Yes, speed matters.
Also this week, the niche site is taking off!
*In a way to help support my writing, I do occasionally share affiliate links below. I earn a commission if you try and buy - at no extra cost!
This week in my niche site journey, I surpassed ten published posts and continue to see an increase in impressions via Search Console. More on that below!
How speed affected my site this week.
I shared this information in a tweet earlier in the week, and it seemed like a great topic to shed some more light on this week; the speed of your site matters—a LOT.
How it started…
I have run my site NJspots.com on Wordpress.com servers for years - I was a novice at site builder years ago (I’m still learning!) and started a blog on WordPress and subscribed to their “business” package.
What’s the difference between Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org?
While this site on WordPress was secure, I knew it limited my capabilities in growing more sites and learning more about hosting my properties online.
That’s when a helpful suggestion from Alek Asaduryan came to the rescue! He had mentioned that he used SiteGround for hosting his sites, so I gave it a spin!
New to niche site-building? → Read Here
When the migration began…
I had no experience with migrating sites from one to the other, so before I subscribed to SiteGround, I reached out to customer service and started chatting with them about my setup of NJspots and how I needed to move it over with their help.
They assured me they could get it done - and they did…in 2 hours!
When The Magic Happened 🪄
After the site was migrated over to SiteGround (about ten days before writing this), this is where the magic happened.
Site Speed Increased from Grade D to A
Organic Traffic Increased by 37%
Ad Revenue Jumped 82%
🤿 Let’s Dive In
This all happened within ONE week of migrating my site over, without any edits or changes to the site the at that time. I wanted the site to settle into its new home without disturbing it. I checked images, links, etc., to ensure everything was still working correctly.
🏎️ Site Speed Testing
Paired up with WPRocket and Cloudflare, the time had come to test how the site's speed was performing on the new server.
Using GTMetrix for Speed Tests (also, I used PageSpeed by Google), I saw the site jump from a Grade D → Grade A in a matter of days!
Still, work to do but happy with this immediate improvement.
📈 Organic Traffic Increasing
During the week, I regularly checked Google Analytics and Search Console for any fluctuations in traffic during this time for A) a problem that may arise or B) an improvement in engagement.
I was pleasantly surprised when I saw a 37% jump in organic traffic. Something important to mention is that my site is very seasonal.
Prime traffic to the site is between May and October - so seeing this massive spike in organic traffic was a welcome sign of success!
💰 Ad Revenue Jumped Too!
To top off the tremendous success of the site migration, the site’s display ads saw an 82% increase over the same period!
I was stunned at this jump in such a short time and was happy to see that kind of jump so quickly.
So now what? 🤷🏻♀️
I realize this is such a small sample size, but the latest numbers of a massive spike in clicks via Search Console gives me hope going into the high-traffic season.
Speed Is Your Friend.
If you haven’t already, test your site speed and see where you’re performing. Adjusting with caching and optimizing your images can be some of the most significant steps to help your site launch succeed.
Have questions about the tools I use? Want to learn more about site speed? Comment below 👇
New Niche Site Update
😫 A Problem, 👍 Solution, & 🎉 Win
Every week I share a problem, solution, and win I’ve had with my new niche site to help you learn a bit and hopefully help you with your projects.
😫 Problem: I couldn’t figure out why my AdSense account was not being approved - then I realized I forgot to set up an ads.txt file. 🤦🏻♀️
👍 Solution: Using Lasso to organize my affiliate links, I’m already finding it simple and easy to share.
🎉 Win: Crossed ten published posts this week, with over four more being published this week alone!
Have a question about my niche building?
👩🏻🏫 What I consumed this week…
Want your publication featured? Comment below 👇
