Welcome to the fifth entry in our monthly income and traffic report!
In this series we are planning on sharing our traffic, earning, and spending figures each month so you can get a glimpse inside the business of travel blogging. In addition to sharing these for your use, by publishing our information we are also able to stay on track with our own goals for our business.
Last month we shared our targets from April, and now that May has ended, it is time to share those figures too! So how'd we do? Read on to find out!
Living the Dream's May 2015 Traffic
Our traffic for May 2015 was just over 24,500 page views.
When compared to our traffic in April, our May traffic was up by 3% on a per day basis. Likewise, when comparing May 2015 to May 2014, our traffic was up by 77% - continuing the trend we saw in April, albeit at a reduced pace month over month.
Living the Dream's May 2015 Income
Our booked income for May 2015 was approximately $200. Yep, you read that right: two-hundred dollars. That sucks.
While having a bad month with little advertising revenue is not very fun, I'm not alarmed. There always tends to be 2-3 months out of the year when income is very bad, but then the next month performs better. I am a bit sad that my external work from freelancing and other assignments was zero, but I suspect (hope?) that the assignments for the next month's cycle were just delayed due to the Memorial Day holiday. I guess we'll find out next month.
This dollar amount includes the following breakdown:
- Direct Advertising: $170
- Book Sales: $3
- Amazon Affiliates: $20
- Other Affiliates: $0
- External Work: $0
- Media Sales: $0
- Adsense: $7
Want to support our site in your travels? Our Book Your Trip page has affiliate links to all of the services we personally use and recommend when traveling and blogging. By making a purchase through our links we'll receive a small commission and the price you pay will not change.
Living the Dream's May 2015 Spending
Our spending for the month of May included the following:
- Social Media Advertising: $72
- Staff Payments: $125
- Spending for a New Website: $285
- Total: $482
Ah, yeah, about that. I may or may not have spent more money than we made this month in an effort to launch a new project. I really hate doing that, but it is a part of running a business, and if our new website starts taking off we should have a more reliable income stream than we do on this site. For having an online revenue stream, that is the best you can ask for. Right? Right.
Goals for June 2015
In our last update, I predicted that May was going to be slow- much like April. As it turns out, I was right. While we have incredible news that we've just recently announced (hint: we're moving), the excitement comes from things going on outside of this site.
With that being said, June is going to be a lot like the last two months. We'll be doing limited work on Living the Dream, so most of our growth will likely be the result of our SEO overhaul from last year that we're still seeing good growth from. Most of our work is going to revolve around our new project, and we hope to reveal more details and goals by June's recap post on July 1st.
Regardless of what happens, we're out of the holding pattern we've been in over the last few months and finally running with one of our new projects. Even though we didn't make hardly any money this month, I can say that this is very, very good news.
We'll let you know at the end of June how it is going!
