Hello, my friend!

Winter is officially wrapping up today! ☃️➡️🌸

… but not here at Lake Erie. ❄️😅

Is it just me, or did February fly by in the blink of an eye?

Maybe it’s because it’s the shortest month… or maybe it’s because I was juggling a million things (as usual) in my online business.

Biggest lesson this month?

When you actually focus and put in the work—no more half-trying—you start seeing the results you’ve been waiting for.

Can you relate? 😊 

A lot went on behind the scenes in February.

I’ve already shared some of it, like updating my SEO ebook, earning a $388 affiliate bonus, and doubling down on growing my website.

But let’s do a full recap, shall we?

This one’s packed with insights! 🚀

Crushing February’s earnings 💰🚀

Remember how I shared my January affiliate earnings? That was $1,105.59—all from my website.

P.S. If you’re a Premium member, you can check out the February affiliate marketing report here. You must be logged in with your email address to read it.

But for now, here’s a quick update on how February went.

I focused on updating some of my older content, and it paid off.

Here’s the breakdown:

✅ Total earnings: $2,068.57
✅ Added a new affiliate program to my mix
✅ Made $679.64 from just one product!
✅ Earned a $388 bonus for hitting a quarterly sales target 🎯

Sounds great, right?

But affiliate marketing isn’t always smooth sailing... 😅

⚠️ One affiliate partner has been delaying a $156 payment for over a month.
⚠️ A new affiliate partner barely responds, and their dashboard is a mess (seriously, how is this a big-name company?).
⚠️ One platform I use doesn’t even have a “Withdraw” button, so now I have to chase affiliate managers.

Oh, and the eternal dilemma: Should I use more or fewer affiliate links in my content? 🤔

Affiliate marketing isn’t the “set-it-and-forget-it” passive income stream people claim it to be.

It takes real work.

The content I wrote months ago is just now starting to pay off. That means what I create today will probably bring results later this year.

So, I have to be strategic.

I don’t want my site to turn into a bunch of “X Best Tools for…” posts.

Instead, I balance money-making content with in-depth, high-quality articles. I believe this is the best way to survive Google’s never-ending updates without getting hit.

One thing I love? Growth. 🚀

Thanks to content updates and new articles, my site got 24.16% more impressions (show-ups in search results) in February compared to January.

I love this trend and hope it keeps climbing! 📈💪

Below you can see my chart from Google Search Console with organic traffic stats only.

February was BUSY.

Honestly, I’m kind of amazed at how much I got done because I’ve never managed this much work in a single month before!

Here’s what I worked on:

✅ Updated my "Substack alternatives" blog post—it jumped to #5, but later to #6 position on Google! 🎉
✅ Updated my "Content writing tools for SEO" blog post—it climbed to #3 on Google!
✅ Updated my "SEO books" blog post… and Google rewarded me by dropping it from #7 to #14. Thanks, Google. 🤷‍♀️
✅ Updated my “SEO tools for small businesses” blog post

✅ Updated my “SEO for new website” blog post

✅ Updated my “Semrush review” blog post — it jumped to #7 on Google

And on top of that:

✅ Published a new article, “Best newsletter platforms” — already ranking 19th for the “newsletter platforms.” Hoping for even better results! 🤞

✅ Published a sponsored article, “AI course creator tools” — it’s now sitting at #24 on Google!

Oh, and 2 sponsorships brought in an extra $400 on top of my affiliate earnings. Not bad! 💰

But if you’re thinking of doing the same, here’s what you should know:

I actually decline most sponsorship requests.

Why?
❌ They pitch irrelevant products/services that don’t fit my site.
❌ Many send AI-generated content, which I never publish.

So, what’s my approach?
✔️ I have strict requirements for any sponsored content.
✔️ I rewrite every sponsored post to add my own insights.

That’s the only way to do it.

My SEO ebook is live 📖

The 4th ebook of my SEO ebook with 110 pages includes:

• A case study on how my content outranked industry giants and ranked in the top 3 for multiple keywords

• A case study on what I do when my website rankings drop

• A step-by-step guide to finding, analyzing, and prioritizing primary & secondary keywords

• How to create a solid content writing plan

• How to craft SEO-friendly outlines

• My best writing tips to make sure your content meets Google’s expectations

• And more!

Here’s a little sneak peek of the ebook design! 😎 

For a better experience, I recommend downloading the PDF ebook and reading it on your desktop. The ebook contains graphs and charts that may be difficult to view on mobile devices.

This is an actionable guide. So, I recommend implementing what you have learned on your website.

The ebook isn't compatible with Amazon Kindle yet.

My Reddit experiment

Since January 2025, I’ve been experimenting with Reddit to figure out a few things:

• How to keep my comments on top of the highest-ranking posts

• How to make affiliate sales through Reddit

• How to drive more traffic to my website

By now, I’ve learned the following:

Some subreddits are pretty easy to get in, like r/Blogging, where you can easily share your posts. But others? Not so much. Take r/SEO, for example. They’ll even delete a simple question with zero links. 🤷‍♀️

In fact, here’s what the moderators of the r/SEO wrote me under my post with a question:

By posting this question, I wanted to learn what the SEO community thinks about doing SEO in 2025. But since it was deleted in a few minutes, I republished it in another subreddit and got over 3.6k views in one day.

Fast forward a month, and my Reddit account grew to:

✨ 63 karma points
💬 35 live comments
👥 2 followers

And it all started with one post that racked up 20k+ views and 96 comments. 😲

I shared everything that I did, what worked, and the lessons learned in my Premium Marketing Newsletter. It’s already live in my collection!

👇 Here’s a sneak peek.

🔓 Unlock full access here.

On the fun side

My interview with Marc Maxhimer from The Tilt Publishing, recorded on January 31st, is now live!

I had a great time sharing my journey—from my early days to where I am today.

If you’d like to check it out, you can read the interview here.

Want to go ad-free? Become a Premium member!

Access my behind-the-scenes insights from my affiliate journey, learn about my latest marketing experiments, and read my Medium stories for FREE —all for just $7/month! 💡

I drop new insights every month, so you're always learning something fresh.

No ads. No promo.

Curious how much a WordPress blog with 10k+ traffic can make and what’s actually working?

Have a great weekend!

Victoria

P.S. You can review all previous monthly recaps here.