My Side Hustle

[The Reverend]

I'm not sure what but something happened last Sunday that caused my blog views balloon to more double what they used to be! This is really exciting that people are actually reading my blog, and motivates me to work on it even more.

I also made my first affiliate link sale, commission for me was only 46p, but I've got to start somewhere right?

I've not had too much time to work on my side hustles in the last couple weeks due to family commitments.

Following blog posts completed this week:
Why you should track your expenses
October 2017 Review

Have you installed google analytics? It will help you see what people are visiting and when.

Great news on your first Aff Link commission

 

[Jon]

I'm not sure what but something happened last Sunday that caused my blog views balloon to more double what they used to be! This is really exciting that people are actually reading my blog, and motivates me to work on it even more.

I also made my first affiliate link sale, commission for me was only 46p, but I've got to start somewhere right?

I've not had too much time to work on my side hustles in the last couple weeks due to family commitments.

Following blog posts completed this week:
Why you should track your expenses
October 2017 Review

What do your Google Analytics stats say? They should be showing you where people are getting referred to your site

 

[Skinnylatte]

Woohoo, well done. Have you looked at analytics yet and discovered the source of that traffic?

 

[my side hustle]

I don't have Google analytics, just the basic statistics that comes with the WordPress personal plan and I find that the statistics are not accurate.

For example, in total it shows I have had 14 unique visitors so far today. But under referrals it shows as:
3 from Facebook
1 from WordPress
2 from The Money Shed

This totals 6 so it's missing where the extra 8 people have come from.

 

[The Reverend]

I don't have Google analytics, just the basic statistics that comes with the WordPress personal plan and I find that the statistics are not accurate.

For example, in total it shows I have had 14 unique visitors so far today. But under referrals it shows as:
3 from Facebook
1 from WordPress
2 from The Money Shed

This totals 6 so it's missing where the extra 8 people have come from.

Get self hosted. There is a link on this forum for £2.99 a month hosting! Then you can load Google Analytics and learn everythign about everyone!

(p.s. they could be googlebots/people who found it via google - and you!)

 

[Jon]

Get self hosted. There is a link on this forum for £2.99 a month hosting! Then you can load Google Analytics and learn everythign about everyone!

(p.s. they could be googlebots/people who found it via google - and you!)

On top of that can you see which country those viewers are from.

Money content tends to typically be targeted at the country of origin so I write everything with the assumption that my readers is from the UK. It's because of this that I don't care about views for the USA etc because they aren't going to earn me any money in the long run

 

[Annie Beau]

With your t shirt idea, have you looked into Merch by Amazon? From what I understand, you send in some designs, they advertise them as printed t shirts then when a customer selects your design they print and send the shirt. This is the basic info I know about via an ebay/amazon group i am on, I dont have any experience of it myself but worth googling to see if its any use to you

 

[my side hustle]

With your t shirt idea, have you looked into Merch by Amazon? From what I understand, you send in some designs, they advertise them as printed t shirts then when a customer selects your design they print and send the shirt. This is the basic info I know about via an ebay/amazon group i am on, I dont have any experience of it myself but worth googling to see if its any use to you

I have applied for Merch by Amazon but it takes months for them to review the application and get an account. I think I applied about two months ago. I completely forgot about that to be honest, I'll have to check if my application has gone through.

 

[Skinnylatte]

I have applied for Merch by Amazon but it takes months for them to review the application and get an account. I think I applied about two months ago. I completely forgot about that to be honest, I'll have to check if my application has gone through.

Now that is really intesting, I didn't know about that. Thank you for posting, I'm off to apply

 

[my side hustle]

Blog views have slowly been coming down again this week, with the odd very good day. I don't why, the views seem to be a bit random.

Two posts published:
The Money Taboo
How to create a budget

The Money Taboo seems to have created a little more conversation in the comments than my other posts do, so maybe I should do more posts like this one? How to create a budget is a basic post with a downloadable budget planner (I intend to redo it when I get time, it's the best I could do with the limited time I had). The idea is to overtime create different planning sheets (e.g. financial goals plan or savings plan) that can be inserted into a filofax. I can then sell these either as a pack or individually. What are your thoughts on this? In case you're not sure what I'm referring to here's a link to a similar product on Etsy: EasyLife Planners

I'll have to look into self hosting, I really don't know much about creating websites, I'm learning as I go along.

Not done much matched betting this week, generally had a lot of things going on and more overtime at work. But I have managed to get a week ahead on my blog posts which means I can spend the day tomorrow uploading t-shirt designs to CafePress and generally figuring out how the site works.

