Let\u2019s get to it!<\/p>\n
June 2018 Blogging Traffic and Content Statistics<\/strong><\/h1>\nI\u2019m happy to have reached my goal of publishing 4 posts for the month of June.<\/p>\n
Blogging roughly once per week seems to be a manageable schedule for now, and as usual, I like to write longer posts that have some thought instead of pumping out content.<\/p>\n
All in all, the month of June saw:<\/p>\n
\n- 4 new blog posts.<\/li>\n
- 10,865 additional words.<\/li>\n
- 2 new guest posts (1 is live, 1 is scheduled).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I wrote the 2 guest posts with a friend of mine, and they helped to establish an additional 2 backlinks to my blog which is pretty awesome.<\/p>\n
They aren\u2019t anything special, but each article was about 1,500 words and covered generalized ways to make money online.<\/p>\n
Additionally, I\u2019ve also started to take a harder look into my SEO profile, rankings, and overall progress in the eyes of search engines.<\/p>\n
This month, I focused on 2 metrics: backlinks and website speed.<\/strong><\/p>\nI\u2019ve used both SEM Rush and Serpstat<\/a> to monitor the progress of my blog thus far.<\/p>\nCurrently, backlinks are one of my greatest weaknesses in terms of increasing my domain authority. The 2 guest posts I wrote this month are a good start, but I have a long way to go:<\/p>\n
![\"backlink-report-blogging\"](\"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/backlink-report-blogging.png\")
<\/p>\n
![\"backlink-progress\"](\"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/backlink-progress.png\")
<\/p>\n
As you can see, I\u2019ve gained a few backlinks this month and lost quite a few.<\/p>\n
I also am sitting at roughly 38 total referring links.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m actually happy to have lost some of those links (they were from spammy Russian websites or meaningless RSS feeds), and the links I gained were do-follow links from other blogs.<\/p>\n
I also edited a few old Medium articles and added some referring links to WebMonkey where it made sense.<\/p>\n
Medium links are no-follow, but I hope to benefit from some additional referral traffic in any case.<\/p>\n
Moving forward, I plan to make an effort with link building campaigns, blogger outreach, and guest posting.<\/p>\n
Considering the benefit of link building from a SEO perspective,\u00a0<\/strong>this seems like a worthwhile endeavor.<\/p>\nIn any case, I definitely recommend other bloggers track their backlink metrics and overall SEO profile on a biweekly-monthly basis.<\/p>\n
Serpstat in particular is pretty neat, and I use their platform to track position changes for my top 10 keywords:<\/p>\n
![\"serpstat-keyword-tracking\"](\"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/keyword-progress.png\")
<\/p>\n
Monitoring keyword position changes is a great way to find the web territory you need to defend (high rankings) and where you should aggressively push in areas of opportunities.<\/p>\n
Personally, I have a few keywords sitting on the fringes of page 2, so I might update existing articles that rank using these keyword and look to expand with new content in the categories that are doing well.<\/p>\n
Increasing my Blog's Speed and Performance<\/strong><\/h2>\nIn June, I also invested in hiring a WordPress developer from Fiverr to increase my blog speed and performance.<\/p>\n
My friend Peter from Seller At Heart<\/a> (his blog is awesome, check it out) advised me about the importance of website speed, and I decided to make some improvements in that department.<\/p>\nI mean, Google did announce a mobile-first index<\/a> system this year, and if I\u2019m honest, I\u2019ve been neglecting my website performance for some time now.<\/p>\nAnyway, I finally decided to scour the Fiverr marketplace for WordPress optimization specialists.<\/p>\n
After a bit of searching, I found Sharmin, a WordPress expert from India who specializes in website speed and performance optimization.<\/p>\n
![\"wordpress-development-fiverr\"](\"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/wordpress-development-fiverr.png\")
<\/p>\n
For $20, Sharmin would improve my blog speed and performance, so I decided to give it a go.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, I don\u2019t have before screenshots, but from my own tests I know my blog was averaging around a 65-70\/100 score on Google Page Speed Insights (for desktop and mobile).<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a screenshot from a Pingdom speed test on my recent freelancing post:<\/p>\n
![\"pingdom-page-speed\"](\"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/pingdom-page-speed.png\")
<\/p>\n
My home page is still a tad slow, but my blog posts now load significantly faster on both desktop and mobile.<\/p>\n
Additionally, future posts I create will be properly formatted and my website is actually optimized.<\/p>\n
At the end of Sharmin\u2019s work, WebMonkey has really made some progress.<\/p>\n
What did Sharmin do, exactly?<\/p>\n
In a nutshell, Sharmin added:<\/p>\n
\n- Browser caching.<\/li>\n
- Photo optimization.<\/li>\n
- Minification.<\/li>\n
