It’s time for the monthly income report.
Each month “The Wife” crunches the numbers on our earnings while I, “The Husband”, puts together a recap of what happened in our online business. A dangerous combo!
As a reminder, this is why we do the income reports:
- Accountability. These will allow us to finally keep track of our total online revenue – something that I’ve been horrible at but seeing improvement. You can go here for all of our previous blog income reports.
- Progress. Now that we have it documented, we’ll be be able to chart our progress as our income increases. (thankfully it has)
- Truth. To show people that you really can make money online and in a non-scammy way.
- Transparency: We want others to see how we do it so that others can do it, too.
Remember: We started blogging in July of 2008 so it’s taken us A LOT of time to figure this blogging thing out. And truthfully, we still have a lot to learn. Don’t get the impression that you can start a blog today and turn a profit tomorrow. I promise you, it ain’t going to happen.
What went down in April
April. Oh April. Let me count the ways…..
April has always been one of my most favorite months for blogging. Why?
Taxes. Yes, taxes.
Not that I like paying taxes or filing taxes. Heck no! That’s what my CPA is for.
I like April because of several tax posts I have on Good Financial Cents and it always proves to be one of my best months. This year was no exception.
That leads us to the second installment of Blogger Showdown Husband vs. Wife……
Traffic Showdown
Last month I decided it would be neat to show traffic numbers for both my site and my wife’s site and then duke it out to see who gets the most traffic going forward. It’s a war.
My blog for the longest time always (yes, always) had more traffic. Then my wife started taking this blogging thing seriously and she has been giving me a run for my money. In our last income report, Mandy kicked my butt with about 40,000 more visitors for the month.
Let’s see how this month went down…..
Good Financial Cents Traffic
As mentioned, I love tax day! As you can see by the screenshot below, on April 15th I had almost 20,000 visitors on that day alone. That is an all-time high for my blog. Yeah buddy!
For the month, I crossed 200,000 visitors for the 1st time ever. I can definitely get used to this kind of traffic. 🙂
House of Rose Traffic
My wife’s blog didn’t do too shabby either with 164,000 visitors. It took a record day of traffic to beat her, but I’ll take it!
To give her some credit, notice how her pageviews killed mine: 355,000 to my 258,000.
Dang Pinterest.
Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner
This might be the only month that I win the traffic showdown so I had to take full advantage and get these pics:
Another one just to be safe….
Yes, I might be enjoying this too much. Haha….
Who will win next month? Stay tuned to the next income report to find out. 🙂
Here’s a look at the numbers for April….
Income Breakdown
Good Financial Cents
- Adsense: $2,273.63
- Adspeed: $2,340.98
- Commission Junction: $1,333.74
- Flex Offers:$929.38
- Direct Advertising: $0
- Media Net: $516.61
- Personal Capital: $720.00
- Consumer Track: $42.00
- You Need A Budget: $30.00
- Google Affiliate Network: $1,045
- Total: $9,231.34
Dollars and Roses
- GoDaddy: $17.03
- ShareASale (Thesis Theme and Genesis Theme): $154.61
- Blogging Your Passion: $0
- AWeber: $44.09
- SEMRush: $0
- Total: $215.73
Other Niche Sites
- Adsense: $156.23
- Flex Offers: $576.00
- Direct Advertising: $216.62
- Media Net: $93.11
- Main Niche Site Revenue: $9,816.09
- Total: $10,858.05
- BlogHer Ads: $651.30
- BlogHer Sponsored Posts/Touts: $300.00
- Direct Advertising: $245.00
- Adsense: $406.78
- Lijit Media: $137.31
- Content Ads: $118.80
- BlueHost: $630.00
- Total $2,489.19
- Equifax: $300.00
- Total: $300.00
Total Revenue for April: $23,094.31
Revenue Last Month: $20,204.01
- Difference: +2,890.30
- April 2012: $8,908.96
- Total for 2012: $115,289.16
- Running Total 2013: $77,485.95
Monthly Fixed Expenses
Many of you have asked what our expenses are each month running our online business.
- Hosting Companies
- WPEngine: $250.00
- Liquid Web: $25.00
- Lunar Pages: $5.00
- Bluehost: $5.00
- AWeber: $130.00
- Article Writers: $225.00
- Unique Article Wizard: $67.00
- Virtual Assistant: $1,000.00
- SEMRush: $69.95
- Fiverr.com: $10.00
- Audio Jungle: $15.00
- Elance.com: $210.00
- TextBroker.com: $50.00
- HoR Site Redesign: $525.00
- Total: $2,586.95
This is a rough breakdown of our expenses that I’ll try to document each month as well as our gross income. For a closer look at many of the tools we use to run our online business check out our monster post 24 Blogging Tools To Grow Your Blog.
What Happened in April
As mentioned above, I LOVE April. My blog had it’s highest traffic month ever plus we set another record with our revenue for the month.
Amaze-balls!
The stars aligned with having crazy good traffic, my main niche site having it’s record month, and House of Rose continuing to turn in solid numbers.
Will it continue? We hope so but don’t expect next month to be another record month. Traffic is returning to normal levels and with it our income is too.
Notice Anything in the Expenses?
A few key things I wanted to highlight in the expenses in case you were curious.
- Audio Jungle and Fiverr.com. In case you were wondering, let me explain. First, I love Fiverr.com for so many reasons. If you haven’t checked it out, you must. Our podcast will be launching soon so we wanted to have a professional sounding intro. First, we needed royalty-free background music. That’s where Audio Jungle came in. Next, we needed a voice that sounded professional. Like television commercial. That’s Fiverr.com. For $10 (2 Gigs) we found a professional narrator that has done several commercials that you’ve probably seen on national TV. It’s crazy the amount of stuff you can buy on that site.
