August Income Report

This month has been super busy – I managed to go to Singapore for a week with Miss S, attend the Problogger Training Event on the Gold Coast, get all my money sites online with enough initial content, increase my PBN and become very inspired to grow this site. Oh and I nearly forgot the biggest news – we are moving to Asia to both work full time on earning a decent online income!

We leave December 31 on a flight that we already had to Malaysia. We are not sure where we will live yet, but thanks to a fabulous Air Asia sale last week, I already have some trips booked. I am especially looking forward to visiting Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

On the money front, things have not been as exciting. I am really hating reaching out to people to basically ask for money which is how it feels. I know I am providing a service, and obviously one that people want, but I hate marketing and sales. It is not my strong front. I still managed to do ok though.

Where’s Sharon?

Things have been progressing about the same. I am still not actively working on building this blog, just keeping up with social media, posting and looking for advertisers.

Traffic

Page Views: 22,980

A great increase here considering the little effort involved with google search and pinterest still being my big contributors.

Social Media

Klout and numbers are holding steady. I basically add a new pin to pinterest with every post (custom made for pinterest), then repin some stuff. On Twitter, I schedule all my posts in 3 week lots and then go in twice a day to reply to everyone who tweets me.  Facebook, I post most days. I try not to think about Facebook too much anymore as the reach just annoys me. I am just not finding a good ROI.

I have a blogging friend at Chasing the Donkey who was telling me just yesterday the great success she is having with facebook advertising so I am tempted to give it a go. She is gaining good likes for 2 cents each of people who are then engaging with her posts and helping to up all her Facebook metrics. It is definitely tempting. I am trying to convince her to write a guest post for us.

Sponsored Travel

I am having great success here. I secured great sponsorship for Singapore and I have just signed a contract with a great brand to do some work over the next 5 months. That is quite a few trips sorted for me.

I am feeling more positive about sponsored travel since my Singapore trip. A longer stay with just one accommodation provider and one attractions provider worked far better for me and was a great balance.

Income

This month I made $200 through a sponsored review, $520 from advertising on my site and $60 from sharing a post across my social media.

Digital Nomad Wannabe

Nothing much happened on this site in August – that is going to change for September. I updated my progress on my niche sites.

Traffic

Page Views: 1512

I have not shared this before as the number is embarrassingly low! It was only about 500 in July though and I am only 36 hours into September as I write this and I already have about 500 for this month! So I think it is time to start publicly tracking this.

Affiliate Sites

All three of my affiliate sites are now online with initial content. I have started link building although not too aggressively. My PBN has increased to over 20 sites, thanks to adding The HOTH package. I also bought a package from Jon Haver’s done for you PBN, so I am looking forward to getting those this month. My main writer has been sick which hasn’t helped my productivity here, so I have started working with another writer as well again.

Updated later: Please note, I do not recommend these services for link building

At the end of August, I applied for the NoHat SEO internships and got in, so I will be doing this starting at the end of September. This is basically a training program where I work building niche sites for them for 5 weeks and in return, they teach me everything I need to know. I am very excited about this.

Gambling Product

A better month here and J made about $400. They still reinvesting half their profits – which is much higher than this as J only has a small share.

Earnings Total: $1180 + 1 weeks travel

Up $10 from July.

Plans for the next month

I am working hard on this site. I have just changed the theme and have so much content I want to write. I would love to get at least a post a week out a month. I have also just made my first web video, so I working on getting that out as a regular thing too. I am very inspired after the Problogger event!

For Where’s Sharon, I was going to take a break, but I think I will leave it until October as I will have a lot on my plate then with the internship. I would love to finish posting my USA posts as they are quite popular, and I am working on a series of posts about our move to Asia. We are also going away for a sponsored weekend later this month.

In the next month, I want to feel more on top of my affiliate sites. I am working on documentation and checklists to how to build my PBN to give these to J so he can take over that side of things (hmmm that could make a good post!). I have some expired domains I haven’t had time to build yet as well.  I want to keep writing some content, about a post a week over the three sites, and keep link building.

Check out my next income update for September! Find more posts on blogging and income reports here.