Traffic & Blog Income Report – April 2015

During my 1st Year Blogiversary post, I asked you all if you would be interested in my doing both a Pinterest post (since 60% or more of my traffic comes from Pinterest) as well as an income report now that I am actually making some money!  Your response was overwhelmingly “Yes!” so I’m going to start doing these Traffic & Income Reports on a monthly basis!

I believe that more bloggers should reveal their income, as well as some stats about their traffic to inspire and encourage others, so I’m am giving monthly updates about my income and traffic statistics. This is my actual blogging income, folks.  Read on!

Let’s get started!

After 2 months of traffic decreases, it was so nice to see traffic increase in April! As I’ve been focusing more on other projects, rather than on this blog alone, I’ve been setting more of a comfortable, efficient marketing method for this blog, and I’m really happy with the results in April!

Traffic –

Retired by 40:

• Pageviews: 152,180 (+28,715)
• Unique Pageviews: 71,144 (+2,908)

Time –

During the month of March I was really diligent about keeping track of the hours I spent working on all of my self-employed endeavors, and I ended up making $12.76 per hour, working with my Pinterest test group.

During April, I made the move to self-employment, so it was especially important to me that I used my time wisely!  Here’s how my time broke out in April:

• April 1st – 4th: 20.25 hours
• Week 1: 38 hours
• Week 2: 38.25 hours
• Week 3: 35.75 hours
• April 26th – 30th: 22.25
• Total Hours: 154.50

This is a far cry from March, when between my day job and this side hustle, I worked a total of 286.75 hours, or 75 hour weeks!  This alone makes me so happy with being self-employed.  No, I’m not making the “big bucks” like some bloggers out there, but I’m so much happier and more relaxed!  No more mommy guilt, and I’ve actually been able to spend a little time on myself!

So, in April I made $28.49 per hour.

Bear in mind, I still have to pay taxes on this number, usually about 30%, but if we multiply $28.49 per hour by 2,080 hours (working 40 hour weeks for 52 weeks), that would end up being a $59,259.20, which isn’t a bad salary!

If you want to start your own money-making blog, you can do so very cheaply.  I created a tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own in about 10 minutes, and very cheaply, with prices starting at only $3.95 a month.  This low price is only available through my Bluehost link, and when you purchase at least 12 months of blog hosting, Bluehost will even throw in a FREE domain name (a $15 value).  Again, this pricing + free domain name is only available through my link, and if you want to make money with your blog, then self-hosting through a company such as Bluehost is essential.

My New Favorite –

A lot of people (my family, mainly – haha) ask me how I make money blogging.  Now, I don’t have crazy 5-figure incomes like Michelle at Making Sense of Cents, or Cat who supports her whole family, including a husband in med school, but I do make a pretty decent side income.  And I do that in about 12 different ways.  So, each month I’m going to start briefly highlighting the newest way I’m making money.  Believe me, income streams change as often as each month, or even more often!

This month, I’m loving Social Monkey Business!  Recently, I met the amazing Liz Benny.  When I say “met” I actually mean that we Skyped, because really, who wants to change out of their yoga pants for a face-to-face meeting?

At any rate, Liz has built a super successful social media marketing company based out of New Zealand, that netted (after taxes and expenses, ya’ll) more than $180,000 last year.  She started from scratch and came up with a plan to help anyone who wants to work from home, on their own schedule, start their own social media management company.

Her passion is teaching YOU the secrets of growing a highly profitable Social Media Mangement Business, and she’s running a FREE, live training webinar where you’ll be able to learn exactly how she created her amazing lifestyle, doing something she loves and with amazing clients!  You can sign up for the webinar here!

Once you’ve taken a look, and attended the webinar, you should know that Liz is looking for a select group of bloggers to help her promote the webinars and her really cool course, and she’s giving them super discounted pricing on her course (like 70% off).  If you want more information about how to get discounted pricing, shoot me an email, with your media kit attached, to [email protected]!

Income –

Keep in mind, this is purely my income.  I have earned this, but I may not be paid on it for up to 3 months.  The actual income I receive is recorded in our Budget Updates on the blog income line!

This does not account for the 30% that I hold back for taxes.  Also, this does not take expenses into account – those will be covered in the next section.

Retired by 40!

