Your Modern Family Income December 2014

(This post, as with any on BOTS, may contain affiliate links)

 

Pageviews:  My page views this month were at 2.9 million (I owe it to a lot of Christmas posts that went viral, like my “25 reasons why my Elf on the Shelf forgot to move” post…).  I am not expecting it to stay that way in January, but I’ll enjoy it for now!

Background:  I was an elementary school teacher, before I became a stay-at-home-mom and one-day-a-week play therapist. I worked from 7:30-4:00 every day. I quit nine years ago to have children.  This month, with my blog, Yourmodernfamily.com, I reached that amount, in one month. I was thrilled and shocked (as I am every month!)

When I started blogging, I had no idea that I would be able to earn this sort of income in the amount of time that I have been blogging- two years this month.

If you are trying to make money on your blog, I hope that you will learn a lot from reading this post and walk about with inspiration and tips to put into practice on your blog.  I owe my success to a lot of effort right from the very beginning.  I hit the ground RUNNING (and stay up late, watching hours of youtube.com videos on how to set up a blog… while our kids were snug in their beds!)

Before I begin- here are two things that you need to know.

1- WE DO NOT SPEND THIS MONEY (we have four kids and this money is in a separate account, at a separate bank and we will use it to pay off our mortgage and to pay for our children to go to college).

2- This income does NOT include Becky & Paula OR Essential Oils.
 Our Blogging On The Side book about how to have a successful blog, is doing amazingly well (yay!!), but we are not adding that to our income. I am also not including my Young Living Essential Oils just yet, even though I was very surprised and excited with the income that was earned in the first month (November). 

Here is the breakdown of most of my income:

(rounding here…)

Sponsored posts 20% of income
Affiliates: 20%:
Ebooks 30%
Ads: 40%
My e-books:  POTTY TRAIN IN A WEEKEND  and You can be a Stay at Home Mom on One Income.

I had a lot of outgoing expenses, too:  hosting ($150), editing ($250), having someone help me with technical issues ($90),  pic monkey, e-junkie, paying contributors for writing roundups, buying supplies for posts, etc…

TRAFFIC TALK: 

~Here are my top viewed posts (that bring in the most traffic): http://www.yourmodernfamily.com/top-viewed-posts-2014/

~This one does well, too, and has really picked up momentum, resulting in higher affiliate sales: http://www.yourmodernfamily.com/freebie-websites/

FOUR THINGS THAT HAVE WORKED WELL IN DECEMBER:

1-  Working on my Facebook Images.   I was always a Pinterest-image-only girl, but I have started to focus on my Facebook image.   A perfect square, not too fancy or detailed, very clear and to the point.   This is not the one for the Facebook link, but just the one that I share on my page (I share a link and then add my own square image to the link on Facebook).  I have been using dollar photo club for a lot of pictures.  ($1 per photo)

2.  I am updating my posts to include more related posts. “if you liked this post, I think you will like this one, as well” at the bottom of my posts.    I then include a linked image to another post.  I am keeping them in my blog by taking them from post to post to post.

3. I {finally} started my Newsletter!   Every Sunday at 5:00 am it goes out to my readers.  It is short, sweet and to the point.

4.  My new blog layout.  It is easier for the readers to see what is going on.  I really love it!

 

FOUR THINGS THAT I WANT TO DO BETTER NEXT MONTH:

1. Add a call to action button below each post.  I want to include a link to my newsletter at the bottom of each post.

2.  Work on bettering my brand new newsletter.   How do I want to write it?  What do I want the title to show?   Should I send it more often?

3. Trying to keep up the traffic from December.  December was a great month for traffic because of Christmas, but I am worried about how well January and February will go.

4. Promoting my FREED FROM CLUTTER book that has taken me over a year.  It is a combination of many posts and some added features and I just want to finish it already!  It was literally in the last hours before being released for months, so I can’t wait to just put it out there for the world to read!   I have it on my blog, but I haven’t set up my landing page, etc… yet.  This is on my to-do list!  (ps- affiliates will make 50% of $9.99, just like my other books!)

 

TWO PLUGINS I WOULD BE LOST WITHOUT…

1. My WordPress Editorial Calendar.  I love seeing my posts on a calendar!

2. Ultimate Nofollow.  This plugin has made sponsored posts SO much easier because I don’t need to know the code for NoFollow, I just check the little Nofollow box!  Easy!

I hope that you found that to be helpful!   Happy Blogging!

PS- you can read any of my income reports by clicking here.

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