2nd Month Income Report for my 2020 blog

Once again another month flew on by and I am writing my 2nd income report. Like my first month I wasn’t really sure what to expect. What would happen to my traffic? Would my Pinterest account grow? Would I make another affiliate sale?

These were all questions that raced through my mind. Overall I just hoped for some sort of growth because at this point in my blogging journey any improvement is a good sign.

If you are wondering the steps I took to start my blog you can check that out here.

I had A LOT planned this month and honestly did not do 80 percent of it. But I am okay with that because I figured out what I SHOULD be focusing on…well at least for the first 6 months (more on this later).

Before I go into my stats for my first month I want to disclose why I am writing this post. Blog income reports were and still are a big motivation for me. One day I hope to give my family financial freedom all while doing something I love and in this case is sharing my motherhood tips!

So I hope this report inspires you to hop on the blogging train.

2nd Month Income Report for my 2020 Blog

This post contains affiliate links which means if you purchase a product through my link I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. For more information you can read my disclosure here.

Goals

Second month goals:

2000 Monthly page views
800 Sessions
2 minute average session
10 Subscribers
100 Pinterest Followers
2000 Instagram Followers
400 Link Clicks
Make $10 in Affiliate Income

I based these goals off my first month results which you can read here.

So how did I do?

Goal	Actual	Met (Y/N)?
2000 Monthly Page Views	2719	Y
800 Sessions	2024	Y
2 minute average session	0:45	N
10 Subscribers	11	Y
100 Pinterest Followers	95	N
2000 Instagram Followers	1719	N
400 Link Clicks	1731	Y
$10 Affiliate Income	$48.28	Y

I met 5 out of 8 goals. The ones I did not meet were not the most important so I am very happy with how my 2nd month of blogging turned out.

Here is what my 2nd month looked like:

Google Analytics Audience Report for the Mommy Explained

I am very pleased that my page views and sessions more than doubled! There was a dip in page views starting on valentines day through the 18th. I am not quite sure why this happened but it was over the weekend and could have been due to valentines dates/trips etc. On the other hand my average session duration went down and bounce rate up. Which means people are spending less time reading my content and leaving my site faster. This could, however, indicate that people are clicking on my affiliate links which would not be a bad thing.

I’ve read that big bloggers even have high bounce rates because people are leaving their site for affiliate products.

Now onto subscribers and followers:

The month ended with a total of 11 subscribers which surpassed my goal. I did not do anything to try and obtain subscribers and I have decided not to worry about this until farther along in my blogging journey (maybe the 6 month mark). I just do not have the time to create opt-in’s and freebies or promote to obtain subscribers. Additionally, I would not be sending out emails or a newsletter at this point which is another reason I am not going to focus on this.

In regards to Pinterest, the number of followers have gone up slightly and I was close to hitting my goal of 100. Once again, I am not going to focus on this anymore. The followers will come eventually as long as I am growing my account.

Instagram on the other hand actually went down in followers. I also decided not to focus on growing my Instagram because it is very time consuming. I will continue to post occasionally when I do have time but I am not going to make it a priority.

Also note that there are many successful bloggers who do not use social media such as Instagram, Twitter or Facebook for promotion.

Now let’s talk about Traffic

93.6% of my traffic came from social media with Pinterest accounting for 99%.

Google Analytics Acquisition Report for the Mommy Explained

I participated in very few threads this month and did not promote much outside of Pinterest. Clearly you can see a theme here for this month.

More on Pinterest

Since Pinterest is my biggest driver of traffic I will include a few of my stats. I began February at 26,000 monthly viewers and ended at 75,000 which is a huge jump! This stat merely tells me my reach (or how many people see my pins) but does not indicate if I am performing well. Regardless I am still very happy that my reach is increasing and at a fast rate.

What does tell me if I am performing well is ultimately my link clicks. That is the whole point of using Pinterest right – to create pins that will get people to your site.

In January I had 163 link clicks and this month I had a total of 1,731 link clicks. Another big jump! I have to admit I think I had a “viral” pin on my hands. Well at least a pin that did really well. Check out my stats below:

Pinterest Pin Stats for the Mommy Explained

I am sure the big time bloggers will laugh at these stats but for just starting out this is fantastic results.

You can check out my top performing pin here.

From now on I will be analyzing my link click rate. For this month my average link click rate was 3.41%. See what this looked like below:

Mommy Explained Pinterest Analytics Link Click Rate February 2020

I also want to point out that I barely pinned any of my own content. My biggest focus was simply manually pinning other peoples content randomly throughout the day every day.

You may have heard but Pinterest recently came out with some changes which had everyone in the blogging world “freaking” out. In reality the only change was geared at Tailwind (a scheduling app which lets you automate pinning) which now includes a smart guide. This “smart guide” tells you if you are following Pinterest’s best practice.

What I took out of it is that Pinterest recommends only pinning around 15 – 25 pins per day. This is roughly what I have been doing from the beginning so I will continue to do so.

I do plan on purchasing Tailwind down the road but for now I will continue manually pinning.

Alright now the fun part. How did I make $48.28?

Two words: Amazon Affiliates

You can read all about how I made my first sale here and only 1 week after launching my blog!

The income has not actually hit my bank yet because like most affiliate programs Amazon has a 60 day pay out period.

For the sake of my income reports I will disclose what I made each month even if I did not get paid because I feel it makes sense to do it this way.

I could not have made money through affiliate income without my own domain and web hosting. You can sign up using my link here for only $3.95 per month!

Expenses

I did not have any expenses this month! But I’ve only spent $143 total on my blog thus far. It is likely I will be putting what I make back into my blog so stay tuned for my next income report to see if I decided to purchase anything for my blog.

Last but not least a few pointers…

With the crazy month that I had and the little amount of time I had to work on my blog I realized I needed to solely focus on the essential things and worry about the lesser important items down the road.

I am no longer going to focus on Pinterest and Instagram Followers and gaining subscribers. Instead I will be striving to create quality content, post consistently (once per week) and grow my Pinterest.

Here are a round up of my posts:

Goals for next month (March 2020):

4000 page views
3000 sessions
Increased Link Click Rate
Make $75 Affiliate Income
Create 1 New Pin for each post

I will continue to post a monthly income report throughout my first year. I hope you enjoyed reading my 2nd month results and that it has sparked some inspiration.

Blog Income Reports

If you are a new blogger I’d love to connect with you. Just comment below or send me an email!

2nd Month Income Report for my 2020 blog

2nd Month Income Report for my 2020 Blog

Goals