Blogging for Income August 2015

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Here’s my latest income report.  I mainly do these to show it’s possible to make income off a blog.  I didn’t think that for many years, but with a LOT of effort you can!  I will say that blogging for income isn’t for everyone. This past month I wrote a post about what you need to LOVE to blog for income.  Check that out too!

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Visitors

Users: 140,669 (down 1% – my summer traffic stayed pretty steady, which I was happy for, my niche normally decreases))

Pageviews: 204,808 (up 2%, I was thrilled to have users down a bit but pageviews up — I’ll talk more about why later)

The links included here may include affiliate links and I may be paid a small portion of your income with those companies with no cost to you! You can read my full disclosure here. If you go with one of my ad networks, please mention that you heard about them from me! I’d love the referrals!

Ads

Padsquad

OH Padsquad YOU ARE KILLING ME.  Super horrible month with them.  I was seriously thinking of switching this month, but they have had an 180 degree turn already in September.  We’ll see great numbers with them next month, I am confident. 🙂  August income with them was $420 (down 23% from the month prior, which was down 18% from the month before that — get the trend there).  The reasons I stay with Padsquad is how they’re willing to work with you and customize.  It’s really been a great  experience if the income was poor last month. 🙁

The Blogger Network

The Blogger network was GREAT at $476 (39% higher than last month).  Really awesome.  I’m hopeful things will stay great with them.  I think they’re really working to be great.  I am happy with them and stickin’ around. 🙂

BlogHer

Blogher was awesome at $230 (up 4%).  Blogher is my only ad network that counts clicks and I had a TON with them last month.  Really happy with this.

Google

I have a large google ad in my sidebar that did pretty good this month with just under 40 dollars.  I mainly have one ad because I use google ads on my videos and I’d like to get paid at some point. 🙂  With AdSense you don’t get paid until you pass $100 dollars.  I think I get a check next month {happy dance}.

A lot of people ask me why I have so many ad networks, but I think they all work really well together.  FYI, Padsquad only furnishes my mobile views, TBN, and BlogHer (actually called She Knows, but my site still says Blogher), along with one ad from Google furnish my desktop site.

Total Ad Sales: $1170 (a 6% increase)

While my goal is to stay above 1k (not actually ALL that much I can do if ad revenue is down across many networks — which it seemed to be last month).  This is still lower than I have been in May or June of this year.  Now that Padsquad is doing better, I’m hoping for very bright days ahead. 🙂

 Sales

Amazon was pretty poor at just under 40 dollars.  I can’t seem to find the magic sauce with Amazon.  I’m still trying.

Spreadsheet 3 bucks, 1 was bought. I have the spreadsheet for my own use.  I sell it for the love of my people.  It’s not making a million bucks, and I’m OK with that.  I will be changing it up and making a 2016 version that I will be selling for probably $10 bucks.  This thing really is gold.  I LOVE all the info it gives me.  I’m also willing to customize it for people’s needs (although that will be a LOT more).  You can easily see the formulas I’ve put it and make it your own, though.

Kindle E-book Really low at just over $14 bucks.  I was laying low all summer, but I just ran a free book promotion.  In just the first day I “sold” over 600 books!  The idea is that you get a higher ranking and the book into more hands and hopefully you’ll sell more after the sale.  I, sadly, got some fairly negative reviews (some on my personal parenting, wich was fun).  That might hurt me.  We’ll see.  Obviously, I’m not making millions on it.  Even though I read The Launch.  What a shame. 🙂  I have a prenatal class going that I am planning on launching soon.  I plan to make my millions with that. 🙂

Dressing Your Truth.  I think the real blessing to Affiliate income is when you find a product you really like and write about and THEN you find out they have an awesome affiliate as well.  I continue to do well with them (as well as with the course, it is something I REALLY like for my own life).  I made just under $600 with them this month!

Misc:  I have started up with Share-A-Sale, so far I am with

• Grammarly
• Buy Costumes (Halloween is coming, and I get a lot of Costume traffic)
• Zulilly
• Gymboree
• Halloween Costumes.com
• PicMonkey

I would LOVE to know if other people are with other companies.  I did make $25 just putting a link to Grammarly on my page.  I also use it (and like it) so that helps.

I have also started up affiliating with InMotion hosting (you’ll find out more why) and made $50 with them.  See more below!

Sales total: $722 (Up 24%)

I am really excited to see affiliate income increasing, although I KNOW I could do better.  Anyone an affiliate guru that would like to work with me, or be promoted on my next blog post? 🙂

 Sponsored Posts:

A geat month for sponsored post.  I think companies were doing back to school content.  I haven’t seen as much lately, hopeful that they will pick up.  I worked with a few companies this month including SoFab (Creative Bias),  Tapinfluence, BlogHer, Clever Girls & Massive Sway.  In the past, I have worked with Mom It Forward, Izea, & MomInfluence.  I have come to a new, and more firm number with my sponsored posts.  I had a lot over the summer that seemed to AD-like, and not a post just sponsored by a company.  That’s what I want to aim for in the future — like my Parenting 3 Minute Solution.  I love that type of sponsored content (and frankly, I think that type does best for the company as well as that post has been read a lot more than my ad type ones).

Sponsored post total: $1130

 Blog income total for August $3243 (up 14%)

I am really happy with this income and what a HUGE blessing it is for our family as my husband is still unemployed.  I am hopeful this month will see a change in that status.  I do feel a lot of pressure to make this blog as BIG as it can be (which may have led me to taking sponsored posts I wouldn’t have otherwise, and that is just the reality of my life right now).  It would be nice to fit to head into the “secondary” column of our life.  It is currently our largest income source.

