July Business and Income Report – $15k/month

Things are continuing to move in the right direction and I am happy to report on both some of the wins from last month and some of the challenges I have faced.

Why don’t I track Gross Income? I had a question from a few people why I don’t track Gross Income…the reason is that I believe it is a “vanity” metric for most online businesses. If we are building a business to support a lifestyle/replace a job than the reliability of the net income is what matters!

With summer in full swing and social commitments on weekends my work hours were not the same as they have been other months.

This monthly report will share all the details about the different “divisions” of my business…

1. Passive Income Website Portfolio
2. AuthorityWebsiteIncome Blog
3. Expired Domain Services:
   1. Domain Finding Service (buy domains that meet my metrics)
   2. Done for Your Private Blog Network (let my team build you a personal PBN)
   3. LightningRank (get access to the most powerful PBN available!)

Key Successes

1. Passive Website Portfolio Growth – Growth on this side of my business continues to be solid with both existing and new sites.
2. Key Team Players – Several players this month really performed well including the website development team lead and the services business manager. These positions really are the foundation of the business with one taking care of the majority of the front end sales interactions and the other in charge of order fulfilment.
3. New CPA Offer at Student Loan Site – Continuing to test affiliate offers has resulted in me adding an affiliate which created a sizable increase in earnings at a couple sites.

 

Key Failures

1. Costs Growth & Profit Margin Erosion – My focus has been on delivering for my clients and monitoring costs. Now that most of my systems are straightened out and I am producing consistent quality (still some struggles with content!) it is time to optimize my costs. There is waste in my systems and it is time to start trimming the waste and getting my profit margin back to their target.
2. Routine Is Key for Online Business – It has never been more clear than these last 2 months that having a routine is key for me delivering results to my online business. When I am gone for 4 days it is not just those 4 days of productivity that is lost but it takes me time to get back into a routine. When I am routinely pushing out 2-3hrs/night of productive work and then 5-10hrs on weekend the work flows easily…stopping and starting and breaking my routine really impacts my ability to get big, meaningful work done.
3. New Sites Moving Slowly – Some great initial jumps in rankings but with clients being my number one priority I have struggled to systematize my passive income site creation. I would really like to fix this in the next month.

 

2014 Business Goals

Here is where I share my progress towards each of my key 2014 goals…

Here they are…

• 2014 Goal #1 – Increase the number of sites making over $100/month to 15 by building, buying or growing 8 quality sites.
• 2014 Goal #2 – Publish 52 Posts on Authority Website Income. For the growth of this blog there is nothing more important than consistently producing great articles every single Monday.
• 2014 Goal #3 – Produce 1 ULTIMATE post that will put my Ultimate Guide to Expired Domains to shame!
• 2014 Goal #4 – Automate the entire fulfilment process for my services side of the business while also improving quality.
• 2014 Goal #5 – Launch a new game changing business/service (this one I will not share until the time is right)
• 2014 Goal #6 – Continue ahead of the monthly net income curve targeting $15k/month in reliable online income by the age of 35.

Stretch Income Targets (BHAG)…

• Hit my undisclosed “money in the bank” target
• Average $10k/month net income for 2014

Part 1 – Passive Authority & Niche Website Income Profit/Loss

After last 2 months increase of 20% & 32% another increase of 9% was realized in July.

The combination of adding more content to existing sites and improving some recently purchased sites has pushed my niche/authority website side of my business along again this month.

If any readers are looking to sell their profitable site(s) quickly let me know by emailing me. I can let you know in 12hrs if I am interested and complete the purchase in 24-48hrs – Contact Me

• # of greater than $100/month Sites = 10 (added one and lost one)
  • Sites:
  • PMSL
  • OIC
  • ACLSR
  • GFD (purchased)
  • RBC
  • RFNF
  • BCR
  • PPR
  • PFA (purchased)
  • IFA (purchased) (NEW in June!)

• Revenue = $5,005.51
• Costs = -$952.92
• Net Income = $4,052.59 (+9%)

Sites that fell below the $100/month line = One site in July fell below.

July Comment – This is a great result for this month with a $4k addition to my business income coming from my niche/authority sites. There is still a lot of room for me to improve this side of the business with a stronger consistent growth plan. I hope to have that implemented over the next 1-2 months and will share my plan with you. But basically I will continue to leverage the strengths…ability to produce decent quality content at low costs and get incredibly powerful backlinks.

Public Case Study Site Status

AuthorityWebsiteIncome started with one case study – This site was started the same day as my case study site and every month I documented in detail exactly what I did to grow the site. It turned into a great site for me earning over $3k/month in its peak months and helped launch AuthorityWebsiteIncome. The monthly case study income reports have grown beyond just one site but I want to keep tracking this site separately from all the others so everyone can keep tabs on it.

