Today, I am excited to share my monthly blog and income update with all of you. I started publishing income reports from the 3rd month of my blogging, and it has been quite a journey till now.
This is my 9–month income report, and there are so many things I want to share which are going on with my blog. It has been very exciting and a busy month as I have been learning so many things.
Right from changing my posting frequency to working on different social media, I have been experimenting a lot of things with my blog. I firmly believe testing new strategies helps a lot in the blog growth.
This month has been quite good for me with regards to income and traffic, and I will be sharing how my traffic is finally picking up.
If you are thinking of starting a blog, just do it. I took the leap and started my blog, and now I am making significant income from it. It took time and hard work, but it is all worth it. I have a very easy step-by-step guide to start a blog even if you are not a techie. So, go ahead and start your money-making blog.
The two reasons I share my blog update and income report, first to be accountable and then to show you no matter how young your blog is, you can make money from it.
Now let’s see how things went last month,
TRAFFIC
My traffic figures on the upward trend. Pinterest traffic is getting back to normal. Organic traffic is also picking up. SEO is something that I am working on and hope to see good results soon.
Though the bounce rate is still high, I see a good increase in returning visitors, which is really great.
My viral posts are still doing great on Pinterest, and I am really excited that I am so close to reaching 50k shares with one of my posts.
Make Money From Home As A Captioner (47.9k shares)
How to Make $1000 A Month Online Without A Job (30k shares)
How to Make Money from Your Hobbies (19.5k shares)
Secret to Making Money with Survey Panels (2.9k shares)
12 Legitimate Part-Time Online Jobs (4.1k shares)
How to Start a Blog to Make Money – A Step-by-Step Guide to Starting a Blog (5.5k shares)
I owe most of my Pinterest traffic to the manual pinning that I do following the strategies in Pinteresting Strategies. This eBook has changed my Pinterest game totally.
Here are some of my previous months income updates,
How I Made $2,347.17 in 4th Month of Blogging
How I Made $3,226.89 in 5th Month of Blogging
How I Earned $5,126.59 in 6th Month of Blogging
How I Made $4,051.07 in One Month of Blogging
How I Made $3,002.94 in One Month of Blogging
SUBSCRIBERS
Last month, I had a target to reach 1000 subscribers. I have around 1,200 now. The thing that I am quite happy about is that I get many emails from my subscribers about how they are starting their side hustles. I hope to keep helping them to find location-independent income streams.
My biggest growth is on Pinterest for followers and reach. My followers count is at 5.4k, which is an increase of 500 from last month. I think that this is great considering my Pinterest traffic was low last month.
My reach is still going great at 1.5 million, and it is definitely because of manual pinning. Thanks to this excellent eBook.
Right now, I am working on a Facebook Growth course, and I am slowly starting to see some organic reach. Facebook is my second biggest traffic referral, and I am spending a lot of time to work on these new strategies. I will surely keep you updated about the results.
I have been posting as usual on Twitter, and I am starting to see a slow growth here. For now, I will continue the same posting schedule and see if my growth continues.
OK, it’s no secret that I love Instagram (I get to post all my photography and travel photos). I am so excited that my follower’s count is growing on Instagram. I have always loved photography and traveling, and I can now share the things I love on this platform, and all this is because of my blog which gives me the freedom to do things that I love.
Now for the income report,
Last month, my blog income was $5,189.80 and most of it was from affiliates and ads.
INCOME REPORT
Affiliate Income
Survey Affiliates (iGain, Maxbounty, Panthera Network) – $3,053.98
Bluehost -$660
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing – $225.20
Transcribe Anywhere – $72.80
Pinteresting Strategies – $48
30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success –$30
Amazon – $18.88
BookScouter – $11.85
5 Ways to get FREE Items to Resell for Profit –$6.80
Traffic Transformation – $20
Indeed – $2.02
Grammarly – $0.80
Ads –1,038.75
Â
EXPENSES
Boardbooster – $15
Grum –$18
NET INCOME –$5,072.58
I am happy to see the growth in the revenue and will work towards increasing it in the coming months. As you may have noticed, my income sources are getting diversified, and that has been my goal for a couple of months. I owe a large part of my income success to Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. This course has been a boon for me, and I have learned so many tips from this course in such short time.
Ad income is also on the rise, and I am working on increasing that.
