Another month in the books, and September really got me excited because for just over half the month, I didn’t do any work at all. Well, I shouldn’t say any work but I barely did anything because I was in Brazil up until September 15.

Amazingly, my income didn’t really suffer. Sure, there was a little bit of a drop in earnings and a lot of that is because August was full of a lot of consulting opportunities, but overall I’m really happy to see that I’ve created a website that makes me money while I’m not actively working on it

Before I begin the income report, if this is your first time on my website let me explain why I write a detailed income report each month that outlines the money I made (or lost) and the time I spent working each month.

I’m doing this for a number of reasons:

1) I strive to be transparent about what it takes to make money online.

2) These reports help me keep track of my own progress.

3) These reports hold me accountable.

In short, I don’t create these to gloat about my earnings. I create them to help you understand the true “earning curve” of online business. Now that we got that out of the way, let’s dive into the report.

How much time did I work this month?

How did the income report turn out this month?

Discussing this month’s income

My income in September did drop a little bit, but I’m not really all that concerned about it. As I mentioned in my intro, the reason why I didn’t have as much revenue as last month is because I didn’t have the same consulting opportunities. But remember, consulting is trading your time for dollars. Now that’s totally fine if it’s what you aim to do, but I’d much rather be in a situation where I’m making passive income.

So to me, the thing that really matters is whether or not my passive income is still going strong month to month. The good news is that Website 1ub website is still doing really well and both Udemy and OHP brought in some pretty good money this month and I did very little to make that happen.

I did see a little bit of a dip with Website 1ub earnings, but you have to keep in mind that September was a short month.

I also saw a dip in Udemy, but in August they feature my courses so I got quite a bump in earnings.

Lastly, I saw a huge increase in income on OHP and that was all due to affiliate marketing from old posts. To be completely honest, the OHP website cracks me up because one month I’ll make less than $100 then the next I can make over $400. There really is no rhyme or reason, there’s just an element of luck to it.

Discussing this month’s expenses

Expenses this month were pretty common, but there were a few things that stick out to me when I look at my expenses that I think are worth mentioning.

First, you’ll see that my cost for Convertkit increased by about $40. The reason for this is pretty simple, I didn’t do a good job of cleaning out my email list at the end of the month. Because of this, I hit the next tier pricing and lost $40 but I’ve cleaned it up since then and this should no longer be an issue.

Some people will make an argument that you should never clean out your email list because having email addresses is better than having nothing. If I took that advice, I would probably have over 25,000 subscribers and an insanely high monthly bill that was showing no return on investment. I feel that once a month you should go through your email list and clean out your inactive subscribers.  Convertkit defines this as someone who has been subscribed to your email list for at least 30 days and doesn’t have a single click on any of your emails.

For me this works pretty well because in the first 30 days of being subscribed on Website 1ub, people get around 20 emails and if they haven’t clicked on a single link I’m not making any money from them.  Because of this, I’m totally fine with unsubscribing them at that point.

Second, you’ll see that I had an increased cost with Siteground hosting.  This is because I’ve elected to move Website 1ub website over to Website 6TPS vs Website 6TP.  The reason is because one of the podcasts that I’ve listened to for the last year had a really helpful episode explaining why you need to switch to Website 6TPS before the year is over.

This episode caused me to spend just over $100 to get Website 1ub website on Website 6TPS.  As of now, this is my main income website and I need to make sure it plays really nicely with Google and this was a nice way to do that.  In addition, the podcast mentions the fact that this could have an impact on SEO, so I figured I may as well get it done now before the beginning of the year.

Third, and this one hurt me because I’m usually pretty cheap, you’ll see the Authority Hacker Membership for $299.  Long story short, I’ve always listen to this podcast and this is one of those websites/podcasts that has always put out some amazing content.

The total cost of the membership is four payments of $299, of $1200!  Kind of outrageous….but hear me out.

Yes, it’s very expensive.

No, I wasn’t happy spending that money.

But I looked at this as an opportunity to invest in my business and I have to say that I’m not disappointed with what I’ve purchased.  Their membership entitles you to an exclusive mastermind on Facebook which was really important to me because I wanted to connect with other individuals who do the same thing that I do.

