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November was soooo crazy!!! Read below for my blogging income report and what happened when one of my pins went viral!
What is an income report?
An Income report for bloggers are posts about the previous month on our blogs. We talk about any income we may have generated through product sales, affiliate sales or online courses we provide. We may talk about how we did this and what was successful and what wasn’t.
We also talk about our traffic for the past month. This can provide insight into the strategies that a blog uses to gain traffic. We will talk about what worked and didn’t work for us that particular month within the income report.
An income report is there to offer some behind the scenes insight into the blogging world. Many people think it is a get rich quick or easy route out. Blogging requires a lot of dedication, motivation and perseverance. The income report holds bloggers accountable for what they have or have not done, it provides motivation for the following month, even if the previous one has been dreadful or out of this world. It also means that the income report can show the rest of the world that you can be a blogger and you can be successful, for actually very little start-up cost.
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Goals From November
Finish ‘Ready Set Blog for Traffic’
November was such a hectic month with my 30 Day Christmas Countdown and adjusting to life with two children, there was just no time to complete the course. I have every intention of completing this, it is just going to take some time. I think when I finally get around to doing it I will start from the beginning, as much has changed with the blog since I first started it.
Create 1 new pin for my all-time top 5 posts.
I didn’t get to do this either! I think this will be carried over into the new year when Christmas is over and hopefully my life would have calmed down a bit more by then.
Gain 5 new emails subscribers
I smashed this goal in November!! I’ll talk you through it a little later.
Create 10 backup Instagram posts
One goal I really wish I had managed to complete! This would have helped me to continue to be consistent on Instagram because of Instagrams algorithm, it favours consistent posting. That means if you post every day, Instagram expects you to post every day! if it’s once a week, then Instagram expects you to post once a week. My posting was few and far between. I’m hoping that it’s easier in December.
What worked/didn’t work for me this month
Writing
Up until the 24th November I was posting content every day. This meant that I had to be on my A game. This was really difficult to keep up. Ideally, I had wanted to have at least half of my Christmas Countdown posts written and scheduled before the first one even went live! This obviously didn’t happen because I had so much to prepare before I gave birth and then having a newborn as well.
I have found that since returning to my normal posting schedule. It has been much easier to prepare and to write, as I can write the posts in sections as and when my children will allow me to. I think this is going to be how I will write from now on because I also don’t want to be glued to the laptop constantly and not give them the time they deserve.
Social Media
Apart from Instagram, my social media has improved slightly. My Pinterest following has risen to over 100 in about 5 months. My Twitter account is only at 14, but this is paying literally no attention to it and only having my new posts automatically posting to my twitter and occasionally retweeting them, Instagram is something I need to work on being consistent with ( as I mentioned before). Facebook is something I have been thinking about, although I don’t feel like I have the headspace for another new thing at the moment.
Email List
I said earlier that I smashed my goal of gaining 5 new subscribers in November. I got 17 new subscribers!! I am so unbelievably happy about this. This was down to my new free download. The Ultimate Christmas Planner. I designed and created this with mums and dads in mind. We all have so much to keep in our heads around Christmas and a million things to keep track of, I made sure to include everything that I knew I wanted a planner to be. That included 20 different pages to keep everything organised. I invested a lot of time into creating this, and for November (and hopefully December) it definitely paid off. You can download your own Ultimate Christmas Planner from any of the Christmas posts below if you’re just getting into the Christmas swing!
November Posts (this is going to be a long one!!)
10 Advent Calendar Ideas for Big Kids.
10 Do’s and Don’t of Pinterest that EVERY blogger should know.
10 Christmas activities with Toddlers in Mind.
9 Edible Christmas Gift Ideas.
10 productivity Hacks | How to Achieve your Goals in the Christmas Countdown.
10 Gifts for New Dads and Dads To Be.
15 Stocking Gifts from Prezzybox Under £13.
Eco, How to Go More | November Goals.
Christmas Gifts for Parents | From Not on the Highstreet.
4 Christmas Breakfast Ideas for Kids.
Income and Traffic Report | October 2018
Christmas Gifts for Someone Who has Everything.
The ‘Jaffa’ Cake| For people who don’t like Christmas Cake
Gifts for kids | Ideas for 0-18 Year Olds.
