New Year, new opportunities. That's the general theme of everyone's January right?
Well for me, I was pretty nervous in January.
Given that things had slowed down in December, I was anxious to see what January would have in store for me.
First of all, I was going to be really busy with the six figure challenge, and secondly, would people be spending money after the Christmas period?
A year ago,January 2014, hadn't exactly been a high point, so I was definitely worried about having another low income month this time around.
Although I have to say that I wasn't really worried about this, because it's just the nature of business.
Not every month excels.
How Wrong I Was
January 2015 was far and away the best month I've ever had online. In terms of income, in terms of sales, in terms of confidence, and in terms of well…everything.
Remember my previous best income? Around $2,500 back in November 2014.
I *almost* doubled it.
How's that for New Year ambition?
Let's take a look at the month in more details.
January 2015 Income – A Closer Look
New Launches
At the start of the month I did a softroll out of the new Keyword Packs. They weren't as successful as I'd hoped, although I did make a couple of sales from the ready-made and custom ones.
A week into the month, I also completed a test “Outreach Dossier” for Perrin and Spencer of nichepursuits, and got a glowing review from Perrin.
I've not pushed these packages much, as I've been so busy with everything else the month threw at me.
If you're interested, here's how both things work:
Keyword Packs
These are researched exactly the same as my custom and ready-made niche sites, the only difference is that there's no site attached to them.
You can buy a pack, and build the site out on your own. This is a much cheaper way of getting started, although it's also more time consuming.
Of course, you can always geta pack then ask me to build the site out as well.
The advantage of these packs of the ready-made sites as well, is that they're completely secret. Only the buyer knows what the niche is, and once it's bought, that's the end of that set of keywords for everyone except the buyer.
You can also request a custom pack be built for you. This means that even if you already have an idea for your niche, or even an established site, you can benefit from sometop quality keyword research.
Outreach Dossiers
As Perrin himself put it, the best way to succeed with an authority site is through white-hat link building, and the best way to do THAT, is to have a list of sites to target for outreach. I came up with the idea of a niche dossier after reading Pat Flynn's post here, and decided to test the water.
There's been a bit of interest, which is great considering I've only just rolled them out.
I will also be offering the outreach aspect of it as well. So for those of you who want more than just a list, I'll also have my newly growing team handle the outreach.
Growing Team
Thanks to the experience I gainedfrom the 6-Figure Challenge about hiring team members, I've been really scaling it this month, and it's a good thing, because the amount of work that came my way meant I had no choice.
On the 9th of January I went to Okinawa for 4 days, and made over $1,000 in sales to HPD while I was there. This kind of thing is why I love online income, and it's also why I needed to hire 2 people to help me build out the websites.
I have also hired more dedicated writers, so that each site has a single writer working on it, rather than the mixture that I had before.
I had to increase the costs of websites slightly to account for the new expenses, but turnaround times are much better now, and I will also be including Thrive Content Builder with my sites going forward, so this will more than make up for the increase.
The great thing about Thrive is that it will make WordPress 10x more easy for beginners, and a lot more powerful too. This should hopefully attract new customers, and will definitely increase the value of the sites.
You're welcome 🙂
Income Breakdown
As always, I'll start off with the affiliate sites.
If you read this post, you'll know that LuxuryShaves.com is now getting a great amount of traffic, and I'm still working on converting that into great income too. The income IS growing, which is promising, but I feel like I'm a few page one keywords off having the income the site deserves.
The main thing is that my affiliate income at this point is mostly on autopilot, and still stable. Will it grow in 2015? You betcha!
Affiliate Sites Income
Amazon: $120
Google Adsense: $74
Clickbank: $50
DragonDoor: $154
Total: $398
Definitely increasing there then, almost back up to previous levels.
HumanProofDesigns Income
For all of these, the income listed is after expenses are deducted. This includes things like paying people to write articles, web developers, buying domain names, and all other expenses associated with my services.
What you're looking at is pure profit.
Custom Niche Sites: $2723
I don't know exactly what happened, but it seems a lot of people wanted sites built in January, and thanks to hiring two guys to help me out, I managed to cope with the sudden influx of orders.
Keyword Packs: $150
Articles: $287
Bluehost: $130
Wealthy Affiliate: $616
Jaaxy: $104
Total: $4010
HPD definitely pulled its weight this month, beating my previous best month all by itself.
Other Income
Article Writing: $240
Joint Ventures: $0 (I actually earned a fair bit but had it wiped out by needing to buy a VAT plugin for the new EU rules).
“Other” Total: $240
So writing this here I still haven't totaled everything up yet to see how high I did actually get. I always keep a running score throughout the month, but it starts to drive me insane by the time I reach the final few days, plus it's such an anti-climax to be back on $0 again at the start of the next month, I try not to calculate the final amount until right here.
Curious to see how I did!
Grand Total: $4648
WOWEE BATMAN!
Gobsmacked.
The only question on my mind is, how on earth do I follow that?
Seriously though, I set my income targets for 2015 to be $5,000 a month from HPD, niche sites, and “other”, and $5,000 a month from the six-figure challenge.
The 6FC obviously needs a few more months before it starts earning, but to almost clear that target in my first month is amazing.
I'm sure that the next few months will drop and/or level out, so it still might not be until much later on in the year that I do beat my targets, but it's still really, really cool to start the year like this.
Thank you so much for the support and business that you guys have all given me recently.
Upwards on onwards! (Or is it onwards and upwards? Anyone?)
Dom
