It’s Day 22 of the New Year and I’m only getting the chance to publish last month’s Transparency Report. You’ve waited for it long enough, so I won’t make you wait any longer.
Let’s dive into the figures…
Website Traffic for December 2016
Here’s what our Google Analytics numbers look like for December:
The data breakdown is as follows:
- Sessions: 19,834
- Users: 16,511 (unique visitors to the site)
- Page Views: 32,826
- Avg. Session Duration: 00:01:39
- Bounce Rate: 79.92%
Traffic Analysis
Comparing December’s Google Analytics data to November’s, we can see that website traffic has increased, attracting an extra 3,2oo visitors and page views increased by approximately 6,000 as well. When I review the metrics for site content December, I noticed that our ‘shopping listicles’ such as 9 Sustainable Sleepwear Brands for Your Ethical Wardrobe and 8 Ethical Shoe Brands for the Conscious Consumer, were the most popular pages, the increased Google searches indicating that a higher interest in ethical products due to people doing Christmas shopping.
Now although there was an increase in website traffic, the quality of traffic was of lower quality as evidenced by the lower session duration of 01:39 compared with 01:56 in the previous month, and the bounce rate increasing from 72.08% to 79.92%.
Also when you view the Google Analytics graph above, you’ll see that around Christmas Day and New Years Eve and New Years Day, traffic decreased substantially. This makes sense as people spend less time online and more time with the people they love.
Income
So how much money did our site make for the month of December?
The total income the Eco Warrior Princess website earned (not necessarily paid) in December (in $AUD) is:
- Google Adsense: $24.07
- Sponsored Post/Paid Guest Posts: $1,021.90
- Patreon Pledges/Reader Donations: $164.64
Total Income: $1210.61
Note: There may be some discrepancy due to exchange rate conversion from USD to AUD.
Income Analysis
We closed out the year with our best month yet which is brilliant considering that we made just $701.38 in November. We received a lot of interest from ethical brands wanting to promote their products in the lead up to Christmas.
As I prioritise making our site fully sustainable business, I will focus on using affiliate marketing with sites such as shareasale.com so that I can cover operational costs and eventually pay myself a wage this year.
Email Subscriber Stats
Our total number of email subscribers for November:
- New Subscribers: 72
- Existing Subscribers: 2,865
- Total Subscribers: 2,937
Overall thoughts
I’m thrilled to end 2016 on a high note and I am confident we will continue our upward earnings trend in 2017. Considering that more people are making ‘sustainable’ choices, I am confident that this year will be our biggest yet. And I really hope so because we will be turning seven years old and it’s about friggin’ time we become a sustainable business! Are you listening universe?
If you value our work perhaps you can spare US$1 a month to support us in our mission to be the change and spread the sustainability message far and wide? We also have some rad rewards for our pledgees. Head to our Patreon page for more details.
Now over to you: How are you finding these Transparency Reports? Are you inspired to write your own? Is there anything that you think should be included? We’d love to know your thoughts so please feel free to leave a comment.
Click here for a running tally of our gross earnings.
