I launched EcoEnergyCalc last week — a collection of 20 free calculators for homeowners who want to reduce energy costs and carbon footprint. Solar savings, electric bills, carbon footprint, water usage, heating costs, and more.
Here's the stack and what I learned.
The Stack
Pure HTML/CSS/JS — no framework, no build step
GitHub Pages (free hosting)
Cloudflare DNS
Google Analytics + Search Console
That's it. No React, no Next.js, no database. Every calculator runs client-side with zero backend.
Why No Framework?
The tools are fundamentally form → calculation → result. There's no state management problem to solve, no data fetching, no routing complexity. Vanilla JS handles it in 50 lines per calculator. Adding a framework would mean a build pipeline, dependencies to maintain, and slower page loads — for no real benefit.
The site loads instantly. Lighthouse scores are high. No npm vulnerabilities to deal with.
How the Nav Works
One nav.js file injected into every page handles the header, footer, dropdown menu (20 tools), mobile hamburger menu, and Google Analytics loading. Every new page just needs one script tag at the bottom of body.
SEO From Day One
Since this is an AdSense play, organic search is everything. Built-in from the start:
Canonical URLs on every page
JSON-LD schema markup (WebApplication for tools, Article for blog posts)
llms.txt for AI crawler discovery
sitemap.xml submitted to Search Console
600+ word article body on every tool page, not just a bare calculator
Week 1 Numbers
57 users (all direct — friends and community posts)
Search Console: 110 impressions, 0 clicks, avg position 69
4 pages indexed out of 35
The indexing is the bottleneck right now. Impressions went from 16 to 110 in one week, so Google is crawling actively.
Most interesting data point: "residential solar installation" related query is showing up at position 1.8 in Search Console. One page, one week old.
What's Next
Weekly content cadence: 2 blog posts + 1 tool per week
AdSense application submitted
Affiliate layer after AdSense stabilizes
Goal: $1,000/month within 12 months
Live site: https://ecoenergycalc.com
Would be curious if anyone else has done AdSense-focused calculator sites and what content cadence actually moved the needle for them.
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