ShoutMeLoud Monthly Income Report, May 2012

It has been nearly a year since I’ve published a monthly income report, and the last time when I went to a bloggers’ meeting, many new bloggers asked me what happened to the SML income report. Many of them told me that it serves as an inspiration, and it helps to motivate them.  Since that is the very reason I started publishing the income report, I have decided to continue the series.  Within these reports, I will also present news and changes here at ShoutMeLoud.

Before we move forward with a look into SML’s recent history, you might like to read about how ShoutMeLoud makes money.

A look at the past year:

I’m not very happy with the progress of the blog over the past year, and indeed, the Google update has forced some changes in my entire strategy.

Blogging in 2012 requires a far more serious approach to the profession than what has been expected in the past.  In fact, in the process of upgrading the blog, I even fired a few of my regular authors.  It was a shame to have to do this, but it was necessary to maintain a high-quality blog that is up to the recent standards of the blogging profession.  I have taken this first step, and I am working on raising the standards of my blogs, one blog at a time.

I have also changed the service offerings, and I have added the services involved in blog consultancy. The reason I have started a completely new service as a blog coach is due to my desire to help new bloggers come to understand Blogging from A-to-Z in 4-5 hours of consultancy. This has worked out well for me, and you can see how it has helped my clients in their words here.

When Panda was launched, many of my sites were hit.  As a result, I spent most of 2011 repairing the sites in my network and improving the overall quality of my sites. I have deleted nearly 2000 pieces of low-quality content in the past year, and I have turned my focus from quantity to quality.  The result has been greater loyalty from my readership and many more page views.  You can learn about what I did to accomplish this in the sections on blogging and making money online.

Now let’s have a look at my revenue report for last month.

Income Report:

I have never used AdSense as my primary source of revenue. Instead, my major sources of revenue have been private advertising (direct advertisements, paid reviews) and affiliate sales.

More recently, blog consultancy has added another lucrative source of income to my stream, and if things go as planned, we will begin offering a premium membership to bloggers in the near future.

With this income report, instead of putting all of my affiliate sales into one category, I am breaking it down into specific sections to help you discover new affiliate programs. (I will ignore the affiliate networks that are not working well.)

Here are my results for this month!

• Google AdSense: $602
• Direct Advertisements: $1250 (including reviews)
• BuySellAds: $300
• Technorati Media: $60
• Thesis Affiliates: $224
• Affiliates: $1518
• Elegant Theme Affiliates: $147
• WooThemes: $44
• Envato marketplace: $22
• EasyWPSEO plugin affiliates: $298
• SEO Smart Link: $123.33
• Aweber Affiliate:  $50.80
• Viglink: $48
• Blog Consultancy: $1118
• WordPress Services: $345
• Resellerclub: $28

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Total: $6178.13

I did miss out on many small ad networks and affiliates that I’m using, but overall last month’s revenue is around $6500, which is less income than was noted in my last report.

One reason for this is that we have lost a fair amount of traffic on some of the major blogs (and niche blogs).  However, ShoutMeLoud is now out of the penalty, and I have started working on the other sites as well. Hopefully next month’s income report will show an improved result.

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I have also received gifts from various blogging and media companies worth $3000 in the past month, including a few premium packages and some gifts such as a Swatch watch and a book, (Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel).

I am turning 26 this month, (22nd June), and I will set new goals and a new target for my blog network. I will continue to keep you posted, and if you have any feedback or suggestions feel free to let us know on our Google Plus page. If you are visiting ShoutMeLoud for the first time, here are various subscription options for you.