October was another strong month for my blog in terms of content productivity. I published 9 new long-form articles on blogging-related topics and updated several of my top-performers. Blog income for the month came in at $21,200.09. Traffic was up significantly again, bringing me 459,996 readers and  561,732 unique sessions.

On the personal side, Shelly and I helped out a good deal with my (future) brother-in-law’s wedding here in the Bay Area last weekend, and we got to spend a lot of time with both our families this month. We’ve been keeping ourselves extremely busy with work and family time, so aside from making more time to get together with friends and hit some afternoon runs through Golden Gate Park, I’ve had my hands full. We’re looking forward to a little downtime before slipping into the holidays.

Now, let’s dig into the numbers… I saw another slight drop in blog income last month, but I landed right in the middle of my forecast range. I still saw solid affiliate commissions from my guide about how to start a blog and another consistent month of sales for my comprehensive blogging course, Built to Blog: How to Get Your First 10,000 Readers and Earn Six-Figures Blogging.

Overall, I generated $21,200.09 in blog income during October of 2019.

I published a TON of content this month, which meant more freelance writers helping me out—and I also kicked off a complete website redesign project (running behind-the-scenes right now), so expenses were up quite a bit. Profit for October came in at $11,367.47.

The Forecast 🌤: For November, I’m anticipating another small drop in blog income as my search traffic still continues to recover from this summer’s volatility. I’m expecting to land in the range of $18,000 – $22,000. As I’ve said in income reports for the past few months, I’m expecting to hover in this general range of blog income as I keep investing heavily in driving up my organic search rankings for a few key guides. Next month’s expenses will also be slightly elevated above normal as I continue my website redesign and keep my best writers busy.

Now, on to the details of my October blog income report…

Blog Income in October 2019: $21,200.09

In these monthly reports, I track my total income every month, including each individual source of that income, and associated expenses with running my business. This is the good and the bad.

Next, I break down the traffic to my blog which heavily impacts my income, including what’s performing best and how I’m working to drive in more readers. I also cover how many email subscribers I’m at, the number of new subscribers acquired during the month, and what that growth trajectory looks like.

Finally, I cover updates on any other side projects I’m working on for the month.

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Now, let’s do this.

Blog Income Breakdown for October 2019

Expenses Breakdown

Net Profit Breakdown

Now, on to my blog, email and podcast-related statistics.

2. Blog Stats for October 2019: 561,732 Sessions and 126,042 Total Email Subscribers

After last month’s traffic began to signal a recovery—October really picked up the pace. I’m back over the half a million monthly reader mark I was at earlier this year (indicating I’m starting to recover from the organic traffic dip I experienced over the summer). There’s been consistent volatility with most of my highly competitive search rankings, but meaningful growth still seems to be picking up pace. Much of my traffic growth is due to working hard on publishing a lot of in-depth blogging guides and generating more of my traffic from a higher number of articles—rather than relaying solely on a small number of content pieces to bring in new readers.

I was up in Sessions over September by 15.27%, as my traffic continues to hover at similar figures heading into November. Pageviews increased to 720,705.

Every single one of my most important articles were up in traffic this month (most by double digits)—a direct effect of how much work I’ve been putting into publishing a lot of long-form content related to blogging… the niche I’m choosing to focus my blog on.

Overall, I’m up more than 57% in growth year over year compared to October of 2018. That increase is tied to my most trafficked posts still continuing to deliver strong traffic from organic search and the publishing of more new content that’s climbing the organic search rankings as well. I feel that I’m in a pretty good position heading into 2020.

Here are my top 15 trafficked posts from October, ranked in descending order of which drove the most readers:

• business ideas
• make money online
• freelance jobs
• how to start a blog (most attributable revenue for the month)
• best remote jobs websites
• remote job
• motivational quotes
• business books
• how to freelance
• make money blogging
• business advice
• freelance contract
• work from home jobs
• freelance proposals
• amazon affiliate marketing

October saw more significant growth in traffic to my 25,000+ word guide, How to Start a Blog and Make Money—which is still holding onto decent rankings in organic search for competitive terms like how to start a blog, how to blog, and other related terms.

Still, as more readers land on this post, more are joining my free course, How to Build a Blog in 7 Days and are offered an opportunity to join my more comprehensive paid Built to Blog course that’ll help them level up their blogging journey even more.

Also in October, I published nine new long-form articles for my growing audience of bloggers:

• 10 Best Free Blogging Sites to Build Your Blog for Free in 2019: Tested, Compared and Reviewed
• 21+ Best Affiliate Programs for Bloggers in 2019 (to Earn Affiliate Income from Blogging)
• What is RSS? The Best Alternative to an RSS Feed (For Bloggers) in 2020
• Should I Start a Blog? 10 Reasons Why (and 8 Key Questions to Ask Yourself First): Free Quiz
• How to Change the Font Size on Your WordPress Blog (3 Smart Ways) in 2020
• 21 Best Domain Name Generators in 2020 for Bloggers to Get Domain Name Ideas
• How to Write a Blog Post Outline (Free Blog Post Outline Template) in 8 Easy Steps
• 10 Best Web Hosting Plans for Bloggers in 2020 (Affordable and Fast Hosting Plans)
• How to Make a Clickable Link in WordPress (Create a Hyperlink) on Your Blog

I also continued updating some of my most successful blogging-related guides—in order to keep them fresh, up-to-date and as impactful as possible:

• 12 Ways How to Make Money Blogging and Earn $325,936 From a Blog in 2020
• 32 Best Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog (Increase Blog Traffic) in 2020
• 27 Best Blogging Courses (for Beginners and Intermediate Bloggers) to Grow in 2020
• How to Write a Blog Post (People Actually Want to Read) in 2020: Free Blog Post Template

My plan is to (again) keep publishing a high volume of in-depth content for bloggers throughout the rest of this year, with the goal of clearly signaling to Google that my site is primarily about blogging and expecting that to keep delivering me more readers looking for tactical blogging advice.

2. Email Subscribers.

I use ConvertKit to manage my email subscriber community and deliver my emails.

October saw the addition of 6,663 subscribers to my community with my total email list growing to 126,042 subscribers 🎉

This was a big resurgence in new subscribers compared to September, and many of my new subscribers came from my influx of blogging-related content and free downloads—which is my ultimate goal to keep growing. Much of my new subscriber growth continues to be fueled by my free course, Build a Blog in 7 Days which is well-optimized for both affiliate revenue—and for offering my more advanced paid course (Built to Blog).

That’s it for my October blog income report.

For November, I’m predicting blog income to dip slightly again, landing around $18,000 – $22,000 as my traffic still rebounds (and the accompanying revenue uptick is often a lagging indicator that’ll show in the next couple of months). I’m seeing more positive signals that my search rankings and traffic are both still swinging back around—and with the introduction of TONS of new blogging-related articles, that traffic will be increasingly landing on better-optimized content.

Another goal for this month is to continue with updating the content in my comprehensive Built to Blog course with brand new lessons, refreshed videos & written lectures and even more interviews. After the updates are complete, I’ll be doing a relaunch of the course and increasing the price as the value is going up dramatically.

If you’re looking for some additional reading to help grow your own blog (on the side), I recently updated my 25,000 word free guide to building and scaling a profitable blog right here that I’d love for you to read 😊