Announcing my newest #BuildInPublic side project launch ...

Its been almost five years since I shared any information on my side project work and honestly, it was the most UNPRODUCTIVE I've been with my side projects.

I don't know why #BuildInPublic has such an impact on my side project work but it does ... and here we are.

The much needed motivation ...

Last month I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Niche Pursuits, and Spencer was promoting an upcoming AI Content Challenge he was running within his community.

What sparked my interest was the overall goal to see how well AI content ranked (and traffic recieved) on Google which is a question that I've been wondering about ever since GPT was released.

I knew I couldn't make the contest's deadline, but I wasn't going to let that deter me from challenging myself.

The problem was I had TONS OF IDEAS for a website (don't we all have an idea notebook?) but none of them really needed AI created content.

I needed an idea ...

After a couple of days of lurking on various online forums, checking out dropped domain lists, and visiting AI content websites like Ideogram, I realized the idea was literally sitting right in front of me.

COLORING BOOK PAGES!

Why?

Coloring book pages allowed me to actually try ranking two different types of content, copy and images, and there were tools out there that allowed me to create both using AI.

Now that I had an idea, I needed a domain name.

The quest for a domain name ...

One of the biggest time sucks for an indie maker is finding the perfect domain name for their project.

Personally the lack of a domain name has stopped projects in their tracks and I didn't want that to happen.

I currently don't invest in any of the magic SEO tools, but I do use the Ubersuggest Chrome extension for some basic SEO research.

I typed coloring pages into Google and let Ubersuggest do its thing.

OMG! 450,000 monthly searches and a CPC of $2.14!

I knew ColoringPages(.)com wasn't going to be available, so I started going through the list of searches to see if any caught my eye.

First up was printable coloring pages.

Argh! The dreaded "that domain is registered" message.

Next up with coloring pages sheets.

I checked ColoringPageSheets(.)com since the double plural didn't sound right and it was AVAILABLE (and still is as of the writing of this post) so I added it to my possibilities list.

Since I don't pay for Ubersuggest, I couldn't filter through additional search queries within the Chrome extension, so I headed over to AnswerThePublic and searched for coloring pages.

There is so much data presented by ATP that I normally go straight to the "Alphabeticals" section so I can get a better idea of the keyword phrase options.

Most of the coloring page phrases were really niche (i.e Coloring Pages Animals or Coloring Pages by Number) and then I noticed coloring pages easy.

A search volume of 2.4k probably wouldn't stick out to most people, but there was something about the phrase that I needed to explore.

Having used ATP for a while now, I knew the keyword phrases mentioned didn't match up exactly to what is being searched ... plus coloring pages easy really didn't roll of the tongue.

What if we rearranged the phrase and made it easy coloring pages?

Ohh ... that really rolled off the tongue.

I typed EasyColoringPages(.)com into my domain checker and IT WAS AVAILABLE!

That gave me two possible domain names for the website so my next stop was back to Ubersuggest and check how the search phrase easy coloring pages looked.

Wait ... 22,200 monthly searches with a $2.51 CPC ... that looks a whole lot better than 2.4k, but I needed one more source to confirm.

Since I had two possible options for the website, I headed over to Google Ads and checked their keyword planner tool to get my final confirmation.

Both easy coloring pages and coloring pages sheets were in the 10k-100k search range which both helped and didn't help.

Yes it confirmed the search estimates, but since they both were in the same average monthly searches range it didn't give me "pick this one" result that I hoped for.

So I went back to my days working at a radio station and used the "which one would sound better on-air" test.

"Visit us at Coloring Page Sheets Dot Com"

vs

"Visit us at Easy Coloring Pages Dot Com"

And that was that ... I registered my choice and a little under two weeks later on September 28, 2023 I launched Easy Coloring Pages.

What's next?

Right now the website has close to 100 AI created coloring pages and is growing on a daily basis.

It's in the rollercoaster SEO stage where it shows up and then disappears on almost a daily basis in search rankings.

To keep the motivation and energy up on this project I plan on sharing out insights (including how I created my AI generated content) here and also on 𝕏 @scottcents.