This is the 33rd 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 June
Immediately after publishing last months income report, I moved house.
A house that I was told had an active internet connection – unfortunately that wasn’t the case and 1 month on I’m still without broadband internet access playing the waiting game for a line to be installed.
So for the past month and foreseeable future I’m relying purely on mobile data using an old Android phone as a Wifi Router.
It has certainly being a challenging month to say the least!
Content Creation
This month I published a total of 9 posts which is 2 more than last month. However this does mark the start of when I am going to dial that down to around 1 per week to see how that changes things.
We opened June up with how to find keywords which was shortly followed by my how to monetise your blog tutorial.
I then showed you how to publish on LinkedIn Pulse to generate traffic & showed you how to get free content for websites.
Then 42 experts shared their marketing tools and techniques which led nicely into 30 digital marketing certifications.
Other than those posts we just had the regular income report roundup post but I wasn’t able to publish the best of internet marketing roundup this month.
$2,844 SEO Giveaway
At the start of the week I launched a giveaway to win $2,844 worth of SEO tools.
You only have until Monday to enter so don’t miss out!
This is one of the best prizes I have ever offered on the blog. You can learn more about SERPED here.
Tweaking Conversion Rates
I have being trying to improve conversion rates on the blog for a while now.
This month I made a few tweaks to try and help with that-
Content Specific Sidebar Related Posts
I always felt the sidebar wasn’t very optimised, not from a conversion standpoint or a visitor standpoint.
So I decided to make a few changes on the 14th of June to try and improve things a little.
The first thing I did was use the super post widget in combination with the new Thrive clever widgets plugin.
That allowed me to create sidebar widgets that show related posts using the featured image based on tags-
I’m hoping that by serving relevant content via attractive imagery it will improve engagement rates across the blog.
The Thrive clever widgets plugin is super powerful because it allows you to laser target the display of the widget based on whatever criteria you want-
I am going to tweak and improve on this over the next month to see what happens.
What are your thoughts on this specific change?
Content Specific Sidebar Optins
When I went through this process to improve conversion rates I didn’t really target the sidebar much from an email optin perspective.
Last month I told you that I had switched from OptinMonster to ThriveLeads for a number of reasons.
So this month I spent more time setting things up and introduced sidebar specific optins to every blog post via tag targeting-
I’m testing different designs and imagery right now to see which gets the most attention.
But some tests are already showing clear winners-
I am going to carry on tweaking this over the next month to see what happens.
Welcome vs Exit vs 40% Scroll Popup
Finding the right balance with full screen popups is difficult. So the very first test I setup across all of my popups was to work out which is the best trigger.
I decided to test welcome popups vs exit popups vs popups that display at 40% of the post reading.
The data from this has been very conclusive, by far the best performing trigger is the welcome popup-
Across 9 different tests it was always the highest performing method without fail.
But heck it’s annoying right?
So my next mission is to find the trigger that performs as close to the welcome trigger as possible, but without annoying everyone – including me.
I am open to your suggestions :)
Crunching The Numbers
So let’s get our hands dirty and take a look at what my lack of internet has done for me this month.
Visitor Statistics
This month saw a steady increase from 52,912 (1,706/day) unique visitors to 58,387 (1,946/day).
Just shy of the 2,000 per day mark and my ideal goal of a consistent 60,000 per month.
Most Popular Content
The how to find keywords tutorial stole the show this month.
Although the overlooked traffic generation case study wasn’t far behind.
That left the rest of the top 10 pretty close but it was good to see the PandaBot Google search ranking case study hold its own!
Top Traffic Sources
Traffic sources have changed a fair amount this month.
I spent some money to help promote some posts on Facebook and also picked up a front page mention on GrowthHackers.
Social traffic looks to have remained steady overall.
Search Engine Traffic
Traffic from Google grew gently this month at 40,614 (1,353/day) compared with 38,785 (1,251/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 dropped slightly this month but that is because they are a couple of days behind with the data this month.
