Welcome to Lab172 Income Reports!
Every month I create and share a monthly online income report that is a detailed account of my online earnings. These reports allows me keep track of my progress, the trials and errors and also to give readers the ability to join me on my journey and hopefully take something out of it that you can use to help you build a business, create online income or generate new ideas for a project!
Every month I create and share a monthly online income report that is a detailed account of my online earnings. These reports allows me keep track of my progress, the trials and errors and also to give readers the ability to join me on my journey and hopefully take something out of it that you can use to help you build a business, create online income or generate new ideas for a project!
These
reports count income which was earned during the month, but not
necessarily paid out to us within that month. With many affiliate
programs there is sometimes a significant delay between earning a
commission and actual payout.
Quote of the Month
Click On Image to Learn More about this Quote!
One important lesson I have learned over the last few months was exactly what the Quote of the Month essentially means.
Mile by Mile It's a Trial, Yard by Yard It's Hard but Inch by Inch, It's a Cinch
Sometimes I get so many new ideas for articles, new niche sites and other things that I loose focus on the things that are priority and needs to be done first.
It's a bad habit that I have but I am working on it.
I've came to realize that if I personally don't focus on one thing and get it done, I may never complete whatever it is I am working on. So as you can see that this quote really hits home with me.
I've came to realize that if I personally don't focus on one thing and get it done, I may never complete whatever it is I am working on. So as you can see that this quote really hits home with me.
April was a very special month, mainly because it's was my birthday month. I enjoyed the day hanging with the family over dinner and spending the day with them.
Although April was my birthday month, I was also able to get some work done and some other projects started.
Although April was my birthday month, I was also able to get some work done and some other projects started.
Let's Get Down To Business
Summary
This month consisted of some experimentation in one area that I was completely dismissive of prior months earlier. I've read many great articles and case studies about people who are selling stuff on Amazon but never really tried it out for myself.
I've heard as much good things as I've heard bad things about Amazon FBA, but you can never know how something really is without trying it out for yourself.
Working with some Freelance writers to create articles was another key task for the month. This is something I've been waiting to do for a while now and I am slowly but surely making my way to towards that area. The mobile games portfolio is another area where I've been trying to get back on track with.
For the most part, April was another month of getting work done so lets get straight into it!
Niche Sites
Niche Site Performance
One thing that I haven't really paid much attention to in the past was the analytics of my niche sites. I've always had the focus of building my audience through organic search and content marketing but to do that would require lots of quality content, mainly from articles, or so I thought. The idea was that if I created enough niche sites with lots of quality content, I would receive more traffic to the sites. So instead of worry about traffic now, my main focus was on content.
The thing is, since I began creating sites, I was never really paying much attention to the data that was coming in. It wasn't until last September that I started to pull back to get all my ducks in a row and to see what was really going on. This is how I was able determined which sites were performing better than others.
As of now, I can keep track of all my niche sites and start implementing my plan which I explained in last months online income report.
In future income reports, I will start to go into more details about traffic and the performance of the niche sites.
Outsourcing Article Writing
After deciding to start outsourcing article writing, I gave the first gig to my friend whom I feel is great at writing. Withing a week, he returned a 2 complete 600 word articles which was well written but as I've mentioned before, I will edit and add to the articles that I am planning on outsourcing.
I am very satisfied with his work and as his time permits, we will continue to work together on writing more articles. The next step will include outsourcing article writing from some of the freelancers I have been in contact with on Fiverr.
Overall, I will like to have 5 or more articles being created every 2 weeks by the freelancers while I create the same amount within the same amount of time.
I cannot express enough when I say that writing articles for niche sites is a huge task and sometimes it gets overwhelming but what I can say is that over time its gets a little easier.
After a while of writing articles, you start to get a structure or a template in which it makes it a lot easier to compose the writing.
Social Following
In March Income Report, I explained some of the things that were going on with my social network channels and why the overall numbers are down. In several income reports, I've also explained how I will turn this around.
This month, I can see some small progress but I know there is still lots of work to be done. One tip that I recently learned while publishing articles was to limit the different channels you will normally use to share a single article to one different channel per day.
For example, in the past, once an article is published, I would also share them on its' respective social network page like Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter all at once. What I learned was once you've publish an article, share that article on one of your social network pages, then the next day share it on another, and so on in a continuous cycle for several days or even weeks.
