How Many Blog Posts Do You Need To Make Money & Get Traffic?

One of the most popular questions I come across all the time is just what you searched for. Yep, it’s – how many blog posts to make money or how many blog posts to get traffic?

If you are faded with listening ‘it depends’ every time you land on an article or watch a video, this post is going to be a bit interesting for you.

I actually did a case study to find out exactly how many blog posts you need to write before you can get any traffic and make money.

Sure, the answer would still be – it depends, but you are going to get a rough idea about everything for the better. Before we get into the details, let me quickly answer the question first.

How many blog posts to make money? According to the case study conducted by SB Digital, it takes close to 25 well-researched and optimized blog posts to get about 10,000 visitors a month, and make money. Results may vary from website to website and industry to industry.

Now that you have the answer with you, let’s look at the numbers and some relevant questions.

We Analyzed 21 Websites (Number Of Blog Posts & Traffic)

So we did a pretty interesting case study here. We analyzed 21 niche websites (some were from my own portfolio of websites and some were of people in my network).

All the websites were in different niches and were created by people who knew about SEO, user experience, keyword research, and promotion because we didn’t want blogs of beginners who have no idea what they are doing.

And if you are reading this post, for sure, you might already know the importance of keyword research/top research, promotion, and overall SEO for a website to rank, right?

So, we first looked at the number of posts each website had published. Some websites had below 10 blog posts, some had close to 30, and some even more than that.

Here’s a graphical representation of the data;

By Shivansh Bhanwariya Digital

As you can see, the number of blog posts varies a lot. One website had over a hundred blog posts as well!

Anyways, moving further, once we gathered the data about the number of posts, we looked at the traffic each website was getting.

It was pretty shocking that in so many cases, some small websites were outperforming medium-sized websites, and sometimes the website with more articles/posts won the game.

Here’s another graph that shows the amount of traffic these websites were getting;

By Shivansh Bhanwariya Digital

The numbers are very exciting. But still, we don’t yet have a conclusion, right?

Well, have some patience, we’re getting to the conclusion soon.

So, now that we had the number of blog posts each website had published and the amount of traffic it got, we added the total traffic of all websites, as well as, the total number of blog posts.

Then, the math was quite simple to do, Our total organic visitors were 345,906 and the total number of blog posts was 856.

The next step was to divide the total visitors by total number of posts.

345,906/856 = 404.09 visitors per post

After dividing the numbers, we came to the conclusion that if you research the topics well and create awesome content, you can expect 404.09 visitors a month per post on average (numbers may vary but it’s a rough number we have for now).

Now, for most bloggers, the sweet spot is 10,000 visitors a month. If you get 404.09 visitors per post, let’s divide 10,000 by 404.09

10,000/404.09 visitors = 24.75 blog posts

There we have the answer. If you want to get to the 10,000 visitors a month mark, you would roughly have to write about 25 blog posts. Numbers for sure will vary with different projects but we have the answer here.

You will need at least 25 solid posts to start getting traffic and make money. Now that we have worked with the numbers, let’s learn something important.

Are 10,000 Visitors Really Doable With 25 Posts?

The question we have now is that are 10,000 visitors with 25 doable for every website? The answer to this question is no.

There are a lot of factors a blogger needs to consider such as the search volume, the search intent, the competition, and website authority.

You might write the best content humanly possible but if only 200 people are searching for the topic, you will receive not more than 100 visitors even if you rank at the top.

And you have to accept that you won’t be able to rank at the top EVERY single time! Sometimes it’s going to be position 1, sometimes position 2, sometimes position 5, etc.

Hence, you can’t be a hundred percent confident about the traffic. However, there will be a lot of cases where you will be able to cross the ten thousand visitors mark with even fewer posts. Therefore, the answer is always going to be – it depends.

How Much Money Can You Make With ‘X’ Number Of Posts?

The amount of money you earn is actually dependent on the traffic and not the number of posts. You could write a hundred articles, get no traffic at all, and make no money.

On the other hand, you can write ten solid posts, drive thousands of visitors, and make a lot of money.

But as we have gotten 10,000 visitors and 25 blog posts as rough numbers, let’s see how much you can expect to earn with these numbers;

First of all, the answer to this question as well is – it depends! It’s because there are a lot of factors that affect the revenue such as:

  • Niche of the website
  • Quality of content
  • Keywords the website is targeting
  • The audience demographic
  • Monetization methods

1. Niche Of The Website

The first variable we have got is, the niche of the website. Niche plays an extremely important role when it comes to making money with a blog.

If you pick a niche that has no commercial intent, you will struggle to make any significant amount of money. For example, if you pick something in the entertainment category, you might get a lot of traffic but generate little to no earnings.

Hence, a website that covers a good niche can make thousands of dollars with just a small number of posts and a small amount of traffic whereas a website with thousands of visitors can have a hard time earning any significant sum of money. It’s all about the niche.

2. Quality Of Content

Another big differentiator is the content quality. If you don’t focus on the quality of the content, ad networks are not going to show a ton of ads on your website and you will not be able to make any impacting amount of money.

Also, people won’t trust you if the content is not good enough. It should be in-depth, long, precise, and engaging for people to trust you because let’s face it, trust is money!

3. Keywords You Target

Another differentiator in terms of generating revenue is the keywords you target. If you target specific keywords that have high commercial intent, you will be making more money for sure.

On the contrary, if you just target random keywords that have search volume but no commercial intent, the earnings are going to be lower.

An example of this would be the keyword ‘bottle’. When someone searches the word ‘bottle’, you are not really sure what he is looking for, right?

But if someone types in ‘best bottles under $10’, it make a lot more sense. Hence, it’s something that you have to count on before you think about making money.

4. Demographic Of The Audience

Demographic is another critical factor to take into account. Visitors from the United States and Canada will make you way more money than visitors from developing countries.

Also, if you target a younger audience, the earnings are going to be low because young people don’t have a lot of money to spend.

If you target kids or students, the money you will earn with 10,000 visitors will definitely not be as high.

5. Monetization Methods

What monetization methods are used by a website to make money is also an obvious thing to consider. If you monetize the website with Google Adsense, the pay rate will be extremely low. On the other side, if you work with a premium ad network like Ezoic or Mediavine, the pay rates will be much higher.

Also, if you incorporate affiliate marketing and display advertising together, the revenue will go high as there will be two income sources.

How Many Blog Posts Do I Recommend?

While there is no magic number, over the year, I have found that blogs with more blog posts often get more traffic and earn more money.

If you have a blog with 10 ‘great’ blog posts that are generating 2,000 pageviews each and a blog with 100 ‘okay’ posts generating 400 pageviews each, the traffic with 100 blog posts is always going to be higher.

Over the course of a few years, I have noticed it over and over again that you have to write at least 60-100 blog posts before you start seeing some fantastic numbers.

In Conclusion

As you have seen, the number of blog posts and the amount of money you make can drastically vary from website to website and niche to niche.

However, we have also gotten the idea about the number of blog posts it roughly takes to get traffic and make money.

I hope you found this little case study interesting. Please feel free to share your thoughts down below in the comments.

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