Monthly Income, Growth & Traffic Report – October 2015

This is the 37th 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 October

The past month has been one of the most hectic months I have had for as long as I can remember in terms of work.

I spent all month blindsided with preparing and releasing my free video training which has left little time for anything else.

It has certainly been a very trying time but as we move closer to the end of the year I’m looking forward to winding down for a little after November is out of the way!

Content Creation

Although I published a total of 9 post this month, up from last months 5 – don’t be fooled! 3 of them were to promote my free video series and I don’t really class them as posts.

Anyway we started the month with how to increase conversion with the free SumoMe Welcome Mat plugin before looking at how to increase backlinks to your website with Russian newspapers.

A lot of you had asked me how I was adding animated emoticons to my email subjects so I published the ultimate guide to emoticons for email to help you out.

Other than those we just had the regular income report roundup post and the best of internet marketing.

Free Video Training Course

I launched my free video training course just over a week ago that is honestly, the best content I have ever produced.

The video series teaches you the strategy behind results like this-

That is from a site in the health niche that was previously penalised by Penguin at the end of 2013 losing all of it’s rankings.

But now they enjoy a comfortable 1.3 million visits per month from Google alone!

In the free video series I teach you-

• How to take full control of your SEO
• How to build long term business ranking assets
• How to avoid the number 1 mistake that most people make

Click here to watch it now

This is is the best content I have ever produced and I’m going to be taking it all down on November 6th so get it while you still can!

Preparing For A Complete Overhaul

As I close off one big project I’m already looking for the next one and that is going to be a complete overhaul of the blog.

There are a lot of things that need to be improved and are along time coming so over the past months I have collected my thoughts/ideas into a list.

Here are just some of the things I plan to improve-

• Survey – I am going to send out a survey to all of my lovely readers to see what you guys want, then I am going to give it to you. I also want to give readers full control over the editorial calendar and what comes next.
• User Experience – I am aware that the user experience is lacking in some areas. For example if you are a subscriber you still get annoyed by optin forms – that is going to end along with a bunch of other UX improvements.
• Navigation – When I started the blog I made some terrible category structure decisions which makes for terrible navigation and finding what you want. I am going to better organise posts and improve the search function.
• Lead magnets – I could do a much better job with the lead magnets and content upgrades that are available, the delivery of them and then the backend email sequence.
• Design – Right now I feel like the overall design/look of the site is too busy and I want to tone that down to put more focus on the content and improve readability

They are just a few of the things that I am planning to do and I am sure the user survey will give me a never ending to do list but ultimately, you are the boss!

Desperate For Some Time Off

One of the most common questions I get asked is what is a typical working day like for me.

So I thought I would give you a little bit of insight into how I manage to get so much done is what seems to be so little time and that is through brutal hard work.

I haven’t had a day off since the first week of September, today is the 1st of November – so we are coming up to working 2 months straight without a day off.

On top of that when I have a goal I want to achieve, I am like a dog with a bone – nothing else matters until that goal is achieved.

So the past 2 months have being 7am starts and 9/10pm finishes day in day out with a small break at lunch to get some food, but only because I have to.

Needless to say as I’m writing this I am very much looking forward to some time off somewhere around the 16th of this month.

The point I’m trying to make though is if you truly want something hard enough, there is no substitute for hard work and pure grit.

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 went from 53,478 (1,782/day) last month to 55,414 (1,787/day) which is more or less the same.

Traffic seems to have plateaued to the blog recently and is still hovering just below my traffic goal of 60,000 per month.

Over the coming months I will have more time to achieve that but for now I have no complaints when it comes to traffic!

Most Popular Content

This month the most popular post was how to increase conversion with a free plugin closely followed by the sneaky Russian newspaper links tutorials.

Interestingly the ultimate guide to using emoticons in your email wasn’t very popular even though my inbox was flooded with requests of how to do it.

Top Traffic Sources

Like last month Not much has changed really in terms of the top traffic sources this month.

The only difference is that GrowthHackers popped into the top 10 as a post hit the front page.

Search Engine Traffic

Traffic from Google saw a small amount of growth again this month at 41,738 (1,346/day) compared to 39,912 (1,330/day) last month.

Most of the top referring keywords are brand based although there are a couple of odd ones in there-

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 this month from 20,195 to 23,297 which is a nice boost to see considering I didn’t publish any new videos.

Total minutes watch also increased from 103,086 to 119,825 so I’ve got nothing to complain about where YouTube is concerned!

