(This is Twentythirtyfree.com‘s second blog traffic and income report for the dates of July and August 2019. Each month will feature a complete breakdown of the traffic, expenses, and income generated by this blog. This is to document the progress this blog is making as it strives to reach a wide audience as well as encourage others that making money while blogging is still possible).
If you read my traffic and income report for June, the opening line said it was a long time coming. The same sentiment can be applied to July and August as well. While family commitments overtook the month of June, I was simply in a funk for the rest of July. Not only did I doubt my ability to create content, I was starting to doubt the whole process.
In the last report I also mentioned how everything outside of writing articles was a learning process. For July, this was true as well.
I consider myself a tech-savvy person. I’m young enough to remember a world where computers have always existed. So it’s not the machinery that’s been driving me up the wall but rather the conflicting reports on how to best use social media to your advantage. Part of me was worried that the articles being written now would end up useless later. Part of me was doubting the fact I started the blogging journey in the first place.
I will admit it took me several months at the beginning of 2019. One of my friends is a software engineer by day who uses a WordPress-level-website by night to blog about his hobbies. I had to have a sit-down with him when I was first setting up the website so he could tell me why my pages and categories were switched around. How embarrassing.
(That’s the kind of stuff I’ve been dealing with).
Now I will let you know since I did not keep track of social media stats for the months of July and August, the hard numbers are not available…however, one article published at the very end of August is starting to lead to the biggest surge in traffic this website has seen. Stay tuned for September’s report one month from now!
Why I’m Doing This.
Even though I haven’t been updating as much as I would like, there are still a few reasons why I’m wanting to do these reports.
1. To Track Growth and Progress.
Anytime a new blog is started, I’m always interested to see what the latest post is. Part of this is because I like getting in touch with new bloggers and reading what they have to say. When they come from different parts of the world—or had a wildly different upbringing—I’m always interested to learn their story. To keep in tandem with a blog’s growth is a lot of work; so if my fellow readers are curious about how many other people read the blog, this will allow them to see it.
2. Reader Feedback.
By showing what articles and weeks have been the most successful, this blog traffic and income report allows me to gauge what my readers find most engaging. In a way, this will help me fine-tailor content on this blog and make it more useful for both casual observers and loyal readers.
Viewing Google Analytics is one thing but laying it out and using it to confirm the interests of your reader-base is something else. Another good thing is that if my articles start to dip in quality over time, the reports will let me know through the dip in traffic.
3. Showing Other Readers What’s Possible.
In addition to providing useful information on how to make the transition to adulthood smoother, I am hoping that these will document to readers that blogging is not dead in 2019. In addition to providing an outlet for your ideas, creativity, and knowledge, blogging can still be used as a side-hustle to generate part-time-income as you begin college or a career.
There are a multitude of income reports you can find online but a caveat to keep in mind is that a lot of the ones that show up on the first few pages of Google have been blogging for years.
So let’s get started.
July 2019 Twentythirtyfree.com Blog Stats (Google Analytics).
Pageviews: 68
Sessions: 66
Bounce Rate: 96.97%
Everything stagnated this month. No posts means the only traffic was from Pinterest and a couple of lucky visitors from search engines. I did manage to get a few more followers on Twitter and you’ll see the end result of that in the August section. Because the amount of views were so meager, Google’s Adsense’s notoriously stingy algorithm reflected no income growth.
July 2019 Twentythirtyfree.com Blog Income.
Google Adsense: $0.00
Amazon Associates: $0.00
Analysis: To be fair, I’ve only done one article with links to Amazon products and it’s been one of my least successful articles in terms of engagement. My highest-performing articles deal with university-life and I’m guessing that publishing those in the month of August caught the back-to-school rush of search-engine-traffic.
And, speaking of August…
August 2019 Twentythirtyfree.com Blog Stats (Google Analytics).
Pageviews: 45
Session: 42
Bounce Rate: 97.62%
Analysis: The two articles I published in August didn’t gain much traction until September. The food recipe article hasn’t done much but The Five Best Study Habits to Acquire During College has not only been one of my most successful articles thus far, it boosted my Pinterest engagement from around 600 a month to about 1,900 monthly! There will be more on that once I can publish a traffic and income report when September’s over.
My running theory is that if you craft specific, topical articles around seasonal changes, holidays, cultural events, or school-semesters, it will usually prove beneficial. This is the same reason it’d be a good idea to run a tax-return-themed article during March and April instead of September and October. I figure if I can match more articles to popular, seasonal-subjects using search-engine-optimization, then I can start to get the ball rolling on more traffic.
August 2019 Twentythirtyfree.com Blog Income.
Google Adsense: $0.00
Amazon Associates: $0.00
To date, $0.93 is the most I’ve made after four months of blogging. Granted, this is due to not having a regular posting schedule in addition to figuring out the best way to market the content. Going forward, I’d like to be able to post at least twice a week; I want to post more but given I already work 40+ hours a week at my regular sales job, this allows me to keep the blog up and running in case a freelance-writing opportunity comes up. I’m thinking about possibly using Fiverr to start building up a bigger writing portfolio outside of the blog.
Conclusion.
I will still admit that maintaining a clear posting blog-direction and philosophy is still one of the things I’m not one-hundred-percent-confident on. As the amount of posts increase–and the quality hopefully increases as well–I’m still going to look at the possibility of Facebook Ads and an email-capturing-system so I can have a chance at getting regular subscribers. While competition is fierce within the blogosphere, I still believe I have the ability to make a dent in it.
I have a feeling next month’s traffic and income report is going to be very exciting. Here’s to good luck and bold predictions.
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Let’s crush our dreams together.
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Previous Traffic and Income Report: June 2019
