Mommy Money

Blogging Income Report for April | 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.Do you know what is very liberating? Deleting pictures you’ve had stored in your “To Be Blogged Folder” for over a year. Yes, I finally did it. I deleted pictures that I painstakingly styled, took and edited because I realized that if I hadn’t yet blogged about them, I likely never will, but more importantly, shouldn’t.

In the beginning of March, I had this great conversation in one of my favorite Mom Blogging Groups, Blog & Business: Moms Who Do It All with a Blogging pro Horling Wong. She shared with me some great advice, including THIS article about procrastinating, and why I’m likely not writing those posts. She has a lot of valuable insight worth reading about your “Golden Thread” and finding “YOUR Winning Formula” which you should definitely check out!

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.

I write 2 blogs, this mom blog {You’re here! Thanks!} and another blog for my career as a Wedding & Event Coordinator, which you can find HERE. This report is a combination of the two blogs.


 Please join me by subscribing below as this Newbie Blogger fumbles her way through each Ah-Ha moment and forehead slap…perhaps I’ll save you a month or two on your own blog! 
 

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}

April enters…

Narrowing My Niche

The next step in my blog adventure, when considering how to grow it was applied to what the blogging world calls your “niche” which I can basically define as what you’re best at. When I looked at my blog from across the room…. There is no noticeable niche. The same thing applies to my other blog Green-Eyed Girl Productions {I’m a Event Coordinator for my own company by daylight and Mom Blogger by moonlight}

In fact, I realized it is a bit all over the place. And here’s why…

As a beginning {and naïve} blogger, I would jump on Pinterest and see all these great things that I would want to pin because they helped me. The natural instinct is to then think that I should be producing that content and pinning it too… because hey, it’s working for them!

Boy was I wrong… and you might discover this about your own blog too… prepare for a mind blow.

As it stood, my very broad niche could have been classified as “Momlife” which is very vague, and really solved no problems for subscribers. {light bulb} I know what you’re thinking, “What does she mean to solve a problem?”

Here’s how I now see it:

As a follower of my blog, you really had NO idea what to expect from me… one week it could be a recipe, a DIY, a Toddler School lesson and then all the sudden an organizing strategy. Which maybe you like the sound of that, but here’s the problem…

If you want subscribers to stay, and show up, you need consistency. If someone signed up thinking they were going to get recipes and then have a newsletter with a kid craft in it, they’re going to leave.

So how did I narrow my niche?

I thought of my blog going into a job interview {which you actually are every time you’re up in front of a potential subscriber}

Remember that age-old question, “What are your strengths?” Yes, that one. How would you answer it?

More importantly, I know what I wouldn’t say in the interview:

  • NOT Cooking- I use my crock pot as means to a quick efficient system, not a fancy dinner.
  • NOT Baking- Cookies are the extent of my oven usage post children.
  • NOT Fitness- I work out by dragging my kids around the floor on a beach towel.
  • NOT Home Improvements- Definitely no contractors or even DIY Weekend Warriors over here.
  • NOT Home Interiors- Sure I can put things on a shelf nicely.
  • NOT Beauty- I’ve used the same 3 products since high school.
  • NOT DIY- Okay, so it turns out that even though I craft, A LOT I never actually blog about it…

I write these things above because I HAVE actually written blog posts about them ALL. And do you know what? They have the least amount of traffic. {big shock} But I took the time to write them, which gave me very little payout in return. I wrote them and posted them thinking I could sell the ideas of me being an authority or even a role model on these subjects, and here’s the kicker… I did it because these are the sort of posts I was seeing on Pinterest, that I liked.

Here’s the mind blow… are you ready?

 
What YOU pin is what YOU need, not your SUBSCRIBERS.
Blog about what you can GIVE.
*
*
*
***BOOM!***
Right?

Yes, so I’m over here slapping my own forehead for all the time I spent creating the perfect cookie recipe presentation post, when there are millions of cookie CHEFS out there doing it every day, with trained skills in cookie baking that I’m trying to compete with for pins… when in all reality, I don’t even care about cookies, nor did I ENJOY standing in the kitchen while making them. I was likely pacing wondering why I hadn’t yet organized my kitchen drawers….


So if you see a pin in your feed that sparks your interest, it doesn’t mean you need to create a post and pin about it too…

Here is what you SHOULD blog about…

So back to the above question, “What are your strengths?” What can I GIVE my readers? What do they NEED and expect from me?

