It’s September 1st, which brings us towards the end of summer and a new income report, despite a bit of inactivity here on the Income Bully blog.
For those of you that are new here, I share my income that gets generated from this blog and other projects related to the blog. I don’t share offline income, investment income or anything like that, only directly related to this blog.
I share this to help other people see what is making money, also to be transparent, but to tell you the truth, the biggest reason is because I like the accountability, sharing successes, and even publicly shaming myself in a bad month.
What Happened in August?
If you visit the home page, you would think absolutely nothing happened in August.
Now is the time when I’m supposed to tell you all the behind the scenes stuff I’m working on.
That would be a lie. August has been absolutely unproductive for me when it comes to this blog. I did spend a bit of time working on my local SEO course, but even that has hit a few snags and I’m struggling with providing perfection instead of just cranking it out.
Content creation was definitely lacking. Understatement of the year.
I didn’t do any outreach, passed on an opportunity to join an expert round up that could have provided excellent traffic. I also could have taken part in a guest posting opportunity but put that off for now.
Why Did August Suck?
To give myself a bit of credit, just because the blog hasn’t been active in August, I definitely have been.
I’ve been working on an SEO project that has taken a lot more time than I’d like. A lot of issues that happened due to previous SEO work from people that were out of their league and making bad decisions overall.
Also spent time trying to win a municipal project. Nothing better than government work providing you with 20-50X the income a regular business would pay for a website. Perhaps I should write a blog post on how to land government website projects?
Even though I have legitimate excuses for why the blog has been inactive in August, it is still unacceptable. I need to do a better job preparing and creating content, seeking guest bloggers, and budgeting my time better.
It isn’t just about time management though. One of the biggest struggles is just focus and motivation.
August was a success for me overall, just not so much with the blog, which will be obvious when sharing the income and traffic stats.
One Good Thing Though…
Even though I STILL haven’t created a “coaching” page to sell hourly coaching services, a reader of this blog contacted me and wanted to buy multiple 1 hour blocks to help setup an SEO strategy for his business that has 40 different locations.
Very cool guy. It was great connecting, and helping implement a strategy and seeing the work pay off for him in such a short period of time.
Even though he paid me, I felt like the roles should have been reversed. I think I learned a lot more from him than what he learned from me. This has kind of been the pattern with my coaching calls, I often feel that I’m learning just as much from the people on the call with me. I haven’t had any complaints yet, and so far everyone has returned for multiple calls.
August 2016 Income and Traffic Stats
Self Created Income/Courses
Income: $1,571
Coaching Income
- 6 Sessions
Income: $1,650
Note: Page coming soon for coaching.
Affiliate Income
- Long Tail Pro – $1 trial (see my review here)
- NameHero Hosting – $50 (review)
- Clicks Magazine – $17
- Mobile Renegade – $112.65 (See it in action here)
- Mobile Renegade Mega Deal with Facebook Plugin – $46.58 (Blog post + Video)
- TeamWork Project Management – $6
- Social Pilot – $3
Affiliate Income – $236.23
TOTAL Income Bully Blog Income – $3,457.23
Thoughts On August Income
Overall the numbers look fine, but in reality, the coaching income really puts a mask on where the income probably should have been. If it weren’t for the coaching, this would have been one of the worst months I’ve had with the blog.
Affiliate income took a hit, which is no surprise since the lack of activity on the blog. The big surprise is the increase in ebook sales. That number I keep expecting to decline. It’s only a matter of time until it gets under $1,000/mo unless I do something about it.
I need to get back on track or else income will continue to slip.
OTHER METRICS FOR THE BLOG
Alexa Rank – 314,510
Twitter Followers – 3,310 ( 100 decline since last month, been inactive on Twitter)
Youtube Channel Subscribers – 68
Google+ Followers – 40
Aweber Email Subscribers – 2,499
More Metrics:
Unique Visitors – 3,660
Bounce Rate – 72.40%
Pages Per Session – 1.67
Average Time On Site – 1:57
Thoughts On Traffic and Blog Metrics
Earlier in this post, I was going on about the lack of activity on the blog. I just realized when looking at followers and other metrics, that I also was totally inactive on Twitter. Twitter doesn’t provide the highest quality traffic, but when I schedule mass tweets, and automate the process it does provide decent traffic and a few subscribers each month.
Visits are down. Other metrics are about the same, slight decline in pages per session and time on site but that’s expected since regular readers are coming to the blog and leaving once they see there is no new content. Honestly, I expected those to be worse than what they are.
I should have set some time aside even an hour here and there to keep twitter going, g+ communities and other activities to bring in traffic. I know content creation needs to be on track, but there’s no excuse for not promoting some existing content.
