Trying Something New Pays Off for the Best Little Sites Network

Starting with a single site in 2003, Nathan Best, founder of the Best Little Sites Network, launched ComicBookMovie.com, the first of his network of sites. Created at the height of the superhero craze, this site followed the rise in online popularity of superhero action movies.

Inspired to write about the upcoming release of Tobey Maguire’s second Spider-Man film, ComicBookMovie.com was one of the first sites where fans could connect over their shared interests, discuss plot theories, and read reviews centered around superhero films.

As the world grew hungrier for superhero content online, Best saw the site double in size every year for its first 15 years.

It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s… Best Little Sites!

After seeing the community forming around ComicBookMovie.com and its importance in bringing together fans, Best started to write content beyond superheroes. Soon, ComicBookMovie.com was not the only site in Best’s portfolio. Expanding to its current total of eight sites, Best created the Best Little Sites Network as a hub of entertainment sites, speaking to a wide variety of niches.

From anime, sci-fi, gaming, WWE and more, the BLS Network has something for everyone. As a self-described fan of nerd and pop culture, Best spends his days ensuring that his network is the place to visit whenever needing an update, discussing fan theories or connecting with others over a shared interest.

In the early days of the BLS Network, Best started monetizing the sites through an ad management company, but after a few years, decided an in-house advertising server might better fit the network’s needs. While internal ad management paid off temporarily in terms of revenue, it was a significant investment in terms of the team’s time and bandwidth. The demands of the rapidly growing BLS network soon took precedence and Best once again turned to an external ad management agency while he and his team prioritized developing more content.

With more and more traffic coming to the site as online fandom culture exploded, Best wanted change. Though the BLS Network was monetized through an external advertising partner, there were too many ads across all the sites. In addition, anytime revenue seemed to decline, the solution from the ad management partner was to add more ad units.

In 2020, everything changed for the BLS Network, like for many other digital publishers. While the COVID-19 pandemic had little impact on traffic network-wide, their ad rates and revenue tanked. Best assumed the rest of the industry was in a similar situation.

Dynamic Duo 

Struggling through a high volume of ad units and declining revenue amidst a pandemic, Best decided to test out one of his smaller sites, SFFGazette.com, with Mediavine and leverage its PubNation offering. Interested in seeing how the site would perform, the outcome of a few months of testing would determine if Best would move the entire BLS Network to PubNation. 

In 2022, after the trial run of PubNation on SFFGazette.com, Best was convinced — The site saw increases in both ad rates and revenue, all without needing to stack up the number of ads on the site. PubNation’s innovative technology sets the stage for all publishers to find the perfect balance specific to their site, allowing them to earn more while keeping user experience at the forefront.

“The results of the test on SFFGazette.com made it almost impossible NOT to switch. There were several other companies that were promising big things, but Mediavine had already shown what they could do. … My experience [with PubNation by Mediavine] has been so good that I wish I had done it sooner. I likely lost out on multiple 6 figures, if not 7, by staying with my previous advertiser for almost three years longer than I should have.” – Nathan Best, Founder, Best Little Sites. 

With PubNation’s technology and the successes seen on SFFGazette.com, Best quickly decided to move the remaining seven sites of the BLS Network over to PubNation.

Avengers Assemble

In 2023, during the first full year with the entire BLS Network integrated into PubNation, Best saw a dramatic 21% increase in revenue. In March 2024 alone, Best experienced a 67% year-over-year increase in revenue. Additionally, traffic has remained consistent throughout the sites’ time with PubNation.

Along with the successes of the sites, Best has enjoyed some of the perks included in the PubNation partnership. In addition to the PubNation publisher dashboard, Best enjoys reviewing tips and ideas offered to help improve sites scores, as well as helpful account managers to answer any questions or concerns about his sites.

Overall, the partnership between the BLS Network and PubNation has paid off: “The year-over-year growth has been phenomenal… It’s let me begin to dig out of the hole that was dug with COVID. For the first time since COVID, I feel like things are back on track.” – Nathan Best, Founder, Best Little Sites.

Having witnessed the hardships of publishers in the blogging industry, we are thrilled about all the success the BLS Network has been achieving and are proud to call them a PubNation Publisher. We will continue to tune into all the network’s niche news, and can’t wait to see Best continue to expand the Best Little Sites Network.

The above results represent this user’s experience with Mediavine and PubNation. We cannot verify that these results are typical and we do not guarantee your site will see the same results.