This income report is going to be a little bit different than what I normally do.
The truth is, I just want to get it over with, pretty much nothing new happened in November, no new content, other projects took time away from the blog and I’m pretty disappointed in the outcome.
Before I Get Into The Numbers
I sent an email out a couple days ago, it said:
Hey [name] First, I would like to thank all of you that email, comment, and regularly visit the blog.
Next, I would like to apologize.
The last few months, actually, for the most part of this year the blog has been lacking in new content and a very irregular posting schedule.
I haven’t really accomplished anything with the blog that I wanted.
The moment you entered your email in one of the forms on the blog, I had the responsibility to continue
delivering content that will help you, and regularly keep you updated. I have failed to do that.
I’m not a fan of apologies, because they’re usually just words. Instead, action is better.
This is why I need your help…
I want to get things back on track with the blog, and producing helpful content.
2017 is a month away, and I want my main focus to be on this blog.
I want to know what you would like to see.
Such as:
- Content ideas
- Media ideas
- Guest Post suggestions
- Promotion suggestions
- Anything you think would be helpful!
If you were in charge, what would be the top 3 things you would do to get everything back on track?
What types of content would you like to see?
I’d really like to hear your feedback and ideas. Even if I’ve never heard from you before, I would like to hear your thoughts.
Thanks,
Nathan
I sent this, because I realized how poorly I’ve treated those of you that regularly visit the blog, and would like to get things back on track.
I received a pretty good response, with a lot of suggestions, content ideas, and different pieces of advice. Later this month I will make a post about it with plans for the next year.
The majority of responses were about content, and it’s clear that’s what everyone wants to see more of, so if you have any suggestions related to content, or other ideas to “Make IncomeBully Great Again”, please let me know!
November 2016 Income and Traffic Stats
Self Created Income/Courses
Income: $1,544
Coaching Income
- 2 Sessions
Note: Page coming soon for coaching.
Income: $550
Affiliate Income
- Long Tail Pro – $19.50 (see my review here)
- NameHero Hosting – $0 (review)
- Clicks Magazine – $8.50
- Mobile Renegade – $45.06 (See it in action here)
- Mobile Renegade Mega Deal with Facebook Plugin – $46.56 (Blog post + Video)
- TeamWork Project Management – $6
- Social Pilot – $3
Affiliate Income – $128.62
TOTAL Income Bully Blog Income – $2,222.62
Thoughts on November Income
Mobile Renegade has rebranded to Profit Renegade, which has pretty much killed my affiliate sales, even though people are still buying the same product. I need to figure out a solution going forward and maybe work out another special discount for IB readers.
Other than that, everything is still pretty steady although low.
If I had more content, everything would trend higher, especially if I started sprinkling in a few different types of reviews of different products and software. That’s something I plan to do moving forward.
OTHER METRICS FOR THE BLOG
Alexa Rank – 362.455
Twitter Followers – 3,272
Youtube Channel Subscribers – 72
Google+ Followers – 38
Aweber Email Subscribers – 2,663
More Metrics:
Unique Visitors – 4,623
Bounce Rate – 66.90%
Pages Per Session – 1.62
Average Time On Site – 1:46
Thoughts On Traffic and Blog Metrics
Not much to say here, the traffic is inflated by about 400-500 unique visitors because of referral spam, which I will be watching and adding to my spam list, and also remove from future analytic reports.
No new content, so if anything, I’m actually a bit surprised that traffic increase instead of declined. A lot of that has to do with organic traffic, which over 50% of my traffic has come from in the month of November.
Twitter followers always drop if I stop tweeting. YT and g+ stayed the same.
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 |
| September 2016 | 4535 | $323.39 | $8316.39 |
| October 2016 | 3703 | $383.50 | $3292.50 |
| November 2016 | 4623 | $128.62 | $2222.62 |
| 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 |
| September 2016 | 4535 | 74.53% | 1.57 | 1:58 |
| October 2016 | 3703 | 74.51% | 1.59 | 1:34 |
| November 2016 | 4623 | 66.90% | 1.62 | 1:46 |
| 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 |
| September 2016 | 356964 | 2537 | 3257 | 71 | 39 |
| October 2016 | 369677 | 2586 | 3316 | 72 | 38 |
| November 2016 | 362455 | 2663 | 3272 | 72 | 38 |
*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. Should I just list the past 12 months and on the income report menu page, display all the data in one place? Let me know!
Plans for December
To be completely honest, I don’t have any ground breaking plans for December, and I feel better about December being a good month because of it.
My plan, is simply to get back in the swing of things, dedicating more time on the blog in general. I spent maybe 3 hours in November on the blog, which just isn’t going to cut it.
I want to get content production back on track, and do a few things I’ve neglected in the past few months. I also want to lay the ground work for 2017.
Final Thoughts
I feel like I hit my low point, rock bottom as far as running a blog goes. While the income and traffic could certainly be worse, that’s not how I’m measuring success.
It’s at the point where if I don’t make changes and continue producing content, then I might as well shut things down, and I don’t want to do that.
Stay tuned.
Good luck moving forward, Nathan.
December is always slow for me and I generally take it easy until the New Year.
Enjoy the holidays!
-Scott
Thanks for the comment Scott. I would generally like to take it easy too but too much to do! I want to make sure 2017 gets to an exciting start.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. You have other projects going on so it’s harder to find the time and energy for the blog. There are only 24 hours in the day…
True, but even if I spent 1 hour a day on the blog, we’re looking at a much better situation here.
I rather read 1 post of you per month for a long time to come, than you stressing over putting out 1 post per week and after a few months getting burned out over it and shutting everything down. Have seen it before, don’t want to see it again. Take it easy man.
Thanks Alex. I don’t think 1 post per week is unreasonable. I plan on moving things around to ensure I can spend a lot more time on the blog, and growing it with content and traffic. Lots of things being planned right now!
I want to become a client to help your blog sourced coaching/consulting income increase. I found some impressive posts here a few months back and need help with my website. Haven’t found a good way to get a response though. Maybe commenting here will work?
Hey David, my email is a huge mess, I plan on going through and cleaning it out tonight. My coaching/consulting income from the blog is mostly with other web designers and SEO’s/companies, not really client work. I’ll be in touch soon!
Love to visit the real blogs with income reports. Impressed, the way you present the income and traffic report (i think the bounce rate is high). But still, wonder you are making good revenue through your blog. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Charan… yeah it is, it would go down a bit with more content so that is definitely what I plan on working on next year!
I think for your list of all time blog stats it would be a good idea to have them listed in that graph format on the menu page and make the date column a link to each report =)
I think you need more specific goals than just getting back into the swing of things too. You’re doing great considering you only put 3 hours in this month, just think how awesome it could be with some serious nose to the grind hard work – Don’t give up!
Hey Gemma, thanks so much for the comment and your thoughts. I agree on needing more specific goals. I did that in my annual report that was just published.