Q2 2020 Blog Report Overview

Alright, now it’s time to really nail down and look at my Q2 2020 Blog Report Overview. And whoa, I was busyyyy last quarter but thankfully, I was able to achieve my Q2 2020 blogging goals. And to think I only barely reached my 6 month mark last quarter is pretty crazy.

But now it’s time to look a bit deeper into what my key success factors were. And as we go through this, you’ll see just how much has changed since my Q1 2020 Blog Report Overview.

And because the quarter is over, that means it’s also time to set some new goals. I make these public so that way I can come back and review them with you next quarter. So let’s go ahead and see how I did and how my findings can help you become a better blogger too.

Disclaimer: Please note this post may contain affiliate links. This means I may receive a commission if clicked at no extra cost to you. Though the opinions remain my own

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So note that not everything is covered and I am not only focusing on one blog. Instead, I picked the ones that would not only help me, but the ones that would help you the most.

I mean, that’s why you’re here right? You’re here to learn something so that’s my goal and I hope that my findings below help you turn this next quarter into a blogging success.

So let’s get started and review my Q2 2020 blog report overview.

Related Post: Q2 2020 Blog Goals – Achieved or Not?

Blog Traffic Overvie

Okay so unfortunately I cannot do an even blog comparison on my blog traffic. This is because around mid-May, I decided to separate out my primary niches and have them housed in their own domains.

Why did I do this? Well, in April, I took a Blog Traffic Challenge with Cate Rosales and she strongly encouraged me to niche down and separate them out. And she advised this because of SEO (search engine optimization) purposes.

And OMG I was so nervous thinking my traffic as a whole was going to completely tank. But you know what happened instead? My total combined traffic actually doubled! Yup, I was shocked myself but nonetheless, am extremely pleased to know that separating out my niches really did help my blog traffic in a positive way.

Top 5 Posts

Okay so I have three blogs now LOL. And unfortunately it won’t do any of us any good if I start doing three of these reports. So instead, I did a check on my two main blogs and have listed the Top 5 combined in order from highest to lowest page views.

These were my Top 5 blog posts for the quarter:

• Unique Special Gifts for Dad He’ll Actually Love
• Crazy Fun Stay at Home Date Ideas for Couples With Kids
• Productive Things To Do at Home for Working Moms
• Immediately Increase Blog Traffic with KeySearch
• 7 Ways to Make Money Blogging in 2020

So from these, the top 3 of those came from my mom blog, Cheers to Life Blogging, and the bottom 2 were from this blog. And it was no surprise that my Father’s Day post came in first as the holiday took place in June.

In fact, my Father’s Day post generated over $3,000 sales to Etsy this past quarter… $3,000! I wish that could have all came to me but you know… I’ll take my affiliate commission cut haha!

And this actually leads me right into my next topic, my Q2 2020 blog report earnings.

Related Post: Q1 2020 Blog Income Report

Total Earnings

So similarly to the above, I can no longer break down my earnings as it would take me far too long and do none of us any good. However, I will continue to share my total earnings across all my blogs combined (which in this case, comes from only two).

So last quarter, my total earnings was a little over $1,600 but a good chunk of that came from a sponsored service opportunity. Even though this quarter I initially wanted to do more sponsored posts, I ended up deviating away from that and focused purely on affiliate marketing.

And thankfully that deviation worked because I made over $1,500 in straight cash due to affiliate marketing earnings. Last quarter, I even had my first almost $1,000 month, so you better believe I am ecstatic about this.

Related Post: Ways to Make Money Blogging

Key Success Drivers

Every successful quarter comes with reasons that helped it get there. So for me, I consider the ones below to be the primary key success drivers this past quarter.

These of course, are in addition to the reasons why I felt I met my blogging goals. If you’re curious on my Q2 blogging goals and what helped me achieve them, you can read all about my blogging goals here.

Defined a blog schedule & strategy

As a busy working mama, I have little time for hiccups. This also means I can’t “wing it” with my blog. I HAVE to have a schedule and a plan to follow. Along with it, I have a strategy in place that works for me. And you know what? I decided to share some of these strategy blogging tips with you in my Exclusive Blogging Myths & Strategy Secrets Revealed eBook Bundle.

And because I know just how hard it can be to get on a blogging schedule, I also created 3 additional products to all work together to help you define your own blog strategy and create a weekly blog schedule. Without my strategy or schedule, I wouldn’t have had these successful quarters in such a short amount of time.

Related Post: Create a Unique Blogging Schedule to Blog Smarter

Enrolled into affiliate marketing courses

I give my successful affiliate marketing earnings to two courses. In April, I took the Affiliate Marketing, Simplified Course and then in June, I enrolled into the Affiliate Marketing 4-week Challenge. Both of these really helped me turn my blog posts into a successful somewhat passive income stream.

