Blogging: Two Month Re-Cap, Income Report and 5.6M Monthly Pinterest Viewers!

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Hello! It’s been 2 months since launching our blog on April 1, 2018 and it has been very fun, very exciting and a lot of work! We have learned a TON and I feel like I have read every.single.blog.post on how to be a successful blogger. My Hubby has been awesome, as usual, and is in charge of all things website-tech related (so GDPR was his issue, heh heh) and he has been figuring out all of the affiliate stuff, too. We have a long way to go towards our goal, but I am glad we are working on it together (so he knows it’s a lot of work!) and I think we are moving along nicely!

What is our goal? Well, in a nutshell, it is for my husband to quit his corporate job. And it’s a good job, so it’s going to take this blog generating a good monthly income in order to do so. Goal #2 is to pay down some debt, which will happen as the blog gains traction and before my husband quits his job. Lofty goals, but I think they are totally attainable and we are excited to be on this path!

 

So, like I said, it’s been 2 months since we officially launched LLH. In the months leading up to our “official” launch I was busy creating content, doing research and making sure the site had the look I was going for. My husband came in just before the launch to tweak some things with the site (plugins and such) and has been working on the site at night since then.

I’m really lucky to have my own personal Tech Guy because he has figured out how to add all of the social media buttons, the email sign ups, ad placement, etc. which would have been very infuriating time consuming for me. 😉 That has saved me a ton of time and allows me to focus on creating content for our readers, Pinterest, figuring out Tribes and group boards and more research.

Now let’s get to the good stuff – The Recap!

• We are up to 118 posts across 7 lifestyle categories.
• We’ve made $55.58 in ad revenue through Google Ad Sense since adding advertising to the site on 4/28/18 (so that figure is technically our “Month 1 Ad Revenue” figure.)
• We’ve made one WHOPPING affiliate sale on ShareASale for a total of $1.30! Should I save it or go nuts? I’m thinking nuts…. I’m kidding, but honestly, we were SUPER EXCITED by this one sale! My husband checks the “at a glance” balance like 42 times a day. 😉
• We’ve had 31,708 sessions on the site, resulting in…
• 41,529 page views.
• We’ve qualified for MediaVine, which from what I have read, is the best ad provider.
• We are using ShareASale, Clickbank, Flex Offers, More Niche, Skimlinks and Rakuten for indirect affiliate sales, and Amazon, Target and Ebates for direct affiliate sales.
  • Why so many affiliates? We’re evaluating which ones work best for our site and will eventually narrow it down so we are only showing the ads that generate income.
• Facebook is not my strength. I have joined quite a few FB groups for bloggers, but I nee to spend some time figuring out the best ways to grow my FB following.
  • I did a “boost post” yesterday and that has resulted in 63 click through’s to the post and 2 shares so far. I have a $20/5 day ad running.
• I’ve joined 22 Tribes and 53 group boards.
  • I’ve been kicked off of 1 group board, probably because it looks like I don’t re-pin other peoples’ stuff. I use Tailwind so I do repin, but it may not be *immediate* because Tailwind is a Pin scheduler and I try to schedule two weeks of Pins at a time. My husband freaked out thinking this was the Worst Thing Ever, but I’m ok because there are a gazillion group boards and I know I repin a ton of stuff. Honor system….
• We are up to almost 700 followers on Pinterest.
  • They can see our 60+ boards that have over…
  • 15,000 Pins (see?I repin A LOT!)
• And finally, since we all know Pinterest is the Key to Blog Success, we have reached 5,600,000 (that’s 5.6 MILLION) monthly viewers on Pinterest. In two months. <Big Grin>

 

What I’ve learned:

• I think we should have launched before I had 50(ish) posts on the blog. I say that because it takes awhile to start gaining notice, so you may as well just launch. You’re going to be adding content constantly at first so your site will look “established” fairly quickly.
• I should have started Ad Sense sooner. Every penny ads up. I’m not sure why I was hung up on waiting and thinking we had to be perfect before putting ads on the site, but that was a silly hang up.
• Pinterest truly is the key to success. There is no way I would be seeing this much traffic without it.

What’s next:

• Sign up for the Making Sense of Cents affiliate marketing course. My plan was to do that last week, but life got in the way.
• Apply to some high profile group boards and Tribes.
• Possibly upgrade my Tailwind account….
• Get started with MediaVine.
• Figure out a way to spend less time pinning from Tribes and Tailwind. I’m not sure if I’m doing it wrong or if it’s just because my country internet is slowwwwwwwwww, but it’s taking me hours to schedule 2-3 weeks worth of Pins + my own stuff.
• Look into Board Booster, again.
• Spend some time on Facebook and be more active in the FB blogging groups I’ve joined.

So there you have it! Our first two months of blogging wrapped up in one tidy post. We are totally dedicated to sticking to our goals and we are excited to see progress just two months in to our blogging adventure. I am going to keep working hard so that our 6 month recap shows some real revenue!

You can read more details about our first two months blogging in posts found here.

Happy blogging!
Allison

 

  

 

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