February 2020 Blog Income Report – $1,817.95 Earned from Multiple Sites
This month I decided to do something different and create one summary report from which I’ll link out to the individual reports. I got this idea from reading the FatStacks blog. Don’t worry, I’ll still do individual reports, those help ME out the most by kind of forcing me to look at the details of the previous month for each site, but this should be a nice summary page for you.
Interesting Things Happened This Month
Several interesting things happened this month, some good and some possibly bad. I won’t know for sure for several months but they are important enough to list out here.
I Partnered With Friends for 2 Sites
I have some very good friends who were interested in investing in a couple of sites so they could get on the blogging train. I had a couple of ideas that I couldn’t move on fast enough due to a lack of capital, so it seemed like a win-win.
We wrote up a partnership agreement (I believe in documents for EVERYONE, friends, family, there are no exceptions) and got things rolling. Their investment is strictly financial with all operational details being left to me.
The husband of the pair has valid licensing / expertise in the specific niche for one of the blogs and I have expertise in the other (Niche Site Project 6 – Pets). Together I think that will end up being great for being able to work together to maximize the potential on both blogs.
To get started, I contracted TextGoods for 50 articles for each blog. While NSP6 already has some content, the new site, NSP8, will be all fresh content coming in March.
Switched from Ezoic to Mediavine
If you read my post: Migrating A Site from Ezoic to Mediavine, you know that I switched ad partners for my personal finance site. My last 5 days on Ezoic I made:
- $18.42 RPM based on Pageviews
- $31.94 RPM based on Sessions
The last five days on Mediavine I made:
- $11.93 RPM based on Pageviews
- $27.05 RPM based on Sessions
I’m still seeing lots of ups and downs. At face value, I was making more on Ezoic than I am on Mediavine. I realize there are other factors at play as well, the Ezoic stats were from the beginning of the month, Mediavine stats are from the end of the month. Also, I had more time on Ezoic to have my RPM’s stabilize whereas I have been less than 30 days on Mediavine.
I’ll continue to keep an eye on it but that is where things are at right now.
Hit Pizza Day for Niche Site Project 4
This site went live with Adsense around 1/22/2020. This month, month 6, I was able to cross over the $5 earnings threshold for Pizza day. That is super exciting for me.
Additionally, I am hoping I’ll be able to talk my Ezoic rep into getting this site live with Ezoic ads this month. Traffic has been steadily increasing and I am hoping he will take it at its current level given that it is a 3rd site with them and I obviously know what I am doing!
Keep in mind that income values are income EARNED this month, but not necessarily received this month due to the way various companies payout. Expenses, however, are the actual expenses I paid this month. While I do a simple calculation for the difference, keep in mind that it isn’t quite that simple.
February Income for my Niche Sites
- Niche Site Project 1: $1,390.43
- Niche Site Project 2: $235.86
- Niche Site Project 3: $184.17
- Niche Site Project 4: $8.71
- Niche Site Project 5: $0
- Niche Site Project 6: $0
- Niche Site Project 7: $0
Total Gross Revenue for February: $1,819.24
February Expenses
- Pinterest VA – $279
- Virtual Assistant / Editor – $369.05
- Graphic Design – $3
- Domain Names / Renewals – $187.21
- BigScoots Hosting – $56.90
- Convertkit – $141.65
- Canva – $22.90
- Manage WP – $18.05
- Microsoft Email – $6.99
- Post Planner – $12.00
- Tailwind – $68.04
- SEM Rush – $99.95
- Pinterest Education – $15.00
- Income School Mastermind Trip – $19.50
- Office Supplies (Printer Ink Subscription) – $5.46
- Purchase New Email Software to replace ConvertKit (One Time Fee) – $49/License – 3 Licenses = $147
Total Expenses for February – $1,451.70
Net Income for February: $367.54
February Content Expenses
- Upwork – $360.78
- TextGoods – $6452.50
Total Content Expenses for February – $6,813.28
Keep in mind that most of this content won’t be ready to publish until March, and possibly even some in April. But it was bought and paid for now so the expense is recorded here.
Cutting Expenses
I’m always looking at my expenses to see where I can trim the fat, so to speak. As my email newsletters grow, so has the fee to keep them on Convertkit.
The reality is, I don’t have complicated funnels or a need for tagging. I maybe email my list once a week. That means I don’t need something as advanced as Convertkit.
This month I got in on an AppSumo deal for SendFox for a one time fee of $49. Each code is good for 5,000 subscribers so I plan on using two codes for the personal finance site and one for the bigger pets site. I will likely buy a few more codes for the other sites as well.
Considering ConvertKit starts at $29 a month, it made so much sense to get in on this deal to pay a one-time fee. Heck, one month on ConvertKit for my two sites almost completely pays for 3 sites, its a win-win.
Prior to making this switch, I was considering FloDesk which has a flat rate of $19/month. I even set goals to migrate sites over however, in doing so, I realized what a pain using that software is. It is just too new and didn’t have the options available for opt-in forms that I needed. And, it was still a monthly fee.
So this SendFox deal made total sense, I am looking forward to setting it up in March so keep an eye out on the blog for a post on how that goes.
Income Screenshots
Here are a few income screenshots. These are the main sources of income but some aren’t included like Adsense, Etsy, etc. It’s too much of a pain to deal with adding those ones in so you’ll just have to trust me on those.
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MY NICHE SITE PROJECTS
Interested in reading about my niche site projects? Check out my Niche Site Project List to see my projects & their individual status.
RESOURCES I USE
I keep an up to date list of all of the tools and resources I use to manage my blogs, including how I create the awesome dashboards in my income reports, on my Tools and Resources page.
These are my top tools:
- ClickUp – It has easily helped me 10x my productivity.
- Big Scoots Hosting – (or, alternately, SiteGround)
- Tailwind for Pinterest
- ConvertKit for Email List
- Airtable for data tracking/spreadsheets when I first started (though I use ClickUp Exclusively now)
- Project24 the main course I took to learn how to blog, and my primary blog course recommendation.
- BloggerPlot for Analytics and Search Console Analysis in one place.
- Amalinks Pro for Amazon links and awesome tables.
- OnlineJobs.ph for my Virtual Assistants
- Pinteresting Strategies Course for Pinterest
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