One of the things I love about lifestyle design blogs is that they give a transparent look at how their sites are generating income. I think it is important for these type of blogs to share this information as it gives credibility to the work and advice that is being shared.
Since I'm now running Living the Dream with lifestyle design and how-to blog features, it is only fair that I share the results of my work publicly.
Who wants to see what we're up to?Living the Dream's January 2015 Traffic
Our traffic for January 2015 was the best on record at 18,448 pageviews.
Although we've been blogging for six years, I never put a focus on increasing my traffic and we were flat at 14,500 to 17,500 pageviews per month for nearly two years. This was partly my fault because I was too busy traveling and put my priority into enjoying what we were doing rather than our business (we were traveling the world for fifteen months, can you blame me?).
Since returning home, that has changed. We launched our new theme on December 27th and immediately saw a gain in traffic thanks to the new template and an increase in referrals from search engines. In fact, compared to January 2014, our traffic in January 2015 was up 35%.
That is encouraging news for us.My goal for 2015 is a five-fold increase in traffic to over 100,000 pageviews per month. The steps I take to achieve this will be outlined in our Blog Your Trip series. Will we get there? I'm not sure. But you can be certain I am going to be very aggressive in trying to make it happen.
Living the Dream's January 2015 Income
Our booked income for January 2015 was approximately $900 . This isn't the best month we've ever had, but isn't the worst either. In the past we've had months with income as high as $2,500 and others with income as low as $0. This variability is something I'm hoping to line out in the coming year.
It is worth noting that this feature is going to illustrate our booked income for the month. This is not the income we actually received, but is instead all the income we have confirmed agreements for that were arranged within the month. Some work may be finished, others may not, and a slim percent (hopefully none) may fall through in the coming weeks. But since this is how life is online, this is how we have decided to display our income in this series.
This dollar amount includes the following breakdown:
- Direct Advertising: $590
- Book Sales: $8.00
- Amazon Affiliates: $3.00
- Other Affiliates: $11
- Freelancing: $300
- Adsense: $3.50
My goal for 2015 is to increase our income from affiliate marketing, product sales, and freelancing, while reducing our reliance on direct advertising as a means to generate income. The money is there for that, but I don't feel right overloading our site with it as a way to reach my goals.
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. 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 January 2015 Spending
Our spending for the month of January included the following:
- Facebook Advertising: $30
- Developer Work for our WordPress Migration: $204
- Misc. Program Purchases: $78
- Staff Payments: $75
- Domain Renewals: $10
- Total: $397
Overall, our spending for this past month was high mostly due to the investment on a few programs as well as paying for the WordPress migration work we had done in December. Other than advertising, I'm trying to keep this one low for now. Once I am able to have a more reliable income stream I plan on increasing our advertising budget substantially- but I'm not there yet.
Goals for February 2015
Between the recent launch of our new theme and a major SEO overhaul which was completed just a few days ago, we likely have to wait a few more months until we start seeing any noticeable benefits in pageviews. I've read that SEO work can take three to six months to start seeing results, so I'm going to have to be patient there.
With that being said, February will be a month of starting new projects and optimizing old ones. I've recently accepted a few freelance writing positions, and will hopefully be seeing consistent work coming from those in the next couple of weeks. Likewise, I'm beginning development work on a few new projects that I hope to have live by the middle of the year to try and bring in other consistent revenue streams.
So while I anticipate our income being a bit flat until these new projects are out and our pageviews increase, you never know what will happen over the next month.
We'll let you know at the end of February!