8th Month Blog Income Report & Growth

Welcome to my 8TH Month blog Income report & growth. I have made these blogger income reports from day one, not only to keep myself headed towards my financial goals but also for you guys to read and hopefully gain something from, but also for myself so I can look back and see the areas I need to concentrate on.

When I started out with this blog I was looking at other blog income reports and came across Michelle Schroeder-Gardner. She runs a great Personal Finance blog called Making sense of Cents. You can find her blog Income report here

However as amazing as Michelle has done with her blog and as much as it gives me motivation, I was looking for blog growth & income reports from beginners to see how it was going to be at the beginning of my blogging journey. It turned out there wasn’t that many. The ones I did find were a good mix of honesty, hard work, mistakes, and learning.

So to that end, I’m am going to try and be as transparent as possible so as you readers out there see not only my successes but also my failures.

Also if your new to this blog and would like to read any of my other blog Income reports then you can find all those reports here.

Also If you would like to subscribe and see these reports as soon as I publish them then you can do that here or on the main menu from the dropdown.

If you have been looking at the highly publicized Genius Bloggers Toolkit by the ultimate bundles crew then you can read more about that further on.

Some of my posts may contain affiliate links. This simply means if you purchase something after clicking one of the links I may receive a commission at no extra cost to yourself. Many thanks for the continued support.

So this last month has been good in some ways and bad in others. The bad part is that for the last half of this month I have been ill.

Nothing serious but when you have a bad cough, cold and sore throat the last thing I want to do is be doing keyword research or writing. This would mean poor output so really this month’s blog report is for just the first 2 weeks.

I wasn’t actually going to do one this month as the first 2 weeks I achieved very little and then the last 2 I was ill. However, Ling from over at Finsavvypanda left a comment on one of my previous blog reports and said she was looking forward to my next one and I dont like to let people down. P.S once you have read this head over to her blog as it has got some great content and advice.

Articles:

This month I published 5 articles again which is good and I have 2 more scheduled. My writing is now taking longer as I am getting into the routine of doing keyword research. This has been done using a variety of keyword tools.

Most keyword tools come at a price but I have a couple of good ones I use for free and one that I paid a small amount for.

I use the free keyword tools first then cross-reference these against the paid one and make a list.

I am writing down the majority of the keywords I would like to get into my posts. This also helps me create topic ideas and headings etc.

This makes it easier when I write as I can just glance at the page and see a headline. That then reminds me of what I wanted to write about in that section and away I go.

I’m hoping to see an improvement in the number of keywords I rank for month on month. This will, however, take a couple of months to come to fruition.

Traffic:

Traffic is up slightly but sessions down. Time spent on site is up but the bounce rate is down so a mixed bag. Although traffic is slow I’m super pleased I’m not using the site that gets you traffic from other bloggers as it seems a bit false and gives false readings. Seeing a few more organic searches in the traffic so this is good. This also means using the keyword tools is helping me to rank my keywords on google.

Social Media:

Twitter:

Well Twitter generally stays the same as I’m pretty much non-existent on that platform. So 17 followers which is the same as last month.

Facebook:

My facebook group has slowed down slightly but this might be due to me not promoting it as much. I really need to get my ass in gear with that one as approaching 100 members.

I have 86 members at the time of writing and that is up 5 from last month.

Feel free to join up to my money group here.

Pinterest:

Since purchasing my first course from Ana at Thesheapproach.com my Pinterest has started to flourish. I’m learning new skills such as creating images and how to layout my profile etc and it seems to be working.

I am still actively applying some of the things I learned but may have to go back and re-read some of the Ebook.

My Pinterest stats have stayed very steady throughout the month as apart from posting 3 new pins for each blog post and schedule pins on Tailwind I haven’t done much else.

Followers are down for the first time since I started to 969 from 987 but this could be down to me getting rid and blocking a lot of the adult content followers that like to cling onto accounts. Make sure you do the same as it does not look good to have them on your account.

Pin This For Future Reference:

Changes Made:

Not a lot of changes made as I have been slack then ill. The main one is I’m trying to figure out how to get most of the Ebooks I downloaded from the Ultimate blogging toolkit onto my tablet so I can read them at night in bed.

