It has been a heck of a month! Long story short, I now have more than 90 client sites for my advertising business and had a record month. Thank you all for supporting me just by tuning in!!!
I wanted to blog full time by 2012. To reach that goal, I thought I needed a bunch of traffic on all of my blogs. Specifically, I was aiming for 25,000 unique visitors a month at BFS by August 2011 and needed to be making $30,000 a year total by 2012.
Well, there was a change of plans. I literally got too busy with my online work to keep my day job, so I quit as of July 15th, 2011! Self-employment is rocking so far!
I figured the best way to keep my eye on the prize is to hit monthly targets, so I started posting here. Between that and the fact there seems to be major interest in the subject, I started an update around the 1st of every month of my blogging stats and income generated. I’ll also do a huge 1 year update at the beginning of every January.
Here were my goals for October 2011 followed by the results:
- Alexa Ranking: 31,000 / 32,123 (Oh well…)
- Visits: 13,500 / 17,681 (woot!)
- Unique Visitors: 10,000 / 13,671 (double woot!)
- Pageviews: 25,000 / 28,534 (yay!)
- RSS subscribers: 750 /732 (close enough, lol)
- Twitter followers: 850 /891 (woot again!)
- Traffic breakdown: 4500 from Referring Sites (6836), 2500 from Direct Traffic (2852), 5500 from Search Engines (7091), 1000 from Other (902)
- Blogging Income: $6000 / $18,713.19 (HELLS YEAH!!!)
Monthly Income Breakdown
- Advertising on My Blogs (70% from BFS): $6414.62
- Writing (Staff Writing and Freelance Posts): $510.00
- Blogging Services (Running advertising on other sites and freelance tasks): $11,788.57
I had $3218.66 in expenses as well since I had to pay $903.51 in Paypal fees, I did buy Richly Reasonable and Go Be Rich, and I had my basic expenses as well. If you’d like to see my exact blogging expenses breakdown, check out How I Make Money Blogging. I have been attempting to keep them at 15% or less of my overall income. That said, my net profit this month before taxes was $15,494.53.
Seeing that I hit my self-employment goal much earlier than expected, I am now making goals to get my traffic up and my income stabilized. I hit my traffic goals, but I will still be focusing on content since BFS keeps me sane. BUT SUPER, HOLY MOLY, COWABUNGA WOOT for more than $18,000!!!
In the meantime, I am paying myself $3575 a month (a third of that goes to taxes…), so I better darn well keep bringing in at least that. The extra money is divided up with 35% going to our mortgage, 25% going towards investments, 20% going to our vacation account, and 10% going to each of our fun money accounts. I’m going to try to increase that next month by a little when I get paid to take surveys online. Every little bit helps.
My goals for November:
- Alexa Ranking: 31,000
- Visits: 19,000
- Unique Visitors: 15,000
- Pageviews: 30,000
- RSS subscribers: 800
- Twitter followers: 1000
- Traffic breakdown: 7000 from Referring Sites, 3000 from Direct Traffic, 8000 from Search Engines, 1000 from Other
- Blogging Income: $10,000
Any questions, comments, or advice? As I mentioned, I go into more detail with my income and expenses on the 1st of the month at https://howimakemoneyblogging.com/, but feel free to ask anything you’d like at either site!!!
Wow! You have really built yourself up a business, haven’t you?!? Love it! It’s great to hear about people who have taken the initiative and made careers for themselves.
Oh my goodness. That really is incredible and inspiring. I agree with Glen, you have established a career for yourself that will not quickly go away, and will not even change with the whims of Google.
It’s great to see, and I wish you the best. Oh, and I hope to follow in your footsteps!
Congrats on the incredible progress. Keep rocking it!
That is awesome Crystal! You are kicking butt and taking names!
Have you considered breaking down your income goals like you break down the update for us? So $6000 blogging goal on this site alone, $10,000 for ad management….etc. That way you know where your focus needs to be if something starts slipping. Just a thought
Wow, Crystal. Just wow. What you have done is inspiring and amazing all at once.
I, for one, am glad you bought those two sites 🙂 I cannot wait to see what comes next!
I enjoy these updates, to see how your goal of self-employment has succeeded. Great stuff!
Congratulations, nice numbers!
Amazing! You’re an inspiration to us all!
Crystal you are killing it! That is awesome. Soon you’ll be up there with Pat Flynn. Good job.
Congrats crystal – maybe next fincon you can give a speech about how you went from a 36k/yr job to making that in 2 months blogging!
Well done Crystal. You have built an explosive business model. Looking forward to your next update.
Wow! I am speechless! Words such “great” or “fantastic” just don’t do it. Whatever is happening to your business is beyond any word can explain. 🙂 Very happy for you! You soooo deserved it.
Holy Toledo Batman! It’s interesting that your blogging services are such a huge chunk. Looks like you’ve stumbled on a new successful formula. Woot!
That’s awesome; congrats! Income diversification must make you feel so much more at-ease than a single source. Great stuff, great stuff – keep it up!
You’re pulling in Pro-Blogger stats right now!
Congratulations! Your story is truly inspiring. I would love to learn more about how you achieved these results. Going back through your posts to see if I can gather some more insight 🙂
Thank you all for the kind words of support!!!
@Michelle, that is a good idea. My current goal is to bring in at least $5000 a month from my own sites and $7500 or more a month from my client sites…
@Jana, I for one am glad I met you at FINCON. And thank you for being an excellent staff writer!
@Jeff, public speaking sounds stressful, lol.
@Aja, I emailed you. Thanks for the interest!
Woah.. Your numbers keep increasing. I am willing to bet they would double if you created and sold an e-book 🙂
Wow Crystal! Way to go! Quitting your job seems to have paid off big time. I sense another Pay Flynn like income streak coming…
Girl, you need to be presenting at the next conference!!
That is fantastic! Keep up the great work!
This is really fantastic!!! I love how you have created a new career for yourself. Keep up the great work!
Your progress is amazing. Hard work really pays off! I am going to have to read through your posts with a fine toothed comb, to see how you did this. You are a success story!
Congrats on the income! 18k is nothing to sneeze at!
Wow! That’s great news! 🙂
Congratulations!
Good thing you have endless energy! You are doing a fantastic job and you inspire so many.
Remember to take a break once in awhile. Or, maybe you do and it just doesn’t seem like you would be able to since you accomplish so much!
Congratulation! You are doing so well!
Good for you, Crystal!!! Well done. 🙂
Jesus, 4.4k of advertising just from BFS? That is really awesome news, Crystal.
You are a continuing inspiration to me. 🙂
I’ve missed a couple of months, but wow! It is so inspiring each time I read your updates. You’re doing amazing! 🙂
Further more such an inspirational blog to be. Been searching for an informative blog like this. Since you accomplish a relevant blog to be. Thanks!
Wow good thing you have endless energy!All i can say is your progress is so amazing.Congratulations to you 🙂
Actually it’s interesting blogging i really like the content .This is totally useful to us..So nice stuff..Thank you for sharing!!!
It’s great to hear about people who have taken the initiative and made careers for themselves. Thank you for sharing.
This is incredible! Well done. 🙂
wow, it’s crazy. How many? This is incredible!