Income Report for November 2020
Are you interested in knowing how blogs make money? If you’re here for my social anxiety content, this post might not interest you.
However, I know that many people with social anxiety also struggle with finding a job or work that feels comfortable. Working from home and earning money online might seem like a dream come true.
While it’s certainly not easy or a get-rich-quick scheme, I can tell you that it is absolutely possible to make money if you are willing to persevere. My best advice is to read the post I’ve linked to at the bottom of this page to get you started.
November 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: 33,688 (34,960)
Sessions: 27,424 (28,624)
Users: 24,426 (25,345)
Organic Sessions (Google): 10,532 (10,874)
Social Sessions: 11820 (11,947)
Mailing List Subscribers: 2968 (4175) (More on this later!)
Pinterest Followers: 4k (4k)
Facebook Followers: 5.3k (5.3k)
Facebook group members: 57 (48)
Twitter Followers: 3.2k (3.2k)
Instagram Followers: 358 (337)
Tik Tok Followers: 593 (497)
Total Social Media Followers: 13.5k (13k)
Posts published: 7 (7)
Overall, my traffic has been steady or slightly down. I’m not sure what to attribute to this trend. Starting in the last week of November, I’ve started making 4 pins per day for Pinterest and will do this until December 24th to hopefully bring Pinterest traffic back up.
Google Search Console stats
Google Search Console total impressions: 420k (531k)
Google Search Console total clicks: 9.06k (9.39k)
Average Click through rate: 2.2% (1.8%)
Average Position: 18.4 (16.7)
So it looks like my impressions went down but my clicks remained somewhat steady. This is actually a good thing. It means that when my articles show up in search, they are actually getting clicked on. I’ve been trying to be more intentional about the wording of my titles, to make them more enticing to click on.
SEMRUSH stats
Organic search: 8.9k (11.3k)
Backlinks: 2.5k (2.3k)
Organic keywords: 3233 (3177)
MOZ Domain Authority: 18 (19)
So some numbers went down here but my keywords went up. I’ll have to keep an eye on this. I know organic search has been fluctuating quite a bit. I think maybe people are focused on Christmas and gift-giving rather than social anxiety. I could be wrong.
November BLOG INCOME REPORT:
Advertising
Mediavine: $411.87 ($416.27)
Pageview RPM: $15.02 ($14.54)
Affiliates
Amazon OVERALL: $63.34 ($92.75)
Note: I’m reporting everything in US Dollars.
Amazon US: $46.37 ($70.70)
Amazon CANADA: $2.92 ($13.74)
Amazon UK: $14.05 ($8.31)
Betterhelp: $0 ($675)
ShareASale: $0 ($0)
Awin: $60.58 ($7.24)
Clickbank: $0 ($0)
So, this month was interesting! Amazon was down from last month, but that’s to be expected since I ran the Amazon Prime day promotion last month. I had no Betterhelp conversions and did not run them as an affiliate launch, so I’m not overly surprised by that. I’ve decided I’d like to aim for one conversion per month with them.
The big surprise this month was Awin (Etsy). I’ll discuss this more in the products section, but my Etsy commissions went up a ton this month! I feel as though people are spending more money on Etsy and the commissions are higher. I may convert all of my product type links to Etsy products where it makes sense (right now I do Amazon). Books and health products would remain Amazon products.
Products
Products overall: $183.80 ($136)
Teachable Products
Total Teachable Revenue: $145
Social Anxiety Masterclass: 1 sold (2 sold)
Art Therapy-Inspired Coloring Bundle: 0 sold (0 sold)
CBT + Mindfulness Workbook Tripwire: 8 sold (5 sold)
Social Skills Workbook: 0 sold (1 sold)
Self Confidence Journal: 2 sold (0 sold)
This month I ran a Black Friday sale, but to be honest it wasn’t my best work. I kind of felt icky about all the other Black Friday stuff going on and adding to the noise. So, I didn’t promote as much as I should have. Will need to do better next year! I have to say that I do enjoy when the Masterclass sells, since it boost income quite quickly.
Etsy Products
I set up an Etsy store this month! What happened was that I noticed a lot of people were signing up to get the gratitude worksheet that I have in my Resource Library. I realized that this was a problem, since those people might not have any interest in help for social anxiety.
