Income Report for January 2021
Welcome to my January 2021 blog income report! I’ve done a lot of writing throughout the report, so I’m going to let it speak for itself.
The reason I’m publishing reports is to help people like yourself who like to read them. I am people like you too. I’ve always been curious about the details. So, I want to share them.
Side note: I have registered three other domains since summer of 2020. In January, I started to post on one of those domains. It’s in the true crime niche, and I’m truly not even sure if it’s worth pursuing. It’s just something I enjoy writing about.
Eventually, I think I’d like to take Project 24. But I digress….
On to the income report.
January 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: 35,513 (30,109)
Sessions: 28,290 (24,769)
Users: 25,813 (22,317)
Organic Sessions (Google): 8,156 (7,863)
Social Sessions: 16,287 (12,728)
Mailing List Subscribers: 3100 (3038)
Social Media
A little side note on social media. I’m thinking really hard about how to handle posting regularly to Facebook & Twitter. I know I should be sharing my content, but honestly those platforms show so little of my stuff to people who follow my pages, it all seems kind of pointless.
Pinterest on the other hand, has a much better ROI, even though I dread working on it. And, Pinterest is expensive to hire out, because it’s so time consuming.
In the month of January, I completely stopped posting on Tik Tok because my children’s school closed down, and I found I did not have time to let ideas for videos percolate in my mind.
If you haven’t been able to figure it out by now, I tend to do things when I feel like doing them, rather than following a set plan (at least when it comes to social media). I guess that is a downfall. I can’t do things I don’t enjoy, or I will just quit altogether.
That being said, the Facebook group is bothering me a little. I feel like I should be providing value to the group members, but as of yet I have not felt compelled as to what to do in that group. Maybe, it will come to me one of these days. Or, maybe I will close the group.
As of late, I’ve really gotten tired of Facebook. (Yikes!)
Pinterest Followers: 4.3k (4.1k)
Facebook Followers: 5.4k (5.3k)
Facebook group members: 67 (63)
Twitter Followers: 3.3k (3.2k)
Instagram Followers: 387 (385)
Tik Tok Followers: 1344 (1230)
Total Social Media Followers: 14.5k (13.5k)
Posts published: 8 (11)
Two of the January posts will actually go live the beginning of February because I literally ran out of time with the kids being home and my day job work to do.
Overall, January was higher than December, mostly because Pinterest traffic pushed me up, because everyone is googling about how to get healthy in January and my vitamins for anxiety post there does well.
Google Search Console stats
Google Search Console total impressions: 199k (279k)
Google Search Console total clicks: 6k (6.41k)
Average Click through rate: 3% (2.3%)
Average Position: 20.7 (18.8)
Again, I need to go finish Stupid Simple SEO. It’s interesting though that my click-through rate is up.
SEMRUSH stats
Organic search: 4.7k (5.1k)
Backlinks: XX (2.9k)
Organic keywords: XX (2172)
MOZ Domain Authority: 19 (18)
December BLOG INCOME REPORT:
Advertising
Mediavine: $359.15 ($507.41)
Pageview RPM: $12.70 ($20.49)
So, it has become hugely apparent to me how ad revenue shifts through each month and through each quarter, and this will never be more clear than the comparison from December to January. You see, spending on ads goes up at the end of the month, and the end of each quarter, and especially at the end of the last quarter of the year. My RPM at the end of December was consistently over $20. That plummeted beginning of January simply because of the new ad spend budget.
It’s really good to be able to compare year to year. Sometimes I have to remind myself just how little time I’ve actually been making money. I get impatient since I started this site in 2017, but realistically it did not make money until fall of 2019.
Once you start getting traffic and making money, you can see trends and start to figure things out. Without traffic and without starting to make income, it’s extremely hard to see what is happening.
My overall goal with ads right now is to make $33 per day. Obviously, I’ll need to at least double my traffic in order to see that happen.
Affiliates
Amazon OVERALL: $46.78 ($106.57)
Note: I’m reporting everything in US Dollars.
Amazon US: $41.07 ($69.16)
Amazon CANADA: $2.41 ($29.52)
Amazon UK: $3.30 ($7.89)
So, sadly my Amazon earnings were cut in half in January. This is not surprising at all, since people aren’t really shopping for gifts in January, and that’s what was driving up my Amazon commissions. I think in February, I need to start circulating my Valentine’s Day posts.
My overall goal with Amazon right now is to earn $5 in commission each day.
One thing I will be doing this month as well is running an affiliate promotion for the Audible Audiobook free trial to my email list. I earn $5 per sign up, and I’ve had a few of these in the past, so I know that it’s something that is of interest to my readers.
Betterhelp: $0 ($0)
No Betterhelp signups this month either. I checked on January 2020 and I didn’t have any that month either, so maybe people are not thinking about therapy in January.
One thing that bothers me though, is that I see a lot of people signing up for the free trial, but then they cancel after the week. I’d like to understand what causes people to cancel, and if there is a better service I could be recommending.