- Fixed some stuff with Javascript and CSS that I don't quite understand.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"fiverr-website-development\"](\"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/fiverr-website-development.png\")
<\/p>\n
In other words, Sharmin made a lot of improvements on the back end of my blog.<\/p>\n
He installed some great plugins, worked his magic, and delivered the final result in 2 days.<\/p>\n
I think thee improvements show that sometimes, it is worth investing into the development of your blog.<\/p>\n
SEO related metrics like page load speed are incredibly important for ranking, user experience, and your overall success as a blogger.<\/p>\n
Spending $20 now to reap the long-term SEO benefits of a fast website makes a lot of sense to me.<\/p>\n
It can sometimes seem difficult to invest money (or time) into something that isn\u2019t immediately profitable, but I think bloggers should consider SEO related investments as a long term play.<\/p>\n
I still don\u2019t have a logo, and my website theme was only $45. However, I\u2019m definitely not afraid to spend $20-$50 on some SEO enhancements from time to time.<\/p>\n
If you want to sign up on Fiverr and outsource some website development, I\u2019d appreciate if you used my sign up link!<\/p>\n
Book a gig on Fiverr today with my link to help support my blog!<\/p>\n
Blogging Traffic Stats – Slow but Steady Organic Traffic<\/strong><\/h2>\nI was slightly discouraged last month to have the first month of \u2018backwards\u2019 growth.<\/p>\n
However, June saw the highest ever monthly page view count for WebMonkey with 12,083 views!<\/p>\n
![\"blogging-page-view-stats\"](\"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/blogging-page-view-stats.png\")
<\/p>\n
I\u2019m excited to see growth once again because it means my content is working its way up in the world.<\/p>\n
Despite my goal of boosting my social media promotion for the month of June, I didn\u2019t make significant changes to my marketing strategy.<\/p>\n
Here are some promotional efforts I continued\/experimented with for the month of June:<\/p>\n
\n- I shared blog posts on several Facebook blog posting groups.<\/li>\n
- I joined the Rockstar Finance forum and submitted WebMonkey to their feed.<\/li>\n
- I wrote 10 Quora answers<\/a>.<\/li>\n
- I shared 2 blog posts on Reddit (1 to r\/FreelanceWriting and another in a bi-weekly self promotion thread of r\/FinanciallyIndependent).<\/li>\n
- I syndicated 2 more articles to my Medium profile and added some more backlinks on existing articles.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
All in all, these efforts resulted in roughly 700-800 views.<\/p>\n
The rest was pretty much all organic traffic and various bits of referral traffic.<\/p>\n
As you can see from my traffic breakdown, that's a decent spot to be in:<\/p>\n
![\"traffic](\"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/traffic-breakdown-for-blog.png\")
<\/p>\n
The fact that organic traffic is continuing to increase is a very encouraging sign.<\/p>\n
Often times, people bemoan Google updates, changes to search engine algorithms, or the nature of search engines in general.<\/p>\n
However, Google actually makes updates to their search engine algorithm hundreds of times per year, according to Moz<\/a>.<\/p>\nSometimes the updates are massive (like the Panda update that destroyed the rankings of millions of terrible content pages), but most of the time, they go largely unnoticed.<\/p>\n
Additionally, I believe that high quality content producers who create original, engaging work don\u2019t need to stress about what the future may hold.<\/p>\n
Voice search\/result rankings might shake things up, and SEO will continue to evolve.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, content is king and I think we should trust the process.<\/p>\n
Moving forwards, I do need to revamp my Quora marketing efforts and drive additional referral\/social traffic.<\/p>\n
For the time being, at least I have some organic growth on my side!<\/p>\n
Blogging Income Report – Making Money with a Blog<\/strong><\/h2>\nDisplay Advertising Income from Blogging:<\/strong><\/p>\nJune was a relieving month for blogging income because I finally made up my mind on the whole \u2018should I monetize my blog?\u201d conundrum.<\/p>\n
For most of June, I was simultaneously running 3 Adsense ad blocks and 3 Media.net ad blocks.<\/p>\n
This is 100% allowed by both platforms, and to be fair, I think I did an adequate job or spacing ad blocks and preventing the disruption of user experience.<\/p>\n
However, from both a page speed and monetization perspective, I don\u2019t think the combination of Media.net and Adsense is worth it for me.<\/p>\n
Adsense has an approximate $2 RPM for WebMonkey. Media.net is roughly $3.30 which is what I was expecting for a blog that\u2019s loosely in the technology niche:<\/p>\n
![\"media-advertising-earnings\"](\"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/media-advertising-earnings.png\")
<\/strong><\/p>\nHowever, not every viewer will see every ad block, and I also refrained from placing Adsense or Media.net blocks in-text.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, each advertising network earned about $15-$20 for the month.<\/p>\n