To fix this problem, I decided to instead sell the printable directly from the post using an Etsy shop. This was inspired by the Tripwire approach I learned from Saira Perl. Basically, she suggests that you have a tripwire in every high-traffic post on your site. But, the Tripwire is not after an email signup. It’s after they click a link in your post. I did it a little differently, more as a test than anything. Once I saw that the gratitude worksheet was selling, I added in a higher-priced option with a rainbow set of 12.
The only thing I’ve noticed is that now after Thanksgiving, sales of this product have stopped. So, I think maybe people were purchasing it to use as a Thanksgiving activity. So.. I need to come up with Christmas activity!
I’m starting to really see this site as a hybrid blog. The email list and Teachable products are focused on social anxiety, while some of the posts and the Etsy products can be for more general mental health. Which I kind of enjoy not having to focus tightly on one thing. It’s also easier to me to get traffic if I can focus on some broader things. But, I also enjoy having the focused email list. It makes it easier to write emails and sell my own specific workbooks and courses.
Total Etsy Revenue: $38.80
Sunburst Gratitude Worksheet: 14 sold
Rainbow Set of 12 Gratitude Worksheets: 2 sold
Total income: $719.59 ($1327.26)
Income per subscriber: $0.24 ($0.32)
So, I did go ahead and clean my email list of cold subscribers. These are people who have not opened any emails in 30 days. I also sent out a series of three re-engagement emails to make sure they were really cold subscribers. Then at that point, I deleted. That is why my number of email subscribers went down. However, my income per subscriber went down. That’s because I did not have any Betterhelp conversion. I’m thinking perhaps I need to promote Betterhelp directly on social a bit. See what that does.
Monthly expenses:
Email (Convertkit): $79
: $13.60 (use and discount code KSDISC to save 20%)
Teachable: $39
Canva: $12.82
Tailwind: $14.99
WordPress Support from iMark Interactive: $27
Total expenses: $186.41 ($251.41)
I have temporarily stepped out of both Kara Fidd’s templates membership and Faith Mariah’s Mastermind. I needed some room in my budget for courses and also found I was getting mentally overwhelmed and overloaded. I felt like I needed to get quiet and listen to my intuition for a while. Plus, I’m funding business expenses on a US Credit Card (I’m Canadian), and it has finally hit its limit (which means I have too).
That being said, I invested in three things during Black Friday. A Leadpages sales page template/workbook, a Facebook ads course, and an Email funnel course. All together I paid around $150 for these, and I think that money will come back to me. But, literally, I am all tapped out now. I need to focus on that money coming back.
The other thing I am doing is finally committing to Leadpages. That expense will start in December. I’m feeling more confident about my decision now. I really just needed to make a decision and go with it.
Net blog income: $533.18 ($1075.85)
Thoughts about this month’s income report:
I’m pleased that I’ve added a new income source, even though it might have been a flash in the pan! It’s opened up my eyes to the fact that I can make money in ways other than my Teachable shop. I’m thinking Shopify, I’m thinking a published book on Amazon… so many ideas. So many ideas, so little time.
I am thinking quite seriously about hiring out the content for this site. Between the writing I do here and for my day job, I feel like I am getting burnt out.
Goals for November:
Did I meet my goals for November? Let’s revisit:
- Finish Stupid Simple SEO
- Do an affiliate launch for Get Your Pretty On
- Clean my email list
- Plan or create a product/membership
Overall, the only thing I really completed was cleaning the email list. But I’m okay with that. I made progress in SSSEO so I may leave that until January now.
Goals for December:
- Do one affiliate launch & one product launch
- Redo sales pages in Leadpages
- Do the FB ads course
- Do the funnel course
Big dream income goal: $2000!
Big crazy idea: I’d like to find a way to really monetize my two most highly trafficked posts: Art therapy for anxiety and Vitamins for anxiety. I saw what can happen this month when you are laser-focused in a post that gets traffic and you direct them to a product. Should I make my own products? I don’t know. I haven’t yet found an affiliate to convert well for either of those. But then again, they might not be “money” posts, meaning people aren’t coming to them ready to buy anything.
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
- June 2020 Income Report ($942.64)
- July 2020 Income Report ($515.94)
- August 2020 Income Report ($1347.67)
- September 2020 Income Report ($640.32)
- October 2020 Income Report $1327.26)
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