4th Month Income Report for my 2020 blog

Just when I thought a month of blogging couldn’t get any crazier….it does. April flipped my blog upside down both good and bad. Keep reading this Blog Income Report to find out what I learned and the changes I will be making.

The blogging world may seem like the place to be these days since you can work from anywhere and internet traffic has significantly increased. The truth of the matter is there have been both positive and negative effects of the pandemic for bloggers.

Some people have seen a tremendous increase in pageviews such as DIY, working from home and gardening niches. However, others such as travel bloggers have seen a huge drop. Obviously not many are traveling right now so this makes sense.

Bloggers are also dealing with a large decrease in ad revenue and affiliate marketing. The first thing companies cut in a financial crisis is marketing so they have slowed or stopped advertising as well as temporary stalled their affiliate programs or ended them all together.

The biggest talk of the blogger world is Amazon’s significant cut in their commission rate for their affiliate program. Amazon is a huge revenue source for millions of bloggers and their conversion rate is the highest. It has frustrated many mostly because Amazon is killing it right now so why should they take away from their affiliates when they are seeing an increase in profit and stock price.

Long story short, business is business and Amazon will do what they want. It has been predicted for years that they will end their program altogether so for now I am thankful they still have one because this has been the only way I’ve made an income so far in my blogging journey.

Overall, it is a little discouraging for a new blogger like me to see such things happening, however, I am glad I am not relying on income from my blog and it has shown me that I need to diversify my income streams and really learn to adapt to change. The Internet is constantly changing so I need to be on my toes!

Regardless of the amount of work blogging takes I am still so glad to do be doing this. It has truly became one of my strongest passions.

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

Before I go into my stats for my 4th month 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 4 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

Fourth month goals:

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

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

So how did I do?

Goal	Actual	Met (Y/N)?
10,000 Monthly Page Views	2,817 (7,248)	N
8000 Sessions	1,899 (5,368)	N
Increased Link Click Rate	1.68 (2.73%)	N
Make $200 Affiliate Income	$41.97 ($126.96)	N
Continue learning SEO & update old posts	–	Y

I only met 1 goal this month……1 GOAL. March was such a good month for me so I was very hopeful for April.

Here is what my 4th month looked like:

Well I had significantly less traffic this month. I cannot pinpoint exactly why this happened but my best guess is that I had a pin go viral which got me a bunch of traffic for a few days last month. Overall my main goal is to simply see growth each month no matter how big or small. I am still very new to blogging and any growth is good. Plus with the current state of the world everything is unpredictable at this point.

Now of course I am disappointed with my numbers this month when I compare them to last. However, if I take out last month then my blog would still have seen growth in traffic.

Furthermore, you may have noticed that on April 6th and 7th I had no traffic at all…ZERO. This is what they call “every bloggers nightmare” when your Google Analytics stops working. I was so devastated when this happened because now I will never know what my traffic was for those two days.

I learned that I should NOT be using JetPack from WordPress and instead should have Google Analytics connected directly to my site and NOT through a plugin. Reason being is that plugins can fail or have a bug resulting in exactly what happened to me. Therefore, I used the “Insert Header and Footers” plugin (yes a plugin but this one is not an open plugin it simply inserts the code in the correct spot which was recommended by a successful blogger).

Once I did that Google Analytics started working again. THANK GOODNESS!

Where am I getting my Traffic from?

95.9% of my traffic came from social media with Pinterest accounting for 93.94% and Facebook with the rest.

Also notice how I got my first traffic from Organic Search (Aka Google)! This is very exciting because it typically takes 6-12 months to rank on Google and therefore get any SEO traffic.

Now lets talk about Pinterest

I began April with 167,000 monthly viewers and ended with 145,000. I never thought this would go down since I have always seen a constant growth. In fact I had growth up until April 18th. I got up to 211,000 monthly viewers. Check it out below.

The interesting thing however is although my monthly viewers decreased, the traffic to my blog remained relatively the same. This tells me that monthly viewers really doesn’t mean much. Again this just means that you should be focusing on your link clicks instead.

In addition, I learned that a few bloggers that had over a million monthly viewers (one even with 3.3 million) was only getting 200 click throughs from Pinterest. I am almost getting that amount so clearly monthly viewers means nothing.

Now I also want to point out that Pinterest had a HUGE update in April. Bloggers have been freaking out because of “tanked” traffic. Some claim to not have any anymore and others have said their traffic from Pinterest is down about 50-75%.

Basically I came to learn that Pinterest is very finicky and you definintly do not want to put all of your eggs in one basket.

I do want to continue to focus on Pinterest because bloggers really do get amazing traffic from this platform. I will be trying out a new strategy this month so come back for my next income report to see how it going.

Now onto the one goal I did meet this month…

I learned so much on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I did not take a single paid course on it but instead utilized free email courses and joined a few Facebook groups. The best SEO tip I have learned is the importance of Keywords and choosing the right ones. You want to choose keywords that are not competitive because it gives you a much higher chance of ranking on google.

Currently I am using the following programs for keyword reserach:

• Keysearch
• Ubersuggest
• Keyword Surfer Chrome Extension
• And plain old Google Search

I do plan on taking a couple SEO courses in the future. I have my eye on 2 so far (One that is fairly expensive and another that is very reasonable). Stay tuned if I ever decide to take those. I will certainly let you know my thoughts on them.

On the other hand I did purchase an ebook from a very successful blogger, Debbie Gartner, who has been making over 20k per month. Debbie has been blogging for over 10 years and shares her journey in this ebook. It honestly has changed my entire mindset on blogging. The book was so worth it and I am glad I purchased it at this stage in my blogging journey. It is great for beginners and even intermediate bloggers.

You can check out her course here!

How did I make money this month?

I can finally add another affiliate program to my blog income report! This month I made money with:

Amazon – $40.26

Awin – $1.71

Total – $41.97

Definitely not the $200 I was shooting for but based on my traffic (2,800 pvs) I am happy with this amount.

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 knew it was coming. After my free trial ended I purchased the annual subscription for Tailwind. I do not know how bloggers do not use this. It is seriously a lifesaver. You can get your free trial here!

Last but not least…

I will continue to focus on creating quality content, posting consistently (once per week), growing my Pinterest and SEO.

Here are a round up of my posts:

1. 3rd Month Income Report for my 2020 Blog
2. The Best Diaper Bags for a Toddler and Newborn
3. How to get Work Done with a Toddler
4. 12 Summer Essentials for a Baby and Toddler

Goals for next month (May 2020):

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

Note: I am keeping my goals the same as last month until I achieve them.

Well I hope you enjoyed reading my 4th 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.”