Blog Income Report December: My Seventh Month Blogging

I spent much of December chilling with family and enjoying the Christmas holiday and yet my pageviews still increased, I still made money and I was still able to help others despite not technically ‘working’. 

Oh I love blogging and I particularly like writing these blog income reports and telling you all about the blogging world!

SO WHY AM I WRITING AN INCOME REPORT?

This blog is all about education and my journey from quitting the 9 to 5 and making a living from blogging. 

I want to help you guys and I figured the best way to do that is to be honest with you. Particularly about what I’m doing that works, and what I’m doing that clearly doesn’t.

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The best way to detail all that out is an income report. I am planning on doing ‘Net Worth Updates’ as well so that way you will see (hopefully) exactly how I’m making money through blogging and then how I’m managing my money, including my budget and investments. But in fairness, that’s a while off!

Now if you haven’t previously seen an income report before you’re probably a little confused as to why someone would basically reveal all their business’s finances to the world. But that’s what I love about blogging.

It’s an entire industry obsessed with being transparent and helping one another succeed. The income reports are not released to brag, they are there to help everyone see exactly how you make money blogging.

And hopefully inspire them to see that it is possible to create a sustainable, authentic business that really helps people while supporting you financially!

HOW WILL THESE INCOME REPORTS BE STRUCTURED?

They will all loosely follow the plan below:

• Any major updates
• Number of posts completed this month
• Pageviews including most popular posts
• Social media stats
• Email Subscribers
• Income
• Expenses
• Profit/Loss
• What worked and what didn’t this month?
• Quarter Action Plan

I reserve the right to change this order at a later date if it would clearly make more sense written differently haha. Also if you think I am missing a vital stat that you would really love to see me track then please comment on this post or chuck me an email at sammy@wellandwealthy.org

PREVIOUS INCOME REPORTS:

August Income Report: My Third Month Blogging

September Income Report: My Fourth Month Blogging

October Income Report: My Fifth Month Blogging

MAJOR UPDATES:

Nothing major happened in December. As I mentioned earlier I took a lot of time off to be with my family and take a break.

Taking a break is so important in blogging, or anything you do in life. It allows you to gain some perspective and gives your mind space to think things through.

Oh yeah, but I did increase my traffic even more this month….

However moving forward there is a few things:

LOOK OUT FOR MY BLOG BUNDLE GIVEAWAY (check out the menu above, if it’s live it will be up there!!!)

I will be redesigning and rebranding a little in January/February and writing more posts about other topics, therefore monthly blog income reports will become quarterly blog income reports.

POSTS COMPLETED THIS MONTH:

• November 2017 Income Report: My Fourth Month Blogging

• FREE First Six Months Blogging Income Report Roundup Ebook

• Affiliate Marketing for Beginners: How I made my first $100 with affiliate marketing

PAGEVIEWS:

Pageviews over December 2017: 3,630 (3,542)

Sessions: 2,527 (2,391)

Bounce Rate: 75.74% (73.86%)

Average Session Duration: 01:29 (01:18)

(Numbers in brackets are last months)

Another month of over 3,000 pageviews, it makes me so happy to be sustaining these numbers. Sure the progress is slow but it is increasing and that truly is something to be thankful for!

Here is the graph showing Well and Wealthy’s pageviews since I launched on 1^st June.

It’s so interesting to see my pageviews grow over time and this graph really demonstrates how growth just isn’t linear….

TRAFFIC ACQUISITION:

As always social media is my highest traffic referrer. But I do get some traffic from other sources such as direct, organic and email.

Last month I found out that some Instagram traffic is counted as direct traffic thanks to a technicality that happens when people use the app on their phones (and I mean who doesn’t use Instagram on their phone…)

So I set up a campaign in Google Analytics to track that and it’s told me that an additional 27 sessions actually came from Instagram!!! This is obviously very important when you consider how low the bounce rate on my Instagram traffic is and the average number of pages per session.

Therefore Instagram actually referred me more like 53 sessions which on average translates to 140.45 pageviews!!!

I had been considering stopping Instagram but I think I may persevere a little longer…

SOCIAL MEDIA:

PINTEREST:

My Pinterest strategy still appears to be going well. I have had a few promoted pins going but nothing major!

Followers: 363

(Increase of 39

Here is my Pinterest account overview. I’m now sure the numbers relate to the last week

Here is my reach:

And here is my reach ever since I started Well and Wealthy, thought you guys might find it interesting…

So the average number of people who see what I pin (114,592) and the average number of people engaged with my pins (3,467). A further increase from month.

And here are the views that pins from Well and Wealthy get.

This graph shows the number of save (or reins) that pins from Well and Wealthy get on Pinterest. My saves have stayed at a steady 30 daily average.

This graph shows how many times pins from Well and Wealthy are clicked taking people to the site. This is the graph I’m most concerned with. Average daily clicks have increased by 1 to 49, again a nice steady hold.

