September 2015 Blogging for Income Report

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I have thought a lot about these blogging for income reports lately.  I mainly started them beause I ran a blog for SO long having NO idea how to make money off of it.  I sometimes regret the 10 years I spent blogging for joy when I really could’ve been building a readership for my blog.  BUT, then I remember how it kept me sane and how many friendships I gained from my early blogging life.  I also remind mself that blogging is a JOB and not one that I could have done with little kids around.  I am grateful for what it is now.  With that being said, I do see this series winding down at the end of the year.  I feel like that initial purpose has been met.  With a lot of hard work, you can make money blogging.  And boy oh boy, it sure worked out for me this month!

Visitors

Users: Just under 160k (up 14% – the back to school season is always kind to us mom bloggers.  A big thank you to each of those users, I hope you found something helpful here!)

Pageviews: 223k (up 9%, woot woo!)

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 made me dance around with glee this month!  If you remember in last month’s report, it was just sad, sad, sad — but the end of the quarter treated me might fine at over 2k just from mobile ads!  This month is already back down but they have promised other great ads in the 4th quarter.  It is hard to have it SO up and down, but the ups are way up and the lows are still something.

The Blogger Network

The Blogger network was GREAT at $423 (11% lower than last month).  It’s fine, it will ebb and flow.  I do notice that desktop ads aren’t quite as up and down as mobile.  Which is good to have SOME stability.

BlogHer

Blogher was awesome at $250 (up 9%).  Yes, I am not making a ton through my desktop ads, but it all ads up.

Misc. Ads

I have one google ad, as well as a few media.net ads sprinkled around my blog netting me about 60 bucks between all the odds and ends.

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 a few other sprinkled in furnish my desktop site.

Total Ad Sales: $2826 (a 138% increase)

Yup, pretty darn amazing.  I tried to temper my joy for padsquad as I know it’s like a bonus this month for working for small amounts in other months.

 Sales

Amazon was Ok at around 65 bucks.  I am not sure if that’s from me creating my own Amazon store (that’s in the menu bar) or if it’s from book sales.  Either way, I am hopeful it will go up over the holidays.

Spreadsheet 15 bucks, 5 were bought. I have the spreadsheet for my own use.  I sell it to maybe make life a little easier on other blogers.  BUT, I do plan to sell an enhanced one coming up in November/December (basically when I can get my act together) that will have all the enhancements I have added to mine in the last year.  The price will show the enhancements — so if you want it for a smaller price (with less bells and whistles) get it now.

Kindle E-book Really low at $13 bucks.  I ran a free book deal, and have been pretty disappointed in the results.  The first time I did it I saw a jump in affiliate sales as well as book sales after the fact.  This time I got neither of those, along with some pretty mean reviews of it on Amazon.  I am actually pulling it from the kindle direct program so I am free to sell it wherever I want to.  Small books, like mine, have really been hurt by the change to paying per page rather than per per book sold on the kindle unlimited program.  Even though people are reading like 800 pages for free, I’m making a couple of bucks off of that.  I am not sure my plans with this book at this point.

Dressing Your Truth.  The to good afiliate sales is loving a product and THEN being able to sell it.  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 over $600 with them this month!

Misc:  I am with Share-A-Sale and haven’t made a whole ton with them.  I’ve also made a few dollars with ejunkie.  I don’t know.  I have yet to figure out how people make millions off affiliate sales.  I guess I’m too thrifty and I only want to share things I really believe in.  I did make nother 50 bucks from InMotion Hosting who I really love.  More about them later!

Sales total: $930 (Up 30%)

I am really grateful for affiliate income.  I don’t take lightly the things I share on here.

 Sponsored Posts:

I only did one sponsored post this month through Massive Sway (or is it isway?).  Either way I’d like to do 2-3/month, but I have increased my price to do them.

Sponsored post total: $300

 Blog income total for August $4066 (up 25%)

I know how blessed we are to have this income as my husband is still unemployed (he did get a part time job, but it doesn’t may much more than unemployment did).  I see the blessing as PadSquad made up for less sponsored posts.  So very grateful for this blog.

