I wasn’t sure if I should do one of these again, so I took to Twitter and did a poll and 70% that voted said YES at the time I’m writing this. There’s still time of it to flip to no so let’s hope it doesn’t, awkward.
So if you’ve not read one of my previous posts, you can do below. Also just to note that I like to do these just to give someone an idea of what a blogger that has similar stats to me can earn. I see a lot of income reports that are generally from bloggers that get hundreds of thousands of pageviews a month, which I love to read! But they can often make me feel a little bit insignificant. So I just want to put it all out there and share my stats. I consider myself to be an established, medium sized blogger. I blog part time and have a full time job therefore don’t actively seek paid ops, mainly because I don’t have the time to scout them out!
If you like this post, I’d really love it if you could Pin the above image! I’m trying to work on my Pinterest presence and failing badly!
March Blog Stats
February vs March
Another side note before we start, I wrote a post last month on how I use Google Analytics, so if you’re wanting to track your own stats, please see this post for how to use and understand these reports.
So sessions and users and bounce rate has gone up, which I think its due to a competition I have running, when many people will just enter the giveaway and then leave. This is probably why my pages and average session duration has also done down.
Pageviews are down 1.69%, which isn’t that bad, but considering March was 2 days longer than February, I would have liked to have had around 1000 more views.
I didn’t have any posts that did instantly well this month that saw an increase in traffic on the day, but I did have a few posts that were slow burners and did well overall, gaining a steady amount of traffic daily.
Posts that got the most views were:
- February Stats and Income Report
- Win a £30 House Of Fraser Voucher
- How I make money blogging
- How I tripled my traffic from Twitter in just a week.
- I’m thinking about stopping being a vegetarian.
The order of these could be slightly off, as I had Jetpack turned off for a day while doing some admin work to sort out a problem I was having. All other figures etc are correct as they are recorded through GA, where as I look at top posts in the Jetpack Site Stats Plugin.
Where did my traffic come from?
So this is pretty similar to the last two months, though I’ve had slightly less referrals from Twitter which is probably because I’ve had a busy month and been Tweeting less, and had more search traffic which is always welcome! Thanks, Google!
I really need to get back on this Twitter game as I saw a drop last month, too. But yanno, life happens.
Domain Authority.
Woooo. Moz updated DA earlier than expected and I’ve increased form 35 to 42. I actually cannot believe it!
I don’t feel like I deserve to be a 42. I mean, I work hard on my blog and feel like I deserve it out of the effort I put in and I do write some good posts and post consistently, but I don’t feel like I get the traffic to warrant such a high number. I know of bloggers who post stat reports that get over 150k page views a month and I have a higher DA than them? It just makes me think that maybe traffic isn’t that high of a factor when DA is calculated.
My fitness blog has also gone up to 27 and my tech blog has gone up to 19 which is good because I don’t focus on them a whole lot. I don’t even track the stats but I know traffic is considerably lower than this site.
Social Media Stats.
Twitter.
Ahhh, I Tweeted more, but get less followers, haha. Never mind. I’m leaving March with 6,741 followers on Twitter. Hopefully I should reach 7k this month!
Bloglovin:
I gained 173 Bloglovin followers this month to end on 3053! I can’t believe I’m at 3000 followers on there. It seems like I’m finally getting somewhere with it as it took me ages to go from 1k to 2k! I gained a similar number in February too.
Pinterest.
After actually losing followers in February, I have tried to be a bit more active over there. Though because I’m not seeing much traffic I’ve not been spending loads of time on it. Mainly just going on the app a few times a day and repinning some stuff.
I ended March with 2560 followers, which is an increase of 445.
I’m still really not sure what I’m doing over there. I’ve read all the tips, I’m doing what the advice tells me but I’m just not seeing much traffic back to my sites with it! I’m starting to think it is one of those sites where you just have to get lucky and have a Pin go viral. Does anyone have any advice or experience to share with me ?
Instagram.
I hit another milestone with Instagram this month and got over 3k followers, brining my total followers to 3089.
This mostly happened during my week of work, where I was posting loads of fitness related pictures and being active on the fitness hashtags, that resulted in me getting some likes and follows. I gained 457 followers in March, which is almost double the amount if gained in February.
I also changed my username from Krinklet to Skinnedcartree on Instagram to make things more consistent. And I put my blog name in my bio. This is a bit risky as people I know in real life follow me on there but I’m getting to the point where I don’t really care.
Follow meeee.
Income Report.
Okay, it was a pretty average month on the money front for me. Though I did earn about £60 less than last month.
Income:
Advertising: £31.86
Sponsored posts: £205
Total: £236.86
Expenses:
Hosting: £2.99
Premium PicMonkey: £3.46
Over all, I’m okay with everything. I would like to get my views up a little bit higher but I’m not sure I have the time to work on that. I saw an increase in my daily pageviews when I had a week off work. But I don’t always have time to work on the promotional side as much as I wish I could – which is mainly interacting more on Twitter. I have had a reallllllyyyyyy busy month, starting a new job, a lot of socialising and seeing friends and I just have to face the fact that I can’t do everything I want to do and prioritise what’s important to me and what makes me happy.
I really want to get back on track with my fitness routine, too, so I’m putting a bit of extra time and focus on getting myself to the gym. Time that I’d usually spend online.
