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Welcome to the second monthly recap!
I share how my business has grown and what I’ve improved.
Contents
Previous recap reports
Last month I had a couple of goals for the month of March. Here’s how I did.
- Developing a course. Yes! I developed an email course for blogging business owners. The course is being reviewed at this time and will be released by summer.
Join the newsletter for updates. - Writing blog posts to promote affiliates. Yes! I have recently drafted and published posts on affiliates.
Related post: 1ST MONTH INCOME REPORT
In addition to blog posts, the podcast includes an episode dedicated to affiliates.
- Learning more about SEO and Google (e.g., Google AdSense and TagManager). Yes! Each article is vetted through Frase.io. I’ve embedded the Yoast plugin, and have activated the tag manager.
- Completing the Audience Growth Academy course from Ivory Mix. No! It’s okay…I am taking my time consuming the content. There is a lot of valuable content and I am taking my time to update each platform.
- Focus on consistency on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Yes! I am using Later and Recurpost. Each week I upload at least 20 pieces of content to each platform. In addition, to feed posts, I manually upload twice per day to every platform that has new features (most of the new features don’t have scheduling capability).
- Explore Quora and Reddit. Yes! I’ve been active on Reddit and Quora. Admittingly, I spend more time on Reddit.
- Complete a 30 -day engagement challenge on ConvertKit Community. No! The ConvertKit community is a great place to have conversations. However, I got distracted by Reddit.
- Convert affiliate links into pretty links. Yes! I have been making pretty links for podcast shownotes.
- Recording for voice and video. Yes! I’ve published an episode every week since the last week of February 2021. Each Sunday at 6:30 p.m., PST the podcast video premiers on Youtube. Join me every Sunday in the comments.
- Branding: I want to have some consistency in look and feel with my current brand colors. Yes! I have so many branding colors it’s hard to not use them.
March Income report
Here are my expenses
| Cloudways | $10 |
| ConvertKit | $30 |
| Recurpost | $240 |
| Later | $240 |
| Total | $520 |
Here is my income
| Anchor | $.27 |
Here’s how I fared
| Expenses | $520 |
| Income | $.27 |
| Total | -519.73 |
Top affiliate companies
Here are the affiliates that demonstrated the most amount of clicks. Here’s my list:
ConvertKit: ConvertKit supports small businesses with email marketing, e-commerce stores, and much more. I use ConvertKits free landing pages for months before starting my blog. It helped me start my email list and gave me a URL to start posting on my social media pages.
Frase.io: This is a blogger’s best-kept secret! This website gives free trials to make comprehensive outlines for your next blog. It is definitely worth a visit and I would love to know how it’s helped your business in the comment section.
Website Policies: This service helps me sleep at night! Having a website means having a responsibility to disclose your privacy policy with users. Website Policies helps you set up your policy privacy in minutes. I love that users can buy multiple policies such as return policy and disclosures all on the same website.
Namecheap: Namecheap is the best place to buy your domain! It is easy to use and super affordable. Best of all you don’t have to worry about high renewal fees.
Cloudways: This is a cloud hosting service that gives new users free trials to use their service. It is easy to scale your business and set up your website.
IvoryMix: Stock photos, Pinterest and Instagram templates, Freebie templates, Facebook group, and tutorials all on Ivory Mix! You can start for free and sign up to receive information on membership.
Grammarly: Grammarly checks your grammar as you are writing to improve readability. It is powered by a complex AI algorithm to support your writing.
Check out my resource page to learn about recommended products and services.
Analytics
I am so impressed with the analytics of my second-month blogging. Comment below with new blog link analytics.
I grew my Instagram to 16 followers with 115 posts. Here is my strategy:
- Average of 3 in-feed posts per day (a mix of video, stagnant pic, and carousel)
- 1 IGTV per week
- Average of 2 Reels per day
- Average of 2 stories per day
My highest performing Reel received about 1200 engagements.
The best performing post received seven likes while I had 8 followers.
