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My first month of blogging has officially come to a close and what an adventure it’s been so far! Before I started this blog, I had no idea just how difficult blogging could be! I also had no idea just how rewarding it could be to reach my small milestones.
I’ve decided to share my income reports for several reasons. First, I want to keep track of my goals and see how I’m measuring up. Second, I want to share my progress with my readers and hopefully inspire them to start a blog of their own. It’s my way of “giving back.”
Make sure to check out my guide on how to start a profitable blog!
Related: Resources to Grow Your Blog and Income
March 2018 Goals & Learnings
Since I just launched my blog in March 2018, I did not set very far-fetched goals. I set goals that I felt were perfectly attainable:
1. Write 10 posts and launch my blog by March 31, 2018
I bought my domain on March 7, 2018, which basically gave me a 3-week window to write 10 outstanding posts to captivate my audience. I did not want to launch my blog before I had these 10 posts. I did not to risk people coming to my blog and realizing that I had nothing to offer and never visit again.
I ended up launching my blog unofficially on March 23, 2018 (2 weeks after purchasing my domain). At that point, I had 6 posts up. I was getting impatient and wanted to get some feedback from readers.
I am so glad that I decided to launch my blog early. I received a ton of feedback that helped me to improve my blog further. If I had waited, I would only have slowed down my progress.
Related: Blogging for Profit: How To Start A Money-Making Blog
2. Create social media handles and start promoting my blog on social media
I signed up for social media handles on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. What I realized right off the bat was that Facebook and Instagram were pretty difficult to drive traffic to my blog.
I then decided to focus mainly on Pinterest and Twitter. I wanted to test the waters and didn’t expect to start driving traffic to my blog so early on. However, within my first 10 days of launching, I was already receiving traffic from both my Pinterest and Twitter which is pretty nifty!
Within five days, I received 1,100 impressions on my Twitter and 1,120 impressions on Pinterest. I think that’s pretty darn good for a brand new account with zero followers!
Related: Is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Worth The Money? An Honest Review
3. Create a mailing list
I set up a free account on MailChimp and wanted to see how many e-mail subscribers I could attract WITHOUT putting any lead magnets on my site yet.
In March, I obtained 1 email subscriber (Thank you Cindy!). I couldn’t believe someone would actually subscribe to my site when I had almost no content up!
What’s great about MailChimp is that it’s free up to 1,000 subscribers! I think I will switch to another provider before that point.
Related: My Second Month Blogging – April 2018 Income Report – $4.86
My Blogging Goals for April 2018
- 10,000 page views
- 500 followers on Twitter
- 100 followers on Pinterest
- 20 email subscribers
- Write 20 blog posts (1 per week day)
- Get at least one affiliate sale
Since I have only launched my blog 10 days ago, I am still “getting the hang” of social media and driving traffic to my site. I believe that these goals I’ve set would qualify as “stretch goals.” I’m super excited to see my stats at the end of April!
Related: How To Pick The Perfect Blog Name
Key Stats for March 2018 (9 days)
- Page views: 1,066
- Twitter Followers: 70 (5 days)
- Pinterest Followers: 15 (5 days)
- Email subscribers: 1
I am super content that I received over 1,000 page views in the 9 days that I’ve launched my blog. That’s more than 100 page views per day on average! On top of that, my Twitter and Pinterest are both gaining momentum, and I only launched them towards the end of March!
Related: The Full-Time Student Blogger Who Earns $10K A Month From Side Hustles
March 2018 Blog Income: $0
- Income: $0
As I have previously stated, this is my first month blogging. I did not set any objective goals in terms of page views or followers. I knew I wouldn’t be making any money this month because I haven’t started my blog monetization strategy yet.
Related: How To Choose A Profitable Blog Niche
March 2018 Blog Expenses: $1,007.88
- Bluehost: $110.88 (for 3 years hosting + free domain)
- Elite Blog Academy: $897
I purchased a 3-year hosting plan with Bluehost. Overall, I’ve read great reviews about hosting with Bluehost and so far, I have no complaints. You can sign up through my link to take advantage of the same offer (as little as $2.75 per month). What’s great is that I received a free domain by signing up for hosting!
