
Which search engine was sending the most traffic to Site 1 before Google even showed up in the rankings
How the free Avocado WordPress theme changes visitor behavior and why it matters for your metrics
The Blog to Social plugin strategy that put social distribution on autopilot across multiple platforms
Why Site 4 with fewer than 20 posts beat Site 1 with nearly 100 posts on monthly page views
The honest drawbacks of running multiple blogs simultaneously with this method
Not sure which online income path fits your situation? Find your match at finder.platformproof.com

What Is Project 24 and How It Works

Project 24 is a content marketing course created by Jim Harmer and Ricky Kesler at Income School. The name refers to the timeline: the method is designed to take a new blog from zero to meaningful income within 24 months. Alston started following the course on September 7, 2018, and this October 2019 update reflects his 13th month on the program.

The core approach is intentionally different from most SEO advice you find online. Most courses and consultants tell you to build backlinks, run guest posting campaigns, and chase domain authority. Project 24 says: create quality content, follow a structured 60-step launch plan, and trust that Google and other search engines will eventually reward consistent, helpful writing.

The 60 steps are not as complicated as they sound. Step one is getting web hosting. Step two is getting a domain name. The course is built to be accessible to people who have never run a website before. The point of the 60 steps is to give a brand new blogger a structured checklist that gets everything properly configured before the content grind begins. Completing those 60 steps in 45 days, as Alston did with Site 1, is a realistic target for someone treating it seriously.

Since Alston joined in September 2018, Income School expanded the course significantly. They released a free WordPress theme called Avocado, which is available to all Project 24 members and can be installed on unlimited sites. They added a YouTube course for creators who want to grow through video rather than text. They added a Pinterest course. They also launched a digital product course covering how to create and sell your own ebook or online course. All of this came after the original blogging curriculum was already in place.

Site 1: The Original Project 24 Blog

Alston’s first Project 24 blog launched on September 7, 2018, the same day he joined the course. He completed the 60-step foundation plan in 45 days. By October 2019, the site had somewhere between 95 and 100 published blog posts and was 13 months old. He also had around 52 YouTube subscribers and 35 videos on the connected YouTube channel.

The October 2019 numbers for Site 1:

Page views: 1,960
Unique views: 951
Average time on page: 28 seconds
Bounce rate: 10.23%
Exit rate: 42.81%

The bounce rate is the number that jumps out immediately. A 10.23% bounce rate means that almost no one who lands on the site immediately leaves. Most blogs see bounce rates between 70% and 90%. Alston credited the Avocado WordPress theme entirely for that number. The theme is designed to surface related content and keep visitors clicking through to other pages rather than reading one article and closing the tab. As a Project 24 member, the theme is free and can be placed on as many sites as you run.

The traffic source breakdown showed organic overtaking direct by roughly a two-to-one margin. In the early months of any new blog, direct traffic dominates because you are the only one sending people there. When organic takes over, it signals the content is being found by people who were not already looking for you specifically. That crossover is one of the clearest early signs the method is producing results.

The search engine breakdown told an interesting story. Bing was the top source for Site 1, followed by direct, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and then Google at position eight. Alston noted his Google traffic had been improving month over month. In some earlier months he was getting as few as three page views from Google in an entire month. He pointed to two factors limiting Google growth on Site 1: the niche is heavily seasonal, tied to the holiday shopping period in the United States, and the niche may be too narrowly focused, placing the site in competition with major established players over a limited audience.

Alston uses a premium plugin called Blog to Social on Site 1. It has a free version but he uses the paid version, which automatically publishes new blog posts across multiple social platforms the moment they go live. That automation kept Site 1 active on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other networks without any manual posting. He also did Quora outreach in the early months, answering questions in the niche and linking back to the site. He had stopped posting on Quora months before this update, but those old answers were still sending traffic. Quora keeps delivering long after you stop being active on the platform.

Traffic from first-world countries was a positive sign for monetization. Alston explained the reasoning: first-world countries tend to spend money on solutions to their problems rather than looking for free alternatives first. For anyone building a blog around affiliate income or ad revenue, that spending behavior is what actually converts to earnings.

