April 2022 London On My Mind Income Report

When I started receiving requests to do monthly recaps for Valerie & Valise, part of me wondered: would it not also be helpful to have a look ‘under the hood’ of a newer site? Would people want to see how you can start a site and how it will grow – not just what an almost decade-old site can do today?

Based on my thoughts, I obviously think yes – it is important for you to have more detail about newer niche sites, since that’s the direction that content creation, especially travel content creation, is going. So with that, I’m starting a new series of monthly recaps for London On My Mind, the site I started in January 2021. This site has been growing like gangbusters, and will hopefully give you a benchmark of how newer sites can be expected to grow and earn.

As always, I am here for any questions you might have; feel free to let me know in the comments if there’s additional info you’d like me to share in future reports.

Blogging in April

One thing I’ve been very proud of with London On My Mind is how it has been growing in 2022. I should hope it has – my team and I have been busting our butts on it! Since the beginning of the year, we’ve more than doubled the amount of articles on the site – and traffic has been correspondingly growing. (Actually traffic has also doubled, though this obviously isn’t a straight connection.)

• Pageviews: 39,550 (↑35% from March 2022, ↑2355% from April 2021)
• Unique Visitors: 33,865
• Traffic Breakdown:
  • Organic: 90%
  • Direct: 7%
  • Social: 2%
  • Email: <1%
  • Referral: 2%
• Total Articles: 121

Most Popular New Post: London Tube Colors: Hex, RGB, CMYK & Pantone, a weird little non-travel article I put together to make my own life easier – but which others obviously find helpful too!

New Posts I Published in April

April was a busy month for me and my team; I decided in February that we were going to do another – but slightly less intense – sprint, as we did in January when we produced 31 articles in 31 days. My idea with these sprints was to pump a ton of content out to help the site snowball; I was right, as those 31 articles already represent 16% of total April traffic.

In any case, we were highly productive in April again, and produced 18 articles in 30 days:

1. 28 Awesome Things to Do in London Alone & On Your Own
2. 17 London Hotels with the Best Views
3. 21 Great Dog Walks in London for Your Four-Legged Travel Pal
4. How Many Days to Spend in London: The Answer You’ve Been Looking For
5. 15 Neat Things to Do in London at Night
6. 9 London Hotels with Balcony Views (Not Penthouses)
7. 13 Delicious Cocktail Classes in London to Mix Up Some Fun
8. Paddleboarding in London: Where to Go & Tour Options
9. Visiting London in July: What to Pack, Weather, Events & Things to Do (2022)
10. 19 Landmarks in London: Most Iconic, Most Popular & Most Photographed
11. The 15 Best London Guidebooks for Any Type of Traveler
12. 15 London Hotels Near Her Majesty’s Theatre within a 7-minute Walk
13. 15 Delightful Floating Restaurants in London
14. 20 Awesome Things to Do with Kids in London
15. 9 Perfect London Hotels with Birthday Packages
16. 25 Must-Visit London Pubs for a Pint on Your First Trip
17. 9 Delightful Canal Walks in London (& Best London Canal Walking Route)
18. How to Use London Black Cabs: A First-Timer’s Guide

As you can see, we’re still sticking to the 10 main categories I laid out in my most recent case study, but trying to get really granular and helpful to cover as many keywords as possible. Also, as you might be feeling as well, it’s become a bit frustrating how listicles are such an important part of creating a content strategy. Lists, lists, lists – that’s all the people want!

Business in April

It’s hard for me to remember back to my earliest days on my other sites, or to find a good point of comparison, but I’m quite happy with how the business side of London On My Mind is growing. The site is 15 months old, and came in just shy of $1,000. I don’t know if that’s good or not good, but I do know that it feels good.

April 2022 Income Report

• Advertising income: 75%
• Affiliate income: 23%
• Product income: 2%
• Sponsored content/campaigns: 0%

Total income for April 2022: $975 (↑70% from March 2022)

tRPM: $25 (↑32% from March 2022) (What is tRPM and why does it matter?)

Months I’ve been blogging on LOMM: 15

One big thing that helped my income was getting onto Mediavine. Those of you with keen eyes might be wondering: wait, did they approve the site under the 50k session minimum? For a short answer, yes, they did. I made them aware that I was having problems with ezoic back in January; they told me I needed to get into the 20-25k session window before they would consider it again. In the meantime, I put LOMM on SHE Media so it would continue earning some ad revenue. The site grew faster than I expected and I applied for Mediavine in mid-March. Mediavine ads turned on during the first week of April and have been productive ever since.

For those curious, my ad RPM with Mediavine is about 2x higher than SHE Media and almost 4x higher than ezoic. So yeah, Mediavine is what you should be aiming for, even if you accept one of those lower ad networks temporarily.

And that’s it for London On My Mind. This is the first monthly recap, so I welcome any feedback you have. Have any other questions about this month’s recap, or other data you’d like me to share? Let me know in the comments.