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 March
When it comes to writing and publishing a book, the one thing that I continue to learn is that it never ends.
Never.
After writing the book and going through several rounds of edits, you have so many things that you have to address. I knew writing a book was involved. I just never imagined how involved.
I am so thankful that it’s nearly complete and soon it will be in bookstores {near you}.
The fact that I’ve been able to publish ANY posts across the web is something short of a miracle. But, if you’re a blogger that’s what it takes to #hustle. <<< One of my favorite hashtags. 🙂
Husband Vs. Wife
If you haven’t noticed yet, there’s a bit of a rivalry between the wifey and I with our blogs.
At one time I had way more Facebook fans than her. But in the past couple of months, she’s been able to do some big giveaways with other bloggers so now she’s killing me. {At the time of writing this it’s 6,433 to 4,099. Yeah, no contest}.
For the longest time my traffic was always way more than hers. Then this thing called Pinterest began to exist and, once again, I got lost in the dust.
Thankfully, my wife has been generous at lending some of her Pinterest traffic tips to my blog and now I’m seeing some decent traffic from it.
So now our traffic levels are much closer together. Because of that, I thought it would be fun to show traffic numbers between the two of us each month so we can “duke it out” for you all to see.
March Traffic Numbers
First month goes to the wife. You knew that was coming, didn’t you. 😉
In March she had 189,178 visitors (146,819 being unique). You don’t see her page views in the screenshot below, but she’s also killing me there. In March she averaged 1.85 pageviews per visitor for a grand total of 350,830.
For my site, I was able to get 155,679 visitors for the month. I only average around 1.3 pageviews per visitor so my grand total is much lower.
P.S. If you have any suggestions on how to increase pageviews on my blog, I’m all ears.
Overall, I know we’re both pleased with our traffic numbers. We’ll see how next month looks. I know its early but I think the wifey is going down! Haha…
Here’s a look at the numbers for March….
Income Breakdown
Good Financial Cents
- Adsense: $2,157.90
- Adspeed: $1,801.45
- Commission Junction: $1,357.00
- Flex Offers:$2,150.81
- Direct Advertising: $0
- Media Net: $473.13
- Consumer Track: $84.00
- You Need A Budget: $54.00
- Total: $8,078.29
Dollars and Roses
- GoDaddy: $22.72
- ShareASale (Thesis Theme and Genesis Theme): $179.85
- Blogging Your Passion: $55.50
- Total: $258.07
Other Niche Sites
- Adsense: $152.19
- Flex Offers: $308.00
- Direct Advertising: $282.57
- Media Net: $84.69
- Main Niche Site Revenue: $7,715.03
- Total: $8,542.48
- BlogHer Ads: $802.19
- BlogHer Sponsored Posts: $0
- Direct Advertising: $310.00
- Adsense: $462.54
- Lijit Media: $54.94
- Content Ads: $325.50
- BlueHost: $1,170.00
- Total $3,125.17
- Equifax: $200.00
- Total: $200.00
Total Revenue for March: $20,204.01
Revenue Last Month: $16,424.84
- Difference: +3,779.17
- January 2012: $3,120.93
- Total for 2012: $115,289.16
- Running Total 2013: $54,391.64
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: $250.00 (average)
- Unique Article Wizard: $67.00
- Virtual Assistant: $1,000.00
- Total: $1,732.00
This is just a rough estimate of our fixed monthly expenses. I’ve been working on a comprehensive post that shows everything that we pay for but it’s turning into a monster post – over 3,000 words at this point. I promise that it will be ready next month.
What Happened in March
Ba-da-bing! After getting very close a few times, we finally reached our monthly gross revenue goal of $20k. Woop woop! So many things came together in what turned out to be a solid month. A couple things that really worked out:
- Good Financial Cents continues to put out solid numbers even with $0 in direct advertising last month. I recently introduced Kevin Mulligan as my full-time blog editor to allow me to focus on creating more great content. It’s hard to believe that my blog has grown to a point to needing someone to come on full-time, but that’s the reality of where my site is now. Crazy!
- Dollars and Roses is starting to add to the bottom line with conversions for hosting companies and other affiliates. Although I never intended this site to be a revenue generator, the reality is that it has the potential to do so. Exciting….
- Our niche sites continue to hum along recording a record month last month, too.