In addition to that, they also offer roughly 12 training modules and the one that really stuck out to me was the monetization modules. Specifically, display ad monetization.

This is a really big deal to me because Website 1ub relies heavily on Google AdSense display ads to make revenue.  My thought was that if I could start making additional income through better ad placements, then the cost of the membership would offset itself.

While I’m not 100% happy with the results yet, I’ve increased my ad revenue by using the advice in their module by about 8%.  That may not seem like much, but 8% of roughly $2500 in revenue each month is an additional $200 every month. That means that in six months I’ll have paid for the membership and every dollar thereafter is additional income that I never would’ve had.

Making this purchase was difficult and I agonized over it for about 24 hours, but then I just decided to go for it. Truthfully, I don’t regret it and I’m confident that I’m a better online business owner because of it.

If you’re wondering, they’re no longer accepting memberships and only open the membership once per year, so I suggest that you begin listening to their podcast so you’ll be ready next time it opens up.

Project Updates

Website 1ub Update:  Not too much to report on Website 1ub this month.  I did spend some time working on it but most of that was related to that ad optimization and I’m happy to see the results so far.

My goal now is to create other websites that are similar to this one and eventually hire an editor who approves all of the content so that I take myself completely out of the process. Once I have that done, this website will be 100% passive which will be a pretty awesome feeling.

One thing that I found pretty funny recently is the fact that there is one individual who has completely copied this website. He took all the ideas that I had and copied them to make his own website. He was also able to get quite a few links that have really helped his rankings, but they haven’t helped him enough to rank above my website.

The thing that really pisses me off is he went on to a podcast and explained how he had this great idea to help people and that’s just a bunch of B.S.  I know that he’s in it for the income and people who do things the wrong reasons don’t last.

I found out about them because he had “infiltrated” the Facebook group I created for Website 1ub and posted his website in there twice. The first time I let it go because I figured maybe someone had come across the website as a resource, but then when I saw the second time, I looked into the profile and saw that it was created within the last month and only had one friend.

I’m not sure if he reads these income reports, but if he does I hope he realizes that I’m on to him.  Unfortunately for him, he’s really pissed me off and I’m a very competitive person.  Now I’m going to do even more link outreach with Website 1ub to make it unattainable for him to ever touch me in the rankings.

People like this make me sick.

They take an original idea that has been done well and then try to play it off as their own. Not only that, but they go around in public forums trying to take credit for the idea in its entirety.

Now, I wasn’t the first one to come up with a website helping people with a handicap find a job, but I was the first one who really dove deep into this and created a bunch of different informational databases that no one else had.  This is the stuff that he copied and it’s irritating.

Don’t be someone like this.

If you create a website that’s already been done before, just make sure that you are original with what you do and do it for the right reasons. Don’t try to sponge off of someone else’s success for monetary gain.

Also, as you can imagine I’m never going to share the actual URLs of my authority websites again.  Unfortunately, one bad apple spoiled the bunch and now I’ll just be referring to them as “Authority Website {Abbreviation}”  I’m doing this because I don’t want another guy to try to come along and copy what I’ve done.

So for now, I have three websites that’ I’ll always refer to.

Authority Website THQ

Authority Website JFFT

Authority Website MCM

Consulting Update:  I knew my drop in consulting income this month would be large and I was right. You see, this is the problem with consulting, you have no idea what you’ll make month-to-month. I knew that the big project I worked on in August was over with and I was just available for support when they needed it. As you can see, they didn’t need much support.

Udemy Update: I took time this month to begin to look into creating another course. Before I ever create a new course, the thing that I do is ask my students what they want. This is important because it allows me to understand what their needs are.

After my survey, the two most popular subjects were getting website traffic and outsourcing.

I feel like getting website traffic is far too broad, so I’m going to focus on outsourcing for the next one but I have no intention of working on a course until I’m finished with at least two of my other authority websites.

I’m currently working on three websites and there is no need to take on any other projects at this time. I see these authority websites as I higher return on investment than a Udemy course would be, so I’m sticking with them for now.

OHP Website Update:  Pretty cool month for OHP.  I did virtually no work except for the income report and ended up making just over $400. This $400 came from to Bluehost hosting and Thrive themes primarily.

