It’s that time of the month where I take a quick look back at how this blog performed in the previous month (you can see a list of my previous income reports here). July was not a profitable month for me due to my move back to the UK from South America. August was a little better.
Traffic Statistics
Less high quality posts is the main reason why my traffic continues to drop. I seem to be receiving less traffic for some of the keywords that were bringing in good traffic before. This is to be expected. I can’t really complain too much as I have not been updating this blog as much as I used to. Over the next few months, I am keen to bring in a few writers to help me publish content here.
Traffic reduced by about the same level as the previous month:
- Visits – 11,771 (-1,577)
- Unique Visits – 10,305 (-1,397)
- Pageviews – 33,138 (-4,010)
* Difference in traffic from previous month shown in brackets.
Last month my global Alexa rank was 78,925. It currently stands at 88,105 .
Readership & Social Media
My RSS stats have not moved much, but hopefully the introduction of a newsletter pop up will increase newsletter sign ups. As you can see, across the board, my figures have not changed much over the last month.
- RSS = 1452 Subscribers (-35 Subscribers)
- Email Newsletter = 1,862 Subscribers (+24 subscribers)
- Facebook = 312 Followers (+26 Followers)
- Twitter = 1,986 Followers (+5 Followers)
- Google+ = 468 Followers (+10 Followers)
- YouTube= 27 Subscribers (+1 Subscriber)
* RSS stats are tracked by Simple Feed Stats.
Income Details
You may remember that July not a profitable month due to me not doing any freelance writing. As a result, I only made $446.07. I had more time in August to write, therefore my income was higher. My total income for August was $2,184.89.
It was generated through:
- Freelance Blogging = $1,652.10 (+$1,652.10)
- My Books – $191.94 (-$33.36). This includes digital and printed book sales.
- Affiliate Income = $240.85 (+$20.08)
- Banner Sales = $100 (+$100)
* Difference in income from previous month show in brackets.
Ever since offering my book, The Art of Freelance Blogging, for free a second time, my rankings on Amazon have been terrible. This has been the main reason why my income from book sales has dropped over the last few months. It is very frustrating. On the plus side, I sold a banner. I am not actively looking to sell banners on the site (at the moment), though every little helps.
Overview
My freelance writing is the main reason that my income was higher in August 2013. This, unfortunately, comes at a price. The articles I wrote took longer than expected to complete, which left me with little free time to work on additional projects such as my next book.
Moving forward, I am unsure about how I should profit from the content that I write. Books is a good for exposure, though I thinking of looking at alternatives such as a membership website. Who knows, perhaps I should publish all my guides for free and generate income from the additional income I received. This is something I will discuss next week on the blog, so make sure you look out for that :)
I hope you enjoyed this quick look back at my income from last month.
Thanks for reading,
Kevin
Yes, there is a reason :) I failed with quality articles, their low frequency and playing with ads positions. And I made only one themes roundup without any premium, so all affiliate commissions were from old posts. But $55 is better than none.
Sorry to hear that Kris. Was there a specific reason for this. I had a quick look at the report and traffic looks like it was the same.
I published mine today and it’s horrific :)
Thanks. I’m going to publish my next report today or tomorrow.
Great income report, Kevin. Freelance blogging doing wonders for you man. Just keep it going, best of luck for the upcoming months.
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for the advice.
I would be reluctant to sell my books for more than $9.99 through Amazon. Firstly, because you get a reduced rate of commission. Secondly, because I would price myself out and get next to no sales.
I know your method of directing traffic to a landing page works. It would not be too difficult for me to do this as I all I need to do is change my signature on a few websites. You are also correct that I need to promote my book more to my readers.
I may try this technique with my next book. Perhaps even create a dedicated website in order to promote it.
Kevin
Kevin,
I have a few suggestions. Focus all of your marketing toward freelance writers that want to earn money from their writing. Direct all incoming traffic that you have control over (links from your articles on other sites) to a dedicated landing page with a free offer that solves a particular problem freelance writers have. Force the traffic to make a decision on getting your resource or leaving.
Don’t place any external links on the landing page. Conversely, you could put a “Skip this Step” link to allow them to go to the blog if they are not interested in your offer; although, the conversions will be lower than not having the link.
You should see a large increase in the number of signups to your email list if you use a dedicated landing page.
Next, send emails that bring visitors back to your post, especially the income reports (which I know you already do). Show how the techniques you write about in your books will help the reader earn money like you do.
Next, remove your books from Amazon or leave them and raise the price. In either case, you should raise the price to at least $19.99. You could make each of them $19.99 and then offer a bundle for say $24.99. This technique has been proven by many to increase sales. Make the books the concluding focus of each post. Also, periodically, hard sell your book to your list. Having a higher price will also give you the opportunity to discount the price on special occasions.
