This is the 53rd 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 February
I’ve spent the last few weeks visiting friends and family in the UK along with a trip to Thailand in the middle.
With that said, you can probably guess that I haven’t been working as much as I should have done.
But it’s always interesting to see how that lack of focus affects income, so lets jump right in!
Drip Migration
Last month I told you exactly why I was ditching Aweber and migrating to Drip – you should too.
The migration process for this blog is fairly complex because I have so many different forms, lead magnets and content upgrades scattered across the blog.
Some delivered by Thrive Leads, some delivered by an old style Aweber form, some by raw inline HTML and some by LeadPages Leadboxes. So I’m moving everything over to Thrive Leads.
Not only that but because Aweber uses multiple lists rather than tags, I need to consolidate multiple lists and design a tag structure that makes sense for me.
So now I will be tagging every subscriber based on a range of actions, interests & pains based on which lead magnets/content upgrades they download and posts they read on the blog-
That will then enable me to create some very awesome and super targeted email campaigns that will improve user experience across the board.
I’ve already copied over the current email marketing setup from Aweber-
So now it’s just a case of preparing all the front end forms, making the switch and importing all the subscribers from Aweber which I will do this month.
If you are thinking about migrating to Drip, checkout this handy migration checklist.
Content Creation
Content creation took a back foot this month as I was traveling, but there were still 3 posts including last months income report.
I also published an update to a very popular post about building out a web 2.0 network to help rank sites.
You also learned how to perform profitable Kindle keyword research in order to create best selling books.
If you are interested in self publishing books to make money then take a look at my other tutorial that shows you how to self publish on Amazon.
Crunching The Numbers
So let’s get our hands dirty and see how the blog has actually performed this month.
Visitor Statistics
Last month traffic was great at 66,213 (2,135/day) however that dropped off this month to 58,943 which increased to 66,213 (2,105/day) this month.
I like to keep traffic above 60,000 per month if possible but with 3 days less in February than January I fell short of the goal.
Most Popular Content
By far the most popular post this month was the update to the web 2.0 network tutorial which stole the show.
Right behind it was the how to make money on Fiverr guide.
And it’s nice to see the free SEO tools resource holding steady!
Top Traffic Sources
Not much has changed in traffic sources with a good mix of traffic coming from Google organic and social sources.
Search Engine Traffic
Last month search traffic grew to 56,285 (1,815/day) which has dropped off slightly to 48,836 (1,744/day) this 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 dropped gently from 18,638 to 16,614 this month.
That also had an impact on total minutes watched which dropped from 88,502 to 75,755 respectively.
Social Shares
Last month I deleted 39 posts in my content audit which saw total share counts drop from 73,606 to 73,263
This month the total social shares across Facebook and Google+ increased from 73,263 to 75,816.
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 1,424 new subscribers which is a steady drop from last months 1,792 new subscribers.
There are now a total of 157,879 subscribers across all of the various channels!
- E-mail – 995 (1,257 last month) / Total: 87,989
- Twitter – 167 (233 last month) / Total: 15,068
- YouTube – 136 (179 last month) / Total: 13,404
- Facebook – 113 (93 last month) / Total: 22,873
- Google+ – -4 (-24 last month) / Total: 17,903
- RSS – 17 (54 last month) / Total: 642
Unable to post graphs at the moment – will update asap
Income Report
Here are the numbers you really want to see-
Affiliate Earnings
- ActiveCampaign – $2.60
- Ahrefs – $264.81 (my Ahrefs review)
- Aweber – $196.04 (tutorial)
- Blog Advertising – $492.42 (Advertise)
- Blue Chip Backlinks – $100.00
- Bluehost – $195.00 (discount coupon)
- BotChief – $59.40
- BrightSpark – $143.80
