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My Monthly Income Report: Show Me the Money

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I know, I know…

It wasn’t that cool of me to leave you hanging last Tuesday.

Of course, I had all the intent to publish my earnings for the past three months of my absence.

However, I ended up rambling too much about Angelina Jolie, The Flock of Seagulls, and funny money quotes and ran out of time to talk about the things that actually matter: money.

Whether I did it on purpose or not, one thing for sure: suspense does work for driving more traffic.

Just look at that: you are here, aren’t you?

So in my last (attempted) income report, I revealed the not-so-great traffic numbers Traffic Generation Cafe faced while I was out partying with contractors remodeling my new old house every day.

I stopped publishing posts regularly - instead of writing 2-3 times per week, I went down to 3 posts per month.

Google showed me who’s the boss and left me with virtually no search engine traffic.

Many assumed that I became yet another addition to the sad statistics of online business failure and stopped talking about me.

Can I blame them?

Of course not.

However, this not-so-brief and not-so-voluntary leave of absence did result in an interesting experiment in validity or even pure existence of PASSIVE INCOME.

Passive Income Saga

Ahhh, those nincompoops who never made a penny online, yet managed to convince so many honest folks (honestly looking for their golden goose) to start an online business that will surely churn out hard cash day in and out without them lifting a finger…

Since everyone knows that money grows on trees:

… in unlimited quantities:

… that it’s almost scary:

Once those honest folks realize that all their golden goose does is eats and craps, plus it’s a gander, they are stuck with making a choice: face the music and start all over or get back to making someone else rich.

 

Here’s an email I got a while ago from one of my readers, Dave Anton from EssenceBracelets.com:

Something in your last post resonated with me, and that was “making more with less” - and that really got me thinking, because blogging is hard work - and because it is sometimes very easy to lose sight of what it is we are trying to accomplish.

I think it’s easy to think that blogs are passive income, but the realities are that after you factor in your costs, and your own hourly wage, there usually isn’t anything left to call passive.

I know it’s mentioned on many sites that we can make money while we sleep, but the truth is that most bloggers don’t factor in their part time hours.

I wonder sometimes if we don’t need to distance ourselves from our sites.

We usually start blogging on a personal level, resulting in the personality of the website being our own.

As popularity for the website increases and we become the brand that people are chasing, it becomes a double edged sword when we realize we need to scale the website, but we can’t separate ourselves from it…

I work with many non web related businesses, and as I dip back and forth between the two “worlds”, I see the contrast clearly.

Your last post reminded me that I need to stop and re-evaluate my approach often. Thank you.

In short, I agree.

Of course, opinions about passive income and its feasibility vary greatly.

Here are some of them; you be the judge.

First of all, can’t talk about passive income without mentioning Pat Flynn:

More opinions:

Passive Income Series - Steve Pavlina

www.stevepavlina.com4/25/12

In the weeks ahead, I’ll be blogging an extended series on how to earn passive income. Passive income is money that comes to you even when you’re not actively working, such as royalties, investment income, and revenue …

My Passive Income So Far This Year

robcubbon.com7/2/12

We are half way through 2012 now. It reminds me how quickly time flies so I’ll take a step back and re-evaluate where I’m going. One of the goals I had at the beginning of the year was for passive income. I had a target of $2000 to make in the …

$5963.41, My Biggest Google Adsense Earning Check

www.easyextramoneyonline.com6/29/12

This income is passive in the sense that I have not worked on the websites that generated this income after I had established them and conducted some preliminary internet marketing activities for them. The interesting fact is that the income still keeps rising each month, long after I invested my time working on the websites.

My #1 Passive Income Source

blog.2createawebsite.com8/15/11

There was a thread about reselling domains and hosting on Website Babble. In that thread I explained that I earn roughly 30% per sale as a reseller with my.

Note: I found these posts with the help of my new curation software - CurationSoft.

My Passive Income Results

Whether you subscribe to the idea of passive online income or not, one thing is for sure: I did very little to actively generate the earnings published below.

Let’s get on with the best part.

By the way, as I write this post I have no idea how much I made, so I am in anticipation as much as you are.

Note: these are all paid earnings, meaning I might’ve actually made those sales in the previous month(s), but got paid for them just before publishing this income report.

