July 2017 Income Report for my blog - EdenFried.com (2024)

So begins my July 2017 Income report – this is my fourteenth blog earnings report! Isn’t it just insane how time flies?

At the start of each month, I document my past month’s earnings in the form of an income report. Throughout my income report, I discuss my successes and my failures. I also set goals for the following month. My income reports are for you, in that they should help you learn from my mistakes and successes, but they’re also for me. I use these monthly reports to hold me accountable and keep me on track.

I’ve started to say this every month, but it’s worth saying again: if income reports make you feel jealous (in an unhealthy way), sad, or defeated, you should NOT read them. For some people, they are incredibly motivating. For others, they aren’t. You know yourself better than I do!

Anyway, onwards.

If you’ve been following along, you know that my June income report showed a decrease in earnings by $2,000. I’m happy to report an increase in this month's earnings -thank goodness!

Keep reading to see the full July 2017 Income report breakdown of the numbers.

July 2017 Income Report – the numbers

July Blog Income

• ​Client work - $2500
• Elegant Themes (Premium WordPress themes) - $19.50
• Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing (ecourse for anyone looking to make money through affiliate marketing) - $177.80
• How to Make Your First Affiliate Sale in 24 Hours Using Pinterest Ebook - $90
• SiteGround web hosting services - $50
• ConvertKit(my email service provider! This is what I use to deliver my freebies and talk with my subscribers) - $52.20
• Email Lists Simplified (a course that will teach you how to grow and nurture an email list!) - $32.00
• Profit from your Passion - $325.16
• Traffic Boost Ebook - $8.26
• Pinterest Unpuzzled (my Pinterest course) - $1,014.93
• Find Your Tribe Online - $101.84

Total July Revenue: $4371.69

July Blog Expenses

• Canva for Work - $12

• ConvertKit (my email service provider) - $51.94 >> Read how to setup an email funnel with CK (or click HERE to get 30 days free of ConvertKit)

• ​BoardBooster (what I use to put Pinterest on auto-pilot) - $15.52 >> Read the BoardBooster review here

• Freelancer/VA - $95.91

• Teachable (what I use to create and host my ecourses) - $39

• Zapier $20 (facilitates a ton of automation for me and connects my apps)

Check out the full list of tools and resources I use for my blog.

Total July Blog Expenses: $234.37

TOTAL NET BLOG INCOME FOR JULY: $4,137.32

Did I reach my July goals?

Goal 1: Get 2 months ahead in content - FAIL

FAIL. BIG FAT FAIL.

I really wish I could say that I succeeded – but I really didn’t. Not even a little.

Here’s what I learned: I have A TON of respect for people who are two months or more ahead in their content creation calendar. It takes a vast amount of work to get there. Seriously, hats off to you people!

I’m still working ridiculously hard to get 2 months ahead. I’m happy to report that I’m officially one month ahead with content and about 2 weeks ahead in terms of formatting those blogs, creating images, and scheduling social media posts for them.

Why did I fail?

Well, why does anyone fail? It takes me a long time to write quality blog posts. Some of my blog posts are several thousand words and others are just about 1,000 or slightly higher.

Each blog post takes a lot of research, planning and organization. My ideas are endless – but actually executing those ideas, taking the time to sit down and write them out in a cohesive manner… that’s a whole other ball game.

My game plan moving forward

I’m going to incorporate 1-2 guest posts per month on my site. This will help take the load off of me while still publishing quality content on my site.

I’m also going to work on my mental focus. This goal was definitely a test of my mental stamina. I definitely failed. But I know what I need to do now and I’m pretty damn dedicated to making sure that I won’t fail at this again.

Goal 2: Earn $2,000 in passive income this month - FAIL(ISH)

Yet another fail (technically speaking) but I’m still counting my results as a victory. While, I missed my goal of $2,000, I ended up earning 1,871.69 in passive income. This was money directly generated from affiliate links or from selling my courses.

