January – February 2019 Income Report: Crunching out content 👩🏻💻, Reviving 🐀 Website, Pinning Down Pinterest 📌
Welcome to my first income report of 2019!
This time, I decided to spruce the things up and do something I have never done before: Combine two months into one income report (IR).
I did it for two reasons:
1️⃣ rather than creating yet another IR, I spent this time on creating other content that is a bit more interesting than monthly reports, hopefully 🤞🏻
2️⃣ January was quite a dull month in terms of revenue 😩 so I decided to ignore it and pretend all goes well 🤣
This is when my efficiency+effectiveness kicked in! As well as my morale-boosting techniques 🙂
So read my income report #41-42 to find out what happened in January-February 2019.
What happened in January-February 👍🏻
The first two months of the year were unsurprisingly busy and surprisingly productive.
Crunching out content 👩🏻💻
I yet again realized that the content is as important for websites as backlinks 😆 and decided to invest in it for all my websites.
🐘 websites
I ordered new articles and updates of old content for both websites.
I doubled down on Skyscraper content and even published one article of 6,940 words 💪🏻
I wrote it all myself 😱👷🏻♀️
As a result, I spent about 58h or 1.5 full-time weeks 🥵 in total on researching and writing. After finishing it, I promised myself that I will never ever do it again! It was so hard and time-consuming and boring and just aaaaaahhh 😭 so from now on, I will always try to outsource this kind of content.
Following that mood, I ordered more content from my writer as well as from some other writing agency. As a result, I got higher expenses in this area. It was soooooo worth it, really 😅
🐀 website
I ordered a couple of updates of old articles but have not published them yet.
Got lost in my elephants, horses, and other creatures? Read here to find out what the website nicknames mean
LivingOfCloud (this blog)
I introduced a new type of content “SEO & Affiliate Marketing News Roundup📰” and published two posts for it (#1 and #2).
I also updated some old articles and wrote three new ones: 2018 Year review, PromoRepublic review and guide, and How to get US credit card in Canada.
Two last articles are product reviews and they were based on what I was doing and what I am planning to do. They contain a real personal (my) experience. Now, this is the kind of content I like to write! I love doing investigations and reviews of things that are interesting for me and then sharing it with you guys.
Reviving Rat 🐀 Website
As you may already know, I am reviving my old 🐀 Website.
Got lost in my elephants, horses, and other creatures? Read here to find out what the website nicknames mean
In Jan-Feb 2019, I got 2 new do-follow backlinks for it via guest posting. I re-used the leads I got while doing guest posting for 🐘 websites and this made the links easy to obtain 👍🏻
However, even with re-used leads, guest posting is a bit expensive compared to other link building techniques.
That’s why I plan to dive into the skyscraping link building. I started outlining the article plan and will be making it in spring because the articles are good for summer.
Skysraping technique requires that the website you are doing the outreach for looks good and not like a crappy niche site.
Mine does 🙈 a little bit 😆
It means I need to revamp the landing page and make it look more like a personal blog. I have already started doing that and will continue in the upcoming months.
Getting deeper into Pinterest 📌
In December last year, I decided to explorer Pinterest for my main 🐘 website.
I bought a yearly TailWind subscription (and got one more power-up in January) and never looked back 😍
In the case you do not know what TailWind is 👉🏻 it’s a powerful tool for Pinterest and Instagram that does automated publishing and provides insightful stats. It’s literally a must-have for Pinterest marketing.
Here’s how my Pinterest traffic grew in the last 3 months (I started at the end of December):
Pinterest is getting closer to make 20% of overall traffic to the website 💪🏻📌
I should try TailWind with Instagram 😏
Personal life 👩🏻
In January and February, nothing really interesting happened in this area.
I did a lot of exercising (including jogging in -20C / -4F 🤪) and we had a lot of rain and a lot of snow and that got me some pretty photos.
The weather was really weird during these months: Rain🌧 and snow 🌨, snow 🌨 and rain 🌧. Above zero, below zero, and above again 😵
Bipolar weather 😀😖
Ok, now let’s go back to the business!
