Blogging, Income Report

August Blog Income Report (And Traffic, Too)

September 24, 2015

Each month I publish an Income and Traffic Report. My desire is to inspire others to dream big and plan their own exit strategy from the cubicle hamster race. I also want to set the proper expectations that this is tough work. You’ll work harder than when you were working for the man with (a lot) less income at first and more fear than ever. But you know what? You’ll love it because you’re following your passion and have the opportunity to control your destiny.

August Was a Month of Opportunity

I can only look back at the month of August with positive vibes. Sure, a lot of things didn’t go right for my business, but the pluses far outweighed the negatives. For example, while I didn’t achieve the financial success that I was aiming for, I was able to re-strategize my efforts in both my blog and freelance writing as a springboard for future success. As it’s now the end of September that I writing this post, I can tell you that those efforts are paying off in a major way. I can’t wait to post my September Income and Traffic Report!

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We also finished the nursery and are ready for our baby boy to arrive. I’d love to post a photo as it’s filled with cool travel decorations, but his name is on the wall and we’re keeping the name a secret until he meets the world.

Preparing the nursery was a lot of work, so we carved a weekend out of August for a much needed couples retreat. For this babymoon we stuck close to home and enjoyed a weekend away in Uptown Charlotte. We enjoyed an afternoon at the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, dinner at Roosters Uptown, Motown at the Blumenthal, a night at the Omni Charlotte, and massages the next day at the Westin Charlotte Spa. We feel ready as we can be for the baby’s arrival (38 weeks at the time of this posting).

August-3

Our Babymoon in Uptown Charlotte – A Night of Broadway

August in Pint Glass

As you may recall me musing on in July’s Income and Traffic Report, my traffic was beginning to take a nosedive. This dip in readership was nobody’s fault but my own. My efforts were too scattered across social media channel growth, which proved to be an error. I was concentrating on building followers in media that I can’t control. My blog I can control. Thus, I decided to peel back my efforts to grow social media and fix my web site traffic. Social media can come later. On the consultation of Ender Consulting and my mastermind group, I set out to make some major changes.

While improved SEO and increased traffic will eventually lead to a bump in revenue, neither are overnight fixes. My resource pages and freelance writing, however, can result in a direct increase in revenue. Thus, I prioritized building my resource pages, each of which is chalked full of affiliate links:

I followed up the launch of each page with a Periscope broadcast in September, but you’ll have to wait for those results. (I didn’t use an immediate broadcast because I couldn’t get Periscope to work properly on my OnePlus One phone in August.)

August-2

Here’s to Looking Up in September!!!

The second thing I did that could result in a direct bump in revenue was rescue my freelance pitching efforts. There were parts of my pitch letter that always bugged me, that didn’t sound natural or like my voice. I also wasn’t happy with the writing samples I was including. In choosing my samples, I originally opted for articles that were published outside of my blog and always felt that these weren’t my best writing samples. Now, I use different samples for each pitch, tailored to what the editors of that publication are looking for. Because of these efforts, I signed three large freelance clients at the end of August!

If you want to experience similar freelance writing success, check out my Freelance Writing Resources Page!

Enough about my efforts. How did I fare on August’s goals?

  • Make $1,000 – Failed! But I am ready to exceed goals in future months.
  • Finish draft two of What Lies at Home – Failed! The blog and freelancing have taken up too much time and I lost the passion for it a little. The passion has been regained though, and I am eager to wrap up draft two for others to read.
  • Send out round three of query letters for It’s Always Personal – Check!
  • Finish affiliate pages – Check!
  • Redo about pages – Fail!
  • Produce an outline for my upcoming e-course – Check!
  • Review my SEO strategy – Check!

August Blog Income Report

I made a rather bold goal for August. I wanted to make $1,000. I created this goal more from necessity than reality. As the baby arrives, I needed to start generating a significant amount of income or else I have to resort to plan B, and I don’t like plan B. The truth is that I was standing on a very weak foundation and it collapsed. I only made $50 in August.

Income Report August

The lack of any freelancing clients really hurt me. I feared this would happen though. I only had one freelance client in the months prior and that relationship dissolved. Like all retirement plans should consist of a diverse portfolio, all freelance client rosters should be equally as diverse, which is why I haven’t stopped pitching new clients even though I just signed three contracts.

Income Distrib August

Even worse, my expenses toppled my income by a lot. I had some annual web hosting expenses pop up and I needed to buy a few things for the home office. I was saved a little by a $112 credit from Auto Europe. They made a major mistake on my rental car reservation in Belgium which they agreed to reimburse me for. The entertainment expenses were for the non-sponsored portions of our Uptown Charlotte babymoon.

Expenses August

August Traffic Report

My site traffic and social media growth remained rather flat. Yes, you’ll see a rather large dip in traffic. A portion of this is because I threw on a few filters in Google Analytics to eliminate “fake” traffic. While that fake traffic shows a numerical increase, it harms me within Google’s algorithms for SEO and future growth. I can’t blame all of the traffic dip on hackers though, I wasn’t posting with any regularity in August. My social media growth remained the same because I made no changes to strategy.

Traffic Report August

The Wandering Gourmand’s top blog posts in August didn’t change much over July. The previous month’s income report still made the list and the Mexican Margarita post was replace by The Perfect Shrimp and Grits Pairing. The remaining posts are from my archives. As I fall back into a regular posting routine in September, I look forward to seeing how this list changes.

September Goals

Some exciting things are taking place here at The Wandering Gourmand! While this list of Goals may look small, each is a rather tall order. I am on a push to get as much technical stuff out of the way before the baby arrives so I can concentrate solely on writing (when I’m not changing diapers…)

  • Make $1,000 (I think I can actually do it this time)
  • Redesign my web site
  • Redo about pages
  • Finish SEO optimization tactics
  • Start on a draft of my e-course

What goals are you looking to accomplish with your entrepreneurial efforts?