Mommy Money

Blogging Income Report for March | Making Mommy Money Online


Blogging Income Report for A Cotton Kandi Life. Blogging Incomes. How to make Money Online. Mom Blogger Incomes WAHM Income Report. How to make money Blogging. Blogging Money Reports.It happened at 10am on a Tuesday morning. The boys were stirring in their bedroom about to burst awake and start my day of mom-ing. Yet, sitting at my computer the most epic battle of

“What are you waiting for?” and ‘What the hell are you thinking?!”

…raged on in my head.

At the most inconvenient time in my day I clicked it…. “BUY DOMAIN” and then walked away…

 The question, “What are you waiting for” won.

 

If you’re just joining in on this monthly income report series, my goal for 2016 is to expand this blog into a financial contributor so that I can stay home more and learn with my Hooligans.

To get the full rundown on my 2016 Game Plan visit my original Mommy Money on the Internet Post HERE.

The punch line for the year is to:

Build the Internet into a bigger financial contributor
Year Goal: $4,750
{2015 = $1,923.80}

I have been researching, asking fellow bloggers their experiences and calculating the pros and cons of switching from my free .blogspot.com address for awhile {on both blogs} It terrified me. What if my blogs disappeared in the transition?

But my biggest fear of switching was losing all of my Pinterest Traffic. My blogs basically survive on Pinterest. I had once toyed with switching the url for the blogspot.com and the viral Pins then said “link is broken” so that destroyed my hopes and dreams at the time….

This blog, which is 5 years old and was built on the initial premise of being my crochet/craft blog, had the url of cottonnkandi.blogspot.com, but if you’ve been here the last few years you know it is named, A Cotton Kandi Life, after much evolving.

I decided, ultimately that if I wanted to be serious on the internet about monetizing and perhaps even approaching brands, being published on other blogs, etc.

  1. My blog url and title needed to match
  2. A .com would likely be perceived as more professional

I did the domain buying on the Wedding Blog first, which is MUCH smaller than this mom blog. When I came back to the computer at naptime I inspected the damage of my 10am leap over the cliff…


3 things that immediately happened when I bought a domain name

{through blogger}
  1. All of my Pinterest Pins automatically redirected {game changer}
  2. All of my Google Comments on posts disappeared {not very many anyway, but some great conversations now gone on big posts}
  3. All of my Adsense Ads crashed

If I wasn’t going to lose Pinterest in the transition then there was absolutely nothing holding me back.

The comments will grow on their own so long as people can still find the post on Pinterest and the Adsense Ads… well, since they were only giving me pennies a day anyway… I decided I’d make my March Monetizing Madness Goal about the side bar where they used to be!


March enters…

Monetizing Myself

With all of this wide open real-estate in my sidebar I had the epiphany…

So all this time, I had be putting ads up and down my sidebar for someone ELSE and was making pennies. {barely} I was helping to sell someone else’s stuff and making pennies on commissions….

I filled in a few spaces with Amazon Ads instead {since the Adsense crashed} because I at least make MORE of a commission on an Amazon sale.

But then it hit me…. I HAVE stuff to sell! {all bloggers snicker once again at me being so behind the blogger curve}

I can make cute little sidebar ads for MYSELF!

New Plan:

  1. Create blog posts as anchor pages for all the stuff I’m selling and link all of my individual sales posts to it so it is easy for shoppers to find and then filter to all of my sale listings. 
  2. Monetize those posts with links to my OWN dang products!
  3. Make memes and ads in the side bar that links to the main shopping posts for my OWN stuff.

Again I actually, instead of applying plan to my Mom-Blog {you are here} I took this to my Wedding Coordinating Blog. I’ve been planning weddings and events professionally for 7 years, so most of the “stuff” I have to sell is wedding related. My company is Green-Eyed Girl Productions here in the tangible land of Oregon. {for those of you who only know me online}

My clients over there are planning weddings and need to buy a lot of stuff. I even wrote my Digital Download, Wedding Planning Jump Start Package last month for that blog as part of my Sales Funnel Game Plan. You can read all about that in the February Report. I say it again here in March because one of the ads I made for it is added to my sidebar.


In March, Retails Sales are TRIPLE those in February!


SO instead of sending people waywardly around the internet, wherever Adsense think they should shop, I used my sidebar to send them BACK to ME!

Retail Sales Improvements

I went back through older posts that were for my retail items and added in product links and better pictures {this took ALL month, pictures and digging things out of boxes takes forever}

I used the app Toastie Studio for Etsy to create treasuries of my OWN shop items and added that treasury to the bottom of my themed shopping posts. I had links before, but adding the new pictures with the app makes it much easier to sell the image. Here is an example over on the Wedding blog.

I also used the Blogger widget feature “FEATURED POST” to add links and the image for my digital product posts to the side bars. This way, not matter where people are hopping onto my blog from Pinterest, they’re going to see MY ad in the sidebar, even after the X out of the pop-up!


Did I mention my retail sales tripled this month?


Self Promotions

I finally invested a little bit in the blog…. I upgraded my Mail Chimp Account for the newsletter so that it could optimize my delivery time, increasing email opens and readership. But mainly, I upgraded to access the Automation feature, which I’ll be focusing on over the summer. I hope to launch a big plan in the fall…

 I transferred my Pinterest Account to a business account {which was much easier than I thought it would be!} I verified my website and immediately saw more repin activity. I’m not sure if that is the direct result of becoming a business account or a combination effect of increasing my Tailwind productivity.

I upgraded my Tailwind Account for Pinterest pinning. I can schedule 50+ pins per week to pin at optimum times onto multiple boards, with ONE click. My traffic report now shows pins from YEARS ago being repinned! I can see more stats and which pins are the most popular. If you are looking for some Pinterest pinning help, try Tailwind.


