20,000 Visitors a Month in Under a Year 🚀

A round-up of the 5 most interesting sites added to Raptive and Mediavine over the last 30 days

Mediavine and Raptive have had a moderately active last 30 days - adding about 108 new sites between them (as tracked by Display Ad Daily).

As a reminder, this monthly round-up email only showcases sites that just recently met the traffic requirements of Mediavine or Raptive.

Their traffic charts almost all look like this...

That way we're looking at sites that Google is rewarding right now - as we speak.

This month's theme is travel.

Stick around until the end to get an update on my own travel site, Stay New England!

SPONSOR ​ The most affordable keyword research tool that just works. ​ Keysearch is for bloggers, by bloggers. Join 10,000+ bloggers and online entrepreneurs. Just $17 a month. Oh, and it just got a brand new look! ​ LEARN MORE

1. Hailey Outside

• Website: haileyoutside.com​
• DR: 10
• Organic traffic: ~20,000 visitors
• Total pages: 103 pages
• Top page: haileyoutside.com/the-best-travel-stroller-for-two-kids

Hailey Outside is a less than one year old travel blog focused primarily on traveling/hiking with kids.

5/5 of the highest traffic pages on this site are dedicated to product reviews/affiliate marketing. Reviews of everything from baby strollers, baby carriers, sleeping bags, etc.

The creator of this site, Hailey, also has a massive social media following - 258k followers on Instagram, 60k followers on YouTube, 515k followers on TikTok.

2. Colorado Hikes and Hops

• Website: coloradohikesandhops.com​
• DR: 17
• Organic traffic: ~14,000 visitors
• Total pages: 135 pages
• Top page: coloradohikesandhops.com/blog/hikes-near-denver​
  ​
  ​

This is a 3ish year old site started by two friends from Colorado.

Their most popular content is about the best hiking trails in the state - which mountains to visit, what to expect on the trail and what to bring with you.

Love their dedication to this site and that they've stuck with it for all this time.

3. Away Abroad

• Website: findawayabroad.com​
• DR: 35
• Organic traffic: ~17,000 visitors
• Total pages: 327 pages
• Top page: findawayabroad.com/post/in-bali-indonesia​
  ​
  ​

Away Abroad is just a really well done website - the design/UX of the site is top notch, and the content is too.

The target audience of the site are folks who are looking to move from their current country and live abroad.

It appears the owner of the site has done a really good job of getting others to contribute/submit their own content - which has clearly helped grow the site (327 pages indexed so far).

4. Wanderlicious by Adriana

• Website: wanderlicious.co.uk​
• DR: 12
• Organic traffic: ~26,000 visitors
• Total pages: 159 pages
• Top page: wanderlicious.co.uk/best-songs-for-instagram-stories​
  ​

Another year old travel site doing really well with organic traffic.

I'm a huge fan of the "quick mini guides" Adriana posts at the top of her travel guide content - straight to the point and a great summary of the longer content below it. I might have to steal this idea!

Most of the content is pretty standard for a travel blog, but the owner has started to write about topics that I think she will eventually regret covering.

For example her two most trafficked pages are "best songs for instagram stories" and "how to mark messages as unread on instagram". I'd personally avoid blatant keyword grabs like this, but overall the site is really well done.

5. Those Johnson Boys

• Website: thosejohnsonboys.com​
• DR: 12
• Organic traffic: ~16,000 visitors
• Total pages: 36 pages
• Top page: thosejohnsonboys.com/what-to-pack-for-disney-world/​
  ​

Last but not least is yet another year old travel site doing really well - Those Johnson Boys.

This is a family travel blog started by a mom, Jenn. The site chronicles her families' travel experiences.

6 out of 6 of the top performing content on the site is about traveling to Disney world - what to pack, guides, reviews, etc.

BONUS: Stay New England

• Website: staynewengland.com​
• DR: 10
• Organic traffic: ~7,000 sessions
• Total pages: 31 pages
• Top page: staynewengland.com/beacon-hill-restaurants​

As many of you know, my wife and I have a travel site of our own - Stay New England.

This past year or so we've really had to take a step back from the site - we both work 9-5 jobs and a little over a year ago we had our second baby, Maeve. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

But the exciting thing is the site is continuing to do really well. With less than 23 total posts, Stay New England is on track to pass 10,000 sessions over the next 30 days.

A big part of this is due to seasonality (much of the content is summer related), but the content itself is just flat out ranking well.

I decided to apply to Journey by Mediavine a few days ago - they require 30 days of traffic before they decide to approve your site or not, so I think we have a good shot given we are averaging around 300 sessions a day now.

Might just be the motivation we need to get back in the trenches and start pumping out content again.

I'll let you know how it goes.

In the meantime, enjoy YOUR weekend!

We'll talk soon.

-Mike