Monthly Blogging Traffic and Income Report - July 2018

I always try to keep my blog reports concise, but then again, I do like a nice ramble!

If you want to check out my previous blog reports, you can find them here or under my Binge Reading page!

In any case, July was both an exciting and dull month for WebMonkey depending on how you look at things.

I was incredibly busy this past month with assignments and other school related drudgery, but I am thankfully almost out of the woods in that department!

Unfortunately the time I spent on homework detracted from my blogging endeavors, hence the reduced number of posts in July.

On the bright side, I was fortunate enough to have Shruti from IndianGirling post the first ever guest post on WebMonkey, which is something I wish to sparingly do from time to time to mix things up.

If you want to check out Shruti’s post, it's the post on social media tips to grow your blog. I highly recommend it!

Aside from mixing it up with a guest post, I wish I could have written more content.

However, I’m planning some fun and new posts for the next few weeks, so be sure to stick around for what is yet to come!

Blogging Traffic Stats and Growth

One of the main reasons I started writing monthly blog growth and income reports was to provide a transparent look at what other content creators or bloggers can expect (or use as a benchmark).

There are plenty of great bloggers out there who know how to market their blog through social media, email lists, or collaborations.

I am not one of these bloggers.

I’ve always placed a greater interest in developing organic traffic because it is consistent, requires no effort on my part, and generally consists of highly interested readers who are seeking an answer to a specific query.

Pinterest has proven to be an impossible nut for me to crack, and Quora/Reddit are still the only significant source of social traffic I receive.

Other than that, my blog traffic is almost 60% organically driven:

I’ve made an effort to drive more referral traffic through my Medium profile, and that has slowly shown promise:

I've mentioned Medium before in my guide on how to make money on Medium, but seeing the traffic benefits from content syndication is definitely another plus.

However, at the end of the day, my traffic still largely comes from Google.

For other bloggers out there who are like me and suck at social media promotion, just remember: increasing organic traffic is a slow but steady investment that is worth your while!

On that note, July was a nice month of blogging and saw another 30 days of excellent growth in the page view department.

In July, I received 13,788 page views, meaning this blog is one step closer to reaching the 25,000 session mark for applying to Mediavine!

So, what has been working in terms of my blogging SEO efforts?

A few things:

Consistently writing long-form content: Almost all of my content is 2,000-3,000 word articles that target low-competition/long-tail keywords to gradually increase my presence on search engines.
Editing older articles: If I notice my keyword position for a particular set of keywords is increasing or on the cusp of the first page of Google, I go back and edit the article to include more of that specific keyword/phrase and also provide extra value to readers.
Continuing to establish backlinks: Commenting on blogs that provide do-follow links, guest posting, joining prominent forums, and adding WebMonkey to several reputable directories like Rockstar Finance or Modest Money have helped me slowly increase my backlink count.

If you follow the 3 SEO steps above, it's almost impossible that your blog won't experience any positive impact or increase in organic traffic unless you are a horrendous writer, have a broken website, or write in the most competitive niche known to man.

I also want to stress the importance of backlinking for your SEO growth.

I've been trying to establish more backlinks every month to WebMonkey, and this effort has correlated with increased page views for the past 2 months.

Correlation isn't causation, but you need to backlink! End of story!

One more thing: I also think 2018 is an excellent time to start blogging.

There's been a lot of noise and nonsense that pops up regarding Google updates, the end of SEO, or voice-search changing how people even go about finding information.

Things will change and evolve, but quality content will continue to make it to the top.

Want some proof?

At the beginning of August, Google made a broad core algorithm update that is actively trying to reward pages that were previously under-rewarded in the eyes of Google.

If your blog lost traffic following this update, there is nothing you can really do to change it.

Google has also asserted that the only thing bloggers can do is to continue to produce valuable content:

This algorithm update should serve as a green light for anyone who is considering starting their own blog.

Why?

Because this update shows that high quality content is king.

It isn't impossible to rank well on Google, get to the first page, or grow organic blog traffic.

You just need time, dedication, and to provide value to readers! The rest comes with time.

Blogging Income Report + Other Side Hustles:

I'm going to keep this section brief because the last few months have been pretty straightforward when it comes to my money making endeavors.

Here is my income breakdown for the month of July:

Phone farming income: $26.29
Making money on Medium: $63.35 (after converting from U.S. dollars to Canadian)
Google Adsense revenue from blog page views: $41.43
Amazon Affiliate income: $4.81.

Total income earned for the month of July: $135.88

There are a few important/interesting things to note as well regarding this monthly income figure.

Firstly, my phone farming operation had the worst month of running in a very long time.

The main reason for this was my unfortunate ban from MobileXpression, as well as less attention spent on my phones in general.

For other phone farmers out there (or people looking to start their own farm) be sure to read the terms and services of apps very carefully and abide by them.

I was banned from MobileXpression for trying to skirt the system and operate 2 accounts, and I have paid for it.

I'm hoping to generate more money with my phone farm next month, and I have another phone on the way which I scooped up on an Amazon Prime Day sale:

The LG Rebel 3 should be a decent device for the farm, and I plan to reapply to MobileXpression with the device and set up other passive income apps on it.

Hopefully the device can pay for itself within 40-50 days. I am 99.9% sure this prepaid phone will work for phone farming, so fingers crossed!

In terms of other income, Google Adsense had the best month ever, which is always exciting to see.

And, finally, I crossed the $300 mark with making money on Medium!

At this rate my content syndication efforts on Medium is already a $500+ a year side hustle, and now that I'm driving referral traffic with the platform as well, I think things are looking up.