June Income Report – Passive Income Growth

Although this month represents a drop in net income for my overall business it was a strong month for my portfolio of websites.

My services business was flat out last month building sites that people ordered in the previous month that resulted in net income for May of over $20k.

For the first time in a couple months my Done For You PBN Service is open again for a limited number of spots. The majority of my teams increasing capacity continues to get swallowed up by returning customers, early notification people looking to increase the size of their PBNs and by larger SEO consultant orders. So after a great month last month from my team I have some spare capacity I am happy to offer to readers of my blog – Go Here to Sign Up!

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 and Private Blog Network Services:

o   Domain Finding Service (buy domains that meet my metrics)

o   Done for Your Private Blog Network (let my team build you a personal PBN)

o   LightningRank (get access to the most powerful PBN available!)

Key Successes

1. Quality and Speed of PBN Creation – My team responded this month with our largest number of sites ever built and largest number of domains ever found. The quality although content can still be a challenge did not drop with the increased volume.
2. Free Time – I had conflicting priorities at points last month including my day job and a 4 day backpacking trip. The business (other than a post on this site) did not suffer which I am very happy with.
3. Passive Website Portfolio Income Growth – It was my best month ever for passive income growth and it came from new sites I have built, old sites I built bouncing back and several websites I purchased performing well.
4. Diversified Income – Similar to the comment above this month demonstrated the robustness of a diversified business with very high costs on my services business my website portfolio helped pick up the slack and ensure I had a reasonably successful month.
5. LightningRank Savings – The migration of the LightningRank business into my control (full story here) was successful and substantial savings are ready to be passed onto the customers once some final checks are completed.

 

Key Failures

1. “Unique” Niche Site Monetization – One partnership I am in showed substantial promise but is yet to have paid off. I am staying the course with the plan we have but we were hopeful for some income from our hard work but nothing yet.
2. Taxes – I am a proud Canadian and have no issues paying taxes. The failure is that I am looking at my business as a flywheel I am trying get spinning faster and faster however the taxes feel like a break continuously being applied to the flywheel. Again, I have no issues with paying taxes…I just need to get better at factoring them into the businesses growth. I have a great accountant who is helping me with the tax implications of the business.
3. Productivity – The flywheel analogy was applicable for my productivity as well. I am far more productive when I am in a routine pushing out 2hrs of work routinely every night. However, last month with a few interruptions to my routine my productivity seemed to suffer.

 

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 months 20% growth in my passive website portfolio’s income this month saw another 32% increase!

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)

o   Sites:

• PMSL
• OIC
• ACLSR
• GFD (purchased)
• RBC
• RFNF
• BCR
• CCRB
• PFA (purchased)
• IFA (purchased) (NEW in June!)

• Revenue = $4,651.63
• Costs = -$928.90
• Net Income = $3,722.73 J (+33%)

Sites that fell below the $100/month line = (none in June)

June Comment – The reason for the increase is my student loan sites CPA program coming back, traffic growth at my student loan site and 4 purchased websites performing as expected with 2 earning over $100/month. The one purchased website that tanked last month did not turn around this month.

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 = $2,304 (+339%)
• Traffic = 28,663 (+110%)
• Citation Flow = 30 (-)
• Trust Flow = 19 (+2)

June Comment – Here was the bounce back I was hoping for and it comes at the right time of year. With the loss of the CPA offer it hurt my site for a number of months but now that that is back in place and the seasonal traffic is back I hope for another run of several great months with this site.

 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.

Progress:

June Comment – One more site added in June. I was hoping for more from another project but no luck this month. Overall I am definitely happy with making forward progress but it is not at the rate I would like.

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 = 16,879 (+24%)
• Subscribers = 2,704 (+8%)
• # of Posts = 5
• Affiliate Income = $280 (-61%)

June Comment – Traffic growth is in the right direction. This is great to see after a couple months of stable traffic. Continuing to push out useful posts every week is the key to building the audience here. Affiliate income fell off to only $280, this is not a big concern as it not the purpose of the site. For anyone that does purchase  tool or hosting through my affiliate links thank you!

 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.

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 a higher percentage of my time is attending to this side of my business.

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) and domain finding business…

• # Sites Built = 119 (+51%) (doesn’t cover all sites)
• # of Domains Found = 170 (+91%) (doesn’t cover all sites)
• Net Income = $3,272.75 (-81%)*
• Refund Rate = 2.9%

*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).

June Comment: June was a month where I had 5 Monday ODesk bills for my team and also a month where I took on few orders in order to build out a large number of sites for orders from May. So overall I am happy with the numbers. One metric I do not share is cost per site which for the first time in several months actually declined, I do not have controls tight enough to fully believe the numbers but it is promising to see anyway.

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 = $7,275.48

“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.

June Comment: The significant drop was fully expected. With both my services business and affiliate income from AWI taking a dip it was great the website portfolio really picked up. I am looking forward to a month when all 3 sides of my business have a banner month! The money in the bank target is no longer going to be realistic since for I have made changes where I pay my wife a salary for the work she does.

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 = $12,158

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

Final Comments

A solid month still well ahead of my goals but bottom line income definitely took an expected dip.

Here is the summary of this months results…

1. Niche Websites – Best news of the month! Without this portfolio of sites performing well I may have dipped below my income goal. I am optimistic about future growth as well.
2. AuthorityWebsiteIncome.com – Published 5 posts with some being very substantial and the results showed with great traffic numbers.
3. Services Business – Although the income was not the same I am very happy with my team stepping up and increasing the number of sites completed by 50% breaking the 100 sites for clients in one month. The quality has stayed high on both domain finding and site building. There are still opportunities for quality improvement especially on the content front. But with over 800 articles needed to be created this month and only a handful of low quality articles making it through my QC filters I am confident I am on the right path with my QC processes.

How was your month?