Mark this as the very FIRST monthly blog income report for my new site! In an effort to actually HELP bloggers, I plan on sharing NOT ONLY how I monetize a blog, expenses, lessons learned, wins, fails, and strategies. These are NOT your average inflated, revenue and affiliate link only income reports. Enjoy!
Let’s be frank for a second…
I do NOT enjoy looking at other bloggers’ monthly blog income reports. Not even a little bit.
For most of them (not all), it’s just a “hey look how successful I am blogging part-time from home! You could do the same thing with my free blogging course here!!!1! and make sure to use Bluehost!”
Am I right?
Why I’m publishing ALL my stats (not just income):
- Do You Even Blog is a business.
- I treat it like a business…and businesses publish monthly financial reports.
- I should know. I used to be an accountant 🙂
In fact, the purpose of DYEB is to be an open book for income-seeking bloggers…whether it’s through the podcast, instructional YouTube videos, or blog stat breakdowns. I want to show you how to start a grow a blog.
You need to see the process of how I grow my blog…not just large gross revenue numbers and affiliate links.
Did I reach my goals last month?
Get 250 podcast downloads – Yes! (508)
Launching a podcast can be difficult, especially when you have NO existing audience.
Truth is…I had no idea what to expect, but I’m thrilled with the results! 500+ downloads. Yay!
Get at least 1 “rockstar” podcast guest – Yes!
Honestly, all my guests so far have been rockstars…but I was particularly thrilled when Nick Loper agreed to come on. He was a delight.
Spoiler alert: this week’s guest is one of the most successful online marketers of all time (says President Obama and the United Nations. Literally)
Make money in month 1 – Yes! ($51)
So, my original plan was to be all hipster-like and publish my first monthly income report with $zero earned.
Then I thought…
Wouldn’t it be clever of me to go ahead and make my first dollar?
So I did.
See details on how I did this below.
Get 1,000 Twitter followers – Fail (509)
This was an arbitrary goal I set for myself in month 1. I didn’t think to much about it, and didn’t really hustle for a following.
Another truth: I kinda don’t enjoy Twitter anyways.
June Blog Traffic and Stat Breakdown
Note: I didn’t have traffic or email list goals at all.
Launching a new blog often results in super low traffic numbers, even for experienced bloggers.
That said, I’m satisfied with these results.
Website traffic: 929
The biggest source of traffic in June:
When I interviewed Physician on Fire, he featured me on his weekly roundup post! Other than that, traffic was from Twitter.
Email List Growth: +327
I am SUPER happy with this in month 1. This is with ZERO popups, ZERO content upgrades.
Random Fun Metric Win: My homepage email opt-in is currently converting at 10.78%(!)
June Monthly Blog Income Report
Revenues – $51
Podcast sponsor income – $50
I emailed 5 different people in the personal finance blogging community, and straight up pitched them.
Menu Link sponsor income – $1
I emailed 5 people, and my good friend Tom at High Income Parents said “yes!”
He is a great sport, and I’m grateful he agreed to be my first sponsor! Even if it was only a buck…
Expenses – $99.84
Facebook Ads – $84.84
I felt like testing out a few ads to kickstart the podcast launch. If you’re interested in the paid reach breakdown, email me…but I was not impressed. CTRs and CPCs weren’t great at all.
Pinterest Ads – $15
Even worse CPC than FB. Something like $1.75 a click.
Bottom line: Paid reach is meh at this point. I don’t plan on doing ANY more until I have substantial revenues to optimize and get a positive ROI.
My marketing dollars are best spent elsewhere (T-shirts anyone????)
Net Income: ($48.84)
So I lost money in month 1. I’m not ashamed in the least.
In fact, I’m just proud I made ANY money from a brand-spankin-new blog. Super proud.
Next month’s goals and how I’m going to get there:
- Revenue: $250
- Traffic: +20% (roughly 1,100 visitors)
- Email subs: +10% (roughly 360 email subs)
How I’m going to get revenue
Now that my episode downloads are starting to grow on a weekly basis and traffic is increasing…I feel comfortable upping my charges for podcast sponsorships.
In fact, it’s a dadgum steal.
Sponsors get a live read during the show (dang good ones if I say so myself), backlinks on my site (w/ description), AND links to their site on iTunes, Sticher, Overcast.fm, etc.
FOREVER.
Their sponsorship gets them perma-backlinks, as all of that content is evergreen!
So the longer I keep publishing, the more and more views and click-throughs sponsors will get.
A steal at this point. Not for long though 😉
My plan is to do more cold outreach for podcast sponsorships to get $200, and hopefully round that out with affiliate income (namely from Michelle’s course on affiliate marketing, Namecheap (NOT Bluehost), and ConvertKit (as I’m switching to that software).
How I’m going to get traffic
I’m hoping to bump up my Pinterest game. Like, hardcore!
I just signed up for Tailwind (loving it so far), so hopefully that’ll help a bit.
I’ve also interviewed some Pinterest GURUs so far, so I’m taking their advice and hustling for some group board invites!
July is Pinterest month. I wanna see some results.
ALSO, I’m going to try for 1 guest post. Wish me luck.
How I’m going to get email subscribers
Honestly, I just created my outreach template download (the one I use to get sponsorships), so that’ll generate a few loyal subscribers.
Other than that, I’m not doing anything specifically to grow the email list.
- I’m still not showing popups
- I’m still not showing ads
- My unsubscribe button is still up top
I refuse to compromise on these items, as I want to have a badass, world-class community of income-seeking bloggers.
The DYEB Bloggin’ Club
The email subscribers are starting to flow organically…so I’m going to focus MORE on providing world-class content, and let the results speak for itself.
Published this month:
- Blog – 6 Tim Ferriss Questions to Help Grow Your Blog
- Video – 6 Tim Ferriss Questions to Help Grow Your Blog
- Blog – How to Start a Blog for $10 in 10 minutes
- Podcast – Nick Loper, Anfernee Chansamooth, Michelle Schroeder, Brendan Alan Barrett, Physician on Fire, Millennial Money Man
Final thoughts on what worked and what didn’t.
I am thrilled with my 1st month’s progress.
Things I’m proud of:
- I launched (whew)
- I landed KILLER podcast guests so far and upcoming(!)(!)
- I made money! (not a ton but still)
- I launched (seriously).
Things that didn’t really work:
- Paid reach (not doing this for the next few months. No value there yet)
- Twitter following (seems shady and ineffective at the moment).
What I want for the next few months:
- A following. I want to cultivate the best friggin community of income-seeking bloggers on the web. But, where should they congregate?
- Should I start a forum?
- Private Facebook Group?
- Just keep with the email list, Twitter and Pinterest following?
- Monthly revenues
- I’m not blogging to journal my daily activities.
- I want to TEACH people how to make money on the internet, consistently and reliably, and cultivate a loyal following of dedicated bloggers.
- This is a business, in addition to a blog. As such, it needs to make money.
Please, please leave a comment below!
If there’s anything I struggle with, it’s constant and consistent motivation!
Please leave me a comment below and:
- Tell me how I’m doing!
- Tell me your favorite part of DYEB thus far
- Tell me who I should interview next on the podcast
- Share your blog URL! I wanna see it.
<3
Pete