Blog Traffic and Income Report : How I made $4,374.12 in October
I am so excited to be completing my 10th blog traffic and income report.
If you haven’t seen my last month’s income, you can check it out Blog Traffic and Income Report : How I made $3,848,40 in September.
This post contains affiliate links* to help keep this blog up and running.
During this process of reporting my earnings in 2015, I have received so many lovely and supportive comments and emails supporting what I am putting out there.
Since my goals started small at $500 for the month of January, it has allowed for people to help set realistic goals for themselves and see the snowball effect blogging can have!
Check out all my Blog Traffic and Income Reports on my new page!
Way back in December of 2014, I took some advice from Bonnie at Hobbytohot.com who said to create your annual goal $$. She says to then work backwards to help figure out your monthly goals to achieve your large goal for the year.
Since my large goal is $15,000 for the year, I was able to work in the order she suggested to help create smaller manageable goals every month.
I began hear this reverse engineer method over and over in podcasts that I enjoy listening to. So I began to pay attention. A couple of the podcasts that I love and subscribe to are:
- Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield
- Build Your Tribe with Chalene Johnson
- Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn
- The School of Self Mastery with Adrienne Dorison
By reverse engineering your goals you make them more plausible. In fact, when you write your goals down on paper you are 42% more likely to accomplish them. I heard that statistic on The School Of Self Mastery Podcast with Adrienne Dorison.
I began by breaking my income goals into months, but you can take it a step further and break it down to weeks or even by day. That is if you want to get really specific.
Months works best for me with what I am doing.
I am excited to say that the info I have been presenting this year has been inspiring others to start a blog or take their blog to the next level which is the best feeling in the world for me.
My main goal when starting these income reports was to show others (in a very specific way) how they can make money online. Especially those that are just starting out and trying to figure the whole blogging thing out. I remember how intimidating and confusing it was when I first started.
The process of really tracking my earnings along with my blogging expenses has been so helpful. It is quite eye opening to the amount of change that can occur within a month!
I am pleased to announce that I have already surpassed my goal of $15k for the year and I did it by October! It didn’t even take me the whole 12 months to make that goal which seemed impossible at the end of 2014 when I was setting this big scary goal. It goes to show you that you really can do whatever you want as long as you are invested in the time it takes to buid. This will not happen overnight.
After switching to Blue Host as my web host at the end of April 2015, I am happy to report that my site has not crashed once! I signed up for a 3 year deal where I pay $4.95 a month. Awesome hosting without killing my blog expense budget. This was not the case when I was hosting with Go Daddy after I started getting more traffic. Also, did I mention that a lot of my photos from my transfer in hosting didn’t make it?? So now I am manually replacing photos on posts and galleries which is super tedious work. This is still something I am working on. No fun!
If you want to learn more about the art of blogging (because it is an art form) you should check out my Essential Bloggers Resource Guide to get more details if you are thinking of starting a blog to even just improving the one you already have.
I am really trying to put myself out there to (hopefully) inspire newer bloggers with my current and future monthly blog income reports. I am also doing this to hold myself accountable to continue pushing forward with my income goals for the year.
I am also launching blog & social media consulting services!!
My beginning packages are:
- $25 for 30 min Google Hangout Video Chat Consultation
- $50 for 1 hour Google Hangout Video Chat Consultation
- $95 for 2 hour Google Hangout Video Chat Consultation
This session will include a google document that will go over everything discussed in the hangout session. Stay tuned for an entire page dedicated to this service with testimonials, and check out directly from the site. Payments accepted via PayPal.
I have some projects in the works including an ebook this year!! This is my first time ever writing a book and I am really enjoying the process! I can not wait to launch it! If you are one of my subscribers you will get an opportunity to get the book for free. Make sure to sign up for that!
Moving on to the details from October…
This year I have really been trying to focus on creating beautiful images… specifically pin worthy images. I have also been working more and more with Canva.com to do this. I had a couple posts go viral on Pinterest last month because of my images! Super happy about that one. I now pay $9.95 a month for Canva For Work which is a new service they provide. This works great within a team.
I began implementing a few new things this month in social media specifically.
I must preface, that I didn’t start really investing in my blog until April 2015 when I started making over $1000/month. Now that I am making a decent side income each month, I don’t see any harm in freeing up my time to finish my ebook and work on more diy projects.
- I been using the social media automation tool Meet Edgar for a couple months now and I swear this was such a great move! I am saving so much more time everyday by not having to be on my phone scheduling posts on FB, Twitter, and Linked In. It is a little bit of a splurge costing me $49/month. But this is a solid investment because it frees up my time to other things.
- Another tool I began using is Tailwind. I heard about it from the fabulous Blogger, Erika, over at Olyvia.co. She wrote the most amazing post about HOW TO GET PINTEREST FOLLOWERS + REPINS: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE. Since working with Tailwind and joining more group boards within my niche, I have increased my traffic substantially.
I didn’t realize how much I could still learn from Pinterest when I felt like I had a really good handle on it with my following when it was at 5,600k. I thought I had a lot of traffic coming to my site daily. But this article taught me so much and showed me Tailwind.
This automation tool is geared specifically towards Pinterest and Instagram. Now I have over 11k followers and I am gaining hundreds daily.
I also just reached a milestone of over 20,794k+ page views aka traffic at the beginning of November within one day! A majority of my traffic comes from Pinterest.