• Net Income = $2,064 (-10%)
• Traffic = 31,364 (+9%)
• Citation Flow = 29 (-1)
• Trust Flow = 21 (+2)

July Comment – The results this month were great…especially considering one of the affiliate links was not working for ½ the month (whole story here). August I have hope for a banner month!

 

Progress on Key 2014 Goal…

2014 Goal #1 – Increase the number of sites making over $100/month to 15 by building, buying or growing 8 quality sites.

July Comment – One more site added in July and one removed. I am starting to think this may not have been the best metric to track considering the growth of my income in my website portfolio is not very well correlated to the number of sites I have.

Part 2 – Authority Website Income Blog Profit/Loss

My commitment on this site is to provide once per week posts from me in and one MONSTER of an ultimate guide a little later in the year.

Here are the monthly stats for my site…

• Visitors = 15,247 (-10%)
• Subscribers = 2,842 (+5%)
• # of Posts = 2
• Affiliate Income = $690 (+146%)

 

July Comment – Only 2 posts published is disappointing! I was hoping to do much better but as mentioned without having a consistent work schedule producing articles was a challenge! No excuses though…my commitment to my audience on this site is 1 post per week. I will still aim to hit the 52 posts this year!

 

Progress on Key 2014 Goal…

2014 Goal #2 – Publish 52 Posts on Authority Website Income. For the growth of this blog there is nothing more important than consistently producing great articles every single Monday.

2014 Goal #3 – Produce 1 ULTIMATE post that will put my Ultimate Guide to Expired Domains to shame! Plan is in motion but it will take several months to assemble all the moving parts! Finding the time is going to be a challenge…it is going to come down to the wire at the end of the year.

Part 3 – Services Business Profit/Loss

This is definitely where my biggest opportunity lies and although I want to keep a balanced portfolio of income producing assets.

The key metrics I am going to share on this side of the business each month include the following for my Done For You PBN Service (here)…

• # Sites Built = 118 (doesn’t cover all sites)
• # of Domains Found = 205 (doesn’t cover all sites)
• Net Income = $11,465.06*

*Note about the Net Income – each month varies greatly since the expenses for building the sites incur the month the sites are built while the income occurs the month the sites are sold. So there are months like December(and June) where I only have a handful of new clients but I am still building sites for all the others who paid in the previous month. For the accounting purists, yes, I am aware I am violating a GAAP accounting principle (revenue is to be counted in the months the expenses to earn the revenue are realized – but that creates more accounting headaches for me).

July Comment: July was a solid month for my services business with a good balance of new customers and existing customers increasing their PBNs. I also faced a couple quality challenges both with a few domain orders and some PBN content issues. For both I have beefed up my systems to try and improve these 2 critical areas.

 

Progress on Key 2014 Goal…

2014 Goal #4 – Automate the entire fulfilment process. I am personally still approving all domains and supporting client’s requests.

No progress this month but my part time sales manager is doing a great job and all customers are getting personal support during the process.

2014 Goal #5 – Launch a new game changing business/service (this one I will not share until the time is right)

I am unsure if this service will still be offered…I have some ideas but unsure if it still makes sense.

 

Overall Financial Goals

 

Original Monthly Net Income Target (original – $15k/month reliable income by age 35)

• Target Net Income = $4,975
• Actual net Income = $16,207.65

“Money in the Bank” Target

For those that have been trying to track their online income and reconcile with money in the bank it doesn’t take long to realize just because you think you made $1k in a month your business bank account doesn’t go up by $1k that month. The reason for this is that it takes some time for advertisers to pay their affiliates. Plus, some affiliate commissions you earned will be voided in the next month and you will not be paid for that commission you thought you made.

So for this reason a metric I am going to track in 2014 is my Money in the Bank target. Although I share a lot I am choosing to not actually share my bank balance…I will simply make it a % of my overall goal.

 

July Comment: The money in the bank target is no longer going to be realistically achieved since I have made changes where I pay my wife a salary for the work she does. Forward progress each month is still going to be key though!

2014 Monthly Income Target

This is another big time stretch goal. In 2014 I am targeting to average $10k/month in net monthly income.

RUNNING AVERAGE = $12,736

• January = $11,141
• February = $12,193
• March = $6,719
• April = $14,484
• May = $21,135
• June = $7,275
• July = $16,208

Final Comments

A solid month that resulted in overall net income breaking through the $15k goal again!

Here is the summary of this months results…

1. Niche Websites – Great month led by my student loan websites performance. But, I need to get more structured at building out my new sites into larger sites to replicate success I have had with other sites.
2. AuthorityWebsiteIncome.com – Published only 2 posts! This is a problem and I need to make sure to come back from it!
3. Services Business – A great month in terms of domains found and sites completed. Costs are starting to not trend linearly with work output so I need to work on cutting costs/becoming more efficient while at the same time improving quality.

How was your month?