• Ad Networks: $398.79
  • The Blogger Network: $380.51
  • Media.net: $18.28
• Affiliate Sales: $2,930.96
  • Commission Junction: $247.65
  • Tailwind: $40.46
  • EBA: $2,602.40
  • Amazon Associates: $40.46
• Sponsored Posting
  • Moms Affiliate: $150
  • TapInfluence: usually this is around $400 – if you want to to participate in awesome, well-paid sponsored posts, check out TapInfluence!)
• The Pinterest Assistant: $335
• Freelance Projects: $100
• Total Income: $3,914.75

Expenses

This month brought quit a few expenses, but not as many as February, when I bought a new laptop!  Since I was having a really good month I decided it would be a good month to order ink to last the rest of the year, as well as take advantage of a going out of business sale at a local Office Max (hello, 70% off office supplies!) and buy the huge whiteboard and corkboard I’ve been wanting, as well as some binders and things I’ve been wanting to get myself organized!

•  Tailwind for my Pin scheduling.  You can learn more about how to schedule pins for only $10 a month here.
• MailChimp: $30.00 – I absolutely loooove MailChimp .  For those of us who are technically, and artistically challenged, this is the absolute best way to go for emails.  Check out these 11 Reasons why Every Blogger Needs Mailchimp for more info!
• BoardBooster: $10.00 – I’m still using Tailwind, but this new BoardBooster is amazing!  It is literally a set-it and forget-it method of keeping your  content pinned to your boards at regular intervals.  Your first 500 pins are free, so you literally have nothing to lose!
• Courses/Books: $263
• Dollar Photo Club: $109
• Office Supplies/Ink: $162.25
• Mozzu: $49 I haven’t written about Mozzu yet because I’m still testing it out, but be on the lookout for a review coming soon!

• Total Expenses: $632.35

Some Highlights –

April was both super scary and exciting! Obviously, I quit my day job, and thankfully had a pretty good income month!

I starting taking on clients with the Pinterest Assistant, and if you need affordable Pinterest marketing services for your blog, be sure to head over the The Pinterest Assistant for more information and pricing!

I’m also really excited because I offered a huge bonus package to go along with Elite Blog Academy enrollment, and as I’ve started working with all of the amazing bloggers who took advantage of the offer, I am getting so excited!  They are all amazing bloggers, and I’m so excited to help them grow!

And finally, I’m working on a new project, using the #3DayCreate system created by Regina.  My focus in 2015, has been all about efficiency, and this new project is the essence of efficiency!  First, I’m using reginas 3 Day Create workbook.  Granted, I’m doing it in more than 3 days, but still.

Anyway, my new project is all about efficiency in blogging & business.  How to find your niche, how to get started, what tools are worth paying for, which ones aren’t, plus much more!  I’m going to cover everything to help make you a better, more efficient blogger or business person.  While I’m still debating whether this should be a course or a book, I do have a couple potential titles that I’ll be asking ya’ll about in the coming months!

Thoughts?

Oh, and one more thing: If you love Canva like I do for it’s free, amazing design program, as well as affordable images for purchase, then click here to register for early access to Canva for Work – just another way that Canva is changing the face of online design!

April 2015 Goals –

• Set up business checking: Boring goals, but needs to be done – FAIL! – I’m hoping to take care of this today (May 1st) but it kind of got put on the backburner during April.
• Make $1,800 – PASS! – Obviously, a pretty good income month!
• 150,000 Page views – PASS! – Just barely, but still.
• Start commenting again on 5 blogs, 5 days per week – FAIL! I didn’t do so well with this goal.
• Only work 40 hours per week – bahahaha!  I never thought I would put this as a goal, but here it is! – PASS!  I actually worked less than 40 hours per week!
• Take Liz Benny’s Course – PASS! – If you want to take it too at a super reduced rated, shoot me an email at [email protected] with a copy of your media kit and I’d be happy to hook you up!

May 2015 Goals –

• Business Checking: Will actually get this one done
• Make $1,800
• 180,000 page views
• Pick up one new Pinterest Assistant client
• Develop more affiliate revenue streams: Right now, I have tons of links within the blog that aren’t actually affiliate links!  Crazy, right?  I’ll definitely be working on this during May.

If you want to start your own money-making blog, you can do so very cheaply.  I created a tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own in about 10 minutes, and very cheaply, with prices starting at only $3.95 a month.  This low price is only available through my Bluehost link, and when you purchase at least 12 months of blog hosting, Bluehost will even throw in a FREE domain name (a $15 value).  Again, this pricing + free domain name is only available through my link, and if you want to make money with your blog, then self-hosting through a company such as Bluehost is essential.

How was your month?  I would love to hear about it!

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