My Earnings

Here are my income sources for the past three months (April, May, June):

1. Affiliate marketing

  • Danny Iny’s Marketing That Works - $950
  • Market Samurai – $655
  • TweetAdder – $459
  • CommentLuv – $400
  • Ryan Deiss’s Digital Marketer’s Lab - $300
  • Income Blogging Guide – $272
  • Thesis Theme - $112
  • Aweber - $110
  • WPSubscribers Plugin – $110
  • Danny Iny’s Write Like Freddy - $63
  • SEMRush - $60
  • Kristi Johnson: Blog Post Promotion – $20

********

Subtotal: $3671

I also found out that Clickbank lost some of my checks adding up to about $700 (change of address and all) - hopefully I’ll be reporting that income in July.

2. Consulting

  • Blog audit - $300

I used to be much more active with offering consulting through my blog, but have recently decided to cut down on it to focus on more passive income streams.

I still pick up an occasional client or two, but don’t actively seek them out.

I was talked into this particular blog audit by a good friend.

By the way, I am planning on getting back to doing free blog audits for my email subscribers.

3. Paid Advertisement

  • Banner Ads – $1200

Banner advertisement can still be a great way to bring in some passive income, but you DO need to constantly work on your numbers to make sure your sponsors get their moneys worth.

Since I haven’t been working much to bring more traffic to my advertisers, most of them pulled their ads off my blog.

Completely understandable.

Now that I am, once again “open for business”, there’s no question in my mind that Yaro Starak and his new project CrankyAds will continue bringing me new advertising clients serious about their traffic.

*****

TOTAL: $5171

Wow.

Considering that I actively worked only 20-30 hours per month on my business in April and May and NO HOURS in June, over $5000 in earnings seems like a dream come true.

My Expenses

Posting gross income doesn’t really do us any good - what if my expenses put me in the red no matter how much money I made in the previous month?

With that in mind, let’s see how much running Traffic Generation Cafe cost me:

Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links to the products I love and use for my own business.

I appreciate your patronage, should you choose to purchase any of them through me.

  • SEMRush.com (my favorite SEO tool) - $150
  • Aweber -$98
  • CurationSoft (the best curation software I found) - $59
  • Fiverr.com (outsource tedious tasks I don’t have time for) - $10
  • GoDaddy (new domain registration) - $28
  • Hostgator (hosting) - $30
  • PayPal Fees (the cost of getting paid through PayPal) - $100

The last item (PP fees) was surprising. It’s amazing how quickly those fees can add up.

Maybe I should think of start requesting checks instead…

TOTAL: $367

********

NET INCOME: $4804

Again, compared to Pay Flynn or Ryan Deiss, these numbers are abysmal.

But then again, considering that most bloggers are struggling to make a dime with their blogs, this is a very attractive payoff.

My Game Plan

So now what?

That makes two of us, Ashley.

Here are my brief (ha!) thoughts on the subject.

Authority and Brand

You might think that you heard it all before.

You might’ve read a few posts on the subject and said to yourself “Yeah, yeah, yeah…”

However, take it from a veteran blogger (after all, 2 years online puts me way ahead of many wannabe bloggers):

If there’s one thing you can do to ensure success of your business,
it’s to become a “known entity”.

I urge you to REALLY read Alan Chatfield’s guest post here at TGC Why You Need to Lead… and let us know what you think in the comments.

Extend My Reach

Everyone needs traffic.

Whatever the niche.

And while I do have many readers who represent a diverse collection of online businesses and niches, I want more.

I’ll be thinking of ways to attract audiences apart from internet marketing niche.

As one of my commentators, Randy Pickard, noticed:

I already have a few ideas on how to do just that; stay tuned for my future posts.

Write a Book

Some of you might remember the time when I made a big deal about writing a book on link building.

I did a great job getting all of you and myself excited about it.

And I did start writing it.

However, had to ditch the project because of my personal circumstances, and now that Google made all these changes to their algorithm, everything I wrote thus far is completely obsolete.

So many hours of work wasted…

HOWEVER, it does seem that having your own product is THE best way to accomplish everything I want, which is:

  • Build my own brand
  • Longevity
  • Create a (more) passive income streamNow I just need to figure out:
  • A timeless subject to write about

or

  • Be prepared to write several ebooks (probably shorter and not as detailed) following current trends - like SEO, for instance.

Thoughts?

Immediate Traffic Generation Solution

Yet another comment from my previous post made me really look into my referral traffic and what I can do to improve those numbers:

Good point, Samuel.

Ever since I wrote my 2535 Words on How to Turn sCRAPed Content into Link Building Goldmine contest entry post (which, by the way, I won and it brought me a cool $1000 prize), I’ve been looking for ways to use my RSS feed to actually BENEFIT my blog, instead of negatively impacting it.