- House of Rose put up another record month surpassing $3k for the 1st time. Yeah baba! I’m sure you never imagined that she could replace her previous day job income from her blog, but she’s getting close. Real close!
What’s next?
For me, it’s finally getting our podcast launched. I’ve been saying that for a the past couple of income reports but no more excuses. It’s time. I’ve given myself the month of April as my deadline to finally get it going. Hold me accountable!
For Mandy, I have bigger plans for her. 🙂 I thought it would be a really good idea for her to write her first eBook and publish it on Amazon. Here was her announcement on her Facebook Fanpage:
She obviously knows her stuff for decorating on the cheap so I thought it was a perfect fit for her. It’s just another way for her to stand out from the competition, monetize her site even more, and work on something she enjoys doing that will really help people. Trifecta!
Until next month….
Thanks again for all your support!
Wow you two are doing AWESOME! I hope to someday be at your level.
For sure Michelle they are doing great. It’s always happy to see someone succeed.
Also, I totally am with you on the being on their level one day. Right now I can’t say that I am at their level.
Perhaps after I have put the time in and get the job done I will be there. For now, I shall keep trucking along.
Great job
I love reading these recaps every month — they are so inspiring (and I will definitely start using the #hustle hashtag going forward.) Congrats on a terrific month!
Another amazing month, congrats guys. Jeff, are you ever planning to tell us more about your main niche site? I can understand wanting to keep the details under cover, but I’m sure I’m not alone in learning about what strategies you’re using to develop this incredibly successful enterprise!
@ Elliot See my response to Mindi. Maybe one day…..just not today. 🙂
Thanks for your comments, though!
I noticed on the House of Roses income that most of it is coming from Bluehost. I am curious how you are making money from that site. I liked to compare my earnings to the House of Roses blog since it is most similar to mine. Could you please explain how this works?
Thank you both for your openess in sharing your journey! I have been blogging for almost 4 years, but I am just now trying to earn income with it.
Hi Carissa! Bluehost is a hosting company and House of Rose is an affiliate of Bluehost. I have a “start a blog” page on my site and when people sign up to use Bluehost service I get a percentage of that. Does that help?
can you tell us what your niche sites are? Would love to see them as well. Thanks!
@ Mindi I could, but that would ruin the mystery, heh? 🙂
I may someday but I know of another blogger that revealed some of their niche sites and copycatter’s jumped on immediately. With the sites being relatively new, I would feel much more comfortable gaining traction to solidify it’s ranking before competitor’s come out of nowhere.
That being said, Pat Flynn from SmartPassiveIncome.com just announced he’s starting a new niche site duel. I’ve been talking with my VA about starting a brand new site from scratch and showing how we do it. Stay tuned!
Awesome! You two are such an inspiration. I am a SAHM and a newbie blogger. I really want to start making money off my blog but like I said, I’m a “newbie” so I really need to build up my content and audience first.
I know that it takes money to make money (with the whole blog thing…), so for someone like me, who isn’t working, and my family and I are living off of 1 paycheck (Hubby’s in the military!), where should I start? What do you suggest I do (or what company’s to invest in) so I can start making money off this ol’ blog of mine? 🙂
Thank you!
Starting by growing your content and audience first is such a smart move! So many people think that they can make money without content or readers and, unfortunately, you can not. So kudos to you on realizing that!! I noticed that you don’t have any ad networks running. You could try and apply to BlogHer, Adsense, Lijit and Content.Ads. Those are the ones I use. BlogHer may be harder to get in to, but you shouldn’t have a problem getting in to the others. That would be my first piece of advice in trying to monetize. But like you said…pageviews definitely will help you make money so keep putting up great content, promoting it, and be consistent.
WOW this is incredible and really inspiring.
Congrats guys 😉 I hope to hit the 20k mark someday, but can’t seem to get out of the 10ks.
I love both of your sites! Mandy’s blog inspired me to start a blog of my own. I’m still working on getting it set up which is taking a lot longer than I thought, but I’m super excited about it. Mandy’s posts are so inspirational that I enjoy reading them every day. I hope that I can someday be able to work from home as well.
I do have one question though…do you guys have health insurance? My husband is self employed and I work full time to provide insurance for the family. The thought of staying home is a dream but seems unattainable due to the cost of insurance. Any advice? Thanks a bunch!
Leslie
Hi Leslie! Thanks for the compliments and so glad you have found the site helpful!
