It’s time for last months income report: August 2012.

As a reminder, this is why we do the income reports:

1. Accountability. These will allow us to finally keep track of our total online revenue – something that I’ve been horrible at.
2. Progress. Now that we have it documented, we’ll be be able to chart our progress as our income increases (hopefully!)
3. Truth. To show people that you really can make money online
4. 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 August

September has come and almost gone and we only had one post (other than this one) go live on our site.  Go ahead and say it – we suck!  The good news is that Mandy (finally) got her Pinterest post done and it will go live very soon.   We also filmed a video where we answered a reader question, so expect to see that live next month, too.   FYI, if you have any questions, do NOT hesitate to ask us.  We enjoy helping our readers.  🙂

Also, if you have tried to contact us via the contact form and we have not responded, please try and resend it. We were having some email gliches, but I think they are fixed now.

#FINCON12

One of the big reasons we were pre-occupied this month was the Financial Blogger Conference.   We had the opportunity to head to Denver kid-free for 4 days (yeah buddy!).  IT.WAS.AMAZING.

This year was even more enjoyable (and nerve wracking) because I offered to give a presentation (see pic below).  My topic was “How to Use Video to Build Your Brand”.  Pretty fitting, huh?   I’ll post the power point presentation here soon so you can see what I shared.

Niche Site

My niche site is humming along.  Traffic did not increase this month, but still held steady at 7,565 visitors for the month of August (July had 7,737).  It’s nice because I can finally add some dollar figures to this month’s income report.  As my wife would say, “About freaking time!”.

I’m loving the potential that the site has to offer, unfortunately there’s about a 90 day turnaround of actually getting paid.   In the short term it blows, but I know the future income reports, will be sweet.

Here’s a look at the numbers for August:

Income Breakdown

Good Financial Cents

• Adsense: $1,259.29
• Adspeed: $1,245.85
• Commission Junction: $895.00
• Flex Offers:$1,170.00
• Thesis Theme (Shareasale): 28.71
• Direct Advertising: $1,982.35
• Media Net:  $109.07
• Aweber: $0
• Beta Test New Affiliate: $239.00
• Clickbank: $49.56
  • Total: $6,978.83

Other Niche Sites

• Adsense: $137.54
• Flex Offers: $211.00
• Direct Advertising: $300.00
• Media Net:  $56.82
• Niche Site Conversion (new): $878.00
  • Total: $1,583.36

• BlogHer Ads: $1,275.57
• Direct Advertising: $25.00
  • Total $1,300.57

• Equifax: $
  • Total: $200.00

Financial Planning

• Online Planning Fees: $500.oo
  • Total: $500.00

Total Revenue for August: $10,562.76

• Revenue Last Month: $8,747.11
• Difference: +1,815.65
• Total for 2012: $57,680.55
  

What Happened in August

Woop!  Woop!  We hit an all time high this month AND we cracked $10k.  That’s something we’ve been working hard towards so it’s nice to finally see our hard work pay off.  I’m hoping that we won’t dip below the $10k mark going forward, but we shall see.

Why the new high?

1. Finally had some cash flow from the niche site.  The $878 is still well below my expectations for this site, but it’s nice to finally have a check to take to the bank.
2. House of Rose stepping it up. Not only did she crack $1k for the first time this month, but she did so convincingly with $1,300.00 of revenue.   Pinterest is a beautiful thing.  🙂
3. Direct Advertising is on the rise. There definitely has been a steady stream of direct advertising opportunities falling into my lap….literally.   As I’m writing this I already have $1,025.00 of offers that came in last night.   September’s income report is going to be fun.

Future Projects

With all the Pinterest traffic that House of Rose receives, I’m encouraging my wife to create a product.   We’re still in the preliminary stages but excited to see what we can create.

The first thing we need to do is capitalize on all the traffic and boost her email newsletter subscribers.   She’s currently at 300 (this is through Aweber not her RSS feed) and I’m confident we can get her to 3,000.  In fact, we’re going to use her blog as a case study “300 to 3000 email subscribers – How to Grow Your List”.   Yes, that is a title of a future blog post.   Stay tuned.  🙂

Since my one niche site is doing so well, I thought I would go ahead and start another one (same niche).  You know, since I have all the extra time in the world!  Hahaha….  This time though I have outsourced all the heavy lifting.   It won’t grow as fast as my main site, but that’s okay.   My main motivation of creating another one is for pure protection.  I’ve seen first hand the wrath of what Google can do to a site so I want to make sure I have some insurance.

Thanks for reading!