Table of Contents
Month 1 Summary
Honest summary: month one of a new site almost always looks like this — a lot of work, no revenue yet, a small amount of early organic traffic starting to show up. The site launched March 2nd. That's 29 days of existence. Google hasn't had time to fully crawl and rank pages yet. This is normal.
Traffic Report
Total sessions in March: 312
Breakdown by source:
| Source | Sessions | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Direct | 198 | Mostly me reviewing the site and initial social sharing |
| Organic Search | 47 | Early indexing — 3 pages showing impressions in GSC |
| Social / Reddit | 54 | Posted 2 articles in relevant subreddits |
| Referral | 13 | One mention in a newsletter |
The 47 organic sessions from a site that launched 29 days ago is actually encouraging. The pages Google indexed first were the two Very Low KD keyword targets — the workflow posts. That's the keyword research strategy working as designed.
Top pages by sessions:
- Homepage — 89 sessions
- /workflows/affiliate-marketing-workflow/ — 34 sessions
- /workflows/how-i-find-products-to-promote/ — 28 sessions
- /build-with-ai/build-affiliate-site-nextjs/ — 22 sessions
Affiliate Revenue Breakdown
Total affiliate revenue: $0
This is expected. Affiliate revenue from SEO traffic requires: (1) ranking, (2) clicks on affiliate links, (3) conversions. A 29-day-old site with 47 organic sessions hasn't hit the threshold for meaningful commission activity yet.
I did get 3 affiliate link clicks tracked — one on Ahrefs, two on Surfer SEO — but none converted to paid subscriptions in the reporting window.
Expenses
| Tool | Cost | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Pro | $20 | Content creation |
| ChatGPT Plus | $20 | Research + supplementary writing |
| Surfer SEO | $89 | On-page optimization |
| Domain (Namecheap) | $0 | Already owned |
| Hosting (GitHub Pages) | $0 | Free |
| Total | $129 |
Running a static site on GitHub Pages means $0 hosting cost. The entire operating expense for this site is software subscriptions I'd retain regardless. Real effective cost is closer to $89/month if I separate the AI tools I use for other work.
What Went Well
- Site launched fast: Went from PDF keyword research to a 19-page live site in a single session. The static HTML / GitHub Pages stack made deployment trivial.
- Very Low KD pages indexed quickly: The two workflow posts targeting Very Low KD keywords were indexed within 10 days of launch. Showing early impressions in Google Search Console.
- Reddit traffic: Posted the affiliate marketing workflow article in r/AffiliateMarketing — 41 sessions in 3 days. No spam, just a genuine contribution with a link to the full article.
- Content quality: Revisiting the articles I wrote with a critical eye — they hold up. The first-person voice and specific tactical advice is the right approach for this niche.
What Didn't Work
- No email list setup yet: Every page has a newsletter CTA but there's no actual email capture system connected. That's captured zero subscribers. Fixing this in April.
- Affiliate programs not all approved: Applied to PartnerStack programs for 3 tools I review. Two approved, one pending. Need to replace placeholder affiliate links with real tracked links.
- Internal linking gaps: A few newer pages don't have incoming internal links from older pages. Need to go back and add these — internal links are a meaningful early-stage ranking lever.
April Plan
- Set up email capture (ConvertKit or Beehiiv — deciding between them)
- Replace all placeholder affiliate links with real tracked links
- Audit internal links across the site and fill gaps
- Publish 4 new articles targeting the remaining Low KD keywords from the strategy
- Build one piece of link-worthy content — a data study or original resource worth citing
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