What’s so negative about RSS feeds?

Well, for starters, your RSS readers get too lazy and stop coming to your blog.

That leads to:

  • Lost traffic
  • Lost social proof (fewer comments, shares, etc)
  • Lost rankings (like higher Alexa ranking, which in turn, affects advertisements, sponsorships, etc)
  • Lost income - if your most loyal readership is not there to click on your ads, affiliate links, etc.

Plus, of course, your RSS feed is the perfect tool for content scrapers to make money off of your hard work.

Ask and you shall receive: the solution to our RSS wows fell right into my lap.

It’s been about 2 seconds now since I’ve started using the new RSS plugin from MaxBlogPress, and I am already loving it.

Well, maybe a bit more than 2 seconds: I beat a free copy of the plugin from Pawan Agrawal yesterday to make sure it’s worth every penny before I mentioned it to you…

Bottom line is this plugin is something you must have for your blog, whatever your niche or the size of your audience.

Of course, you can go ahead and spend the next 26 minutes watching the sales page video to see if this is the right plugin for you, but the truth is I just summed it up for you:

You and I need the plugin to avoid any of the following:

  • Lost traffic
  • Lost social proof (fewer comments, shares, etc)
  • Lost rankings (like higher Alexa ranking, which in turn, affects advertisements, sponsorships, etc)
  • Lost income - if your most loyal readership is not there to click on your ads, affiliate links, etc.

One more thing:

Since the plugin is going through all the usual launch hype and nonsense, you can at least take advantage of the cool 30% off for the next few days.

Side note: Entering online writing contests could be a great way to:

  • Bring in some traffic
  • Enhance your online brand
  • Earn some cash for doing what you are doing anyway: writing killer posts

Word of advice though: make sure Kristi Hines from Kikolani.com doesn’t enter the same contest.

She knows how to win contests like nobody’s business, and I’ve never been able to win against her yet.

 

Marketing Takeaway

There’s no such thing as free bacon.

Making money blogging is entirely possible, as I was surprised to learn from my own experience.

Just takes time, determination, and a lot of work.

 

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Comments

  1. Interesting article Ana. Do you think that your rankings are coming from the amount & quality of content that you’ve made rather than via links to your site? Are you concerned about the recent algorithm update regarding links/anchor text? I noticed your point regarding dropping you link building e-book project and would be interested in your thoughts on this.

    • There are plenty of sites out there, Michael, that produce great content, yet are not ranking for much of anything.

      Google does need links to consider your site as the authority on any given subject.

      How many and what kind of links is where the wind is shifting.

      Yes, many sites tanked because of their usage of anchor text - mine probably as well. My rankings have come up since then, plus I’ve done a lot of research on the subject. I now have a much better idea as to what Google wants to see as far as anchor text distribution and might come back to finishing that book after all.

  2. That money for 3 months of hardly any work is great! When your business gets bigger you will be able to do even less work because all that great content you are putting out there will generate the income for you. 🙂

    • Thank you so much, Mitz - great to see you!

      And I did see your guest post submission, by the way; haven’t had a chance to get to it yet…

  3. I must say that your stats are very impressive Ana.

    Reading your reports are really inspiring for me and I bet others like it as well.

    Hey, keep up the good work and keep on providing us with awesome articles.

  4. Great results, Ana.

    I mean this in regards to the hours spent being quite small, yet you still managed to pull in some decent cash.

    I think you have developed a stable business model(Brand) with your site, and the “Passive income” is the result of this.

    As far as potential is concerned(for all of us) there are some “Big Hitters” out there in the blogging world, and I think the best path to take is to be inspired by them to achieve more, and not be overwhelmed…

    The great thing is we can always learn new things, and we will always have room for improvement. That alone should be enough to keep the inner fire burning.

  5. I think there must be some efficiencies of production in having a blog based around SEO. Let’s face it, those of us who have niche blogs have to become something of an expert in the product or service we are promoting, PLUS become experts in SEO, traffic, etc, etc, etc.

    Anyway good on your for fronting up. On the one hand I am encouraged that you are making some money, on the other hand I am discouraged given the amount of work you have had to put in for a modest return. Oh well, keep tracking on I guess!

    • I certainly see what you mean, Murray.

      I started online with niche businesses, but quickly realized that I couldn’t make them successful because of the lack of traffic generation knowledge. That’s why I started TGC - to learn more on the subject and apply it to my niche business.

      However, TGC was springing a lot faster than my business, so I eventually gave up the latter for the former.

      I am planning on going back to niche businesses though. Of course, this time I’ll be armed with better knowledge.

      By the way, I think it should be easier to make money with a business based on specific products vs something as generic as SEO and traffic generation.

  6. I am amazed at the turn around and the figures considering you went for this three month ‘remodeling’ holiday. I must say the wait was worth it from your last traffic loss one. Great!

  7. Hey, Ana.

    You certainly can write a lot! I think that your income is great. Yes, maybe not much compared to others like Pat, but what should really mean something to you is the effort that you put into generating that income, even if it was effort from a year ago.

    I like the whole content curation thing you have going on here. I already like to read steve pavalina’s blog, but I hadn’t heard of the others you mentioned. Anyway, hopefully your income will grow much more in the future.

    Oliver

    • Thank you, Oliver - it’s always nice to see someone like Pat make that much, so that we all can know that it’s possible.

      For now, I am happy with my results and motivated to grow bigger.

      Hope you are as well.

  8. Wow,
    Never saw an income report so precise and so detailed.
    Apart from the earnings you made and the expenses, you also talked about your future plans on what you will do to increase your income. That’s much commendable.
    Though your earnings are not as much as compared to Pat Flynn, it’s much more compared to me 😉

    However, your blog is a superb blog and you want face any problems in your efforts to reach a high income mark.

    All the best in your efforts !!! 😀 😀

  9. Thanks for giving us hope, all to often we see the articles about how it is impossible to make money off your blog, good to see a positive point of view on the situation. I’d also like to mention, that your writing is top notch and not many like you around, keep up the good work.

    • It’s challenging, but certainly not impossible, Kevin.

      Thanks for coming by; love your design site, by the way.

  10. Hmmm Ana, this is a surprise to think that you still managed to earn all this not minding that you were very occupied. This shows that you’re really very good in what you’re doing.

    However, i noticed your blog from Entrepreneurs-journey and since then have been reading your posts, i must confess that your blog is one of its king. I will write about you in my own blog soon.

    Keep it Up and thanks for sharing.

    • Your compliment of reading my blog is much appreciated, Theodore.

      Yes, these numbers surprised me as well, considering how hands-off everything ran for a while.

  11. Hi Ana,
    congrats , your post is great inspiration for many newbies. You have made money online doing something you love, that is the best part. Thanks for sharing this
    good luck
    Congrats. Great work !
    Bryan

  12. Another great post, Ana.

    Regarding your comment on moving forward with your blog and business, have you ever thought of putting a coaching/consulting program together, particularly where you can teach/mentor groups of people? I know I would be very interested in something like this. Why?

    Well, for a start (and no offense here guys) you are a woman and I would feel more comfortable working with someone who is more heart-centered in their approach;

    I am a non-geek and you can guide me gently through a topic which is geek-central and often very confusing (I often need to re-read things a few times and even then ‘wowza’ what did she just say I had to do? LOL;

    While you are always sharing such great content, for a newbie, it can be confusing where to start and what to really work on, so getting guidance and support to know that I am going in the right direction would be great;

    We all get busy, so having an accountability person, who you know has your best interest at heart and is there monitoring your progress - well, that’s priceless.

    And, I know you are an authority in your field because of what you have created here on TGC so I couldn’t think of investing in a program with anyone else.

    For you, you create a system/program that you can roll out again and again. Perhaps even create a homestudy version with some of the basics for people just getting started.

    And, for those people who want the VIP treatment (and have you all to themselves) well they can have your VIP package, however of course, the VIP option has a VIP investment price tag on it (which many people would be willing to pay because of the results they know they are going to get through investing in your expertise.)

    Anyway, just thought I’d throw it out there…

    If this is something you ever decide to do - I’m in!

    Blessings,

    • You broke everything down so perfectly, Annemarie, that I could almost use it for my consulting sales page!

      In theory, I’d love to do something like that.

      In practice, consulting is really not something I enjoy doing too much.

      I have a bit of a phonephobia and getting on the phone with someone always stresses me out quite a bit.

      On the other hand, I really am very fond of your idea, so I’ll give it some further thought and see if it’s time to get a grip on my problem with phones.

  13. Hi Ana, I believe I just lost a lengthy comment to a power outage (!) but wanted to stop by to Thank You for stopping by my site some months ago and recommending changes to clean up the page. Like you, “Life” intervened and it took a while to get it done. I still honestly don’t enjoy learning the back room aspects of WP, design, and plugins and I wonder if this is something you would consider doing given life providing you with some extra hours in the day? It’s not passive income but would fall more under the blog audit category. Last time I merely updated a plugin it caused a fatal default and the entire site shut down until I tinkered to get it back up. Scary. I still get much more traffic via word of mouth and barely anything from SEO. I am far too focused on the business I blog about and I wonder how many other people wish they didn’t have to tinker so much with the behind the scenes stuff when it’s not their forte.

    • Good morning, Julie:

      So good to know I was able to help; your home page definitely looks a lot cleaner (although I’d still change a few things - it never stops, huh? ;0 )

      What I’d strongly recommend for you is to hire someone to maintain the technical side of your blog for you on a monthly basis.

      They can do the regular maintenance and upkeep (updates, backups, etc), as well as address an issue should there arise one.

      Usually such services come at a set fee and it’s definitely not cost-prohibitive to do so.

      If you need a recommendation, I’d strongly suggest you contact Ian Belanger at http://imgraphicdesigns.com/contact-im-graphic-designs/

  14. Great to know about your earnings. It seems Affiliate marketing is nice. I am inspired and I am gonna start it very soon on my blog. 🙂

    All the best Anna!

  15. PS Actually I just don’t get RSS in general - surely you’d be better to get people on your list than signing up to RSS. Personally I gave up on RSS very quickly and I’m much more likely to read blogs I like when I’ve joined their list. RSS just became too many blogs to look at even once I’d managed it a bit. Interested to know how others feel about RSS and whether they use it to read blogs.

  16. Great post Ana and well done - it all seems to be working… you definitely are making passive income.

    Personally I reckon that for people like me who aren’t (won’t be) aiming for the blogger market then subscribers magnet is much more worthwhile than the rss thingy.

    I think you’re a talented blogger and I’d certainly read a book from you about how to write great blog posts - you’re really great at keeping me hanging on in there on relatively long posts, you know a bit about humour and titles and stuff I’m sure you could write about too.

    It’s pretty tricky to find something which won’t date - how about a 30 day blog writing challenge to coincide with nablopomo in November with a FB page and daily tips?

    Great for traffic too…. in fact as I’m writing this I’m thinking I should be doing this - tell you what…. I’ll do it in the mummy blogging market and you can take the bloggers market 😉

    I ran a nablopomo page for uk parent bloggers last year, went well ‘cept for half dropped out - the tips would help people stick with it + great for traffic ‘cos everyone looks at and comments on everyone’s posts and of course gets you back in the blogging habit….. there’s a couple of ideas for you.

    Fiona

    • Building an email list vs RSS subscribers: I agree with you, Fiona - I’d much rather focus on building the list as well.

      However, despite the fact that I don’t even display a link to my RSS feed anywhere on my blog, I still have thousands of RSS readers. It goes to show that there’s still demand for our readers to see our content in their RSS readers.

      Of course, might be different for your niche, Fiona.

      Thanks for the ideas for an ebook. What the heck is nablopomo?

      • NaBloPoMo is National Blog Posting Month aka November. It started with NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month (obviously) and there’s now one for blogs too. The idea is that you write every day during the month. Maybe it’s not so prevalent in the Blogging sphere but it’s big in the States with BlogHer where they seem to do it every month but more in November when there were thousands of people doing it.

        • Interesting idea, but I don’t really see the point.

          I think I am off to do some research on it…

  17. OMG! Ana, that was huge, isn’t it? So this will be another great inspiration for newbie bloggers. Actually when I was a newbie, income reports are the only thing that inspires me. Whenever I see an income report of a mass site, I immediately start writing a new blog post for my blog. Those were awkward moments, I know.
    Anyways, Congrats. Great work !

    • I am with you, Koundeenya - there’s nothing more inspiring than to see someone actually “showing us the money”.

      Thanks for coming by!

  18. Wow, beats me, Mark…

    You are right, it doesn’t make any sense, yet your results what they are.

    So Google wants me to publish junk now to start showing me in SERPs again? 🙂

    Glad to hear you found your passion; looks like your directory is doing quite well.

  19. I like your suggestion regarding the Bring-My-Visitors-Back plugin. I have one question about it, though, and that is: To what extent do you believe the content strippers will be slowed down by the plugin?

    Thanks for an excellent post!

    • Good question, Doug, and here’s my best answer to it:

      the plugin won’t slow down or stop them at all.

      With that said, here’s the good news: most scrapers copy your RSS feed as is - with all the link in it.

      Since the plugin adds many additional links to the feed, like related posts, comments, even ads (which I am yet to add to my feed), most scrapers end up publishing those links along with your post excerpts.

      We can’t stop scrapers, but at least, we can try to take advantage of them as much as we can!

      • Thank you for a solid (and rapid) answer, Ana. It’s interesting to note that not only are the content scrappers too lazy to create their own content, but that their laziness extends to not bothering to clean up what they’ve stolen. I don’t have many subscribers, but I’m gong to seriously consider purchasing this plugin. Thanks again for an excellent post.

        • You are very welcome, Doug.

          If we can’t beat them, we can at least take advantage of them as much as we can; thus I see this plugin invaluable in my blogging arsenal.

  20. You made an incredible amount of money even though you had to step away from your blog to take care of your personal life. This is the reason so many people start their blogs, for when their personal lives need more attention.

    I am inspired as always with how well you are doing online Ana. 🙂

    • I must agree, Justin - being able to attend to whatever I needed to do in my personal life, yet still collect a paycheck is the best part of doing what we do.

      Good to see you back here; it’s been a while.

  21. Hi Anna,
    it is really amazing what you have accomplished and I do have to congratulate you for that. It’s the second time today that I read about the RSS feed problem and the MaxBlogPress plugin, I will have to look into that. I had no idea that RSS feeds can produce these kind of problems for bloggers.

    • Not too many people talk about RSS feeds, Mariella - when I first started blogging, I had no clue what it was or how I could use it on my blog.

  23. Hi Ana
    That is very impressive that you make that kind of money when you have been away for such a long time. Imagine what you can do when you put all your energy in to your blog for the next few months and get your traffic back to normal…!
    I just got my first payment from AdSense last month and that was a great feeling. It took me 13 months to get there, but still a great feeling and I am sure that I will see the next payment within 2012 with I keep up the pace from the last couple of months.

    • Getting that first paycheck is an incredible feeling, isn’t it, Thomas? All of a sudden, all the hard work we put into it makes seem like nothing.

      My husband had the same thought:

      “Look at what you made doing nothing! Now the irony would be if you get back to working hard at it and your earnings will go down…”

      Let’s hope he is wrong. lol

      • It is great to get the first payment from Google. By the way Ana, it is not paid in checks anymore 😉
        I am sure that you will earn more money when you put more effort into your work, and let’s be honest. The only reason that you was able to make that kind of money without being much active for so long time is because of all the hard work you have done in the past building yourself a name among bloggers and on Social Media. You don’t have to start over, but just continue from where you was when your started your break from your blog.

        • You are very right, Thomas - our established authority or lack thereof can make or break our online business should we ever need to take a break like I did.

          So I suppose no more of those cheese pictures of people holding up a fan of checks (their supposed earnings); everything is going electronic. And of course, we are paying for it in all kinds of fees.

  24. Holy cow, only 30 hours spent a month and for 2 months of work you got over $5,000? That’s a big hit, Ana. I’m a newbie in internet marketing but i’m hoping I could be like you someday. Right now i’m still in the process of learning lots of stuffs.

    -Peter

  25. This post is so rich in content that I will have to come back and read it again. I love your voice and I have lots I can learn from you! Blessings, Amy

  26. That’s not bad at all Ana! I hope to see somewhat of what you’ve made this month in the next couple months on a monthly basis. I took a VERY LONG LONG break from my website but I’m more dedicated now more than ever!

    I hope we can network with one another 🙂

  27. Hello again, Ana, thank you so much for the mention of my 2 cents on passive income. It’s not a big part of my business but the post I wrote on it really inspired my readers as I’m sure you must be noticing here. People do love the transparency of these articles and love to see the nuts and bolts of business. You may not be doing as well as Pat Flynn but you’re doing better than me! 😉

    • I think it’s great to be able to show the realities of blogging income, Rob - however much or little we are making.

      Glad I found your post to include it here; always good to find additional resources that support what I am saying!

  28. Ana,

    One thing I’ve never seen you do a lot of and I’m interested to know why is Guest Blogging.

    I know you enter blog contests but I don’t see you on other blogs very much… Maybe I’ve just missed the posts but I would figure that someone who but as interested a post together as you can would be go all Danny Iny and just rock out the web for a while and Traffic would no longer be a problem… Once traffic wasn’t a problem you could take time to build your own products or write an ebook or a whole series of short ebooks whatever then Money would start to rain from skies and your only issue in life would choosing which color of Porche you wanted to drive the kids to soccer practice in…

    Either way this was a fantastic post with fantastic insights into the life of a blogger… I love the Raw nature of your posts since you’ve been back.

    Ryan H.

    • Interesting point you brought up, Ryan.

      I do think that guest posting is a killer strategy.

      I used to write regularly for Entrepreneurs-Journey.com, as well as SEM-group.net and MySEOCommunity.com. I also occasionally dropped a post or two here and there when I had time.

      And that’s where my main problem lies: time.

      Running a blog like TGC sucks up most of the time I have for my business.

      I get close to 100 comments per post on average.

      Add hundreds of email to that.

      Then writing a post takes me about 5-6 hours.

      Add reading other blogs to learn/mingle/look for inspiration.

      And I don’t have any help - it’s all me.

      So theoretically, yes, I’d love to guest post a lot more, but in practice, I find it hard just to do what I need to do for TGC.

      • I had a feeling that was the case… I’m beginning to realize the time constraints with running a blog that actually gets traffic and people comment on.

        Though I’m no-where near what you pull in I certainly empathize with what you’re going through.

        Truth be told it feels like you’re doing an awesome job from the outside… So at least you have that.

        All the best Ana!!

        • I linked to one of Pat Flynn’s blog post on the dangerous side of blogging and that’s exactly what I am talking about here, Ryan - the more popular a blog gets, the more time it sucks up and the harder it becomes to actively work on bringing in more traffic, converting that traffic, and making more money.

          • “…the more popular a blog gets, the more time it sucks up and the harder it becomes to actively work on bringing in more traffic, converting that traffic, and making more money.”

            I think I’m going to chime in here, because guarding against this might not be such a bad idea for those of us who think we might end up with some degree of success in due time, if we persevere. The kind of business model we set up to generate income from our traffic matters a great deal much earlier than we might be anticipating.

            Next to traffic generation, conversion is most important. That’s how we make money and that’s what makes a blog commercially viable. However, the more popular the blog becomes, the more effort it requires to remain popular. If the blog owner has not set up by then a reliable process for qualifying leads and funneling them down through a variety of conversion routines (whether it be 2 or 20 steps is irrelevant) toward a point where a sale can happen almost automatically, then the business aspect of such a blog is nearly non-existent. The blog will fail the moment the blogger burns out, regardless of all the traffic it may have been receiving.

            This is why it’s so important to develop a business process to cradle all the popularity and channel it along optimal procedures that maximize every drop of traffic arriving to our sites.

            You and I have been discussing something along these lines in another thread, Ana, where I’ve been expressing the importance of getting the most out of the time that we spend interacting with the traffic to our sites.

          • No easy answer to this, Arturo; this is something I need to put some thought into and write a post about it, I think.

            Community vs productivity?

  29. thanks for the MENTION Ana…

    what a nice, comprehensive post on passive income. you were write, this is indeed the way to write about money when you are nothing to show for it.

    but wait a minute, you have well over $1,000 a month to show in passive income. you are part of the 1% that generates income online. as you mentioned, most struggle and spin their wheels and never get a dime back - all for various reasons of course.

    I also want to emphasize how important that 1k is. most of my blog’s readership is made of hard working, smart individuals who have successful corporate careers, many making well over a six figure salary and are in a comfortable management position.

    yet when surveyed, guess what most people want? they want just that extra little bit of income on the side so they can “play”. some want to expedite retirement, others want more materialism. whatever the reason, that first 1k in passive income is most elusive and what many are striving for.

    I obviously disagree with you that you have nothing to show when in reality you have quite a bit of success there.

    another point I’d like to bring up in conjunction with passive income is blogging. Pat summarized it perfectly so I won’t repeat what he said. however it is worth reiterating and emphasizing that a blog in and of itself is NOT a business. rather, a blog is a CONDUIT to a business. the business is predicated on delivering VALUE.

    what does this boil down to? anyone interested in making money by blogging, or frankly by doing business online needs to follow a very simple process:

    1) deliver the best value possible in your given niche
    2) deliver it consistently over a long period of time

    sure there are ways to expedite success, but if you do nothing else but these two you are likely going to end up well deep in green territory.

    again, great summary Ana. I hope readers find a lot of value, inspiration and mainly motivation from this post.

    all the continuing best - you are doing great!

    • You are so right, Sunil - my husband makes a very comfortable executive salary, yet my extra some $1-2K per month thrills me so much more than any paycheck he brings home.

      I do appreciated all your support and “always showing up” for me, Sunil, and love reading your to-the-point blog.

    • This is a great comment, as is Pat’s below.

      Your income over the past 3 months is no small feat, Ana! I’ve heard repeatedly that the first 1000 (whether dollars, subscribers, or visitors) is the most difficult. Once you reach that level, it becomes easier to increase it.

  30. Well done Ana! One of the best breakdowns / income reports I’ve seen in a long time, thank you for taking the time write it.

    As you’ve just shared, it’s definitely possible to earn an income from blogging, and a (relatively) passive income to boot.

    The issue is when people A) think that it can happen overnight (which happens as a result of others promising that it can happen, and or people who share their income but don’t necessarily share exactly what it took to get there, and B) they think that just writing on a blog will get you there. It takes a lot more than that to earn from a blog.

    The blog, in fact, isn’t really the business, it’s the platform on which business can be conducted.

    We don’t get paid per post or per word - we get paid by providing something of value to people on our blogging platform, whether it be traffic for advertisers who place banner ads on our site, to affiliate links that are relevant to a specific task that people want to accomplish, etc.

    Also, like I mentioned before, nothing is going to be 100% entirely passive. Even real estate, which is considered “passive income” by many, takes time to maintain, and frustrations with tenants along the way. The idea, however, is the ability to walk away for a period of time just like you did - not being tied down to the fact that if we stop working, we stop earning an income.

    Blogging is the platform that gives us the opportunity to earn an income without directly having to directly trade time for dollars, however in the beginning many people will make $0.00 for a long period of time..it takes some patience and a lot of effort for that hard work to pay off, and for a lot of people, it never does.

    Cheers, and keep up the great work!

    • I loved it when you said “Blogging is just a platform”, Pat; and I think that’s where most people stumble when it comes down to earning an income for a blog.

      Starting a blog won’t make money in its own right, even if the blog takes off and becomes popular.

      Both you and I know of many blogs that grow like weeds in popularity, yet don’t make a dime.

      It all comes down to figuring out how to channel that popularity into money-making offers.

      It’s always interesting for me to see how others choose to earn a living via their blogs and, of course, you are always an inspiration to me and many others on how to turn blogging into a business.

      Thanks for coming by!

  31. Even if numbers are not big like on SPI and others, still that’s the money you made online while doing what you love. And and the end of the day any money made is better than no money at all.
    thanks for sharing

  32. That’s some damn fine income considering you were otherwise occupied. Being as it was doing a house reno I would think getting back to your blog is required to continue to support the contractor’s families 🙂
    Well done though, it shows us it can be done.

  33. Super cool.
    I just asked and you put it on .

    May be a great learning for me, wherein my site http://www.mycarhelpline.com - though is recvng descent traffic of 3000+ visitors / day - but hardly any any income through affiliate marketing - may be it will be less in India - but to be honest never thought and if implemented correctly - will be something apart from Adsense

    Also - why have you not put in Adsense ads on your site - isnt it additional way of monetizing

    • Adsense works for some sites better than others, Gagan; take a look at this post: https://trafficgenerationcafe.online/banner-advertising/

      I think in your case, you should continue to test until you find what makes your visitors tick.

      If you are getting that many daily visitors, yet are unable to make much money, it’s most likely your sales funnel that needs to be tweaked.

      • Hi - To give you a correct pic of visitors

        Day Date Page Loads Unique Visits
        Saturday 14th July 2012 4,479 2,167
        Friday 13th July 2012 4,905 2,561
        Thursday 12th July 2012 5,569 2,750
        Wednesday 11th July 2012 5,250 2,820
        Tuesday 10th July 2012 5,324 2,747
        Monday 9th July 2012 5,221 2,786
        Sunday 8th July 2012 4,756 2,269
        Saturday 7th July 2012 4,544 2,208

        Still - am unable to get on to . Had word with local manufacturers - as per them they need atleast a million page views for direct advertising or else they take on Google route.

        Not able to monetize the site well. Any suggestions - what more can i apply to atleast get the earnings done apart from adsense.

        Tried for cpm based - Buy sell ads n other - they dont approve

          • I am okay for your expert consulting on that (ofcourse with paid commercials). May let know - if okay

            Basically - i have a traffic, site relates to Automobiles - i am missing out ways of monetizing as what you have - Need your consultancy on to ways to monetize site traffic and suggestions.

            Thanks for patience and time in replying to multiple posts of mine. Let know to take fwd

    • Good point, Brian.

      However, just because I don’t mention it, doesn’t mean I don’t see value in it - just look at all the opt-in forms everywhere you go. lol