The month of June saw one of my biggest dips in side income and net losses yet! It was a month filled with massive content and contractor investments that’ll pay major dividends in the months to come.

Overall, I generated $5,858.66 in side income revenue. And on a personal note, Shelly & I are still staying here in Palo Alto while we prepare for our eventual move back up to San Francisco within the next couple of months.

Side income was down in June (for a number of reasons) which translated into a net loss of -$754.62 for the month. Most obviously, both a major affiliate of mine (Udemy) and my ad network (BuySellAds) delayed payments for the month of June, which accounts for a missing ~$600 that’ll instead hit my books in July.

On top of that, I doubled down on new content production for posts that are going after extremely high volume traffic search terms (and also translate into major affiliate income opportunities). Next month, I’m predicting my side income will make a pretty dramatic leap as the first month of content marketing work for a new client hits my books (additional $4,000) and I’ll also get paid out from last month’s sponsored post (additional $1,500).

This should push me back up to the ~$10,000 side income range where I’m expecting to hover for at least the following couple of months. If some of my affiliate optimizations pan out how I’m expecting them to, then that level of side income should be close to my new norm by around September of this year.

It’s months like these—when I’m making steep investments into the future (passive) income of my business that I’m so glad to have my full-time gig at Close.io to fund that growth and keep me chugging along stress-free.

Now on to the details…

Side Income Report June 2018:  $5,858.66

In these monthly reports, I track my total side income every month, including each individual source of that income, and associated expenses with running my side businesses.

Next, I break down the traffic to my blog which heavily impacts my side income, including what’s performing best and how I’m working to drive in more readers. I also cover how many email subscribers I have, the number acquired during the month, and what that growth trajectory looks like.

Then I talk about my podcast download numbers for the month, and which episodes performed best.

Finally, I cover updates on other side projects I’m working on.

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Now, let’s do this.

1. Side Income Breakdown for June 2018

 

Expenses Breakdown

 

Net Profit Breakdown

Real quick update on the rest of my side business…

As I mentioned in the intro, my June side income appears to have been negatively impacted a bit by payments arriving late from one of my biggest affiliates (Udemy) and from my ad network (BuySellAds). So when they hit in July, that’ll translate into an additional ~$600 in my affiliate income section above “normal” levels.

The rest of this side income report is going to be pretty concise, but I’ve got some analysis on what’s happening weaved in throughout, so read carefully 😊

2. Blog Stats for May 2018: 254,882 Sessions and 51,232 Total Email Subscribers

June 2018 saw my highest blog traffic month ever! This month I was up in Sessions from May by over 15%. And I moved up to 325,450 pageviews, also my highest ever.

As with previous months, this increase in traffic is directly correlated to several of my posts ranking higher in organic search and with some increased activity on Pinterest that’s resulted in more traffic from the platform.

Posts that are competing on very high volume search terms like:

• start a blog
• make money online
• business ideas
• business books
• motivational quotes
• business advice
• how to freelance
• how to save money
• online business courses
• online business tools
• freelance proposals
• cold email templates
• start a side business
• content marketing strategy
• validate business idea
• freelance contract
• and remote job

Overall site traffic is up by more than 58% compared to June 2017, which is very meaningful growth that I’m pumped about.

Email Subscribers.

I use ConvertKit to manage my email subscriber community and send out my weekly (sometimes twice weekly) updates.

June saw the addition of 4,789 subscribers to my community (38% growth over May).

Much of that subscriber growth has come from my new free course, Build a Blog in 7 Days.

I’ve placed calls-to-action across almost all of my highest trafficked posts of my blog—directing readers who are interested in starting a blog, to come over and join my new free course. Engagement has been strong and I’ve already seen dozens of people launch blogs… I’m very excited to see where this goes.

All in all, June brings me up to a total of 51,232 (amazing) subscribers.

3. Podcast Downloads for June 2018: 16,400 Downloads

It’s officially been 1 full year of hosting my podcast, The Side Hustle Project 🎉

With 16,400 downloads in June, I’m up quite a bit from May and nearing my all-time high again.

Here are the episodes that went live last month:

• #63: Baremetrics Founder Josh Pigford on Side Projects and Growing a $1 Million SaaS Startup
• #64: How to Build a $10 Million Subscription Business with The Beard Club’s Alex Brown
• #65: How to Quit Your Job and Start a Remote Marketing Agency with Arianna O’Dell
• #66: GMass Founder Ajay Goel on Growing a $90,000/mo SaaS Side Business

June brought my total download numbers for the show up to 152,728 downloads!

If you’re not a listener yet, give it a try right here 🙂

That’s it for my June side income report.

Like I said above, in July I’m predicting my side income to make a pretty dramatic leap as the first month of content marketing work for a new client hits my books (additional $4,000) and I get paid out from last month’s sponsored post (additional $1,500).

This should push me back up to the ~$10,000 range where I’m expecting to hover for at least the following few months. If some of my affiliate optimizations pan out how I’m expecting them to, then that side income level should be close to my new norm.

If you’re looking for some additional reading to help grow your own side business, I recently launched a 20,000 word (free) guide to building and scaling a profitable blog right here that I’d love for you to read 😊