Well…
  • I’m good at taking big overwhelming things and breaking them down into manageable pieces.
  • I’m good at creating systems throughout my house that promote efficiency and ease of use.
  • I’m good at managing my toddlers’ behavior {probably because I have a Master’s Degree in Behavior Management, which I definitely wasn’t resourcing for those cookie posts |face slap|}
  • I’m good at organizing clutter and giving everything a place.
  • I’m good at finding ways to trick myself into being productive when all I really want to do is sleep.
  • I’m good at teaching my children and inspiring their learning {also probably because of my education IN education, also not being used for cookie recipes}
  • I’m good at gathering lots of little incomes to accumulate a handsome monthly income from my couch.
  • I’m good at being thrifty, reusing to save money and being clever when it comes to an affordable solution.
…the list goes on…

However, not many of these topics are actually covered thoroughly in my blog. The few articles that DO cover these topics, are my VIRAL pins… seriously? Why did it take me this long to see that?

Clearly, these topics that I am good at are what my subscribers want to read from me. If you are subscribing to my blog it is because you want me to GIVE you strategies from my list of strengths so you can improve on weaknesses or solve your problems.

Looking at my top 5 subscribers {who open every email} they are moms, whom I know to need THESE problems solved. They’re so busy trying to raise their own Hooligans they don’t want a damn cookie recipe. They need help saving time and making money from home! NOW!

It is these moms hosting the interview for a personal assistant in their inbox once a week.

I have 4 opportunities a month to do my job I was hired for by each subscriber.


If you hired a toddler tutor, and she instead gave you a cookie recipe, you’d fire her… plain and simple.

So the changes I made in April include:

  1. Writing a post about easy Ways Moms can make Money from their Couch– guess what? This post climbed quickly into my top 10 all time read posts… from over 3 years of posts… I guess that’s what my people want to read!
  2. I wrote a detailed post on a Toddler School Composting unit, which not only caught the eye of many parents, but also the book publisher and an education company impressed by my methods for toddler education. {Collaborations to come}
  3. And in the last 2 weeks of April my page views were higher than my whole month of February!
  4. I updated my Subscriber Sign Up Form to include my 3 determined niches so that subscribers can select what they want to read about when I send them a newsletter. {See Below}

Bottom Line: I went through and deleted all of my food pictures. Not only that, but I can now enjoy my meals a lot more and not try to take pictures with my cell phone for every step of making it, and making it look pretty on a plate. Other bloggers do that better. Now I can just eat.


Here are April’s results:

Sales Goals

Tradesy: April Report: $605.78 This is where I sell my wedding supplies. Join and start selling your stuff too! Here’s a $20 credit just for you!
 
Etsy: The Vintage Event– April Report: $164.48 Goal surpassed! I sell my vintage and digital downloads here.
 
Etsy: Cotton N Kandi– April Report: $26.00 … This is the Brand for the Mom Blog where I sell my homeschool ideas, downloads, and crochet. It’s hard to sell hats when the sun comes out… I imagine the sales will drop even more in the warmer months…
Fiverr: April Report: $4.00 This sales platform joins the team this month! I uploaded some of my digital download files here and sold one! Woo HOO! Sign up and you’ll get a FREE GIG!
Online Sales Earnings 2016 Goal: $4,500
= $375 per month needed
April = $800.26
That means a LOT over the monthly Sale Goals

Blogging Goals

A Cotton Kandi Life: Traffic & Income Report

Adsense April: $5.65 {under goal}
 
Affiliate Earnings…
Amazon: $24.23- totally an increase thanks to niche marketing!
Ebates: $0.14- I didn’t buy very much this month as compared to last month. But it’s free money when you shop so you might as well sign up too! Join Ebates today… Here’s $10 for joining!
Activate {formerly Bloglovin}: $0.40- I finally have enough clout to be paid for tweets!
Blog Earnings 2016 Goal: $200 – $250
=$16.66 – $20.83 per month
April = $30.42
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.


My current Klout Stats:

Klout Score 77 or higher- Currently at 58
Instagram Following: 500 or more by 12/31/16- Jan 1, 2016 I was at 351
                April Report: I now have 920 followers!
Green-Eyed Girl’s Wedding Instagram: I have 135 followers!
Facebook {Green-Eyed Girl}: Increase following to 600- Jan 1 at 485
                April Report: 535 Followers {+21}
Facebook {A Cotton Kandi Life}: Increase following to 600- Jan 1 at 287
                April Report: 394 Followers {+29}
Google+ {Blog Community}: Increase following to 100- Jan at 80
April Report: 106 Followers {+2}
Twitter: Increase to 200- Jan 1 at 182
April Report: 397 Followers {+79} {I niched this much better this month too!}
Pinterest: April Report: 709 {+17} I have joined a few more group boards and the addition of the Tailwind App has improved things tremendously!

 In Closing

April = $830.68
{$455.68 OVER my $375 monthly goal}
To date I’ve made
Jan = $354
Feb = $324.17
March = $716.48
April = $830.68
= $2,225.33 in the first 4 Months of 2016
That averages my monthly income to $556.33 which beats my monthly goal of $375 game plan to reach my yearly goal.
As of today I’m nearly halfway to my yearly goal with 8 months left!

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

March Report $716.48- Monetizing Myself


 

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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