Media.net has a higher RPM since the ads are contextual and match my technology niche, and overall, Media.net would earn slightly more than Adsense if I had let it run for 30 days.<\/p>\n
If you are interested in trying out Media.net on your own blog, you can use my link to signup for the network<\/a>. You'll receive a 10% bonus in revenue for the next 3 months and you'll help support WebMonkey!<\/p>\nDespite these earnings, an extra $20\/month isn\u2019t worth the sacrifice in page speed and user enjoyment\/readability.<\/p>\n
Besides, I\u2019d rather earn less money now but benefit in terms of SEO and page ranking to help inch towards the 25,000 monthly session requirement for Mediavine.<\/p>\n
Moving forwards, I'm only keeping Adsense ad blocks active on my blog.<\/p>\n
However, I still think Media.net is a pretty solid advertising network, and bloggers looking to make money should consider trying out both Goole AdSense and Media.net.<\/p>\n
In any case: Monthly advertising revenue = $33.<\/strong><\/p>\nPhone Farming – Passive Income Results<\/strong><\/h2>\nI don\u2019t have much to report on the phone farming side of things this month.<\/p>\n
Now that I\u2019m working full time while finishing school, I definitely spend less time tending to my phone farming operation or researching new passive income applications.<\/p>\n
I did learn about some nifty global GPT websites and ways to make money online in the month of June, and wrote a post on the best global GPT websites and passive income apps.<\/p>\n
However, my own phone farming routine has remained rather unchanged.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the income breakdown from phone farming for the month of June:<\/p>\n
\n- CashMagnet earnings:\u00a0$4<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Embee Meter:\u00a0$6<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Panel App<\/a>: $4.05<\/strong><\/li>\n
- MobileXpression:\u00a0$3.99<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Swagbucks earnings: $7<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Grindabuck earnings: $3.70<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Total:\u00a0<\/strong>Roughly $39.75 from phone farming.<\/p>\nI actually visited some local cell phone shops this month to find cheap cellphone deals for phone farming, but my efforts were in vain (phones are expensive in Canada).<\/p>\n
For now, I think I\u2019ll keep my modest device running for some free Amazon gift cards!<\/p>\n
Making Money on Medium<\/strong><\/h2>\nI\u2019ve continued syndicating content from my blog onto Medium throughout June, and I\u2019ve also grown to 140+ followers.<\/p>\n
I still plan on writing more original content for the platform when I find the time, but for now, content syndication plus minimal Twitter promotion is spurring growth.<\/p>\n
These are the stats for my Medium page views over the last 30 days:<\/p>\n
![\"medium-traffic-stats\"](\"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/medium-traffic-stats.png\")
<\/strong><\/p>\nThat\u2019s about 2,500+ more views for that time period than the previous month, marking around a 50% increase in my reach on Medium.<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly, a 50% increase in reach resulted in an increase in Medium income as well:<\/p>\n
![\"Making-money-on-Medium\"](\"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/making-money-on-Medium.png\")
<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"medium-blogging-update\"](\"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/medium-blogging-update.png\")
<\/p>\n
$56.55<\/strong> isn\u2019t a bad bit of passive income for the month, especially since it\u2019s converted from U.S. to Canadian currency on my end.<\/p>\nUnfortunately, I expect my next month on Medium to be less stellar.<\/p>\n
Unbeknownst to me (always read terms of service and guidelines), you aren\u2019t allowed to lock content that focuses on Medium as a platform behind the member pay wall.<\/p>\n
I wrote the 2 guest posts with a friend of mine, and they helped to establish an additional 2 backlinks to my blog which is pretty awesome.<\/p>\n
They aren\u2019t anything special, but each article was about 1,500 words and covered generalized ways to make money online.<\/p>\n
Additionally, I\u2019ve also started to take a harder look into my SEO profile, rankings, and overall progress in the eyes of search engines.<\/p>\n
This month, I focused on 2 metrics: backlinks and website speed.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve used both SEM Rush and Serpstat<\/a> to monitor the progress of my blog thus far.<\/p>\n Currently, backlinks are one of my greatest weaknesses in terms of increasing my domain authority. The 2 guest posts I wrote this month are a good start, but I have a long way to go:<\/p>\n As you can see, I\u2019ve gained a few backlinks this month and lost quite a few.<\/p>\n I also am sitting at roughly 38 total referring links.<\/p>\n I\u2019m actually happy to have lost some of those links (they were from spammy Russian websites or meaningless RSS feeds), and the links I gained were do-follow links from other blogs.<\/p>\n I also edited a few old Medium articles and added some referring links to WebMonkey where it made sense.