Site 2: The Bigger Market Bet

Alston started Site 2 on October 25, 2018, about six weeks after Site 1. By October 2019, the site had around 45 blog posts and 10 YouTube videos. He was straightforward about why the post count was lower on Site 2 despite it being nearly the same age as Site 1: he was not personally passionate about the niche. He saw a market need, created the site to fill it, and that strategy is valid, but motivation affects output speed over a 12-month stretch.

The October 2019 numbers for Site 2:

Page views: 1,182
Unique views: 1,100
Average time on page: 3 minutes and 52 seconds
Bounce rate: 92.37%
Exit rate: 90.95%

A 92% bounce rate sounds alarming, but paired with almost four minutes of average time on page it tells a completely different story. Visitors arrived, spent nearly four minutes reading a single article, got the answer they needed, and left. That is a favorable outcome for informational content. A high bounce rate only becomes a real problem when time on page is also low, which would signal the content is not matching what the visitor was looking for. Here, readers were doing exactly what you want them to do.

The target audience for this niche was significantly larger than Site 1’s audience. Alston estimated it might be larger than all three other sites combined. That scale showed up in the traffic geography, with meaningful visits from the United Kingdom, Canada, and India. The products or services this site covered were ones people use across both developed and developing countries, which is why the geographic spread made sense.

Google was the top search engine for Site 2 by a three-to-one or four-to-one ratio over direct traffic. That is the target signal. When Google organic leads your source chart by that kind of margin, your content has started ranking and is being found by people who had no prior awareness of your site.

Site 3: The Local Tourism Experiment

Site 3 was built as an experiment from the start. Alston created it around Kenosha, Wisconsin, his hometown, which sits in the greater Chicago metro area. The site had two goals: test whether a local tourism blog could get organic traction using the Project 24 content approach, and explore a monetization model that is completely different from what Project 24 primarily teaches.

Instead of affiliate links or display ad networks, the monetization plan for Site 3 was to sell advertising space directly to local businesses. Because Kenosha is part of the greater Chicago metro, local advertising rates are higher than they would be in a comparable mid-sized city elsewhere. The revenue potential per advertiser was meaningful, but getting there requires direct outbound sales skills rather than just content creation.

The October 2019 numbers for Site 3:

Page views: 77
Unique views: 67
Average time on page: 1 minute and 54 seconds
Bounce rate: 79.66%
Exit rate: 76.62%

The raw numbers are small. 77 page views in a month does not generate meaningful income from any model. But the trend was upward, and organic search was already leading the traffic source chart ahead of direct and social. Google was the top source, followed by direct, Facebook, Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo. For a young local site, seeing organic in the top position is the right foundation.

The theme on Site 3 was Listing Pro or Listing Directory Pro, a directory-style theme built for location-based content and local business listings rather than a standard blog layout. That theme choice matched the direct ad-sales monetization model better than a typical blog theme would.

Some traffic was coming from the Philippines, which Alston flagged as unexpected for a hyper-local Kenosha tourism site. He suspected someone doing remote research or a shared link was the cause. Local tourism sites will always have some geographic noise in their analytics that does not match the intended audience.

Site 4: Fewer Than 20 Posts, Best Results Per Post

Site 4 launched in January or February 2019, making it under 10 months old at the time of this October 2019 update. It was the newest and smallest site by content volume, but Alston called it his pound-for-pound best performer, and the data backs that up completely.

The setup was stripped down by design. Fewer than 20 blog posts. No YouTube channel. No images of products or services. A plain black and white design with just a logo. No active social media marketing whatsoever. Nothing about Site 4 would impress you on a surface inspection, and yet the traffic numbers were competitive with sites that had been running four to five times longer with four to five times as many posts.

The October 2019 numbers for Site 4:

Page views: 1,410
Unique views: 1,274
Average time on page: 3 minutes and 41 seconds
Bounce rate: 85.96%
Exit rate: 86.31%

Put the numbers next to Site 1 and the contrast is stark. Site 1 had 95 to 100 posts, 13 months of age, and 1,960 page views. Site 4 had fewer than 20 posts, under 10 months of age, and 1,410 page views. On a per-post basis, Site 4 was not a close competition. Every single post on Site 4 was pulling dramatically more traffic than every post on Site 1.