My entire blog CPM including all revenue streams was just about $15.83 per 1000 pageviews (which is actually down 1.60 from last month, even though I made more this month).  The entire blog income is fickle and has a lot to do with what sponsored posts you write that month.  However, I feel that it is important to decide how much EACH visitor is worth to your blog.  This means that every 1,000 visitors to my site — I make just under 16 bucks.  Hence, for every visitor I make a penny, and 6/10 of a penny. 🙂

If you just count ad revenue it’s about $5.71 (up just a bit from last month).  Keep in mind my visitors split between desktop and mobile, and those two sets see an entirely different site and ads)  In case you wondered (my spreadsheet calculates that all out for me!).  I am 76% mobile viewers.

My year to year change was great.  Views are up 40% more than last year, and income was up 270%.  Good news!

The spreadsheet also calculates my percentage of income, which you might be interested in:

• Ads 36%
• Affiliate 21%
• Sponsored Posts 42%
• Self (book) <1%

I’m hoping ads kick up their income (mainly Padsquad).  I’d like to aim (until I sell more of my own content) for about 30/30/30 between ads, affiliate and sponsored posts.

 Blog costs:

• In Motion Hosting (see more below) I paid for a full year, but I plan to break it down to the monthly cost each month in these reports.  $28.00
• PO Box 6 bucks (need one to have a newsletter)
• Boardbooster, 20 bucks/month.  Love them.  more below.

Total cost: $54

That puts me about $3200 for the month.  Since my husband is home full time I have probably been doing 20 hours/week on the blog (more when I changed hosts).  I’ve been updating a lot.  That brings me to about 40 bucks/hour, which is still pretty great.

I do not believe that much of this income increase is due to me.  I know God is blessing us due to my husband's job situation.  I am REALLY thankful, to the point of tears quite often.  It is REALLY amazing.

What I’m doing Right

New Host!

Since I switched from Blogger I have been with RFE hosting.  They were good to me, but my blog actually went down the DAY I had a guest post for Pregnant Chicken (HUGE SIGH).  I know I missed out on traffic because of that.  He was having a lot of server issues and you can only email him if you have an issue.  The downtime and lack of customer service made me change to InMotion. Also, I was due for an upgrade sometime in the next few months.  His shared hosting only takes you up a bit higher than my 200k pageviews, I knew I’d need to switch soon.  So far, I have REALLY loved InMotion.  Their customer service has been great, my speed is good and I am pretty happy.  The change-over process did take 4 full days (and on the 4th day I had a stern talk with an upper-level customer service agent).  That was frustrating, but I think they’re just really busy.  I am on a VPS plan that has 4 GB of ram (that’s important if you have a ton of visitors at once) and 2 TB of bandwidth.  That’s by FAR more than I saw with other places.  I actually switched with my friend Katie (from The Blog Help).  She actually tried SiteGround for a few days and did NOT have a good experience.  Their switchover was painful and she lost traffic.  I just think it’s SO hard to find reliable reviews on hosting companies (because I think they ALL pay quite a lot to get these reviews out there).  In all openness, my link to InMotion IS an affiliate link, but I went with them after a TON of research and a TON of talking to other companies online.  Make sure you ask for a discount when you talk to their customer service.  It wasn’t a lot, but it brough mine below $28 bucks/month.

Below, you can see how my sessions increased when I upgraded (which happened about August 30th).  You notice a flatline and then some serious jumping around.  Woot-woot!

So, in review — In Motion is great for larger blogs (their prices aren’t bad for small ones either).  I think you get the largest VPS for anyone on the market.  But, if you’re new, I recommend BlueHost for only $3.95/month  They’re GREAT for new blogs without much traffic.  Check out their price, I don’t know if it can be beat!

Instagram

Up until now I kept my personal account on my phone, and my blog account on my tablet, but I knew it was time to kick up my Instagram life.  I now have my Instagram account on my phone (although I just read a blog post about how to have 2 accounts on your phone).  I tend to not post a ton of pictures of my ACTUAL children on my blog Instagram account (that is why I have a personal account).  I also don’t share any vacation pictures on my blog Instagram account for safety reasons.

Category sidebars

Katie told me about this cool plugin that will help increase your pages/visit so I installed it.  It’s called Custom Sidebars.  If you’re on my desktop site (as these only show on my desktop site, which is a bummer) – -go ahead and check out this baby post, and this Halloween post.  See how I have popular posts for each category, along with affiliate links that fit into each category?  Super fancy, no?  Right now I have 5 custom sidebars (MomHacker, Finances, and Cleaning — in addition to the other two I already showed).  I am have already seen more desktop page views in these areas.  I think the majority of that comes from the “Most Popular” Post pictures that I have up.  I use the free app.  I didn’t find the paid one worth it (it seems like it was pretty expensive).  It does take some time, but it seems to be worthwhile!

Newsletter Niche

I have niched out my newsletter (I wrote about that last month) but I wanted to update you that I have GREAT open rates in these lists.  Yes, they are currently fairly small but I write about SO many things, I know people don’t want to hear about ALL of them.  Anyway, it’s been good.  If you check on my custom sidebars you’ll notice I’ve highlighted each area’s “alert” to make sure people sign up for that one. 🙂

Blog Fixes

I had a little tech issue driving me insane.  And Jason, the man behind Lemon Lime Adventures helped me out.  He’s quick and smart.  It took him seconds what took me 4 hours on a Sunday to do ABSOLUTELY nothing with. 🙂

I think that’s it for this month!  Let me know if you have specific questions and maybe I’ll answer them next one!