Behind The Screen: May 2015 Report

There’s been a few conversations floating around recently about blogs, affiliate links, being open, money being made and how many people read said blogs. It’s a pretty interesting topic as we all like to know the stuff that goes on “Behind The Screen” especially as we know how much life can be curated on social media.

So, I decided I would share my statistics around traffic and income maybe on a monthly or quarterly basis.

{Check out April’s Report here} 

Just to clarify, I never started a blog to make money; but if I’m going to stick at it, it feels like a natural progression. It would be amazing to fully support myself via the blog as it would give me all the time in the world to focus on the blog and get creative. However, the money I have made in the past usually goes back into the blog (e.g I paid for the new blog design through earnings from the blog).

Statistics; May 2015 

Google Analytics

May 1st – May 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.

April vs May

Users 1,931 vs 2,109 (+178) 
Page Views 3,812 vs 4,385 (+573) 

FB page likes – 534 vs 560 (+26)
IG followers – 844 vs 894 (+50)
Pinterest followers – 485 vs 503 (+18)
Twitter followers – 2147 vs 2226 (+79)

Amazon Associates
– 1st May to 31st May
– £0.25
– unpaid

I signed up to Amazon Affiliates (AF) around the middle of April. I’m still getting to grips with it and how it will work best. This month I removed the sidebar advert that I had and it seems (possibly) to have made a difference. I’m only promoting things that I would have shared anyway and affiliate links don’t cost the buyer anything!

Affiliate Windows
– £0

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. I get a weekly email from MyProtein with all the weeks offers but it’s a little overwhelming and I haven’t thought of a good way to share the plethora of deals and discounts on offer!

Other Advertising
– last 28 days
– £1.93
– unpaid

Kayla Itsines Affiliate Program
– $0

I’ve not shared this link at all this month and hence have had no click throughs. Kayla is due to be in London later this month so maybe this will be an opportunity to raise awareness about her products. I also plan (maybe) on completing a full week of her programme and blogging about it so I will be able to share a full experience. I’ve done some of her sessions on and off but never as my sole / main programme of training.

Sponsored Posts
– £50
– unpaid

I posted one blog for which I charged. Initially, I declined the opportunity as it wasn’t quite a good fit and I didn’t have the time. The boundaries were then widened and timeline extended which allowed me to take part.

I also got recontacted after 3 months of nothing about a sponsored blog post. There was no dialogue about the post and what I was sent was a bad fit, grammatically painful and the representative was extremely pushy. I kindly declined on that occasion.

Other work and consulting
– £650
– paid

I’ve had one external project to complete in May which was pretty darned hard work and time consuming. Once the entire project is put together I will be able to share it with my readers too! I think I’m gonna be proud of my contribution 😉

Having a blog gets my profile out there, raises awareness of my skills and what I can do for others.

Costs / Outgoings
– iCloud storage upgrade; £0.79

With all the photos I take, I had to increase my iCloud storage limit last month. At just 79p per month it’s not breaking the bank.

What Worked Well Last Month
Having the London Bloggers group has been amazing – nearly 200 local bloggers to bounce ideas off, share ideas, opportunities and discussions. It’s through them that I found most of the useful links shared below.

I’ve had so much fun creating images with picmonkey! They’re useful for posts such as ‘Elle Loves…May 2015’ so I can share multiple things quickly and beautifully!

What I Did New This Month
– Reduced the use of labels on blog posts
– Checked for broken links and began to clear them up
– Added Facebook Page link to email signature
– Started using no-follow links more often

Check Out These Awesome Posts For Blog Inspiration
– Geek guide to removing referrer spam in Google Analytics
– How much do real bloggers earn?
– How to create, delete and change labels on Blogger
– Broken link checker

What I Will Try Next Month
– Utilising StumbleUpon more for relevant posts
– Actively pin to pinterest from my blog more

Goals For Next Month

GOAL – create a media kit

GOAL – clean up labels on blog posts (complete 2015 at a minimum)

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 🙂