3 builders who never spoke to each other

Write the review the buyer reads before paying

Cover the paid thing your readers are already deciding about, especially where an expensive accessory sits next to it: two hydroponics pieces recommending one chiller moved a whole revenue line. The business model is carrying someone from a search into a purchase at a retailer that pays you, which is why the most contested query cluster is worth entering when the commission is large enough.

The method

1. 01

   Write about a paid product your readers are already considering, and they will come to you while deciding whether to buy it.

2. 02

   Write the articles that sit next to an expensive accessory purchase, because two pages recommending one high-ticket item can move the whole revenue line.

3. 03

   Go after the most competitive query cluster in your market if the commission on a conversion is high enough, because the bidding war exists precisely because the money is there.

4. 04

   Build the business model around carrying readers from a Google search into a purchase at a retailer you earn commission from, because that path is what funds large parts of digital publishing.

What it returned

• 30%

  Kevin Espiritu wrote a couple of hydroponics pieces on keeping a reservoir cool, and the Amazon commission on the chiller he recommended accounted for a 30% revenue increase. Epic Gardening did $7.4 million in 2021 and was tracking above $10M in 2022, alongside a YouTube channel over 2 million subscribers and a $17.5M investment from TCG.

• 1.5

  Semrush data puts phrases containing credit card at around 1.5 million monthly US visitors for NerdWallet. Their credit card line brought $51.2M of $143M revenue in Q2 2023, and BankRate is reported to make $300 to $900 on a single American Express or Chase card signup.

• 265

  An investor on Future Plc's earnings call framed the business as a route that starts at Google and ends at Amazon. Future reported revenue of GBP 265.5M for H1 2023 and Detailed tracks 89 sites for them, including TechRadar, PC Gamer and Marie Claire.

• After his EpicReact.Dev review series, readers messaged him asking whether the license was worth buying.

Sources

• My 2020 Blogging JourneyBhanu Teja · bhanuteja.dev · Oct 5, 2020 - My Review of Kent C. Dodds’s EpicReact.Dev: Introduction (13/27) · 2020-12-31
• Future Plc News, Revenue & SEO Playbook (2023) - Detailed.comGlen Allsopp · detailed.com · Future Traffic & SEO · 2023-09-09
• NerdWallet Traffic, Revenue & SEO Playbook (2023) - Detailed.comGlen Allsopp · detailed.com · 2023-08-03
• 20 Successful Blogs And Their Latest 2024 Revenue Numbers - Detailed.comKevin Espiritu · detailed.com · EpicGardening : On Track for $10m in 2022 Revenue · 2022-01-23