[Journey] A content site in an AI proof niche

[notNewB]

By AI proof, I mean that this niche isn't shrinking by the advance of AI and by the short format videos getting more and more popular versus traditional text content.

It is an image dominated niche and as you've already guessed, all big players driving huge chunk of their traffic from Pinterest (organic still being the main source, though).

The common monetization method in the niche is the display ads - Adsense, Mediavine, Raptive.

What did I do so far?

Registered a new domain name in December 2025. Built a branding kit and a WP website around that kit (I have a little bit of background in both). Hosted on WPX.

Made up a founder/author persona. Gave Gemini a bunch of instructions to write content acting like that persona. Built a handful of static pages like Contact, About us, etc. and populated them with content.

Published my first article on March 1st, Gemini written. Currently sitting at 30 published articles, each averaging at ~2000 words and having at least 15 images. The images are AI generated too.

Created a quite tight SILO structure and everything is being strictly interlinked according to it.

Made Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Reddit profiles. A Fiverr freelances did a couple videos which I then shared to my socials. All the socials except Pinterest are purely for the E-E-A-T.

Bought 2 link insertions + 3 guest posts.

What is the plan of attack?

• Keep publishing at least 30 articles per month and hit at least 300 published and indexed articles by the end of 2026.
• Keep producing images and posting them on Pinterest.
• Keep buying at least 2 clean backlinks per month.
• Order a couple more videos from the Fiverr freelancers maybe in June or July (depending on how well everything else performs).
• Apply to Raptive at 25k pageviews (the plan is to hit that number by the end of July).

Where is the project today?

GSC as of April 15, 2026

GA4 as of April 15, 2026

Pinterest as of April 15, 2025

Bottom words

This, by no means, is a journey thread which I am starting to keep myself motivated and that I will be updating every other day. I will most likely be updating maybe once a week or two.

I am starting this thread to document everything. I have high hopes for this one and even if it doesn’t work out, I want to have something I can come back to and learn from. Putting aside pessimism, I am genuinely confident this one is going to be big.

 

[notNewB]

It's been 10 days since the last update.

I published 10 new articles on the website and about 20 new pins on Pinterest. Currently sitting at 40 published articles and 294 pins. Here are some stats:

GSC as of March 4 - April 24.

GA4 as of March 4 - April 24.

Pinterest as of March 4 - April 24.

Didn't buy any new backlinks, no new content on social media pages either.

The amount of new articles that need to be published is overwhelming. The plan for April was to hit 60 published articles which I can confidently consider failed. But I will sacrifice the next 3 nights and hit at least 50 published articles by May.

This is it for today. Have a nice week ahead ya'll. Cheers.

 

[Spiderman]

Cool to see another journey!

Good luck!

 

[notNewB]

Another 10 days passed since the last update.

I published 6 new articles on the website and 81 new pins on Pinterest. Currently sitting at 46 published articles and 375 pins.

I ordered one guest post and one link insertion on Adsy (not affiliated), none delivered yet. I also ordered two new videos from the Fiverr freelancer. Will use the videos on my social pages, y'know, good for the E-E-A-T.

Here are some stats:

GSC as of March 4 - May 4.

GA4 as of March 4 - May 4 (I will be showing the page views table as the GA4 report from now on).

Pinterest as of March 4 - May 4.

One step closer to quitting my 9-5 and commit to this full-time.

 

[RiskyStuff]

Why not YouTube+ TikTok+ Instagram on top of that? I suppose limited time and some preference...

 

[notNewB]

Why not YouTube+ TikTok+ Instagram on top of that? I suppose limited time and some preference...

I am sharing the videos the freelancer has been making to YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Reddit.

But not much is happening on these. I figured I keep them alive just for Google to crawl, again, the E-E-A-T stuff. But yes, at least some movement is going on them too.

 

[Champagne]

Interesting journey, and definitely something I’ll be following for sure.

 

[notNewB]

11 days since the last update.

I published 6 new articles on the website and 113 new pins on Pinterest. Currently sitting at 52 published articles and 488 pins as of May 17, 2026.

2 guest posts I ordered two weeks ago are delivered and indexed. The Fiverr freelancer delivered the videos I ordered and I published one of them across my pages on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

I have been allocating progressively less hours into this site and I hate it. Need to give up on more sleep and family time.

Here are some stats:

GSC as of March 4 - May 17.

GA4 as of March 4 - May 17.

Pinterest as of March 4 - May 17.

We crossed 1m impressions in the last 30 days on Pinterest which generated a ridiculous amount of 690 website clicks. I have a couple ideas to test to increase the clicks and hopefully will have time to run them this week.

