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
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 / Ahrefs vs Semrush)
- Aweber – $139.80 (my Aweber review)
- Blog Advertising – $715.75 (Advertise)
- BuyProxies – $23.00 (SEO proxies / residential proxies)
- 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 (read my full SEO Content Machine review).
- 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!
37 Responses
Looking forward to seeing what the re-design will be like, Matt!
Congrats on a very good month. When I feel like stop blogging I just read your blog to get motivated to hang in here. Thanks for the quality blog posts you write for us folks. It helps us for sure..
No problem Derek :)
Your earning is very aswome! there are little people could do it as you
Thanks :)
The other income is from the health niche which got 1.3m views this month? great income, congrats
are you planning to keep focusing on revenue from affiliate income or do you plan to additional revenue sources? if so, which ones do you have in mind?
Nope haha
Well I launched my own course/product last week but I don’t think I’ll be sharing the revenue of that.
I might create some smaller/cheaper products for the blog though in the future
So good!
Well done Matt!
You definitely deserve it. Keep up the great effort!
Thanks Esteban!
That. is. AWESEOME Mathew! Hope everyone else is as inspired as I am. Showing the world it can be done, you only have to do it. And your pretty much giving over the exact formula!
Peace From Israel
Simon
PS. What social network do you find the most responsive and active to SEO and social media?
Nothing beats hard work my friend :)
Actually I’m not so great at social, I know I could do better so I’m probably not the best person to ask but in this niche twitter and fb do well
Yes i find for real people and traffic – Facebook is definitely the place for consistency – Twitter – meh, to cliquey and way to hit or miss in my experience… But I feel from what im seeing that Facebook has come of age and is an increasingly better place to build your brand no matter how big and drive sales while branding using social proof – like one big testimonial…
Twitter is very spam/bot heavy in comparison to FB
First of all, I would like to congratulate you for another successful month, its your content and hard work which is always top notch.
I also would like to wish you best of luck for your first major product launch.
Now lastly I have a question, Does the Exclusive Deal section revenue is under ‘Other Income’ sources? Im always curious on your other income… :D
Thanks Ali :)
Hahaha you can probably figure it out if you look hard enough
Keep on Rocking Matt!
Thanks Steve :)
Awesome Matthew – A 5 Figure month is enough to keep a basic roof over your head for an entire YEAR! (Something we should all aspire to.)
Was surprised by some of your lower earnings numbers – like for MSamurai and SpinRewriter. I dabble in SEO aff programs and am finding some of the older, more established and best players are really TOUGH to get a new sale on. Maybe they’ve pretty much saturated the space?
There’s also some pretty hard-core Launch-Jacking SHARKS who seem to have vids, review/discount scraper domains and web 2.0 blogs utterly dominating SERPS – a week ahead of time! Makes it tough for even a top-quality In-Depth post to cut through…
Thanks Glenn =D
I haven’t really ever done anything to promote samurai or spinrewriter they are kind of just residuals that pop through every now and then.
Yeah the launch jacking space is brutal haha
Love you, your great and fab and sexy! (errrr… maybe not in that sort of way…)
But…
What is it with you and the emails opt-in popups/slider in’s/exit-intent stuff??? Way too many, eps for peeps that all ready have opted in.
Anyhoo, (god I hate that phrase), still love you stuff, keep pumping it out…
XX your biggest fan (ok, that maaaay be a bit over the top…)
Hahaha
Yeah sorry they are a bit over board at the moment I will dial them downs oon :)
Question: This income is just from this blog, correct? It doesn’t include your SEO business or other sites?
That is correct
Good luck with your launch Matt!
Put me down for a copy of whatever it is :).
Mike
Hahaha thanks Mike – keep an eye on your inbox in the morning :)
Fantastic! So pleased you’re doing well.
You’re probably already aware of Will Smiths quotes on work ethic, because you beat him. :-)
Enjoy your time off.
Hahaha thanks :)
Good Job Mathew.
I crossed $1000 for my blog’s AdSense revenue for this month. My next target is $1500. Your article is a great inspiration for me.
Wow congratulations would love to feature you in the income reprot roundup if you publish them :)
Wow you deserve that Mathew..Kep up the great work..You have inspired me so much
Thanks Hassan, I hope that translates into success for you!
I have subscribed to Matthews blog for some time now and it is quite simply the best Internet marketing resource I have ever subscribed to. It contains nothing but genuine information that is honest and easy to follow.
Thanks for your kind words Gavin :)
Does all earnings above came from this blog alone? How about the health site you are getting 1.3m visits a month?
Great earnings btw.
Yes the earnings are all from this site.
you’re not making money with that 1.3mil health site?
I don’t talk about my other businesses publicly