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September 2018 Income Report: Still At Day Job, Income Report Mistake, Why Having Many Websites in Same Niche
In this blog, I write about what I am doing to create various income streams that come from online endeavors. The monthly income reports detail my results. Why am I sharing my income publicly 📢 ❓ I hope to gain trustworthiness with you and to keep some degree of accountability for myself.
The reports also motivate me.
I tend to forget my small achievements… and posts like this one won’t let me do it 🙂 Apart from that, they help me to remember how much I have already invested. It’s a motivation to push even harder 💦💦💦
Read my income report #37 to find out what happened in September 2018.
What happened in September 👍
September was a busy month with one unpleasant discovery 🤦 I made in the end.
And no, I have not quit my day job yet! I was asked to stay for a bit longer so I plan to quit at the end of October 😺
Income report mistake 😳
The unpleasant discovery I talk about above is a mistake in my income reports I found at the end of September.
Somehow, after enabling AdSense Auto Ads, I accidentally introduced a wrong action into the income calculation methodology. I started including the auto ad revenue twice by summarizing it with the overall revenue for each website 🤦
It means that for the last two months, July and August, my actual income was lower than I thought with the difference of about $100-200 per month in total.
Not much but still unpleasant 😒
I won’t change the wrong numbers in the past income reports but I fixed the Totals chart below for the previous months.
This is already the second time I make a mistake in calculating my income reports. However, the other time I did it, it was a pleasant one. I forgot to include some amount into the final number so the actual income was higher than I thought and reported.
Obviously, this mistake hurts. I make the income reports for me first of all to see and how I go with my business and I know now I am less successful than I thought I was.
It was hard to admit it and even harder to publicly acknowledge it 😒
Oh well.
Benefits (and downsides) of having multiple websites in the same niche 👯
I usually talk a lot about Mother Elephant 🐘 Website and not much about the Baby one. Meanwhile, Baby Elephant 🐘 Website with it growing revenue has become a good example of why I suggest you have more than one website in a niche you consider being perspective.
here to find out what the website nicknames mean
The Baby Elephant 🐘 Website is following the Mother’s steps and has been growing for the last couple of months. I feel it may overcome the Mother and may become the main revenue source, at least in a short term.
I see multiple upsides in following this route.
It is much easier 👍 to build a new website in a niche where you already have a successful website:
👉 you already know what to do and what to avoid doing
👉 you know the niche audience and what they buy and what they don’t
👉 simply put, you know what is the most efficient path to success
Another advantage comes in the outreach area.
For example, guest posting ✍️. You need to do the necessary legwork only once, for one of the websites. For the second (and the others), you have two options:
👉 send a guest post request to blogs that accepted a guest post for the 1st website
👉 add backlinks to it in the guest post written for the first website
I do both and it all depends on the post topics and the guest post policies of the blogs. For example, some blogs do not allow to have more than one do-follow link.
Another advantage is that now you are able to do link exchange 💱 in a more or less safe way.
If you allow guest posting on one of your websites, in exchange for a post, you can ask the blog to do a guest post for one of your other websites. I did it a few times as well. It has tremendously helped to make my guest posting cheaper and more efficient.
The downside 👎 of following this path, as I see it, is one:
👉 it’s boring 🤣
Yes, it might not get you as excited as starting a website in a new niche. But if your current niche is really good, it might be worth it.
Meanwhile, I am considering writing a post about my guest post approach I use these days… Maybe in November.
🐘 Website pivoting progress
As you guys already know, I am pivoting Mother Elephant 🐘 Website from what it was before to a different niche.
here to find out what the website nicknames mean
The pivoting has been going on for a while and I have to admit it has not been super successful 😩
In August, I planned the pivot anew and made a decision where to go 🚵
In September, I started executing the vision 🤸
This time, it seems I managed to find the right direction.
After posting a couple of articles with particular keywords, their ranking went up without much of efforts on my side. In general, the most of the ranking of the pivoted keywords (that are not related to the original topic) moved up ⏫⏫⏫ I guess I need to publish more articles!
While the new rankings have not brought me much money (yet hopefully), it has brought me satisfaction aaand motivation. It’s always pleasant and motivating to see your hard work is being paid off.
Writing 2nd Skyscraper post for Mother 🐘 Website
In September, I was busy with writing an ever-green but seasonal Skyscraper post for Mother Elephant 🐘 Website.
It will be my second Skyscraper outreach attempt. The first one I did in July-August had a conversion rate of 1% and then I stopped it based on my new pivoting plans.
So far, I have put in about 4 hours on finding prospects for outreach and about 19 hours on writing the article. And I am still not done 😅
I really hope that after getting more experience, I will be spending less time on such posts.