My entire blog CPM including all revenue streams was just about $18.17 per 1000 pageviews (which is up over 2 bucks from last month).  That’s even with less sponsored posts.  Thank you PadSquad! BTW if you’d like to join with PadSquad, please tell them I sent you.  I complain enough in the barren months that I’d like them to know I am extra grateful in the good months.

If you just count ad revenue it’s about $12.63 (well over doubling last month’s).  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 77% mobile viewers.

My year to year change was great.  Views are up 67% more than last year, and income was up 270%.

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

• Ads 70%
• Affiliate 25%
• Sponsored Posts 7%
• Self (book) <1%

I woud still like to aim for 30/30/30 between ads, affiliate and sponsored posts, but it is what it is.  I already have a couple of sponsored posts lined up for October (one of which already published).

 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.
• I paid for a month of Bogging Concentrated prime.  I wanted to use it to work on my SEO.  I am NOT a fan.  More below.
• I also bought a laptop.  Just a small one.  But if we’re on vacation, out of town or if I just want to edit in my room I needed a way to do that.
• I paid 50 for the Online Blog Conference — more on that later.

Total cost: $450’ish

That puts me about $3600 for the month.  I tried to keep it around 20 hours/week.  I am doing daily posts in October which I was pre-writing and I did a couple of errors that cost me some time — I am guessing around 100 hours this month which brings in 36 dollars/hour.  Great stuff! 🙂

I do not believe that much of this income increase is due to me.  I know God's had is in this.  I really work to write things that will be helpful to other moms.

What I’m doing Right

I love my host!

Since I switched from Blogger I have been with RFE hosting.  They were good to me, but last month I made the decision to switch to InMotion hosting.  It was a good one, and while not without some hiccups, their customere service has been TOP NOTCH.  I made the SUPREME error of switching my permalinks this past month and they walked me through bringing my blog back up.  It a big mistake, probably costing me 8 hours.  InMotion was with me the whole way to get it back up.

Also, I had always wondered if I was hitting limits with my shared hosting.  I really feel that I was as I have had 3 days higher than ANYTHING I had before that.  This graph (which I later added to last months, but some of you might have missed it) really shows it.  I started with InMotion at the end of August.  Nothing crazy happened by way of shares, this is just my normal deal.  Having a larger host allowed me to increase my traffic.

Huzzah!

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!

Reading the 4 Hour Workweek

This is really making me take a hard look at how I am spending my time each week.  I’ll summarize my changes below, but I would highly recommend it.

Doing the 31 Day Write

I am writing every day in October.  It’s nice to get my zest back for writing.  I’ve only scheduled posting to 1/week in the past few months (much in preparation to getting this series ready).  I love to write, it’s why I’m a blogging.  Turns out I don’t love to photo edit as much, but I’m trudging through it.  I do think these posts are going to increase my traffic. I’m also enjoying getting to know other bloggers and such.

Things that are not so great:

 Blogging Concentrated

I am sad to say that this course was a total flop for me — but it has been.  I did the 21 day SEO challenge (I’m almost done) and I have learned fairly little.  I have sparked a few new ideas, but nothing big.  Thank goodness I only went for the month instead of the lifetime membership (at 500 dollars).  He literally films videos while driving in his car He clicks his pen incessanly, he yawns a good 10 times in some of the videos.  I really wanted to make it worth my time to use whatever I could in the month, but it is SO disorganized.  I can’t find anything of use.  Needless to say I will be cancelling when my month is up.  You’ll notice that SEO isn’t one of the things I’m doing well with.  Yes, I will continue to try to get good SEO with each post I write, but with a blog with so many varied topics, I am just not sure that google will ever bring me a lot of traffic.

