Project 24 Income School October 6-12 Update on 4 Sites

Here is the honest truth about blogging for money: the numbers almost never look the way you imagine they will. When I sat down to record my weekly Project 24 update for the week of October 6 through October 12, I had four sites running simultaneously — each one built on the Income School method, each one at a completely different stage, and each one telling a different story about what organic traffic growth actually looks like in the real world.

I joined Project 24 on September 7, 2018. More than a year in, I can tell you that the 60-step process Jim and Ricky teach does work — but it does not work on the timeline most beginners expect. This post breaks down the raw numbers from all four of my sites, explains what I learned from comparing them side by side, and walks through the decisions I made that either helped or hurt each one. If you are anywhere on the Project 24 path right now, this is the real-world data you have been looking for.

What You’ll Walk Out With

Real weekly traffic numbers from four live Project 24 sites at different stages of growth
Why your bounce rate may have nothing to do with your content — and everything to do with your theme
What a micro-niche looks like in practice and why niche size matters more than you think
How a local travel site can generate organic traffic using the Project 24 blogging method
Why ten blog posts with zero images can outperform a site with 95 posts on a per-post basis
How blog-to-social automation can inflate your social traffic numbers in a misleading way
The role Quora plays in driving referral traffic when Google rankings have not kicked in yet
Not sure which niche fits your skills? finder.platformproof.com shows you in under five minutes.

What Is Project 24 and Why I Joined

Project 24 is a content marketing course run by Income School, created by Jim and Ricky. The name comes from the promise at the center of the program: follow the method consistently and within 24 months you can replace a full-time income with passive income from your websites.

When I joined in September 2018, the course was built around a 60-step process for building a blog from zero. There were no shortcuts and no paid ads involved. The entire model is built around creating high-quality content that gets found organically through Google, Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo. No Facebook ad spend. No Google Shopping campaigns. Just content that answers real questions people are already searching for.

I came to Project 24 already knowing how to make money online. My gap was not marketing — it was bridging the space between the customer and the product in a sustainable, scalable way. Watching YouTube videos about organic content eventually led me to Income School, and what they taught clicked immediately.

By the time I recorded this October update, the course had expanded significantly. At no additional cost to existing members, Jim and Ricky added a YouTube course, a Pinterest course, and a course on building your own information product. They also released the Acabado theme — a free WordPress theme available exclusively to Project 24 members that is built specifically for speed and SEO performance. That free theme alone took one of my sites from scoring 65 to 75 on Google PageSpeed Insights all the way up to 99. That is not a typo.

Site 1: My Oldest and Largest Site (The Micro-Niche)

This was the first site I built using the Project 24 method. By October of 2019, it had somewhere between 95 and 100 blog posts and a companion YouTube channel with around 40 videos and approximately 50 subscribers.

For the week of October 6 through October 12, the numbers looked like this: 416 total page views, 232 unique views, an average time on page of 33 seconds, a bounce rate of 18.96 percent, and an exit percentage of 45.09 percent. Divided across seven days, that works out to roughly 60 to 70 page views per day.

This site runs the Acabado theme — the free WordPress theme Income School added for Project 24 members. The 18.96 percent bounce rate on this site is a direct result of the theme. Acabado is engineered to keep people moving through your content, and the data backs that up. Compare that number to my other sites running X theme and the difference is stark.

The traffic breakdown for this site looked unusual compared to what Project 24 teaches. Instead of Google organic leading the way, my top traffic sources were direct, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Facebook, and Quora — with Google further down the list. I spend meaningful time on Quora answering questions in my niche and pointing people back to my site. That referral effort shows up in the data.

Geographic data showed visitors coming primarily from the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. That is exactly the pattern you want to see if your monetization strategy relies on affiliate marketing or display advertising. Developed countries spend money to solve problems. Visitors from those countries convert at higher rates than global traffic from regions with lower purchasing power.

The honest challenge with this site is that it occupies a micro-niche. The audience is small by definition. There are only so many people searching for this topic at any given time, and seasonality is likely a factor — though at this point in the timeline I did not have enough year-over-year data to confirm that. According to Jim and Ricky, blog posts typically take about nine months to reach peak traffic. Since I launched in September 2018, much of the content had not yet peaked when this update was recorded.