We have independent health insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield. It was definitely hard to leave my full time job at a healthcare company because we, too, were on my insurance. It doubled the cost for us and was something we had to plan for. We pay around $830 for a family of 5 (but we have a low deductible plan). There are options out there that are cheaper if you go with a higher deductible. My advice is to find an agent who can look at all of the different companies for you and offer you the best rate for the coverage you need.
Whoop whoop is right! You are both an inspiration. It’s clear how hard you work to earn that kind of dough.
Inspiring numbers!!
In response to your “request” for ways to get more page views, here is something that worked for me. I went from 3,098 pageviews in February, to over 55,000 pageviews in March. Basically I offer some free printables on my blog and one of my printables was pinned by a big blogger on Pinterest. This blogger also used my printable for a month-long challenge which she wrote about on Facebook (where she has over 238,000 fans), and on her blog where she has a ton of readers.
Long story short — offer something free and useful on your blog that your readers can download. Make it pinnable/shareable and it may help! 🙂
@ Monica That’s awesome! What a great testimony on the power of Pinterest. Mandy is definitely helping me see the light and making sure I have more “Pinnable” images on my site.
She seems to be on the top of her things as of now. But the good thing is that you’re both racking up the numbers and pulling in a hefty total every month 🙂
Jeff, I’ve got a question about the Unique Article Wizard —
what type of traffic increase did you notice when you started submitting posts, and how many articles can you submit at a time?
I’ve got the TOA open and the language is quite legalistic and I worry that submitting past articles in bulk isn’t a good idea? or is it? do you know if there’s a certain cap?
and, are you running adsense and your other services through DFP? Are you managing DFP on your own, or do you have an ad manager? What is the remnant ad service you’re using for the BlogHer ads? Are you selling the remnants on your own? Using Pubmatic?
too many questions? ;-0 sorry…..
@ Stephanie
I had to ask my VA their opinion on UAW because they run that program for me. Here’s what they had to say:
Re: DFP. Yes, both Mandy and I both run all our ads through DFP. We both have different ad newtorks and basically have it on auto-pilot. I’ve adjusted my CPM rates a bit too experiment, but that’s about it. DFP is bit overwhelming for me. We paid for someone to help us get it setup but I couldn’t do it again to save my life.
Mandy uses Blogehr and Lijit. I have a private ad network and Media.net as my other two.
Uh…..I’m not sure from remnant ads means. And I’ve never heard of Pubmatic. I know some stuff, but I definitely don’t know everything regarding blogging. 🙂
Thanks for this! I appreciate the feedback —- I couldn’t figure out DFP at all, but now have it set up through a 3rd party and BlogHer has the remnant ads being sold through DFP (the remnants are the ad impressions BlogHer isn’t able to fill — their default (I believe) is to give the impressions to Pubmatic— Mandy would have that info on her reporting pages).
I find all of this fascinating, thank you for your candor!
Stunning work guys! Love how you both challenge yourselves must be a fun environment to me into.
Very impressive results. Keep up the good work.
Love your posts, keep em coming!
Hi guys!
I’ve only just discovered this site, it looks great. Congrats on your March no.s, they are very inspiring. 🙂
How do your hosting sites make you money? For blogging you passion and bluehost, where are those profits actually coming from?
@ Alyssa For hosting companies, they see it lucrative getting a new client because most likely you’ll be with them for an extended period of time. It’s the same reason that DirectTV can pay you a referral fee for sending family and friends.
This is the first blog I have come across that gives direct advice and inspiration. Thank you so much for being open about how you have become successful. I am your newest follower!
@ Katie Welcome! Glad you found our blog helpful. 🙂
Congratulations on having a record breaking month. It inspires me to start some other websites. I am scared to give up some freelancing time to make the leap.
I’m running a small blog about my own internet marketing business. Your story is fantastic and I love going through your old posts and following the journey.
For people looking to grow their own online business like you what you would be the most important things to focus on to get off the ground?
@ Adrian
Not to sound cliche, but you have to find your niche. Geez, that sounds so canned! Haha…
But seriously, you have to find that topic that you can write about over and over again and then grow on that. For me, it was financial planning and helping people. That’s why I can write content all day and then do tons of videos on the topic.
For my wife, it was home decor and family stuff. She then used Pinterest to grow that passion even more.
Once you find your groove, opportunities start to present themselves