My Fresh Blog Project 1.0 (FBP 1.0)

Going by what I’ve repeatedly read online in recent times, it’s obvious that many Nigerians have lost hope in blogging — especially SEO blogging, which involves setting up your blog for Google traffic and ultimately passive income.

Some say the whole thing has never worked for anyone and that those who claim it worked for them are simply lying.

Some say it used to work but is now stone-dead and no longer working.

And some are convinced that it works but those making money from it would never tell the truth about what exactly is working for them.

Well, I really don’t know which category you belong in.

But I’m now on a mission to prove that blogging still works if done the right way. I mean, it’s still quite possible in 2022 to start a blog that would generate traffic automatically from Google and earn dollars while you sleep!

Now, you don’t have to believe me at this point. I don’t want you to swallow those words hook-line-and-sinker, either.

But let me ask you a question: If I start a fresh blog right now and grow it gradually to the point where it starts making money, would that convince you that blogging still works?

If you just gave a “no” answer, then you can stop reading at this point, as there’s no point going any further.

But if you answered with a “yes”, then this might just interest you:

I’ve decided to start a new blog and grow it gradually until it starts generating income. It’s more like an experiment. But more importantly, I’d be posting updates on every step I take on the blog, so you’d know exactly what I’m doing.

Let me name this, “My Fresh Blog Project 1.0 (FBP 1.0)”.

Now, I’ll keep everything on this page only, editing it each time I need to add an update. This will make it easier for you to follow the whole journey without missing out on anything or searching through this blog for some missing info.

So, you might want to bookmark this page in your browser.

Note that all the methods I’d be adopting to build this blog are the same ones that have worked for me on my other sites. And I’ll be transparent and clear in my revelations.

So, follow me in my quest to prove to you that blogging still works in 2022!

February 14, 2022: The New Niche Idea 

While doing keyword research for an entirely different project, I stumbled upon a set of keywords within Nigeria’s real estate space. I dug deeper and uncovered more related keywords. And because these keywords have decent search volumes, I decided to create a new blog in the real estate sub-niche that covers the keywords I found.

But before I proceeded, I took my time to do more extensive keyword research and pulled out a lot more keywords, from which I eventually came up with about 50 cool topics. That’s a pretty good number to start with.

February 15, 2022: Domain Name Registration

After racking my brain for several minutes, I came up with a domain name for the new blog. Because I’m targeting a Nigerian audience, I decided to go with a .com.ng domain name. I found a cool four-letter domain name and registered it at Domainking.ng.

February 18, 2022: Site Setup

I installed WordPress for the new site after hosting it on a shared hosting plan I have with Namecheap. Then I installed and activated Schema theme (by MyThemeShop), which is my favorite. I went ahead to install and activate the few important plugins that I use on all my sites. They include:

• Classic Editor
• Classic Widgets
• Rank Math SEO
• Litespeed Cache
• Dynamic Month and Year Into Posts

After activating the plugins, I duly adjusted all settings for the site as well as those for individual plugins. Then I deleted the sample page and post included in the site by default.

With all of that done, the site is ready for the blogging journey ahead.

February 19, 2022: First Post Published!

I published the first post on the site. Then I set up Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts for the site.

May 11, 2022: More Posts Published

After publishing the first article on February 19, I published one article each on February 20th, 22nd, and 24th. After that, I resumed publishing on May 8, 2022, with five articles (that’s my first time publishing multiple articles on the site in one day).
I added three more articles on May 9 and two on May 10. That takes the total number of published articles to 14.

August 10, 2022: Positive Signals

After having left the site for 3 months, I decided to check Google Analytics and Search Console to see if the site is ranking in Google already or generating some traffic.

I was happy with what I saw. Both tools showed that the site is already generating some traffic from Google. Here are the screenshots below:

Although the figures aren’t anywhere near impressive yet (10 visits or less per day), I’m happy that the site is showing some signs of growth. Those are encouraging graphs for a site with only 14 articles. And all I need to do next to grow the site further is to continue adding more articles.

August 16, 2022: More Articles Published

I added two new articles to the site. This takes the total number of published articles to 16.

August 18, 2022: One More Article Added

I added another new article to the site. This is the 17th article published.

August 27, 2022: More Articles Published

I was able to add 5 more articles to the site. This takes the total number of published articles to 22.

December 1, 2022: Growth Continues, Time for Monetization

It’s been over 3 months since I last touched the site. So, I decided again to check how it’s doing in terms of rankings and traffic. And here’s what I saw on Google Analytics and Google Search Console:

So, going by Google Analytics, the site now attracts about 50 unique visits daily. That’s a significant improvement over the roughly 10 visits per day recorded as of August. If your guess is that I’m happy with this growth, you’re right!

At the site’s present state, I deemed it ripe enough for monetization. Google AdSense came to mind. I knew deep down me that the site’s present traffic figures won’t earn more than crumbs from Adsense, but the excited part of me prevailed. I proceeded with the application for Adsense. It takes a few days to a few weeks to get a reply. So, fingers crossed!

December 5, 2022: Google Adsense Approval

Good news! I received an email from Google AdSense confirming that the site is now eligible to start showing ads. Here’s what the message looked like:

I didn’t waste time before installing my preferred plugin for strategic ad placement, “Insert Post Ads”. Then I inserted my ad code into the plugin and specified the spots on each page where I want the ads shown.

Let’s see how much the site earns by the end of the month.

December 8, 2022: More Posts Published

I had some free time on my hands, so I added 2 new posts to the site. This takes the total number of published articles to 24.

January 1, 2023: Adsense Earnings — Not So Much, But Not Bad

I checked the site’s total earnings from Adsense for the month of December 2022. Remember that I added the ad codes on December 5, so the earnings were gathered over about 25 days.

Here’s what I saw:

The site earned $24.33! Converting that to Naira, that’s N17,520 (using the present black market rate of N730/$). I know that’s quite small, but not bad at all for a 10-month-old blog with just 24 articles.

Having published only 24 articles in 10 months means I did just 2.4 articles per month on average. That’s quite poor. But it’s not due to laziness on my part. The truth is, I didn’t have much time to spare because I run over 20 sites at the moment, with each begging for my attention at all times.

I can only imagine how much traffic and income the blog would be generating by now if I’d given it more time and published a lot more articles.

Now, I have all the proof I need that this blog is a promising project. I only need to put more time and effort into growing it. And I’d try to do just that, going forward. So, let’s see how things go in the coming months.