The plan is to double the website traffic each month and hit 1m pageviews by the end of December. I know it's crazy optimistic but why not? I mean not double month-by-month but reach pre-defined numbers which are basically double of previous months, like:

• March - 2k pageviews
• April - 4k pageviews
• May - 8k pageviews
• June - 16k pageviews
• July - 32k pageviews
• August - 64k pageviews
• September - 128k pageviews
• October - 256k pageviews
• November - 512k pageviews
• December - 1m+ pageviews

I am well on track to double April's traffic this month and put a good foundation to double May's traffic in June.

Ok, this is it for this one. Wish you all a productive week. Cheers.

 

[Aristocratic]

Nice journey mate!

Will you monetize with ads or affiliate products also?

 

[Outlaw]

Hope you're enjoying yourself

 

[notNewB]

Nice journey mate!

Will you monetize with ads or affiliate products also?

Not certain about it but the priority is ads.

The niche also looks like it can be monetized with affiliate products. But for some reason competitors with millions of traffic have zero affiliate links to Amazon or manufacturer sites. I think I will find out along the way.

 

[Octavia]

Not certain about it but the priority is ads.

The niche also looks like it can be monetized with affiliate products. But for some reason competitors with millions of traffic have zero affiliate links to Amazon or manufacturer sites. I think I will find out along the way.

So main traffic is Pinterest?

 

[notNewB]

So main traffic is Pinterest?

No, about 60% is organic from Google. Pinterest is about 15% of all traffic coming.

As per SimilarWeb, the competitors with huge traffic have a similar Google/Pinterest traffic ratio.

 

[notNewB]

13 days since the last update.

I published 18 new articles on the website and 136 new pins on Pinterest. Currently sitting at 70 published articles and 624 pins as of May 31, 2026.

The second half of May has been pretty productive, I'd say. I finally did the new interlinking method I have been thinking about for several weeks. I do tight SILO clusters on this site, nothing is published as a semantically isolated topic. I choose a topic and 6 to 10 satellite sub-topics under it and prepare/publish them all at once and interlink between each other. I have a custom HTML block that lists the URLs of other blogs under the same cluster.

I have Microsoft Clarity installed on the site and sometimes I like to watch how people are navigating across my articles. I noticed that people are not really noticing the old interlinking block. I had something more interactive in mind for some time which I finally had the time to build and hopefully it will return a better result.

Here are some stats:

GSC as of March 4 - May 31.

GA4 as of March 4 - May 31.

The site received 7.2k sessions and 13k pageviews in May. Average engagement time is 57 seconds.

Pinterest as of March 4 - May 31.

1.8m impressions in the last 30 days on Pinterest with 1100 website clicks. Didn't have a chance to sit and do something about the low outbound clicks yet. Hopefully will have a good news on this in my next update.

The goal of doubling the website traffic each month is met for May. I see no issues with hitting it in June either. July is now going to be the first legit mini challenge.

• March - 2k pageviews
• April - 4k pageviews
• May - 8k pageviews
• June - 16k pageviews
• July - 32k pageviews
• August - 64k pageviews
• September - 128k pageviews
• October - 256k pageviews
• November - 512k pageviews
• December - 1m+ pageviews

If a miracle happens and I cross 25k pageviews in June, I will go ahead and apply to Raptive. Otherwise, will do in the end of July.

Alright. This is it for today. Cheers.

 

[SilverClouds]

Straight and to the point, no drama, stats going up. Nice.

I remember you wanted to buy a house? Or already did? Good luck and thanks for sharing.

 

[allan.d]

Great journey mate! Very good progress too...

following

 

[notNewB]

Straight and to the point, no drama, stats going up. Nice.

I remember you wanted to buy a house? Or already did? Good luck and thanks for sharing.

I went around the city and saw some of the houses for sale that were good as per my personal requirements. Sadly, most of them are either overpriced, or look good but the build quality were bad & used low quality materials. The city I live is expanding too fast, too many new constructions everywhere. Companies keep building low quality buildings in short periods to sell more and fast.

So decided to buy my own land and build a house from zero. Buy all the materials myself, plan every corner, monitor every single brick laid. I want it in somewhere outside of the city, somewhere in a ~1.5 hour drive area from the city center. Those areas are legally still in the city but much less polluted and the air is cleaner. I figured that a 10k square foot of land is going to cost about $250k-$350k. And about half of that price to build and furnish the house. Yes, 10k sq foot is not a small land but I don't want anything less than 5k sq foot. I want a nice green backyard and some decorative trees. And an indoor garage, of course.

I'm halfway to the budget required. If everything goes well, should be able to start building next summer.

 

[Aristocratic]

I figured that a 10k square foot of land is going to cost about $250k-$350k.

250-350k for the land only?! Thats damn expensive.

Which country is that of u dont mind sharing?

 

[notNewB]

250-350k for the land only?! Thats damn expensive.

Which country is that of u dont mind sharing?

A post soviet country. Real estate here is almost as expensive as in NYC.

 

[Ozzyzig]

Loving this journey, it's brilliant to see the growth from it.
And congratulations on buying the land!