Monthly Blog Stats & Helpful Hints #14

ByTammy

Welcome!  Its time for another monthly blog stats and helpful hints post. Just picking up a few helpful hints I hope will make a difference in our blogs growth in the future and keeping them in a Pinterest blogging board for future reference. 

I hope you will also join us in the Personal Goals and Priorities in 2014 linky and let us know how you are doing with your personal and blogging goals.  More information to follow below.

Monthly Blog Stats & Helpful Hints

So lets get busy making your blog grow!

Its a new year and I’m so excited to see how my stats have gone up on my blog and along with the income.  I can safely say now I can pay for my expenses of blogging and hoping to much more as the year goes on.  

And for those of you who are needing a blogging planner, I have a FREE one to download with tons of pages to choose from to fit your needs for 2015.  

Filing Taxes for Bloggers

The word taxes just makes me cringe and not my favorite time of the year.  Since I have a business and we like to itemize, we really have to keep our records straight.

One thing I have learned over the past year is what you have to claim on your taxes if you blog.  If you plan on making or already are making money on your blog, its considered a business.  

Blogging and claiming is the same as with any other business.  You will need to learn about:

  • Estimated Taxes
  • Self-Employment Taxes
  • Deductible Expenses for Bloggers
  • Business as a Hobby

You can read in more detail about this at the Turbo Tax website.  By the way, I have been using Turbo Tax for so many years now and works great if you have a business.  I also use Quicken to download my checking account statements, along with credit card statements and I can keep up with deductions so much easier.

What do I file?

Any expense that I buy for my blog.  Example:  I needed a new printer which I print out all kinds of stuff for my blog and that is a deduction.  Just keep the receipt for your records.  Keep all your receipts because you do have to prove you bought that item.   If you buy anything online, don’t forget to print your receipt for that item.

Deductions work against your Income you make on your blog and the smaller your income, the less Estimated Taxes and Self-Employment Taxes you have to pay each year. The IRS allows you to show more deductions than income for three years, but then decides that you have a hobby rather than a business.

Here are a few popular deductions:

  • Blog template 
  • Your camera
  • Blog related courses or books
  • Business cards
  • Ads
  • Supplies for any of your DIY projects for your blog
  • Domain Fees
  • Web host fees
  • Software
  • Computer
  • Postage
  • Fees to prepare your taxes, but if you use tax software that is also deductible
  • Any giveaway prizes you paid for out of your pocket
  • Mileage 
  • Hotel expenses
  • Any blog conferences

There are many other deductions, but just hit a few.

About Income.

I have read many different topics on this and this is what I gather you claim as income.

  • Adsense  or any ad Income
  • Affiliate Income
  • Any payment for a blog post whether its money or gift cards
  • All review items, blog conference sponsorships, ad purchases and generally anything you are given that has value. 

On any item I receive for a blog review, I will look up on that items website and print out something that shows the price of it.  I did a review in 2014 for a vacuum I received from the company and I went to their website and printed out the description of that item and the price.  

From the IRS – You  have to file an income tax return if your net earnings from self-employment were $400 or more. If your net earnings from self-employment were less than $400, you still have to file an income tax return if you meet any other filing requirement listed in the Form 1040 instructions.

After doing this for a few years and knowing what I have to keep and not keep, it does get better and you realize its just part of your everyday blogging.  

I’m not an expert on this topic, so you should probably consult a tax professional or filing service.  So, please ask a tax professional because every persons business is different.  

*  *  *  *

We decided in the Goals group that we were going to choose one thing we want to see grow.  I choose to have 1000 visitors per day and triple my income by the end of 2015.  We will see if that happens or not.

Now on to my stats for the end of January:

INCOME
Google adsense:  $4.50 = $4.50 for 2015
Media Net:  $.45 = $.45 for 2015
Affiliate income: 0
Total for 2015 = $4.95

WOW!!  I knew after Christmas things slow down, but as you can see there is barely a little bit of income that came in.  

Monthly visits:  2248
Unique monthly visitors: 2750
Page views: 5005
Average page views per visit: 2
Average visit duration: 2:00 minutes

RANKINGS & SOCIAL MEDIA
Google: 0
Pinterest: 1174
Facebook: 1243
Twitter: 1239
Google+: 849
Instagram: 412

Visitors dropped but not by much.  I am no longer following my Alexia ranking.  Come to find out it can be deceiving especially if your visitors are still the same.

If you have any questions about any of the items discussed, please let me know and be sure to check out my past posts for Blog Stats & Helpful Hints.

How are your goals coming along so far?

Keep on bloggin!

Tammy

*   *   *   *

Creative K Kids

 

If you have a post about your goals, please join us below and you can also follow our group Pinterest board on Personal Priorities.


24 Comments

  1. What do you mean when you say you want to get 1000 visitors? I know this is bad, but I haven’t done taxes for the blog yet. Last year was my first full year blogging and I bought more than I made. (a new camera, etc.) So this year, I will start a spreadsheet and try to keep track. This was very informative, and I am definitely pinning. I have to refresh your page when I come to see a post, so I don’t know if people are clicking away when it doesn’t come up right away? You can do it this year! (Also when I comment, I get a page that says it couldn’t post or something and then I hit the back button on the browser, and click to post the comment again, and it works.)

    1. I meant to put 1000 visitors per day. 😉 You can claim your blog as a hobby for 3 years if you don’t show any net income, but after that you have to claim as a business. I used my camera as an expense for sure.

  2. We did our taxes this weekend. Ugh. We used to have an Ebay business and would have to file our income in addition to our full-time jobs. I made enough last year that I had to claim my blog income. I forgot what I pain it can be to set up at first. That’s a great tip about supplies for crafts etc…I definitely didn’t think of that!

    1. My hubby has done his taxes for so long and has had to do them for his business. So he is the one who has taught me what can be used for a deduction. Just like a portion of your office can be deducted along with household expenses. It can get complicated for sure. Thanks for stopping by.

  3. Yes, blogging taxes are a pain but, a necessity. You have great goals. I too had trouble getting your site to load it came up as “not available” You might want to check into that. Hmm, it also won’t let me comment, again it said that the site wasn’t available.

    1. I’m hoping after this afternoon the problem was fixed on the website. Seems to be working better. Hope so. Thanks for stopping by

  4. I love these kinds of reports! I read Pinch of Yum’s every month, and it’s amazing what I can learn from bloggers who are willing to share as much as you do here.

  5. Thanks so much for sharing your goals with us. It is also nice for the advice on taxes for bloggers, as I know many bloggers are clueless about that. Keep up the good work!

  6. I have noticed a HUGE dive in January’s stats too! Seems like things almost stopped!! This is so useful though, I’m trying to get better at keeping a note on absolutely everything, but some things I forget – this list and your hints are so useful 🙂

    1. The first of the year is kind of bad for blogging but what I have read and experienced my self. And then when spring starts coming around, things begin to pick up. Thanks for stopping by Annie

  8. Wow! Thank you. very informative. I guess I have some new questions for my tax guy this year but hopefully mine can still be considered a hobby for now…

  12. Taxes is a word that scares me! I didn’t have to bother with them this year but have already started keeping receipts and other records so that I can hit the ground running with my taxes next year. Hopefully my income will exceed my expenses, too!

    1. Its a good thing when you have to pay taxes at the end of the year on your business because that tells you your business is making money. But I know we all don’t like to pay them. Thanks for stopping by Meaghan

Comments are closed.