It is always exciting for me to write my regular monthly updates. Sharing the details of my blogging journey have made me more accountable toward growing it. I also share these updates to show what is working and what is not working for my blog, which might help you to make better decisions.
My third month was very eventful in many aspects; I reached some milestones (not big ones). Some of the posts did well. By that, I mean one of my posts got more than 11K shares on Pinterest. I still can’t believe it.
Thanks to everyone who helped by sharing it.
This post is also extra special to me; I AM WRITING MY FIRST INCOME REPORT.
For many years, I have been reading income reports of bloggers, and now I am writing my income report (though it’s not a huge number). Nevertheless, it is a significant milestone for me.
There are two reasons I am sharing my income report: first, to be accountable, and second, to show you no matter how young your blog is, you can make money from your blog.
If I can do it, you can do it too.
Now for the details about this month.
After getting over 25K page views in the second month, I set a target for myself to reach 50K page views by the third month.
Did I reach my target?
Let’s find out.
Traffic
I reached my goal of 50,000 page views. I am super happy. Though I was a bit skeptical about this goal, I made it.
So what helped me to reach this figure?
The credit goes to some of my posts that did well, especially on Pinterest, and to Lena’s Traffic Transformation.
If you are struggling to get your page views up, then you need this. For the content it has, this eBook is well worth the cost.
The popular posts for this month were as follows:
rev.com Review: Make Money from Home as a Captioner (this is doing well with 11.7K pins)
23 Profitable Hobbies That Make Money in 2023
32 Top Jobs That Pay $15 an Hour or More in 2023
How to Earn $50,000 a month Blogging
I now understand clearly what my readers would like to see on my blog because of these posts.
The primary traffic sources for this month were Pinterest, Facebook and StumbleUpon. Though I am happy with the page views, I will have to work on lowering the bounce rate, which is pretty high at the moment.
Related:
How I Got over 16,000 Page Views in the First Month of Blogging
Month Two Traffic Update: How I Got over 25,000 Page Views with a New Blog
How I Made $2,347.17 in 4th Month of Blogging
How I Made $3,226.89 in 5th Month of Blogging
Subscribers
This month was good for me with regard to my list. I am getting around 8 to 9 sign-ups every day. My goal was to reach 300 this month; I have 200 subscribers now.
Though the growth is slow, my unsubscribe rate is very low. That means that my subscribers are happy with what I am sending them.
I have 930 followers on Pinterest. Wow!! That’s huge for me. I am hoping to reach the 1K mark soon. My reach has also increased exponentially.
Tailwind and BoardBooster are big time-savers for me. For the amount of traffic I am getting from Pinterest, the time I spend on both of these excellent tools is negligible.
I am super happy with my Facebook growth. I am spending more time on Pinterest and Facebook for now. My second biggest traffic referral after Pinterest is from Facebook.
My page likes have increased to 700. It is not a big difference, but what is surprising for me is my reach has seen a spike. A month earlier, my reach was 40, and now it has gone to 250.
I am a complete newbie when it comes to Facebook; I didn’t even have a personal account before. I bought Brittany’s eBook even before starting my blog and started implementing her strategies. I totally give credit for my Facebook growth to this eBook.
One thing I am experimenting with is the timing of posts and the kind of posts I share.
Twitter does not bring much traffic to my website. I had 245 followers last month, and this month I reached 280. I know many people use tools like Crowdfire to increase their followers, but I want to grow my followers organically.
I have to work on Instagram. One reason why I am neglecting this platform is that it does not bring much traffic to my blog. I will try to change that next month. I am still testing different things to see if it works out for me.
Now for the exciting part; here is the income that I have generated in this month.
Income Report
Total Income: $310
Affiliate Sales: $303.10
Display Advertising: $6.90
Expenses
BoardBooster: $5
Grum: $10
Net Income: $295
Before I started blogging, I heard many say that it takes some time to monetize your blog. But this month proved that it doesn’t matter when you start; if you put in the hard work and promote well, then you can make money from your blog. Most of my income is a result of the strategies that I have learned from Michelle’s course.
Things I did
After finishing Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, I signed up for some affiliate networks and made some changes on the website. I am experimenting with the Media.net ad network. I also signed up for Mediavine—another ad network that is highly recommended by many bloggers.
I am working on my Job Board consistently. My job leads page is getting more traffic every day, so I am working on it to make it more useful for my readers.
I focused on working more on traffic-driving methods for the last three months; I will continue to do that in future, but now I will be dividing my time equally between driving traffic and making conversions.
What I learned
One big lesson I learned is you don’t need to have massive traffic going to all the posts on your blog to be able to monetize. Even a single viral post can make money.
As I always say, investing in resources and tools to grow your blog is a definite need. I genuinely feel that Michelle’s course is the best decision I made since starting my blog. The support and feedback I get from the Facebook group and Michelle on different aspects of blogging, in addition to affiliate marketing, is worth more than the course itself.
What’s Next?
I am focusing on writing immensely useful posts this month, especially about many side hustles that might be helpful to my readers. Also, I have some interesting and unique interviews scheduled for this month.
Traffic
OK, I know it might be a little difficult, but I would love to see the traffic reach 70,000 page views. It is a BIG target for me. Nevertheless, I want to see if I can reach it.
Income
I have not set a goal for the next month regarding income, but I want to grow it as much as I can. I will have to promote more and work on converting my traffic. I am very excited to see how this goes.
Subscribers
Growing my subscriber numbers further is another goal for me for next month. I will work towards increasing it to 300.
With more interesting and unique posts about making money and more expert interviews planned, I am super excited for this month.
When I started blogging, I knew nothing about how to start a blog, how to grow my followers, or anything related to affiliates. I have learned many things in these three months. The major growth I have seen in my blogging journey was because of the resources I have mentioned before. I have used them and truly benefited in a big way. Thanks to these rocking bloggers for creating such incredible resources.
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I would love to hear your comments about my first income update. Please share them below.
