2017 Income Report & What Went Wrong or right. You decide.

It has been such a long time since I’ve have written anything about blogging or any online income report.

The truth is that if you have been following my journey on May 29^th, 2016 my life completely changed.

Now, don’t worry we are doing great.

Now as far as my online income report and the reasons why I decided to stop posting about them was one reason.

I didn’t have time!

Seriously, I just didn’t have the time to write about it.

You might not believe me, but I am pretty sure that as bloggers we don’t have enough time in the day to everything done.

I felt that my income reports where taking too long and quite honestly, I thought people would be turned off because I wasn’t chasing pageviews or money.

This is the truth!

I grew smarter about blogging and creating an income.

In 2017 I even decided to go to my first blog conference and meet my favorite bloggers in person.

Going to a conference was a huge step for me personally since I don’t like to draw attention to myself and I was meeting people I never met before and so on.

Seriously, I was so nervous that I was finding excuses not to go!

Now meeting people you have spent years communicating via email and chat and have become more than just friends it was like nothing has changed and you have been BFF forever.

I met my blogging tribe for the first time, and it was amazing! Best thing ever!

A reminder if you are new to my blog, in 2016 I decided to take a break to recover from a rough labor, surgery, and PPD.

During that time my online friends took care of my blog while I took care of me!

Taking time off really helped me focus on things I enjoyed and even tackle my downhill pageviews by experimenting with Pinterest.

I took the opportunity to help fellow bloggers revive their Pinterest pageviews as well.

Back to this later.

So how did 2017 treat My Stay At Home Adventures?

Mi amigos, 2017 treated My Stay At Home Adventures LLC amazing!

Now there’s the thing.

I found success!

But my success might not be the success you might think.

My success wasn’t about chasing pageviews or making tons of money. My success is measured by the ability to reach my personal goals and stay focus on a task.

My success is about earning $1,000 a month without working too many hours.

My success in 2017 was to do things scared (Thanks, Ruth!) and learn from them.

In 2017 I met other bloggers who helped me and assured me that what I was doing was the right thing.

You can say that 2017 was when my blogging goals were about growing Joyce and not the blog.

If you are a blogger and you have met your goals no matter how small or significant, you are a successful blogger.

YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL!

I read a quote that goes something like this,

“Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.” Swami Sivananda

I took what I made with my online business and re-invested it in myself. And guess what? It worked!

If you are new to my blog, for quite some time I have started writing about my monthly online income report to help me get out of my comfort zone and for accountability.

After March of 2017, I stop posting my income report.

A little about me:

After working for 15 years, I decided that I was going to pay my debt and say goodbye to my stressful job and become a stay at home mom.

But it didn’t turn out as I thought it was going to be.

I formed some stay at home mom bad habits that sadly I had to admit and overcome, and that led me to create this blog.

I hosted my site with BlueHost, and personally, never had any issues with them. It is affordable, and for over three years I hosted my site with them.

But that wasn’t enough.

After reading this book, How To Blog For Profit: Without Selling Your Soul, I became more confident and decided I could increase my income.

The funny part was that I decided to aim low when it came to my income goal. I didn’t dare to dream big at the time.

Why?

I was insecure and afraid of failing at my goals.

I joined EBA (Elite Blog Academy), and that changed the way I handled my blog. I learned so much from turning my blog into a business and started from there.

It was when I lost a chunk of my income that the drive to make more money from this blog became more critical.

In 2016 I made over $11,000 in seven months, and all from the comfort of my home. I didn’t work long hours, and honestly, I didn’t work much on my blog due to health reasons.

The point of this is that you can start a blog or a business and make money. I am the mother of four children, and with determination, I am earning an income that has helped us.

If I can do it, you can do it too!

2017 Blogging Details

Keep in mind that I work part-time on my blog, and my goal is to grow the blog at my own pace.

I have dedicated my time learning and focusing on me learning and educating myself on the business.

Here’s the thing.

• I’m a solopreneur. I work on my own with no staff.
• I’m a mom of 4 children, two special needs, and a one-year-old.
• I work 5 hours a week as a rehabilitator.
• I love to learn what I can to be a better blogger and grow my business.
• I take it SLOW!

My blogging adventures are entirely different than yours. Something you need to remember.

Now, let’s do this.

Never compare yourself to another blogger!