That was pretty exciting. I attribute a lot of my success to Tailwind. Since 60% of my traffic comes from Pinterest, it was so it was worth the investment. I can schedule an unlimited amount of pins for weeks ahead of time with their easy interface. I love setting it and forgetting it!
Best. Thing. Ever.
** You can try Tailwind for free and schedule up to 100 pins before they ask you to pay $15/mth for 400 pins a month. Or you can pay $119 for the year for unlimited pins.
Since this platform is my largest traffic referrer, it was worth the investment and I paid for the annual membership.
Another new element I implemented was back in May. I began working with The Blogger Network! Best choice I ever made to help boost my passive income and take some work off my plate.
They are an ad management company that helps bloggers make more money with their own “hollistic ad placement.” These ads were just implemented at the end of May, but I am happy to say I am making a lot more now than I ever was with Google Adsense.
I am also happy to report that they admitted me into their “Flight” mobile ad network as well. This is so worth it because I know a lot of my traffic comes from people on their mobile devices and I wanted to reap the benefit of that. This was just implemented at the beginning of June and it really has helped boos my passive income stream.
A couple months ago I wrote an article about how to make your space look more expensive on a dime that went absolutely completely viral on Pinterest bringing me an additional 49,000 page views in March for that post alone! I am happy to report that this post is still my #1 Popular Post on my site still earning me 215,900 views in October. Say whaaaa!?!?!
Who knew this post would be such a hit??
This really goes to show you how much of an impact your site can make with a few posts going viral on Pinterest. This can set you up for the rest of the year, bringing in steady traffic. I am so stoked.
I am also excited to announce that I participated in an online web series that aired in September 2015 called Design Dare – Episode 2! I competed against a production designer in the tv industry to design a 10’x15′ space under 60 mins. Here is my episode below…
I am happy to announce that I won and will be moving onto the next round thanks to all of you who voted for me! I am still waiting on details for the next round where I am now competing agains an Emmy award winning Set Decorator. No pressure.
Here is my September Google Analytics traffic summary.
Here is my October Google Analytics traffic summary.
I am pleased with the progress I made last month in August with 335,828 page views and there were 31 days in that month.
- My Page Views increased by +74,125
- The Average Time on my site +.02 secs.
- My Bounce Rate decreased by -3.18 secs.
My top traffic referrers for the month…
Pinterest is the still the best traffic driving tool ever and I really trying to create more compelling images that people will want click on and hopefully pin to their boards.
I have been working so hard on my SEO and my keyword research prior to writing my articles and I am elated that I am showing up in search engines in the #4 position.
Here are the traffic referrer stats from September…
Here are the traffic referrer stats from October…
Here is the breakdown of how I did.
- The Blogger Network….$2,030.80 increase of +$313.08 from last month.
- Content.ad ……… $267.62 increase of +$120.24 from last month.
- Amazon …………..$234.43 increase of $35.61 from last month.
- Linqia ……………………..$439.20 increase of +$240.00 from last month.
- Adsense ………… $92.50 increase of +$1.47 from last month.
- Social Fabric ………………. $215.00
- Izea……………………$600.00 increase of $395 from last month.
- Socialite.co…………..$204.00 decrease of -$200.00 from last month.
- The Sits Girls ……….$350.00 increase of $50.00 from last month.
- The Clever Girl Network……..$175 decrease of -$125.00 from last month.
Total ………………$ 4,374.12
I was $375.88 short of my goal of $4,750. I attribute a lot of that to the fact that I am blogging full time now.
I also worked with a lot of guest writers last month to help me fill in time when I was attending a blog convention called Izeafest and Disney World for the the first time ever. I turned 30 this month and my boyfriend surprised me with a trip to all of the parks for a 9 day stay total!
Thanks @izea for bringing @mariolopezextra to the party at #izeafest! #epic #childhoodcrush #blogger #blogging #sponsorships A photo posted by Meredith (@artsandclassy) on
But I am exceeded my annual goal, having made $21,801.40 (exceeding my $15,000 goal for the year.) I am elated that I actually did it and it didn’t even take me a who year to get there. I still have 2 months to go! I am blown away as the numbers. I also attribute most of my success to my goal of getting organized + I started working with a branding development consultant named Julie from julieharrisdesigns.com. I really recommend her assistance. She has already helped me with a great deal. I will be hiring her as a business coach soon! I am really trying to target and expand my audience and brand for awesome products and services in the near future. Make sure you are a subscriber on my email list when I launch it.
I also purchased the Epic Blog Editorial Planner in December 2014 and have been staying true to my income and expense tracking for this year. I really wanted to see if this would make a difference in what was just my hobby and has helped me make this a lucrative side business. I seriously love this thing! I bring it with me pretty much everywhere OR a notebook to write in if an idea strikes. I love how organized I am staying while planning my posts months in advance. What a relief it is to have things pre-planned!
I highly recommend this awesome planner if you are ready to get serious about blogging. The creator Regina is absolutely fantastic. I have learned so much about blogging and business from her! Check out my I also have some great blog post brainstorming tips. for more info on other helpful resources.
Another amazing thing that I bought to help me stay organized day to day, is the Day Designer.
I hope some of you found this traffic and income report helpful! I do these monthly to help track my progress.
Let me know what you think! Is there anything you want to know more about? Did you like this article? Let me know in the comments below.
Your feedback really helps me to figure out how I can best help YOU! I want to share everything I wish I had learned when I first began blogging back in 2012.
