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It’s May 1st, and I’ve just completed my fifth month of blogging. Yes, really, I can’t believe it either! I love sharing the realistic side of starting a new blog from scratch – and you seem to love reading about it. Here’s my fifth month blog growth and income report: all the raw data, my successes and failures, and goals for future months!

Check out my other income reports here:

Why I post blog growth and income reports:

When I started my journey of blogging, I read lots of posts titled “blog income reports” and “blog growth reports” where bloggers post all their traffic and monetary numbers for their readers to see, to be completely transparent about everything they do!

The first income report I read was by Create And Go, which they update monthly here. They have great info and you should check them out if you’re interested in blogging.Create And Go is a very successful blog, with many followers and high SEO ranking. Comparatively, I found very few new bloggers that post growth reports or income reports in the early stages of their blog.

Most people wait 4-6 months, or maybe a whole year, to post a growth report – enough time for them to build a social media presence and gain authority online.

I decided to start monthly growth reports at the beginning of my blogging career to show the process from the very start of creating a new blog! These blogging reports will include growth and income information, social media information, as well as my goals for the following month of blogging!

5th Month Blog Growth and Income Report! I've only had this blog for a little while, and I've made tons of progress so far. Check out my income reports (I do one every month!) so you can see a realistic growth pattern with blogging.

General Information:

  • I launched BeautyBrainsBlush.com on December 1, 2018
  • This report covers month five, from April 1 – 30, 2019
  • I published 11 blog posts this month!

Page Views and Users

Goals I had for this month:

  • 10k users
  • 13k page views

This month’s statistics:

  • 11,893 users (up from 6.5k)
  • 14,153 page views (up from 8.3k)

Audience April 2019 beautybrainsblush.com

The very vast majority of my traffic came from two posts about new makeup releases, which I very clearly posted at the beginning of the month. I wish my other articles received as much attention, but the competition for those keywords are much harder than brand new ones!

I didn’t fall below around ~120 users on any given day, though I know it looks like there weren’t many viewers compared to the huge spike in traffic.

Goals for next month:

  • 15k users
  • 18k page views

Acquisition

Goals I had for this month:

  • Rank on Google for more articles
  • Rank on Pinterest for some articles

This month’s statistics:

Acquisition april 2019 beautybrainsblush.com

This is pretty similar to last month’s, actually!

My social traffic was also almost identical to March’s, with the majority being Facebook and the rest mainly from Pinterest. I didn’t post in nearly as many groups this month, though – so I’m not sure where all the Facebook views are coming from!

I have ranked on Google for more articles this month, average position 10.5 according to Google Search Console.

Still haven’t figured out the Pinterest ranking, though.

Goals for next month:

  • Focus on Pinterest traffic and articles that will do well on Pinterest!

 

 

Email

Goals I had for this month:

  • 50 subscribers
  • Create opt-ins

This month’s statistics:

  • 34 subscribers! (up from 15!)

This is actually a huge increase for me – I doubled! AND I didn’t even have any opt-ins, I just targeted my subscribe placements better and created another group for bloggers to send out these growth reports 🙂

Goals for next month:

  • Brainstorm freebies
  • Put out a freebie
  • 60 subscribers

Shameless plug:

 

Social Media

Goals I had for this month:

  • Post 4/7 a week on Instagram
  • Post 6/7 a week on Facebook
  • Go live?
  • Promote group

This month’s statistics:

  • Pinterest: 3076 followers, 2.2 million monthly reach
    (up from 2166 followers and 2 million monthly reach)
    Pinterest has been pretty stable for me, and I’m okay with that. Next month I want to re-focus on Pinterest again, and aim to never run out of my Tailwind que (whoops!) and rank for articles on Pinterest.
  • Instagram: 1371 followers
    (up from 1330 followers)
    I still need to post more regularly, and maybe even post some videos! I’m happy with my growth this month, though – it’s better than I have been doing. I also now have access to liketoknow.it posts, and want to utilize that a LOT! More on this in the income section.
    This month I also started a lil blogging support group with some great women on IG, and I’m so excited to have blogging friends.
  • Facebook: 81 followers
    (up from 67)
    Still haven’t done FB lives.
  • Twitter: 14 followers, I don’t really use Twitter I just have the account.

Goals for next month:

  • Post post POST!
  • Post some videos. 3 short ones maybe?
  • Go live at LEAST 1x week on IG.

 

 

Income

Goals I had for this month:

  • Make $250
  • Have a shopping type of page on the blog for affiliates and favorite products

This month’s statistics:

Not even CLOSE to $250, but I’m okay with that right now. $130/$136 of last month’s income was two affiliate bounties that were unlikely to repeat themselves. This month did not include any of that, so if I disregard the random chance of $130, I made a lot more this month on actual blogging stuff!

Last month I shared a whole mess of affiliate programs I was accepted into. This month, instead of listing individual programs, I am beyond excited to share that I have been accepted into rewardStyle! rStyle is a more exclusive affiliate marketing network, and they have access to tons of affiliate programs – all of which I have access to as a part of their network! I didn’t expect to be accepted on my first try, and I am so thankful that I was.

There are some really cool things you can do with rStyle, such as the interactive guides in my Mother’s Day gift guide post, and the liketoknow.it shoppable Instagram feed in my sidebar.

I added a deals page this month, and plan to keep it – but I will also be adding a shop page with my daily routine and favorites on it. Keep an eye out for that new page sometime soon!

With rStyle, I can link to amazing stores like Sephora, Ulta, Beautylish, and more makeup retailers that my readers are already comfortable using – and are more likely to order from than individual retailers.

Anyway, enough chit chat, let’s get to the numbers!

  • Google AdSense: $9.79
  • Amazon Affiliates: $2.18
  • rStyle: $32.87

Total for this month, $44.84!

I won’t actually receive all this money until I reach minimum thresholds (like $100 for AdSense) but this is what I have earned during the month of April.

Though this total is less than last month, I’m way more proud of this income than March’s.

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5th Month Blog Growth and Income Report! I've only had this blog for a little while, and I've made tons of progress so far. Check out my income reports (I do one every month!) so you can see a realistic growth pattern with blogging.

Goals for next month:

I think I’m going to keep my same goal as last month, since I didn’t reach it.

  • $250
  • publish a shopping page
  • update deals page

Expenses

I have expenses that were pre-paid for this month, such as my hosting (three year plan) and Tailwind (year plan).

$10 for Canva business

$40 for Teachable – I don’t know if I’m going to do an ecourse yet, but I’ve been taking the ones that I got as a part of my sign-up deal.

Future Goals

As always, I hope this fifth month blog growth and income report was helpful. Be sure and check out my other reports, too!

Check out my other income reports here:

If you’re interested in starting your own beauty blog, I can help with that.

If you already have a blog and want to chat about anything in this report or just connect with me, hit the messenger chat box in the bottom right corner of your desktop screen! It’ll send a message right to my inbox. Don’t be shy 🙂

What part of this report is the MOST helpful to you? Has your growth looked similar to mine, or totally different? Share it all below!

xoxo, Kailey

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