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Hey everyone! I’m back with another blog income report. Welcome to April 2018’s blog income report where I show you how I made money blogging online last month. It’s time to look at this month’s update and see how I did.
There’s so much freedom when you’re working for yourself. I’m able to work from anywhere and spend as many hours as I want each day on my blog. If you’ve had a 9-to-5 job for years but desire a stronger income, working online is the easiest way to start.
WHY I’M POSTING AN INCOME REPORT
I decided to start posting income reports because my journey to financial freedom was made possible by other bloggers posting their own income reports which inspired me to give it a try. To be honest, I wanted to start a year ago, but I just didn’t have the confidence. I felt that my blog wasn’t a success story because I wasn’t achieving big numbers as those other bloggers.
I later realized that it’s not about making 5 or 6 figures each month. It’s about exposing my growth to new (and not so new) bloggers to show that it is possible to make an income through hard work and determination. The fact that I make any sort of money from my small blog is a SUCCESS!
Reading bloggers’ income reports also made me admire how transparent they were and truly laid it out for newbies. They showed me how I could make income from display ads, sponsored posts and affiliates and how to easily launch a blog. They also shared blogging and traffic tips that’s been most beneficial on their own sites. I wanted to do that too so I hope my income reports will help you on your blogging journey.
Now About Me…
How I Made $8,000 5 Months After Blogging Full-Time
I started this blog in 2008 as a hobby. I had just graduated from college at the time and started working at an advertising company. Blogging was something I did part-time and I didn’t treat it as a business. I was more focus on my career and moving up the corporate ladder. In 2013, I started working at another advertising company. The pay was higher but the hours were long. While working, I started thinking about turning my blog into a side-hustle with hopes of one day making a full-time income from it. I mean I already had some monetization in place (primarily Google Adsense) but I didn’t put much strategy and effort into it. Overtime, my desire to grow my blog and make it profitable became stronger.
I heard about people starting a blog as a side hustle and making 4, 5 and even 6 figures a month. It was around this time I came across income reports from top bloggers. I read them and I was inspired. Then one day, I got an email from a newsletter I’m subscribed to offering ways to make a full-time income from blogging and introduced a course created by Ruth Soukup called Elite Blog Academy.
I read the email and knew that I needed to try it or I would regret it later. I took money in my already tight budget and enrolled in the course. Working at an advertising company left me exhausted emotionally and physically. I wanted a change and I thought that if I can get this blogging thing going and gain real income, the initial investment would be worth it.
The Elite Blog Academy course literally changed my life. It’s packed with so much information on how to get started. I took the class everyday and implemented every action step. I also invested in other products as a supplement to EBA. Within the first five months, my blog traffic exploded (over 80,000 page views) and I made close to $8,000! A year later, I was making more than my advertising job.
Note: The only downside to Elite Blog Academy is that it opens only once a year for five days; however, enrollment will begin in early March. You can still sign up on the waitlist and receive free valuable blogging information through email by clicking here.
Today, I make anywhere between $4,000 to $7,000+ a month blogging. I do this full-time now (yay, no more corporate job!) and I’m loving life. I can work from anywhere which allows me to travel, spend more time with my family, and just enjoy life. It is possible to make this kind of money with ZERO EXPERIENCE writing for livingand you don’t need a COLLEGE DEGREE either.
Previous Income Reports
When i started out blogging, I had $0. I didn’t have thousands of dollars when I started. Through hard work, determination and a positive spirit, I’m able to make thousands each month from the comfort of my own home or anywhere I desire really.
Blogs are popular because they are informal, more personal and the money you can earn from it is limitless. It will take a while to get your blog to make money but if you truly enjoy what you are doing, it will be worth the effort. I made 4 figures a month in 2017 from blogging but it didn’t happen overnight. Luckily, starting a blog is relatively easy thanks to blogging platforms such as WordPress that come with tons of plugins and features. You cancreate your own blog here with my easy-to-use tutorial. You can start your blog for as low as $3.95 a month through Bluehost and you’ll get a free domain if you sign up through my tutorial. I have a free blogging course you can join too that will help you start and launch a successful blog!
Disclosure: I am an affiliate for Bluehost, and will receive a commission if you sign up through my referral link. There is no additional cost to you, and you’ll get great pricing and a free domain name as a bonus through my link.
