Despite taking a holiday for 12 days in June, it ended up being my profitable month since I started publishing income reports on this blog.
I did not do as much freelancing in July, therefore my freelancing income dropped considerably. However, I am far from disappointed. July represents a major transition in me rebuilding this blog. I am really pleased with how everything went over the last month and I am excited about how the blog is going to progress over the coming months.
As you all know, my income reports detail income generated through this blog. This includes advertising, affiliate income, and freelancing income. It does not include income generated through other websites I own, such as my internet marketing forum Rise Forums.
Let us take a closer look at how KevinMuldoon.com performed in July 2014.
Traffic Statistics
Just like June, traffic to this blog increased in July. Considering my existing traffic levels, which are admittedly quite low, the increase is significant. I received around 125 additional visitors every day, increasing daily unique visitors from around 450 per day to 575 per day. That’s an increase of 27.77%.
Page views increased too, though I still have a lot of work to do. I need to first break the 100,000 page impressions milestone before I even consider displaying banner advertisements in my blog design. Banner ads would, of course, help me increase the revenue generated through this blog.
- Sessions (Visits) – 17,846 (+3,859)
- Users (Unique Visits) – 15,435 (+3,310)
- Pageviews – 50,916 (+11,040)
Readership & Social Media
The growth of my social media presence was almost identical to the previous month. I was much more active on Twitter in July, however apart from sending automatic updates of new blog posts, I am still fairly inactive on all other social media platforms.
The stats below were taken today (4 August 2014). As you may recall, I stopped tracking RSS subscribers last year as the plugin I was using to track RSS subscribers was inaccurate.
- Email Newsletter = 2,211 Subscribers (+57 subscribers)
- Facebook = 1,105 Followers (+15 Followers)
- Twitter = 2,085 Followers (+28 Followers)
- Google+ = 1,077 Followers (+47 Followers)
- YouTube = 38 Subscribers (No Change)
Income & Expenses Details
I travelled back from Colombia on 4th July. Due to jetlag and catching up with many things that I had put off until I returned to Scotland, I ended up falling behind my work by a few days. Ultimately, for one of my regular clients I only published four articles over two weeks instead of eight articles. My income was at least $1,000 lower because of this.
Likewise, at the end of the month I purposely reduced my workload and took a couple of days to relax. As a result, my freelancing income dropped by around $1,750 in July. On the plus side, affiliate income increased considerably and I feel refreshed after taking a break.
In total I earned $5,106.47 in June. I also paid out $134.19 for two guest posts, therefore my total profit was $4,972.28. This represents an decrease of $1,100.98 from May 2014.
Income
- Freelance Blogging = $4,262.85 (-$1,744.81)
- Consultation = $0 (-$100)
- My Books – $143.47 (+$33.59). This includes digital and printed book sales.
- Affiliate Income = $550.15 (+$337.23)
- Advertising Revenue = $150 (+$150)
Expenditure
- Guest Posts = $134.19 (-$222.81)
* Difference in income and expenditure from previous month shown in brackets.
Overview
July was a big month for me. I made a number of small, but significant changes, to my freelancing schedule.
The biggest change was increasing my rates. This brings my pricing more in line with other WordPress writing services, however one of the main reasons I did this was to reduce the number of clients I have.
Coming back from Colombia, I fell behind in my work. This was partly due to taking on two new clients and partly due to being a jet lagged the first few days. I usually manage my workload efficiently, but I had reached a point where I was working seven days a week. There was a very high risk of me burning myself out. I consider myself a hard worker that always strives to provide high quality articles to clients, but I am only human. If my workload is too heavy, either the quality of my work will be reduced or I will have to deliver articles late.
My hope is that by reducing the number of clients I have, I can reduce the days I work for others to around three or four. I can then spend a day or two working on this blog. Over time, this will help me increase my affiliate income through this blog significantly. The goal is to increase this passive income over time so that I can freelance less and work on my own projects more.
Financially, I could quit freelancing today and work full time on my blog, however for the time being, I believe it is in my interests to continue to do freelancing for others. Not only does it bring in a lot of money, the links in my author biography generates a lot of new readers to this blog and a lot of new members to Rise Forums.
I suspect I will look back at July as a turning point. A time when I made a clear decision to focus more attention on this blog and start to make things happen.
My goals for August are fairly simple: I want to increase traffic and income on this blog. It does not concern me if my freelancing income goes down again. If I can generate more affiliate commissions in August, I will consider it a success. Long term, I need to increase this passive income. The problem with freelancing is that it relies on me to work to earn money. If I work less, I make less. However, with passive income, my income is rarely affected by me taking time off.
I hope you have enjoyed this look back at July 2014. Please leave a comment if you have any questions regarding this report :)
Thanks,
Kevin
