The Plan

I have decided to upgrade my WordPress site to the Explorer plan so that I can monetize using WordAds.

There are already ads on the site from WordPress, but I do not currently benefit from those.

I had originally created Game Girls Gallery (GGG) because I ran out of Storage space here on this blog.

Once I complete the upgrade, I will have a great deal more space available. I am planning on eventually migrating the GGG content back to this site.

Stats

My site traffic exploded in 2022 after I began playing “Shadow Brides: A Gothic RPG.” That game drew in a lot of traffic. I started a Subreddit for the game, and I began building a Wiki.

But after I had created GGG, my traffic dropped as a portion of my visitors were only looking for the content that I had moved to the other site.

The growth rate at GGG has been solid for the most part. I have, of course, run out of space multiple times since its inception.

Last year, I began the long process of downloading all of my images and converting them from PNG/JPEG to the WebP format.

This reduced the file sizes and greatly improved my storage situation.

Finding Data

I must admit, it has been quite difficult getting clear data on WordAds. It has been somewhat embarrassing asking questions to which I already know the answer.

“It depends.”

That has been the answer in every forum post I have read. Indeed, my own posted questions have returned the same result. But this I already knew, even if I did not want to admit it.

I really just have to try it out and see where it goes.

I was able to find some blog posts by other users giving their own feedback and stories of using the service. This insight has been very encouraging, even when the outlook of other users has been bleak.

Costs

The cost of the upgrade to include WordAds access is $96 per year, not including the domain, which is free for the first year, and then $12 annually afterward. I am still an unemployed student, and my budget does not have much in the way of wiggle room.

I am still hitting up offers on Swagbucks, but that is a limited source of income. I only received $100 last month from bank account bonuses, and my dividend portfolio has been underperforming for the last 3 years.

My goal then is to earn at least half of that back in ad revenue. If I can cut my hosting expenses down to, say $50, then I could stomach the cost.

Conclusion

So, this is where I will stop for now. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments.

I will keep a log of my own successes or failures with WordAds. I plan on quarterly blog posts covering my own results. I’ll try and keep the subscription active for at least two years so that I might provide some clear data for others.

Thanks for reading, and be safe!

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Read the next part of this story.