February 2017 Income and Traffic Report – How I got 61K pageviews and made $292.04

(This post contains affiliate links. My full disclosure is very boring, but you can read it here.)

Hi, I am back with another income and traffic report where I share information about how much traffic Allurinsoul get and how much money it makes.

I published my 1st income report in January 2017  where I made $14.46 blogging on alluringsoul. Although it was a very small income, I learned a lot from it and have shared all my learnings in that post. You can find it here.

You can find all my income reports here.

I have always loved reading income reports as they have a lot of information which a blogger like you and I can take away in a small time.

[UPDATE] – If you want to start your blog today and make money from it, then this tutorial will help you get started. It includes a step by step way to start a blog with just $3.95 per month  (only when you register with my this special link)  on Bluehost from scratch and assumes that you have no prior experience with blogging. Also, you get a FREE domain name!.

Blogging has changed my life for good. I enjoy the freedom and work on my own terms. Read the tutorial on how to start a blog and make money from it.

Why write an income report?

A lot of bloggers nowadays write income reports. I think blogging is the only industry where you can do that and I really enjoy it. I guess Pat Flynn was the first blogger who started doing this. While there are a lot of reasons bloggers can give you why they write income and traffic report, here are the reasons which I believe in.

Learning

When I started blogging I used to read a lot of income reports about how bloggers make thousands of dollars per month by sharing excellent content with their readers. I feel there is a tonne of information that a blogger can take up from an income report.

It has the much-needed information about how to grow traffic using various tools, how to engage users using emails and also how to make money from your blog.

Bloggers share their real-life experiences about blogging which have great value. Every blogger can relate them to it.

Income reports help other bloggers by giving the much-needed motivation to think about starting a blog and running it full time. It did that for me at least.

Also, I know I have made pennies this month, but I still believe this income report will help other bloggers in some way.

Transparency

It provides transparency and builds the necessary relationship between me and my readers which will go a long way. This income report is all about “you can do it too“.

This transparency is much needed if you are looking to have a healthy relationship with your readers.

Tracking and Analyzing

This is for me. Income reports help me to track my progress and goals. It helps me understand whats needed and what not.

It also helps in analyzing where are you spending money and where you should be. You always set goals for the upcoming month while publishing income report which means you know what you expect from yourself.

Blog Traffic

For the month of February, I got a total of 61,715 page views. This is around 300% more from last month when I got 15,026 page views.

Around 43,497 sessions on my blog come from Pinterest as you can see in the graph below. This makes Pinterest as the major traffic contributor for alluringsoul.

This traffic from Pinterest is mainly because of consistent pinning and great pins. As per last income report, I decided to find what other successful bloggers were doing with their Pinterest accounts and try to replicate it for myself. It seems to be working for me.

I think Pinterest is a great place to be in when you are starting your blog. Its the highest return on your investment (time and money both) you can get.

All social media platforms are different and the way you approach each of them is also going to be different. On Pinterest, the strategy is to create great informative pins. This strategy sure does not work on Facebook or Twitter. I have tried it and have failed.

I used boardbooster to run my Pinterest strategy on autopilot. Boardbooster is an awesome tool which makes sure you are always active on Pinterest by pinning on your behalf. I schedule pins for every day on boardbooster which have gained me followers and traffic both.

I also got some traffic from Google (Organic Search) as well. I guess Google have started loving my posts now :). Organic search does take time to build up. Also, I have not been actively working on optimizing for Google anyway.

Organic search does take time to build up. Also, I have not been actively working on optimizing for Google anyway.

Blog Income

I have made a total of $292.04 in the month of February. In the month of January 2017, I made a total of $14.46. In February I have made way more than January. I know it’s a small income but I am still proud of it.

• Ad Income – $282.93
• Affiliate – $9.11

Total Income – $292.04

When I started blogging I had no idea if I could make money from blogging. This is a lot for me.

[UPDATE] – If you are thinking of starting a blog then I would like to remind you again that I have written a step by step post on how to start a blog and make money from it. This is the post I wished I had when I started blogging. Here is the tutorial.

Ad Income – $282.93

I made a total of $282.93 from ads on my website. I used Media.net for the 1st half of February then I split the traffic between Media.net and  Ezoic for the rest of February.

Media.net – $93.18

I made $93.18 from media.net. This is when I was running media.net on alluringsoul completely for the 1st half of February then ads on 50% of traffic was served by media.net for the 2nd half of February.

Media.net is great to start with. If you are just starting your blog and don’t have a lot of monthly traffic, then you should start with media.net to make some ad income. They are great to work with, easy to use and pay on time through PayPal.(Means you get paid does not matter which part of world you are in).

Ezoic – $189.75

I made $189.75 from Ezoic. This money came when I was serving Ezoic ads on 50% of my traffic for 15 days only. This is great.

