Hey and welcome to my September blog income report.
It was an exciting month, mostly because I was really focused on work, am taking amazing courses on the aspects of blogging and business I wanna master, and am having fun with everything.
I redesigned my blog, narrowed down my ideal audience, got back on IG, and improved my branding (story, messaging, values, visuals, testimonials, etc.). I had the chance to be part of 3 bundles and partner with many other course creators (contributing to 2 of them with 2 of my new products, and being an affiliate to the other one). I re-wrote my welcome email series, updated my courses, released a whole new product, and learned many new strategies that I’ll implement over the next months.
I also did some serious goal setting and visualizing and am excited for what’s to come.
Read on to see what happened in September 2020 on Let’s Reach Success and in my business.
If you haven’t started a blog yet, make sure you check out my free blogging guide.
September Blog Income Report
I earned a total of $5,808 in September 2020 from my blogging business.
Please keep in mind that’s gross income. A lot of it goes for fees I pay to other platforms, transaction fees, paying my own taxes (close to 30% of my income), insurance and pension. You can see all income reports here.
Proof of Income
Here are some screenshots showing some of the revenue:
- Ad revenue from Mediavine
- Course sales
- Affiliate income from Teachable
Earnings from each income stream:
Sponsorships
Sponsored content – $3,863
*My income from sponsored content is earned through online marketplaces for bloggers and advertisers (2 examples include ValuedVoice and SeedingUp) as well as networking with brands via email.
Display Advertising
Mediavine – $836
Affiliate Marketing
Total Affiliate Income: $710
Products
Books – $72
Courses – $327
Financial Freedom Through Blogging
$1K Blogger
Blog Printables
Total Sales: $399
TOTAL (Gross Income): $5,808
Blogging Expenses
- Premium WordPress Theme (ChicBoss by Bluchic) – $116
- Mobile Plan – €27
- Health Insurance – €118,50
- Transaction fees – $193
- WPX Hosting – $0 (paid yearly)
- Teachable – $0 (paid yearly)
- ConvertKit – $0 (paid yearly)
- ProveSource – $0 (paid yearly)
- Accountant – €0 (paid quarterly)
Blog Traffic
Pageviews: 65,489
Sessions: 54,760
Users: 47,265
Email Subscribers Update
New Subscribers: 364
Cancellations: 106
Net new subscribers: 258
The report you see is from ConvertKit – the email marketing tool I use and recommend.
Blog Updates
New Theme + Blog Redesign
In the beginning of the month I felt inspired to re-design the blog. That hasn’t happened in a year, but I knew I wanted something different.
What made me take action is that I found the perfect theme. It’s from Bluchic again, but this time they released a new product made specially for service-based businesses and bloggers selling digital products. It’s called Chic Boss and I love every element of it.
I spent a few hours that same evening I got it to add my brand colors and to design the 3 most important pages. That’s the homepage, About me and Work With Me.
The theme requires Elementor and provides beautiful templates so that took me some time till I did everything the way I wanted. The previous theme I had was definitely simpler.
I love that this one focuses on branding, testimonials, services and digital products.
It was the ideal time for my blog to have a new look as courses are the main part of my business now, I target women who want to have a profitable blogging biz (and the theme is feminine), am collecting testimonials, and have new lifestyle and work pics that I wanted to add.
This seriously is the best theme I’ve seen and it’s exactly what I needed (I just didn’t know that before I saw it). There are still some tweaks to be made and features I wanna explore, but that can happen over the next few months too.
$1K Blogger
My new course $1K Blogger is finally completed. The feedback so far is great and aspiring and new bloggers are enjoying the content, which covers anything from choosing your niche and blog name and starting and designing a WordPress blog, to creating and optimizing content, building an email list, and monetizing in 3 different ways (ads, affiliate marketing and having digital products).
It really covers all a new blogger needs. It’s also great that now I have a smaller and cheaper version of my premium blogging course Financial Freedom Through Blogging.
The Blog Income Toolkit
I didn’t share anything about this product in advance but I had it planned and outlined for some time now, and it’s a great addition to the other freebies and products I offer.
The Blog Income Toolkit is the first paid toolkit type of product I release. Inside, you’ll find the Blog Income Book (a 45+ page ebook with income reports and monetization tips so you see exactly what happens over the course of a year inside a 5-figure blogging business). Also, there are proven templates to use for list building and working with brands.