Organic search dominated Site 4 completely. Google was the top source, followed by direct, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and then Facebook even though Alston had done zero Facebook marketing for this site. Someone had found the content and shared it independently. Countries sending traffic included the United States, United Kingdom, India, Canada, Australia, and Singapore. The content was being found globally despite the site being under a year old with minimal posts.

Alston had not promoted Site 4 in any meaningful way. No paid ads, no outreach campaigns, no guest posting. The entire 1,410 page view total came from organic search. That result is what a well-targeted content strategy looks like when the keyword research is sharp and the writing matches what people are actually searching for.

What Changed Between Site 1 and Site 4

Alston was direct about this. A lot changed between his first and fourth site. The method itself did not change. Project 24’s core approach was the same across all four. What changed was the person applying it.

Keyword research improved significantly. In the beginning, most new content creators write about what they think people want to know or what they personally want to say. Neither approach reliably matches search intent. After over a year of publishing, watching which posts got traffic and which ones sat dormant, Alston developed a better eye for identifying what people were actually searching for and writing content that answered those searches precisely. That skill is what drives the per-post efficiency gap between Site 1 and Site 4.

Writing quality improved. The first 95 to 100 posts on Site 1 were written by someone at the very beginning of their content marketing learning curve. The fewer than 20 posts on Site 4 were written after more than a year of practice, feedback from analytics, and a sharper understanding of what makes a post rank. Better writing matched to better keyword selection produces better results per post.

Niche balance was more favorable on Site 4. Site 1’s niche was small and heavily seasonal, and the competition came from major established players with far more authority. Site 4 found a niche with enough search volume to generate steady traffic but without the same level of dominant competition blocking every ranking opportunity.

The practical implication is that skill compounds across projects. The investment made writing and publishing 95 to 100 posts on Site 1 paid off not just on Site 1 but on every project that came after it. The mistakes and lessons from year one are what made the next 20 posts significantly more efficient. This is one of the strongest arguments for starting before you feel fully ready rather than waiting until everything is perfect.

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Honest Drawbacks of the Project 24 Approach

The October 2019 data shows real progress across four sites, but anyone considering Project 24 should understand the limitations before they sign up and start publishing.

It Takes Much Longer Than Most People Expect

The 24 in Project 24 is not the timeline for making your first dollar. It is the timeline for meaningful income. Site 1 at 13 months old with 95 to 100 posts was still in the traffic-building phase, not the income phase. If you are starting a blog because you need money in the next few months, this method will frustrate you. The approach requires patience measured in years, not weeks.

Niche Selection Sets a Traffic Ceiling That Is Hard to Break

Site 1 showed this clearly. A small niche combined with competition from established players creates a traffic ceiling that more content alone cannot overcome. You can publish 100 posts and still be blocked from meaningful Google ranking if the niche audience is small and the competing sites are large and well-established. Getting niche selection right from the beginning matters more than raw post count, yet niche selection is also one of the hardest skills to develop without experience.

Writing About Topics You Do Not Care About Will Slow You Down

Site 2 had fewer posts than Site 1 despite being nearly the same age, and Alston said directly that he was less interested in the topic. Writing quality content at volume over 12 to 24 months requires some baseline level of interest in what you are writing. Building a blog around pure market opportunity rather than genuine interest is possible, but most people find the motivation fades faster than they expected when the traffic takes months to arrive.

Local and Tourism Niches Require a Completely Different Monetization Plan

Site 3 was Alston’s test of this. A local tourism site does not fit neatly into the affiliate marketing and display ad model that Project 24 primarily teaches. Selling ads directly to local businesses requires outbound sales skills and relationship-building in a specific geographic area, not just writing good content. The content creation method transfers, but the income strategy has to be rebuilt from scratch for this type of niche.

Running Multiple Sites Simultaneously Splits Your Focus

Operating four blogs at once allowed Alston to test different niches and compare results, which is genuinely valuable data. But it also meant each site received a fraction of the attention it would have received as the only site. Most Project 24 guidance suggests building one site to a meaningful traffic level before expanding. Looking at the per-post results across four sites, it is hard to argue against that advice.

Find Your X

Project 24 produced different results on different sites because niche fit, audience size, and keyword research quality are not equal across every topic. The same is true for anyone starting out. The method works, but the starting point that actually fits your skills, timeline, and interests is not the same for every person who reads this.

