January 2018 Traffic & Income Report

I’ve been blogging for several years but if I’m being honest, I’ve never really taken it seriously. I’ve always taken the route that offered me an instant paycheck. I’ve worked as a VA for several major bloggers, I was a campaign manager at Sway and Hire Influence.

However, this year, I’ve made a promise to my blogging buddies that I would dedicate myself to blogging and see what I can really make happen.

With that said, I’m making a promise to you that I will do a monthly post letting you know how things are going.

Yes, there are a million income reports floating around the web but does $90k a month really sound obtainable to the average blogger? Probably not!

So, I’m here to show you what you can do even with small numbers.

January 2018 Traffic & Income Report

Let’s start with the traffic since without traffic it’s hard to make an income.

Here is the overall view for January:

45,562 total pageviews

36,863 total sessions

52.29% of my traffic came from Pinterest.

9.41% of my traffic came from direct traffic

26.07% of my traffic came from organic search. I’m working to increase this by working through this workbook.

My top five posts for January were:

Authentic Homemade Posole brought in 10.45% of my traffic.

Chicken Pitas brought in 10.19% of my traffic.

Shrimp Instant Pot Recipe brought in 9.71% of my traffic.

DIY Body Butter Recipe brought in 8.45% of my traffic.

Easy Tips to Fix Your Marriage brought in 3.22% of my traffic.

New Posts:

I posted 10 new posts during the month of January.

New Email Subscribers: 

I received 190 new email subscribers in January. My long-term goal is 500 new subscribers per month.

Now onto the income!

Note: This is income that has been deposited into my bank account except for the ad revenue. I’m with Mediavine and they pay out on a net 75. However, I wanted to post the amount I will be paid, so that it aligns with the pageviews I received that month.

You’ll also notice that I include VA work into my income reports. I include VA work income because the work I receive is a direct result of my blog. I’m doing very limited VA work this year since I am dedicated to my blog. However, I have worked with an awesome lady the last few years, doing a few hours a week and I’m going to keep that up.

Sponsored Posts: $50

VA & Consulting Work: $176.61

Ad Network: $349.40

Affiliates: $24.25

Total: $600.26

Expenses:

Dropbox: $9.99

Boardbooster: $10

Microsoft: $9.99

Hosting: $15.00

VA Help – $84

Fonts – $15.20

Tailwind – $44.88 ( I had referral credits, which is why it’s much lower than the normal cost)

Kim Anderson Course – $29

Bloggers Tell All – $18

$236.06

After expenses, my profit was: $364.20 which breaks down to about $6.07 an hour working 15 hours a week. Not the best hourly wage here in California but I’m home with my kids. I’ll take it!

I haven’t kept the best track of my hours this month BUT I will be tracking them closely going forward so that I can give you an accurate account for how much time I spent on the blog.

Yearly Expenses (Which I don’t deduct from my monthly income unless I’m paying the yearly fee that month)

Keyword Finder

PicMonkey

Tailwind

Goals for February:

1. Update 40 old posts.
2. Read this book and implement all the amazing strategies. Keep an eye out for my full review of the book!
3. Increase my page views by 20%.
4. Work on my Tailwind tribes as I’ve seen a big increase in my Pinterest traffic from tribes.
5. Post 28 new posts
6. Complete the first 4 units of EBA (I’ve already completed 2 of them).