Site 2: My Second Largest Site (The Wider Niche)

This site had between 40 and 50 blog posts and a YouTube channel with 10 videos. Unlike Site 1, I had not been actively maintaining the YouTube channel — it was there but not growing.

For the same October week, Site 2 posted 258 total page views, 244 unique views, an average time on page of 3 minutes and 36 seconds, a bounce rate of 94.96 percent, and an exit percentage of 92.25 percent. Divided by seven days, that is roughly 37 page views per day.

The bounce rate here — nearly 95 percent — is a stark contrast to Site 1’s 18.96 percent. The content is not dramatically worse. The theme is. Site 2 runs X theme, not Acabado. That single variable explains most of the gap. Acabado is built to display related content and keep visitors reading. X theme does not have the same internal architecture for reader retention. If you are a Project 24 member and you have not switched to Acabado yet, the bounce rate comparison between these two sites is reason enough to make the move.

What Site 2 has going for it that Site 1 does not is a wider niche. The topic appeals to a much larger global audience. Traffic sources showed organic search leading, followed by direct and social — with Google at the top of the organic list. That is exactly the traffic mix Project 24 teaches you to build toward. Visitors were primarily from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

The lesson I took from comparing Site 1 and Site 2 side by side: niche size is a ceiling. A micro-niche limits your upside no matter how good your content is. If I wanted to meaningfully grow Site 1’s revenue, I would need to zoom out and write for a broader audience. Site 2 does not have that problem. It is niche enough to rank organically but wide enough that the audience is large.

Site 3: The Local Travel Site (LearnKenosha.com)

This one is worth covering in detail because a lot of people in the Project 24 community ask about local and travel-based sites. LearnKenosha.com is my answer to that question in practice.

Kenosha, Wisconsin is a legitimate tourist destination. People travel there from Chicago and surrounding areas. The site was built to serve that audience — visitors who want to know where to go, what to do, and what to eat when they are in Kenosha.

For October 6 through 12, the site had 18 page views, 17 unique views, an average time on page of 3 minutes and 50 seconds, a bounce rate of 88.24 percent, and an exit rate of 94.44 percent. The numbers are small, but the time-on-page is strong — almost four minutes per visit. People who land on this site are engaged with the content.

The theme choice here was deliberate but different. Instead of a blog-first theme like Acabado, I used Listing Pro — a directory-focused theme — and attached a blog to it. The strategy is to grow organic traffic through the blog and then monetize by selling ad space and listings to local businesses in Kenosha. The blog drives the audience; the directory creates the revenue model.

Traffic for this site came overwhelmingly from organic search and direct, with the blog-to-social plugin contributing some social traffic on publishing days. Geographic data showed the expected Midwest concentration, with some traffic from North Carolina and New York — most likely people planning a trip to the area or researching it from a distance. Any non-US traffic I saw I assumed was either bots or spam rather than genuine audience interest.

A local site like this one has a natural geographic ceiling. You are not writing for a global audience. But the monetization model is different too — local business advertising and sponsorships do not require massive traffic volumes to generate real revenue. Ten small business advertisers paying $50 per month each is $6,000 per year from a site with modest traffic.

Not sure which niche model fits your situation — micro, wide, or local?

Answer seven quick questions at finder.platformproof.com and get a specific starting point matched to your skills and schedule.

Site 4: My Best Performing Site Per Post (Ten Posts, Zero Images)

This is the one that surprises people the most. Site 4 had exactly ten blog posts at the time of this update. No images. A simple logo purchased on Fiverr for $5, with transaction fees bringing the total to $7. That is the entire design budget.

For October 6 through 12, Site 4 had 232 page views, 206 unique views, an average time on page of 2 minutes and 34 seconds, a bounce rate of 84.58 percent, and an exit rate of 87.39 percent. Divided across seven days, that is about 33 page views per day.

Thirty-three page views per day from ten blog posts. Compare that to Site 1, which has nearly 100 blog posts and pulls about 60 to 70 page views per day. On a per-post basis, Site 4 is dramatically outperforming my oldest and largest site. That is not an accident — it is a function of niche selection.

