Income Report for August 2020
Welcome to my August 2020 blog income report! The report this month is one of my favorites so far! It’s the reason I keep doing this and the reason I make these reports.
I want to be transparent and show you behind the scenes of what I’m doing. I know that some of my readers are interested in starting their own blog.
And also, I just find it really helpful to keep track of how the business is doing and make sure it’s growing. The more the business grows, the more it can help people.
If you have any questions about anything below, leave me a comment and I will answer!
August STATS:
Note: The numbers in parentheses are from last month. I’m retrieving these numbers from Google Analytics, Convertkit, and my social media platforms.
Pageviews: 39,163 (32,919)
Sessions: 32,355 (26,897)
Users: 28,765 (23,818)
Organic Sessions (Google): 9,276 (7,165)
Social Sessions: 17,336 (14,587)
Mailing List Subscribers: 3735 (3490)
Pinterest Followers: 3.2k (2.9k)
Facebook Followers: 5.2k (5.2k)
Facebook group members: 36 (28)
Twitter Followers: 3.2k (3.2k)
Instagram Followers: 319 (297)
Tik Tok Followers: 80 (62)
Overall, I’d say my social following grew this month fairly well considering its summer and I really did not have a posting plan. I think I need to dedicate a month to each platform and come up with a solid strategy as to what I am doing there.
Total Social Media Followers: 12k (11.2k)
Posts published: 8 (7)
For once I have a solid editorial calendar planned for the next month! It feels great. I’m using a Trello Board with cards for each month and then post names below each month. I think I might even plan out all of Q4. Taking Stupid Simple SEO really helped to streamline planning my editorial calendar, because I knew which keywords to target and also which older posts to update.
Google Search Console stats
Google Search Console total impressions: 309k (227k)
Google Search Console total clicks: 8.57k (6.42k)
Average Click through rate: 2.8% (2.8%)
Average Position: 21.2 (24.8)
SEMRUSH stats
Organic search: 3.5k (2.6k)
Backlinks: 1.6k (1.5k)
Organic keywords: 2975 (2837)
MOZ Domain Authority: 19 (18)
August BLOG INCOME REPORT:
Advertising
Mediavine: $375.81 ($280.70)
Pageview RPM: $11.62 ($10.44)
Affiliates
Amazon OVERALL: $54.86 ($58.24)
Note: I’m reporting everything in US Dollars.
Amazon US: $48.92 ($44.24)
Amazon CANADA: $1.55 ($2.03)
Amazon UK: $4.39 ($7.41)
I’ve decided my goal with Amazon is to make $100 in a month!
Betterhelp: $675 ($0)
As I mentioned last month, the income from this affiliate goes up and down. And so, while it’s great when it’s up, it’s not so good when it’s down. I need to build up my own product base to compensate for the months that it’s down. So that earnings from this affiliate are more like a “bonus” each month. As much as I’d love to rely on it!
Side note: I did run an affiliate launch to my email list this month. I had not done that since February and I also do not currently have this affiliate in my welcome sequence. So, I think I just hit on a group of people who had not been properly introduced to this affiliate. Perhaps I should add it back to my welcome sequence and also be sure to run it to my email list often – how often I’m not sure?
ShareASale: $0 ($0)
Awin: $0 ($0)
Clickbank: $0 ($0)
Clearly I still don’t know what I’m doing with the above affiliates! This is something I need to work on. With Clickbank I am promoting a EFT tapping course but it’s quite expensive. I saw recently someone on Facebook selling an EFT tapping journal, and I thought that was an interesting product idea and something I could create for social anxiety, if I were to learn more about EFT.
Products
Products overall: $242 ($177)
Social Anxiety Masterclass: 5 sold (0 sold)
Some of these are from the July flash sale and a couple are from my welcome sequence. I actually had a therapist purchase my course to use with her clients! As a result, I am now charging a commercial license fee to account for this different type of use of my products. I set up a page on my site that explains how the commercial license works. For now, I’m just having people contact me directly to pay for this license.
Art Therapy-Inspired Coloring Bundle: 0 sold (0 sold)
CBT + Mindfulness Workbook Tripwire: 6 sold (12 sold)
Social Skills Workbook: 0 sold (0 sold)
Self Confidence Journal: 0 sold
Hmmm. So it seems my tripwire sales are down and I sold no social skills or self-confidence journals. However, these are all part of the course. So, I need to re-envision my whole product funnel to make sure it is optimal. I think I may offer my course as an upsell to the tripwire with a super steep discount for people who purchase the tripwire. We’ll see!
But why were tripwire sales down? I think some of it has to do with which pins I promote on Pinterest using my semi-looping strategy. I have to admit, I like the control with Pinterest.
I’m actually planning to re-start using the Pinterest Launch Plan that I bought from Jennifer Maker back in March 2019. That plan took me from 0 to 400 pageviews a day in a few months, and it’s an amazing value for the price.
I’ve been doing manual pinning since about December 2019, but I feel as though it’s time to switch back to using Jennifer’s plan to see how well it works for me at this stage. If you are just starting with Pinterest or struggling to get traction, you need to get her ebook!
Also, I think I need to focus some more on Facebook. I have such a presence there, but I don’t take advantage of it.
Total income: $1347.67 ($515.94)
Income per subscriber: $0.36
(I’ve decided to start tracking my income per subscriber, which is the total income divided by number of subscribers that month. I learned about this from Rosemarie Groner’s Date Your List strategy. My goal is to increase this number each month!)
All I can say is wow! This is so exciting! This shows me what is possible and it gives me permission to stretch my new monthly goal to $2k. I basically have three prongs to the business (ads, products, and affiliates) and so if I can increase earnings in each area, then I can increase my overall revenue. I’m seeing how this is possible!
Monthly expenses:
Email (Convertkit): $79
: $13.60 (use and discount code KSDISC to save 20%)
Teachable: $39
Canva: $12.82
Tailwind: $14.99
Kara Fidd Templates Membership: $15
Faith Mariah Blogging Mastermind: $50
WordPress Support from iMark Interactive: $27
Total expenses: $251.41 ($196.40)
I am seriously thinking about adding in Leadpages this month. We’ll see!
Net blog income: $1096.26 ($264.53)
Thoughts about this month’s income report:
What a great month! This gives me inspiration and motivation to keep going.
Goals for September:
I didn’t get a lot of my goals done from August, so some are the same.
- Improve my welcome sequence to sell my evergreen course
- Open an Etsy shop to sell my workbooks
- Redo my homepage as a static page
- Finish Stupid Simple SEO
- Read through Lena Gott’s Traffic Transformation
- Get on a regular schedule for each social media platform
- Run a launch and a flash sale this month
My original plan was to launch a membership site this month. I’m really concerned that though my kids are going back to school, they may end up back home again. Will I be able to fulfill my duties for the membership if I have kids at home? I don’t know.
I really feel like the membership could be good for my audience though. It would be $10 a month for a monthly workshop, workbook, perhaps a meditation. I would include a Zoom coaching call, but I’m just not sure about that. I’m not trained as a coach, and mental health is something I take very seriously. I’m also not a licensed therapist and I don’t want there to be a line that is crossed.
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
- March 2020 Income Report ($954.53)
- April 2020 Income Report ($291.04)
- May 2020 Income Report ($442.24)
- June 2020 Income Report ($942.64)
- July 2020 Income Report ($515.94)
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