For the first 50 months as a publisher, Partners in Fire published monthly growth review articles highlighting the struggles of building a website. As we’ve grown, we no longer write these status updates but decided to keep the old ones for posterity and to help others along their journeys.
Here is our 37th-month update, edited for grammar, clarity, and to add a little insight with the benefit of hindsight.
37th Month Update
Our 37th-month blogging marked the first month in a long time where we didn’t reach 10K pageviews. We were so incredibly close that I still count it as a win.
The month ended with just under our target despite the numerous struggles we had along the way.
Hopefully, we’ve resolved these issues, and our next month will blow this month out of the water!
Read on to find out what went wrong and how we fixed it.
Readership
Our readership suffered a bit this month.
We struggled to meet the 200-user mark and even had a handful of days with fewer users.
Why Did Our Traffic Drop?
Google rolled out an update at the beginning of the month, which contributed to our traffic drop.
Luckily, I got an MSN feature at about the same time, so it didn’t result in a massive decline in traffic overall, but my organic traffic took a hit.
However, the biggest culprit was a mobile usability issue with our top-performing post, which dropped it from page one of Google.
Upon discovery, I rushed to fix it, but the damage was done. I learned two crucial lessons from the ordeal:
- Make sure every page is user-friendly
- Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket
Traffic Drivers
Organic Search
Organic search still serves as our top traffic source despite the decline.
Seeing this metric decrease so much this period after all the hard work we’ve put in hurts, but as website owners, we must understand that we have no control over what Google does. The best we can do is fix problems as they arise and continue creating great content.
Unfortunately, we don’t know that this is still true. Google’s most recent HCU updates have destroyed small publishers who continuously create great content. Instead, Google serves giant corporations with brand recognition pumping out garbage AI drivel. We can only hope the company will change course as its search results become unusable or another company swoops in.
Top Pages
The top page is still “How to be a Twitch Affiliate,” and “Alternatives to Twitch” made a surprise showing in the number two slot.
“How to get Twitter Followers” and “Buffy is the Greatest Show” dropped to 3 and 4, and “FU Money” rounded out the top five.
All of the top 5 posts had more than 200 users, but with the exception of “Alternatives to Twitch” and “FU money,” all had drastic drops in traffic when compared to the previous month.
Seeing some of these other posts surge despite the traffic drops was exciting.
Hopefully, I fixed the most significant issues with the site, and some of these articles will regain their previous traction.
Referrals
Referral traffic saved the day this month. We scored two massive referrals, one at each end of the month.
MSN featured our article “Little Things Add Up To Huge Savings,” which helped offset the traffic loss at the beginning of the month. The feature led to a nice traffic boost for that post and a related article on cashback apps.
Then, at the end of the month, my in-depth article on Generational Poverty was featured on Tread Lightly, Retire Early’s weekly round-up of Women in Finance.
These two features weren’t quite enough to get us to that coveted 10K page views, but they helped get us close.
Direct Hits
Nearly 1500 users came to us via direct hit during this period, which was right on par with last month. Many of these direct hits are from our wonderful subscribers – if you haven’t hit that subscribe button yet, what are you waiting for?
Where else will you get blog strategies, travel tips, money advice, gaming info, and art ideas straight to your inbox?
Social Media
Our reach on social media was also on par with last month. About 600 users found us via social channels this month, with Pinterest bringing the most traffic.
Nearly 300 users found us via Pinterest this month, a little more than last month.
I finally finished most of the Pinterest Ninja Course and plan to implement all the great new things I learned next month.
Even without implementing the new stuff, we’re still over 100 monthly visitors ahead of where we were before taking the course. That’s been a massive win for our Pinterest reach thus far, and I hope to see it continue as we implement the new strategies.
A little over 70 users visited us from Twitter this month, similar to previous months. I used the platform much more as a networking tool than a traffic-driving tool this month and am focusing more on building my account.
I also tested some direct affiliate marketing on the platform, which failed, but it was worth trying, right?
I built a great following on Twitter, but then the new owner destroyed the platform. It’s no longer what it was. Although I still have my accounts for SEO and auto-sharing articles, I’ve migrated to Blusky for engagement. I just started my account and am excited to see how it goes.
