Welcome to another IncomeBully Income Report! January is a start to 2016 and a great month to get things back on track.
Income reports aren’t exactly a new thing for a lot of bloggers, I’m not the first one to do this. The reason I’m doing it is to track the progress from the very beginning stages. It seems that a lot of the more popular blogs that have been doing income reports, started tracking income a while after building a presence.
My income reports, are a bit different. No waiting around to show fluffed up numbers to boost my ego. This in my opinion, is more beneficial to the readers here, but it’s also beneficial to me to break down each month and see what needs improvement, and what has worked to generate more traffic and income.
The income reported here is made 100% from the blog and “internet marketing”. It does not include consulting income, offline income or traditional investment income.
What Happened In January
January is always something I look forward to. It’s a fresh start to a new year and a clean slate. Bad habits that were developed in 2015 get wiped away, with a little bit of work!
Here’s what happened in January:
Got Started With Regular Content Production Once Again
This was a big deal. Since I neglected the blog for a while later in 2015, my income, metrics, everything started to drastically fall off. It’s no surprise that happened, it’s to be expected.
I’ve been kicking myself for allowing production to come to a halt, because this blog could be further along with much higher growth. Now… it’s like I’m starting all over again.
Content production went pretty well this month.
One of the most important things I have discovered is that making a content plan or content calendar can really help you with consistent content creation.
Of course, a plan isn’t enough. You have to be able to execute that plan. The point is, once you have a plan in place, it makes it much easier to follow through than if you didn’t have a specific plan.
Also, along the lines of content production, I started using Buffer once again to schedule my tweets to promote blog posts and connect with other people. Due to inactivity on my Twitter account, I lost a lot of followers, which you’ll be able to see in the tables later on in this post. Getting active again has brought an increase in followers and a little bit of traffic.
Notable Mentions
I guess since I started publishing content more regularly this month, it hasn’t gone unnoticed.
I was mentioned in a list of favorite bloggers on the PassiveIncomeWise blog. Carl, from BlogIncomeInsider also mentioned me on his blog, linking to my post on how to eliminate referral spam in Google Analytics. He also sends out a monthly digest of blogs that have income reports, and has included me in those!
New Affiliate Site
Another thing I’ve been working on is a new affiliate site. It’s kind of a bummer because I researched the competition, did a bit of forecasting, checked to see if the domain I wanted was available. I decided it would be worth pursuing and then went to register the domain.
Guess what?
It was registered 3 days prior.
I ended up getting a decent domain still, but I’m a little bummed about it.
I’m not ready to share the details of the website but I will in the future.
It still isn’t finished yet but will be in the next couple weeks.
The problem is, it is in a highly competitive niche, and I’m not sure how well I will do but I have projected on the low end it should earn me an extra couple hundred bucks a month, totally passive.
It’ll be interesting to see how everything goes, and of course report it back to all of you!
Posts I published in January
Haven’t been here in a while? Here are some of the posts I’ve published in January.
2015 Annual Report (In Depth Look At 2015)
8 Cold Calling Tips for 2016 to Position Yourself For Success
Ken James Guest Post: How I Went From 0 to 25k/mo With This Strategy
The Truth About Niches and What You Should Do
5 Mistakes Beginners Make When Starting Their Agency
Eliminate Referral Spam in Google Analytics Once and For All!
20 Ways To Generate Leads, Sales and Clients WITHOUT Cold Calling
Top 5 Most Popular Posts in January
In the top 5, I include all posts from the start of the blog, not just posts published in January.
1.) Cold Calling Tips for 2016
2.) Ken James Guest Post: 0 to 25k/mo
3.) 5 Mistake Beginners Make When Starting Their Agency
4.) 20 Ways To Generate Leads Without Cold Calling
5.) How a Vape Store Doubled Their Sales With 3 Simple Things
Alright… Lets get into the juicy stuff
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January 2016 Income and Traffic
Here’s the breakdown.
My Ultimate Blueprint To Start a Web Agency
Ice Cold Email Gold – The Key to Cold Email Marketing Mastery
Total Self Created Product Income : $1,948
I just combined my two guides/courses as one income stream. At the end of the year I will break down the sale further but this is easier for now!
