This is my first income report. This report includes a breakdown of all of the money I have made so far since I started my blog five months ago. I didn’t make much the first three months. Most of the income from my blog was made in September and October. Future income reports will be monthly.

I started my blog with intentions to make it my full-time career sometime in the future. I have always loved to write and help others by sharing the things I know with them, so blogging is the perfect career choice for me. It’s important for everyone to do what they love for a living and I think if more people did, this world would be a much better place.

Why post my income report?

I never planned on posting my income reports for many reasons. Mainly, I didn’t want to look like I was bragging and a person’s income is pretty personal. But I weighed the pros and cons of posting and decided there were a lot of reasons that I should let everyone know how much money I’ve been making and how exactly I’ve been making it. Here are my biggest reasons.

• My favorite blogger’s income report inspired me to start my own blog. I was browsing my Pinterest newsfeed and came across her blog post on how she made $10,000 in her first year blogging. It was exactly what I needed to hear since I had been wanting to find a way to free myself from the 9-5 lifestyle for a while. I want to help others like she helped me. I’m on the path to achieving my dreams and I want to let others know they can do the same.
• I love reading other blogger’s income reports. No two blogger’s make money the exact same way. It’s nice to see the breakdown because it helps other blogger’s and aspiring bloggers to get a better understanding of how this whole thing works.
• It will help me to track my progress. I want to be able to look back sometime down the road and see how much things have changed. Plus, since I will be posting my goals for the next month, it will help me to stay on the right path to achieving my goals. The bad thing (it’s also a good thing) about blogging is there is no one to answer to. It’s easy to get lazy and not meet deadlines so this way I have to answer to my readers ?.

Breakdown of my income

I’m still in the process of growing my income but I am happy with what I have made so far. It’s motivation to keep going. It’s very hard to work when you aren’t making anything. But that is normal for the first couple of months or so. Blogging is just like any business. It takes time and effort but the payoff is completely worth it. There are days already when I don’t do anything with my blog and make anywhere from $20-$50.

June

Pageviews: 3,844

Income: $0

July

Pageviews: 7,586

Income: $0

August

Pageviews: 13,551

Income:

• Media.net ads- $3.94
• Affiliates- $6.26

September

Pageviews: 333,813

Income:

• Media.net ads- $448.65
• Affiliates- $62.30

October

Pageviews: 157,245

Income:

• Media.net ads- $39.90
• AdThrive ads- $822.76
• Affiliates- $71.06

Total: $1454.87

Ads

As you can see, higher pageviews doesn’t always mean more money. Certain ad companies pay more. I was going through Media.net (I heard Google Adsense is very comparable). They were only paying me about $1 per 1000 pageviews. I now go through Adthrive ad company and they have been paying me about $6.4 per 1000 pageviews. Big difference! Adthrive requires you to hit 100,000 pageviews per month before you can apply. I suggest applying as soon as you can.

100k seem impossible to hit? Yea, it did to me too. It’s certainly not but you can always apply to other premium ad companies like Mediavine. They only require you to have 30,000 pageviews a month.

I’ve focused most of my time on driving more traffic so I could apply to a premium ad company. Learn How I Got 236k Pageviews In 2 Weeks {In My 3rd Month Blogging} using Pinterest. Now I’ve shifted my focus to making more through other avenues.

Affiliates

The money I have made with affiliates so far is all from Amazon. I had these same links in place for a couple of months and didn’t make anything from them. No one was clicking. It seemed like there was no money in affiliate marketing but then I came across Michelle’s course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing and my income started going up right after I started using her techniques.

I recently reached out to Michelle and was so excited when she said yes to letting me interview her! Check out the full interview here to find out how she makes $50k a month in affiliate income.

Goals for November

Get more consistent I am terrible at putting out new posts and sending out emails for the people who sign up to my newsletter consistently! So many big time bloggers say “the money is in the list”. I haven’t quite figured out how to make that happen but I do trust the advice my favorite bloggers give so I’m trying.

Earn more from affiliates- I actually made $78 already this month (yea, I’m a bit late on posting this income report) from just one affiliate sale so far! I’m pretty happy about that but I’m hoping to see some more of my posts with affiliate links start to really pay off.

Work on a Pinterest course- I don’t really have a deadline for getting this done because I want to make sure it’s just right before I release it. While I don’t claim to be an expert at Pinterest…yet, I do know a lot and have grown my following 9885 in the past 90 days (I now have 10.7K Pinterest followers) and get more traffic than most blogger’s with the strategies I use.

I’ve had quite a few people ask me exactly how I’ve been getting so much traffic from Pinterest but it’s not an easy answer. There is way too much information to put into a blog post. Then I thought about putting it into an ebook but I think a course will be the best option. You can sign up for my newsletter if you want to get updates on it if you’re interested.

What’s worked?

Pinterest group boards

Pinterest group boards need to be your top priority. Get added to as many good ones as you can (high following and repin rate) and promote your stuff within reason.

I don’t have a ton of followers but am still able to get a lot of traffic because of these boards.

Using a Pin scheduler!

It’s been a lifesaver. There is no way I could pin everything manually. I pin ALOT! Like 80-100 pins a day and they are scheduled to be pinned periodically throughout the day for maximum exposure.

You can learn more about Pinterest group boards and Pinterest schedulers here.

What didn’t work?

Promoting most of the posts I’ve ever written. I recently decided to remove most of my pins off of my scheduler and only leave the highest performing ones (It was not an easy decision for sure). I had already done that a few times but left some that were just performing okay.

Now I just promote the good posts more often but never more than every five days, even less depending on the group rules and how fast the board is moving. I have seen my traffic, repins, and followers go up even faster since it made the change.

Interested in starting your own blog?

Blogging isn’t for everyone. Most people don’t want to put in the time and not make any money in the beginning. Not everyone can be an entrepreneur and that’s okay. But if you want to eventually replace your income or just make some extra money on the side, blogging is a great way to do that.

You can find step by step instructions on how to start a blog here. There is also a quick 4 minute set up video if you decide to go through Bluehost. You can start your own blog with them for as low as $2.95 a month by signing up here (I’ve negotiated with Bluehost to get my readers the best deal possible, so this low pricing is available through my link only!)

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Have questions? Don’t hesitate to ask me in the comments below or you can always send me an email!

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This post may contain affiliate links. Products ordered through this link may result in a commission, which helps to keep the content on this site free.  The opinions expressed in this post are my own.  Any health advice that may be in this post has not been evaluated by the FDA. The products and methods recommended are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any illness or disease, nor is it intended to replace proper medical help. Read my full disclosure policy here.