All Time Stats For The Blog
Month & Year | Unique Visitors | Affiliate Income | Total Revenue |
---|---|---|---|
December 2014 | N/A | $18.10 | $3528.10 |
January 2015 | 921 | $46.48 | $4062.48 |
February 2015 | 1361 | $223.65 | $3239.65 |
March 2015 | 2324 | $70.58 | $2697.58 |
April 2015 | 2528 | $400.90 | $2391.90 |
May 2015 | 6422 | $400.90 | $2829.90 |
June 2015 | 9830 | $449.96 | $3378.27 |
July 2015 | 8015 | $586 | $3621.86 |
August 2015 | 6209 | $777.93 | $8386.24 |
September 2015 | 2372 | $132.06 | $1912.06 |
October 2015 | 2249 | $267.59 | $1277.59 |
November 2015 | 2331 | $331.68 | $1757.68 |
December 2015 | 2191 | $306.56 | $1981.56 |
January 2016 | 4126 | $463.09 | $2411.09 |
February 2016 | 4850 | $754.95 | $3219.95 |
March 2016 | 4505 | $419.77 | $2239.77 |
April 2016 | 7393 | $525.57 | $2821.57 |
May 2016 | 6469 | $457.29 | $2585.29 |
June 2016 | 7132 | $747.66 | $5472.66 |
July 2016 | 4745 | $508.24 | $8226.24 |
August 2016 | 3660 | $236.26 | $3457.23 |
Month & Year | Unique Visitors | Bounce Rate | Pages Per Session | Time on Site |
---|---|---|---|---|
December 2014 | N/A | N/A | N/A | |
January 2015 | 921 | 51.07% | 2.93 | 4:04 |
February 2015 | 1361 | 49.74% | 2.63 | 3:22 |
March 2015 | 2324 | 54.65% | 2.65 | 3:24 |
April 2015 | 2528 | 54.36% | 2.09 | 2:06 |
May 2015 | 6422 | 58.11% | 1.89 | 1:56 |
June 2015 | 9830 | 61.4% | 1.82 | 1:58 |
July 2015 | 8015 | 67.91% | 1.68 | 1:30 |
August 2015 | 6209 | 65.03% | 1.72 | 1:57 |
September 2015 | 2372 | 74.96% | 1.63 | 1:27 |
October 2015 | 2249 | 75.94% | 1.62 | 1:30 |
November 2015 | 2331 | 73.23% | 1.75 | 2:01 |
December 2015 | 2191 | 72.71% | 1.64 | 1:53 |
January 2016 | 4126 | 69.56% | 1.75 | 2:18 |
February 2016 | 4850 | 69.96% | 1.71 | 2:29 |
March 2016 | 4505 | 72.12% | 1.66 | 2:16 |
April 2016 | 7393 | 72.14% | 1.69 | 2:27 |
May 2016 | 6469 | 72.27% | 1.74 | 2:16 |
June 2016 | 7132 | 71.75% | 1.75 | 2:25 |
July 2016 | 4745 | 72.18% | 1.71 | 2:00 |
August 2016 | 3660 | 72.40 | 1.67 | 1:57 |
Month & Year | Alexa Rank | Email Subs | Youtube | Google+ | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
December 2014 | N/A | 69 | N/A | N/A | |
January 2015 | 2918591 | 212 | 72 | 0 | N/A |
February 2015 | 1492063 | 336 | 95 | 7 | N/A |
March 2015 | 997051 | 419 | 125 | 13 | N/A |
April 2015 | 786089 | 506 | 399 | 19 | 12 |
May 2015 | 537433 | 611 | 573 | 26 | 11 |
June 2015 | 377461 | 755 | 970 | 31 | 18 |
July 2015 | 290185 | 896 | 1063 | 38 | 17 |
August 2015 | 242955 | 1054 | 1339 | 40 | 19 |
September 2015 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
October 2015 | 369324 | 1162 | 1261 | 42 | 20 |
November 2015 | 372286 | 1190 | 1258 | 45 | 20 |
December 2015 | 349370 | 1236 | 1238 | 45 | 22 |
January 2016 | 350881 | 1374 | 1533 | 50 | 22 |
February 2016 | 320070 | 1577 | 1674 | 51 | 26 |
March 2016 | 344099 | 1675 | 1798 | 52 | 27 |
April 2016 | 319884 | 1920 | 2210 | 53 | 35 |
May 2016 | 338710 | 2074 | 2763 | 56 | 35 |
June 2016 | 306944 | 2312 | 3273 | 63 | 37 |
July 2016 | 293400 | 2414 | 3416 | 66 | 40 |
August 2016 | 314510 | 2499 | 3310 | 68 | 40 |
*If you guys have a better idea on displaying historical data please let me know. It’s getting to be too much to list everything here.
What I NEED To Do In September
Some of you have been coming to this blog since the beginning. For those of you that have been here for a while, you probably remember a period of time last year, from September until December where I pretty much abandoned the blog while working on a big consulting gig.
It’s always this time of year, the 2nd half of the year where I seem to slack with personal projects.
I need to take steps forward to make sure that doesn’t happen again this year. I want to finish off 2016 with a stronger 2nd half than the first half.