Now a recap of my 2017 Blogging Income

January 2017

By the end of 2016 my pageviews were as low as 30K and the beginning of January 2017 my pageviews were 28,731.

There was a steady decline in pageviews in 2016, and by 4^th quarter they were so low I had to stop and figure out a new strategy to increase my pageviews.

Obviously, what I was doing was not working anymore. I didn’t accept many sponsored opportunities either.

I know we say that pageviews don’t matter but when you go down over 50%, and on a steady decline, you need to stop and figure what is wrong.

Income 1/25/17-1/31/17

$81 – BUSINESS INCOME

$187 – BUSINESS SPENDING

-$106 – BUSINESS PROFIT

February 2017

By February 2017 my pageviews went back up to 70,120 by applying new techniques and testing them out.

I revisited my EBA and started going over a new strategy that wasn’t the 100,000 goal I continued to reach.

I decided to aim to reach 40,000 pageviews a month and focus on learning on how to become a better blog.

I spent a lot of time writing down goals and bought my ticket to my first blog conference, FOCUSED in Richmond, VA.

Income 02/01/2017-02/28/2017

$666 – BUSINESS INCOME

$741 – BUSINESS SPENDING

-$75 – BUSINESS PROFIT

March 2017

During the month of March my pageviews were 55,590 I continued to implement what I was doing the previous month but with less intense and with more focus.

The goals for March were to clean up my site and focus on SEO by getting the information online and following Neil Patel (He’s like SEO Oprah. Yes, I love Oprah!)

Income 3/1/17-3/31/17

$624 – BUSINESS INCOME

$314- BUSINESS SPENDING

$310 – BUSINESS PROFIT

April 2017

By April my pageviews were 35,255 and below my 40,000-monthly goal. What happened?

Nothing major to be honest. I was spending my time working with other bloggers testing my system out and updating old content.

Income 4/1/17-4/30/17

$891 – BUSINESS INCOME

$411- BUSINESS SPENDING

$479 – BUSINESS PROFIT

May 2017

This month I attended my first blogging conference, and I loved it!

FOCUSED is a small conference and for any first timer who has never attended a blogging conference like me, it was an excellent choice.

I learned so much and met great people.

It gave me such a confidence boost that I needed. If you have never gone to a blog conference, you need to.

During May, my pageviews were 44,808 which was above my 40,000 pageviews goals.

Why make 40,000 pageviews my goal?

Here’s my reason why I made this my pageview goal for the month, it was realistic for me.

I don’t spend tons of time working on increasing my pageviews, and the number seemed to be realistic for me to reach and maintain.

As far as the income a few days before going to my conference my laptop died, so we had to rush and purchase one.

On May 29^th, Mediavine was now managing my ad on my blog. This mean I left The Blogging Network.

Income 5/1/17-5/31/17

$1,762- BUSINESS INCOME

$2,185- BUSINESS SPENDING

-$422- BUSINESS PROFIT

June 2017

I worked WAY less this month and spent two weeks on vacation with my family. Most importantly my daughter graduated high school so this month was focus on family.

This month my pageviews were 31,228 and honestly, I expected since I didn’t update any posts or pushed anything.

Income reflects taxes paid and yearly subscription like Grammarly. I also switched hosting company and went with BigScoots which brought my hosting down from $60 to $35.

Income 6/1/17-6/30/17

$518 – BUSINESS INCOME

$701 – BUSINESS SPENDING

-$183 – BUSINESS PROFIT

July 2017

By July I was back to working and growing my online business. I created an ebook explaining how I have helped other bloggers revived their Pinterest traffic and tested out some different styles of pins.

I stop believing in the summer slum since and accepting low pageviews. Just because people say hey its summer pageviews are going to be down doesn’t mean you have to accept that.

I decided to work on my pageviews and continue to work on my blog goals.

The pageviews for this month were 54,845.

What do I use to keep track of my income and expenses?

Earlier in the year, we decided to invest in QuickBooks Self-employ and never looked back. I am no longer using an excel sheet like previous years.

Income 7/1/17-7/31/17

$870 – BUSINESS INCOME

$434 – BUSINESS SPENDING

$436 – BUSINESS PROFIT

August 2017

During the month of August, my pageviews were 52,348, and my income was improving. Again, take it slow and invest your time and you will see growth.

