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He also runs Side Hustle Courses that teach others how to make $$$ outside of their day job through blogging, Etsy, and freelancing.
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Welcome to the Fly to FI Blogress Report – November 2018! For those of you here for the first time, I post monthly reports detailing my blog stats, income statement, growth strategies, and more! I hope that you get some value out of this report and enjoy reading about my progress. Follow along each month as the Fly to FI community continues to grow!
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Blogress Report – November 2018
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Let’s dig in.
Blog Posts
This month I published 8 articles within 5 categories.
Travel – 1 article
Mindset – 2 articles
Frugality and Entrepreneurship: An Unstoppable Combination
Is Financial Independence a Blessing or a Curse?
Saving Money – 1 article
7 Frugal Holiday Gift Ideas You Didn’t Think Of
My Journey – 2 articles
Financial Freedom Book – The Next Chapter in My Life
Blogress Report – October 2018
Guest Posts – 2 articles
How Financial Independence Can Benefit Your Relationship | Jenny from Living Life Loving Us
How to Break Away From Financial Dependence On Your Parents
Podcast Episodes
Optimizing Your Day Job and Crushing the Side Hustle Game | Kevin from Financial Panther
Tragic Adversity, Mail Delivery, and Rental Properties | Jimmy Ridenhour
Lessons Learned from 25 Years of Blogging | J.D. Roth
“Retired” at 24, Now Earning $1.5 Million Blogging | Michelle Schroeder-Gardner
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Blog Stats
Month-to-Month Analysis
Numbers are comparable with last month and I’m generally happy with the direction of the blog’s growth overall. Haven’t quite broken that 10,000 average monthly page views, but I’m getting close!
I can’t be too hard on myself since I also did a ton of work on The FI Show podcast, and my newest exciting venture that I’ll discuss later in this post.
Income Statement
Income
Net Income: $350.23. My best month ever! Let’s take a closer look at the blog’s income streams for November 2018.
Affiliates
Acclaim Network: $360. The Acclaim Network is another affiliate program aggregator that I use. One service that I promote through their platform is Credit Land.
Credit Land is a credit card review website. They analyze new credit card bonuses and special offers every month. This site is a great resource for anyone interested in travel rewards. You can apply for your next card now to support this blog!
*PLEASE READ CREDIT CARD BASICS BEFORE APPLYING FOR YOUR NEXT CREDIT CARD*
Personal Capital: $20. Personal Capital is a FREE online tool to help track your spending and net worth. It aggregates all of your assets and liabilities and can quickly give you a snapshot of your overall financial position. If you’re not already using this awesome software, click here to get started!
Share-A-Sale: $4.46. This is another affiliate program aggregator. There are thousands of different products and services on this platform to promote. Although I am very picky about promotion, I love to recommend my domain provider, Namecheap — fairly priced and amazing customer service. Find your favorite companies on Share-A-Sale to promote!
Advertisements
Google Adsense: $3.83. I’m rich! As you may have noticed, I only have ads in the footer of the site. With that being said, it doesn’t bring it too much revenue.
Other
Airbnb Credit: $20. In my How to Travel the World with Free Accommodation post, I detailed how to unlock the synergies between Airbnb and credit card rewards.
I included my Airbnb referral link and earn a bit of credit whenever someone signs up. If you use my referral link to sign up for Airbnb you receive $40 in free travel credit! What are you waiting for? Sign up and get started!
Expenses
Total Expenses: $58.06. Seem low? Here’s why.
- Domain: Purchased for $12.99 in April 2018
- Hosting: I already had website hosting set up for Arsenal Discs. On my SiteGround hosting plan, adding another website was free of charge.
- Email list: I currently use MailChimp to run my email list, which is free.
- Housekeeping: Everything you see on the site is done by me! I have yet to hire a tech or virtual assistant.
Podcast
Hosting: $20. I currently use Blubrry for hosting the podcast and could not be more pleased with their service. I have had no technical difficulties whatsoever and their customer service team is fast and responsive. Additionally, Blubrry offers comprehensive statistics about the podcast and integrates into WordPress seamlessly with the PowerPress plugin.
Miscellaneous: $16.97. I bought a 75-foot ethernet cord so that I could connect my computer directly to my router from my new podcast recording studio that I made!
Advertisements
Facebook Ads: $21.09. I dabbled in Facebook Ads (quite frugally) after taking a free 5-day Facebook course. I’m tempted to go all in but my frugality keeps stopping me.
Growth Strategies
I am constantly trying to grow the Fly to FI Community. I work hard to curate quality content so I’d like to reach as many people as possible. I’ll break down the growth strategies I used in November 2018.
Financial Freedom Book Tour!
I made a HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT this month on my blog. Long story short, I will be joining Grant Sabatier from Millennial Money on a three-month book tour around the country to promote the launch of his new book, Financial Freedom.
The tour will stretch from March to June and will cover 41+ cities around the continental U.S. Read all about it here!
Guest Post Appearances
This month, I had one guest post interview go live:
Starting a Disc Golf Company: An Interview with Cody from Fly to FI
Podcast Appearances
None were published this month. I recorded one as a guest though!
The FI Show
The podcast has been going great so far and Justin from Saving-Sherpa and I are really finding our groove. I’m excited for the future of the show and I hope that you’re all willing to come for the ride. If you haven’t listened yet, go check it out!