Site 4 targets an extremely specific audience. When I write content for this site, I am writing for approximately 20 people. The topic is narrow enough that ranking organically is genuinely achievable with thin competition. Traffic breakdown shows organic search leading, followed by direct, then Bing — with Google organic at the top. That is the pattern Project 24 teaches, and it is playing out exactly as described.

The site runs X theme. Despite the bounce rate being higher than Site 1 (because Acabado is simply better at keeping people on-site), the per-post organic performance is the strongest of all four sites. The lesson is simple: a hyper-specific niche with moderate competition can outperform a larger site simply by ranking well for the right search terms.

The Blog-to-Social Plugin and Why It Inflates Your Numbers

Across several of my sites I use a plugin called Blog to Social. I have no affiliation with them — I found it because I wanted one button that fans my content out to every social network I am connected to at the moment I publish. That is exactly what it does.

The plugin also lets you schedule posts to reshare on a recurring cycle. On some of my sites I scheduled content to be automatically reshared across social channels for 52 weeks after the original publish date. At the time of this update, about 20 to 30 weeks of that schedule remained active.

The important thing to understand about this is that it inflates your social traffic numbers in a way that can be misleading. If your analytics show social as a meaningful channel, verify whether that is organic social engagement or scheduled auto-posts driving people back to old content. They are very different signals about what is actually working.

Theme Choice Is Not a Minor Decision

Looking at all four sites together, the single most obvious performance split comes down to theme. Sites running the Acabado theme — the free theme Income School built for Project 24 members — consistently show lower bounce rates because the theme is engineered to surface related content and keep visitors reading.

Site 1 on Acabado: 18.96 percent bounce rate.

Sites 2 and 4 on X theme: bounce rates of 94.96 percent and 84.58 percent respectively.

That is not a small difference. That is the difference between a visitor who reads one post and immediately leaves versus a visitor who reads two or three posts in a session. Lower bounce rates mean more page views per session, more ad impressions, and more chances to convert on an affiliate link. If you are a Project 24 member still running an older theme, this data is a strong argument for switching.

The Nine-Month Traffic Rule in Practice

Jim and Ricky at Income School teach that blog posts typically take about nine months to reach peak traffic. That timeline is one of the most important things to internalize if you want to stay motivated during the early months of a new site.

Since I launched in September 2018 and this update covers October 2019 — about 13 months in — much of my older content was starting to hit or approach that nine-month peak. The organic traffic trend on Site 1 had been growing consistently for several months by October, which tracks exactly with the Income School model.

The practical implication: if you publish content today, do not judge its performance in month three or month five. The nine-month window is not a motivational talking point — it reflects the actual timeline Google uses to evaluate new content and determine where it ranks long-term. Quitting at month six is quitting right before most of your content begins performing.

Honest Drawbacks of Running Four Sites at Once

Running four sites simultaneously sounds like the aggressive play. In practice it creates real problems that a single-site strategy avoids.

First, attention is split. Site 3 — the Kenosha travel site — had its YouTube channel sitting idle with 10 videos and no new uploads. The site exists and generates some organic traffic, but it is not getting the consistent content investment that would meaningfully grow it. A site you are not actively building is a site that plateaus.

Second, you cannot optimize what you are not tracking closely. Running four sites means four analytics dashboards to monitor, four content calendars to maintain, and four different keyword strategies to execute. For someone in month 13 of a 24-month program, that is a lot of plates to keep spinning.

Third, it is harder to notice what is working. When Site 4 started outperforming the others on a per-post basis, I almost missed the signal because I was watching all four sites rather than being laser-focused on one. The comparison only became visible when I sat down to do this update and looked at the numbers side by side.

The argument for multiple sites is diversification. If one niche goes cold or gets hit by an algorithm update, the others absorb the loss. That is a real benefit. But for most people starting out, the focused single-site approach will likely produce better results faster simply because every hour goes into one compounding asset instead of four.

What Developed-Country Traffic Actually Means for Your Revenue

Across all four of my sites, the geographic concentration of traffic in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada is not a coincidence — it is a result of the topics I chose to write about. The topics themselves naturally appeal to audiences in developed English-speaking countries.