Social Shares

Total social shares across Facebook, Twitter and Google+ increased from 83,841 last month to 84,971 this month.

However for some reason Google+ saw a big drop off in total counts when I checked it although I have no idea why at the moment.

• Google+ – 17,356 (18,133 last month)
• Twitter – 38,300 (37,052 last month)
• Facebook – 29,315 (28,656 last month)

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 2,376 new subscribers which is a small but steady increase from last months 2,251.

There are now a total of 124,209 subscribers across all of the various channels!

• E-mail – 1,300 (1,470 last month) / Total: 67,608
• Twitter – 297 (255 last month) / Total: 10,200
• YouTube – 312 (269 last month) / Total: 9,431
• Facebook – 463 (306 last month) / Total: 18,708
• Google+ – 6 (34 last month) / Total: 17,879
• RSS – -2 (-83 last month) / Total: -2

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 – $18.76
• AffiliateSummit – $86.85 (review)
• Ahrefs – $680.41 (my Ahrefs review)
• Aweber – $139.80 (my Aweber review)
• Blog Advertising – $715.75 (Advertise)
• BuyProxies – $23.00
• BuzzBundle – $196.93 (review)
• BuzzStream – $27.80
• Content Upgrades Pro – $21.24
• Drip Revolution – $92.97 (discount coupon)
• FCS Networker – $382.22
• GSA Captcha Breaker – $1,149.96 (review / discount coupon)
• GSA Search Engine Ranker – $392.36 (review / discount coupon)
• HQ Biz In A Box – $28.50
• JustHost – $80.00 (start a blog)
• Kontent Machine – $808.13 (review)
• LeadPages – $126.90
• LinkEmperor – $201.33 (review)
• LongTailPro – $829.74 (my Long Tail Pro review / discount coupon)
• Market Samurai – $46.56 (tutorial)
• OneHourIndexing – $511.86 (case study)
• OptinLinks – $27.34
• PandaBot – $102.00 (case study)
• PowerupHosting – $130.05
• Private Internet Access – $4.00
• ProxyHub – $3.98
• Raven Tools – $0.25 (best backlink checker case study)
• SEMRush – $143.92 (my SEMRush review)
• SENuke – $88.20 (tutorial)
• SEO Content Machine – $21.00
• SEO Dominators Club – $336.65
• SEO Powersuite – $1,255.32 (see my SEO Powersuite review)
• SEO SpyGlass – $64.66 (best backlink checker case study)
• SERocket – $37.80 (tutorial)
• SERP Book – $7.48
• SERPed – $2,902.48 (review)
• SESlingShot – $150.00 (review)
• Social SEO Booster – $23.50
• SociSynd – $17.90
• SpinRewriter – $48.50
• TextExpander – $8.99
• TheBestSpinner – $415.00 (The Best Spinner review)
• ThriveLeads – $49.75
• Traffic Planet Hosting (now called WPX Hosting) – $454.99 (Case Study / WPX Hosting review)
• Tweet Attacks Pro – $24.64 (discount coupon)
• Ultimate Demon – $218.98 (review / discount coupon)
• URLProfiler – $53.06 (my URL Profiler review)
• VideoMakerFX – $112.40 (how to make money on Fiverr case study)
• WordAI – $47.95
• WPRobot – $24.19 (discount coupon)

Expenses

• Traffic Planet Hosting (now called WPX Hosting) – $49.99 (Case Study / WPX Hosting review)
• Facebook Ads – $280.17 (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 has grown to $12,008.96 which is a nice step up from last months $11,371.38.

Earnings Total

• Affiliate Income – $13,346.05
• Consultation Income – $00.00
• Other Income – $12,008.96
• Expenses – $330.16

Grand Total: $25,024.85 / £16,188.93 ($24,209.62 / £15,974.15 last month)

Unable to post graphs at the moment – will update asap

Signing Off

Last month the blog broke the half million dollar mark in earnings since it started and it’s great to see that even though my time was spent elsewhere this month that income remained steady.

As we move into November I am preparing for the biggest month of income I have ever had as tomorrow marks the release of my first major product.

On top of that I’ll also be having some fun with Black Friday promotions towards the end of November but only after at least 1 day off!

The last couple of months have been a very testing period of my life, but there is officially light at the end of the tunnel =D

Thank you to everyone that has helped me reach my goals – I couldn’t do it without you, the reader!