Planning Content
I spent a bit of time a few days ago creating a list of content ideas. One of the problems that prevent content creation is that when an idea pops in my head, I lose it by the time I can sit down and type up a blog post.
Having a list of content ideas should help with content creation. At least that’s the theory right now and we’ll be able to prove it wrong or right by October 1st when the next income report will be posted.
Finish My New Lead Magnet Series
One of my goals last month was to start with some Facebook Ads, driving traffic to a lead magnet / free course.
It’s a 7 day course by email, but I’m no closer to finishing than I was at this time last month. That needs to be finished, so I can drive new traffic, subscribers and hopefully conversions to my Agency Blueprint.
Stop Procrastinating With Blog Stuff
It really comes down to this. I need to stop procrastinating with content creation and improving this blog.
I need to really kick into gear, and get things moving, and growing.
With focus, and dedication, I believe this blog could have already been 2x better with traffic and income at the low end. Time to stop making excuses and get stuff done.
Final Thoughts
It was a bad month. Could have been worse though but I’m tired of having bad months and knowing I’m in a rut. Hopefully I’m able to get things back on track and make up for it with a strong 2nd half of 2016.
Good stuff with the goverment gigs man
You know how people starting out, struggle offering $1,000 websites? Government websites, even if it’s just a city website or municipal department website, can easily be a 20K job for the same amount of work.
Good stuff as usually man.
Just curious, and you know I have to ask. lol. Are you still working on the SEO course or have you decided to wait until next year (2017), so you can see if Google does an update with PAID Local My Business ads, like the ones out in San Diego, CA? If so, that’s smart of you!
Also, is it best to wait for the page on coaching? If so that cool, just wondering. 🙂 I’d love to get some consulting from you on my current SEO business and lack there of.
Marc
Hey Marc.. I am still working on it, slowly but surely. I really don’t want to wait until 2017, I’m thinking that I will stick to a November launch date. My goal with the course isn’t to teach people to get the 3rd spot, I want people to be able to follow it and consistently get A spot rankings for themselves or clients. My bigger concern is the revamp of GMB as a whole, not so much the local service ads. I need to start putting out blog posts about some of this stuff, because there have been reports of some updates, but no one is discussing the impact of the updates.
As for the coaching, I’m going to try to get the page up maybe this weekend, but it might be a good idea to shoot me an email 🙂
Good work on courses..
Thanks 🙂
Roger that on the end-of-summer slump! I sat down last night and re-org’d my procrastinated to-do list, which ended up being 25 items long. I also estimated the time for each, which in total equals 20-22 hours of work not related to client stuff. Just improvements. That’s what I get for not keeping up over the last part of summer…
+1 on a blog to land government website projects! Heck, I’d even lay down some $ for something detailed!
Happy fall progress to everyone!
The struggle is real lol.. I have so many things in a big yellow legal notepad with many pages of tasks that I want to do for the blog but never have gotten around to it. If I did just a few tasks each day that probably wouldn’t take up more than a few minutes each, I would definitely see the rewards from that.
Time to get grinding away!
Great summary and don’t be too hard on yourself, you did well all things considered. There are only 24 hours in a day and we’re all human and need to sleep, eat and even have fun occasionally 😉
I just posted my own summary and August was slow for me too. And yes, I did well with my main revenue-generating projects, it’s just the blog revival project that took the brunt of the summer slowdown.
And thanks for sharing the historic data. Have you been posting detailed monthly reports since December 2014? Those first few months seem wondrous. Lots of income with relatively very little traffic. I’d love to find out what happened there.
Hey Anne, thanks for the comment and encouragement. The problem is, out of those 24 hours each day, I believe there’s plenty of time available that I can allocate to this blog but for some reason haven’t.
Time to break out of this rut though. September should be more productive. Hard to be less productive, that’s for sure lol.
Yes, income reports since then. The numbers look too good to be true, and they are. The reason those numbers are so high is because that was right after releasing my Ultimate Agency Blueprint on the Warrior Forum in the WSO section. I had a decent following just from that, so that skews my numbers a bit. If it weren’t for the years of reputation building on that forum, it would be a very different picture.
Cut yourself some (not too much) slack. I can’t wait to earn what you’ve earned on a bad month!
I generally get distracted at this time of the year too. Maybe it’s the days getting shorter, the worse weather etc.
One of my “end-game” ideas was coaching, so I look forward to the new post.
Go and surround yourself with some motivational stuff and smash September!
Thanks for this. This report will make me fix somethings out on your blog. I cam across your testimony on Gael site and i really love what i read. Thanks for your work
Hi Nathan,
I featured your income report in my bloggers income roundup report.
Feel free to check it out via the link below.
http://passiveincomewise.com/income-roundup-report-september-2016/
I hope you like it!
Thanks,
Francisco
Hi,
Thanks for sharing your monthly income report. This type of report or post definitely helps me to enhance my blogging journey.