This is the 58th 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 July
July has very much been a month of spring cleaning and organisation.
From cleaning up all of my files and documents all the way through to re-organising everything in the house.
At the moment I have a little breathing room so I’m trying to make sure all of the right foundations are laid before my next grind.
Content Creation
I only published 3 new posts last month including the income report.
But the tutorials I did post – were awesome!
First we had these amazing Google Search Console hacks that was very well received.
That was followed by a huge update to my social media link building guide that shows you how to score some easy links.
Removed Links From Blog Comments
Unfortunately I had to remove the output of links from the comments section of the blog.
This was taking up a huge amount of time to manage – not only from the spam moderation side of things but also from the maintenance side of things in terms of cleaning up broken links.
So I decided to remove the output of links in the comment section entirely.
Essential Computer Maintenance
Both my desktop computer and laptop were in desperate needs of both physical and digital maintenance.
My laptop sounds like it was going to take off and I needed to add another 1GB SSD module.
The inside of my desktop computer looked like, well it looked like this-
Not only that but the side fans and graphics card fans were barely moving.
That is a bad combination of problems in a country that hits 32 celsius every day.
So I cleaned everything up, replaced a dead hard drive, fixed some broken USB ports, added a new M2 SSD drive and a bunch of new fans-
With physical maintenance taken care of then I moved onto formatting and reinstalling windows.
I have previously created ‘perfect system images’ with all of the software I need preinstalled for my desktop and laptop so it only takes 15 minutes to reinstall everything.
So with my desktop and laptop computers upgraded and running like new, I’m ready to rock!
Later this week my Herman Miller Renew desk and Aeron chair will arrive to complete my office upgrades – more details next month!
Crunching The Numbers
So let’s get our hands dirty and see how the blog has actually performed this month.
Visitor Statistics
Last month traffic dropped to 59,504 (1,983/day) but that has increased this month to 65,474 (2,112/day).
That increase is down to some improvements in Google and also an increase in Facebook ad spending when promoting new posts.
Most Popular Content
The social media link building guide stole the show this month with a significant lead.
That was closely followed by the guide to making money with Fiverr.
We also saw the Google Search Console tutorial perform well.
Top Traffic Sources
Not much has changed in traffic sources with a good mix of traffic coming from Google organic and social sources.
Search Engine Traffic
Last month search dropped slightly to 41,004 (1,366/day) which has increased slightly this month to 44,121 (1,423/day).
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 decreased from 14,177 to 13,746 this month.
That also had an impact on total minutes watched which decrease from 64,553 to 59,907 respectively.
Social Shares
This month the total social shares across Facebook and Google+ increased from 81,055 to 83,925.
Subscribers
The most important metric on the entire blog – earning a subscription from someone is the ultimate form of commitment and conversion.
There are now a total of 130,333 subscribers across all of the various channels compared to last months 128,626!
- E-mail – 920 (1,191 last month) / Total: 53,958
- Twitter – 154 (123 last month) / Total: 16,374
- YouTube – 170 (107 last month) / Total: 14,771
- Facebook – 427 (977 last month) / Total: 26,807
- Google+ – 9 (-22 last month) / Total: 17,837
- RSS – 27 (118 last month) / Total: 586
Unable to post graphs at the moment – will update asap
Income Report
Here are the numbers you really want to see-
Affiliate Earnings
Expenses
Consultation Earnings
I separate out the consultation earnings from the affiliate earnings. The blog drives affiliate sales directly and whilst it does generate consultation leads these are separate projects in their own right.
This month I didn’t taken on any consultation work so made a grand total of nothing!
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.
Last month this was $12,929.45 which increased a little to $14,205.76 this month.
Earnings Total
- Affiliate Income – $11,701.89
- Consultation Income – $00.00
- Other Income – $14,205.76
- Expenses – $3,498.63
Grand Total: $22,409.01 / £16,954.66 ($22,650.50 / £17,585.85 last month)
Unable to post graphs at the moment – will update asap
Signing Off
July was a great month and everything feels fresh and ready to go.
Over the next month I am planning to get back into some kind of exercise routine as I’ve not done anything since Ironman on June 18th.
I also have some new content ready to rock and will be putting together a plan of action to release the 4th update to my course.
So with that said – it’s time to get cracking!
Thank you again to everyone that has helped this blog breaker the 7 figure barrier – you guys are amazing!