3 Reasons Mediavine New Traffic Requirements Shouldn’t Scare You

This post may contain affiliate links. Click here to read my full disclosure.

Mediavine broke the internet by announcing that the company increased traffic requirements for new publishers to 50,000 sessions.

Yep, you read that right…as if reaching 25,000 sessions wasn’t difficult enough, now publishers are forced to double down to attain the goal of joining Team Mediavine.

Trust me when I say that I feel your pain. It took me a good two years before I finally reached Mediavine requirements, and I can’t imagine how discouraged I’d feel if I was nearly there and was hit with this bombshell.

Listen carefully, though. Your blog’s worth doesn’t hinge on acceptance into Mediavine.

I love the company. Their customer service level is outstanding. I raved all about them in my Mediavine review last year.

And while ad revenue was some of the first income I started earning on this blog, I surpassed ad revenue with affiliate marketing income once I figured out a system.

After sharing these tips, I’ll offer an alternative to Mediavine that only requires 10,000 pageviews, and they pay pretty well. In fact, I earned $453 my first month with this other ad network.

3 Things to Focus on While Waiting to Reach Mediavine Traffic Requirements

I’m going to drop another truth on you. Are you ready for it?

Perfection Hangover (this very blog) still hasn’t reached 50,000 sessions, but my income was $4,200 last month, and I’ve earned over $22,000 so far in 2020.

You don’t need tons and tons of pageviews in order to turn your hobby blog into a business. I can’t wait for the day that I reach 100,000 sessions.

But for now, I’m focusing on creating content that helps my readers. I threw the vanity metrics out the window, and my income grew.

Now, there are some bloggers that will tell you they earned $100,000 last month. You can earn millions every year blogging.

But starting out, keep your goals S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) and set smaller, more attainable goals.

Follow this Blogging Roadmap:

1. Make SEO Your #1 Priority

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the ultimate goal of a blog post. You want to show up on page one, as high up to the top of the search results, as possible.

When I started really learning about search engine optimization (and posts started ranking in Google), my income increased.

The interesting thing about ranking in Google is that people searching for products are either researching so they can make a decision or they are ready to pull the trigger and buy today.

When your affiliate posts start ranking, you’ll have a higher conversion rate, and in turn, make more money.

I saw this happen with a skincare product that I shared. I wrote a review, using my coupon code in the post. I created a video for YouTube, and that single product earned me $2,330 last month!

SEO is the most important thing you need to learn. I purchased Mike Pearson’s Stupid Simple SEO course, and I recommend it to every single blogger who is serious about turning a hobby blog into a business.

You can check out Mike’s free SEO Masterclass here. Stupid Simple SEO has earned me over $7,500 from that affiliate this year.

2. Pinterest Traffic Can Help You Meet Mediavine Requirements

You won’t get a lot of traffic from Twitter or Instagram and probably not even Facebook. But I can guarantee you that if you create engaging, beautiful pins every day, you will increase traffic to your site from Pinterest.

Why do you want people to visit your site from Pinterest?

Here are a few reasons Pinterest demographics are amazing:

• They’re high-income earners and spend more money than any other social media platform per day.
• There are currently 47 million users so there is no ceiling to growth potential.
• Most Pinterest users have a college education.

But there’s a specific strategy you have to follow when it comes to pinning content. You can’t just pin randomly, and you certainly don’t want to overshare your own content (or you’ll risk getting banned).

I recommend two different Pinterest courses (one happens to be on sale for Father’s Day this weekend!):

• Pinteresting Strategies – a super affordable (underpriced in my opinion) course that teaches you how to manually pin instead of using Tailwind or another pin scheduler. Highly, highly recommend this course (especially if you’re on a tight budget).
• Pinterest Traffic Avalanche – I have taken 6-Figure Blogger, created by Alex and Lauren, but their Pinterest course is on sale this weekend, and I am so tempted to buy it! They teach via short video modules that are quick and easy to work through at your own pace. This couple grew their blog from zero to seven figures really fast, so they know their stuff!
• I offer my basic, free Pinterest strategy that helped me reach 10,000 pageviews in 4 months. So if you have no budget for blogging courses right now, I would start there.

3. Monumetric Requirements are Easier to REach

You may not have heard of Monumetric. They’re an ad network that offers much better ads than Google Adsense, and they’re a great stepping stone before you reach Mediavine requirements.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know about Monumetric in the beginning, and when I took a small break from blogging and pageviews plateaued around 10,000-12,000 per month, I was earning very little ad revenue.

I stumbled upon a Monumetric review that explained how it works, and I submitted an application.

The Pros:

• Monumetric pays much better than Adsense, and I earned $453 my first month as a new publisher.
• You get a dedicated salesperson to set up your ads.
• The potential monthly earnings of $100-500 or more (as a new blogger with only 10-49k pageviews) will inspire you to keep going!

The Cons:

• Monumetric’s service level is not great. They don’t get ahead of potential problems bloggers might face and provide solutions. Mediavine is always thinking ahead and paving the way for bloggers to succeed.
• Monumetric is slow when it comes to installing the ads on your site. It has taken up to a month to get sites on some of my friends’ sites. Mediavine can have ads live within a week.
• At the time that I left Monumetric, the company wasn’t able to serve video ads.
• As a publisher, you get no control over how many ads are placed on your site. Your Publisher Dashboard is meant to show you how well ads are performing/share income, etc. Mediavine dashboard provides the ability to add more or fewer in-content ads, add videos, and so much more.

This isn’t to knock Monumetric. I just want you to know that you do have options, but the two companies are not comparable.

You’ll still want to strive to hit 50,000 sessions to reach Mediavine requirements, but remember that your blog’s value is not determined by which ad network you’re a part of.

Bottom Line

1. Start with Mike’s free SEO Masterclass.
2. Find a Pinterest course that can help you increase traffic to your blog.
3. Apply to Monumetric when you reach 10,000 pageviews.

How do you feel about Mediavine requirements increasing? Were you close to being accepted but missed out by a month or two?