I published a new video at the end of June which is missing but with that said views dropped from 20,043 to 19,060.
This also meant that minutes watched took a hit from 110,908 to 103,865 =/
Social Shares
I have temporarily removed this section while I find a better solution to collect the data
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 3,100 new subscribers which is a nice bump up from last months 2,417 as I try to grow things.
There are now a total of 114,736 subscribers across all of the various channels!
- E-mail – 1,982 (1,737 last month) / Total: 61,789
- Twitter – 363 (292 last month) / Total: 9,093
- YouTube – 240 (253 last month) / Total: 8,200
- Facebook – 467 (114 last month) / Total: 17,487
- Google+ – 32 (26 last month) / Total: 17,801
- RSS – 16 (-5 last month) / Total: 366
Unable to post graphs at the moment – will update asap
Income Report
Here are the numbers you really want to see-
Affiliate Earnings
- 48HoursLogo – $75.00 (case study)
- 99CentArticles – $34.80
- ActiveCampaign – $0.90
- Ahrefs – $491.37 (my Ahrefs review)
- Aweber – $128.30 (my Aweber review)
- Blog Advertising – $827.81 (Advertise)
- BlueHost – $200.00 (discount coupon)
- BuyProxies – $25.50
- BuzzStream – $6.70
- Cheap Windows VPS – $8.50
- Drip Revolution – $147.63 (discount coupon)
- FCS Networker – $181.82 (discount coupon)
- GSA Captcha Breaker – $649.83 (review / discount coupon)
- GSA Search Engine Ranker – $511.45 (case study)
- Indexification – $3.59 (case study)
- Inspyder Backlink Monitor – $25.98
- JustHost – $80.00 (start a blog / discount coupon)
- Kontent Machine – $529.81 (review)
- LeadPages – $276.00
- LinkEmperor – $218.33 (review)
- LongTailPro – $81.45 (my Long Tail Pro review / discount coupon)
- Magic Submitter – $1.79
- Marketing Inc – $273.50
- Market Samurai – $257.76 (tutorial)
- OIO Publisher – $23.50 (case study / discount coupon)
- OneHourIndexing – $418.83 (case study)
- OptinLinks – $40.27 (discount coupon)
- PandaBot – $326.40 (case study)
- PowerupHosting – $25.80 (discount coupon)
- Private Internet Access – $6.00
- ProxyHub – $1.66 (discount coupon)
- Rank WYZ – $2.60
- Raven Tools – $0.42 (best backlink checker case study)
- s2Member – $139.00 (case study / discount coupon)
- SEMRush – $200.87 (my SEMRush review)
- SEO Content Machine – $17.63 (discount coupon)
- SEO Dominators Club – $346.90 (discount coupon)
- SEO Powersuite – $783.90 (see my SEO Powersuite review)
- SERP Book – $9.96
- SERPed – $207.88 (review)
- Social Locker Pro – $47.70
- SociSynd – $32.50
- SpinRewriter – $121.43
- TheBestSpinner – $126.00 (The Best Spinner review / discount coupon)
- ThriveLeads – $388.50
- Traffic Planet Hosting (now called WPX Hosting) – $124.96 (Case Study / WPX Hosting review)
- Tweet Attacks Pro – $119.68 (discount coupon)
- Ultimate Demon – $145.46 (review / discount coupon)
- URLProfiler – $21.92 (my URL Profiler review)
- VideoMakerFX – $152.60 (how to make money on Fiverr case study)
- WordAI – $97.37
Expenses
- Traffic Planet Hosting (now called WPX Hosting) – $49.99 (Case Study / WPX Hosting review)
- Facebook Ads – $450.00 (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 saw another drop off from $8,063.94 to $6,518.36 – I am working to recover that this month.