If you know me, you know I’m a bit of a course junkie so yes I added more courses to my list (and will continue to do so). But I don’t just enroll into courses left and right, no. Depending on my blogging strategy, I’ll enroll into specific recommended courses. I then take what I learned and add specific tasks to my personal blogging schedule.

I mean, if you’re going to invest money into a course, you better be implementing what you learned. Otherwise, it’s money down the drain. And if affiliate marketing is something you are wanting to focus on, I highly recommend you take a look at the links above and pick either or. They are both seriously life (and money) changers.

Related Post: Best Free Blogging Courses for Beginner Bloggers

Began implementing SEO strategies

This has got to be the absolute biggest reason why I decided to go from one blog to three. Now of course I am not able to actively manage all three, so I spent my entire quarter focusing on my main two.

And yes, I had it in my long-term plan to eventually niche down and separate them out but did not think the day would come so soon. Like I said earlier, it’s all thanks to the Blog Traffic Challenge I took in April. This is where Cate Rosales really inspired me to take the leap. There was literally nothing I could lose but so much to gain.

And from here, my interest in learning SEO really peaked. Yes SEO sounds scary and no I’m not going to tell you that it’s not. Because honestly, it is a lot to learn but because I saw how much improvement my blogs got by just making this one SEO change, I am more motivated than ever to learn it all. I mean, my domain authority for my original blog increased twice last quarter, like what??

Continued to rely on Pinterest for traffic

But in all reality, I had not really been implementing SEO strategies up until mid last quarter. This means I heavily rely on Pinterest to bring me my blog traffic. So even though I have a strong love-hate relationship with them and all their updates, I have to do what they say and keep them happy.

So when many others were experiencing drops in their monthly views and link clicks, mine was actually going in the opposite direction. In fact, my monthly views doubled and my link clicks increased by a whopping 83% compared to last quarter! And that’s only for my main account.

When I separated out my niches, I also created new Pinterest accounts for my new blogs. So if you add what my original account had with my new actively managed one, the results are even better. So yeah, even though I’m focusing on SEO, I cannot give in and stop creating pins. I will continue to make Pinterest happy, no matter how much they annoy me.

Created digital products

Last quarter, I really wanted to find ways to diversify my income while increasing my email subscribers at the same time. So I created my first digital products, some to use as lead magnets and others to sell. And yes, I did this for both of my accounts, with the “for sale” digital products being launched towards the end of the Q2 2020 quarter.

Part of niching down my mom blog also meant I needed to create a more targeted lead magnet. That’s when I created the Monthly Brain Dump Journal for Busy Moms and released it to the public during the last days of June. This was also when my EBMS Bundle launch took place. And only a few weeks into July, both of these have been converting steadily so I will continue to focus on promoting these to help my targeted audiences.

But my digital product creation journey doesn’t stop there. I am already working on expanding my products for both blogs and hope to have them released this quarter. This actually leads me into the final portion – my Q3 blog goals.

Related Post: How To Create an eBook to Sell

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Increase site speed & improve blog SEO

Yup, I already mentioned this earlier. SEO overall will be my main focus this quarter. This means that I will be doing lots of research and implementing new SEO strategies this quarter based on what I learn.

From the get go, I already know my sites speed is not the best. It has improved within the past few weeks but know there is so much more improvement that can be done. And since this is a big factor in SEO, I’ve lumped these two together. So wish me luck as I go through this challenging and exciting journey of learning SEO.

Continue to niche down (possible 4th blog)

Yes, you read that right. It seems that this will be the quarter where a 4th blog may be launched. However, I’m not too worried as I stopped fully promoting this Wedding niche from my mom blog, but do think it makes sense to make it its own.

Actually, my fiancé was the one who convinced me on this (I almost removed it completely). But again, my focus will not be to improve this new blog. The reason for this creation will be to further niche down my mom blog which is truly my #1 priority (along with helping you through the content in this blog of course).

Launch 1-2 new digital products

Lastly, I really enjoyed making the products I did and love how it was able to help my readers in a way I hadn’t been able to do so before. So almost immediately after launching my digital products, I began creating new ones. So definitely expect some more awesome digital products from me for both of my blogs.

And just between you and me, I have something pretty big and helpful coming soon for all my blogging friends. I can’t share what it is just yet but just know it’ll help you get back some extra blog time to work on other blogging tasks. 😉

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And remember, there is always something to be happy for… Cheers to blogging! What are you cheering to today?

Lucy