It’s time for another update- The May Monthly update for the $0 to $1000 Challenge. If you missed the April challenge report, you can see it here.
Well, the month of May was a slow month, at least for me and some of us who took a hit from the recent Google update (for a different website).
It was my laziest month, and this also affected my productivity. Only 5 posts were published, and there was minimal progress in the case study website.
In the last two months, two things happened. The Amazon commission update and the recent Google update.
The Amazon update directly affected this case study site, and I have been hunting for Amazon alternatives.
I got approved on two Amazon alternatives, with one paying a 10% base commission for a specific line of products that I am promoting. This is a merchant listed in the Rakuten Network. There are dozens of merchants on this network, and you can find good merchants to promote.
The second alternative is paying $15 per new acquisition, which means you only earn per every new referral who has never purchased on the site. The latter is pretty vague, but well, still better than nothing.
That aside, let’s dive in the latest report for the 4th month of the Challenge.
What I accomplished in May
- Published 5 new posts on the website, bringing the total number of articles to 30.
- Implemented the 301 permanent redirection. The immediate result was a jump in the Domain Rating (according to Ahrefs) to DR 22.
- I began testing a new Amazon alternative. I got five clicks but no sale yet.
- Began testing Link Whisper to help with adding internal links (nothing exciting yet)
Link Building
As I mentioned in the April update, I planned to test 301 redirect using a technique that has worked for me before. The most popular methods of implementing a 301 redirection include redirecting from the domain registrar, through the Cpanel, or through htaccess.
Here is how I implemented the 301 permanent redirect to the case study site:
Once that is done, the homepage for the expired domain should be as follows:
NB: You can even add a background image to make it look fancy
Other than the redirection, no other links were built to the site.
Traffic and Earnings for May
The traffic numbers received a boost towards the end of the month when two of my target keywords hit positions 8 and 9. In total, the site had about 175 page views for the month.
Still, despite the rising traffic numbers, I did not make the highly anticipated first sale. Nevertheless, the number of clicks increased, and I am crossing fingers that the first sale will happen soon.
Challenges encountered in May
- Google update affected my morale
- Published 5 posts only, against a target of 15 posts
Plans for June
- Publish 10 new posts
- Build 5 new link
- Refer at least one successful sale
- Stop laziness
Progress Report for Team Members
The month of May was an exciting month for some of the team members. Nelly made her first sale on a 3-month old blog, Alakesh hit $22, Ludiah hit $70 and Betty $1. Congratulations team mates!
Overall, team members made notable progress as shown in the table below:
Name | No. of Posts | Traffic | Revenue | Wins/ Plans for June |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Ludiah | - | - | $70 | - |
Betty | 23 | 576 | $1 | Built pillow links Publish 5 posts, onsite and site design |
Nelly | 50 | - | $0.82 | Published targeted articles, built 10 links, created facebook, pinterest and twitter Add 20 articles, create logo, try link outreach, broken links and try PBNs. |
Alakesh | 14 | 9000 | $22 | Accomplished the publishing Goal More published content |