5 Places to Buy Christmas Decorations that are Beautiful.
10 Gifts that coffee lovers will adore from Whittards.
22 Stationery Gifts from Paperchase.
7 ideas to make Christmas morning magical for young children.
14 Christmas Gifts for your Guy.
Things to do on Christmas Eve to Start the Magic Early.
Sentimental Gifts and Gift Ideas that aren’t just Stuff.
10 Awesome Christmas Printables Round-up.
Christmas Morning Traditions you HAVE to start.
Most Popular Posts in November
10 Gifts for New Dads and Dads To Be. – 3365 Pageviews
Christmas Gifts for Parents | From Not on the Highstreet. – 308 Pageviews
21 Gifts for Pregnant Women. – 242 Pageviews
First Trimester in Pregnancy | How you can survive using my Top 9 Tips. – 242 Pageviews
15 Best Christmas Messages to write for cards at Christmas. – 210 Pageviews
Traffic Report
Google Analytics
My traffic was more than good in November I reached an all-time high of 6128 pageviews!! My bounce rate rose by 2.85% when comparing it to October. As always I calculate the number of pageviews that didn’t bounce each month. In November this was 426.51. This has increased by nearly 300! You can probably imagine I am properly chuffed with this and the spike that occurred roughly in the middle of the month is due to a pin gaining A LOT of attention, ill talk about this when discussing my Pinterest analytics below. I am aware that this increase is due to me bulking my content with one post a day, but I am hoping it will give me some returning visitors in December as well.
My Impressions on my Pinterest account continued to rise throughout November. Astoundingly there was over a 1000% increase in my impressions and just over 900% increase in my daily viewers. Although I didn’t have any particular pinning strategy in place, I still managed to gain a lot of traffic through my Pinterest account. The massive 4-day spike showing on the graph above is primarily down to one Pin I created for 10 Gifts for New Dads and Dads To Be. My increase in daily impressions and daily viewers must have been due to my 30 Day Christmas countdown. One post every day, for 30 days, because of this I was pinning a lot, like 50 times a day on average. I also had a lot of other peoples content to pin to my boards which meant massive amounts of activity on my profile.
The steep incline in my monthly viewers started when my pin that I mentioned above started to gain popularity. My monthly engaged viewers are still slowly increasing, so I think I need to work on my engaged viewers over the next couple of months. This could be done by looking into my pin design and my pin descriptions as I feel I could utilise my keywords better than I am.
Income Report
Since my last income report, I have joined two more affiliate networks. These are Rakuten and (finally) Amazon! Even though I am now a part of Rakuten and Amazon, I have only really been utilising AWIN. I think this is because I am familiar with their dashboard, and it’s the first one I joined. During November, I did manage to earn some commission, which I was really pleased about because of the effort I had put into my 30 day Christmas countdown and even though it’s a small amount, it is still pleasing to know that I have placed value into my content.
Over these few months I have been blogging, I have come to realise that affiliate marketing cannot be relied upon, on its own for a consistent and growing income. This is because it depends on who is reading your content and if they want to buy. Noone can write content that is compelling enough that every single reader wants to buy through my affiliate link.
I track my commission was I earn, this will not be paid out until I meet the minimum threshold that is set by the affiliate network.
AWIN-£5.09
Outgoings
I had no outgoings this month, as my hosting, tailwind and my Pinterest course has been paid upfront.
Scheduling made easy
Tailwind is an amazing scheduling tool. I know that I certainly couldn’t pin as much if I were to do it manually. I also wouldn’t know what the best times to pin for my individual audience was. Tailwind does all this for you!
Use my link below to sign up to Tailwind, you’ll get 100 free pins, plus a $15 credit when you upgrade to the plus plan.
That’s the equivalent of a free month on the plus plan! That’s what I am currently on!
Another bonus is that when you sign up for the plus plan, you can use Smart Loop. This loops your pins you select. Awesome for that evergreen content.
Summary
In summary, I had a good month for traffic. I also realised the type of pin that is popular on Pinterest. Lots of white space and keywords that are picked out either by colour or by a difference in font. Although affiliate marketing is simple for a blogger, it cannot be relied upon consistently for income and other avenues have to be explored.
Goals for December
- Increase pageviews to 7000 through pin scheduling and my fabulously loyal email ist
- Evaluate my pin design and descriptions
- Start brainstorming ideas for my first product launch!! (how exciting)
Are you thinking of starting your first product? let me know below!
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