Now, this month I invested in a course that changed my blogging game and the good news is that it is so affordable. The course I invested during the month of August was Ebook By Number by Suzi Whitford.

This course is fabulous, and something that I needed to grow my business in 2017. Now, Suzi doesn’t promote this course much, and I will tell you that if you are thinking of creating an eBook and you have no clue, then get this course.

I decided to tackle another goal of mine, and that was to increase my email subscribers which I moved from Mailchimp to MailerLite.

Why MailerLite and not ConverKit?

ConverKit is amazing and was my next choice but once I saw what MailerLite had to offer and the price I decided to use them instead.

You see, an email list has to be profitable, and my list is not! So how can I justify ConverKit price when I’m not making enough even to cover it.

With MailerLite the account was free for up to 1,000 subscribers with unlimited emails.

Income 8/1/17-8/31/17

$1,363 – BUSINESS INCOME

$490 – BUSINESS SPENDING

$873 – BUSINESS PROFIT

September 2017

Now by September I was seeing an increase in organic search and being honest my search was TERRIBLE.

Cleaning my site up and updating content was what I needed to do instead of focusing on creating new content.

Google wants awesome content, and this has been my focus and continued to be. Now, this takes time, and that’s OK.

Remember what I said about being slow? Yeah, that’s me. Focus on quality and continue on.

During September, my pageviews were 62,368 and my search was 3.1% which is pretty bad but hey compared to 1% I take it!

Income 9/1/17-9/30/17

$1,061 – BUSINESS INCOME

$174 – BUSINESS SPENDING

$887 – BUSINESS PROFIT

October 2017

By October my pageviews were 59,001, and my organic search is up 4.5%. My income reached over $1,000 and I am continuing to keep my expenses down as much as possible.

Income 10/1/17-10/31/17

$1,419 – BUSINESS INCOME

$369 – BUSINESS SPENDING

$1,050 – BUSINESS PROFIT

November 2017

By November I keep working at my own pace and my organic search increased to 7.3% and my pageviews were 47,913.

Now I know you might think they are down, but you know what for a frugal money blog this is OK around this time of the year.

Check out the income:

$1,870 – BUSINESS INCOME

$464 – BUSINESS SPENDING

$1,406 – BUSINESS PROFIT

December 2017

December was a great month and a time where the slow hard work paid off. You see my pageviews were 49,320 and my organic search was 13.1%.

Let me explain something to some of you. Christmas is not my “Christmas,” and people don’t want to read about how you should control your spending when all they want to do is shop!

My top posts are about reducing your spending and being frugal and if you expected December to reach my highest pageviews, not true.

As bloggers, you should know when the best time of the year is going to be the best for you.

Remember that every niche is different. If your top posts are only seasonal posts, you are going to see your pageviews going up and down.

With me, my top posts are evergreen, and the seasonal posts when they do increase are extra traffic boost for me.

The point is this:

Stop comparing yourself to others. Learn and study your blog.

Income

$2,810 – BUSINESS INCOME

$291 – BUSINESS SPENDING

$2,519 – BUSINESS PROFIT

Conclusion

There you have a recap of my 2017 and how good it was to me. I was able to work at my own pace, stay focus, and the result paid off.

I learned so much and invested back to the blog which at the end proved that what I was doing was working.

When it comes to investing, I will tell you to please be careful. I am not a spender but I do believe in investing in courses and ebooks that are going to give you a return on investment.

If your blog is suffering from low Pinterest traffic stop scheduling and find your own game I have an ebook that shows you what I did and if you purchase.

2017 total pageviews – 591,527

In 2017 I made $14,065 with a profit of $7,249.

Not bad for someone that took the time to learn new things and shift direction.

Of course, my income will change here and there but with the rate, I know I’m in the right direction.

Now what were my 2017 mistakes?

• Not applying to Mediavine sooner -Seriously, I stuck it out with The Blogging Network.
• Not getting into the email game sooner
• Not creating products fast enough
• Being afraid that my eBooks were sucky

What were my wins?

• Investing in myself and my blog
• Guest posting on other blogs. I am so insecure I was so afraid of being turned down.
• Getting a blogging coach
• I learned to take better photos
• I learned how to do printables
• Focusing on my goals and turning off the noise. Not listening to others or following trends and doing my own thing

What’s next for 2018?

Stay tuned…

Your turn: How was your 2017? Did you reach your blogging goals? What was your blogging income?