Behind The Screen: July 2015 Report

It’s that time of the month again; where I talk all things blogging and statistics!

Statistics; July 2015 

Google Analytics

July 1st – July 31st
Google Analytics (GA) statistics seem to be the benchmark for blog statistics so I’m moving away from trusting what Blogger says and using these statistics going forward. It’ s great to be able to see a month to month growth and know that I’m reaching a wider audience every time.

June vs July

Users 2,284 vs 2,428  (+144) 
Page Views 4,733 vs 4,983 (+250) 

FB page likes – 593 vs 616 (+23) 
IG followers – 938 vs 998  (+60) 
Pinterest followers – 507 vs 518 (+11) 
Twitter followers – 2300 vs 2396  (+96) 
BlogLovin’ followers – 211 vs 217 (+6) 

Amazon Associates
– 1st July – 31st July
– £0

This month I was still playing around with these adverts and replaced the sidebar advert, removed it, and it replaced it again with a different version! There still seems to be no rhyme or reason behind people clicking the adverts so I’ll just leave it where it is for now – featuring relevant products to what is on the current page. I also tried a “shop this post” bar at the bottom of a couple of my posts. If, and when relevant I will do that again!

Affiliate Windows
– £30

Currently I’m signed up to MyProtein, Planet Organic, Simply Supplements and LessBounce affiliate schemes. I still haven’t had the time to effectively share affiliate links and I think the brands could do more to work with their affiliates.

{You can join Affiliate Window here}

I’ll be running a competition with Simply Supplements this month so keep an eye out for that! I got in contact with the Planet Organic affiliate team about working together and although I got a response it was more a “one day we’ll be in touch” so I contacted Planet Organic themselves directly in the hope of striking up a sustainable relationship not just boosting my affiliate income.

Other Advertising
– 1st July – 31st July
– £2.34

Kayla Itsines Affiliate Program
– $A3.56

No idea what this equates to in pounds and no idea what the threshold is for payment. I do love the Kayla Itsines programme but I just have nothing new to write about it! I’ve shared an old post every now and again (usually after someone has searched for it and come across my blog).

So, I just scheduled some tweets for the next few days! No time like the present! I also scheduled tweets to promote #ThePhoto101. The only thing I hate about scheduled tweets is that if I’m not around to reply to responses then it looks bad on me!

Collaborative & Sponsored Posts
– £95

I’m currently working on standardising my fee’s for blog posts. The main differences come down to whether they are written by me and how much time I have available.

Other work and consulting
– £0

I’ve not done any other work this month that has been paid. I’m currently working on an event for bloggers – The 101 Workshop on Photography. If you’re interested in coming along, all the information can be found here – www.keepitsimpElle.com/workshops – and check out #ThePhoto101 hashtag on social media to see what’s been going on! The event takes place on Sunday 16th August and I hope to have the hashtag being used on the day!

Costs / Outgoings
– iCloud storage upgrade – £0.79
– Facebook Advertising Fee’s – £6.94
– PayPal Fees – £3.63
– Inlinkz – $1.99

What Worked Well Last Month
This month, I cleaned up a huge ‘pile’ of broken links. It took me a good 1.5 – 2 hours but it’ll be worth it in the long run. I’ve been a lot less link happy in the last couple of months to keep my broken link cleaning up to a minimum in the future.

What I Did New Last Month
I deleted some old posts this month. This would’ve been for a number of reasons such as the post was no longer relevant or the pictures were awful (I realise this is a massive thing in my older posts); I plan on redoing some pictures for old posts, especially my Drill Packs which proved really popular when I first started out blogging.

– set up a Wordpress blog to get to know Wordpress
– cleaned up my IG profile by deleting some old pictures
– used FB advertising to advertise my page and #ThePhoto101 workshop
– used Twitter ads to advertise my 10km prep blog post (this was in June but only remembered now as the bill came through in July!)

What I Will Try Next This Month 
– hosting the London Bloggers Link Party

Posts On Blogging You Have To Read: 
– How to increase FB engagement 
– Bloggers making money on IG

Goals For The Next Month

GOAL – meet with Planet Organic and find a way to collaborate

So… anything I’ve missed that you’d be interested to know?! 

Do you have blog goals that you are working towards?! Have you blogged about blogging?! Share your posts with me too! 

Elle