April 2018 Blog Income Report
My traffic went up compared to March and I had a terrific income month.
Pageviews and Income
Pageviews: 162,502
Income: $7416.54
Income Broken Down
Sponsored Posts: $3000.00
Display Ads: $1599.04
Affiliates: $2,817.50
(further breakdown of my strategy for each category is below)
Thoughts on April
Traffic: April traffic was higher compared to March. I wrote a lot of spring content and created new pinnable images on my old spring content which finally picked up steam. I also spent some time promoting my content in Facebook groups and the results have been positive. I expect my traffic to stay high throughout the spring season.
Since September 2017, I really stepped up my Pinterest game. I bought Pinterest Traffic Avalanche course and it taught me new techniques on how to drive traffic to my site. The tips I learned has been working for me and each month I see my Pinterest traffic grow. In April 2017, I had 37,164 monthly views coming from Pinterest. In April 2018, I received 118,515 monthly viewers. That’s more than triple the traffic! I also gained more Pinterest traffic than last month. Overall, my traffic is growing steadily. I’m just so happy that it’s moving in a positive direction again.
What worked this month
Pinterest: Again, I’m rocking it on Pinterest. Since taking the Pinterest Traffic Avalanche course in September 2017, I’ve seen an increase in traffic growth each month. Pinterest is my biggest driver of social media traffic, so I’m extremely happy to see that growing!
Email Marketing: Since revamping my email course, my affiliate income has been growing like crazy! I created new landing pages (like this one here) using Leadpages to collect email signups and I created a couple of pinnable images to drive traffic to the landing pages. I really love Leadpages because their landing pages are high-converting. Leadpages also easily integrates with Convertkit (the email service provider I use), so after they sign up, they are immediately routed to my email course. New subscribers will receive a series of messages (all automated) once they opt in. Next month, I plan to run some Pinterest ads to my landing pages to increase subscribers. I’ll definitely share my results on this.
My Income Strategy
I earn income in three major categories from my blog. Below, I go over each one:
Display Ads: The more pageviews my blog gets, the higher the earnings potential. Display advertising is the easiest and fastest way to start making money on your blog. I’ve been using Adthrive since February 2017 and I absolutely love them. My RPM (the ad revenue you get for every 1000 views) is usually between $8.30 and $14.00 depending on the season. My RPM for April was $9.84.
Adthrive requires you to have at least 100,000 pageviews a month, so once your blog traffic passes that number, I highly encourage you to apply (Note: They have a long waitlist so don’t be surprised to hear from them after a few months). If you’re a newbie blogger, I suggest you sign up to Adsense. It’s run by Google and there’s no threshold of monthly views to sign up to which is why it’s popular amongst bloggers new and old. It was the first display ad network I used to monetize my blog.
Sponsored Posts: I had another good month with sponsored campaigns, 4 in total. All of them aligned with my brand and I’ve used or currently use their products. Just so you know, I don’t reach out to brands. They reach out to me or through brand networks I’ve signed up to (places like Linqia and Tapinfluence).
I got paid this month for several collaborations I did in March and April. Every brand network is different when it comes to payment. I get paid anywhere between 10 to 60 days after a campaign ends.
Affiliate: Affiliate income is one of my favorite ways of earning a living online. Affiliate marketing is when you place an affiliate link in a blog post and try to earn money from people buying the product through your link. It’s an effective way to make money because if there is a product out there that you love, all you have to do is review the product and hopefully others will be interested in buying it as well. That means you can earn money while you’re sleeping, out on vacation, and more.
I have my core group of affiliates that I focus on. When I started affiliate marketing, I struggled a bit. I got sales like $50 or $75 a month and to me, that’s not much. A couple months ago, I started taking Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing from top blogger Michelle of Making Sense of Cents and my income results have been stellar (I’m now making between $1500-$3000/month). I did even better this month with over $2800 in sales! Michelle is making over $50,000 in affiliate marketing and her course shows you how to successfully promote products to your audience and earn an income while still being honest and genuine. Honestly, if you’re a blogger, you NEED this course!
So that’s it for my April 2018 Blog income report! I hope you follow along each month with me as I detail my money-making efforts on the blog. Don’t forget, this is something that YOU can duplicate too. Blogging SUCCESS doesn’t happen overnight, but if you have a plan in place and put a lot of effort into your blog, financial freedom is within reach.
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