September Blog Income Report – $5,031.22 Earned
Finally hit my goal of $5,000 earned from the blogs. Just barely but, it’s enough. When I started with Project 24 in June of 2019 I could not have imagined I would be where I am today. Just 15 months to grow to $5k is amazing!
When I started, I knew it was a 24 month project. Who knows what heights I’ll achieve in the next 9 months but, whatever it may be, I’m having fun doing it!
Funny enough, I have yet to take a single cent out of the business. All of the income earned has been reinvested. At times, I have to add money at the end of the month just to “pad” the business bank account balance. While it isn’t every month, this month was one of those months.
So while you read the income earned this month and the expenses paid out this month you must realize that “earned” this month does NOT mean “received” this month.
Many vendors, including the biggest one, Mediavine, are on delayed payout. Just because I earned the money this month doesn’t mean I get it now, it takes several months for them to pay out.
I think that is one of the biggest misconceptions with blog income reports. So I wanted to clarify before we dig into September’s income and expenses.
📰NEW THIS MONTH📰
- Big Site Accepted to AdThrive – I’ll be honest, I’m 100% happy with MediaVine as an ad provider but, part of that happiness level was the fact that they accept my small sites at 10,000 pageviews. Now that they have increased that to 50,000 pageviews, even for second sites, AdThrive makes more sense. Their 2nd site pageview requirement is 30,000. So, while I LOVE MediaVine, I made the business decision to partner with AdThrive for my biggest site. This way I’ll also be able to look at RPM differences as well as onboard my newer sites with a premium ad partner at 30k instead of 50k. The actual change won’t happen until Novemberish.
- Developing More Products – I made the decision this month to purchase ThriveCart. It was a big purchase decision but it is a one-time fee and it opens up a lot of opportunities in the realm of offering products, trip-wires, upsells, and managing affiliates. This won’t be an overnight project to get set up but it is something I am excited to get going in Quarter 4.
- Hired a New VA – I hired a second VA part-time (20 hours per week) to help with a variety of tasks to help my main VA. This includes a lot of Pinterest but also other tasks as needed. He’s been a great addition to the team.
🗠 SEPTEMBER 2020 BASIC STATS 🗠
15 “Active Sites”– More or less this means a site that I am actively doing keyword research for and having writers write content for. Not every “active” site gets new content every month.
- 70 Posts Published
- 84,270 Words Published
- $169.50 in Product Sales
💰 September 2020 Income for My Sites 💰
- Niche Site Project 1: $2,841.81 👍
- Niche Site Project 2: $197.04 👍
- Niche Site Project 3: $1,577.76 👍
- Niche Site Project 4: $320.80 👍
- Niche Site Project 5: $13.51 🔻
- Niche Site Project 6: $3.42 👍🍕
- Niche Site Project 7: $0
- Niche Site Project 8: $14.51 👍
- Niche Site Project 9: $22.20 👍
- Niche Site Project 10: $0
- Printable Site: $21.00 👍 (for products not related to NSP1)
- This Site: $19.17 🔻
Total Gross Revenue for September 2020: $5,031.22
- Gross Revenue for August: $4,832.62
- Gross Revenue for July: $4,235.34
- Gross Revenue for June: $4,118.26
Keep in mind that this is income earned, not received, in the month of September.
💸 September Blogging Expenses💸
- Virtual Assistant – $661.60
- Pinterest VA – $100.00
- Graphic Design – $125
- Domain Names – $123.66
- Hosting – $111.90
- Pin Template Starter Kit – $15.00 (but this link has 10 free!)
- Canva – $37.08
- GeniusLink – $5.00
- Ivory Mix – $70.00
- Keysearch – $11.90
- Manage WP – $29.57
- Microsoft – $6.99
- MiloTree – $9.00
- Copyscape – $10.00
- PicMonkey – $12.99
- SEM Rush – $99.95
- SendOwl – $24.00
- Shopify – $29.00
- Zapier – $24.99
- Education – $225.60
- HP Instant Ink – $5.46
- PO Box – $55.00
- Office Chair – $131.94
- Graphic Templates – $37.00
- Other Lifetime Software – $233.00
- Keywords Everywhere – $10.00
- Thrive Cart – $690.00
- Site Speed Audit/Fix for NSP1 – $497.00
Total Expenses: $3,392.63
Net Blogging Income for September – $1,638.59
- August Net Income: $3,077.84
- July Net Income: $2,909.54
- June Net Income: $1,657.20
September Content Expenses
Content expenses are down a bit from last month which was $1,471.45. I’d like to increase this in the near future. This value includes the expenses for both my writers and my newly hired editors. If one expense were to go away, so would the other and they are both part of “Content” creation.
- Upwork – $1,353.13
Net Income after content investment: $285.46
- August Net Income after Content: $1,606.39
- July Net Income after Content: $1,546.65
- June Net Income after Content: $1,267.16
As you can tell, income is way down but, I knew that would be the case because of my decision to purchase Thrive Cart and to hire IMark Interactive for the site speed fix. Had I not made those purchases, net income would have been up again next month.
September 2020 Blog Income Screenshots
Here are the screenshots from my biggest income producers during the month of September.
TRAFFIC REPORTS
For these traffic reports I kind of struggled with how I wanted to present the data. Since September had only 30 days and August had 31, I started off doing this month compared to last month but I just felt like the numbers were way off.
Instead, the stats are all this month (30-days) vs. the previous period (August 2 – 31).
NSP1 🐹 – 9.37% Decrease in Sessions!
Wow, combined with last month’s 5.18% decrease in sessions and this month’s 9.37% decrease, this site is really taking a beating. I’m not sure why and in October I’ll be working on taking a deep look at the content and changes to try and troubleshoot what is happening.