Social Media and Online Presence
Social media accounts are great for connecting with the community and growing the Fly to FI brand. I’m slowly starting to get a rhythm and see what works best for me.
Great for forming communities and interacting with your audience.
Groups: The FI Show, ChooseFI, FIRE Drill Community, Mustachians on Facebook, Mustachians in Practice, FinCon Podcast Network and FinCon Community.
Pages: I increased my Fly to FI Facebook Page likes to 78 and The FI Show Page likes to 67 . If you haven’t already, give the pages a like!
Twitter is great for connecting with other bloggers and members of the personal finance community. Using the “share” feature on other bloggers’ sites allows me to quickly share their posts with my followers.
Although Instagram is not the best platform for increasing blog traffic due to its “link-blocking”, I like to use it to connect with the community. If you’d like to do more seeing than reading or listening…
Linktree
You can place your Linktree URL in your Instagram bio and link to multiple websites (Email List, Blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) on just one page! Check mine out here!
Crowdfire / Buffer
Crowdfire and Buffer are social media auto-schedulers. I use Crowdfire to schedule my own content for Facebook Page Posts, Twitter Posts, and Instagram Posts. On the other hand, I use Buffer to share other people’s content on Twitter and Facebook.
I’ve continued to use Tailwind to bolster my Pinterest activity. Tailwind is a Pinterest auto-scheduler that makes posting and sharing pins easy. I joined several “Tribes”, which is just a fancy term for Tailwind Groups. I definitely saw an uptick in traffic after I joined Tailwind.
If you’d like to get 15 days free like I did, use my referral link, please!
Follow my Pinterest profile here!
Google Plus
It has been recently announced that Google Plus will be shutting down! Since my posts get automatically uploaded to my profile, it doesn’t really affect me anyway. While it’s still around… Check out my Google Plus page and join the Fly to FI Community!
I spent a lot more time on Reddit this past month. Check out some subs in the finance space and you’ll probably run into me. Follow my Reddit profile here!
Tumblr
A great site for blogger’s to share their own and re-share others’ content.
Follow my Tumblr profile here!
Mix
Similar to Pinterest, with boards and categories. Mix is another platform for promoting content.
Quora
A place to share your knowledge with an eager community of people. If your answers are good enough, you might just go viral.
Viral Content Bee
This website is great for connecting and sharing posts with bloggers outside of your immediate circle. Basically, by sharing other people’s content, you earn ‘points’ that allow you to share your content. The more you share, the more you get shared!
Finance Forums/Websites
This month I was mostly active in the Rockstar Finance Forums. I interacted with other bloggers/podcasters and shared content. Collaborating and working with other influencers has been key to the blog’s growth.
I’ve been jumping around in the Modest Money Top Finance Blogs directory. Last month I was at #705 and now back down to #533! Not sure how their algorithm works but hopefully I can continue to improve my rank.
Where Can I Improve?
I am constantly trying to improve the Fly to FI brand and deliver the best possible content to you readers.
If you have any suggestions to improve my content, site, brand, or anything at all please contact me at cody [at] flytofi [dot] com. I’m also open to new business ventures and opportunities. Don’t hesitate to hit me up!
Thanks for checking in to the Blogress Report – November 2018. See you next month!
If this content helped you, please share! Website traffic helps to keep the lights on and allows me to keep producing helpful content.
Note: I am not a financial advisor or fiduciary. All the information presented in this article reflects my opinion. I am not liable for any financial losses incurred related to this content. My content is always written with the readers’ best interests in mind. I believe that my content is helpful and well-researched, but it is not professional financial advice. For more information, read our Privacy Policy.
Great post! I love reading realistic income reports, and I like the breakdown and month over month revenue comparison. Definitely motivating to a new blogger. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Kelsey! I like to be transparent and keep myself accountable. Just keep pushing and you’ll eventually reach your goals. Have an awesome day!
I love reading these blog reports from regular joe bloggers not the, I made $500k last month bloggers. You have some great numbers there. They make my stats look puny.
Thanks for the kind words, Shawn! I’m just chugging along and having a great time. All good things come with time!
Congrats on a great month 🙂 I love the page views and your revenue is solid as well.
What was the FB ads 5 day course you did, what were the results? Was that the spike at the beginning of the month?
Want to become my Quora VA? 😉 hahah I have over 1000 followers on there, and now hate the platform. Way too many ads. What are your thoughts on it?
Thanks Erik! Appreciate it man. I took Monica Louie’s 5 Day Free Facebook Ad Challenge for Bloggers and learned quite a bit. I think I might ramp up my advertising a bit this month.
Definitely don’t have the capacity to take on additional work lol but I appreciate the offer 😉 1,000 followers is awesome man! This is my first month trying it out and I’ve only got a couple dozen page views. However, it seems like the effort will pay off in the long run. That’s the theme I’ve been seeing anyway!
Thanks for letting me know the course. I’ll have a look.
I’ll follow you on Quora to hopefully get things going a little more. Just way too many ads. What I do now is I just copy content from my site, make some adjustments relevant to the topic, and then hit post. That way you don’t have to come up with a unique take on everything…?
Yeah that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. We’ll see how it goes in next month’s roundup! Hopefully I can convert on some page views and followers with all of these new avenues I’m testing out.
Awesome stuff there Cody! Gonna start sharing income and maybe blog stats results from Jan19. Watch for it! Hopefully something to show for. =)
Thank you! I like sharing just to keep me accountable and keep pushing to get to the next level.