September 2025: Monthly Recap 📈

Hello, my friend!

I’m popping into your inbox with my usual monthly recap — a behind-the-scenes look at what’s been happening in my life and business lately.

As you’re reading this, I’m probably enjoying a short birthday trip to Vancouver, BC. 🎉

I’ve had this fun tradition since my 20s, celebrating my birthday in a new place every year. It’s my second year living in Canada, and I’ve chosen sunny (fingers crossed!) Vancouver for October 4th.

I don’t have any Vancouver photos yet, but here’s a recent one I snapped on Toronto Island. 🌊

Now, onto a small gift for you. 🎁 

I’m sending this recap a bit early with a birthday treat:

👉 From October 3rd to October 5th (until 11:59 PM EDT), you can get 10% off my SEO ebook plus a complimentary access to my Premium content library (with monthly affiliate reports + case studies).

Use code BIRTHDAY10 at checkout:

P.S. Your complimentary Premium access will be unlocked on October 6th.

Crushing website goals 🚀

Now, let me share some great news about the website performance from the past month.

Here’s a quick update on how September went.

✅ Total earnings: $8,102.18 — my best month of the year!
✅ 10 affiliate partners
✅ Made $2,000 from a brand sponsorship
✅ The highest amount earned from one affiliate partner was $1,835.95

So, my website brought in a total of USD $29,399.45 in 2025. 🤑

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

My earnings in September 2025 doubled compared to the previous month. 🎉

One big reason for that is the Semrush affiliate program. It slowed down over the summer, but it bounced back in September and brought in four figures on its own.

A few more affiliate programs also did really well — SE Ranking and beehiiv both brought in four figures this month too.

If you’re curious about beehiiv and want to learn how it can help you grow and monetize your content, here’s a little more about it:

The #1 platform for newsletters. Period.

beehiiv is the one platform that does everything for your newsletter. And they do mean everything:

• A newsletter editor that makes your words shine like they belong on a bestseller list

• A no-code website builder that doubles as your 24/7 subscriber magnet

• Revenue tools that make earning money so easy it feels like cheating: ads, referrals, and paid subs

If you’ve got a newsletter (or even just the idea for one), beehiiv is the ultimate no-brainer.

Start for free on the absolute best platform for newsletters. No credit card required.

Additionally, I closed a $2,000 deal for mentioning a reputable SEO brand in one of my posts. Even though this tool has been on the market since 2017 and I used it a long time ago, I took a few weeks to test it and create content before adding it to my website.

Working with reputable brands is much more rewarding and carries almost no risk to your website.

Case study: $20k+ from my website in 8 months

You might know that hitting $20k from my website was a goal for 2025. However, this happened much sooner.

That’s why I worked on a detailed case study in September that breaks down exactly how my website made over $20,000 in the first 8 months of 2025.

It’s 2,205 words long, so grab a coffee ☕, get comfy, and dive in.

Here’s a sneak peek of what’s inside:

1. The mistake I made when launching my site (so you don’t have to)

2. How 15k monthly visitors can turn into multiple 4-figure monthly income

3. Why traffic alone doesn’t matter

4. What happened to my site in August 2024

5. How I turned $8.8k in 2024 into $20k (+$8k in September 2025! 💰)

6. What no longer works when growing a site (and what actually works now)

7. My 2025 earnings, month by month

8. My affiliate marketing strategy

9. My 2025 content strategy

10. The lessons I wish I knew earlier

This is probably the most in-depth and practical marketing case study I’ve ever published. 👇

What I worked on in September

✅ I’ve worked on my in-depth guide, teaching my step-by-step process for doing keyword research for SEO my way.

This guide summarizes the most critical parts from the keyword research chapter of my SEO ebook so that you have clear steps to follow.

✅ I’ve published an in-depth review of the Semrush AI SEO Toolkit to help website owners understand how they can monitor brand mentions and rankings in AI search results.

If you are interested in exploring AI SEO tools, you can read the in-depth review here.

As always, every piece I publish helps me move closer to my business goals.

You can see my Q2-Q3 content calendar below.

👉 Have you done keyword research for your site yet? You can learn more about my keyword research and optimization process in my SEO ebook.

What you might have missed from September

Google is testing (or maybe permanently removing) the &num=100 parameter.

This little trick used to let SEO tools pull the top 100 keyword positions. Now, Google is basically cutting it down to the top 20 results only.

The Ahrefs team looked at over 50,000 sites and found that, at this pace, it would take ChatGPT more than 3 years to reach even 1% of overall web traffic.

More about their study and findings here:

I published my August Affiliate Marketing report on September 9th, sharing all the insights about how my website brought in $4,199.25 in total income in August.

You can find all the affiliate reports since January 2025 here.

For the Premium members: 👋

Here’s what’s new in the content library:

• $20k+ from my website in 8 months —here’s how: It’s my 2,000-word case study, where I share everything that helped me grow & monetize my site.

• Google hit my site … then I doubled my traffic, where I show the impact of the Google Core Update on various websites (including mine), and highlight common characteristics of the top-performing sites.

• $12,000+ from my website in 5 months: I’m sharing my top-performing affiliate programs and landing pages that generate the most revenue.

• Optimize like a Pro: Here's what I do: I use these 9 content optimization strategies to rank on page one.

• My approach to affiliate marketing: Mistakes, learnings & new strategy

• How I ranked #8 on Google in just 6 days: The SEO strategy that got me on Google in a few days.

Want in?

You can become a Premium member for just $7 one-time payment. You’ll get behind-the-scenes tips, real strategies I use to grow my site, and answers to your questions. 🧠💡

Have a great weekend!

Victoria

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