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Case study · Content and affiliate website · 3 weeks

From an idea to a live affiliate site.
In three weeks, and it updates itself.

We started with an idea and no website: a US content site that earns from partner links. Three weeks later, it was live on its own domain, publishing fresh data and new content every day.

Affiliate & publishing · Search & AI visibility · AI content · Analytics & attribution

Partner revenue path

Day 3

Partner link live, every click logged with the page and spot that sent it.

8 spots on the site, each tracked separately.

Right offer, right page

1 day

From learning what the partner actually sells to a home page rebuilt around it.

The offer now shows only next to the products it covers.

Live on its own domain

Day 20

From first research to a site open to search engines.

Google’s search-readiness score at launch: 100 out of 100.

Pages

5,089

Pages live and listed for search engines.

Daily data, every US state, and a second language.

Runs itself

3

Automatic jobs a day: fresh data twice, new content every morning.

Each run checked and published with no one at the keyboard, since 4 October.

Content

19

Guides, plus a cast of 12 characters with daily posts.

Guides grounded in official sources.

Rules built in

13

Rules every page is checked against before it can go live.

Written from an audit of 26 sites in the market.

Client, sector, partners and people withheld. Every figure re-checked at the project’s own records. Days 4–19 were in the client’s hands for name, partner and launch decisions; no build work is counted for them.

How we got there

Seven results,
each with its cause.

Day 3

Partner revenue path

What held it back

  • No website, no partner and no way to measure a click

What we did

  • A partner link live two days after the work started
  • Every click goes through one tracking page that logs the page and the spot: 8 spots, from the home page to a calculator
  • One command shows clicks by spot and by country, to compare with the partner’s own report

How we read data: clicks are broken down by country, so testing and visits from outside the US are never mistaken for customers.

1 day

Right offer, right page

What held it back

  • The site led with the market’s biggest national topics, but the partner covers only a narrower line of daily products
  • The client’s team spotted the mismatch

What we did

  • Researched exactly what the partner offers, in 1 day
  • Rebuilt the home page around the partner’s daily products the next day: countdowns to the next update, the latest data and the offer beside them
  • 4 new product pages, a daily overview page and a matching calculator
  • The big national pages kept, with their search traffic, but with no offer on them
Day 20

Live on its own domain

What held it back

  • Nothing to publish on, and a launch that had to wait for the client’s choices on name, design and partners

What we did

  • A first version online on day 2, hidden from search engines while the client reviewed it
  • Name and domain chosen and live on day 3
  • Opened to search engines on day 20, with a search-readiness score of 100 out of 100
  • Moved onto the client’s own hosting account at launch, with nothing lost: the click history carried over
5,089

Depth to be found

What held it back

  • The market is led by a handful of big sites; the smaller affiliates see an estimated 3,000–114,000 visits a month
  • A new, small site needs depth to be found

What we did

  • Historical data for every past day, by product, year and date
  • A page for every state, and 92 state-by-product pages with local times and after-tax figures
  • One state’s open data added for its daily products
  • The main pages in Spanish as well as English
3

Runs itself

What held it back

  • Data and posts all had to be updated by hand every day

What we did

  • Fresh data fetched and published twice a day; the second run catches late updates
  • Every morning, 3 new character posts; three days a week, a new guide written by AI from downloaded official pages
  • Every run passes the site’s rule checks before it publishes
  • Running on its own since 4 October

How we ship: every automatic run builds the whole site and checks every page before anything goes live.

19

Content with a voice

What held it back

  • No site in the market delivered its daily content through characters

What we did

  • 19 guides; the 8 core ones run 800–1,100 words, with 4–12 official sources each
  • Claims we could not confirm were taken out before publishing
  • A cast of 12 characters with a shared voice guide and 10 stories each; the client supplied the character art
  • A share image for every post, with the required notices built in

How we write: AI drafts at scale; every figure is checked against an official source, and anything we cannot confirm is left out.

13

Rules built in

What held it back

  • Of 19 affiliates audited, none met all 13 rules; the worst had 11 possible issues

What we did

  • A 13-rule rulebook written from the research, before the first page was built
  • The site will not publish a page that lacks its required notices or uses a banned claim
  • Partner offers carry a disclosure, AI-written content is labelled, and character pages say they are entertainment
  • The tone kept friendly: one short line of notices per page, not a wall of warnings

Period by period

Three days to build,
four to launch.

Days 1–3 · Research and build

Learn the market, set the rules, go online.

AreaWhat we didThe number
ResearchFeasibility study: what is allowed, what pays, what kills the project5,235 words
CompetitionThe market’s sites measured and compared26 sites
RulesOur rulebook, then every competitor audited against it13 rules
Market leaderThe best-known guide checked against our research8 of 50 states out of date
SiteFirst version online, hidden from search engines4,673 pages
CalculatorsBuilt and checked against hand calculations9 tools
State factsResearched from official sources45 states plus DC
PartnerName, domain and first partner link liveDay 3
SocialA ready-to-post 30-day pilot for two characters60 posts, 120 images

A working site with tracked partner links, three days after the work started.

Days 20–23 · Launch and automate

Open it, make it run itself.

AreaWhat we didThe number
LaunchOpened to search engines on the client’s own account5,089 pages
ContinuityClick history moved across with the siteNothing lost
SearchGoogle’s search-readiness check100 out of 100
DesignThe client’s character art in, and new themes built around it7 themes
AutomationFresh data twice a day; new posts every morning3 runs a day
PartnerHome page rebuilt around what the partner sells1 day
ContentNew guides for the daily products19 guides in all

A live site that updates itself, with the partner’s offer next to the products it covers.

More results

Researched first,
then built.

Market research

26

Sites audited: the leading affiliates and the official sources in the market.

Affiliates averaged 6.2 possible rule issues each.

State facts

45

States plus DC researched from official sources.

Anything unconfirmed left off the page.

Calculators

9

Calculators and tools, each checked by hand against worked examples.

In English and Spanish.

Market leader checked

8 of 50

States out of date in the market’s best-known guide.

Our own research held.

Social media kit

60

Ready-to-post stories for a 30-day pilot.

120 images in two formats.

Delivery pace

34

Code changes in 3 weeks.

Each one built and checked in full.

How we work

  1. Research before building

    We read the rules, audit the market and write a rulebook first. Our audit covered 26 sites against 13 rules.

  2. Build the rules into the site

    A page that breaks a rule cannot go live: the check runs on every build, including the automatic ones.

  3. Ship small, checked changes

    34 code changes in 3 weeks, each one built and checked in full.

  4. Follow the money

    Every partner click is logged with its page and spot. When the offer and the content did not match, the home page was rebuilt the next day.

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