I hope you all had a fantastic time over the holidays and are now preparing to put your 2015 plans into action.
Now that Christmas and New Year have come and gone, it is time for me to look back at how this blog performed in December 2014.
December is traditionally a quiet month for me as internet marketers take time off to spend with their families. Last month was no different. Still, I managed to make a little more than November’s low earnings.
Please remember that my income reports includes income earned through this blog and any income I earned through freelance writing. It does not include income generated through other projects of mine, such as my internet marketing discussion forums Rise Forums.
Traffic Statistics
In November I published 39 blog posts, however I only managed to publish 34 in December. I had hoped to publish more blog posts during the month, though I can look at the bright side and see that I published three more than in October.
Traffic was a few per cent lower than in November. With so many people taking time off to spend the holidays with loved ones, I am not too concerned with this small drop in traffic. I have no doubt that traffic will be higher in January since most readers of this blog will be getting back into a normal working routine.
- Sessions (Visits) – 25,121 (-621)
- Users (Unique Visits) – 21,459 (-541)
- Pageviews – 35,799 (-1,219)
Readership & Social Media
During December I ran some great competitions on this blog in order to win a range of prizes, such as WordPress theme club memberships (be sure to check out my current competition to win a year’s subscription to BlogVault).
My hope was that these competitions would help me grow my email list faster, though I did not see as good a return as I had initially hoped.
I saw a growth of 77 subscribers added to my email list. This is quite poor when you consider that I had 66 new subscribers in October and 90 in November. I should be striving for much higher sign up rates in 2015.
- Email Newsletter = 2,630 Subscribers (+77 subscribers)
- Facebook = 1,218 Followers (+43 Followers)
- Twitter = 2,236 Followers (+41 Followers)
- Google+ = 1,237 Followers (+29 Followers)
- YouTube = 48 Subscribers (+5 Subscribers)
Income & Expenses Details
In total I earned $1,568.24 in December and paid out $650 in respect of guest posts. Therefore my total profit was only $918.24.
You may recall that my profit for November was only $244.05 due to paying out a lot of money to guest bloggers. So even though income earned was slightly lower in November, I managed to earn more because my expenses were reduced.
Income
- Freelance Blogging = $1,021.60 (+$265.20)
- My Books – $63.73 (-$69.11). This includes digital and printed book sales.
- Affiliate Income = $282.91 (-$300)
- Advertising & Sponsored Posts = $200.00 (-$50)
Expenditure
- Writing Expenses (Guest Posts) = $650 (-$679.10)
- Advertising = $0 (No Change)
* Difference in income and expenditure from previous month shown in brackets.
Final Thoughts
In comparison to earlier months in 2014, December was a quiet month. I was able to schedule a lot of articles in advance since I had many great articles from guest authors waiting to be published. This enabled me to work less, spend quality time with family and friends, and recharge my batteries.
I have not made any concrete plans on what to do in 2015; however, I am spending time reviewing ideas and looking at which I should put into place. I may release another book, add more content to this blog, or launch a brand new blog that I will maintain in conjunction with this one. Or perhaps all three :)
My plan is to write less for others so that I spend more time on my own projects. In the long term, this will prove to be be more profitable for me.
I hope you all enjoyed this quick income report on this blog’s performance in December 2014.
Have you set goals for 2015? If so, I would love to hear them in the comment area below.
Thanks,
Kevin