In-feed video promoting the podcast with 7 likes
On Twitter I have four followers, the best tweet received one retweet regarding the podcast.
Tweet analytics with one retweet
On LinkedIn, I gained followers in less than 24 hours. In March I gained 16 followers. My best performing post gained one like and three comments.
Best performing post for LinkedIn about the podcast
My Pinterest blew up! I gained 19 followers and grew to 145K monthly views.
19 followers with 145K monthly views
Podcast
The Blogging Business Owner podcast was released in the second to last week of February. There are a total of nine unique listeners with a total of 84 plays.
WordPress
I am still learning to read my blog analytics (comment below with links of information on how to read Google Analytics).
Pageviews
I receive about 119 page views per month. I think this is pretty good for my second-month blogging. In the month of March, I’ve published two posts per week.
My traffic comes from almost evenly distributed amongst four channels.
Channel breakdown close to evenly distributed
Bounce Rate
My bounce rate is at 62%. This indicates that about 30% of visitors stay on the website. Most people spend about two minutes on the site on average.
Top Pages
The top two pages the home page (60% of site visitors click on this page) and the first month of blogging income report (4.20% of site visitors click on this page).
Time-on-Site
Most people spend about two minutes on the site on average. Home page visitors stay for about 2 minutes before clicking to a different page while visitors that read the income report take about 14-minutes on the page.
What worked
Here is what worked this month.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This month I focused on SEO by linking to tag manager. Recently, I’ve added the Yoast plug-in and will continue to update each post.
- Social Media Strategy. My social media strategy drove traffic to my website about a quarter of traffic came from it. I used Later and Recurpost for social media scheduling and management. In addition, I came up with my own manual posting schedule which I use twice per day.
- Podcast. The podcast has been a huge success! Each episode is based on the week’s blog post. If you have not done so yet, subscribe to your favorite podcast platform.
Sponsorships
I received an Anchor sponsorship for the podcast. It made about $0.25 for 87 plays.
What failed
This month I received zero subscribers to my newsletter. I am devastated since newsletters are my absolute favorite to write.
What I’ll be working on next month
- Substack Newsletter. I am so excited to start with Substack newsletters.. This is an opportunity to make money and gain subscribers. I continue to work with ConvertKit. They are awesome and have more functionality than Substack.
Let me know in the comments if you’d like me to write a post on Substack newsletters.
- In the next month, I hope to focus on promotion (e.g., guest post, podcast guest).
Comment below with collaborations you would like to see.
- Monetization! In the next month, I would like to generate an income with ads on the blog. Currently, I do not have ads. I will also work on learning more about podcast monetization, specifically sponsorships.
Future plans for my blogging business
Blogging Business Owner (BBO) is committed to supporting the BBO community with resources, services, and products. I am exploring Software as a Service (SAAS) to embed into the website.
Leave a comment below or send me a private message with pain points you would like to see solved.
Tips to Become a Blogger
During my second month of blogging, I struggled with social media. My advice to you… think about what is most important to you. To me, right now, it’s growth. New features such as Instagram Reels and Pinterest stories drive traffic. Think about what works best for your business and how you can consistently interact with the platform(s).
Recap
I am proud and happy with the results! I invested time and money into my business and I am happy that each platform incurred growth and drove traffic to the website.
Featured questions
I want to hear from you, what questions and solutions do you have. Comment below.
TAKE ME TO THE SHOWNOTES
Hi Ana, I really liked this post. We’re both around the same stage of our blogs – I’m going into my third month in April, so I can relate to a lot of the stuff in this post! I was really impressed with your Pinterest stats as that’s the thing I’m planning on working on more this month (I’ve been neglecting it unfortunately).
I look forward to reading more of your blog posts!
Hi Orla,
I am glad the monthly updates are helpful. I am glad we are on the same timeline! It’s nice to connect with similar creators.
Thank you for taking the time to read and leave a comment. I appreciate it 😊
💛 Ana