KPI Spotlight: January Income & Traffic Report

Reporting monthly on how I'm progressing with my Freelance Side Hustles

Quick intro: I’m Monica, a freelance writer and founder of a SaaS that helps writers create an online writing portfolio. In this Substack I write about the things I’ve learned - and continue to learn - while developing my SaaS alongside my own freelance business. The KPI Spotlight series intends to shed real light on the growth possibilities for freelance soloprenuers. Here I’m getting totally real by sharing exactly how much I’m earning and how. This is in part for my own accountability and also as a way to demonstrate the growth potential as a freelancer when you set measurable goals and track your progress towards them. This series is also a feature for paid subscribers. Thanks to those of you who’ve already signed up!

What does my freelance life look like?

First off, I’d be remiss in not saying that I’m super lucky to have a partner who shares my freelance vision and is an active contributor to many of these projects. To give you a sense of how we sustain ourselves - and why this Substack is a job as well as a passion project - here’s the myriad side hustles that keep the bills paid, the diesel topped up, and all of us at the HQ well fed.

1. 🔄 Writer’s Residence - My SaaS online writing portfolio site for writers

2. 🔄 Writer’s Residence Substack - You’re reading it now! “Notes from my desk” is my corner of Substack where I write about writing and how to make a career of it

3. 🔄 Eat Sleep Wild Substack - my real labor of love where I write about the great outdoors, van life, recipes for adventure, and stories about life in Scotland

4. 🔄 Eat Sleep Wild guided hikes and astro nights

5. 🚫 Holiday Cottage / Writer’s Retreat at the Old School Byre (currently awaiting our short term let license)

6. 🔄 Ad hoc consulting and freelance writing - i.e. working for other people

✅ Completed - Yay!

🔄 In progress - Still pretty good!

🚫 Blocked - Something’s stopping progress, boo.

❌ Cancelled - Some things just don’t work out, and that’s ok.

Measure what matters: Here are my KPIs that currently matter most…

With a lot of side hustles, it can be challenging to distill it all into one measurable KPI report. In an attempt to simplify things, I’ve separated these KPIs into three sets focused on my biggest priorities (more on that in the next section)…

Income KPIs - what it all really boils down to, really, primarily income from these core sources

• Writer's Residence Subscribers

• Writer's Residence Substack Paid Subscribers

• Eat Sleep Wild Substack Paid Subscribers

• Old School Byre Bookings

• Eat Sleep Wild Guided Hikes & Astro Nights

Growth Indicators - My big focus at present is growing paid subscribers to my SaaS online writing portfolio platform. Hence my big push for increasing my traffic through SEO and affiliate outreach. My KPIs here are simple but meaningful!

• Organic Traffic to writersresidence.com

• Referrals to writersresidence.com

Actions - I have a set of things I aim to achieve each month in order to grow. This includes

• Posting X number of SEO-driven blog posts per month on writersresidence.com

• Reaching out to X number of influencers who would make good affiliates for Writer’s Residence (psst, anyone can register to become a Writer’s Residence affiliate, and it’s free to do so - learn more here)

• Posting X number of Substack posts on Eat Sleep Wild and Notes from my Desk as per my content plan (more on that here and here)

And all those KPIs are linked to goals

As we stand, #6 above, consulting, is the side hustle that brings home the most bacon. This year, the goal is to mostly phase out consulting work and earn a living from #1-5 above. We’ve set some VERY conservative goals this year, ticking all the S.M.A.R.T. goal boxes.

Source: BiteSize Learning

The overall aim is to turn #1-5 into our main means of earning a living by the end of this year. This doesn’t require explosive growth (that’s the beauty of not putting all of your eggs into one basket, as much as I love eggs). So here’s what we’re aiming to achieve by the end of the year - we picked these numbers based on our current outgoings and some savings goals …

All the goal stats and financials are visible to paid subscribers only. Upgrade to paid to unlock the numbers! You’ll also see stats on my organic growth via SEO which I’m hoping will evolve into a fascinating success story because - red alert - we’re pretty much starting from scratch. I’m going hard core on my SEO strategy this year in hopes that the coming months will show some results, and some lessons for those of you who want to become SEO superstars. (P.S. Subscribe as a Founding Member for 3 hours of 1-1 coaching from yours truly!)