Now, keep in mind that last year during this period, this site was in exponential growth. It is possible that this site is just going to have some seasonality to it. It makes sense for the niche to some degree but, I’ll still be taking a closer look.
Thankfully though, the income is still up in spite of a major decrease in pageviews. RPM’s are always higher last month of every quarter AND typically higher in Q4 than all of the other Quarters so I think that is helping out drastically right now.
I’ll want to be sure to resolve this issue if I can though and get pageviews turning around the other way.
| Month | # Posts Added | Total Posts | # Words Added | Pageviews | Revenue |
| July | 9 | 294 | 16,304 | 130,682 | $2,576.22 |
| August | 10 | 305 | 17,711 | 124,192 | $2,673.41 |
| September | 13 | 319 | 17,426 | 107849 | $2,841.81 |
View the detailed profile for this site here.
NSP 2 💲 – 16.40% Increase in Sessions
This site is up right now and I continue it to dramatically increase up through January. That is all 100% due to the niche being very popular at new years when people are starting to make resolutions go get their life in order.
Even though I know there will be a natural, seasonal increase for the site, I’m adding more and more content as well. These articles are ones I had hired out long before I joined Project 24 so they don’t follow the keyword research method that brings me success on the other sites.
That being said, they should be great for Pinterest and I’ll work on better keywords soon.
| Month | # Posts Added | Total Posts | # Words Added | Pageviews | Revenue |
| July | 1 | 66 | 791 | 14,170 | $156.35 |
| August | 3 | 69 | 3,506 | 12,338 | $142.93 |
| September | 11 | 80 | 10,772 | 15,825 | $197.04 |
View the profile for this site here.
NSP 3 🏡 – 0.08% Decrease in Sessions
This site is more or less the same. I am no where near close to running out of articles for it so I will just keep plugging away getting those pageviews up.
| Month | # Posts Added | Total Posts | # Words Added | Pageviews | Revenue |
| July | 7 | 81 | 11,715 | 82,148 | $1,129.63 |
| August | 20 | 102 | 25,567 | 97,785 | $1,515.42 |
| September | 16 | 119 | 21,823 | 94,542 | $1,577.76 |
View the profile for this site here.
NSP 4 🐾 – 0.76% Increase in Sessions
This site has really fallen to the back burner content wise and I’m seeing month over month decreases for it. While I am not 100% sure what is causing the decreases in pageviews, income is up and that is a good thing.
I’ll keep adding content and work time into my schedule to analyze the SEO for the site.
| Month | # Posts Added | Total Posts | # Words Added | Pageviews | Revenue |
| July | 2 | 45 | 3433 | 18,298 | $338.93 |
| August | 10 | 55 | 13,091 | 16,095 | $314.77 |
| September | 5 | 60 | 5,291 | 15,323 | $320.80 |
View the profile for this site here.
NSP 5 🐘 – 3.80% Increase in Sessions
I really like this site, it has a lot of potential. I am not adding content as quickly as I have for other sites so I am happy with it’s progress.
| Month | # Posts Added | Total Posts | # Words Added | Pageviews | Revenue |
| July | 2 | 16 | 2440 | 1546 | $6.65 |
| August | 1 | 17 | 1222 | 1932 | $14.92 |
| September | 4 | 21 | 3813 | 1,872 | $13.51 |
View the profile for this site here.
NSP 6 🦔 – 9.82% Increase in Sessions
For this site and NSP8 I have a partner. At some point we’ll need to talk about investing in more content for this site but, until then it’s at least earning income.
In fact, this month the site hit the $5 earned threshold and officially had Pizza Day!
| Month | # Posts Added | Total Posts | # Words Added | Pageviews | Revenue |
| July | 3 | 59 | 6454 | 478 | $1.71 |
| August | 0 | 59 | 0 | 613 | $3.02 |
| September | 0 | 59 | 0 | 595 | $3.42 |
View the profile for this site here.
NSP 7 👶 – Not Forgotten
…but still not getting worked on
NSP 8 🧰 – 148.98% Increase in Sessions
I’m really happy with the growth we are starting to see for this site. We have about 15 additional posts we need to get edited and added from the first round of content we hired so that is on the docket for this month.
Pageviews are increasing nicely so I’m hopeful that trend will continue.
| Month | # Posts Added | Total Posts | # Words Added | Pageviews | Revenue |
| July | 0 | 34 | 0 | 177 | $0.94 |
| August | 1 | 35 | 3579 | 534 | $5.48 |
| September | 0 | 35 | 0 | 1517 | $14.51 |
View the profile for this site here.
🪑 NSP 9 – 33.39% Increase in Sessions
This site is a fun side project. So far all of the content on the site has been gardening related and, as such, I expect to see a dip in the site stats as we go into winter. For now though, I’m happy with the increase.
This month I’ll be working on a content plan to start branching out into a second category.
| Month | # Posts Added | Total Posts | # Words Added | Pageviews | Revenue |
| July | 18 | 34 | 21535 | 1405 | $9.33 |
| August | 7 | 41 | 10264 | 1393 | $16.46 |
| September | 7 | 48 | 8057 | 1713 | $22.20 |
View the profile for this site here.
New Project Stats
These sites are so new I normally wouldn’t post about them but, maybe you would like to get to know them a bit. None of them are running ads yet.
| Site Niche | Age (months) | # Posts Added | Total Posts | # Words Added | Pageviews |
| 🥬 Health & Fitness | 2 | 1 | 6 | 358 | 35 |
| 💐 Lifestyle | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 18 |
| 🍯 Agriculture | 2 | 4 | 9 | 4342 | 45 |
| 📏 Sewing | 3 | 6 | 13 | 7717 | 45 |
| 🌙 Lifestyle / Fitness | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2630 | 248 |
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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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