NOW, WHY AM I WRITING A BLOG STATS & INCOME REPORT:
Well I never thought I’d be writing one, but I definitely want to because:
- First, I think they are fun to read. it’s great to see what efforts people are making and what works for them and what doesn’t and get ideas for your own blog.
- Second, I wanted to be as transparent as possible. And going forward, these blog stats and income reports will be something in which I will be my most vulnerable and transparent self. I do not believe in hiding information and if I am learning something that’s working, I want to be as clear as possible. I think transparency is important to be able to build trust with your audience and here I am, writing from my heart, as I do.
- And lastly, I think writing a monthly stats and income report will help me be more accountable and treat this blog as a business, as I intend to do going in the future.
MY STORY:
“I can’t believe I am writing this post”. That’s something everyone says while writing their first month blogging report, isn’t it? And maybe that’s because it is a feeling that’s unbelievable for a lot of people.
For me, however, it isn’t unbelievable.
Because I have been waiting for this to happen.
I have spent hours working on my writing styles. And this blog is a product of sweat, tears and long nights and I am proud of the content that I write. I have never written any post, just for the sake of writing it. I write for the love of writing.
And I take my time with it.
In fact when I first started this blog, making money from this blog wasn’t my intention at all.In fact, the only audience that ever read it, were all my facebook friends or family and I never promoted it anywhere else. In fact, I didn’t even join any ad networks until recently. And joining affiliates was no where in sight.
But then, as I share in this post, I wanted to make a change.
I started helping a lot of people setting their blogs. And I thought to myself, this is something that I love doing, so why not turn this into a business.
If you want to start a blog too, Check out this post on how to start your blog in 8 easy steps.
And the next thought that came to my mind was “Is that even possible?”
And I immediately went on Pinterest to see and read about the viability of this idea, only to find hundreds of blog income reports and how people started making money in their first month blogging.
And I made a decision that I want to turn this beloved blog of mine, into a business and potentially help a lot of others in doing the same.
Now, coming onto the STATS!
There is one thing you need to know about me. I love analytics. I love numbers and I absolutely love analysing analytic reports and i might be borderline addicted to the reports.
And the only way to move my Blog to business was setting some measurable goals and then analysing, how many of those I achieved in my first month. Bceause that’s the only way you can track progress.
Sure, you can just look at the page views or even Pinterest viewers, but Pinterest monthly viewers is just a vanity metric, which makes no sense if no one is clicking through your pins.
In, this post, I shared some goals that I set for myself in my FIRST month blogging as a business.
Now, let’s discuss how many I achieved and what all worked for me and what didn’t.
Goal 1 : 5000 Page views: FAIL
I only managed 1500 page views. And I was so disappointed when I didn’t quite hit the 5k page views mark. But 1500 page views in first month was still good enough. Which I understood when I researched more about blog stats reports.
This one was such a big one for me, on this blog. And it sounds so silly now that I look back. how did I think I would be able to get 5k page views in my first month blogging as business is beyond me.
And this has definitely put things in perspective. Because I didn’t used to use Pinterest as much. And at the starting of march, I had 3K monthly viewers on Pinterest. Yeah, no kidding. I was a part of a few group boards however. But I wasn’t pining actively. But I still was able to grow my Pinterest and get traffic to my new blog.
So what worked for me:
I made pins for blogposts, new and for the old ones as well. For the new blogposts I made around 5-7 pins for each and for the old ones, I made about 2-3. And pinned religiously. Not even kidding. there were some breaks in between, but I managed the page views because the click through rates were really good.
Goal for next Month: Reach 4K Page views
Goal 2 : WRITE 10 BLOGPOSTS : Success, I wrote 11
I am really proud of myself for making this happen. The posts that I published in march are :
- At home Date night Ideas
- How to be productive at home
- Why your blog isn’t making money and how to fix it
- 23 productive things to do instead of watching Netflix
- How to sleep better
- Bullet Journalling for beginners
- How I use BUJO as a Productivity tool
- 10 Super simple BUJO set-ups to try
- Monthly Goals for the blog
Goal for next month: Continue writing 10 Blogposts each month
Goal 3 : Start building Email list and get 30 subscribers: Partial Success
I have started building my email list, but I am not quite at the 30 new subscribers mark. But I think that maybe because we don’t have a freebie or opt-in on the new revamped website right now. But I guess I will make some opt-ins this month.
But in other news, I am using Mailer lite for building the email list and I am loving the platform. it is super easy to make sing up forms or pop up forms. And I am loving the auto send mail option. And the best part is Mailer lite is absolutely free for your first 1000 subscribers. And even if you want to get the premium version, it is just $10 a month.
Check out Mailer Lite here and try for free.
Goal for next month: Make an opt-in and grow mailing list to 30
Goal 4: Be a part of 5 affiliates: Success
I am so glad I did that. I am now a part of 5 affiliates. However, I haven’t written any posts that are promoting my affiliate links yet.I However added my links to a few posts that already mentioned the products I am now an affiliate for. But I definitely want to do that.
So, a goal for next month is to write at least 2 posts that have my affiliate links. I certainly don’t want to overdo it and join more affiliates, because I only want to be a part of those affiliates that I truly believe in. And I don’t want to recommend anything just for the sake of it.
Goal for next month: Write 2 posts with affiliate links
GOAL 5: Grow to 100k Viewers on Pinterest: Success
In fact, we just hit 200k monthly viewers on Pinterest. And I am so bummed why I didn’t start promoting my blogposts on Pinterest earlier. I am getting a better hang of things. I am understanding what kind of pins work better and how to make click-worthy pins.
Goals for next month: Grow to 350k Monthly viewers
Goal 6: Write 5 Guest blogposts:FAIL
This one was a big fail because I didn’t write any guest posts, mainly because I was super focussed on growing my own blog traffic. However, I have had talks with a few fellow bloggers and I think I will write a few in the coming months.
Goals for next month: Write at least 2 guest Blogposts
Goal 7: optimise pinterest and group board: Success
So glad I finally got done. I finally optimised all the boards that I have, wrote detailed descriptions full of keywords. Along with this I also made covers for most of my Pinterest Boards and I think it makes a difference because it make Pinterest look more professional.
Goals for next month: Keep joining relevant group boards (at least 2 per month)
Related: Pinterest Pining strategy
Now coming onto income for the first month:
In my very first month Blogging, I earned $25.40
I know, I know, it’s nothing when you compare it to bloggers who earn $10,000/month, but it’s something. And I couldn’t be more excited.
Now, Let’s talk about breakdown:
- Ad Income: $.40
- Affiliate: $25
AD Income: $.40
This is next to nothing, and I think that’s because I only ran ads for a couple of days and then turned off all ads on the blog. Because I wanted to be able to build traffic first, instead of putting ads on the blog. I will start ads again next month and check it makes a substantial difference.
Affiliate: $25
I signed up through CJ affiliates to be an affiliate for Grammarly because I genuinely love use Grammarly whenever I write. And then I wrote a detailed review post for Grammarly for which I got $25.
You can sign up for CJ affiliates too. It is a great platform to find affiliate products that suit your niche and select the ones that you genuinely use and love. And you can then recommend them to your audience. CJ Affiliates has thousands of products from which you can select and is a great place to begin if you are new to the blogging game or to affiliate marketing.
And the best part is, that CJ Affiliates is completely free and they have some really good products like godaddy, adobe etc.
I shall be back, at the ned of this month with another income and stats report. See you then! 🙂
READ SECOND MONTH BLOG INCOME REPORT HERE! I Made $140.60 in my second month blogging.
What goals do you set for your blog?
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