Maybe that is something to ask my email list about.
ShareASale: 0 ($28.79)
Again, nobody is buying gifts in January, and so my Cratejoy sales don’t come through this month.
Awin: $24.01 ($42.44)
Awin is down for the same reason that Amazon is down. I should have stated that my overall goal with affiliates is $33 per day, of which I figure my goals should be $5 from Amazon and $5 from Awin. The rest from other sources such as Betterhelp and email promotions that I run.
Clickbank: $0 ($0)
I’m really wondering what to do about this affiliate. I need to investigate it more and see if it might be worth running an email promotion. This is for an EFT tapping program for social anxiety that I think has value, but I’m not sure people feel confident buying from the website. I’m really in the mindset right now of trying to find the most valuable resources specifically for my readers’ problems.
Rakuten: $0 ($40)
So no Rakuten conversions in January… but here’s the weird thing. People are signing up! I do get a few sign ups per week. But… they are not following through and making their purchase to get their cash back bonus. How do I fix this? Without them following through, I don’t earn the commission. I’m going to have to think about this.
Products
Products overall: $260 ($96)
Teachable Products
Total Teachable Revenue: $251 ($85)
Social Anxiety Masterclass: 3 sold (1 sold)
Art Therapy-Inspired Coloring Bundle: 0 sold (0 sold)
CBT + Mindfulness Workbook Tripwire: 9 sold (3 sold)
CBT Workbook: 1 sold
Social Skills Workbook: 1 sold (0 sold)
Self Confidence Journal: 0 sold (0 sold)
Etsy Products
Total Etsy Revenue: $9 ($11)
Sunburst Gratitude Worksheet: 1 sold (2 sold)
Rainbow Set of 12 Gratitude Worksheets: 1 sold (1 sold)
So, I made a big mistake in January! I didn’t notice that my gratitude worksheet was “sold out” on Etsy. It’s kind of weird, but for digital downloads, you have to specify how many you have in stock. And if you fail to renew, then people don’t buy.
So, I don’t know how many sales I missed out on in January. I’m considering raising the price on the gratitude worksheet because people seem to like it and maybe it is underpriced. After all, if someone really wants it, would they pay $3-5 instead of $2? Probably.
Total income: $689.94 ($821.21)
Income per subscriber: $0.26 ($0.24)
I need to increase my income per subscriber! I’m so reluctant to get people on my list when I don’t know how to earn from it yet.
Monthly expenses:
Email (Convertkit): $79
Keysearch: $13.60 (use this link 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 ($316.01)
Net blog income: $503.53 ($505.20)
(Hmmm… seems like I can kinda count on $500 net each month now)
Thoughts about this month’s income report:
As much as I’ve been comparing month to month, I think year over year might start to be the better comparison. Last January I made $460 (net $331). So, I’ve done slightly better than last year. It still feels utterly slow.
However, while it’s slow, I am not stuck. I have one million different ideas of things to work on. Mostly things to improve at this point, which is nice.
Goals for January:
Did I meet my goals for January? Let’s review:
- Launch the Phobia Free Workbook and relaunch the Masterclass
- Finish the Leadpages sales pages
- Finish the FB ads & funnel course
So, I did re-launch the Masterclass with the Phobia Free Workbook. I did not finish the Leadpages sales pages. I did not finish the funnel course (from Abby Lawson) or the FB ads course (from Ruth Soukup). But I’m ok with all that. January was hard! The kids were unexpectedly home, and I was literally playing teacher all day long.
Goals for February:
If I haven’t mentioned before, my current goal is $3000/month. I hope to achieve that in a 3-way split between ads, affiliates, and products. And so, I feel like each month, I need to focus a little bit on each of those areas.
For ads, I need to increase traffic and follow recommendations from Mediavine to increase money from ads. As far as ad companies go, I really like them.
For affiliates, I need to be doing a launch twice per quarter, and optimizing my posts for affiliate sales. Also, searching out good new affiliates. I also want to take the course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.
Finally, for products, this year I’d like to launch something new each quarter. Eventually, I’d like to have a membership or subscription, but I haven’t been able yet to visualize what that will be or what it will look like.
For products, I also need to refine my sales pages & funnel and consider doing FB ads. I’m really so torn about running ads on Facebook, but I know I need to try.
Here are my goals for February!
- 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
(Ok, these are too many goals. As you can see, I have no shortage of ideas of things to work on)
One thing I’d really like to do is to start adding some original photography to my blog as well, which would mean getting a camera and learning how to take photos. That’s a total stretch I know, but what else to do while in Lockdown?
And another big goal that I’ve been thinking about is going back to do a PsyD. Actually, I’ve thought about it for years. Honestly, money is what has stopped me.
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
- September 2020 Income Report ($640.32)
- October 2020 Income Report ($1327.26)
- November 2020 Income Report ($719.59)
- December 2020 Income Report ($821.21)
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