I earned $500 more than I ever have from my blog in July. That’s one heck of a leap in the right direction.

This victory just goes to show that when you set the bar high for yourself, you’ll reach further than you though you could… and you’ll land further, too.

$2,000 is so close I can taste it… but money isn’t apart of my goals next month.

Speaking of which, let’s head on over to my August goals.

Super scary goals for August 2017

Work on creating a lead magnet for each blog category

One of the things that I've never been good at doing is strategically planning my blog content and my email list lead magnets.

The result of this complete failure to plan?

Chaos!

I now have tons of freebies but they don't necessarily align with my blog posts. And some categories of blog posts are completely lacking a relevant freebie all together.

So, I'm going to spend this month fixing that problem.

​

Run a successful email list building challenge gruop

​I decided last minute to run a challenge group throughout the month of August to help dedicated bloggers who understand the value of an email list grow their list to whatever their individual goals may be.

The challenge spans across the entire month (all 5 weeks). Each week, there is a lesson, a series of homework assignments, opportunities to participate in peer review, and accountability threads.

So far, the challenge has been a bunch of fun and very successful. I'm excited to see where the rest of the month takes us!

Sign up for the next list building challenge wait list here.​

Conduct blog “Spring Cleaning”

​I've had a laundry list of tasks that I've been meaning to tackle for quite some time. So there's no better time than the present to get those done. I'm finally taking them off the backburner.

Here are some things I'd love to get done and out of the way this month!​

• Update old post categories
• Make sure my pins have keyword rich descriptions (all old posts)
• Update landing pages for freebies and make sure they're all mobile responsive
• Go through old blog posts and work on interlinking
• Make new pins for my freebies
• Add in opt in forms throughout my old blog posts

Major win this month

As always, it’s hard to find the “win” when you’re like me and you’re super self-critical. I guess since I HAVE to choose something, I’d say my big win this month is that I did something I didn’t expect – I planned a list building challenge for August.

Some of you may remember that I self-declared the month of May list building May. I even created a very informal challenge group (hosted in Facebook). 30 People took the “challenge” to grow their lists and we all just sort of helped each other out for the month.

It was a major hit!

This time around, I decided to be a bit more official. I created a sign up page for the challenge and sort of used it as an opt-in freebie (kind of funny that hosting a list building challenge is also a way that has helped me grow my email list – win/win!). I created a curriculum for the 31 days of August and shared it with the Blogger Insights community.

Much to my surprise, 140+ people signed up for the challenge. There’s a huge demand for help with email list building!

So I’m counting this as my win for the month.

I created an exciting challenge, advertised it, got a bunch of people to sign up – and now I get to spend the entire month of August helping people grow their lists (I consider myself an educator so this is the stuff that gets my blood pumping with excitement!).

Health & Fitness

I’ll keep this short and sweet – I’m in peak physical condition.

I’m eating extremely healthy (besides a treat here and there) and I’m working out 4-5 times per week, twice per day. The two a day workouts consist of a run (usually around 2 miles) and then an hour of CrossFit training (combination of weight lifting, cardio, HIIT, etc.).

Over the past 3 months, I’ve lost 4 pounds. Since I'm shy of 5'4'' and started off at 131.4 pounds, I don't really have much to lose - just trying to be as fit as possible and get as strong as possible - #girlswholift!

The small weight loss is really just a result of me cutting out processed foods and adding in the extra daily cardio session. I firmly believe that a healthy diet and physical lifestyle directly correlates to success in your professional life – so I’ll be keeping up this trend!

On the Blog in July

Final Thoughts

As you know, I have a love/hate relationship with income reports. They’re something I’ve committed to doing, so you can expect me to continue publishing them. But that doesn’t mean they don’t terrify me to the core.

That said, they hold me accountable. I don’t think I would have had the same success if I didn’t have this July 2017 income report looming over my head. I set goals and I want to try my hardest to achieve them, even if I do fall short a lot of the time!

Thanks for reading, and I hope to catch ya later for my August income report!