This is the 39th income report as part of the zero backlink experiment.
Every month I will publish a post like this one that shows you how this blog is progressing and everything I have done across the month to get it there.
These reports will help me track my own progress while teaching you what to do and more importantly what not to do.
What I Have Done In December
Honestly this month, I have tried my hardest to do as little as possible.
After a crazy couple of months of solid work I decided to take my foot off the gas and take some time to enjoy life rather than sitting in front of the computer.
That means that I have a bunch of things to catch up on in the next week but I will worry about that next week.
I have also had a lot of spare time to ponder what direction I want to take things in over the next year. There is huge room for improvement across all areas of the blog and I will send out a short survey next week to gather some reader feedback.
Until then though, I am going to keep this income report short and sweet because no one likes working on the 1st of January right?
Help Me, Help You!
As we move into the New Year I can’t help but wonder which direction to take the blog in this year.
I have a lot of conflicting thoughts and ideas, so I decided to ask you – the reader!
So I have put together a short survey which will ultimately decide what will happen to the blog over the next 12 months.
This is the first time I have ever created an audience survey for the blog and I expect the results will be very interesting.
I will also be jumping on the phone with some of the people that complete the survey to learn a little more and give some free advice to help you out at the same time.
Please click here to take the survey now.
Content Creation
Last month I published a total of 4 posts which has remained steady this month.
I kicked the month off by showing best settings for gsa search engine ranker.
Then we took a look at how to write a cold call email that ALWAYS get a response.
If you want to learn how to start a blog then this 8 point authority blog creation checklist should help you out!
Other than those we just had the regular income report roundup post and I didn’t get round to writing the best of internet marketing feature this month.
Crunching The Numbers
So let’s get our hands dirty and take a look at what my lack of attention to the blog has done to the important metrics.
Visitor Statistics
Traffic dropped from 47,319 (1,577/day) last month to 46,223 (1,491/day) this month which is an expected seasonal drop off.
Most Popular Content
The GSA Search Engine Ranker optimisation tutorial stole the show this month in terms of traffic.
Not far behind it was a tutorial on how to make money on Fiverr and the 8 point blog checklist.
Top Traffic Sources
Like last month Not much has changed really in terms of the top traffic sources this month.
Search Engine Traffic
Traffic from Google saw a small drop off this month from 37,603 (1,253/day) compared to 34,652 (1,117/day) last month.
YouTube Views
I lost all of my historical YouTube views because of changes I made to the branding – so I keep track of them separately.
YouTube views grew took a small hit this month from 21,918 to 20,731 which also had an impact on total minutes watched dropping from 110,532 to 101,250.
Social Shares
Important Note: This month Twitter stopped showing the actual share count which makes reporting on social shares from Twitter impossible.
This month the total social shares across Facebook and Google+ increased from 47,303 to 47,660.
Subscribers
The most important metric on the entire blog – earning a subscription from someone is the ultimate form of commitment and conversion.
This month brought 1,490 new subscribers which is a sharp drop from last months 2,181.
There are now a total of 127,880 subscribers across all of the various channels!