 

[Jon]

Blog views have slowly been coming down again this week, with the odd very good day. I don't why, the views seem to be a bit random.

Two posts published:
The Money Taboo
How to create a budget

The Money Taboo seems to have created a little more conversation in the comments than my other posts do, so maybe I should do more posts like this one? How to create a budget is a basic post with a downloadable budget planner (I intend to redo it when I get time, it's the best I could do with the limited time I had). The idea is to overtime create different planning sheets (e.g. financial goals plan or savings plan) that can be inserted into a filofax. I can then sell these either as a pack or individually. What are your thoughts on this? In case you're not sure what I'm referring to here's a link to a similar product on Etsy: EasyLife Planners

I'll have to look into self hosting, I really don't know much about creating websites, I'm learning as I go along.

Not done much matched betting this week, generally had a lot of things going on and more overtime at work. But I have managed to get a week ahead on my blog posts which means I can spend the day tomorrow uploading t-shirt designs to CafePress and generally figuring out how the site works.

I wouldn't worry too much about your blog views. Blogging is a VERY long game and your views will go up and down and to a certain degree if you want to earn from your blog the only ones you should care about are ones from the UK who will click on your links and earn you money.

Going Self hosted is just a case of doing what you do now really. Kloudhost for example offer a one click install of Wordpress so with one click you will have your blog all setup again, if you ask them they will help migrate your site over to them anyway so you shouldn't have to do any manual work

 

[Jon]

@my side hustle I see the green site forum have shut down your update thread ;(

 

[my side hustle]

@my side hustle I see the green site forum have shut down your update thread ;(

Yeah, I can see why, it was a very fine line between talking about growing my blog and self- promotion.

 

[Jon]

Yeah, I can see why, it was a very fine line between talking about growing my blog and self- promotion.

pff, you didn't do anything wrong and that is one of the many reasons that I created this site as an alternative.

If someone promotes their own personal blog on the green site I don't see how that causes any issues or problems for them

 

[The Reverend]

pff, you didn't do anything wrong and that is one of the many reasons that I created this site as an alternative.

If someone promotes their own personal blog on the green site I don't see how that causes any issues or problems for them

Drives traffic elsewhere and as such affects their income.

It would be such small fry, but every pound they lose out on is a pound they don't have.

 

[Jon]

Drives traffic elsewhere and as such affects their income.

It would be such small fry, but every pound they lose out on is a pound they don't have.

I just can't buy into that because if you run a blog and you have it in your sig or whatever it is that they hate and you get a whopping i dunno 10-100 views from people clicking on it then so what..

They charge £££££ to be featured on their site and your blog post that has a topcashback link that would earn you £10 just shouldn't be an issue to them.

So basically it's 'you can only put links in that the green site can earn from directly'

great stuff lol

 

[my side hustle]

pff, you didn't do anything wrong and that is one of the many reasons that I created this site as an alternative.

If someone promotes their own personal blog on the green site I don't see how that causes any issues or problems for them

I'm glad you created this site, I think it's fantastic!

 

[The Reverend]

I just can't buy into that because if you run a blog and you have it in your sig or whatever it is that they hate and you get a whopping i dunno 10-100 views from people clicking on it then so what..

They charge £££££ to be featured on their site and your blog post that has a topcashback link that would earn you £10 just shouldn't be an issue to them.

So basically it's 'you can only put links in that the green site can earn from directly'

great stuff lol

oh, I agree with you.

I love how sites change. I'm almost sure that at some point HUKD (or another site like that) used to give the user who posted a deal a 'cut' of the earnings. I thought that was a good 'structure' but changing it to HEAT and lose the cash and everyone goes crazy!

 

[Jon]

oh, I agree with you.

I love how sites change. I'm almost sure that at some point HUKD (or another site like that) used to give the user who posted a deal a 'cut' of the earnings. I thought that was a good 'structure' but changing it to HEAT and lose the cash and everyone goes crazy!

I'm sure I read that last year HUKD were charging companies THOUSANDS EACH to be on the list on the right hand side during black friday week

no doubt they are doing the same again this year.

 

[katykicker]

I don't have Google analytics, just the basic statistics that comes with the WordPress personal plan and I find that the statistics are not accurate.

For example, in total it shows I have had 14 unique visitors so far today. But under referrals it shows as:
3 from Facebook
1 from WordPress
2 from The Money Shed

This totals 6 so it's missing where the extra 8 people have come from.

That just means that the other 8 people have come direct or whatever OR they may have come from another stream that doesn't come under referrals.