Online Blog Conference

I didn’t love it.  I feel like it’s more of a mentoring session that we all get to listen in on.  Some of the presenters were really boring and it was stuff I already knew.  But a Few new, but some were REALLY great and took a lot of time crafting a great presentation.  I got a lot of ideas for the course I am planning to sell in the near future.  I did love being able to stay home and learn from great mentors.  I think it was worth the 50 dollars, but could be even better with some tweaks.

**Between these two courses I have really realized what my bread and butter is.  It’s pregnancy continuing into helping moms make the tasks of motherhood easier.  That’s what I love doing, and that’s who my audience is.  I need to write to those things.

** I think I am slowly realizing that I’m good enough at blogging at this  point that I need to follow my own Zen, as it were.  I am finding that paying for workshops and presentations I find it is stuff I already know.  Everyone has an affiliate program and everyone thinks they know more about blogging than anyone else but the truth is they don’t know more about MY blog than me.  I know about that.  I research it I am engaged with my audience.  I get it.  And I love it.  I do think there is great networking that can happen at conference and I will still do that, but otherwise my dollar and my time are better spent elsewhere.  I do think that blogging classes can be REALLY helpful when you are starting.  I used Ruth Sokup’s How to Blog for Profit without losing your soul and I learned a lot.  I really think she wrote that book just trying to help other bloggers.  BUT, I took her Elite Blog Academy Course and didn’t find much value in it.  Again, because I had already incorporated the principles.  I’m doing what I can at this point.  Networking and talking with other bloggers (and sharing my own insights) is probably my best use of time.  Now, I’m aware that this sounds REALLY conceited, but there are SO many people out there selling blog classes.  I am APALLED to see their income statments when they are doing CLASSES ON MAKING INCOME BLOGGING.  In reality, they’re making income off of YOU.  Just a little soapbox.  {jumping off}

So, back to the 4 hour work week:

In reading the book I am really going to try to get to an 8 hour workweek.  That’s 2 hours/day on the days I don’t work as a nurse.

Every day I’d like to spend an hour actually blogging, as that is what I find most enjoyable and in reality, will bring in the bucks.  Besides that — my schedule is:

Day 1 — Optimize/affiliate on most popular posts (40  min) , and work on the style of my desktop site (change up footers, optimize sidebars, etc — 20 min)

Day 2 — Schedule Facebook (20 min), work on my weekly newsletter (40 minutes)

Day 3 — Work on Pinterest — make sure that popular pins are going to popular boards and adjust schedules to work best.  While I love board booster, you can’t just set it and forget it.  I get 60% of my traffic from Pinterest, and the 4 hour workweek reminded me that I need to spend my time where I get the most bang for my buck.

Day 4 — Schedule Twitter (20 minutes), adjust design of newsletter and work on Monthly newsletter (40 minutes)

A couple of thoughts on this schedule:

Facebook — I am getting SO little traffic on FB each day, engagement for most posts is under 100 and I have lately been reading some stuff (because reading small articles here and there, for me, seems better than buying into a class) that if your page is still small, you’ll get better engagement by posting less.  I have just hacked my schedule from 10-12 posts/day to 3-6 posts/day.  I’ll see how this works out.  I was spending at LEAST an hour scheduling FB before this, and it just doesn’t make sense.

Twitter — I mainly use post planner to schedule out my tweets.  It’s so easy and it’s easy to re-queue the old ones that love it.  I don’t get a lot of traffic from twitter either.  I think it’s worth 20 minutes (in that time frame I am likely to find some articles to also share with Facebook as well).

I think this is doable.  While I do esteem my newsletter as bringing a lot of traffic I do think that it is an important area to spend some time each week.  It’s also nice that if I am working extra days I can just catch up as needed.

And I must admit that this blogging for income newsletter falls off the 4 hour workweek.  You’re just not where my bread and butter is and I have become all too aware that what works for ME won’t always work for you. 🙁

So, my goal is 8 hours/week.  Think I can do it?  We’ll see!

Thanks for tuning into the blogging for income newsletter – I promise to keep doing them at least through the end of the year.

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