I had never heard of Ezoic, but my husband told me about it. So I thought let’s try it. It turns out to be great as you can see.

Ezoic uses artificial intelligence to place ads on your website thus optimizing them for each and every reader. Also, it bids to multiple ad providers in real-time for your blog ad space thus giving you the maximum returns on your ad space. They provide you all the tools required to grow your ad revenue without you doing anything. Isn’t that great!

I would recommend applying for Ezoic when your blog traffic grows to 15000 visitors per month. (This was the requirements at the time of writing this post). You can apply using this link.

Affiliates – $9.11

Amazon Affiliates – $9.11

I made $9.11 from Amazon affiliates. I know this is a very small but I am so happy that I at least started out with this.

Amazon is a great place to start your affiliate marketing journey. Although the commission is very small as compared to other affiliate providers, Amazon has the largest online store of products in the world which means you can find affiliates for almost any product. Also, Amazon is one of the most trusted e-commerce company in the world which means your readers will be comfortable buying from them.

Also when you are starting out with affiliate marketing, make sure that you only recommend those products which you have used yourself and have a positive feedback about. I always recommend those products which I have used myself and which I genuinely believe will solve my readers’ problems.

Blog Expenses

Total expenses – $5

Bluehost – $0

I use Bluehost for hosting my blog. I have taken the yearly plan of Bluehost so I have not paid anything in February.

They are great and very simple to use. Also, they have an excellent support if you need any help. You can signup using this link.

Tailwind – $0

I use tailwind for mostly analytics. I am on a free plan for now. I know the free plan gives you a very limited analytics, but that’s fine for now. For this month I was mostly concerned about finding new Pinterest strategies to grow my traffic, running ad campaigns and creating excellent content.

Boardbooster – $5

I use boardbooster for scheduling my Pinterest pins on auto pilot mode. If you don’t know about boardbooster, then here is what they do.

Boardbooster lets you pin your pins on group boards (which you are added to, obviously!) all by itself. Just give it a set of pins and time at which you need to pin, and boardbooster will repin then for you. Also, you can configure it to run this every day or any day of week or month. Its that simple with boardbooster.

Boardbooster is very powerful as it puts your pins in front of your readers which means more repins and you get massive traffic from Pinterest.

MailChimp – $0

I am using MailChimp for email marketing on alluringsoul. I am still using the free plan as I have less than 2000 subscribers. I started collecting emails in the mid of February for my newsletter.

You should start collecting emails early in your blogging career does not matter how much traffic you get.

I did the mistake of starting with email marketing very late in my blogging career. Make sure you don’t do the same as well.

Blog net income (income – expenses) : $292.04 – $5 = $287.04

Tools and Services

• Bluehost – This is where my blog is hosted.
• MailChimp – I use it for sending newsletters to my email list.
• Ezoic – Ads on my blog are run by Ezoic.
• Media.net – Half of the ads on my blog were run by Media.net as well.
• BoardBooster – Use this for Pinterest pins scheduling.
• Tailwind – Use it mainly for simple board and follower analytics on my Pinterest account.
• Amazon Affiliates – I recommend products which I use and believe in and my readers can buy them from Amazon. I make a small amount when they do buy from Amazon.

Goals

Let’s see how many goals from last month were achieved by me.

• Double down on Pinterest. I will have to find different pinning strategies to get more traffic. – PASS
• Creating great pins. I am following a lot of fellow bloggers on Pinterest and learning from them especially how they create pins. What works for them and what not. It’s going to be a learning and then implementing month for me. – PASS (There is still a lot to learn here)
• Get added to Pinterest group boards. – PASS (Got added to 4 Group Boards)
• More helpful posts. – PASS
• 1000 followers on Pinterest. – FAIL (Got 800 followers on Pinterest)
• 50 followers on Facebook. – PASS (Got 60 followers on Facebook)
• Increase my traffic to around 25,000 pageviews. – PASS (Got 61,715 page views)

Here are the goals for the next month

• 1200 Followers on Pinterest.
• 90 Followers on Facebook.
• Increase my traffic to more than 100,000 pageviews.
• Start writing emails to readers on my email list.
• Get added to 3 Group Boards.
• Be consistent with replying to comments on my posts.

Takeaways from this income report

• Select one social media platform to master, like the way I selected Pinterest. Before that, I have been trying my best on Facebook and Pinterest together with no success to either of them.
• Be sure to pin on a consistent basis on Pinterest. You should be pinning yours as well as others pins. Use boardbooster to pin on autopilot.
• Start collecting emails on your blog very early in your blogging career.
• Use multiple Ad providers to find which one gives the maximum income to you. I used Ezoic which completely beats Media.net.

This is it, my friend. I hope this blogging income and traffic report will help you in some of the other ways. It gives you the motivation to start and grow your blog.

If you have any questions, just email me or comment in the post and I will surely reply to it.