- BuyProxies – $38.40
- CashCrate – $13.50 (best survey sites)
- CheapWindowsVPS – $10.61
- CMS Commander – $19.201
- Domain Hunter Gatherer – $505.55 (expired domains tutorial & Domain Hunter Gatherer review)
- Drip – $4.80
- Drip Revolution – $247.68 (discount coupon)
- FCS Networker – $172.43 (discount coupon)
- FreshDrop – $18.11
- GetResponse – $16.17 (review)
- GSA Captcha Breaker – $370.48 (review / discount coupon)
- GSA Search Engine Ranker – $427.28 (review / discount coupon)
- GSA SEO Indexer – $31.65 (case study)
- IPVanish – $346.18
- JustHost – $240.00 (start a blog / discount coupon)
- Keyword Researcher – $47.47
- Kontent Machine – $164.50 (review)
- LeadPages – $42.30
- LinkEmperor – $67.27
- LongTailPro – $737.57 (my Long Tail Pro review / discount coupon)
- MintVine – $5.84
- MTTB – $1.50
- MyThemeShop – $93.59
- OneHourIndexing – $370.04 (case study)
- PaidViewPoint – $1.07
- PandaBot – $118.50(case study)
- PowerupHosting – $12.45 (discount coupon)
- PrivateInternetAccess – $44.00
- PrizeRebel – $0.33 (best survey sites)
- Product Launch Formula – $158.50
- ProxyHub – $1.80(discount coupon)
- Raven Tools – $99.33 (best backlink checker case study)
- SEMRush – $760.18 (my SEMRush review)
- SENuke – $44.10 (tutorial)
- SEO Clerks – $1.90
- SEO Content Machine – $110.38 (discount coupon)
- SEO eStore – $2.80
- SEO Monitor – $285.33
- SEO Powersuite – $537.36 (see my SEO Powersuite review)
- SEO Spyglass – $41.17
- SERocket – $267.60 (tutorial / discount coupon)
- SERP Book – $7.00
- SERPed – $1,048.98 (review)
- SiteGround – $50.00
- Social Locker Pro – $13.20
- SwagBucks – $2.38 (best survey sites)
- TBSolutions – $5.00
- TheBestSpinner – $168.00 (The Best Spinner review / discount coupon)
- ThirstyAffiliates – $20.14 (discount coupon)
- Thrive Themes – $78.50
- TrafficPlanetHosting – $360.00
- TweetAttacksPro – $107.18 (discount coupon)
- Ultimate Demon – $23.50 (review / discount coupon)
- URLProfiler – $183.46 (discount coupon)
- VideoMakerFX – $149.50 (how to make money on Fiverr case study)
- WordAI – $89.91
Expenses
- Kinsta Hosting – $100.00 (See my Kinsta review)
- Aweber – $119.45 (tutorial)
- Facebook Advertising – $131.67 (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.
This month I didn’t taken on any consultation work so made a grand total of nothing!
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.
Last month this was $13,477.63 which decreased to $11,302.90 this month.
Earnings Total
- Affiliate Income – $10,239.74
- Consultation Income – $00.00
- Other Income – $11,302.90
- Expenses – $351.12
Grand Total: $21,191.52 / £17,249.90 ($24,587.94 / £19,485.94 last month)
Unable to post graphs at the moment – will update asap
Signing Off
While I was distracted with travelling this month it was nice to see income maintain itself above $20,000 which I was what I like to see every month as a minimum.
However that was not the only metric that took a hit, traffic was down, number of new posts was down, comments were down, social growth was down – everything was down.
So this month I am going to increase content production back to normal levels and finsh my Drip migration that will help set the stage for bigger things.
Thank you to everyone that has helped me reach my goals – I couldn’t do it without you, the reader!
46 Responses
Hey Matthew,
I’m a regular reader of your post and always have good experience by reading your posts. These kind of stats are very helpful to understand your audience and also inspire other bloggers and online marketers. Eventually, thanks for revealing a light on this topic.
With best wishes,
Amar kumar
Thanks Amar, I’m glad you find them useful!
Just found your blog, great stuff and very inspirational!
Thanks Nathan!
Hey Matthew,
It’s really inspiring for all newbies like me. Your strategy makes me mentally stronger to fight with competitors.
But, sorry to say that I didn’t get the desired visitor to my site from last few days. Would you please be kind enough to give me you some suggestion that what should I do right now to get desired visitors?
Your any suggestion is most valuable to me. It would be my please if you tell me something about the site.
Thanks in Advanced
Jayed
Just search the blog there are a bunch of strategies to get traffic
Been fan of your blog since 2013! Interesting readings every time!
Thanks for staying with me!