This simple tip as I was taught helps improves your social signals and your ranking within search engines. I am actually working on a article which can also be used as a guide filled with some of techniques and sources that I've learned and used to help improve my organic search traffic.
With the small improvements within my social circle, I can attribute those improvements to the plan that was put together several months back.
The plan consists of
- More content to be created and shared among each individual platform
- A heavy focus on images and visuals oppose to written content
- More interaction with current and new audience
- A weekly schedule for social networking and marketing
Selling On Amazon
I completely dismissed the idea of reselling through Amazon FBA for several months but once I got a chance to understand it a little better, I decided to give it a try. I purchased my first batch of inventory this month from Wal Mart's clearance section so I can experiment a little with how things work with Amazon FBA.
In the article, My First Attempt with Amazon FBA and Amazon Merchant Fulfillment Network, I've pretty much summed up what my experience was like during the first month which included signing up, sourcing, inventory shipping prep and the costs associated with everything.
My first month using the Amazon FBA program was indeed a great experience because it taught me many things that I can later experiment with and even get serious with.
Overall, my decision to use the Merchant Fulfillment Network was better suited for me due to certain things like distance from a post office and storage space. After getting a little settled with the program, I created a Quick Start Tools and Supply List for Amazon FBA and MFN Sellers. The guide can give new sellers or anyone thinking about selling on Amazon a short list of tools and supplies you will need to get started quickly.
By the end of the month, I was happy to know that I actually made some sales but at the end of the day, my expenses accounted for more than I made but eventually I learned how to make it work for me.
As I am writing this in the month of May, I can already see that in May's income report, we will see much improvement.
Mobile Apps
My mobile games portfolio hasn't grown much due to the fact that I haven't outsourced any new games for a while now. I've seen some downloads to the current games in the portfolio but not much that is worth even talking about.
Actually over the last few months, I've seen more uninstallments than I've seen installments which is caused by a few factors including lack of promotion, lack of updates, etc., which are all tasks that I am working on right now.
Last month I talked a little about expanding the mobile games portfolio and I've actually took a step in that direction. In March, I reached out to the developer who I've been working with on the last few apps to start work on some new apps I have been putting off for a while now.
Currently we are working an a few new games to add to the portfolio and will be releasing them sometime next month.
The Sensible Collections Launch
As you all may already know, this month was the official launch of my new T-Shirt Line called Sensible Collections. I started promoting the line a few months ago by releasing some of the sketches, the first drafts of the designs and the final product and even publishing the website to see how things would work on the customer side.
There were also some slight changes made to the designs before the official launch and now everything is up and running perfect. I haven't received any sales yet other than the few shirts I've ordered to examine.
The first set of shirts are the No Nonsense Graphic Tees, which is available in Black and White.
The next set of shirts will be the Possible Graphic Tees, which will be released very soon.
Monthly Online Income
Report
Income
Affiliate Earnings
- $11.02 - Amazon Associates
- $0.00 - Fiverr
- $0.00 - Bluehost
- $0.00 - GoDaddy
- $50.44 - Amazon Seller Gross Monthly Sales
- $0.00 - T-Shirt sales from the Sensible Collections Store
- $0.13 - Revenue from Niche Sites
- $0.00 - Revenue from Mobile Ads
- $0.00 - Revenue from Ads
Expenses
- $41.32 - Inventory Purchases
- $66.87 - Amazon Seller Fees/Expenses
- $10.00 - Article Writing
Net Total for March 2016
Total Income ($61.59)
Total Expenses ($118.19)
____________________
Net Loss -$56.60
Short Recap
April was not only a month of experimentation but also a month of progress. Even though it was not a profitable month, I expected my expenses to rise due to purchasing inventory for Amazon FBA. My first month experience with the Amazon FBA platform is showing some good results and I was able to learn a lot playing around with the platform and from the research I've been doing.
Over the next few months, I will be doing lots of sourcing for inventory so I can increase the volume of listed products I have currently for sale. I expect for my expenses to be around the same or slightly a little higher as I will continue selling on the platform. As I stated in the article, instead of using the FBA option, I will start selling through the Merchant Fulfillment option since there's many upsides for me to do so with this option.
I am also looking forward to the releases of the new mobile games that are currently in development which is slated for the beginning of June.
Thank You for being apart of the monthly online income report. I am looking forward to your comments and any suggestions as I am always looking forward to improving and learning new things that will help me grow and build my online business.
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