Income Report for February 2021
Welcome to my February 2021 income report! I post income reports here on About Social Anxiety because I think that everyone should start a blog!
Just kidding. Well, not really.
It’s a fantastic side hustle that you can do from home and that doesn’t drain your social energy. If you have high functioning social anxiety and like to conserve your energy, this can be the perfect way to add to your income.
That being said, it’s not easy. At all. As evidenced by the fact that I’m nearly four years in and making just $1000 a month.
I know by some people’s standards that would be good. But well, I’m never satisfied.
Anyhoo, let’s take a look at how February went! I did something interesting this month (more on that later).
February STATS:
Note: The numbers in parentheses are from last month. I’m retrieving these numbers from Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Semrush, Convertkit, and my social media platforms.
Pageviews: 33,952 (35,513)
Sessions: 27,089 (28,290)
Users: 24,761 (25,813)
Organic Sessions (Google): 7,626 (8,156)
Social Sessions: 14,025 (16,287)
Mailing List Subscribers: 3335 (3100)
So, everything was pretty stagnant here, although February is a shorter month so maybe the numbers would have been higher.
I didn’t do anything spectacular other than two things: I worked my way through more of Stupid Simple Seo and I ran Facebook ads.
With SSSEO, I actually did a blog post audit and deleted/redirected a bunch of old posts that weren’t performing and weren’t really all that related to social anxiety.
As a side note, I had no qualms at all about doing this. I witnessed them completely slash and destroy my content at About.com because they knew it was the right thing to do for SEO purposes.
In their words, when you get rid of those posts, the other ones get stronger.
I’m thinking I need to move these income reports off of About Social Anxiety, for SEO reasons.
I did start a new blog about passive income, but it has no posts on it yet. I’m trying to figure out what to do.
And yes, I also ran Facebook ads for one week this month. According to their dashboard, my ROAS was above 1 (return on ad spend – anything above 1 means that for every dollar you spend, you get more than 1 dollar back).
But, I think there was some problem with my pixel, because it seemed to be counting more tripwire sales than I actually saw coming through.
I also realized I had a dilemma with currency. I’m in Canada, and my Facebook ads account is in Canadian dollars. But, my tripwire is in US dollars. I’m trying to find the answer as to whether Facebook accounts for this discrepancy.
Anyway, my product sales this month were more than the cost of my Facebook ads. But, I don’t know how many of those were just organic.
The one thing the Facebook ads did was open my eyes to two things: First, I can sell three tripwires a day if the right people are coming through my funnel at the right rate. And second, if I want to pay to build my email list, I can do it with ads. I’d probably break even.
The problem right now, is that even if I build my list, I haven’t found a reliable way to earn income from it.
Social Media
Pinterest Followers: 4.5k (4.3k)
Facebook Followers: 5.4k (5.4k)
Facebook group members: 75 (67)
Twitter Followers: 3.3k (3.2k)
Instagram Followers: 393 (387)
Tik Tok Followers: 1421 (1344)
Total Social Media Followers: 15k (14.5k)
I didn’t do anything special with social media this month. I barely posted. That’s a problem.
Posts published: 8 (8)
Google Search Console stats
Google Search Console total impressions: 211k (199k)
Google Search Console total clicks: 6.38k (6k)
Average Click through rate: 3% (3%)
Average Position: 20.7 (20.7)
So, search traffic is flat or up.
SEMRUSH stats
Organic search: 5.6k (4.7k)
Backlinks: 3.3k (XX)
Organic keywords: 2275 (XX)
MOZ Domain Authority: 20 (19)
So, my rankings seemed to have gone up in Google. I think this might have to do with cutting all those posts.
February BLOG INCOME REPORT:
Advertising
Mediavine: $363.21 ($359.15)
Pageview RPM: $13.41 ($12.70)
I love Mediavine. Just sayin’. I was in a Facebook thread this past month where people were talking about making tens of thousands of dollars a month from ads alone.
I don’t understand when people say that ads are not lucrative. They certainly can be! And they are completely passive. Sorry, I love ads.
Affiliates
Amazon OVERALL: $46.17 ($46.78)
Note: I’m reporting everything in US Dollars.
Amazon US: $42.07 ($41.07)
Amazon CANADA: $2.53 ($2.41)
Amazon UK: $1.57 ($3.30)
Amazon numbers were similar to last month.
Betterhelp: $450 ($0)
I think that these Betterhelp conversions are a result of the affiliate launch I did with my list at the end of December. I need a better way to track this.
