3rd Month Income Report for my 2020 blog

It is hard to put into words how March 2020 went. Not just because of what went on with my blog but because of the pandemic our world is experiencing. Never did I think I would go through something like this in my lifetime and surely it has affected everyone.

What I can say is I am so glad I jumped on this blogging journey when I did because this is something I am still able to work on despite the current situation.

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

Unlike my second month I knew exactly what I wanted to focus on and I actually ended up doing more than I planned for!

Before I go into my stats for my 3rd month (crazy its been that long already) I want to disclose why I am writing this post. Blog income reports are what got me here today. They have inspired me and keep my motivation going so I want to do the same for you! It also holds me accountable and allows me to track my progress.

So I hope you find this report helpful.

Month number 3 blog results

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

Third month goals:

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

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

So how did I do?

Goal	Actual	Met (Y/N)?
4000 Monthly Page Views	7,248	Y
3000 Sessions	5,368	Y
Increased Link Click Rate	2.73%	N
Make $75 Affiliate Income	$126.96	Y
Create 1 New Pin for each post	–	Y

The 4 goals I met completely surpassed my expectations for this month so I am beyond excited about my results. The one I did not meet I’ll talk about later when I get to Pinterest.

Here is what my 3rd month looked like:

Going into month 3 I knew I would likely see a continued growth in pageviews but I did not expect it to go up over 7,000! I really hope this is not just some fluke because as you can see my pageviews did start decreasing after March 27th which was my highest day yet with 550 pageviews.

Now I have an idea why I had success this month and that is because I started using Tailwind! I went into a slump from March 9th through March 13th which is when I decided I needed to do something. If you read my previous months income report you’d find that I hardly pinned any of my own content. I strictly focused on pinning consistently which definitely increased my reach on Pinterest but did NOT do much regarding sending people to MY site.

So why wasn’t I pinning my own content?

I’ll be honest I did not pin much of my own content because it was time consuming. Rich Pins has not been working for awhile now and there are no signs of it ever returning (On the contrary those who enabled rich pins previous to it “breaking” do not have any issues). If you are unfamiliar with Rich Pins there is a great article you can read here.

Unfortunately for me I was too late to the game on this one so when I pin from my own website it lists nothing in the Title section and puts the Title in the description. This is a HUGE problem because I will not have the necessary keywords to tell Pinterest what my pin is about. Therefore Pinterest will likely not show my pin to the right people if any at all.

The only way to combat this is to manually enter the Title and Description….yeah not fun.

Reason #2 why I have not been pinning much of my own content…

is because it is hard to keep track of what boards I saved a pin to and when. Rule of thumb is never to pin the same image within a week and same URL within 24 hours (This is NOT a set standard just a reference).

So after a few days of very low traffic I decided to utilize my Tailwind Free Trial which includes 100 free pins (get your Free Trial >>>> Here). I knew I would eventually use Tailwind because hey I probably will want a break from manual pinning at some point down the line. I did not think it would be this soon though.

However, I am so glad I took the jump. I scheduled my first pins on March 15th and have been pinning 20% of my own content every day according to Tailwind’s recommended time slots. I continue to pin other peoples content manually at random times throughout the day.

Currently I have Tailwind pinning 3-5 of my own pins a day.

Tailwind makes it extremely easy to schedule 1 pin to as many relevant boards as you want. Now I no longer have to think about which boards I already pinned to because I do them all at once (but space them out of course).

Now that I was pinning a TON more of my own content I needed to make more pins for each post.

So I decided to make 1 new pin for each post I had. Funny enough this was one of my goals for this month. CHECK!

Alright now back onto what blogging in March 2020 looked like.

Where am I getting my Traffic from?

96.7% of my traffic came from social media with Pinterest once again accounting for 99%.

Now let’s dive deeper into Pinterest

I began March with 75,000 monthly viewers and ended with 159,000 which is more than double! I include this stat because it tells me my reach on Pinterest. To me more reach equals more people seeing my pins. See my results below!

What your really want to track however is link clicks or how many times people clicked on your pin to get to your blog post. I decided to analyze my link click rate this month. To my surprise it actually went down…

This just leaves me confused because I got more traffic to my website this month which has to mean I got more linked clicks.

My only thought here is that I am pinning A TON more of my own content (as mentioned earlier) which is making the rate go down. If I continue my current pinning strategy then I should be able to better evaluate this stat.

I had 3 pins do very well this month:

You can check out my top performing pins below:

How did I make money this month?

Once again I made money through Amazon Affiliates.

$126.96 to be exact.

I am a part of several other affiliate programs but I feel there is no need to list those in my income reports until I actual make a sale.

Related: How I made my first affiliate sale only 1 week after launch

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 have an expense this month and not something I was planning on either. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard people talk about search engine optimization (SEO) and that it is where the money is. Somehow I ended up taking a few free courses and listening to a couple webinars on SEO.

Long story short I learned it is essential to understand keyword research so that your posts will rank in Google. One of the best ways to research keywords is using a credible tool. Keysearch was the number one recommended keyword research tool so I went ahead and purchased the annual plan for $118 (after 30% off code). Now I will use this to find the best keywords for my site.

Sign up for Keysearch here (Use code KSDISC for 20% off)!

Total expenses now add up to $261 (Not too bad, ESPECIALLY when you compare start up costs to a brick and mortar store lol)

Don’t forget I have made $182.20 so far with my blog so I am not too far in the red!

Last but not least…

I will continue to focus on creating quality content, posting consistently (once per week) and growing my Pinterest. SEO is now going to be added to this list of essential items.

Here are a round up of my posts:

1. 10 Useful Baby Products you may not have thought of
2. 2nd Month Income Report for my 2020 blog
3. Elegant Baby Girl Nursery Reveal
4. The Best at home Toddler Activities
5. An Easy Guide to Sleep Training your baby
6. LOL Surprise Birthday Party Ideas

Goals for next month (April 2020):

• 10,000 page views
• 8000 sessions
• Increased Link Click Rate
• Make $200 Affiliate Income
• Continue learning SEO & update old posts

Well I hope you enjoyed reading my 3rd month results! Don’t forget to check back for next months report!

Blog Income Reports

• January 2020 – $3.95
• February 2020 – $48.28
• March 2020 – $126.96
• April 2020 – $41.97
• May 2020 – $91.57
• June 2020 – $24.36
• July 2020 – $1.96
• August 2020 – $0.73
• September 2020 – $1.07
• October 2020 – $7.69
• November – $7.46
• December – $20.61

You may also like “8 steps to complete after launching your blog.”