After beating the $20,000 barrier in November, December did make the expected fall, but it was still great.  Drops in referral traffic from Google and Pinterest did impact overall traffic numbers which impacted income, and things of course fell off around Christmas time when all the frantic spending was done.  December was still my second ever highest month and things are continuing along at full steam ahead.

Traffic  history (both sites):

• December = 132,559
• January 2014 = 165,222
• February = 190,266
• March = 203,989
• April = 206,428
• May = 234,667
• June = 283,490
• July = 300,431
• August = 350,864
• September 2014 = 427,622
• October 2014 = 464,589 (SSE) + 11,029 (MMM) = 475,618
• November 2014 = 472,506 (SSE) + 10,184 (MMM) = 482,690
• December 2014 = 445,298 (SSE) + 8,866 (MMM) = 454,164

So a small dip in traffic overall, but luckily it seems to have been temporary because January is doing well again and if all things continue (fingers crossed) it should be my best ever month for visitors.

December Blog Earnings

• Google Adsense – $1,078.01
• Sverve – $44.00
• Infolinks – $0.47 (discontinued)
• Blogher – $118.10 (discontinued)
• ShareASale – $10,085.98
• Commission Junction – $19.88
• Escalate Network ads – $29.53
• E-book Sales – $8.32
• Moms Affiliate – $4.00
• Skimlinks – $1.57
• Social Spark (now Izea) – $30.25
• Amazon affiliate commission – $311.65
• NEW – Affiliate Window – $400.82 (recommended)
• NEW – Rakuten Linkshare – $0.00
• Amazon CPM Adverts – $344.83
• Direct advertising – $577.11
• Blogvault – $20.00
• Sewing pattern sales – $1,589.79
• Other advertising networks – $717.56
• Other small affiliate sales and advertising income (incl paid blogging)  – $162.93

• Total – $15,544.80

• Blogvault Back up (3 sites) – $19.00
• Ning sewing forum – $30.00
• MadMimi Mailing List – $89.00
• Virtual Assistant, pattern testers and site contributors – $556.54 (incl Christmas bonus)
• Hosting – $46.25
• ViralWoot Pinterest Promotion – $59.00

Compared to this time last year

Page views up from 132,559 to 454,164 = 342%

Earnings up from $4,014.14 to $15,544.80 = 387%

Site RPM

After the extraordinary month in November, things reverted back more to normal for December and the site RPM is a respectable $34.91.  That means for every 1,000 page views, the site earned $34.91.  I’d like to set a target of trying to achieve an average of $33 this year in 2015.  I do appreciate that often an increase in traffic doesn’t have a directly corresponding increase in earnings, in fact its my core followers that buy the products and services and the casual visitors take longer to convert to followers and customers, so I’ll be keeping an eye on this metric over the coming 12 months.

It’s pleasing to see that orange line continue to increase for earnings each month.  I feel that I’m probably at the peak of the earning potential for the site and unless I have an ah-ha moment and come up with something new, a new product, an e-book or some other launch or breakthrough, I expect to plateau going forward, and not see the amazing growth I enjoyed in 2014.

What’s to report this month

Nothing much to report. Nothing of any note happened, things were running along as expected.  My new association with Affiliate Window for the Etsy program was doing well for me in December as lots of people bought handmade goods.  If you aren’t already a member of Affiliate Window, I highly recommend signing up with them.  Very good network and merchants, excellent tools, great customer service and I made some easy money from promoting Etsy.  I do have it in my diary to write a full review, but well, I have a lot of things in my diary right now.

My wish for 2015 is for more time!

Recommendation for January

And lastly, if you haven’t chosen a good web host for your blog yet or are unhappy with your current web host, I highly recommend Bluehost.  You can get hosting for as low as $3.95 per month (hint: sign up for one or more years).  They also include a free domain name. They are one of the largest and top rated web hosting companies in the world.  They even have a no questions asked moneyback guarantee where you can cancel at anytime and get the remainder of your money back, even six months later.  Sign up here.

Share A Sale

I get a lot of emails asking about which merchants to use on ShareASale.  Generally there are some which are good for me, some which are good for you and some which will good for someone else.  It depends on your site, your niche and your readers.  I’ve recently updated this older article with a few recent offers, so take a look here and apply to some of these to get you started.  I also did an article about BuyCostumes, Gazelle and Montage, which I’ve just added to my selection.

Which Merchants should I sign up with on ShareASale?