This makes January my best month yet, both in terms of side income earnings and net profit. As always, before I reveal my full income report and net profit breakdown for the month, here are a few important highlights from January. (To learn more about why I started maintaining monthly income reports, visit this page)
Winning Silver Prize at the SEMrush Content Challenge 2018
In December 2018, SEMrush announced their special Content Challenge event. They usually conduct a monthly content challenge for their affiliate partners where the prize for the winner is $100, but the SEMrush Content Challenge 2018 was more like an annual event to end 2018 with a bang. The grand prize was $1000.
My submission for the contest, “The Ultimate Guide to Competitive Intelligence 2.0 Toolkit by SEMrush” ended up fetching the 2nd prize (silver prize) which means an extra $500 in my affiliate kitty in January. Cha-Ching!💰😀 This marks the third time I’ve won a content challenge from SEMrush – the first time was on July 2016 for the blog post “SEMrush vs Moz: Which is the Best SEO Tool?” and the second time was for the blog post “How to Use SEMrush to Amplify Your Content Marketing” in November 2017. Thank you, SEMrush! It’s a massive privilege being your affiliate partner.
Content Creation
Here are all the blog posts published in January 2019. Did you read all of them? If not, then please feel free to check them out and let me know your thoughts in the comments section.
The Only Marketing Toolkit You Will Ever Need The Ultimate Guide to Competitive Intelligence 2.0 Toolkit by SEMrush 7 Business Lessons I Learned from Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson UTM.io Review & Walkthrough – Build, Track, & Manage UTM Links
And here are the articles that were updated and refreshed for 2019:
Serpstat Review: The Ultimate SEO & PPC Tool for Bloggers 8 Amazing SEO Tools You Must Try in 2019 Link Building in 2019: 18 Proven Techniques to Get High Quality Backlinks
Marketing Mantra Podcast
Last month, I finally came close to achieving my objective of publishing one new podcast episode each week. I was able to record and release 5 new episodes of Marketing Mantra, all of which are available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and other major podcast playing platforms. Here are all the new episodes published in January:
E14: Is It Worth Spending Money on Bing Ads? E13: How to Recover from a Google Panda Penalty E12: Snapchat has the Happiest Users (according to Snapchat) E11: The One Instagram Tool You Have to Use to Drive Traffic and Conversions E10: How Long Should Your Blog Post Be?
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I published two AppSumo video reviews and walkthroughs on YouTube — UTM.io and AccuRanker. To learn more about these AppSumo lifetime deals, check out this article. If you’re a frequent reader of my blog, I’d urge you to please consider subscribing to the 99signals YouTube Channel as well. I’m uploading at least two video reviews and walkthroughs each month in addition to other interesting marketing content.
2019 Goodreads Reading Challenge
I’ve taken up a new Goodreads reading challenge in 2019 and the challenge is once again the same — to finish reading 100 books by the end of 2019; 25 of which to be business books. I read a few interesting business books in January, including All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin, Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday, and It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. My favorite among these was All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin. In the book, Godin makes a case for the importance of storytelling in marketing.
According to Godin, it’s not the product that a consumer buys, but the story behind the product. And all successful marketers tell engaging stories. It’s one of the most compelling business books I’ve ever read and it’s highly recommended to all marketers and entrepreneurs. To learn more about my thoughts on the book, please check out this article — 7 Marketing Lessons I Learned from “All Marketers Are Liars” by Seth Godin. Conspiracy recounts the tale of how the controversial media outlet Gawker Media was secretly taken down by billionaire investor Peter Thiel with the help of an unlikely ally, Terry Bollea, better known as the wrestling legend Hulk Hogan. This is the third Ryan Holiday book I’ve read, and I consider this to be his best work.
Like many, I was fascinated by the Gawker vs. Bollea trial in 2016 and was surprised by the verdict which eventually bankrupted the notorious publication Gawker. It was only at the end that the world became aware of Thiel’s involvement in the trial and how he had funded Hogan’s lawsuit. In the book, Holiday explores how Thiel masterminded the whole scheme, his reasons for doing so, presents the whole facts of the case, and the events that caused Gawker’s destruction. Though the book is slightly biased towards Thiel, it’s an enjoyable read which is hard to put down.
It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work is more like a direct sequel to Fried and Hansson’s brilliant book Rework. I was slightly underwhelmed by the book, but that may have been because I consider Rework to be one of my favorite business books and my expectations before reading this book were too high.
Quotes I’m Pondering (Jan 1 – 31, 2019)
Inspired by Tim Ferriss’ Tribe of Mentors, you’ll find thought-provoking quotes in all my income reports. These are the quotes that inspired me and changed my thinking in January. I hope you find them just as insightful as I did: “It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer.” — William of Occam (14th-century English philosopher and theologian) “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” — Haruki Murakami (Japanese Writer, author of Kafka on the Shore and Norwegian Wood) January 2019 Income Report Here’s my income report for January 2019 — affiliate earnings, followed by other income, expenses, and net profit breakdown. Affiliate Earnings
SEMrush – $2402.09 (review / eBook) SEMrush Contest (Silver Prize) – $500 AppSumo – $1473.98 (latest deals) AppSumo Briefcase – $149.5 (review) Serpstat – $214 (review) ConvertKit – $32.4 (review) KWFinder – $24 (review) SendinBlue – $706.03 (review) AWeber – $29.4 (review) Instapage – $23.7 (review)
Total Affiliate Earnings: $5,555.10 Other Income
Sponsored posts – $550 (click here for more details)
Total Side Income Earnings: $6,105.10 Expenses
Mailchimp (Recurring) – $50 (review) AppSumo Briefcase (Recurring) – $49 (review) Google Ads – $42.30 Facebook Ads – $38.90 Buffer Pro (Recurring) – $15 Flickr Pro (Recurring) – $5.99 Alexa Subscription (Recurring) – $19.99 Buildfire (Recurring) – $54 UTM.io AppSumo Lifetime Deal – $49 (review) Outgrow Calculators – $200 (6-month plan) GoDaddy Hosting Renewal – $36.18
Total Expenses: $560.36 Net Profit Breakdown
Affiliate earnings: $5,555.10 Other income: $550 Total expenses: (-$560.36) Net Profit: $5,544.74
That wraps the income report for January 2019. If you have any questions about this month’s income report, feel free to ask them in the comments section or connect with me via Twitter. To get frequent updates on all things SEO, blogging, and social media, follow 99signals on these platforms below:
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If you’re interested to learn more about passive income, I reveal some of my affiliate marketing secrets in this article + webinar. Be sure to check it out!