Very nice. Your content speaks to those numbers well!
Thanks John!
Really good earnings. Hoping to get that too one day. Thanks for the reminder that i have to work hard lol
Haha no problem!
Inspiring, man! What amazes me is the diversity of products you plug. How do you plug them all? Are those sales from mentions in posts? Links in ebooks? That’s the hardest part for me to figure out.
Just from mentions around naturally
goog job man, good luck
Thanks Ternak!
Hey Matthew,
This is also I’m too motivated after seeing your earnings. Keep Sharing to make others motivated.
Thanks –
Akshit Wadhwa
Thanks Akshit!
So you earn affiliate income from over 60 programs, but there is only 1 program (Aweber) that is counted as an expense for you.
Do you actually use any of the programs that you recommend?
If so, why do none of them figure as an expense?
A lot of what I use I get for free or only have 1 time costs
Thanks Matt…you always provide valuable content. Gav
I try my best :)
Hi Matt,
I am a regular follower of your blog and it’s awesome to see brilliant posts. You have said that by focusing on travel stuff you have lost earnings and traffic.
Just wondering if this is the case then how digital nomads survive when their sole purpose is to look around the world?
Another thing is that you have said you deleted 39 posts in terms of content auditing.
You merged those posts or totally deleted? If deleted the where those visitors would go?
Because the digital nomads you are speaking of are actually working as well where as I was doing everything I could to avoid opening my laptop
The posts were deleted with redirects setup to the next relevant posts/category or homepage
Hey, Matthew!
Awesome work, buddy!
It is not that the less work did its work but the hard (plus smart) work you put in since years did its wonder!
Keep doing wonders, buddy! :)
~ Adeel
Well, every little helps I suppose!
Excellent, matthew.. You are reason why I don’t give up on my blogging job and seo work. And Congratulation for that achievement and thanks for sharing detailed report….
Once again congratulations and thanks a lot.
Adela jones
That is great to hear Adela and I hope you make it :)
Iam quite new to your blog; just joined last week. But its amazing to see the level of transparency here regarding your income, which will be a big motivation for many aspiring bloggers. Also astonishing is the fact that affiliate marketing fetches such nice income.
Great stuff as usual Matt! Thanks a ton.
No problem and good luck with your ventures!
What’s up Matthew?! I’m also switching to Drip. Maybe… I think… I signed up for Drip and started using it for a new site. Love almost everything about it. Probably going to move my Dumb Passive Income list over as well… but like you, it will be a bit of a pain to find and move/edit all the different opt-in forms.
But yeah – Aweber has been terrible about keeping up with the times. Drip is innovative and robust and most of all – easy to use! Glad to see other people talking about Drip.
Yeah it’s a sweet tool and the migration is going to take a bit of time but after that, it’s all gravy!
Thanks for sharing! I have been thinking of migrating to Drip, and I use Thrive leads too. What’s stopping me is that thrive leads gives an error when an already subscribed person enters his/her details again. I checked with Thrive and it seems to be a known bug. You facing this?
Its not something that has thrown me yet but they are good on bug fixes that’s for sure!
Hi Matthew,
Great to see that you actually took time off your blog and went for a trip. That’s the single most reason I love blogging – being able to work from anywhere.
Congratulations on your earnings and I do hope overall numbers will increase this month.
Keep inspiring us.
Regards,
Shafi Khan
Thanks for your kind words Shafi!
Wouldn’t your traffic been about the same if you had an extra 3 days, Especially 3 non weekend days?
Yes more or less, but its still less than 60,000 however you cut it :)
Still good numbers – would be happy to have 1% of that :)
Thanks for your monthly insights and lots of success in March.
Tom
Thanks Tom :) You will get there!
These income reports are so helpful to see your tactics and a great way to learn about your affiliate and online marketing. I hope you enjoyed your vacation! How was Thailand?
Thanks Ricky!
I didn’t enjoy Thailand, tons of people and dirty
Congratulations man. Still a lot to learn from you in this blogging journey.
Thanks Enstine!
Excellent, matthew.
I have been following your blog for months now, and without a doubt the sheer amount of content is ranking your pages, and showing how it is done
Impressive stuff mate. A great month indeed.
Ben
Thanks Ben, glad to have you on board!