In February I focused on the financial part of monetizing the blog. Turns out {you’re about to be shocked} nobody actually “makes money ‘blogging’” from home. The online incomes you see people reporting across your Pinterest feed “How I made 13K last month blogging” isn’t actually from their blog…. They are selling something on their blog that people then BUY which is where they make their money {duh} or they are blogging about someone else’s products and making a commission.

The blog itself doesn’t produce any income {unless you count the Adsense pennies} which is what I was working towards
improving. No sir… {light bulb}…

So, turns out, with that new epiphany in my pocket I approached February a LOT different than January {bloggers everywhere snicker because I’m so far behind the curve}

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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 babies {they’re not really babies anymore} 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:

Goal: $4,750
Monthly Goal $395 {Sales = $375, Blogging = $21}

February enters…

I was sent an amazing link from one of my blogging peers, Candis {great name!} who is also in one of my favorite Mommy Blogger Facebook groups: Blogs & Business: Moms who do it all.  She sent me in the direction of a “Sales Funnel” and applying “Customer Value Optimization” on my blog.

Wow! Right? You can learn so much more from her on her blog CandisLynn.com

So I spent a majority of February building my customer needs profile. I identified their BEFORE and AFTER as suggested in Step 1. Then I wrote an eBook, which pretty much took up my whole month.

I actually, instead of applying this new, eye-opening philosophy 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 I’m technically WAY better at that than being a parent. {only 2+ years and counting}

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 (brides & grooms) have an obvious need: wedding chaos prevention. I already offer the solution to my in-person clients. I just need to find a way to take that service and put it online for the world to benefit from.

I then developed several other versions of digital files that can be useful to couples who are anywhere in the world, not just working with Green-Eyed Girl Productions.

I spent lots of time this month reducing my logo presence on worksheets {but maintaining copyright} rewriting language and avoiding sentences like “call Kandice when you’re done” and other verbiage directed to the next step when working in-house with me, and then taking pretty pictures.

It took more hours than expected to do all of this, but at least I wasn’t starting from scratch. I already had a “product” I knew people already pay good money for, which I don’t really have over here on the Mom-Blog.

The sub-project of this was then dedicating time to improving my wedding blog and main wedding website {which took time away from this blog} as well as marketing it. I finished the eBook, promoted it once on Facebook and immediately sold 3 copies. But then nothing… a few sold worksheets here and there, but I can’t just keep updating my Facebook status to “buy my book!” every day…

So now I have to apply the Step 2 part of Optimization which is finding a good traffic source so that people find it on their own and it sells itself…. {happy March! You know what I’ll be doing!Although not really… Wedding Season officially started today so all of my attention will now be on my beautiful brides!}

Since I spent SO much time doing this, building the end of my funnel this month I truly did not focus at all on increasing followers. In fact, I’m pretty sure I barely posted anything at all on social media other than the wedding blog. {I actually even started a NEW Wedding Instagram account and updated my main wedding planning website}

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I DID actually dedicate some time to monetizing this Mom-Blog in February. I joined a few Affiliate Programs and added an entire Affiliates and Disclosure Page to my blog {which I read is a MUST, turns out, if you’re using affiliate links on your site!} I have already experienced great results from two in just a few days!

I joined others, which you can see on the blog’s page but these two were the easiest and most fruitful in a few days/weeks:

Ebates: This is ridiculously easy. You become an Affiliate, go through Ebates before you buy anything online and get cash
back.

Just for joining they sent me a $10 Target gift card! I spent it so I’m counting it as income… For February I earned $15.09 for basically doing nothing other than buying what I would have bought anyway!

Tailwind: Where have you been my whole life? This app helps you schedule your Pinterest Pins from your blog so that they post at the most optimal time and your followers will see them. No kidding, this saves so much time and guess work. Sign up, you’ll thank me! I don’t make any income off of the app, other than maybe referring you to use it, but it has increased my blog traffic from Pinterest ridiculously so. My husband even said, “I think your phone is having an episode…..it’s about to vibrate off of the table” oh, those are just my repin notifications! …Do it!

So though February may look bleak for income, many stones are about to tip over the hill, which I consider to be a good financial investment for time spent this month. Here is the break down per area I outlined in my original New Year’s post and how I did for February:

Tradesy: February Report: $61.88 This is where I sell my wedding supplies.

Etsy: The Vintage Event– February Report: $217.75 Goal surpassed! I did do a LOT of teamwork this month in the Fav-a-thons. I also sold my digital downloads here!

Etsy: Cotton N Kandi– February Report: $18.75 … No bunny hats in fact… more reindeer if you can believe it. I also sold some of my Crock Pot Recipe Label downloads!

Even though I spent a majority of this month not actually blogging, but consistently keeping up with Toddler School posts and then eBook writing, the Mom-Blog was still successful.

Page Views per Month in February: 15,934 {under 24,000 goal} I did zero blog promoting while recluse, funnel creating.

Adsense February: $6.48 {under 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:

Goal: I have increase to a score of 58 in February. Still an Expert on Public Speaking and Time Management.

Instagram Following: 500 or more- Jan 1 at 351

                February Report: I now have 667 followers! An increase of 100+ since January

This month I truly didn’t seek out new followers. I just gleaned down who I was following {cut down all those loop giveaway stores} and followed others who shared my interests. Most of them just followed me back! I now have a much tighter “tribe” of people who actually engage in my posts!

NEW! Wedding Instagram: I have a whole 70 followers in just a few days! I’m not sure I’ll actively build the followers here yet, but just let them come to me…

Facebook {Green-Eyed Girl}: Increase following to 600- Jan 1 at 485

                February Report: 514 Followers {+13} No effort put here this month

Facebook {A Cotton Kandi Life}: Increase following to 600- Jan 1 at 287

                February Report: 341 Followers {+21}

No effort put here this month- I did put a widget to my Facebook page in the side bar of my blog though! That’s active today!

Google+ {Blog Community}: Increase following to 100- Jan at 80

I shared a LOT more blog posts in these communities and joined a few Wedding Communities too!

Twitter: Increase to 200- Jan 1 at 182

I’m pretty sure this is shifting in followers…. Every day I would get emails saying “a new person is following you!” This person was usually a mom blogger. I would then go on Crowdfire and see tons of people un-following… likely the wedding people. I’ve had the Twitter account for 5 years, and it was used for my wedding business. Now that I’m tweeting more mom content the wedding folks won’t stick around I’m sure. However at least it seems to be an even exchange so far and I’m still ahead! I’d say I’ve probably gained 113 NEW people but lost 100 former people, so the +13 is actually just the difference from the shift.

Linked In: I STILL suck worse at this than even Twitter… No changes in February

Pinterest: February Report: 661 I am slowly recovering from the winter plummet. See what likely caused that in the January Report post. I have joined a few more group boards and the addition of the Tailwind App will hopefully improve this to some good numbers in March!

February = $324.17 awesome dollars made!

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:

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Original Goals: 2016 Making Mommy Money Online Goals

January Report $354.00- I Have No Idea What I’m Doing

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