This is my first blog income report – FINALLY – 6 months into blogging
UPDATE: Although this report is a few years old now, it is still very relevant. However, if you would like to see more current income reports, I do still share them with my mailing list. I recognize that they’re an awesome learning tool, so I don’t want to stop sharing them completely. If you want to receive my income reports, get access here:
Part of me can’t believe I’m doing this… writing this first blog income report, I mean.
Not because I have any qualms about sharing my blog income – I’ve worked so. freaking. hard. for. it. (And prayed hard for it!) I want to tell the WHOLE WORLD that I have a blog income. ( I might feel differently if this were my main source of income.)
No, I can’t believe I’m doing this because I can’t believe that I have a blog income to report. I started this blog 6 months ago… and I said if I made 10 dollars by Christmas I would keep going.
(THIS POST PROBABLY CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS. OUR FULL DISCLOSURE POLICY IS REALLY BORING, BUT YOU CAN FIND IT HERE.)
I want this blog to be successful so badly, I hardly think of anything else right now. (I’m having a baby in December, and I want to stay home with this baby. I want to give it the kind of childhood I had – one with a mommy who is around while it’s growing up. I know what a blessing that was to me. My mom worked from home, and to this day we have an awesome relationship. I want that for my baby..)
And now, for the first time – this month it feels like a possibility. I haven’t earned enough blogging yet to say that I’ve replaced my income, but for in this first blog income report, I can say that I’m well on my way. In just 6 months.
UPDATE – September 2016 income report is posted! Read it here.
I’m going to spare you the “why I’m sharing my blog income” spiel that you’ve come to expect when you open a blog income report and just tell you that If I can do it, you can do it.
Related: How to Start a Blog for Profit and Work From Home
If I can write my thoughts here online and put them out there and make money, so can you. I didn’t take a single computer class in high school and 6 months ago I literally did not know the first thing about blogging. You just have to want it bad enough, and be willing to put the time, effort, and money into it.
If you’ve been thinking about starting a blog, stop thinking. Start doing…
If I had started this blog 6 years ago, when I originally started thinking about it, by now I could be earning full time income – or more.
To see what sort of income I’ve managed to pull down just 6 months after learning what a “WordPress theme” is – and how I’ve done it – then read on 🙂
August 2016 Blog Income Report (& Traffic)
(I am only reporting income actually received in August, which is money that was earned in June / July. To date, I have earned nearly $2000.00, but most of the programs pay out 60 – 90 days after earning the money. So from here on out, I should see consistent paychecks.)
Total August Blog Income: $483.31
Adsense Ads – $421.65
Travel Hacking book affiliate program – $56.66
BestMark affiliate program – $5.00
August Traffic: 123,214 users & 157,794 page views
If you’ve noticed that the page views I’m reporting here don’t match the google analytics page views in the photo – yup, you’re right.
I had a glitch in my google analytics – which was totally my fault – from the 1st to the 12th of Aug, which caused analytics to record each page view twice (just the page views, not the sessions/users). So to find my total page views for the month, I have divided page views recorded from the 1st to the 12th in half and subtracted that number from the total.
(UPDATE: You should be watchful for this yourself. This is a COMMON mistake made by new bloggers. See how the bounce rate was basically nothing and then SKYROCKETED on the 12th when the mistake was fixed? If you have a very LOW bounce rate, you NEED to check for a double installation of Google Analytics.)
You might think it’s disappointing to have to report nearly 60,000 page views less than what analytics shows, but on the contrary – over 150,000 (real) page views for a blog that is 6 months in is more FREAKING AWESOME than I ever imagined possible. I could not be more excited about this number if I tried.
You also might wonder if an income of $483.31 is low for a blog with 150,000 page views, and I’d have to say yes – I think it is. You’d think that I could explain that away by saying that since this money was earned in July it’s more in keeping with the kind of traffic I had in July… but that wouldn’t be true either. I had over 150,000 page views in July as well.
So why the low blog income for page views?
Because I am so new at this that the blog literally ran me over.
I was totally unprepared. I had adsense ads installed, but not on every post. I had sort of dabbled with affiliates, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. I hadn’t even considered applying to some of the larger networks, because I thought they would laugh at me – or at best send me away and tell me to come back when I was a grown-up blog.
BUT, I am still so excited to write this income report, because mistakes and all, I have never worked harder for anything in my life or felt as proud of the success of anything in my life. And, in hindsight, making the mistakes has been literally the only way to learn these lessons.
Blogging is a learning curve, and I can’t possibly have expected to grow a profitable blog without doing some… learning. And learning is awesome, because I know what to do differently going forward.
So now I have a plan.
I know, without a doubt, that I can make money blogging if I do it right. (And so can you!)
