April was a very hectic month, especially towards the end of the month. My dog was sick and needed to be hospitalized for a week (she’s fine now). At the same time, we were moving to a new town that was 2 hours away. The last week of April involved a lot of driving, moving boxes and panic attacks. Needless to say, I didn’t get anything done that week. However, I’m confident that the few tasks I did accomplish in April will end up being a good foundation for my business in the future.
When it comes to income reports, I’m going to try to be as transparent as possible. I want you to see just how difficult it is to make money online but also that it is possible to make a living doing it. Hopefully you can learn from my struggles and successes and use them to help your online business succeed. It is very motivating to me when I see others be successful online and it makes me want to work harder so I can be successful too.
*Note: In my income reports, I list my niche websites by abbreviations based on the name of the website. For example, Brainstorming In Motion is BIM, Smart Passive Income would be SPI, Best Dog Collars for Great Danes would be BDCFGD.
April Overview:
- Updated 5 articles on BVFTH – made sure each article is at least 1500 words long, updated any Amazon products sold and made sure Yoast SEO score was green.
- Updated 2 articles on HRG – made sure each article is at least 1500 words long, updated any Amazon products sold and made sure Yoast SEO score was green.
- Filled all my slots on Merch by Amazon. I’m currently in Tier 100.
- Uploaded 35 designs to Redbubble
- Signed up for Amazon KDP.
Income Sources:
Niche Websites – 30 websites – Amazon Affiliates: $88.57 (-$41.30 from previous month)
Merch By Amazon – Tier 100 – 100 designs – 1 sales – $3.60 (-4.59 from previous month)
Redbubble – 60 designs- 1 sales – $5.49 (+$5.49 from previous month)
Amazon KDP – 0 designs – 0 sales – $0
Gross Total: $97.66 (-$40.40 from previous month)
Expenses:
Web Hosting – Hostmonster – 2 accounts – $35.98/month
Domain Registration – NameSilo – $23.83/month (30 domain names)
Website Software – Link Whisper – $12.25/month
Website Software – Canva – $12.99/month
Premium Extension – Pretty Merch Pro – $3.96/month
Premium WordPress Theme – GP Press – $2.50/month
Website Subscription – FreePik – $7.49/month
LLC Yearly Registration Fee – $24.91/month
Computer Software – Microsoft Office – $8.94/month
Computer Software – Dropbox – $9.99/month
Total Monthly Expenses: $142.84
April Income Total: -45.18
I’ve never really taken a close look at my expenses to see how much I was spending compared to how much I am earning. It makes me sick to see that I’m losing money each month. Hopefully I can turn this around and become profitable in May and beyond.
What I Learned
1. It is almost impossible to sell t-shirts organically on Merch by Amazon. Amazon hides new designs and puts them deep in the search results. You need to advertise and promote your designs in order for buyers to see them and buy them. I will be focusing a lot on advertising the next few months. In fact, I was just approved for Amazon advertising yesterday so that will help get the ball rolling.
2. Life gets in the way and that’s okay. As long as you don’t take months to get back to work, it’s okay to take a break once in a while. I didn’t get any work done at the end of April because I was moving and my dog was sick, however, I’m already back to work. I don’t want to take years to get back on track like the last time I took a break.
3. I need to be constantly learning new things. I’m trying to watch YouTube videos and reading message boards every day to learn new and updated strategies for promoting my merch and websites. It’s not just learning about them. I also have to apply what I learn to my business in order to see results.
May Goals
- Continue updating 1 article per day on my website BVFTH. Each article will be updated to have over 1500 words, will be SEO optimized, will link out to 5 authority sites and will also link internally to 5 other articles on the site. If I update 1/day, all 95 articles will be updated within 3 months.
- Continue updating 1 article per day on my website HRG. Each article will be updated to have over 1500 words, will be SEO optimized, will link out to 5 authority sites and will also link internally to 5 other articles on the site. If I update 1/day, all 75 articles will be updated within 2 1/2 months.
- Replace badly designed shirts on my Merch by Amazon account with new designs.
- Continue uploading my MBA designs to different products and in different countries.
- Upload all of my Merch designs to Redbubble.
- Upload 5 low-content books to Amazon KDP.
- Find 100 new niches for MBA. I hope to get tiered up soon and I want to be prepared.
- Start an advertising campaign on Amazon and work to get the campaign optimized and profitable.