Email downtime while migrating off HostGator 🐊
In September, I finished the migration from HostGator 🐊 to Bluehost 🔵. The websites that were affected are livingoffcloud.com (yep this one) and dushonok.com (my fashion DIY site.)
I almost managed to avoid having downtime after completing the migration.
What I totally forgot about was the email 📧 ! Turns out I need to move it as well along with the domain it is on. Who knew! (JK)
It took me a few days to realize that I started getting significantly fewer emails than I used to 🤔
If you sent me an email and it did not get delivered or I did not respond, the chances are you hit the email downtime. Please send it again!
Personal life 👩
September was mostly chilly in Montreal. The cold season has arrived prematurely and I have already succumbed to the virus a couple of times.
Montreal downtown may look warm on the picture but in the reality, it was +13C (55F) ☃️
Goat yoga 🐐🧘 in our local park. Looks fun but I do not want to try it 🤣
I was planning to quit my day job in September but it did not happen. They asked me to stay longer and I agreed to hang out there till the end of October. It is always nice to feel appreciated 🤗
It also hard to quit a place that allows you to bring the company’s lunch leftovers home – even if the leftovers come in a form of huge bowls like this one! 😮 It’s edamame on the photo and it was enough of it to feed me for an entire weekend and more 😜
Ok, now let’s go back to the business!
Expenses➖
In September, the expenses were a bit higher than in August because this is the time when I pay the year bill for my hosting 🔵. The rest of the expenses stayed pretty much the same except a few PBN domains renewed.
Let’s look at the expense numbers in the details.
| Expense | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Outsourced writing | $176.23 | Ordered new articles |
| Outsourced work | $156.19 | Paid a VA for doing some stuff |
| Outsourced images | $0.00 | Ordered zero image designs on Fiverr |
| E-marketing tools | $49.98 | Paid for SERP tracking, MailShake, a cheap access to AhRef tool, MailShake, etc including Hunter for email scraping |
| PBN domain registration | $57.97 | Renewed PBN domains |
| PBN hosting | $42.90 | Paid for Easy Blog Networks, an awesome solution for PBNs (read my review), Bulk Buy Hosting (here's my review), and more |
| Hosting | $$155.88 | Paid for regular hosting |
| Domain registration | $0.00 | Paid nothing for regular domain renewals |
| Guest posting | $0.00 | Paid nothing for guest posting |
| KickFurther | $0.00 | No activity on the platform |
| Total | $643.15 |
Income➕
The income in September went down compared to August because the Elephant 🐘 Websites are in low season.
here to find out what the website nicknames mean
In September, I sold my two first guest posts. No, I do not plan to become a content factory 🏭 where everyone and their dog can post anything as long as they pay. The paid posts have to pass through the same criteria as unpaid ones and the bar is high ✋
Let’s look at the income numbers in the details.
| Income | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| AdSense by Elephant Websites | $124.12 | Revenue from the 1st websites I bought + 2 others in the same niche |
| Amazon by Elephant Websites | $226.53 | Revenue from the 1st website I bought + 2 others in the same niche) |
| AdSense by Horse Websites | $170.39 | Revenue from the 2nd websites I bought |
| Amazon by Horse Websites | $0.00 | Revenue from the 2nd websites I bought |
| Amazon by Rat Website | $1.17 | 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 | $32.59 | Recurring and new affiliate sales for Easy Blog Networks, a solution for PBN hosting |
| Bulk BuyHosting | $25.22 | Recurring and new affiliate sales for Buy Bulk Hosting, another solution for PBN hosting |
| Paid guest posts | $28.59 | Revenue received for paid guest posting |
| Kickfurther | $0.75 | Online investments paid back; read more in my post about Kickfurther |
| Interest | $4.96 | Interest earned on a saving account |
| Total | $689.74 |
Totals 💵
Here are my totals for September 2018.
Total income $689.74 minus total expenses $643.15 makes a net profit of $46.59.
The profit number looks a bit gloomy… if this is my result in September, what am I going to get in December when my revenue is historically at its lowest? 🙁 I foresee a lot of red numbers!
Here is the chart with my revenue vs expenses history for the last 13 months. I use the 13-month timeline instead of the 12-month one in order to show you how the current month performed compared to the last year.
October 2018 Plans 📅
In October 2018, my focus will be to try to not freak out since it’s the last month on my full-time employment! Haha, I feel like I’ve already said it before.
For Elephant 🐘 Website, the hard plan is to finish the 2nd Skyscraper post and do the outreach. That article is seasonal and the season is now. I cannot waste 23h I have already put in it !
Also, I have not yet written the year income report as I planned in September. I was too busy and maybe, I will do it in October.
I am also seriously thinking of finally optimizing my PBN domain network. It is very clear it does not bring much value but it sucks in money and time (sometimes). I really need to think about it.
And 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! 🤗
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