Earnings Total
- Affiliate Income – $8,967.56
- Consultation Income – $00.00
- Other Income – $6,518.36
- Expenses – $499.99
Grand Total: $14,985.93 / £9,597.81 ($17,643.67 / £11,621.06 last month)
Here is a complete look of earnings since day 1 of the blog-
Unable to post graphs at the moment – will update asap
Signing Off
It has been a very challenging month trying to run everything through a mobile data connection not to mention the challenges of moving house.
I had hoped for a focused month to catch up on some projects and get back on top of things after my crazy travel and conference schedule.
But life doesn’t always turn out how you planned it!
Thank you to everyone that has helped me reach my goals – I couldn’t do it without you, the reader!
60 Responses
Inspiration earning for who want to earn from blogging
I hope it helps you grow your business :)
How much you earn from youtube adsense
Zero
I want ask to you why are you not Starting adsense on youtube videos
I prefer to keep watchers attention on me :)
Maybe am wrong but right now buzzbundle is not working as it should, neither is google alerts for me. Can you pls let me know the alternative which you are using or which you recommend, free one if possible.
It works great for me but you might also try mention.net
Congrats on your progress and on publishing more posts last month! I can’t imagine how frustrating it must have been without having broadband internet like that. I get frustrated too easily when I have a slow signal or can’t get my laptop on wifi and have to rely on my phone alone. Some of the sites I use just don’t work well on mobile and I get frustrated too easily when I can’t use my laptop. Hope you get your connection issues sorted out soon!
Yeah its quite annoying, but screw it – there are more important things in life :)
Hey Matt, This time i missed out by a week to check out your monthly income report, as i was out of city for a vacation. Every time i see your monthly report, i have a feeling that one day i will earn like this. You are such a motivation for all the new bloggers like me. Thanks and continue sharing the awesome stuff.
We all need a vacation some time :)
Some great shares in this post especially the widgets. Thanks for sharing.
No problem Craig thanks :)
Awesome! I’m sign in your list to keep an eye about your great work, just want to see more valuable posts from you, keep going!!
Thanks, I’m happy to have you on board :)
Hey Matt, I’ve only just discovered your blog. nice insights into how to monetize a blog. Do you find the affiliate income is steady throughout the year or do they fluctuate? Whitney x
I have published a report like this one every month for nearly 3 years, take a look :)
I always love flipping through other peoples financials, because it makes this whole working from home thing really tangible.
No hype and just letting the numbers do the talking. Brilliant ;-D and thanks for sharing.
What really sets you out from the rest IMHO is your thorough detail, on the tweaks your are making each month to get month over month improvements.
I have a specific question about the Roundup Group, but I guess I should ask it over there.
It’s always best to let the numbers do the talking :)
Definitely noticed the sidebars! Will be using that on my site. Just one thing. They’re a little fuzzy on retina displays. Double up the image pixel size for hi-res graphics. :)
Well it’s a trade off between load time and sharpness, I will always pick load time :)
True! I’m the same, but fuzzy images just get under the skin of the perfectionist in me (which sucks when load time is king). :)
By the way, I have started my own affiliate marketing case study site at http://dougyhunt.uk/. Goal of £10k /month.
(The site looks proper pants at the moment and that goal feels impossible right now!)
If your goal is to make money, you’ll probably fail. Your first goal is 100 subscribers.
Ok, I will take that onboard and use that as my first milestone. I’ll let you know when I’ve reached 100 subs …say… in 10 years?! lol. :)
Nah you could do that in an afternoon with a giveaway or epic piece of content.
On a side note, although I often talk about income here and trying to reach x amount of money – behind the scenes not a single one of my goals has anything to do with money and never has. It’s purely on things like-
Number of subscribers
Number of visitors
Number of comments
Number of social shares
As long as those metrics are improving, forget about the moneys.
thanks for sharing your fantastic earning report with us and I’m new to blogging I started my first .com one month ago and I too published a income report of the month June 2015 at my blog http://codeblogging.com/june-2015-blog-income-and-traffic-report and it I only earned little but I like share with my visitors so that they also understand blogging makes you money.
