$0 to $1000 Challenge Monthly Report for February 2020

One month has passed since I announced the $0 to $1000 challenge in the 254 Affiliate Marketing Lounge FB Group.

The response was overwhelming and I am keen on seeing as many people make an income off an online business. 

We have an active private community where team members interact, share progress and get answers to their question. If you are yet to join, here is the link: $0 to $1000 Affiliate Marketing Challenge.

The challenge officially started in mid-February 2020, and I have been doing foundation work for this challenge.

I bought a domain on Feb 9, 2020, and I have set up the affiliate website using WordPress.

I have made considerable progress in the first month of this challenge, and I am excited to share this with you. I also received progress reports from several team members of this challenge, which I will share later in this article.

Here is a breakdown of the things I accomplished, challenges encountered, plans for the next month and any new ideas. 

What I accomplished in Feb 2020

The following are some of the things I managed to achieve in the first month:

• Bought a domain for this challenge [(dot) com domain]
• Added the domain to my hosting.
• Setup the website using Word press.  
• Theme: Author landing page (free theme)
• Plugins: Yoast SEO, Thrive Architect (page builder), Hummingbird (cache), Contact Form 7, Akismet, and Classic Editor.
• Keyword research. I used Ahrefs.com 7-day trial to do find easy to rank keywords, some of which comply with the KGR technique. In total, I found 50+ good keywords (both commercial and informational posts) that I will use in the first quarter of this challenge.
• Published 7 posts, with an average length of 1000 to 2000 words. Only one of these articles is a review post.
• On-Page SEO: Interlinking, optimizing images, keyword optimization, creating titles and meta descriptions for each post, etc.
• Set up Google Analytics and Search console.
• Found a good domain for 301 redirect.

Challenges/Failures in Feb 2020

The following are some of the challenges I encountered during the first month of this challenge:

• Fell short of the target number of published posts for month 1 by 3 posts. I have two posts in draft mode, which I plan to publish in the coming week.
• No content for the About Us page, contact page and privacy policy page.
• No backlinks created.

Traffic and Earnings

Being the first month of the challenge, there are no earnings or traffic numbers for this site. However, with the effort I have put in the first month, I hope to start seeing visitors (and a few sales) in the coming weeks.

NB: The few users captured on GA are not actual users from Google. Could be me and one team members doing the ground work.

Link Building

Again, there is nothing much to report on link building efforts. I did not build any links in the first months.

Moving on, I plan to create a few foundation links to get things started. My focus will be on niche edits, guest posts, infographics, blog comments, and a niche-relevant 301 redirect. I am trying as much to stay away from PBN links, at least for now.

Is the content outsourced or written by me?

Both. My plan for this challenge is to outsource 70% of the work, and I will focus on the remaining 30%. I am outsourcing content to two local content writers who I have worked with before, and I am so far satisfied with the quality I am getting. My plan is to increase the publishing schedule to at least 2 to 3 posts per week.

When do I expect to earn the first dollar?

Building organic traffic takes time, and I don’t expect to make a sale in the first three months of this challenge.

Building niche sites tends to be slow in the first few months, and things start moving from the fourth month, or thereabouts. Therefore, I expect to report some earnings starting from the 4^th month of this challenge.

For now, my focus is on maintaining a consistent publishing schedule and building quality links to the homepage and other important pages. 

Plans for March 2019

I plan to focus on the following in the month of March 2020:

• Publish 13 posts (including 3 posts that were due in Feb 2020).
• Build 10 backlinks to the homepage (Blog comments and Guest posts)
• Publish a massive 7000-word article that I am currently working on.
• Polish the On-Page SEO.
• Set up social media pages for the website (Facebook Page and Pinterest)
• Start adding affiliate links.

Monthly Update 1 from $0 to $1000 team members

I received progress updates from several team members. Most of the members who responded have already made some progress, while a few team members are already reporting organic traffic and earnings.

Here is a summary of what other team members have achieved so far: