Going into the month of August is generally a great time for back-to-school type posts. If you are lucky enough to be in a niche that serves this target audience, you should see a nice little climb in your August income report.
But August doesn’t mean that you or I can’t create some amazing, traffic-producing, posts. It is also great for end-of-summer type material. And most of us can take advantage of that.
End-of summer crafts. End-of-summer getaways. Clothes that transition from summer to fall. Etc. If you think about it, there is likely something that you can put together for your own niche.
I started producing posts directed towards August viewers last year. And even though I still dropped slightly from my summer traffic (when my main site is the most popular), I did see them nearly hold steady.
- This month’s pageviews – 104104
- Last years’ pageviews – 48450
- Gain/Loss – 115% increase
Pageviews were just slightly (around 4k) lower than July’s pageviews. But, the year-over-year numbers show an almost 115 percent increase!
If you have looked through all of my income reports, you know that I run more of a marathon instead of a sprint.
What I mean by that is that I don’t focus on month-over-month increases. I have been around long enough to know that I have natural dips that occur each year.
There is also a natural ebb and flow to the income, depending on the month. It also depends a lot on what advertisers find work best on my niche during a given period.
Therefore, I don’t take it hard if August falls below July. Yeah, I expect that. I also expect that I will continue to see a natural decline next month. Again, based on my niche and what people are looking for during that month.
But, I also do not just lay down and accept the drops. I have been strategically planning how I am going to address this yearly issue.
But first, let’s go over the rest of my traffic and income report for the month of August.
- End of this month – 13,465
- End of last month– 12871
- Total Gain/Loss – 594
Email subscribers are still trucking along at around the 500 mark. I am doing a regular scrubbing of my email list each month to eliminate the dead weight.
Which by the way, you should be doing, too. You don’t want your email list to fill up with people who never open a newsletter.
You want actively engaged subscribers. The number isn’t worth anything unless it is producing results.
August Income Report
This month, I basically stayed steady with earnings over last month. I saw just a tiny drop, but with a slight drop in pageviews, it was expected.
- Total Monthly Earnings: $ 2533.75
- Amazon…$387.71
- Advertising…$2100.27
- Other Affiliate Marketing…$18.46
- Total Expenses: $356.57
- Hosting …$103
- Email Services …$194.62
- CDN…$9
- Subscriptions… $40.95
- MiloTree…$9
Total Profit:$2177.18
Short Term Goals
So, as I mentioned before, I have been strategically looking into what I can do to improve my numbers. For the next upcoming months, I am expecting my pageviews to see a steady decline.
September will decline slightly from this month. Although I hope not by much. And October will be my lowest point of the year. Right up there with the month of May.
That is because I don’t have much material available for Halloween, which is what everyone will be focused on during that time.
I talked about this problem back during May’s income report because I also don’t produce much in the way of Mother’s Day material.
My plan has been to hit these holiday seasons hard with lots of content targeting those topics, but Halloween will not happen this year.
I am already obligated to participate in The One Room Challenge (a media partner for Better Homes and Gardens). So, I imagine I will be swamped with plenty of work as it is.
That leads me to my plan. Since I can’t focus on traffic, I can focus instead on income growth.
Income Growth Goals:
Naturally, ad income relies heavily on traffic. So, if traffic drops, the income from that source will drop, as well.
That leads me to my affiliate income. While I can’t do much about ad income without doing something to change traffic counts, I certainly can focus on increasing my affiliate income.
Amazon looks very promising to me. I haven’t dedicated much time to driving sales for this one category. But, I know there is a lot more that I can do to see an increase in income for this area.
The idea is to write posts on topics where I can showcase a particular item (or two). Since I only promote products that I use, I have always had a good CTR on posts like this.
I should note that I also include my own demonstration photos and experiences for these posts. Authenticity is a big factor in driving affiliate sales.
With that in mind, I want to target this income pocket to see if I can at the very least, maintain the same income as you see in this August income report.
Finger’s are crossed, my friend. We shall see. We. Shall. See.
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