Case Studies is a series where I review different websites from around the web that are doing an incredible job of driving traffic to their sites and monetizing that traffic.
In each case study, I use the exact same process to analyze a given site. If you ever come across a site online and you’d like to analyze it yourself, you can use the following process to do so.
I’ll use my own site statology.org as an example.
Step 1 – Analyze Traffic
- First, go to similarweb.com and type in statology.org in the search bar. This will show you how much traffic the site receives per month (and the previous 6 months) along with the traffic sources.
Note: For sites that receive less than around 20k visits per month, SimilarWeb will display NA since there isn’t enough traffic to provide information on.
- Next, go to Google and type in site:statology.org to see how many pages the site has indexed on Google.
We can see that Statology currently has 616 pages indexed on Google. As a rule of thumb:
-
- Less than 100 pages = small site
- 101 – 300 pages = medium site
- 301 – 1,000 pages = large site
- More than 1,000 pages = very large site
- Next, view the domain authority of the site using the MozBar Chrome Extension. Once this extension is installed on your browser, you can see a tiny number in the top right corner that shows the domain authority of any site.
We can see that the DA of Statology at the time of this writing is 19. As a rule of thumb:
-
- Less than 20 = low domain authority
- 20-35 = medium domain authority
- 36-50 = high domain authority
- More than 50 = very high domain authority
Step 2 – Analyze Site Layout
- To determine if a given site uses WordPress on the back end, right click anywhere on the home page of the site and then click View page source.
- A new page will appear with a bunch of code. Type Ctrl+F to pull up a search bar. Then type “wordpress” and see if any of the code becomes highlighted. If it does, the site is using WordPress.
- Next, type “theme” to find the exact WordPress theme the site is using. It will often appear after a block of text like /wp-content/themes/. In the case of Statology, we can see that it’s using the WordPress theme called Wisteria.
A majority of sites around the web use WordPress on the backend. By using the steps above, you can find out exactly which WordPress theme different sites use and even install that theme on your own site if you like the layout.
Step 3 – Analyze Monetization
- To find out if a site uses a specific ad network, right click anywhere on the home page of the site and then click View page source.
- Again, a new page will appear with a bunch of code. Type Ctrl+F to pull up a search bar. Then type the name of one of the four most common ad networks: “mediavine“, “adthrive“, “ezoic“, or “monumetric” to see if any of them are currently running on the site.
We can see that Statology is currently running on the Mediavine ad network. As a rule of thumb, the amount you can earn per one thousand site visits is as follows:
Ezoic: $3-10
Monumetric: $5-10
Mediavine: $15-25
AdThrive: $15-25
Earlier we saw that Statology received about 100k visits per month. Since it’s on Mediavine, this translates to a monthly income of between $1,500 – $2,500.
In reality, Statology currently generates about $1,700 per month in ads, which makes this estimate pretty accurate.
- Next, look for affiliate links. Click on any individual blog post and scroll to the bottom. Most sites place an author bio at the bottom of blog posts along with affiliate links to different products or services in that particular niche. There are no affiliate links currently on Statology, but as an example there are some at the bottom of posts on Four Pillar Freedom.
If you click on any of those links, you’ll notice either the words aff or affiliate in the new URL that pops up to indicate that it’s an affiliate link.
For example, you’ll notice the words affiliateCode if you click the M1 Finance link at the bottom of my blog posts. This indicates that it’s an affiliate link and that I earn a commission each time someone signs up for M1 Finance using that link.
- Next, look for digital products. These are typically found on the home page or on the side bar. For example, Statology has a collection of Excel spreadsheets called “Statistics in Excel Made Easy” that I sell through Gumroad in the sidebar of the site.
- If you click the image, it will take you to a Gumroad sales page where you can purchase the collection of spreadsheets for $24.99.
From this brief analysis we were able to determine that the site earns between $1,500 and $2,500 in Mediavine ads and that it sells a digital product for $24.99.
Step 4 – Analyze the SEO success of the site
- If you notice in step 1 that most of the traffic to the site comes from “Search”, you can analyze some individual articles on the site using The SEO Checklist to determine why the site is likely having success with SEO.
Note: The keyword that a given article is targeting can often be found in the slug of the URL. For example, in the following URL on Statology I am targeting the keyword “one proportion z test”
-https://www.statology.org/one-proportion-z-test/
Conclusion
You can use this simple process to analyze the traffic and monetization of any site on the web.
Often you’ll use this process when you’re scoping out competing sites to check out how they’re bringing in traffic, see which WordPress themes they’re using, analyze how they’re monetizing their own site, and understand why they’re having success with SEO.
Full Disclosure: Nothing on this site should ever be considered to be advice, research or an invitation to buy or sell any securities, please see my Terms & Conditions page for a full disclaimer.