FACEBOOK:

I brought a Facebook eBook over Black Friday which I’ve read and sounds fantastic. I hope to really start implementing the techniques in this eBook in the next few months so fingers crossed my stats will suddenly be increasing!!!

Likes/Followers: 163

(Increase of 6)

Reach: 142

(Decrease of 3,758 as I did not run any Facebook ads)

INSTAGRAM:

As I talked about earlier I will be continuing with Instagram now I know I’m actually getting pretty much double the amount of traffic from there….

Followers: 382

(Increase of 50)

Total Posts Published: 213

Total Number of Likes: 1.2K

Average Number of Likes per Post: 43.37

Total Number of Comments: 218

Average Number of Comments per Post: 8.07

LOOKING FOR MY MOST RECENT INCOME REPORT?

As of May 2018 all my latest income reports are shared exclusively with my subscribers! Sign up below if you want a behind-the-scenes look at how I make a full-time income from home, online!

EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:

December was a really good month for subscribers. I didn’t email my list all that much because I wanted to have a couple of weeks off for the Christmas holiday.

I super wanted to get at least 400 subscribers before the end of the year and I can report back that I smashed that mini goal I set for myself. I was running a couple of promoted pins so they definitely helped!

Subscribers: 442

(Increased by 69)

Another fantastic increase!

Newsletter Opens: 36.5%

Newsletter Clicks: 7.6%

I’m pretty happy with those figures although I’m hoping they will increase in January when everyone is more in the start a blog mode!

In case you were wondering, I use and love ConvertKit they are so worth the price tag.

EMAILS I SENT:

My weekly (and a few more extras ones this month) emails were as follows:

• Weekly tips + Future plans
• Really sorry guys… (This one wasn’t a newsletter but I was updating my automations and managed to send everyone an updated automation email… not good! To say sorry I gave early access to download my free income report eBook)
• November Income Report is LIVE + FREE Ebook!!!
• Merry Christmas!!! (Am I a bit early???)

INCOME:

Still the income comes trickling in!!! Which I’m so very pleased about!!!

INCOME EARNED IN DECEMBER:

Google AdSense: £5.22

Total Income Earned in November: £5.22

Total Income Earned Since Launch: £347.95

***Want to start making money from you very own blog? Then check my tutorial on How To Set Up A Professional Blog for Profit!***

INCOME ACTUALLY RECEIVED:

The money that actually hit my bank account this month is: £7.17

In case you were interested, since I started blogging £221.79 has hit my bank account!

EXPENSES:

December was a relatively low expenses month for me.

December Expenses:

Promoted Pins: £29.26

BoardBooster: £11.59 ($15.00)

ConvertKit: £22.91 ($29.00)

December Expenses Total = £63.76

PROFIT/LOSS:

Currently at an overall loss of: £913.96

SO WHAT WORKED AND WHAT DIDN’T THIS MONTH?

My break from blogging worked. It was glorious to have some time off. As much as I love blogging it is still work after all.

My Pinterest strategy is still definitely working. I’m not saying there isn’t still room for improvement but this ones got legs!

I also really brainstormed a long term plan for Well and Wealthy, so whilst I’m not making lots of money yet, I’m confident I will be making a regular income by the end of 2018.

But what about what didn’t work? Procrastination and time wasting.

I’m beginning to understand just how much time I waste. I’ve been tracking my time recently and the results are kind of terrifying. Honestly I could probably do triple the amount I currently do if I just didn’t waste so much time…

LAST MONTH; DECEMBER’S TO-DO LIST:

• Finish and release my FREE First Six Month of Blogging Income Report EBook DONE

• Plan giveaway (including designing graphics, writing terms and condition, creating a landing page and checking the giveaway software is working) DONE

• Set up another promoted pin for my Income Report eBook freebie DONE

• Do further planning on my rebrand, with a particular emphasis on content and pages needing to be written in January DONE

• Write my early retirement/finance free eBook (I’m not going to kill myself over this but I would like to get a good chunk of it done) DECIDED NOT TO DO THIS – The ROI just isn’t high enough for me to spend my time on right now…

• Research changing themes DONE

• Do promoted pins course DONE

• Read through Strategies Worth Sharing Facebook course DONE

Q1 2018 TO-DO LIST:

I’ve decided to go down to only publishing an income report every quarter. This is because I will be undergoing a complete redesign/rebrand and will be writing about many more awesome topics, and therefore I just won’t have the time to write an income report every month!

Therefore my to-list will be quarterly rather than monthly too….

• Run a successful giveaway

• Create annual content plan

• Create Facebook plan after reading Strategies Worth Sharing

• Do redesign/rebrand!!!! (so excited for this)

• Get a few months ahead with written blog posts

• Start my niche blog and associated course (more on this in the coming months!)

• Create and launch my starting a blog course (more on this in March!)

December done, Christmas done and now we are in the new year. Well 2018 I’m ready for you!!!!

***Want to start making money from you very own blog? Then check my tutorial on How To Set Up A Professional Blog for Profit!***

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