Its goal is to be:
- super tactical
- easy to consume (you download ready made templates and use them for your blogging biz)
- give quick wins (you will immediately have an email series, lead magnets to offer to your subscribers, a media kit and brand email pitch, etc).
You can learn more about the Blog Income Toolkit here.
Themed Days
Something I began doing a few weeks ago is theming my week. While I keep using to-do lists, I also gave the calendar a chance again and started outlining my days and weeks. It helps to see the big picture but also the day-to-day tasks, plus Google calendar has plenty of nice features to enjoy for maximum results.
It worked better than I expected and I immediately started getting more done on a daily basis. To theme your week basically means to give each day (or just the work days, of course) a theme and stick to it.
In a big company, that could mean Monday is for meetings, Tuesday is for a certain project, Wednesday is for Marketing, and so on. In a small online business like mine, though, it looks much easier and can be personalized based on many factors.
So before you have themed days, you first need to define the different things you work on during the week and categorize them. Then each day of the work week will be for 1 aspect of your business and you’ll do everything related to it, while leaving the rest for other days.
Here’s how my week looks like:
I start the week with Mindset Monday. I journal, take courses and learn, set goals, make a plan, do research, outline my next steps and what I want to achieve in the next few months as well as what will help me get there.
I can also focus on interviews that day, branding, tracking some blog metrics, preparing an income report, planning social media posts, etc. That’s usually the day I publish a post as the day after I share it with my email list.
There’s a lot of freedom in this schedule and that helps my brain focus, overcome roadblocks and come up with new ways to do things, create a vision and see the next steps. It’s a really powerful way to start the week.
Then, Tuesday is for email marketing. That’s the day I email my subscribers so I have things to share with them and make sure the email is engaging.
I’d also update email series, create a new freebie or update an old one if that’s on my list, analyze newsletter stats and see what I can change.
If I’m taking an email marketing course in that period, this is the day to complete a few more lessons or take action on what I’ve learned from previous modules.
Wednesday is for the digital courses aspect of my business, which includes:
- Creating content for a new program or updating a current one
- Improving sales pages
- Being in contact with students, getting testimonials and feedback
- If I’m taking a course on the topic, this is the day to learn more from it
- Planning a launch
- Creating pre-launch content
- Promoting a product
- Working on my sales funnel
- Designing graphics for products
And more.
Thursday would then be for Branding (the 3rd element I’m focusing on these months aside from Email Marketing and Digital Courses).
So, on that day I’d tweak blog design, plan for and share on social media, take a branding course, narrow down my niche, work on my brand voice and mission, re-define my why and who my ideal reader and student is, and create visuals.
Once these 4 types of days are done for the week, I know I’ve done a lot so the next ones can be adjusted as I see fit and depending on what else is going on these days.
Friday might be email marketing again, Saturday can be about courses and sales. And Sunday can be without any work so I can do other things and prepare for the new week.
That’s how an ideal work week in my life looks like.
My Plan for Next Month
Q4 begins and I’m ready for it! Here’s what I’ve planned for October and the rest of the year:
- I’m closing the doors for new students of my signature course Financial Freedom Through Blogging at the end of the month. I’ll send emails to my audience so they know they have a last chance to grab it while it’s still at that price.
- From then on, I’ll invest the next 3 months to update it, add new bonuses, create a course workbook, update the sales page and my brand voice so it targets only my ideal readers, get in touch with current students, and prepare for a launch in January. That will take a massive amount of work and organization and I’m excited for this challenge.
- The first part of October will be invested in planning the launch, and actually closing the doors and emailing my list about it a couple of times.
- I’m also constantly taking courses on email marketing, running a digital course business and branding + listening to podcasts on a daily basis so my to-do list is full of things I want to work on and I have so many ideas on what to do next so I can best serve my audience.
- In November and December, I’ll create free content targeting my ideal readers (ambitious women that want to create a profitable blogging biz), grow my email list and keep updating Financial Freedom Through Blogging.
- Then, in January, I’ll be releasing the pre-launch content and start with the promo and special bonuses at the end of the month. In the beginning of February, when all the new students have enrolled, I’ll close the doors again and have the chance to work with them closely and follow their progress.
So that’s it for last month’s blog income report. Have you planned what you want to achieve with your side hustle in Q4? If not, now is the last chance.