If you are trying to figure out which online income path fits your specific situation, finder.platformproof.com is built for exactly that. Answer a few questions about your skills, schedule, and goals and get a recommendation that matches where you actually are right now, not where a course sales page wants you to be.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Project 24 by Income School?

Project 24 is a content marketing course created by Jim Harmer and Ricky Kesler at Income School. The course teaches you to build a blog, produce quality content based on keyword research, and earn organic traffic through search engines over a 24-month timeline. It emphasizes content quality over backlink-building strategies and provides a structured 60-step startup plan designed for complete beginners. Since its original release, it has expanded to include YouTube, Pinterest, and digital product courses as well.

How long does it take to see traffic results with Project 24?

Results vary based on niche selection, content quality, and posting consistency. Based on Alston’s October 2019 data, Site 1 at 13 months with 95 to 100 posts was receiving roughly 2,000 page views per month, with organic traffic leading. Site 4, at under 10 months with fewer than 20 posts, was receiving 1,410 page views. Sharper keyword research dramatically accelerates results per post. The course targets meaningful income by the 24-month mark, not in the first few months after launching.

Is the Avocado WordPress theme really free for Project 24 members?

According to Alston’s October 2019 update, the Avocado theme was free as long as you were a Project 24 member, and it could be installed on unlimited sites. Non-members may need to purchase it separately. The theme appears to have a significant effect on user behavior metrics. Alston’s Site 1 had a 10.23% bounce rate, which he attributed entirely to the Avocado theme keeping visitors engaged with related content rather than leaving after one article.

Why was Bing sending more traffic than Google to Site 1?

Site 1 operates in a small, seasonal niche that puts it in direct competition with large established sites on Google. Bing and other alternative search engines often rank smaller and newer sites more favorably in their own algorithms. This is not unusual in the early stages of a content site in a competitive space. Alston noted that his Google traffic was improving month over month even though it was still low compared to Bing. Both the seasonal nature of the niche and the niche size itself contributed to the Google lag.

What is the Blog to Social plugin and how does it work?

Blog to Social is a WordPress plugin that automatically distributes new blog posts to multiple social media platforms the moment they are published. There is a free version and a premium paid version. Alston uses the premium version, which pushed his content to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other networks automatically without any manual posting on his part. He credited this automation with keeping Site 1 active across social platforms without requiring ongoing time investment after the initial setup.

Can Project 24 work for local or tourist websites?

Site 3 was Alston’s direct test of this question. A local tourism site about Kenosha, Wisconsin, was pulling 77 page views per month at the time of this update, with organic search starting to lead the traffic sources. The Project 24 content creation method transfers to this type of site. However, the default monetization model of affiliate links and display advertising does not map cleanly to local tourism. Alston planned to monetize Site 3 by selling ad space directly to local businesses, which is a fundamentally different business model requiring different skills than what Project 24 primarily teaches.

How important is keyword research in Project 24?

Keyword research is the single biggest variable explaining why Site 4 outperformed Site 1 on a per-post basis by a wide margin. Alston’s first 95 to 100 posts on Site 1 were written by someone still learning how to identify what people actually search for, rather than what they assume people want to know. By the time Site 4 launched, his keyword selection was sharper, which produced higher ranking probability per published post. Project 24 includes keyword research training as a core part of both the 60-step foundation and the broader curriculum.

Should I run multiple blogs at the same time with Project 24?

Alston ran four simultaneously, and he was candid about the trade-offs. His content output on Site 2 was lower because he was less interested in the topic. Running multiple sites lets you test different niches and compare results across real data, as this update demonstrates, but it splits your attention across every site. Most Project 24 guidance suggests building one site to a strong traffic level before starting another. Looking at the per-post efficiency of Site 4 compared to Site 1, depth on fewer sites appears to produce better results than thin content spread across many.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “Income School Project 24 October 2019 Update on 4 sites,” YouTube, October 2019
Income School, Project 24 course overview and 60-step methodology, incomeschool.com
Blog to Social, WordPress plugin for automated social distribution, blogtosocial.com
Avocado WordPress theme, free for Project 24 members, unlimited site license