So here’s my plan to grow my blog & my income in the coming months – based on what I have learned so far
I am going to keep doing EXACTLY what I am doing with Pinterest. Why mess with a good thing?
I am actually working on a tutorial right now (it’s coming soon!!) that will tell you, step by step, how I have gown this blog to over 150,000 page views in it’s 6th month with Pinterest ONLY. Unlike every other tutorial out there that recommends that you purchase a Pinterest scheduler, doing it my way is free (and, I believe, will get better results). UPDATE: If you are interested in learning more about how I achieved this sorta traffic in this short amount of time the ebook is ready! Two years later, I STILL use this pinterest strategey, and now I get 300k pageviews per month!
I am going to sit back and enjoy the income boost from Adthrive.
I started working with them a few weeks ago, and the average increase in income is 249% once they get their ads running on your site. I am so excited to see what happens! (You need a minimum of 100,000 page views per month to get your application on their waiting list.) UPDATE: In October I earned over $2000 with Adthrive alone. ummm.. WOW. Read October’s Income Report Here.
I am going to seriously up my affiliate marketing game. With 150,000 page views per month, making money with affiliate sales should NOT be hard for me. I learned this in Michelle Schroeder’s new course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. Michelle makes over $50,000 / month with affiliate marketing, and there is NO reason that I shouldn’t be able to implement what she teaches and make some money for myself. (If you are struggling to make a profit from your blog, I STRONGLY recommend this course. It will not take you long to make your money back.)
I am going to be more diligent about content creation. After traffic started to pick up, it was easy to let writing fall by the way side as I scrambled around trying to find ways to monetize what I already had written. (If I had taken Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing already, I wouldn’t have been in this pickle). I’ve noticed that it takes a couple months for a blog post to gain really good traction, and so if you have a month where you haven’t written much, then you are jeopardizing FUTURE months of traffic. I will be posting at least twice per week from now on.
I am going to stress a little less about EVERYTHING. I couldn’t tell you the number of nights I have gone to bed after a full day at work and then a loonnnggg evening on my computer, totally stressing out over the money I have spent on the blog, wondering if I’ve thrown it away it or if I’ll be able to make it back or if I’m just wasting my time. And then had nightmares about themes and ads and pinterest. Seriously. But between receiving the first $483.31 of my blog income and getting approved with AdThrive, (and truly ENJOYING blogging), I can see now that the money I spent was an investment, and a totally worthwhile one at that.
I can’t wait to share my next income report with you. And I’d love to see how your blogging journey is going – If you’ve published a blog income report for July or August – leave a link in the comments 🙂 Or if you’re just finally convincing yourself it’s time to START your blog – well – get going! Follow this easy tutorial on How to Start a Blog, and never look back.
Carly, the excitement in this blog post is palpable. You are the first blogger who actually made me believe this is a viable option for me! I look forward to learning more from you. Wishing you continued growth in your blog, and a beautiful, healthy baby in December!
HI Rosie! Thank you!! And I’ll take that as a huge compliment – there is NO reason that you shouldn’t be able to blog and do well at it if you are willing to put in the time and effort. If you do start one up, come back and let me know 🙂 I’d love to see what you create.
Amazing job! That is a ton of page views. My blog is around the same age and I get maybe 50 per day. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong but I’m totally inspired by your numbers. Wishing you continued success!
Thank you so much Nicole! You probably aren’t doing anything WRONG – I just happened to stumble onto a pinterest strategy that WORKS (seriously it works so well that the week I “discovered” it I said to my husband, “this changes everything and I’m gonna sell a pinterest course and we are going to make some money” LOL). Hopefully I’ll have it ready in a few weeks from now. I’ve found pinterest to drive more traffic than stumbleupon, facebook and link parties combined. Your blog looks great – you totally need to get it in front of people 🙂
Firstly, Carly, this is a great post and thanks for being so open and sharing this with us. It’s definitely inspiring and motivating. I agree with Nicole: you’ve got a TON of page views. I’ve been blogging part-time for a year now and average between 200 and 1500 views daily if I’m more active on social media. While I have yet to try monetizing my blog (that’s a goal for Year 2), based on what you’ve shared above and what I’ve read and learned elsewhere, Pinterest, if used with a consistent plan of pinning and repinning, can make a HUGE difference in a blog’s traffic. I’m sure many of us are looking forward to your Pinterest tutorial. Thanks again; looking forward to more great posts. So glad to have found you through the #SmallVictoriesSundayLinkup.
HI Rueven! Thank you! I’m really excited about the page views I’ve managed to pull down… hopefully they last lol. I want to encourage you to monetize now – even if it’s just with an adsense ad in your side bar or a few amazon links. That way you won’t be as far behind with monetizing as I was – should your page views increase drastically soon (and they could!) you’ll be ready. And yes, pinterest is TOTALLY KEY!! Almost all of my traffic comes from pinterest.