Expenses➖
In January-February, the expenses were pretty high since I decided to invest in content more than usual. The total expense number may look scary (above $1,000!!!😱) but remember, it’s combined for 2 months.
Let’s look at the details.
| Expense | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Outsourced writing | $702.18 | Ordered new articles |
| Outsourced labor | $221.96 | Paid a VA for doing some stuff |
| Outsourced images | $0.00 | Made all the images myself |
| E-marketing tools | $79.90 | Paid for a cheap access to AhRef tool and a TailWind power-up |
| PBN domain registration | $12.99 | Renewed some PBN domains |
| PBN hosting | $85.80 | Paid for Easy Blog Networks, an awesome solution for PBNs (read my review), Bulk Buy Hosting (here's my review), and more |
| Domain registration | $0.00 | Amount paid for regular domain renewals |
| Guest posting | $0.00 | Amount paid for guest posting |
| Total | $1,102.83 |
Income➕
The income in January-February was pretty good if we take average numbers for both months 😉
Something good happened in the niche my 🐘 websites are and it made my income go higher. The last main competitor just disappeared 🤔😮🤩 and it brought my websites increased traffic 👍🏻 and increased revenue 👍🏻👍🏻
Got lost in my elephants, horses, and other creatures? Read here to find out what the website nicknames mean
Let’s look at the income numbers in the details.
| Income | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| AdSense by Elephant Websites | $427.67 | Revenue from the 1st websites I bought + 2 others in the same niche |
| VigLink by Elephant Websites | $45.32 | VigLink revenue from the 1st websites I bought + 2 others in the same niche |
| Amazon by Elephant Websites | $649.26 | Revenue from the 1st website I bought + 2 others in the same niche) |
| Amazon by Rat Website | $0.20 | Revenue from the website built by Human Proof Designs; check their website to see if you can get a ready-made niche website for yourself |
| Ads by Rat Website | $0.00 | I monetize Rat Website through media.net |
| Amazon by Honeybee Website | $0.00 | Revenue from the website I am building myself with a PBN |
| Easy Blog Networks | $$65.18 | Recurring and new affiliate sales for Easy Blog Networks, a solution for PBN hosting |
| Bulk BuyHosting | $30.69 | Recurring and new affiliate sales for Buy Bulk Hosting, another solution for PBN hosting |
| OFX | $176.60 | Revenue from OFX affiliate commissions |
| Paid guest posts | $23.03 | Revenue received for paid guest posting |
| Kickfurther | $6.75 | Online investments paid back; read more in my post about Kickfurther |
| Interest | $11.04 | Interest earned on a saving account |
| Total | $1,424.97 |
Totals 💵
Here are my totals for January-February 2019.
Total income $1,424.97 minus total expenses $1,102.83 makes a net profit of $322.14. Again, this profit should be divided by two since it’s for both January and February.
Here is the chart with my revenue vs expenses history for the last 14 months. I used the 14-month timeline instead of the 12-month one in order to show you how these months performed compared to the last year.
As you can see, my profit dipped below the line Zero in January 📉
That’s ok since it was intentional. I decided that developing my business is more important than chasing positive profit each month. After all, that is what is holding me back from moving forward with my sites.
Meanwhile, February well compensated the dip 🎆
February (and maybe March) 2019 Plans 📅
I really liked writing such a joined income report that covers two months and I am thinking of maybe doing it again. That’s why I mentioned March in the title. it’s very possible my next report will be in April 😸
So, in February and maybe March 2019, I plan to do the following things:
👉🏻 keep grinding and preparing for high season for both Rat 🐀 Website and Elephant 🐘 Websites
👉🏻 keep publishing new content on my LOC blog as well as re-writing old articles ✍🏻
👉🏻 start doing more outsourcing! I really want to hire an editor since article editing takes a lot of my mental energy and time as well as try again to outsource making graphics 🎨🖌
👉🏻 start investigating new projects: I have a few ideas in my mind, which I really want to explorer (exciting! 😄)
Since I am not sure about my posting schedule… you should stay tuned by subscribing to my emails!
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Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. I will receive a small fee if you choose to buy after clicking on any of these links. Thank you if you do! 🤗