Affiliate Income
Mobile Renegade – $247.83
Clicks Magazine – $8.50
Infographic Megapack PLR for Offline Marketers – $28.76
MyThemeShop – $48
BlueHost – $130
TOTAL Affiliate Income – $463.09
Total Overall Income – $2,411.09
Thoughts on January Income
January was better than expected. I had a nice little boost compared to December and maybe that’s because I’ve been a bit more active here on the blog and publishing regular content in January. However, I didn’t expect great numbers and I also don’t expect good numbers next month since it’s going to take time to build up again compared to where I was back in July and August.
My Arvixe Hosting income is no longer a thing… I stopped promoting them, and have found a much better hosting company called NameHero. I’ll be posting a review and detailed post on why I like them, and why I also stopped promoting Arvixe.
Mobile Renegade commissions are up this month which is a good thing. A bad thing though, is I still need to figure out better ways to monetize through affiliate offers. I hate how people will recommend whatever garbage is out there, just for a small chunk of change. It’s tough to find quality offers I’m willing to stand behind, but the search will continue.
Overall, a decent start to the new year. Hopefully I can build off of this!
OTHER METRICS FOR THE BLOG
Alexa Rank – 350,881
Twitter Followers – 1,533
Youtube Channel Subscribers – 50
Google+ Followers – 22
Aweber Email Subscribers – 1,374
More Metrics:
Unique Visitors – 4,126
Bounce Rate – 69.56%
Pages Per Session – 1.75
Average Time On Site – 2:18
Thoughts on the Metrics
Better than expected, once again. I had almost double the amount of traffic in January than I did in December. This can definitely be attributed to more consistent content.
My other metrics were good as well, bounce rate was an improvement over previous months, pages per session and time on site. All good signs!
The best surprise was the growth of my email list. Twitter grew by a lot, but my email list is the most important and it looks like it had a little over 11% growth.
Overall, I’m happy with the outcome of January. Even though I’m happy, you shouldn’t confuse happiness with satisfaction. I’m definitely not satisfied where things are and will be working to improve everything.
This is a great starting point for what I expect will be an interesting 2016.
Here’s some data so you guys can see my progress month over month.
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 |
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 |
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 |
Plans and Goals For February
I must say, getting back into the blog and creating content is pretty fun. It’s fun seeing progress, and even though it isn’t very fun to see certain struggles, I enjoy the challenge of growing a blog like this. I also enjoy hearing from all of you, whether it is through email or comments.
Here are a few of my plans and goals for February:
Finish and Launch my Affiliate Site
I haven’t put in too much time yet, but this is something I intend to finish and launch this month. I will be counting on mostly organic traffic, so I don’t expect to see any earnings from the site for at least a month or two and even then it will likely be minimal.
My low end projection is $100-200/mo from this site. So far, I’ve invested about 1 hour and will probably have about 8-10 hours invested by the time it launches.
Spend More Time Reading and Working Out
I already started a work out plan and will stick with it. It’s important to break bad habits, especially the bad habit of not getting enough exercise.
Spending time reading is really important to me, and something I haven’t been able to do much of in the last few months. Of course, I feel like I read an encyclopedia’s worth of information every month just with blogs, news, articles, forums, etc. but I need to set aside some time for reading away from the screens.
Maybe in the next income report I will share with you the book(s) I’ve read.
I understand, this seems like it isn’t relevant to the blog. Maybe it isn’t, but I feel like regular, focused, reading can help you creatively but also keeping your mind sharp and learning new things. I fully believe you can get the equivalent to a college education (if not better) by regularly reading books.
Work On a New Product
Many of you have bought my Ultimate Blueprint to Start a Web Agency. I launched it as a WSO on Warrior Forum, and while it’s still selling pretty well, I wanted to take feedback from all of you and make an even better product.
What I’m planning to do here is to recreate the blueprint, into an even more detailed and easy to follow way. I also want to add different tiers of the course, include video content, interviews, scripts, swipe files, and more.
I won’t be selling this one on the Warrior Forum, I intend to setup a funnel using Facebook Ads and also sharing a case study on FB ads while I’m at it!