Great job! I’m inspired by your success. I look forward to hearing more about your Pinterest strategy!
Thank you Colleen!
Great job! I’m becoming more serious, intentional, and consistent with my blog. I’m seeing a little bit of growth, but my time and energy are a bit limited. I do see so much happening in my future when it comes to my blog though. And, there are definitely some things you mentioned here that I’m interested in! 🙂
Thanks Kendall! If you have any questions about anything mentioned here let me know. Limited time and energy are definitely the hardest part of blogging. Like when do you do life? It’s hard for me to find balance right now… but I just keep telling myself it’s a season, and once I’m little more established it won’t take QUITE as much effort lol.
Good job! That’s a fantastic traffic rate, and it’s just going to keep going up the longer you blog.
Hi Katie! Thank you so much – I hope you’re right. Every day I’m so afraid that I’ll find out there was some sort of internet glitch or black hole or something and it will all go away. lol. I still have so much to learn…
Congrats! I feel the same exuberance when I make coffee money on my blog let alone a decent paycheck. I’d love to learn your Pinterest strategy. I’m torn on whether schedulers are worth it. Visiting from Small Victories Sunday.
HI Victoria! Thanks for reading 🙂 I intend to get my butt in gear and get this pinterest strategy available ASAP! I FIRMLY believe that manual is better than schedulers, I have tried both tailwind and boardbooster – I if I didn’t mention that in my post lol. I am on track for 200,000 page views this month (as long as nothing terrible happens haha) and I am convinced it’s because I pin manually. Disclaimer – it’s alot of work. (Worth it though, since I’m officially earning more than I earn at WORK!)
Congratulations, and thanks for the enthusiasm and encouragement!
Thanks Amy!
Wow, this is really inspirational 🙂 I envy you.. I have a blog for more than a year, and nowhere close to your page views. How do you do that?? I love your plan for being home with your little one <3
Hi Marina! Thank you!! I do it ALL with pinterest (- not a great long term plan in case pinterest changes drastically lol.) I’ll be making my pinterest strategy available soon!
Wow…you are doing AMAZING for just six months! I hadn’t made a penny other than a few freebies when I hit that point. Congratulations, all your hard work is paying off! Thanks so much for sharing with us at the Share The Wealth Sunday blog hop!
HI Lisa 🙂 Thank you so much!! I really appreciate that. I still feel a little clueless when it comes to a lot (most) of the things – but I am LOVING it! Thanks for hosting the link up, and have a wonderful Tuesday!
Love this! I have pinned so many income reports on Pinterest, but I think yours may be the first one I’ve actually clicked through to read. I appreciate your transparency and not trying to wow us with numbers that seem unreachable. (Ok – the 100K+ users per month does seem pretty daunting!) Congratulations on your success so far and I’m excited to see how things progress for you! I feel encouraged :).
O thank you Debbie I really appreciate that! (I am working on a pinterest course that will make the 100k users less daunting haha.) Every day that goes by now I am BLOWN AWAY that this is happening… I’m like… am I a REAL blogger? Surely not… lol. I’m so glad you feel encouraged – it really does seem like blogging is a viable option for making some money – slowly but surely!
I can’t wait to read your Pinterest tutorial!
Congrats on the pageviews. That is amazing. I don’t think you’ll have a hard time staying home with your baby. You’ve got this!
Have you checked out MomResource.com? Saira teaches a Twitter course where she teaches you how to make a ton of money sending tweets. Check her out for sure!
Thanks Hannah!! I haven’t even TOUCHED twitter, but I know I need to… I will have a look 🙂
I am really impressed with your adsense income. I have removed all ads but 1 ad as I am now focusing on affiliate marketing but testing adsense in other locations each month.
Thanks Derek! My adsense income was really surprising to me too haha. I didn’t have any ads above the fold either, which is what was the most surprising. If adsense is the only ad company you are working with, I think Sarah Titus has some great tips on how to improve adsense income. (Good sarah titus + adsense or something like that.) If you are focusing on affiliate marketing, I need to recommend the making sense of affiliate marketing course to you… My income has certainly increased since I took it (as in already paid off the course)!!
Hi Carly.
Thanks for a great post! I love the excitement you share in your post, and I feel that eventually, I will be right there with you. My blog is only a month old, but I am trying to do everything I can to make it a success.
HI Avonelle!! Everyone has to start somewhere – I’m sure you WILL be right here (soon). I am absolutely loving blogging, and it just gets better when you start to see your efforts paying off lol.
Wow sounds great! You have done really well and are an inspiration to all bloggers out there!
Hi Mali!! Thank you 🙂 I am pretty nervous about the next few months, but greatful for how it’s been going so far!