In this post: I share the most important cost of a website. Investing in your site can really help your income, but you have to do it right. I also share  numbers from my  September 2016 income from Pulling Curls.

Welcome to September.  We’re headed into the fourth quarter and I am super excited for what income is going to do.

However, income the last 3 months has been pretty much the same.  Right around 4-5k with about 100k unique visitors.

I’m trying to remember that is an amazing amount of visitors.  I just wish it was going up more.

{working on it}

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Trying to focus on the positive.

• Using Kelly Holme’s SEO class I have a few “trophy pages” and they are giving me huge pages/visitor.  I’ve had days where it is above  2 pages/visitor which is an awesome increase.
• I have a goal to have a new lead magnet every month for my newsletter.  I cull my list frequently, so I am thrilled if I get 100 active new subscribers I’m thrilled (I get a lot of sign-ups every day, but the vast majority don’t end up being avid readers, they just signed up for the freebie).  I think it’s easy to get subscribers, but I am really looking for the active, and excited to read from me kind.
• I am also trying to treat subscribers like a VIP.  Give them stuff and info before others get it.  I love my subscribers.
• I am working on some of my top boards on Pinterest and I am getting a good click rate from it (which is more important than my repin rate — and yes, they are separate).
• I had a good Labor Day Sale (although, following the sale — my own sales dropped off quite a lot, always working on sales for my own products).

Again, super excited for the fourth quarter.  It’s gonna be a good one.

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I haven’t talked much about expenses in my past blogging income reports, mainly because they are routinely the same.

I am willing to pay for a full year for things if it ends up saving me money, but I amortize those payments through my bank account.

Here are things I pay for to make blogging life easier:

**These are things I ACTUALLY use.  I’m not selling BlueHost (which is horrible hosting) or something to sell you on something you don’t need that I will just make a huge commission off of.  Everything listed now is something I am currently using (a few I used in the past — which is noted) and love.**

Important Cost of a Website:

Hosting:  I am currently with Big Scoots.  I absolutely love them.  I can’t tell you HOW AMAZING their customer service is.  They’ve taken the date out of my url, fixed things that were WAY more than they needed to.  I love them.  Whenever I have a question, they have the answer.  Previously, I used InMotion hosting, which I also really liked.  But Katie, from the Blog Help lured me to Big Scoots, and I’m super thrilled that I moved!  My last bill for 12 months of hosting was just under $750.  If you want to go with them email me — I can give you a coupon!

CPA:  I have a CPA that is doing my taxes this year.  We are now an LLC and will file as an S-corp and I just felt like that was now above me (I have done my own every other year).  Also, it would take me SO long to DO the taxes, I’m sure I could work a few extra shifts or take a few sponsored posts for the price it will cost me.

Conferences:  I went to SNAP last year, and I absolutely LOVED IT.  I am going back next year.  My cost for last year was maybe 600 between hotel, travel and the conference cost, but I earned way more than that in the sponsorship I got.  Well worth my time.  I also traveled to Utah again for a fully-sponsored conference with some of the SNAP girls I loved.  I don’t tend to do a lot of trainings, but the networking on this one was totally worth it.

Sticky Blogging/SEO:  This is the one class I think is ENTIRELY worth it.  Kelly is a genius.  Just makes everything so simple.  See when she’s having her next one and sign up.  I’d done plenty of classes about SEO (huge upset when I took Blogging Concentrated, not worthwhile at all) but I love Kelly’s.  She’s great.

Pop-up Ally:  The pop-ups with ConvertKit (stay tuned) weren’t working anymore, so I grabbed this plugin.  For the most part I like it.  It can be complicated to set-up, but it is a one time fee and I like that I can manuver my sign-up forms however I want.  Like anything, the more I work with it, the more I like it.

Tech:  I paid for a tech guy for a few months this past year.  The plan was to pay for him on retainer.  I just ended-up deciding it wasn’t worth it.  He was good, and I can ask for his help on a case-by-case basis (although Big Scoots has taken care of anything I needed lately)

Board Booster:  I pay around $30/month for board booster.  It sends my pins out.  I love it.  Don’t let someone tell you that them not having API makes them worse.  I love that place.  I’ve tried Ahalogy and Viral Tag.  I always come back to Board Booster.  The best.

App Sumo:  I’ve bought a few things like Stencil, Webinar Ninja, Grum, etc on AppSumo — they give such great prices I find a deal there pretty frequently and I’m pretty happy with it.

Domain:  I pay for a couple of domain names — pullingcurls.com as well as HilaryErickson.com — mainly just to reserve that should I ever want it.  Each domain is around 20 bucks/year.  I use Go-Daddy.

Post Office Box:  In order to send out a newsletter, you have to have a PO box.  I never check it, it’s a useless cost.  I’m wondering if I could have my mail sent to my CPA or something.  I need to find a new option for this, but for now — the 12 bucks/month is worth it to have a newsletter.

Fees:  Paypal takes out about 3% for each purchase plus a 30 cent transaction fee.  I’ve chosen to use the least costly method of product sales (WooCommerce) but this inevitable.  I have also recently started using Stripe to give more options, very similar fee structure.  I also pay my affiliates who send people to any of my products (you can apply here).

Thrive Themes:  I was turned off by Lead Pages because the cost was monthly.  Instead, on my sales pages I use Thrive Content Builder and I LOVE it.  It’s a one time price and has all the bells & whistles.  I have my eyes on Thrive Ultimatum next and I think, if I had to do it again I’d get Thrive Leads instead of popup Ally.

ConvertKit:  I use them for my newsletter.  It’s pricey at about 80 bucks/month but I love it.  It’s totally worth it.  I do think there are good alternatives now (which there didn’t seem to be when I signed up) but I think ConvertKit does everything InfusionSoft does, but less complicated.  Totally recommend it!  If you sign up through my link I’m willing to give you some tips to setting it up!

Mass Planner:  I just got this to up my game on twitter and Instagram.  I just notice that brands are wanting more and more followers on both of thoe platforms.  Mass Planner seems to help!  So far I’m growing my followers by hundreds each day.  Pretty thrilling!

Social Warfare:  I use this to do my social sharing.  I mainly use it beause it doesn’t give me a huge increase in speed.  I also like how it looks, and it’s not too pricey.

Advertising:  I’ve used Facebook and Pinterest ads at times, with not stellar result, I’ve sworn them off for a bit. 🙂

Blech, when you type that all out it’s a whole lot.  I would guess it is around 200/month.  Let’s do the math:

• Hosting $60
• ConvertKit $80
• PO Box $12
• CPA: about $40/month (I think — I’m not actually sure)

Which puts us right at about $200/month.  But, that’s just re-occuring things, what about the other stuff?

Fees with Paypal really vary with how many sales I get…

It looks like if I count just actual blog costs (bloggers can write off a lot of things, so QuickBooks is a little messy — oh, that’s something ELSE I paid for) it looks to be about $350/month.  Which, is pretty good.  I’m fairly conservative on the things I buy or use, but I want to make sure that I’m getting a good investment.

Anyway, if you plan to be a successful blogger you really need to invest in it.  That’s an idea of what I have chosen to do. 🙂

If you liked this post and are interested in more blogging tips be sure to sign up for my blogging newsletter and then check out all my other blogging for income posts!

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