Until next month.
I reading these please keep doing them!!! I find it really interesting to see realistically what to expect if i did want to make money for my blog X
Thrifty vintage fashion
You should also consider that there was 4 days Easter break and so many people were having short breaks, blogging community was kinda slow back then. I think for Pinterest, if you don’t see related posts under your pinned posts, it won’t really show up anywhere. I am trying to figure out how to change it yet I have no idea! I hope April will be a better month for you. x
Ha, I guess you’re right about Easter! Ok related posts on Pinterest, I’ll look into this.
Congrats on reaching 3000 on bloglovin, it’s amazing. x
Thanks for sharing this. It must be hard to put out there, but it really is helpful. Blog income is really shrouded in mystery!
Great breakdown doll
I love it when you do this post, I voted to see it, I love how you are so open to show us! 🙂 I have learned so much since I started reading your blog 🙂 You are doing so well on bloglovin’ I am really trying to boost numbers on there right now but it is so hard, especially as it doesn’t have a followers tracker like instagram or twitter, argh!
http://www.makeerinover.co.uk
Very inspiring to read this! I am also interested in the related posts on Pinterest
Woo for gym! Maybe you can incorporate gym and twitter? xx
I love these posts of yours and well done on the 3k on bloglovin! Tania xx taniamichele.blogspot.co.uk
It’s amazing how much traffic you get from Twitter, I wish I got that much but I guess I just don’t have that many followers yet, one day I hope… My biggest traffic driver is Google actually which is going up every month slowly so at least I am making progress somewhere..
Well done on achieving such a high DA!
Love seeing this breakdown!
Thanks for sharing! I really should be looking more at my stats and setting goals. I did have one post go a little viral last month and that boosted my page views over 18K which was pretty cool.
I really love reading your monthly reports, it gives me a kick up the ass to try and do something about my own stats that’s for sure. I’m so SO happy you’re putting your blog link on more personal profiles and not caring who knows anymore, your blog is amazing and something to be really proud of!
Sarah 🙂
Thanks for sharing! As a newbie blogger, this was really helpful! 🙂
Can you tell me how you see the source of how people find your blog? I can’t seem to find that on my Google Analytics!
Julia
http://www.thephillyphotoblog.com/
I love these reports so much- your one of the few bloggers do them and I love that you are a mid-range blogger with similar stats so it shows what is achievable.
Really enjoy reading your blog- despite your hairy arms (joke- it is jenbalancebelly from twitter!)
gosh, you are so open and honest to be putting this on here! Fantastic work girl – congrats on all those milestones!
These reports are always so helpful for new and growing bloggers, thanks for sharing and being so open!
I’m always amazed by some of the stats people have and I’m sure you’re proud (you should be!!) 🙂
I’ve really been working hard on my social media outreach these past few months and I’ve noticed a massive change which makes it all feel really worth while. I was wondering in your next report (if you do one!) would you be willing to share or talk about twitter engagement as well? I’ve noticed I’ve really increased my following, impressions, mentions and profile hits (Etc) but actually getting engagement from all those impressions is a much slower process. It’s on the up all the time (yay) but if you had any honest tips on improving engagement, or where yours is at I think that would be really useful for smaller bloggers too!
I really enjoy reading stuff like this. Always interesting to see, and helpful to see the process of your thoughts! I think with DA, although traffic is taken into account, it isn’t the most important thing. Links are a pretty big part of SEO stuff, and getting naturally linked from a big website with a high authority gives you a lot of good rep. Say for example you’re a fashion blog and ASOS links to you in one of their posts, that’s a great referral for you. (That doesn’t include spammy/unrelated links or placing your link in a comment though!) I don’t understand it completely, but that’s my basic understanding – and I think it’s right haha!
I love reading these posts Corinne, it’s so interesting to see stats etc from a blog that’s closer in size to my own 🙂
Jess xo
This is a really interesting post, especially for a new blogger who doesn’t really understand all the stats etc! I will share the post to Pinterest on my blogging board 🙂
Also, I’m in awe at how you have a full time job and still manage to post so regularly and consistently. I work full time and aimed to post on my blog once a week but I struggled massively so have just decided to post as and when I feel like it – for the time being anyway 🙂
Kirsty xo.
Ha, blogging really does get easier with time, I think. My process is quite slick so it doesn’t take as long as it seems!
Really great posts! Have you talked about how you get advertising? This is something I am struggling with right now and would love to learn more. (I have spent the whole day, again, catching up on your blog. I learn so much!)
Thanks Corinne for posting your stats again. I know you put a lot of time into these posts, and as a blogger myself, I love seeing the stats and how your blog grows.
Wow! You did awesome. This will inspire more bloggers to continue blogging by doing like what you did. Thanks for sharing dear!
xx
Rica
Thanks so much for sharing! I have read quite a few income reports, and while they are inspiring and motivating, it is nice to see a more realistic impression of what starting out with monetization looks like. It’s not easy to make 4-5 figures a month doing anything, least of all blogging. Keep sharing – these are great!
Wow this was soo amazing. I am so bookmarking your blog. It’s a gem I found seriously. A lot of useful information I never seen before c:
Thank you for sharing your stats.
x
http://diaryofseresha.blogspot.com/