October Questions Thread - Ask your questions here

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[u/Empty_Celery_2937]

Title: Mediavine vs Raptive vs HB Agency for a recipe website with 300K monthly sessions?
Hey everyone,
I currently run a recipe website getting around 9K–12K sessions per day, mostly Tier 1 traffic (US, Canada, etc.).
I’m monetizing with HB Agency, and my RPM is usually between $15–$35, but the user experience is really bad because of too many ads. Visitors keep complaining, and they don’t stay long on my site.
I can’t really reduce the ads because I have a team to pay and need to maintain my earnings.
I was thinking about switching to Journey by Mediavine, but I’ve seen people reporting RPMs as low as $5, which worries me.
Now I’m considering Mediavine or Raptive instead.
The problem is I’ve already applied to Mediavine with two websites and got rejected. One for low-quality content and the other for invalid traffic.
I use AI to help write my recipe posts faster, and most of my traffic comes from social media.
My questions are:
Which network has better RPMs for recipe websites, Mediavine or Raptive?
Is it possible to get $20–$35 RPM with fewer ads?
Does Mediavine accept websites using AI-assisted content and social media traffic?
Has anyone been rejected by Mediavine and later accepted? What did you change?

[u/eaglesfan83]

I started a website about 7 months to help solve a problem for a community of people who constantly churn year over year so there is no shortage of potential readers and having gone through a lot of the processes myself I felt like I could provide some value in both a service and educational content.

As of today I rank number 1 in 3 of the top keywords for the space and many other blogs are ranking in the top 7.

I recently monetized with a personalized worksheet that I am improving on that has about 6 sales so far at $9 a piece that received some good feedback. I just applied and was approved for Mediavine to run some ads on some pages (not all as I don't want to clutter up my own CTAs). I am waiting for Google MCM approval so that will probably take a few weeks.

I am struggling now on what's next. I get about 1100 visits a day so I am not a huge platform but do feel like I managed to get consistent traffic.

I started a fresh Instagram and X about a week ago, but I dont think they will drive too much traffic but wanted to test it out to be sure.

I have thought about Youtube and TikTok and doing videos or walkthroughs on the process but feels so time intensive and not sure the ROI is there do put the time into recording and editing.

I feel like I am just at a loss at the right next step. Maybe I just keep doing what I am doing and push for the slow consistent growth.

Any advice is always appreciated.

[u/yihuaxiang → u/eaglesfan83]

1100 visits a day and 6 worksheet sales means the next step isn't a new channel. Those buyers already found you. See which pages they came from and put that worksheet on the posts that rank, with the offer matching what the person searched. Ads on those same pages will fight the sale, so keep the selling pages clean like you planned and let Mediavine run on the rest.

Instagram and YouTube from zero won't beat pages that already rank. I'd only record a walkthrough after the on-site offer is obvious, and only of a process you already wrote. Until then, more posts on the same topic is the slow growth you already have working.

[u/InitialFerret5276]

Hey! I just recently got back into blogging, and would love to connect with others about our blogs. I wrote about some personal hardships, and how it's affected my ability to connect and relate with others. Also would love some feedback, and to see how you guys interpret my post.

link

[u/clean-links → u/InitialFerret5276]

Cleaned link from "link": https://cameronchertoff.substack.com/p/relatability?r=76hpoe

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Tracking parameters were removed from the original URL(s).

[u/BestJo15]

Hi everyone, I hope that's the right place to ask. I want to start a new blog talking about anime episodes and reviews and another one for personal life and thoughts.

I know nothing about how to build and host a site, I know tho that there are a lot of alternative to choose from.

Can someone guide me to detailed resources (articles, yt, whatever) to get an understanding of this? Thank you in advance

[u/Flashy_Tomatillo2278 → u/BestJo15]

I don't necessarily know resources but like, I can recommend making a couple of accounts and dummy sites and experiment. There's no one way to go for everyone. wp.com free can be fun, self-hosted WordPress can even be better but neither have to be for you and maybe you like blogger better, which is fine too

As a tipp from one media reviewer to another: Don't compare yourself/ your blog to another. Especially, when that blog/s tend to be way larger and run by a team of people

[u/ilovemovies1106]

Do you think one can make money solely from running an entertainment blog that covers movies/series reviews and news? Or is it a dead career option?

[u/Flashy_Tomatillo2278 → u/ilovemovies1106]

Well, there're a lot of review and news sites out there, who already do. It's a huge competition, and most likely not impossible but also possibly take longer than 1-5 years.

Because having the site/blog is one thing, for it to run and get traction and to actually earn money, like a few cents? Sure.
To make a living from it? Can take years to get a few cents, even longer to get more out of it

We live in a world, where everyone nowadays wants to earn from the web, so the competition is huge. Doesn't mean it can't work out

[u/Serious-Struggle7722]

Anyone willing to share their monthly revenue who are with Adsense, raptive or mediavine?

[u/RoyalClutches567]

my sidebar widgets keep disappearing on mobile and I have no clue what I did, everything looks fine in the customizer but then I check on my phone and it’s just blank space

using a free theme if that matters, don’t really want to pay for a new one yet

[u/yihuaxiang → u/RoyalClutches567]

While you grab the theme name: a lot of free themes hide the sidebar on a phone on purpose, and a blank gap is often the widget still in the page with a fixed width.

In the customizer, check Additional CSS for a max-width rule. On the phone, turn on the desktop-site option. If the widgets come back, you can stack that sidebar under the post with a small override instead of buying another theme.

[u/Flashy_Tomatillo2278 → u/RoyalClutches567]

What platform (wp.com, blogger, self-hosted WordPress, ...) do you use?
What theme is it?