8 Month Blog Update

Seriously, where does the time go? I felt like it was only yesterday when I wrote last months update, which is a good sign as it means I’ve been stupidly busy! It’s been a good month money-wise with my highest ever monthly blog income, but time wise  (as I alluded to) it’s sucked! Finding the time to post is relatively easy, but it’s the community building and link building I’m finding really tough at the moment with work and my property business taking off – but I’m determined not to beat myself up over it – onwards and upwards!

On another hugely exciting note, this month I took part in my first blog trip! Thanks to BMI, myself and Jayney Travels were whisked off the Basel for a weekend of fun and frivolity – you can read all about what we got up to on the BMI website.

Goals Achieved

After having technical problems last month, I managed to get back into my flow of posting and community building, but somewhere in the last couple of weeks, this has come undone again! Traffic wise things have also been up and down, but this is probably due to me not putting in the time on twitter and reading other people’s blogs, so I’m hoping when things get a bit quieter (please God!) soon this will be back on the top of my priority list, as well as in Google!

The exciting thing about this month was that I made the most I’ve ever made online! Advertisers have been contacting me weekly to discuss deals, and it feels great to be recognised and having people interested in my story and the blog. I love it!

Otherwise, I’m just plodding along. It’s been a stressful little while and money-saving has meant not enough travel by a long shot but I’m off to the US for 10 days this weekend, so am looking forward to re-charging the batteries and coming back rearing to go. (I will however be offline during this period, but posting will continue as normal. Apologies in advance if I can’t get back to you as quickly as usual though!)

Month 8 Stats

Traffic – 5,323 visits (This is down again from last month, but I’m not going to dwell – my previous figures we’re over-inflated due to Stumble Upon, so I’m focusing on the bigger picture! Does anyone else find this with their traffic, or is it just me?! Bounce rate continues to fall though, which is a good thing!)

Link Building – As with last month, I haven’t done as much of this as I could have, but it’s been an improvement. I’m loving reading all the great stuff out there at the moment, so looking forward to catching up soon

Content – I’ve been steadily posting 3 times per week which seems to be going well in terms of time management and visits. I will continue to post this way for the foreseeable future.

Twitter Followers – 1,509 (Increasing – yay! Loving connecting with all the interesting people out there too)

Facebook Fans – 486 (Increasing)

RSS Subscribers – 159 (Increasing…albeit slowly!)

Alexa Ranking – 153, 264 (Come on 100,000!)

Income – In the past month I have earnt $710 on the site – this has been from text link ads and banner ads. Initially I was going after a lot of advertisers myself, but this month they seemed to all come to me – I have no idea why, but hoping to see more of this action!

About My Monthly Blog Updates

I wanted to start these monthly updates to hopefully help other bloggers out there just starting out or wanting some support in starting to monetize their site or growing it in some way. I certainly don’t claim to know it all, but I’m hoping that the lessons that I learn will be helpful and inspirational to others looking to make a living from blogging.

So, I think it’s fitting to put the question out there and see what you would find helpful to read about in these monthly updates – I will do my best to include it each month, so please let me know!

Photo Credit – Thanks to centralasm (sxu license)

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