Not sure when I’ll be able to launch.. First things first, I need to do a lot of work in recreating it and making it much better.
Final Thoughts
January was good. Not good enough and not near where it should be, but it’s a good starting point for this year.
Since February is a shorter month, I may have trouble beating the traffic numbers but I look forward to the challenge. Same with income!
I’m really excited for what’s to come in 2016! I hope you guys are as well, not for me, but for yourself!
Looks like those are your best numbers since August. Nice way to start off the year. I’m curious where your traffic comes from.
Also why isn’t Alexa rank improving after a big increase over last month?
My traffic is pretty diverse so far, direct (emails), organic, social and referral. Nothing too impressive, I really need to boost my social and referral traffic though. It will happen with time!
Alexa rank, good question. I don’t have the answer to that lol. It isn’t an important metric, I just like tracking it for fun.
Nathan,
Don’t be afraid to test products that are relevant to what you’re doing. That’s extremely helpful to your readers and subscribers. Point out the pros and cons like you see them. Others may be looking for something will solve one specific problem and if that’s one of the pros and the price is right, the cons won’t matter as much to them.
Just because one person happens to see something a certain way doesn’t necessarily mean that others won’t still buy it. Most people will appreciate your honesty and then after reading your pros and cons decide if it’s still a good fit or not for them. Yes, some will refund, but most won’t. They’ll end up buying it somewhere anyway, so why not from you, right?
Just sayin’
🙂
P.S. If you title a post something like “Red Widget Reviews: Step By Step Walkthrough Review Of The Red Widget Software by Jim Jones”, etc it will also end up getting search engine traffic and more customers and subscribers.
Joe, you’re absolutely right. Thank you for your input, I guess I should start doing that, even if it is a product I don’t particularly care for, I can show why I don’t, and if people still want it, cool. Very good point.
Would you suggest any other scrapper besides mobile renegade ?
Mobile Renegade is the one I recommend and have personally used with a lot of success. I’ve tried a lot of other scrapers, but can’t really say anything good about them. I’d like to find other alternatives out there, so if you come across something that seems promising, please let me know!
Thanks for the comment Dan!
Too bad about that domain name. 3 days Prior! unreal. Looking forward to checking out the affiliate site.
I know… I was shocked when I saw that it was taken, then went and checked the whois information and noticed I missed it by days… Crazy.
Nathan – I think I’ve read almost everything article you have on this site — love it all — motivating for sure. One question…a little off topic, but when you were actively running your agency were your services largely 1) web design services and 2) search engine marketing services? What was the general range of pricing for those (and I’m assuming marketing services were probably on a monthly retainer)? Thx — John
John, glad you’ve enjoyed it and thanks for your comment! Web design was always a good entry point, with later on upselling to local SEO or different marketing services. Of course, any type of marketing or SEO would be a monthly fee. For web design, I tested out a wide range of pricing. I eventually never went under $1,300 for a website, even if it were a basic 5 pager.
Hey Nathan,
This year has started pretty cool for you, I quite follow you in Warrior Forum too. I can see how your courses are getting lots of income, congratulations!!
I hope you don’t mind if I updated your income report in the favourite bloggers list at http://passiveincomewise.com/favourite-bloggers/
One more time, well done, and keep up the great job!
Regards,
Francisco
Hey Francisco, thanks for stopping by! I actually checked out your blog just a couple days ago!
BIG Numbers to start the year my friend, nicely done!
I really appreciate the mention here as well, thanks Nathan!!
Here’s to another strong month!!
Thanks Carl, and you too! Definitely excited to see your progress as well, I find that the blogs that are newer are slightly more transparent than older, big number blogs.
Nathan, why do you think your email subscribers numbers took such a big jump this month? Was it just the boost in traffic via more published content or did you implement something new on the lead magnet end?
BTW, I started graphing your income reports on my site. Thanks for putting so much detail in them, a lot of information we can all learn from!
http://onlineincomereport.com/incomebully/
I think it had to do with getting back on track with publishing content. Also, the content has been more in depth, so I think that plays into it a bit.
Thanks for including me Chad, I look forward to keeping up with everything you’re doing. Looks pretty cool man!