Page Views: 104,175 (Nice increase from June)
Unique Visitors: 22,797 (Increase of over 2000 from June)
Do bloggers get to take vacations? Well, sure! We are usually our own bosses, so if we want to take a break, of course we can. The problem is that when you stop posting to your blog and social media, you very quickly lose momentum. All your hard work during the year keeping your readers engaged would be lost if you just went radio silent for a couple of weeks. The obvious solution: schedule! Write blog posts and social media posts in advance and use whatever scheduler you prefer to line up a couple of weeks’ worth of activity. The obvious hurdle: finding the time! I figure I spend at least twenty hours per week on my blog and working for my social media clients. I do those hours whilst being at home full time with my children. It’s insane. As you can imagine, in order to create two weeks of content in advance, I’d have to double up the time spent in the weeks leading up to the vacation. My husband decided on June 30 that we would take a road trip to Vancouver … and leave on July 1. Even if I could’ve found the time to create content in advance, I’d have needed a time machine!
Income:
Affiliate Sales:
I receive one or two emails every day inviting me to join such-and-such a company’s affiliate program. Affiliate programs—where you receive a small commission on purchases made after someone clicks on your link—do well for some bloggers, but I presume they are really good at hustling. For one thing, I forget to share affiliate links with any regularity on my social media, and for another, it’s hard to justify the time spent for the slight possibility of a few dollars in profit. I am so grateful for my readers and friends who religiously click through my sidebar ads when making purchases! (Even if it only earns me 50 cents!)
Bumbini: $0
Lagoon Baby: $0.50
Well.ca: $11.02
Total: $11.52
On-site Advertising:
My ads are supplied by SheBlogs Canada and by Media.net. I recently cancelled my affiliation with SheBlogs, and at the end of July started with SheSavvy. I earn this income based on a fraction of a penny per page view. I also sell advertising at a monthly rate and currently have four businesses that advertise monthly. In July I added a new ambassadorship for Treeclub Kids, along with their on-site ad.
SheBlogs: $77.18
SheSavvy: $114.41
Media.net: $19.36 USD/ $25 CAD
Monthly ads & ambassadorships: $330
Total: $546.59
Sponsored Posts:
July was a banner month for sponsored Facebook posts that did not require a blog post. My favourite? Our trip to the Calgary Zoo! What I love about these kinds of opportunities is that they free me up to devote time to my most popular (but basically non-profit) articles about cloth diapering and about motherhood. Because I receive payment based not on the time I spend but rather on the size of my social media following, the more I grow my following and the more I inspire loyalty and trust from my readers, the more I can earn. And in order to inspire loyalty and trust, I can’t only write sponsored blog posts! I need to provide you all with interesting, useful content that either makes you laugh or teaches you something new. This month’s posts included a review and giveaway for Andy Pandy diapers, which was part of a very popular giveaway hop, plus a post about my newest sponsor, Treeclub Kids.
Total: $1,650
Grand Total: $2,208.11
Blog expenses:
My poor little site was loading at a snail’s pace or not even loading at all this month. I had to upgrade my hosting which set me back USD$180 for the remainder of my current subscription. But if my site doesn’t load or it loads really slowly, then I will lose readers (and I certainly won’t gain any new ones). I also tried boosting Facebook posts for the first time to increase viewership and clicks. I was impressed with how just a couple dollars really increased traffic to some of my posts!
McAfee Anti-Virus software: $2.91
Vault Press Website Back Up Plug in: $6.23
Web hosting by Green Geeks (3-year subscription): $8.33 + $180 upgrade
Payments to editor & contributor: $150
PicMonkey Image Editing: $3.91 (I won’t renew this now that I’m paying for Canva, but I had already paid for the year.)
Freshbooks accounting software: $22
InLinkz Linky service: $1.67
Mad Mimi Newsletter Service: $35
Facebook boosting: $16
Best Bottom Insert for upcoming blog post: $22
Canva $13
Tailwind $11.40
Sendible $9.23 (Use my Sendible promo code, 170220, and get 10% off your Sendible plan. Redeem from the sign up page at http://bit.ly/29VNDiK)
Total Expenses: $481.68
Total income minus expenses: $1726.42
Final thoughts:
I tried to take some time away from the blog in July, but as I explained above, that’s nearly impossible. My mom came to visit this month which gave me a bit of time to write posts in advance, but it’s becoming painfully clear to me that I need to find a childcare solution so that I don’t lose my mind. I hope I will continue to be selected for well-paid social media promotions which allow me to devote more time to unsponsored blog posts, which are both my favourites to write and my most popular posts! In terms of the nice increase in traffic this month, I would attribute that in part to my new Pinterest strategy! I have been redoing the title images for old posts to make them more Pinterest-friendly, and I have been using Tailwind to pin my own posts and those of others on a daily basis. I used to only use Pinterest to pin a new blog post … now I am pinning and repinning my content and that of others using Tailwind, and the impact has been huge. In June, I had around 5000 page views referred by Pinterest, but in July that number nearly doubled!
As I’ll discuss a bit more in my August report, I decided to put my kids in daycare so I could dedicate my full attention at regular intervals to my business. It’s making a huge difference to my well being, but definitely means a decrease in earnings since I have to pay for that care!
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