Our reach on Facebook was about the same as last month, all due to the Revive Old Posts plug-in. About 60 users found us from the platform, the majority of which came when old posts were randomly published.
I know that some folks drive a ton of traffic via Facebook, with groups and pages and things like that, but I’ve made a conscious decision not to worry about the platform as much.
There’s only so much time in a day, and I’d rather focus on the platforms I enjoy and the tasks that lead to growth, like SEO.
We’ve started scheduling more content for Facebook/Instagram using the built-in planner. Since doing that, we’ve seen a slight increase in traffic but haven’t increased our following on the platform.
Content
We published a ton of excellent and engaging content this month.
First, we decided to highlight our transition into a passion fire resource with an article on Hobbies that Make Money. To compliment that, we published three articles on painting to get a head start on our art section: Drawing Ideas, What Colors Make Orange, and Painting for Beginners.
In addition, we expanded our gaming section with an article about all the great reasons to try Streaming on Twitch.
Of course, we also stuck to our financial roots, with an article on feeling house-poor and exploring How Much Money You Really Need.
We rounded the month out with an editorial piece on Generational Poverty because even as we grow and change, tackling complex societal issues so that everyone can pursue a passion-fire lifestyle will always be one of our priorities.
How Are We Going to Improve Our Readership
I know I’ve talked about this every month, but I still think improving our writing for SEO will be the number one way to improve readership.
We can see how crucial it is now that “FU Money,” the first article we wrote with SEO in mind, is starting to rank. Hopefully, the other posts we wrote with an SEO focus will also begin to rank.
We also think branching out will boost our readership. All the “blogging gurus” claim you must stick to a specific niche to excel, but we saw that wasn’t true when our gaming content began to outrank our financial content. With this in mind, we decided to expand more into gaming, art, and all the other passion-fire topics we can think of.
Of course, a website must have an overarching theme. Everything we publish will fall under the passion-fire umbrella.
It’s still too early to tell if the art posts will rank, but we know we’re seeing success with gaming. We’re also hoping to replicate that success in the art realm, which will significantly increase our readership.
Our art posts did rank – many are still in the top two pages of the SERPs.
Monetization
This was the first month that we didn’t make a profit since joining the Money Mix Insiders SEO Hustle. However, despite our lackluster performance, we still made sales and netted money with ads.
We are close to making a consistent monthly profit, even though we had to re-invest all the money we made this month (and more).
Ads
$50.97
Our ad revenue dropped this month, and a big part of it was the decrease in page views. Hopefully, with our changes, we will see this number jump back up in January.
Affiliates
$13.55
We didn’t make nearly as much in affiliate sales this month as we did last month. Interestingly, we made more sales this month (10 total sales!) than last month and made way less money.
What does this teach us?
First, Amazon has horrible commission rates. But we all knew that.
It also teaches us that affiliate sales can differ widely from month to month. Sometimes, you might have a fantastic month, and sometimes you will have a slow month. You must consider this income variance if you want to be a successful blogger.
However, when I remember that I made $16 my entire first year of blogging and made almost that in just a month this year, I think that maybe I’m on the right track.
I know I just need to work a little harder on SEO for affiliate linking posts, and I’ll make ten times this amount monthly.
Wo make about ten times that monthly – but that’s still not a lot of money.
Gross earnings: $64.52
Expenses:
Money Mix Insiders SEO Hustle – $170
Site Improvements- $180
Total expenses: $350
I spent a ton of money on Partners in Fire this month – but it was worth it.
The SEO Hustle group continues to help me learn, grow, and improve my process. I know that I wouldn’t have the traffic I do if it weren’t for them. The group has motivated me to keep it and helped me improve my writing, marketing, SEO, and more.
I spent another $180 on making improvements to my site. Most of the money went to fixing the mobile usability error, but I also fixed some other back-end items to improve user experience.
Net earnings: Negative $258.48
Continued Growth
Even though we spent far more than we earned this month, it was worth it. I can feel that these investments will pay off in spades very shortly! We’ll reach 100K monthly pageviews in 2021 – you’ll see!
We almost got to 100K pageviews in 2021, but then more changes thrust us back to about 10K per month. Blogging is a roller coaster.
Follow along our journey every month and see our continued growth!