- Elance.com, TextBroker.com: I used to write all my articles for my niche sites, but I’ve just got way too busy. My niche sites are a bit more advanced and require someone versed in the topic to be able to write on it, however. Enter Elance.com and Textbroker.com. I’ve really been ramping up the content on those sites so I’ve been using both sites to diversify the quality of articles. Even though it was a $260
expenseinvestment, it saved me hours because that’s about 10 articles that I would have had to write on my own. Actually, I never would have completed but maybe 1 one of them. Outsourcing at its finest. - HoR Site Redesign. In case you missed that one, Mandy can’t wait to show what she’s been working on for the past few months. Her site has never really had a site redesign other than changing the header a few times. Even though I’m itching for a site redesign I thought I would be the good/loving/thoughtful husband and allow her to go first. (Awwww!!!!) She’s hoping it will be live within the next week so stay tuned!
Other Site Redesigns
As mentioned last month, we’re moving all our sites to Genesis. Even though I want to move my site immediately, I feel there are two other sites that need to be tweaked before mine. One of them is this site. I originally bought a Thesis Skin for this site which made it look unique. The only downside to using a Skin is that I have no idea how to tweak it and I hate that! This site is getting much more recognition and we feel we need to step up or game.
The second site is Soldier of Finance, my book site. I now know what my real book cover is going to look like so I need to remove the mock cover I have on there now. Plus, I’m going to start pre-selling the book soon preparing for the September launch. I feel like the site is too military-ish, which is totally different from how I felt whan I had the site designed 3 years ago.
Speaking Again? You betcha!
The last exciting announcement for the month is that I’ll be speaking again at the next Financial Blogger Conference (FINCON). Some of the great speakers include Jean Chatzky of JeanChatzky.com, Pat Flynn of SmartPassiveIncome.com, Derek Halpern of SocialTriggers.com and David Siteman Garland of TheRisetoTheTop.com.
FINCON is my favorite conference ever so I can’t wait to present. My presentation is “Screw Google Panda: How to Build Tons of Traffic and Strategically Build Your Brand“. While I’m not keynoting, I want to bring my A game this year and give an awesome presentation to prep for future speaking gigs. October can’t get her fast enough!
Until next month….
Thanks again for all your support!
Babak says
Hello! Thank you for posting the details about your revenues and expenses!
Am I missing something about the running total of 2013, did u add may already to it or is it a miscalculation? Your last running total was $54k + $23k of this month = $77k
But you have $99k…
Thanks again for the website as a whole – it’s been very informative!
Jeff Rose says
@ Babak Nope, you’re right. I forgot the wife had already added the revenue in but then I re-added after finding one revenue source we left out.
Have it corrected now. 😉
Lance @ Money Life and More says
Congrats on another awesome month AND the FinCon speaking gig!
Michelle says
Looks like you two are doing awesome! I hope to someday be where you two are at. And I’m insanely jealous of your traffic.
Charlotte says
I love how much fun you guys are having working together. I partner with my daughter on her site and it is so much fun! Congratulations on having a successful month! Now I’m off to visit the wife’s site – wouldn’t want her to lose the traffic war two months in a row! 🙂
dollarsandroses says
Thank you Charlotte! 😉 I need all the help I can get!!! Haha!
Kate says
I had a question about Adspeed. I started looking it up after I saw your income report. I see that it is quite a bit of income for your Good Financial Cents website. I was wondering why you don’t use Adspeed for your other sites including your wife’s blog?
Thanks!
Jeff Rose says
@ Kate Great question! Adspeed is actually a CPM network that is specific for personal finance sites. Many of the advertisers are online banks and brokerages so they only work with sites within that niche. Unfortunately, my wife’s site doesn’t meet that criteria otherwise we would be rockin’ some serious dough with her pageviews compared to mine. 🙂
Miki Vicioso says
Good job guys! You keep to improve time after time!
Jeff Rose says
Thank Miki! We’ve been blessed with a good run. Not to drop any spoilers, but next month’s income report will not be a new record. Can’t win every month, but sure like trying 🙂
Tai & Tarin says
Congrats on another great month. And congrats on the FinCon speaking engagement. We’re contenplating checking out FinCon for the first time this year. Quick question, we checked out “Adspeed” that you have mentioned above. Are we reading their site correctly, we would have to pay them for ads to be on our site?
Jeff Rose says
@ Tai and Tarin My current understanding with Adpseed is that it’s currently closed to new sites. I just happened to get introduced to the right person at the right time.
Based on my current arrangement I don’t pay them directly out of pocket to work with them, but they definitely do take a cut of the revenue earned. That’s there share for finding the advertisers and working on the payout rates.
Chasity says
Congratulations on an awesome month! I want to thank you guys for being so transparent, especially with House of Rose stats and $. I’m a blogger in the same genre and it’s great to see where I could be one of these days. My goal is to replace (most of) my income within the next five years so I don’t go back to work when my daughter starts kindergarten.
K.B. Helm says
I’m curious if on your wife’s blog she has ever tried one ad network only. I’ve heard running so many ads can reduce the revenue overall, because you get a lower click through rate and lower cpc, whereas sticking with one network only will increase revenue because you have less ads and they are less distracting. So instead of using both blogher and adsense, use one or the other and see if the total revenue doubles. Maybe you could test it for a week and see which performs better? I would love to see a case study on this in the woman’s niche.
Jeff Rose says
@ K.B.
Currently we’re using Google DFP that is suppose to have all the ad networks compete against each other so that the higher earning ads are displayed. I do the same on my site, too.
But yes, that would be an awesome case study.
Shawna says
What the?!?!? I had no idea people made money off of blogs… 23 grand in a month from blogging??? WOWZA!