Monthly Blog Growth and Income Report – April 2018
I started writing blog recaps when I launched WebMonkey to remain transparent with readers while also tracking progress.
There are plenty of blogging guides that outline how you can blog to make money online, or how easy it is to build a following.
Personally, I like to actually test things out for myself. I also want to provide a realistic idea of what you can expect if you start your own blog.
If you want to read my previous blog recaps to track my progress so far, I highly recommend giving them a read!
Anyways, let’s get to the progress!
April 2018 Blog Stats:
April was a pretty hectic month for life and blogging.
I've finished school, moved houses, and have started a full time 9-5 job.
I still have a few online courses to complete, but I hope to not slack on writing content for WebMonkey.
The move and lack of internet certainly took up a lot of time, but things are in the clear once more!
Blog Posts:
- I didn’t reach my March goal of 6 posts, although I did if I count a guest post I wrote on how to drive blog traffic using some unconventional sources (thanks to TinyLoveBug!)
- All in all, I wrote an additional 10,118 words of content.
- I reached 28 email subscribers, beating my goal of 20.
While I fell short of my publishing goal for the month, I think April actually contained some of my best posts and experiments in terms of overall value.
My Quora Marketing Guide has been shared several times via Facebook, and people seem to be taking to it well.
I also wrote a dropshipping guide that covered the steps to start a dropshipping business in under 48 hours (it also includes a sale!)
Ultimately, I think April contained some solid content, but I will always look to improve!
Blog Traffic Stats:
The most exciting aspect of the month of April was the dramatic increase in traffic to WebMonkey.
My goal for the month was to reach 6,500 page views.
Somehow, the month of April resulted in 11,628 page views!
My bounce rate went up a tad, but I am extremely happy to have surpassed my page view goal for the month by such a substantial margin.
Additionally, 8,000+ sessions is roughly a third of the way to meeting the traffic requirements for Mediavine.
Mediavine is essentially Google Adsense on steroids. It enables bloggers to insert extremely high paying display advertisements into their blog.
If you want to make money through blogging, advertising networks like Mediavine are incredibly powerful platforms that can help you succeed.
I’m eagerly awaiting the day I can apply to Mediavine, so the traffic for this month has been very exciting.
Key Points – Quora Traffic:
Quora was one of my main traffic sources for the month of March, and the steady stream of referral traffic only grew from there.
In 30 days, Quora resulted in 2,417 sessions of referral traffic, completely eclipsing any other referral traffic source:
I didn't even have to push my Quora content writing into overdrive. I simply continued to follow some straightforward steps, answer trending questions every few days, and link readers back to WebMonkey.
Granted, 2 huge Quora Digest Features have helped:
If you haven't read my recent guide on how to market a blog on Quora, I highly suggest you do!
Quora is one of the most powerful marketing tools available for both business owners or bloggers, so be sure to market on Quora (the right way) to take advantage of the platform!
April 2018 Income:
I'm still on a quest to monetize WebMonkey. In the mid-term, I hope to make enough money to pay my grocery bill every month.
While this will most likely require 25,000 monthly sessions and the use of Mediavine advertising, April still had some interesting sources of income (albeit humble ones).
Amazon Affiliate Income:
My income from the Amazon Affiliate Program in April was $2.40.
There have been several items listed as ‘not shipped' for ages, so at this point I think Amazon Affiliate will just continue to be a sporadic, occasional tidbit of income.
I plan to use my Amazon money to purchase more phones however, so that is a plus!
Phone Farming Income:
Speaking of phones, phone farming is still going on!
If you aren't familiar with phone farming, I recommend taking a look at my phone farming guide if you are interested in learning more about a very simple form of passive income
Due to moving and some interruptions, my phones only made $35 in April.
My other related cashback or money saving apps like Drop and Ebates also didn't accomplish much.
However, I have been testing some new passive income apps and websites and have an exciting post coming up! If you are a phone farmer, be sure to keep an eye out!
Writing on Medium:
After making $100 with my first Medium paycheck, the earnings have slowed down.
However, my Medium article on phone farming and some other articles are still being read every single day, and this gradually earns income if premium members clap.
In April, my Medium writing earned an additional $18.27.
My Medium Profile is also continuing to grow, and has almost 60 followers.
I think the additional passive income and audience growth asserts the fact that if you blog, republishing your best content on Medium is an excellent idea.
I plan to write some new (and original) content on Medium when I have time to further explore the platform.
Dropshipping Income:
If I add 1 more income category I am going to start making Excel tables for these posts (mildly serious).
I started a dropshipping business in near the end of March, and somehow, it made a sale within those first days of launching.
I was hoping to make more sales, but I realized this experiment might be more of a long-term project.
Instagram is the main source of my store traffic, so I think I'll only see real sales come in as my page begins to grow.
Thankfully, the page is already at nearly 300 followers.
I plan to keep growing the page and adding products to the store. Hopefully I can start driving some serious traffic to the storefront soon!
Ultimately, these streams of income resulted in roughly $70.
I think this highlights the value in diversifying income streams.
Bits of money here and there might not seem like much, but at the end of the month, $70 isn't too shabby!
Goals and Plans for Next Month:
I realize I'm already 3 days into April, but I am excited for the month ahead for several reasons!
Goals:
- Publish 4 posts.
- Generate 15,000 page views (I don't know if I can do this, but I will try!)
- Grow to 50 email subscribers (currently at 29).
I think 15,000 page views is an aggressive goal, but search engine traffic continues to grow and I am starting to put more effort into Facebook Marketing (look out for a cool post on how to organically market your blog on Facebook sometime…)
Hopefully, I can gradually push towards that 25,000 a month session requirement.
Plans:
- I still have to write a actually helpful guide on starting a blog or doing keyword research.
- I have some phone farming content coming up.
- I plan to push my marketing efforts up a notch on Reddit and Facebook.
That's all for now!
Thanks for reading! If you want to know when I publish a new post, be sure to subscribe with your email 🙂
Tom
