I have been looking forward to this month since the day I launched my blog. When I began reading blog income reports they all said that you can’t start making money and seeing good traffic until at least your 6th month in. Well here I am at 6 months into blogging. I still cannot believe I am half way through my first year!
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.
I had a lot of hope for June. After rebranding my blog in May and purchasing a new domain through NameCheap I was relieved to get back to “normal.” Well summer hit and I did not get nearly as much done as I’d liked to.
Overall the month didn’t turn out too bad but definitely not where I was hoping I’d be. Especially after many bloggers promised I’d be getting tons of traffic and making a decent profit around this time (let’s just call that marketing). However, as always I did learn A LOT and I am excited to continue my blogging journey.
Before I go into my stats for my 6th 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.
If you are wondering the steps I took to start my blog you can check that out here.
Month number 6 blog results
Goals
Sixth 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 fifth month results which you can read here.
So how did I do?
| Goal | Actual | Met (Y/N)? |
| 10,000 Monthly Page Views | 5,184 (5,403) | N |
| 8000 Sessions | 3,599 (3,689) | N |
| Increased Link Click Rate | 4.91% (4.11%) | Y |
| Make $200 Affiliate Income | $24.36 ($91.57) | N |
| Continue learning SEO & update old posts | – | – |
Well I only met 1 of my goals. I expected this though and actually had a very similar month as the last one.
Here is what my 6th month blogging looked like:
I had very steady traffic and was on target to get around 6k pageviews up until June 24. That is when my traffic started going down and kept going down which had me very nervous. It then became steady again but at 50%-75% less at what I was getting before.
This was very disheartening because I really thought I was on a good road to reaching 10k pageviews. However, I know exactly why this happened which I will explain shortly.
Where am I getting my Traffic from?
96.6% of my traffic came from social media with Pinterest accounting for 99.2%.
I also got a few more hits from Organic Search (Aka Google) than last month which I am excited about. Hopefully this number will continue to go up as my blog ages.
Google traffic is by far more valuable than Pinterest traffic for 2 reasons:
- It is passive (meaning no constant work to drive traffic. Just post and your’e done)
- It converts better (meaning more money)
It takes 6-12 months for Google to start ranking your posts, however, they will not have a chance if they are not optimized for SEO. I do not think I would be getting ANY traffic from Google if it weren’t for Debbie Gartner’s amazing Ebooks (which are very affordable by the way).
You can check out her ebooks below:
Additionally, you can buy both books here for a discounted price which is what I did.
Now I feel confident when I publish my posts and know they will have a good chance in ranking on google 4-6 months down the road.
Now lets talk about Pinterest
Well I officially have a love hate relationship with Pinterest. I love that you can get amazing traffic in a short period of time but I hate how it can go down south really quick.
I honestly thought just staying consistent would never fail but I was wrong. Pinterest is finicky, they mistakenly mark accounts as spam while allowing actual spam accounts to steal pins and take over. They have A LOT of bugs and are basically unpredictable.
Although they have clear issues it still is worth it to use Pinterest. You can get really good traffic from Pinterest and I am talking like 100k-500k and probably more traffic each month. Hopefully I will be one of those people one day.
Alright so what is actually going on with MY account.
Well my monthly viewers keep going down and down but I realized this was for my overall account. When I filter out the 3rd party pins (meaning pins that are not mine and just ones I’ve repinned) I’m actually increasing my viewers each month. It is slow but at least it is going up and not down.
This month my link click rate did increase a tiny bit which is great! I did not write much content this month and my Pinterest strategy sort of fell through the cracks (thank you start of summer). My link click rate went from 4.11% to 4.91%. I am happy this is increasing and hopefully more once I get more content out.
Now the reason my traffic DROPPED. My best performing pin basically died on June 24th. I am not sure if this happened because of Pinterest’s current bug or because it was just the end of that pins traffic.
I’ve learned that this is a totally normal thing and once you get a lot of traffic from Pinterest you do not notice when a pin dies off because your traffic is fairly steady. Since I am only 6 months in it is very noticeable.
As far as my current strategy, I am focusing on only pinning to 4-5 boards to make them stronger. Furthermore, I am scheduling 2-3 new pins a day and I randomly manually pin others peoples content throughout the day as well.
I would not be able to do this without Tailwind. It is seriously a lifesaver. You can get a free trial here!
How did I make money this month?
With the best converting affiliate out there.
Amazon – $24.36
I am actually disappointed this month because I had basically the same amount of traffic as last month and I made $90 from Amazon then. Just goes to show that you can’t put all of your eggs in one basket.
Other affiliates that I am a part of do get a lot of clicks but I have not had anything convert yet. Below are the other programs I joined. Hopefully I will be able to find the secret to these because they have MUCH better commission rates.
- here (Include first and last name & website url) and I will send you a referral email. If you get accepted we each would get $25!
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
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:
- The Best Online Boutiques for Baby Girl
- 5th Month Income Report for my 2020 Blog
- Toddler Must Haves you will actually use
Goals for next month (July 2020):
- 10,000 page views
- 8000 sessions
- Increased Link Click Rate
- Make $200 Affiliate Income
- Publish 6-8 posts
- Update old posts for SEO
Well I hope you enjoyed reading my 6th 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
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