Sales Goals

Tradesy: March Report: $476.29 This is where I sell my wedding supplies. This is also the retail I made the biggest sidebar ad for on the wedding blog! 7x more income than February! Do you have designer clothing or even wedding items to sell? Sign up for a Tradesy store!

 
Etsy: The Vintage Event– March Report: $133.18 Goal surpassed! I did do a LOT of team work this month in the Fav-a-thons. I also sold me digital downloads here!
 
Etsy: Cotton N Kandi– March Report: $64.50 … This is the Brand for the Mom Blog where I sell my home school ideas, downloads and crochet. The big sellers this month were the sensory bin Rainbow Rice packs!
Online Sales Earnings 2016 Goal: $4,500
= $375 per month needed
March = $673.97
That means $298.97 OVER monthly Sale Goals
{It also rounds out the last 2 months that were under to make me on track for the year goal!}

Blogging Goals

The blogs themselves do earn an income through the Affiliate links I use throughout them. Amazon was much better this month! I just joined in February and spent time going through old posts to ad Amazon Links.

 I also used Ebates for all of my online buying. Now here is a caveat to remember while looking at my stats for Ebates… The whole point is that they give you cash back “rebates” for what you buy. Meaning, you only make money when YOU spend money. I only “made” a lot through Ebates because I spent a lot this month. March is the month I do a lot of buying for my Wedding Team on the other blog, including my crew’s uniforms {Toms shoes, etc} However, this year I bought everything that I was ALREADY planning to buy through Ebates first which I hadn’t ever done before. So the Ebates “income” looks high because I spent a lot this month! But, its money I wouldn’t have had back if not for using Ebates!

Did you know that you can even get 1% back from Etsy? Yep, if you’re not already an Ebates member, Sign Up now!

 A Cotton Kandi Life: Traffic & Income Report

Page Views per Month in March: 15,283 {under 24,000 goal} Page views took a plunge after buying the domain, but now I see “traffic source” from Google, which has never been there before! So Pinterest is now not my only source! I hope for bigger numbers in April.

Adsense March: $5.34 {under goal} after a few days I was able to verify the domain and reintroduce the Adsense ad to my side bar. I did this {even though you don’t make much} so that I wouldn’t lose the $40+ I’ve got banked in there. With the $100 payment thresh holds I can’t just cut out the Adsense all together, I have to reach the $100, even if it takes the rest of the year! Then, when I get that payout I’ll probably remove them to make room for more profitable advertising.

Affiliate Earnings…

Amazon: $12.63
Educents: $0
Ebates: $24.54
Blog Earnings 2016 Goal: $200 – $250
=$16.66 – $20.83 per month
March = $42.51
{double my goal!}

As stated in my original post I believe in order to accomplish a larger blog income I must continually work at increasing my Internet presence and “impact” which is calculated by the Klout App. Klout measures your internet REACH and how many people you’re influencing. Here are my current Klout Stats:


KloutScore 77 or higher- Currently at 54

Goal: I have dropped to a score of 55 in March, likely because I didn’t post anything… I haven’t posted on Instagram for over a week! {Nobody noticed} I’m still an Expert on Public Speaking and Time Management, but NOW I’m also considered an Expert in PEPSI and SCRUBS!!! It’s true! Go LOOK!

Klout probably thinks this because of the Wedding Blog. My uniforms on wedding days are actually nurse scrubs because they are flexible and still look professional, and I obviously depend on Pepsi for survival… so, there’s that…

Instagram Following: 500 or more by 12/31/16- Jan 1, 2016 I was at 351
                March Report: I now have 805 followers!
NEW! Wedding Instagram: I have 100 followers! Just in time for the Wedding Season to start!
Facebook {Green-Eyed Girl}: Increase following to 600- Jan 1 at 485
                March Report: 514 Followers {+0}
No effort put here this month
Facebook {A Cotton Kandi Life}: Increase following to 600- Jan 1 at 287
                March Report: 365 Followers {+24}
No effort put here this month- other than the widget I added at the beginning of the month. However I notice it doesn’t load very often :/
Google+ {Blog Community}: Increase following to 100- Jan at 80
March Report: 104 Followers {+4}
Twitter: Increase to 200- Jan 1 at 182
March Report: 318 Followers {+46}
Linked In: I’ve let this go for now so I can focus elsewhere
Pinterest: March Report: 692 {+31} I have joined a few more group boards and the addition of the Tailwind App has improved things tremendously!

In Closing

March= $716.48
{$341.48 OVER my $375 monthly goal}
This also means that I’ve averaged out and caught back up for my yearly goal.
To date I’ve made
Jan = $354
Feb = $324.17
March = $716.48
= $1394.65 in the first 3 Months of 2016
That averages my monthly goal to $464.88 which beats my monthly goal of $375 game plan to reach my yearly goal. So let’s hope the trend continues! As of today I’m on track to reach my yearly goal!

I’ll be posting a monthly progress report so do check back in! To catch up on my progress or follow along from start to finish here are the links:
Original Goals: 2016 Making Mommy Money Online Goals
January Report $354.00- I Have No Idea What I’m Doing
February Report $324.17- The Funnel and Affiliates

Related Posts: 
4 Ways EVERY Mom can make money from her Couch


Like what you read?

Hi There! I’m Kandice
Wife, WAHM and mother to 2 Hooligan boys, sharing my Sweet & Sticky Story of Motherhood.
Life changes after 2 Toddlers {obviously} so now I’m sharing how I turn those every day #MomProblems into a Story of #MomWinning by building new Small Systems, Organizing Mom Routines and Making Mommy Money Online by Blogging.





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