This is when I truly have some peace and quiet away from distractions such as sky TV or my Xbox.

I need to email them as attachments but not sure in what kind of file form I should do that. If anyone has any tips they would be appreciated.

The other change I made was placing a clickable Pinterest image on each post. This just reaffirms to the reader to save for later. I need to go back and do this for some of my older posts but this will take a couple of hours so I need to free up some time to do so.

I also now have a Related posts section at the end of each post which can steer readers to other posts I have written which are similar to what they have just read.

As I said at the beginning I am also using keyword tools to do basic keyword research before creating any of my posts.

Income/Financial Goals:

From Advertising, I only made 71 Cents last month which is to be expected as my traffic isn’t very high.

No Affiliate Sales this month but until that traffic rises I cant see that improving. I’m not too focused on money at the moment, As I have said my main focus is for ranking for more keywords.

Here is hoping next month brings more success in that department.

Affiliates:

Below is a quick look at some of my affiliates which I use myself and can wholeheartedly recommend.

So my list of affiliates is growing and I can’t wait to add more and start to implement them more. I will list some of them below.

HOSTING:

If you are looking to start a blog and are unsure whether to self-host or use a third party site then I can assure you, self-hosted is the only way to really be able to monetize your site in the future. A well-monetized site can help you hit all the financial goals you may have.

Siteground is who I use and they have helped me loads with any issues that have cropped up. Click below to look at their self-hosting plans that start at really reasonable prices.

Studiopress offers some great paid themes to make your new blog really stand out from the crowd. I personally use one of their themes and find them very easy to work with.

StudioPress – Themes

MATCHED BETTING:

If you have been reading my blog for a while you will have realized that matched betting is my specialty. It is one of the best side-hustles out there to make you potentially hundreds of pounds per month. Profit accumulator can help you achieve that and guide you through the first few profitable bets. Sign up for free below.

EBOOKS & COURSES:

As I said at the start of this article I mentioned that I had just made my first purchase in regards to a blog course. (Keep reading to the end to hear about my latest purchase) This was the great E-Book by Ana over at ThesheApproach.com. It is a book on learning how to use Pinterest and how to grow your blog using this popular medium.

I am 4 chapters in and already making some great changes. If you are looking to boost your Pinterest Profile then check out Ana’s E-book here. Below is the code to get a massive discount off of all Ana’s great books. If I’m getting results from just the Pinterest one, Imagine what you could do with the others.

If you want to achieve any kind of growth or want to hit certain financial goals with your blog then you are going to need to invest a little cash into it in order for your blog to grow. Dont be scared just try and commit to your blog as I have done with mine. Ana’s course above didn’t cost a great deal but it was still a financial decision I took that is already benefiting me and my blog.

GENIUS BLOGGERS TOOLKIT:

Bearing in mind what I have just said above, I have made what I would consider a huge purchase. I have brought the Genius Bloggers Toolkit. So why is it called the Genius Bloggers Toolkit? Well, It is a collection of Ebooks, Courses, Memberships, and well, toolkits all made by very experienced well-known bloggers and is released at a huge discount once a year for a short period of time. If you are into blogging, no matter what stage you are at I’m sure you will have heard about this.

It is available from the ultimate bundles website which is a site that specializes in selling blogging courses.

P.s Ana is also one of the contributors to the genius bloggers toolkit.

I looked into what was included this year and there are at least 8 courses or Ebooks that will really help me out with my blog. Individually these would have cost me around $500. The price I paid for the whole Genius Bloggers Toolkit by ultimate bundles was $97 or around £79.

Believe me, when I say this is such good value, I have had a look and started downloading some of the ebooks which are going to massively expand my learning. In this year’s toolkit, there are a total of 26 ebooks, 12 printables and Templates, 55 e-courses and videos, 1 membership site and 6 bonuses. 94 products to help your blog move to the next level.

Anyway, I dont want to go on too much about it. If you are interested in looking at this amazing deal then check out the Genius Bloggers Toolkit here. It only comes around once a year. If it isn’t available at the time you click the link then simply bookmark it for later.

Goals:

My only goal for this month is to spend more time on my blog and get better with the keyword tools to help me increase the keywords I rank for. Oh and to get better as I’m still carrying this lingering cough!!! So until next month.