<\/p>\n Medium links are no-follow, but I hope to benefit from some additional referral traffic in any case.<\/p>\n Moving forward, I plan to make an effort with link building campaigns, blogger outreach, and guest posting.<\/p>\n Considering the benefit of link building from a SEO perspective,\u00a0<\/strong>this seems like a worthwhile endeavor.<\/p>\n In any case, I definitely recommend other bloggers track their backlink metrics and overall SEO profile on a biweekly-monthly basis.<\/p>\n Serpstat in particular is pretty neat, and I use their platform to track position changes for my top 10 keywords:<\/p>\n Monitoring keyword position changes is a great way to find the web territory you need to defend (high rankings) and where you should aggressively push in areas of opportunities.<\/p>\n Personally, I have a few keywords sitting on the fringes of page 2, so I might update existing articles that rank using these keyword and look to expand with new content in the categories that are doing well.<\/p>\n In June, I also invested in hiring a WordPress developer from Fiverr to increase my blog speed and performance.<\/p>\n My friend Peter from Seller At Heart<\/a> (his blog is awesome, check it out) advised me about the importance of website speed, and I decided to make some improvements in that department.<\/p>\n I mean, Google did announce a mobile-first index<\/a> system this year, and if I\u2019m honest, I\u2019ve been neglecting my website performance for some time now.<\/p>\n Anyway, I finally decided to scour the Fiverr marketplace for WordPress optimization specialists.<\/p>\n After a bit of searching, I found Sharmin, a WordPress expert from India who specializes in website speed and performance optimization.<\/p>\n For $20, Sharmin would improve my blog speed and performance, so I decided to give it a go.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, I don\u2019t have before screenshots, but from my own tests I know my blog was averaging around a 65-70\/100 score on Google Page Speed Insights (for desktop and mobile).<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a screenshot from a Pingdom speed test on my recent freelancing post:<\/p>\n My home page is still a tad slow, but my blog posts now load significantly faster on both desktop and mobile.<\/p>\n Additionally, future posts I create will be properly formatted and my website is actually optimized.<\/p>\n At the end of Sharmin\u2019s work, WebMonkey has really made some progress.<\/p>\n What did Sharmin do, exactly?<\/p>\n In a nutshell, Sharmin added:<\/p>\n In other words, Sharmin made a lot of improvements on the back end of my blog.<\/p>\n He installed some great plugins, worked his magic, and delivered the final result in 2 days.<\/p>\n I think thee improvements show that sometimes, it is worth investing into the development of your blog.<\/p>\n SEO related metrics like page load speed are incredibly important for ranking, user experience, and your overall success as a blogger.<\/p>\n Spending $20 now to reap the long-term SEO benefits of a fast website makes a lot of sense to me.<\/p>\n It can sometimes seem difficult to invest money (or time) into something that isn\u2019t immediately profitable, but I think bloggers should consider SEO related investments as a long term play.<\/p>\n I still don\u2019t have a logo, and my website theme was only $45. However, I\u2019m definitely not afraid to spend $20-$50 on some SEO enhancements from time to time.<\/p>\n If you want to sign up on Fiverr and outsource some website development, I\u2019d appreciate if you used my sign up link!<\/p>\n Book a gig on Fiverr today with my link to help support my blog!<\/p>\n I was slightly discouraged last month to have the first month of \u2018backwards\u2019 growth.<\/p>\n However, June saw the highest ever monthly page view count for WebMonkey with 12,083 views!<\/p>\n I\u2019m excited to see growth once again because it means my content is working its way up in the world.<\/p>\n Despite my goal of boosting my social media promotion for the month of June, I didn\u2019t make significant changes to my marketing strategy.<\/p>\n Here are some promotional efforts I continued\/experimented with for the month of June:<\/p>\n All in all, these efforts resulted in roughly 700-800 views.<\/p>\n The rest was pretty much all organic traffic and various bits of referral traffic.<\/p>\n As you can see from my traffic breakdown, that's a decent spot to be in:<\/p>\n The fact that organic traffic is continuing to increase is a very encouraging sign.<\/p>\n Often times, people bemoan Google updates, changes to search engine algorithms, or the nature of search engines in general.<\/p>\n However, Google actually makes updates to their search engine algorithm hundreds of times per year, according to Moz<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sometimes the updates are massive (like the Panda update that destroyed the rankings of millions of terrible content pages), but most of the time, they go largely unnoticed.<\/p>\n Additionally, I believe that high quality content producers who create original, engaging work don\u2019t need to stress about what the future may hold.