I know you make some money from the affiliate offers, but you may want to remove them. They are distracting and may make the audience think you are not focused. I have tried the affiliate offers mixed with my own products and have not had much success.
I know some people don’t like the technique I have described above, but I can speak from experience that it works. I have tried using just sign up forms on my site and pop-up sign up forms. Nothing has worked as well as sending as much traffic as I can to a dedicated landing page with an offer that solves their need. Yes, traffic will bounce, and may be more than you are use to, but it will help you narrow in on your audience and it will increase your subscribers.
I could barely get 2 subscribers per day using sign up forms on my site and pop-up sign ups. Now I average 15 subscribers per day and I only have a quarter of your stated unique visitors above.
Hi Joe,
The articles I wrote required a lot more research than I had anticipated. I tackled a few subjects I did not know inside out so I spent a lot of my time learning the topic.
Technical articles are sometimes like that. I find articles such as “10 Blogging Tips About XYZ” a breeze to right. With technical articles, I am always conscious about the fact that everything has to be 100% right. So I do a lot of research and then test everything myself to make sure the code etc works.
Kevin
Some good figures for your writing! About the same as me again in August, although I have a much lower hourly rate!
When you say the client work took longer than you thought, where you charging by the word or by the hour? Did you still get paid as you thought you would despite spending longer on the job.
I get paid per post for the most part so when an article takes longer, its a bit of a pain.
Cheers, Joe
Thanks Asif. I appreciate the kind words. Best of luck with the re-design.
My income is still pretty low, however I did not work much on a new blog over the last year as I was travelling South America. I’ll probably develop my portfolio more over the next three months than I did in the previous twelve.
You are right about using blackhat techniques and focus on good content.
I love reading each and every article on your blog ever since I landed here. Every element is at it’s place and the articles are nicely formatted.
You motivated me to rethink about my own blog design and content layout. I might not comment on each of the post but jut want to let you know that I’ll be reading all the future posts.
Love the way you some up your earning report as well.
Thanks for inspiring me do better.
Awesome man, you’re making more than I am, since getting into IM just around 2 years ago. I started out building “niche” sites using “blackhat” techniques and although they do work, I don’t see them as a longterm business model. Blogging, on the other hand, is what seems to be a viable model to base a business around. It just seems more enjoyable … meaningfull.
Thanks Phil. Things are looking up for next month. Looks like I have secured a more long term writing gig for a great blog. I’ll let once it has all been confirmed :)
Kevin
Hi David,
What I was thinking was adding all content to the site under a guide section and give people the option of buying the book if they wish. There’s around 70,000 words in the book….so it would be broke up into around 50-100 pages of content. It is definitely something I need to review :)
Kevin
From a marketer’s point of view, there is no doubt that these “affiliate marketing products” make a lot of money. From a consumer’s point of view, they are not always worth the money. It depends on the product. There are some good products out there, however a lot of it is style over substance.
Thank you as always for the update, Kevin – fascinating reading!
The eternal curse of the freelance writer – get more pay when you have more jobs, but lose time to work on your own projects. I wish I had a Solomon-like answer for you but alas, I do not. If you were to choose just one or the other there would be no problem, but wanting them both is the source of frustration.
But at least you’re doing a bit better than tinned meat and hummus … ;)
Hi Kevin,
Regarding the free ebooks: maybe that’s indeed a way to go.
How about making them free but add affiliate links (with full disclosure that says: “If you use the affiliate link, that would be a nice way to say ‘thank you’ in case you liked my ebook and it helped you; if you don’t use it: no problem, I am happy to help you either way. If you like, feel free to share this ebook with others who might be thankful that you did”). Or something along those lines.
What do you think?
Regards from Germany this time,
David
To be honest, you should just make a premium zone, even here. I think that advanced users would pay for your lessons/tutorials. Why? Internet is full of crappy ‘how to blog’ tutorials, but if you look deeper, there’s not even one with proven quality. And I hate all those stuff like JC do, it’s stinks MLM and the idea: get it free, but you give us your CC number :)
I’d love to subscribe for lesson made by a professional and successful blogger.
*(I don’t want to offend JC, but just can’t stand his methods).
Thanks Kris.
I’m still torn about what to do. What is better for me, and my readers, long term? Should I publish my content free or restrict it to private members and offer them support in return.
Kevin
It’s a great news that you’ve increased your income!
But in case of traffic I see the same problem like on my site, a big drop, especially from search results.
But let’s left this behind.
I can’t wait for your next article you’ve mentioned above. I think you could make a great deal launching membership site with tutorials like: blog 101, writing tips, monetizing website. Something like John Chow do, but I don’t like his style though ;)
Thanks Dean. I’m glad you enjoyed the update :)
Nice to see you have increased your income after the dip during July, hopefully now you are settled you will be able to ease back into work. I’ll certainly be checking back for this discussion about what you will do with your content that you are looking to profit from as it would be helpful to me too. :)