Congratulations :) When you publish 3 let me know and I will include you in the roundup!
Hi Matthew,
Always love to read through your income reports.
I’m putting together a mega post on income reports and would love to include your blog in it if i may?
I’ts going to be published soon so i’ll keep you informed.
In the meantime keep on inspiring and teaching.
Raj
Thanks Raj much appreciated!
Hey Matthew!
By looking at your blog growth I can say that you’re the living proof of “content is King” concept! :)
Love your blog, mate! one of the few I still read these days :)
Yeah I would say https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/seo/link-building/zero-links/ was a success
Matthew,
By the way what is the tool you use to make those images Manage your seo easily, link building made easy.
The colors are very vibrant & attractive. I think it will have some +ve in conversion
Photoshop or Canva :)
Thank you so much Matthew for the enlightening information.
Great motivator factor.
Best regards.
No problem Octavio!
Are you still in Costa Rica? Is that what was causing the Internet issues? I lived there a while and couldn’t believe the madness I had with RACSA and everyone.
No the property manager lied to me
Awesome work Matthew – so helpful how you break down step-by-step exactly how you’re making a very good living online – what I love about so much of this is that it is like a flywheel, a lot of the hard work and graft you are putting in right now to get the wheel turning faster and faster will still be benefiting you in years to come.
Well, I hope so :)
Hey Matt, Again it was an awesome read. I have been reading your blog for 2 years now but leaving a comment for the very first time.
I can see from your affiliate earnings that you earned 273$ by promoting marketing inc by Glen Allsopp. Wasn’t he supposed to pay 1000$ per sale?
Not really sure, I think they had some huge problems
Kudos on such terrific articles! I think these are going to pay huge dividends as you move forward.
I hear you on hating the mobile hotspots. Been awhile since I had to do that.
Yeah its super annoying but its better than no internet :)
I see BuzzBundle is no more in the list, What happened ?
They are having affiliate tracking problems it seems
Hi Matthew
I like your stuff a lot and although I earn a little more than you every month (I am in the UK) I really have to graft hard at it and 13 hours a day every day isn’t unusual for me.
What you do is brilliant. Hard work I’m sure but having no direct customers (if I’m correct) is a big, big plus point and the model I aspire to have, so well done to you for achieving this.
I found this update on LinkedIn where we are connected and where I do all my business, so thank you for posting on there as well.
No problem Mark keep up the good fight
Always inspiring to read your reports, Matthew.
Your income diversification is really impressive, and something I’m trying to do myself. I’m amazed at the sheer number of different affiliates that you’re able to generate income with.
Keep up the great job & thanks for being so transparent.
P.S. Agree on Thrive Themes, their entire product suite is top-notch. Have you tried the Content Builder?
Thanks Mike glad you enjoyed the report :)
Not tried content builder yet but I keep getting pestered to do so :)
Hello matthew, I am nig fan of your blog. Such a big inspirational blog. And awesome monthly income reports. I am regular visitor of your blog. Thanks man.
Thanks Chintan :)
I definitely like the content-specific sidebar opt-ins. Will be looking into this for my blog as well.
Have you checked out Thrive’s content builder? I’ve been using it mainly for landing pages. For a one time fee it works great.
Not yet but I think I will end up giving that a bash as well
Cool, cool and then some.
I (literally) just want to be you right now.
~ Paul
Then I hope you like sun burn!
It wasn’t even that hot here today. I did a 7 mile run at 4am this morning (no kidding!) and I came back totally sweating, opened all of the windows because I couldn’t breathe and didn’t want the kids to suffocate :-) then by 7am it all went a bit cloudy and windy after that.
That’s Scotland for you…. I’ve got a big red face all the time, but I find it almost impossible to get an actual sun tan :-)
Hahahaha you would certainly have fun here then, it was 27 Celsius at 4am
Thrive clever widgets is exactly what I was looking for a few months back! Thanks
No problem :)