<\/p>\n Voice search\/result rankings might shake things up, and SEO will continue to evolve.<\/p>\n Ultimately, content is king and I think we should trust the process.<\/p>\n Moving forwards, I do need to revamp my Quora marketing efforts and drive additional referral\/social traffic.<\/p>\n For the time being, at least I have some organic growth on my side!<\/p>\n Display Advertising Income from Blogging:<\/strong><\/p>\n June was a relieving month for blogging income because I finally made up my mind on the whole \u2018should I monetize my blog?\u201d conundrum.<\/p>\n For most of June, I was simultaneously running 3 Adsense ad blocks and 3 Media.net ad blocks.<\/p>\n This is 100% allowed by both platforms, and to be fair, I think I did an adequate job or spacing ad blocks and preventing the disruption of user experience.<\/p>\n However, from both a page speed and monetization perspective, I don\u2019t think the combination of Media.net and Adsense is worth it for me.<\/p>\n Adsense has an approximate $2 RPM for WebMonkey. Media.net is roughly $3.30 which is what I was expecting for a blog that\u2019s loosely in the technology niche:<\/p>\n However, not every viewer will see every ad block, and I also refrained from placing Adsense or Media.net blocks in-text.<\/p>\n Ultimately, each advertising network earned about $15-$20 for the month.<\/p>\n Media.net has a higher RPM since the ads are contextual and match my technology niche, and overall, Media.net would earn slightly more than Adsense if I had let it run for 30 days.<\/p>\n If you are interested in trying out Media.net on your own blog, you can use my link to signup for the network<\/a>. You'll receive a 10% bonus in revenue for the next 3 months and you'll help support WebMonkey!<\/p>\n Despite these earnings, an extra $20\/month isn\u2019t worth the sacrifice in page speed and user enjoyment\/readability.<\/p>\n Besides, I\u2019d rather earn less money now but benefit in terms of SEO and page ranking to help inch towards the 25,000 monthly session requirement for Mediavine.<\/p>\n Moving forwards, I'm only keeping Adsense ad blocks active on my blog.<\/p>\n However, I still think Media.net is a pretty solid advertising network, and bloggers looking to make money should consider trying out both Goole AdSense and Media.net.<\/p>\n In any case: Monthly advertising revenue = $33.<\/strong><\/p>\n I don\u2019t have much to report on the phone farming side of things this month.<\/p>\n Now that I\u2019m working full time while finishing school, I definitely spend less time tending to my phone farming operation or researching new passive income applications.<\/p>\n I did learn about some nifty global GPT websites and ways to make money online in the month of June, and wrote a post on the best global GPT websites and passive income apps.<\/p>\n However, my own phone farming routine has remained rather unchanged.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the income breakdown from phone farming for the month of June:<\/p>\n Total:\u00a0<\/strong>Roughly $39.75 from phone farming.<\/p>\n I actually visited some local cell phone shops this month to find cheap cellphone deals for phone farming, but my efforts were in vain (phones are expensive in Canada).<\/p>\n For now, I think I\u2019ll keep my modest device running for some free Amazon gift cards!<\/p>\n I\u2019ve continued syndicating content from my blog onto Medium throughout June, and I\u2019ve also grown to 140+ followers.<\/p>\n I still plan on writing more original content for the platform when I find the time, but for now, content syndication plus minimal Twitter promotion is spurring growth.<\/p>\n These are the stats for my Medium page views over the last 30 days:<\/p>\n That\u2019s about 2,500+ more views for that time period than the previous month, marking around a 50% increase in my reach on Medium.<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, a 50% increase in reach resulted in an increase in Medium income as well:<\/p>\n $56.55<\/strong> isn\u2019t a bad bit of passive income for the month, especially since it\u2019s converted from U.S. to Canadian currency on my end.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, I expect my next month on Medium to be less stellar.<\/p>\n Unbeknownst to me (always read terms of service and guidelines), you aren\u2019t allowed to lock content that focuses on Medium as a platform behind the member pay wall.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\nIncreasing my Blog's Speed and Performance<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n
<\/p>\nBlogging Traffic Stats – Slow but Steady Organic Traffic<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n\n
<\/p>\nBlogging Income Report – Making Money with a Blog<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/strong><\/p>\nPhone Farming – Passive Income Results<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n
Making Money on Medium<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
![\"medium-referral-traffic\"](\"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/medium-referral-traffic.png\")
<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"amazon-affiliate\"](\"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/amazon-affiliate.png\")
<\/p>\n