Things I Did
Last month, I had been experimenting a lot with many things like working on SEO, getting into a Facebook Course and experimenting new things with Pinterest.
I have joined a group of blogging friends to start a group board on Pinterest to test the manual pinning reach. I am very excited to see how this goes. I know that manual pinning is the key to getting the maximum reach on Pinterest, but we are testing things like timings, types of posts, and keywords. I will be sharing updates about how this goes.
What I learned
In these nine months the biggest thing that I learned – Blogging is a constant learning and testing journey, and I love it!!
Networking with other bloggers is so important to learn, and I have been lucky to know some great bloggers in this community.
As I want to diversify my blog income, I am getting into other ways of making money with my blog like sponsorships. If you are a beginner who is looking into sponsored posts, Tracie Fobes has a great article on “How Much Should I Charge For A Sponsored Post?“. I find all her posts super helpful and you will too.
What’s Next
For the last two months, I have been posting three times a week, and I will be getting back to my original posting schedule of 2 posts a month. I am testing how this change affects my traffic.
I will learn more about the sponsorships and will dig deeper into this stream of making money with my blog.
I have some very interesting interviews with some great hustlers lined up for the next month and I am sure they are going to be very helpful.
Traffic
As the traffic is going up, I am working on getting the numbers to 125,000. With my new Facebook course and Pinterest traffic getting back, this might be achievable.
Income
I never put an income target, but I am hoping to increase my income to $6,000 this month. I love seeing growth in every part of my blog, and I would be happy with any increase.
Subscribers
As I have crossed my last month’s target, I plan to increase the number to 1,400 subscribers this month. I know this might be a big goal, but goals are what make us work, don’t they!!
As a new blogger, the whole blogging thing can be too much to handle when it comes to some aspects of getting traffic, making money, increasing followers.
But it can be a smooth process if you implement the right strategies.
Here are some resources which helped me to reach this stage, I highly recommend them, and they can be quite helpful no matter at what stage of blogging you are.
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing – This is by far the best course I had ever taken, and it has helped me in many aspects of affiliate marketing. This course is a must for anyone who is serious about making money from a blog.
Pinteresting Strategies – Carly’s Pinterest strategies helped me grow my traffic exponentially and in turn my income. I have tested them, and they work.
Traffic Transformation – I love Lena’s eBook for the fact that she dives into the areas of getting traffic from less frequently used platforms like Stumbleupon and Google+. Â
Strategies Worth Sharing – An eBook which I bought even before starting my blog, and it helped me to reach 700+ likes on Facebook. With Facebook being the second biggest referral for traffic for many bloggers, you need to invest in this to grow your traffic.
Bluehost – I have had a great experience with Bluehost. Blogging is a great side hustle, and if you are waiting to start a money-making blog on a budget, then Bluehost is the way to go.
How to Grow Your Traffic as a New Blogger
Sign up to our newsletter & Get this FREE 5 Point checklist to skyrocket your page views even with a new blog​
Sign up today
​You can unsubscribe at any time!
Congrats Sireesha ma’am!
You have made a great income boost with Bluehost affiliate and Ads income along with Survey affiliate last month. Just amazing! 🙂
Hey Nabankita,
Thank you!!
Wow that’s so great! I wonder how much your traffic will change posting 3x a week and posting twice a month. That is a big drop. I’m posting about 5-6 times a month now and it’s hard to keep up.
Hey Julie,
Thanks for commenting!! I am planning to post twice a week instead of thrice. I am hoping the traffic will be the same, just testing how it does:-)
Hey Julie,
Thanks for commenting!! I am planning to post twice a week instead of thrice. I am hoping the traffic will be the same, just testing how it does:-)
I have to say that you’re super inspiring to me. I think the hardest part about blogging is keeping that motivation and being consistent every day. I love seeing posts like yours that show how you grew from small numbers to huge ones like now.
I’m currently focusing on gaining traffic and hopefully will be able to figure out how to monetise with affiliate links for a DIY blog. But, seeing your success has made me even more motivated!
Congratulations on your hard work and I hope you continue to prosper!
Hey Hana,
Thank you!! It can be hard to keep up the motivation but I think if you love what you are doing, then motivation is always there. I am so glad that my post was helpful to you. I wish you all the best!!!
Hi again Sireesha,
When you talk about manual pinning, do you mean pinning your own content or pinning other peoples?
Hey Hana,
I pin both my own pins and other’s pins manually.