ShareASale: 0 (0)
Awin: $36.29 ($24.01)
I like Awin (Etsy). People seem to spend a lot of money on Etsy, which is surprising to me.
Clickbank: $0 ($0)
Rakuten: $0 ($0)
Products
Products overall: $281 ($260)
Teachable Products
Total Teachable Revenue: $247 ($251)
Social Anxiety Masterclass: 2 sold (3 sold)
Art Therapy-Inspired Coloring Bundle: 0 sold (0 sold)
CBT + Mindfulness Workbook Tripwire: 15 sold (9 sold)
CBT Workbook: 0 sold (1 sold)
Social Skills Workbook: 0 sold (1 sold)
Self Confidence Journal: 0 sold (0 sold)
So, my sales this month were somewhat related to running the Facebook ads. I did no launches, so this is all just from people opting into my email list and purchasing things in my funnel.
This is promising to me.
Etsy Products
Total Etsy Revenue: $34 ($9)
Sunburst Gratitude Worksheet: 8 sold (1 sold)
Rainbow Set of 12 Gratitude Worksheets: 1 sold (1 sold)
Oh this silly little worksheet. I wish I knew what to say about it. I raised the price, and people still bought it.
Am I missing something here? Should I just turn my blog into an art therapy/mindfulness/gratitude blog? That seems to be what people like. My art therapy post is one of my top posts (along with my vitamins posts).
Total income: $1176.67 ($689.94)
Income per subscriber: $0.35 ($0.26)
Yay! This is good. But it’s largely due to the affiliate sales I had through Betterhelp. That’s not really something I can rely on each month.
Monthly expenses:
Email (Convertkit): $79
It’s painful to me that as my email list grows, I will keep having to pay more to Convertkit. I know I need to get over this.
: $13.60 (use and discount code KSDISC to save 20%)
Teachable: $39
Canva: $12.82
Tailwind: $14.99
WordPress Support from iMark Interactive: $27
Facebook Ads: $138.83
Total expenses: $325.24 ($186.41)
Net blog income: $851.43 ($503.53)
Thoughts about this month’s income report:
I’m really excited that I ran the Facebook ads even though things did not go perfectly. I think that there has been a residual effect on traffic to my blog.
Overall, I’m really happy to have a month with a gross above $1000 as well. It was helped by that Betterhelp affiliate income which isn’t repeatable though. I really need a plan for reliable income.
My goal is still to make $3000/month from the blog, split evenly between ads, products, and affiliates.
I’m thinking I need to get even more granular with this, and figure out exactly what I need to do in each of those areas to see that kind of revenue.
Obviously, for ads I need more traffic. So I need to think of all ways to boost traffic.
For products, I think I need some advice on what to create. My products have done okay, but for having a list of 3300 people, I feel I should be doing better.
Finally, with affiliates, I need a concrete launch calendar with an affiliate slated in for each month. It’s super hard to find affiliates in my niche though.
The people who have amazing products (like the Social Anxiety Institute) don’t offer affiliate commissions.
I’m not going to promote any old thing to my very specialized list. My list trusts me and I’m not going after money if I’m not helping them. It’s tough!
Goals for February:
So this is what I had as a list of things to “work on” in February. It was way too long! And I didn’t get much of it done.
I did make progress on Stupid Simple SEO – I’m almost done. But really, this course is not a one and done. You need to be continuously working on this stuff. It’s hands down one of the best courses I’ve taken to date.
I did not do the Audible launch. I wasn’t feeling it! I may do it another month. But that’s okay. I have a potential launch idea for the early part of March, so it might have been too much back-to-back.
I did do the Facebook ads! And I think that’s huge. So I’m happy about that.
- Affiliate launch for Audible audiobook subscription
- Continue working on all Leadpages sales pages & funnel
- Work on Stupid Simple SEO
- Work on FB ads & funnel course
- Start planning next product to release in Q2
- Publish Phobia Free as a standalone product
- Add to my Etsy Shop
Goals for March:
Okay, I’m not going crazy like last month. So, I’m going to pick from that long list above three things to get done this month.
- Publish Phobia Free as a standalone product
- Run Facebook ads again
- Do a launch for Get Your Pretty On (capsule wardrobes that I use myself!)
Do you want to learn to start your own blog? I’ve put together my ultimate guide to starting a blog in this post.
Past Income Reports
- October 2020 Income Report ($1327.26)
- November 2020 Income Report ($719.59)
- December 2020 Income Report ($821.21)
- January 2021 Income Report ($689.94)
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