I am also super glad that I signed up for Elite Blog Academy. It’s a hefty upfront expense but I believe that it will pay off immensely. As a brand new beginner blogger, I wanted to make sure that I started off right and didn’t repeat any mistakes that could be costly to my blog. So far, I am very content with the course (I am on unit 3 out of 12 units) and I will provide a complete review once I am finished!
Related: How I Made My Very First Affiliate Sale By Accident
March 2018 Net Profit: -$1,007.88
I hate the idea that I’m starting my blog off in the red, but this is perfectly normal. Of course, I could have started my site on a free platform like Blogger.com, but I wanted to set myself up for success. I knew that in the long run, I would need my own self-hosted blog to be successful.
The investment in Elite Blog Academy is probably going to be the largest expense for my blog in 2018. It’s only been one month so far but I am completely loving it. I hope to publish a review on it soon!
Related: How I Grew My Monthly Pinterest Traffic To 100,000 By Manually Pinning (No Tailwind or Boardbooster)
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thank you Janet for sharing that with us, i always find your posts inspiring and motivating, i’m still on my staging area, i’m still writing a few blog posts first, and i’m a little bit excited and scared, excited more actually to hit that “Publish” on my blog.
Thank you.
Hi Janet
I really admire your confidence and invest so much in a program. Must admit the most I ever invested for an online course was $197 for Michelle`s course and I felt it was overpriced.
I know in online world you have to invest in different tools and a few dollars here and there also adds up but very expensive products like Elite Blog Academy is out of reach of many new bloggers.
Having said that, I know it will cost more to invest offline.
Hi Roamy,
I agree with everything you said! It was a big risk to invest in so many courses at the beginning but it’s paying off!
That’s very encouraging, Janet! I launched mid June and taking it slowly with my mommy responsibilities.
Quick question. I find myself stuck with no email subscriber option since they require addresses. I work from home, so won’t share my address.
I know convertkit allows you to use their mailing address. Any idea whether something similar is available through mailchimp?
Thanks in advance!
No on Mailchimp that option is not available unfortunately. I know many bloggers get a PO Box for that reason.
Good luck with your blogging adventure 🙂
this is amazing. I just subscribed. is your twitter and pinterest account business ?
Hi Naija,
Thank you for subscribing!
My Pinterest is a business account, my Twitter is not
My Pinterest is: https://pinterest.com/mytwentycents
My Twitter is: https://twitter.com/twentycentsblog
Honestly amazing! I recently started a blog as well (last week haha) and am amazed at your progress in just 9 days! I hope I learn the success to page views soon! Can’t wait to read the rest of your articles and follow your journey!
Hey Emily Grace! Your blog is very cute, great work for just 1 week! Your photos are awesome!
I just started blogging Jan. We can totally be blogging buddies. Canadian millennial here on the west coast. It is awesome and super exciting to meet other Chinese Canadians millennial money bloggers! You are a lot more brave and adventurous than me! I’ve only visited Lucerne Switzerland once in my mid 20s. Yup, rode up the Matterhorn. Scenes in Austria/Swiss Alps reminded me a lot of the Rocky Mountains over here on the west coast. Everything felt. so. expensive. that time as Swiss Fracs to CDN was ~2:1. Even eating at McDonalds felt expensive.
You are getting phenomenal value with the scholarship and stipend!
Welcome to the PF community!
Did you rent out your house and is it enough to cover your expenses?
Real estate is crazy here on the west coast too. Even more so with less high paying corporate jobs .
Great, happy to get in touch.
Yes, Switzerland is super expensive, I never ate McDonalds here!
If I have to move back to Canada one day, I am definitely going to settle down on the west coast. I can’t picture myself living in Toronto again.
I have rented out my house and the rent does not cover all my expenses (I pay insurance, property taxes out of pocket).
Great post. I started my blogging journey officially in March as well. I look forward d to reading more about your journey.
I like how open and honest you are with your goals! It’s very nice to see and very inspirational. Keep it up 🙂 liking your simplistic and minimalistic blog!
Thank you 🙂
Welcome Janet, I wish you good luck with this new adventure 🙂
Aiming to 10k page views on the second month is a very ambitious goal!
10 posts in 20 days… Ahhh I remember the days when I was posting at that frequency!
Oh yes, I realized a day after posting that ambitious 10k goal that it wasn’t going to happen. I think I was dreaming and miscalculated the numbers in my head 😛