January 2018 Blog Income and Traffic Report
Please note: this post contains affiliate links
I'm back with another income and traffic report! I know I haven't done an income report in a couple of months, but I'm thinking I might make these a regular monthly post so I can track my progress and see where I was at during a specific month. The main reason I decided to share my blog income reports is because I think it's great way to showcase my success and prove it is possible to earn an income online doing something you are passionate about. For those of you who blog and are discouraged or feel doubtful about your abilities, I'm here to share with you my experience and honesty and all the tips and tricks I learned to begin turning my blog into a business.
January was a difficult month for me. Working full time and managing a blog became increasingly more difficult as I got more busy at work. I don't know if I've ever talked about this before, but I'm a full time graphic designer for a used machinery dealer and auctioneer company where I work 40 hours a week. My workload definitely varies from day to day depending on which machines the salesmen want to sell and how many auctions or liquidations we have pending. On my slow days I usually dedicate to blogging or managing my blog which is nice because I don't have to put in that much additional effort outside of my current 8-5. For whatever reason, January was a little more busy than normal so I spent a majority of my day swamped and drowning in deadlines and then had to find the energy to manage my little blog once I got home. I'll be honest, most of the time I was too exhausted to even open my laptop so I kept putting it off. My hectic schedule and lack of motivation contributed to my less than average month. All in all, I'm still very satisfied with the month of January even though I was struggling to balance my work and home life.
Social Media
I've continued to promote my content on Pinterest and with the help of Tailwind, it has made my life so much easier! As I've said before, the key to Pinterest is automation and making sure you have pins scheduled 24/7. When I first started using Tailwind, I made sure to bombard Pinterest with content scheduling anywhere from 100-200 pins per day. Since then, I've dialed it back because I began to notice it was affecting my analytics. I realized this during the middle of February and I stopped scheduling so many pins and stuck to 50-75 pins per day and immediately noticed a difference.
Interested in Tailwind? Read all about how I used Tailwind to skyrocket my traffic.
January 2018
February 2018
The jump doesn't seem like much, but it was enough for me to notice a difference. If you do decide to use an automation system for Pinterest I suggest you start off high around 100-200 pins per day and once your numbers have plateaued, cut back to 50-75 pins per day.
Along with continuing to use Tailwind to automate my pins, I began joining a ton of new Pinterest group boards. They are a great way to connect with other Pinterest users and they allow you to get a ton of new eyes on your content. This increased exposure means you have the chance to expose your pins with other collaborators who, in turn, could repin it on their personal boards. Below is a list of some great blogging and business group boards you can join. Please be sure to read the rules before asking to join.
Best of Blogland {Group Board}
Awesome Blog Posts
Pinterest Friends Group Board
♥Boss Babe Bloggers (Group Board)
Group Board for Bloggers
Make Your Blog Well Red - Group Board
Blogging Business Babes | Group Board
Everyone's Blogging
Best of the Best Blog Posts
Pin Your Heart Out Group Board
✿ Pin Your Best Pins ✿
For The Love Of Blogging
Mostly Blogging Group Board
How To Grow Your Blog Group Board
Blogging
Blogging (Not a typo, 2 seperate group boards)
Blogging and Pinning
Blogging Pros Group Board
TOP BLOGGERS
You can read how to use group boards here and the ultimate Pinterest group board list here.
Facebook Groups
I'm still extremely active in several Facebook groups and I did join a few new ones. I wish there was a way to join Facebook groups and engage with others through your Facebook page. I love interacting with other bloggers through these groups, but I can only do so with my private account which causes my feed and notifications to become intermixed. This makes it a lot more difficult to balance between my personal and business accounts. Maybe it's just me, but I find these a lot more difficult to engage in. But nevertheless, Facebook blogging groups are a great place for support, they will help your blog grow and be there to answer any questions you may have related to blogging.
I've included a list of some of my favorite Facebook groups you can join below:
Affiliate Sales/Ads
In my last income report, I just started using Shareasale, and while others have been extremely successful with it, I've only made a measly $1.50. This is under the payment threshold which is why I excluded it from my final total. Maybe I'm still not understanding it or I'm not using it to it's full advantage, but I haven't been seeing the results I hoped I would see with it. If you're interested in trying your hand it at, you sign up for Shareasale here.
Amazon is a different story. I began doing a lot more gift guides which have been extremely popular and I began linking my favorite products to my Amazon affiliate account. Christmas was definitely a home run and I was getting so much traffic and clicks through my gift guides that I decided to keep doing them and make sure to include holiday and seasonal ones. Again I keep reading how some bloggers aren't a fan of Amazon since you don't make as much money as other programs out there, but I wasn't making much money with affiliate sales anyway so I figured why not?
I've included a list of some affiliate programs you can join below:
Ebates - Receive compensation for referring buyers to the retailers, brands, merchants, and other partners participating in the Program.
CJ Affiliate - Online advertising specializing in pay-for-performance programs.
Amazon Affiliate - Easy to join and the associates program allows you to start earning money immediately.
Creative Market - Earn 10% of every purchase for an entire year from all new customers you refer.
Income
Here is the breakdown of how I made $241.96 last month blogging.
Google Adsense - $220.49
Izea - $5.76
Total = $241.96
Once again Google Adsense has been my #1 source of income. In my last income post I said I would try and dedicate more time to affiliate programs, which I did, but my only real successful affiliate was Amazon. I plan on figuring out a better affiliate marketing plan so I can optimize my revenue and hopefully spread my income out across various successful avenues.
Traffic
My traffic is all over the place. Clearly this was due in part to me being extremely busy at work and not dedicating enough time to my blog. My goal for next month is trying to increase my reach and page views by 10%. I hope to spend more time on my blog creating content as well as marketing to increase my audience engagement.
I'm 7 months into my blogging journey and even though last month wasn't my best month, I'm still extremely happy with the results. It's been a lot of work and there are some days where I'm too tired to write. But if I keep writing about topics I'm passionate about I'm sure this blog will continue to grow.
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*Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. When you make a purchase through the links on our website, we will receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you. We are independently owned and the opinions expressed here are our own. Thank you for your support!
You can read my disclosure policy here.