- E-mail – 919 (956 last month) / Total: 69,483
- Twitter – 205 (303 last month) / Total: 10,708
- YouTube – 265 (295 last month) / Total: 9,991
- Facebook – 218 (520 last month) / Total: 19,446
- Google+ – 1 (10 last month) / Total: 17,890
- RSS – -118 (97 last month) / Total: 362
Unable to post graphs at the moment – will update asap
Income Report
Here are the numbers you really want to see-
Affiliate Earnings
- 48HoursLogo – $10.00 (case study)
- 99CentArticles – $121.92
- Ahrefs – $371.16 (my Ahrefs review)
- Aweber – $132.90 (my Aweber review)
- Blog Advertising – $1,066.82 (Advertise)
- BlueHost – $130.00 (discount coupon)
- BuyProxies – $38.40
- BuzzBundle – $61.62 (review)
- BuzzStream – $4.80
- CheapWindowsVPS – $10.70 (discount coupon)
- CMS Commander – $4.84
- Drip Revolution – $93.60 (discount coupon)
- FCS Networker – $315.79 (discount coupon)
- FreshDrop – $97.90
- GSA Captcha Breaker – $692.17 (review / discount coupon)
- GSA Search Engine Ranker – $231.29 (review / discount coupon)
- HQ Biz In A Box – $13.50
- JustHost – $640.00 (start a blog / discount coupon)
- Kontent Machine – $723.98 (review)
- LeadPages – $195.30
- LinkEmperor – $175.59 (review)
- Loganix – $32.62 (my link building services post)
- LongTailPro – $496.76 (my Long Tail Pro review / discount coupon)
- MarketSamurai – $118.08 (tutorial)
- Ninja Outreach – $73.00
- OIO Publisher – $23.50 (case study / discount coupon)
- OneHourIndexing – $988.64 (case study)
- OptimizePress – $6.80
- OptinMonster – $25.87 (my Optinmonster review)
- PandaBot – $120.00 (case study)
- PowerupHosting – $46.49 (discount coupon)
- Private Internet Access – $16.00
- ProxyHub – $6.65 (discount coupon)
- PRPowerShot – $13.50
- Raven Tools – $0.09 (best backlink checker case study)
- S2Member – $137.90 (case study / discount coupon)
- SEMRush – $711.72 (my SEMRush review)
- SEO Content Machine – $163.15 (discount coupon)
- SEO Dominators Club – $202.39 (discount coupon)
- SEO Powersuite – $2,802.10 (see my SEO Powersuite review)
- SERocket – $200.70 (tutorial / discount coupon)
- SERP Book – $9.96
- SERP Cloud – $0.59
- SERPed – $2,121.44 (review)
- SociSynd – $92.54
- SpyderSpanker – $56.50
- SumoMe – $7,000.00 (case study)
- TheBestSpinner – $349.50 (The Best Spinner review / discount coupon)
- Themify – $31.86
- ThirstyAffiliates – $8.22 (discount coupon)
- Traffic Planet Hosting (now called WPX Hosting) – $790.00 (Case Study / WPX Hosting review)
- Tweet Attacks Pro – $68.95 (discount coupon)
- Ultimate Demon – $93.88 (review / discount coupon)
- URLProfiler – $151.26 (my URL Profiler review)
- VideoMakerFX – $13.50 (how to make money on Fiverr case study)
- WordAI – $127.33
Expenses
- Traffic Planet Hosting (now called WPX Hosting) – $49.99 (Case Study / WPX Hosting review)
- Facebook Ads – $520.96 (Case Study)
Consultation Earnings
I separate out my SEO consultant earnings from the affiliate earnings. The blog drives affiliate sales directly and whilst it does generate SEO consultation leads these are separate projects in their own right.
I didn’t take on any consultation work this month which results in zero consultation earnings.
Other Income
I’m working on another project right now that is part of the blog but not something I’m ready to talk about publicly yet or maybe ever.
I will declare the income here though as it wouldn’t be possible without the blog and ‘technically’ it is affiliate income.
This month that income has dropped from $12,127.43 last month to $9,395.17 this month.
Earnings Total
- Affiliate Income – $22,461.79
- Consultation Income – $00.00
- Other Income – $9,395.17
- Expenses – $570.95
Grand Total: $31,286.01 / £21,225.97 ($27,552.76 / £18,444.37 last month)
Unable to post graphs at the moment – will update asap
Signing Off
One of the most weird trends I consistently see on the blog is when I take a large period of time off, earnings increase.
I don’t know why it happens but it happens every single time!
As we move into 2016 I have a huge list of improvements and changes I want to make to the blog which all starts with this survey.
Once I have your feedback and followed up with you on the phone, I’m going to turn that into my master plan for the year with my immediate focus on improving the overall user experience.
I have also come to realise that I need to hire a full time blog manager and perhaps even a full time SEO assistant to help support growth over the next 12 months.
I’m going to take the rest of the month to collect all of my thoughts and your feedback into an awesome plan of attack before releasing the hounds!
Thank you to everyone that has helped me reach my goals – I couldn’t do it without you, the reader!
