September set me back a little, and while I did make some good progress in October, I really wanted to buckle down; my goals for November were to get my stats up, and work on monetization. After all, Christmas was around the corner and to be able to help people with my site, I need to be able to afford it! It is possible to make money blogging and I’m finally starting to see real results of my hard work!
What worked this month:
Knowing people
Technically, this is from networking, not just having the luck to know the right people. Getting out there and making connections with other bloggers, especially in my niche has created a lot of opportunities this month. One blogger in my niche gave me the opportunity to work on the best sponsored post I’ve ever done. You know, one of those posts that you would have happily written for free (which just makes me love blogging even more).
Another opportunity I had this month was to work with another blogger on graphics. I worked with her to help her create pins, facebook graphics, and other designs for projects shes working on. It was a huge opportunity that has only led to bigger opportunities.
Outlining posts
I do a lot of research before I write a post, so instead of winging it like I usually do, I started setting up an outline prior to doing any kind of writing. That way I can organize my thoughts, plan out what affiliates I will use and collect any info from different sources.
Setting up a yearly calendar
Yes, that’s right. I finally sat down and set up an entire years worth of blog post ideas so that I could organize them by month and plan ahead. I did a thanksgiving post that did well for the 2 days that I posted it before thanksgiving and I kicked myself because that could have done really well for me had I planned ahead and had it written and promoted a month or two prior. Which leads me to…
What didn’t work this month:
Not planning ahead
As I just wrote, not planning ahead when it comes to holidays or major events screwed me over not only for thanksgiving but for veterans day as well. I won’t be making that mistake next year!!
My stats for October:
- UVs: 6,744
- Monthly Page views: 24,691
- Email subscribers: 1,811
- Pinterest: 651
- Facebook: 134
- Twitter: 1 ,364
- Instagram: 1,507
- Income: $305.47
My goals for November:
- UVs: 7,000
- Monthly Page views: 30,000
- Email subscribers: 2,000
- Pinterest: 1,000
- Facebook: 150
- Income: $305.47
(Notice how I did not even make any goals for twitter or Instagram? They are not on my radar right now.. only focusing on Pinterest and Facebook!)
My actual November stats:
- UVs: 8,831 (goal met)
- Monthly Page views: 33,691 (goal met)
- Email subscribers: 2,286 (goal met)
- Pinterest: 703 (goal not met)
- Facebook: 140 (goal not met)
- Twitter: 1,369
- Instagram: 1,501
My most important goals were met; for me that is my email list and income (don’t worry I’ll get there). I also do want to point out that while my Pinterest followers are still under 1K, my blog gets 85-90% of my traffic from Pinterest alone.. that’s about 29,300+ visitors this month from Pinterest (many of them resulting in new email subscribers) Here’s a link to the Pinterest strategy that I use
Income breakdown for November:
- Ad network: $22.65
- Affiliate: $36.93
- Sponsored posts: $300.00
- Direct Sales: $8.00
- Services: $234.00
- Total income: $601.58
Income doubled from last month, which I think was a big success. Next month will be busy, but is expected to be pretty awesome. I’m not going to stop, I have so many plans to expand and work on my email list.
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