Update #32 – March 2025 Traffic & Income Report

March 2025 is now complete!

Thank you so much for visiting my (somewhat) monthly update on how the website is doing.

This is one of my favorite articles to write. It allows me a chance to get everything off my chest and share with you my recent struggles and successes.

Let’s go!

March 2025 Traffic

Google still doesn’t hate me!

I was in the Google sandbox for quite some time and that stopped in mid December of 2024.

Here’s a snippet of the last six months.

My best Google impression day last month had 3,751 impressions. My best actual click day had 117 clicks. Impressions are up, but Google clicks are down from last month.

Now let’s look at total visits from all sources, not just Google:

So overall my clicks were up in March compared to February.

However, I would really like to see a steady increase month after month. After being blacklisted for a bit by Google, being sporadic with clicks makes me nervous.

I will say that my highest performing article on Google is “How to Say Thank You for a Bonus” and that tends to perform very well in December and January because that’s when people get bonuses…so that’s the reason behind the higher December and January.

I want to break 4,000 in April.

What’s my ultimate goal? To obtain 50,000 sessions in a month so that I can get approved for Mediavine.

50,000 impressions/30 days in a typical month = 1,667 sessions per day. Yikes.

I’m at roughly 100. I’m going to save my thoughts on this for the Goals section.

For now, let’s be happy that we didn’t go down in March compared to February.

Social Media Updates

So I don’t want to use Facebook anymore.

However, I think I need two social media accounts. I love Pinterest and I think there’s a huge opportunity there. Where else should I be? Instagram? Nah…

I need to think on this. In the meantime, I should take the FB links off my website. I’ll plan to do that this month.

As for Pinterest – I had 78 followers at the end of December 2023. Now I have 82. That’s 4 additionally followers in three months…eek…

I really do not want to start a Pinterest ad again, but I do want to get back in the game. I need to start pinning more. I’ve thought about taking an online course, but I need to do some research as I don’t want to be suckered into buying something that offers little in return.

I did enough of that two years ago in the beginning.

The Pinterest goal was 150 followers by the end of 2025. I’m a super long way from that and I definitely need to up my game.

Let’s start keeping track of my impressions to hold me accountable. Right now I’m showing 40,000 Pinterest Impressions per month. I have faith with daily (or almost daily) pinning, I can get that up to 60,000 in April.

Let’s do it!

Challenges

Writing, as always.

I think I’m starting to get past the block that I’ve had. I’ve got a lot of ideas and a lot of drafts, but I tend to want perfection.

Slowly, I’m starting to let that go and realize that it’s ok to post an article that I don’t feel is 100% perfect.

Sometimes I spend weeks on a single article. I currently have some drafts that have been sitting in my draft folder for months.

If I could let go completely, I feel like I could easily publish one article a week. I’m working on getting back to that.

When I get blocked with writing, it carries over into other aspects of the website as well. Like Pinterest. I stop pinning and start shutting down mentally with everything.

I need to realize that it’s ok to switch gears and not let one thing bring everything down.

Successes

The success this month was more clicks than last month.

Yeah, there’s nothing else. Am I sad about that? No. I’ve had way worse months.

Remember when I was in the Google sandbox? At least I’m not there anymore!

March 2025 Income

On to the money part…

March Breakdown:

Google AdSense profit: $18.47

Amazon Affiliate Links: $4.80

Sellfy: $7.25

Total in March: $30.52

Yeah, it’s small. The sad thing was that last year I was consistently earning over $50 but I was also running Pinterest ads so I was spending significantly more.

Let’s move on and talk about expenses.

I don’t have many monthly expenses. I purchased Divi Lifetime Membership as my theme in 2023 and I’m so thankful I did.

Currently, I spend $29 on Sellfy to sell digital products. Yes, I know I could use Etsy, but they charge fees too. I had high hopes for my digital selling future and I wanted to be in control. I wrote an article about Sellfy that I’ll need to adjust before I stop paying the $29 per month. I’ll make a plan to do that this month before the next charge.

$29.50 for WordPress.

For subscriber/email list, I use Kit, which is free!

I added a new expense in January. RankIQ is something I read about on another blogger’s post. It’s $49 per month and I’ve already seen an improvement in my older articles by using this service. I honestly think this is the reason why I am seeing so many more Google impressions.

I’m keeping RankIQ through this month and then I may take a break for a few months until I have a bunch of new articles written.

I mainly use RankIQ on older articles to tell me keywords that I’m missing that could help bump up my post in search results. The approximately $150 I’ve spent over the last three months has been worth it.

Total expenses = $107.50

Obviously, I’m losing. If I can get rid of RankIQ and Sellfy for a bit, I’ll save $78 and only be spending $29.50 for WordPress. I would have actually been $1.02 profitable without those two items.

There’s my motivation to get rid of these until I can boost the website traffic more.

April Goals

Write! – Let’s get out 4 articles.

Research – Am I optimizing the pages that are doing well on Google as best as I could be? Are they linking back to other pages and am I monetizing or utilizing affiliate links where I could be?

Pin – 15 new, original Pins is the goal this month. That is A LOT for me. Let’s do them early this month and get them scheduled so I don’t have to worry about feeling tight on time closer to the end of the month.

RankIQ – Spiff up the most popular Google articles that I haven’t yet and then suspend RankIQ until later this year when I have written more articles.

Motivation

What’s my motivation to keep going?

It’s been two years with this website. I have a full time job and kids who are in competitive sports.

I started this because I needed a hobby. I’m not crafty. I don’t think I’m that creative.

But I’m great at my day job and I love saving money and sharing tips…I love writing… I need a hobby…so this is the answer.

I don’t want to forget why I did this in the first place. This isn’t a chore – it’s a hobby that is fun and sometimes takes me out of my comfort zone.

Here’s to a not-bad March and a going-to-be awesome April!