This matters a great deal for monetization. Display advertising rates, measured in RPM (revenue per thousand impressions), vary enormously by country. A visitor from the United States is worth many times more in ad revenue than a visitor from a developing country with lower purchasing power. The same is true for affiliate marketing — a U.S.-based visitor clicking an Amazon affiliate link and converting is more valuable than the same action from a market where affiliate programs pay lower commissions or where the purchase is less likely to happen.

If you are choosing a niche and you have not yet thought about who the natural audience for that niche is geographically, that is a question worth answering before you commit to 60 blog posts. Niches that naturally attract developed-country traffic will monetize better at the same traffic level than niches with global but lower-purchasing-power audiences.

Find Your X

Every site in this update started with a niche decision. The right niche for you is the one that sits at the intersection of what you know, what an audience is searching for, and what advertisers or affiliate programs are willing to pay for. If you are still circling that question, finder.platformproof.com walks you through it in under five minutes and gives you a concrete starting point based on your actual skills and availability.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take for a Project 24 blog post to rank on Google?

Income School teaches that blog posts typically take nine months to reach peak traffic. That timeline reflects how long Google takes to fully evaluate and rank new content. In practice, some posts will rank faster in low-competition niches, and some will take longer in competitive spaces. The key is not to judge a post’s long-term potential at month three or four.

Is the Acabado theme worth using over X theme or other premium themes?

Based on the real-world data from my sites, yes. Site 1 on Acabado had a bounce rate under 19 percent. Sites on X theme had bounce rates between 85 and 95 percent. Acabado is built specifically to surface related content and keep visitors reading, which directly improves time on site and revenue per visitor. For Project 24 members, it is free — there is no reason not to use it.

Can you run a Project 24 local or travel site successfully?

Yes, but the monetization model is different from a traditional affiliate site. A local site like LearnKenosha.com can monetize through selling advertising and listing space to local businesses rather than relying on affiliate commissions or display ad RPM. The traffic ceiling is lower, but the monetization model does not require high traffic to generate meaningful revenue. A handful of paying local business clients can produce steady income from a modest-traffic local site.

Should beginners run multiple sites at once or focus on one?

For most beginners, one site is the better starting point. Running four sites splits your attention, makes it harder to spot what is working, and slows content output on every site simultaneously. The diversification benefit of multiple sites is real, but it is more valuable once you have an established site generating revenue. Build one to momentum first, then expand.

What does the Blog to Social plugin actually do?

Blog to Social connects to your social media accounts and automatically publishes content to those networks whenever you publish a new post. It also lets you schedule recurring reshares of older posts over a set time period. The practical effect is that your content gets pushed to social channels without any manual work beyond clicking publish. The downside is that this can inflate your social traffic metrics in ways that do not reflect genuine organic social engagement.

Why is geographic traffic data important for monetization?

Display advertising RPM and affiliate conversion rates vary significantly by country. Traffic from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia generally monetizes at much higher rates than traffic from developing countries. When choosing a niche, it is worth asking whether your natural audience will come primarily from high-monetization markets. If your topic naturally attracts a global but lower-purchasing-power audience, your revenue per thousand visitors will be significantly lower than a same-size audience from developed markets.

How many blog posts do you need before a site starts getting meaningful organic traffic?

There is no universal number. Site 4 in this update had ten blog posts and was pulling about 33 page views per day, outperforming Site 1’s per-post average with nearly 100 posts. The niche matters more than the post count. A hyper-specific niche with low competition can rank with very few posts. A competitive niche may require far more content before you see meaningful organic traffic. The right question is not “how many posts do I need” but “how competitive is my niche.”

Is Quora worth using to drive traffic to a blog?

For a micro-niche site where Google organic traffic is limited by audience size, Quora can be a meaningful supplementary channel. I spent consistent time answering questions on Quora and linking back to relevant posts on my first site. That effort showed up as a real referral traffic source. Quora works best when your answers are genuinely helpful and your site content provides a logical next step for the reader who wants to go deeper. It is not a replacement for organic search traffic, but it can bridge the gap while your content is still building authority.

Sources

Income School / Project 24 — project24.com
Acabado WordPress theme — available free to Project 24 members
Blog to Social WordPress plugin — blog2social.com
Google Analytics — analytics.google.com
Quora — quora.com
Fiverr — fiverr.com