Website 2 Update:  Truth be told, I should probably just sell this website. I really don’t work on it and I’m not passionate about the subject, but it could make me $750-$1000 in an auction.  I’m not sure what I’ll do with this yet…..it just isn’t something I’m ready to part with at this moment.

Authority Website THQ Update: My developer completed some programming recently and it’s almost time to input a bunch of information that’s already been researched into this website.  In total, this website already gets around 500 visitors every month and I’ve built absolutely no back links to it

There is still a ton of content that I have to input before I’m ready to begin building back links to this website including over 20 blog posts and about 1000 pages of content. It’s going to take a while, but I’m confident that once it’s done I’ll be able to get some really great back links through guest posting at some of the colleges that I work  with as well as reaching out to a large amount of websites and have links to my competitors.

Authority Website JFFT Update: The JFFT authority website is still moving along. My writer is (slowly) creating content and with each piece I’m publishing it. I still need five more articles from her until this one is completed and then I can begin trying to find guest post and back link opportunities.  I really don’t have much of a focus on this one now, I’m just waiting for my writer to finish and then I can focus on it more.  When she does finish, I’ll be assigning her blog posts and will have her create 1-2 posts each week until I feel like the website is in a good place.

Ecommerce Website MCM Update:  This is probably my favorite project right now. This website is a lot of fun to work on and I’ve already created some resources that I know will do well when I start link outreach.

I’m waiting to have at least 10 blog posts completed before I begin outreach, but once I do I’m confident that I’ll be able to build quite a few links. Once I do get these links, then it’s time to create even more content and build more links. It’s going to take some time to make this one grow, but I’m excited because it’s e-commerce which is something completely different from what I’ve done before.  It’s looking like this one could bring around 40,000 to 50,000 visitors per month once I’ve completed it and am ranking for a lot of the key terms.

Did I Meet my Goals for September?

1) Complete Authority Website JFFT – FAIL

I mentioned last month how this was all going to depend on how quickly my writer completed content. Unfortunately, my writer has been taking a lot of time to get the writing done and I believe it’s because she has other writing assignments. I’m not necessarily angry about this, though I do wish she would get it done more quickly. I’m under the assumption that this will be completed by the end of October and of all the projects that I’m working on, this is probably the lowest priority at the moment.

2) Determine Link Building Strategy for JFFT – SUCCESS

The link building strategy for the JFFT authority website is going to be pretty simple, guest posting and finding additional link opportunities through my competitors. I wish I had something really clever for this one, but it just isn’t big enough to warrant a lot of work on my end and though I’ll give this some additional thought, I just don’t see a lot of linking opportunities. The truth is, I’ll never know until I dive then and begin link building, but I think I have a good idea of what I need to do.

3) Build Out Content on Authority Website THQ – FAIL

I wasn’t able to do this because my developer took too long to get his work done.  So yes, technically I failed but I get a caveat with this one because it wasn’t all my fault.  In fact, I guess you could say the same thing with my writer for the JFFT website. I can’t place too much blame on either of them though because I was out of the country for half the month and wasn’t managing them properly.

Goals for October:

1) Complete Main Content and Assign JFFT Blog Posts

For the JFFT authority website, I want my writer to complete all of the main content and set up a spreadsheet assigning her blog posts. I’ll probably only have her blog once, maybe twice per week, but I want to get this content completed and the blog started so that this website has some decent content.

2) Have Developer Finish THQ and Build out Content

The next goal is to have my developer finish the THQ authority website fixes and hire a virtual assistant to build out the content. This is going to be something that will take me a few months to do as there is a ridiculous amount of content to be built out, but I’m confident that all of this content being built will end up getting me to the top of the Search Engines once I build links at a later date.

3) Post Five More MCM Blog Posts and Get 3 Backlinks

The last goal for this month is to get five more pieces of content written for the MCM e-commerce site and begin link building. This is a bit of a stretch goal, but I’m confident that I’ve created some really cool blog posts on this one and I found a really good outreach strategy through the authority hacker membership that I think will serve me really well.

What are your goals for the month?  What questions do you have?  Let me know in the comments below!