Welcome to December’s online income report. I’m going to show you how I made money in my seventh month blogging.

So many people are looking for ways to make money from home, but have no idea where to begin. That’s where I was a little over seven months ago. I wanted to find a way to be home with my one-year-old and make good money at the same time. That’s when I discovered the blogging world and never looked back. Not to say I didn’t have my moments where I thought it was all a waste of time. It’s easy to feel like that when you’re first starting out.

I love being able to write about things I feel passionate about that helps others, for a living. But before I started out, I was scared that only techy people could create a website and that everything has already been said by all of the other bloggers out there. Those two things are actually what held me back from starting this blog for a while.

Last months income report: How I Made $1340 In My 6th Month Blogging

But I just had to try it. I couldn’t think of any other career that I would rather choose. I was attending college at the time. But even after two years, I had no idea what I wanted to do. Starting my website was actually really easy once I figured out where I needed to start. And yes, everything has pretty much already been said, but no one can say things like you can. I don’t know how many times I’ve searched around on the internet for a few different opinions on something.

Why post my income report?

Feel free to skip this section if you are not new here.

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 news feed and came across her blog post on how she made $10,000 a month 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

It has taken me a while to figure out exactly what kind of posts do well for me. Most people think bloggers only make money by teaching other bloggers how to blog (that’s a mouth full lol) but actually my blogging posts don’t do well on the traffic scale and I only made $130 from other people signing up for a blog through my affiliate link this month. Thinking I could only make money teaching others was actually discouraging when I first started out too. I mean I had zero experience so that wasn’t even possible.

But this is what I have figured out…Anyone can make good money from talking about anything people are interested in (people love my health and beauty posts and the money I make comes mostly from those posts) but most of the bloggers making $100k+ a month are the ones teaching others how they did it. Nothing wrong with that if you have the credibility. But some of them also sell online products like fitness courses or ebooks on potty training (a mom blogger I know does really well with that ebook).

Pageviews: 262,263

Income:

• Adthrive ads-$1724
• Affiliates-$319.30
• Sponsored posts-$350

Total income: $2393.30

Expenses:

• Boardbooster – $20 (1/13/19 Update: Boardbooster is no longer in service so I use Tailwind)
• Vaultpress– $9
• Picmonkey– $7.99

Total expenses: $36.99

Total: $2,356.31

Increase from last month: $2,356.31 – $1,340.41 = $1,015.9

Ads

I’m still getting the majority of income from ads. I’m still trying to grow my income from other streams, but I realized this month that I need to stick with what I’m good at. And that’s driving traffic. That’s what I’m going to focus more on this month. Plus, in January ad companies don’t pay as well so I’ll need to make up for that in getting more pageviews.

All bloggers make money differently. Some bloggers get less traffic than me, but make more through affiliates or selling a product. There’s always areas that bloggers can get better at, but it’s also smart to do more of what works for you.

If you are fairly new to blogging, you understand the struggle of getting more traffic. Breaking a thousand a month can seem impossible before you actually accomplish it. Find out How I Got 236k Pageviews In 2 Weeks {In My 3rd Month Blogging}.

Affiliates

My affiliate income doubled again! It’s nice to see that increase since I’ve put a lot of work into fixing old posts to drive more sales. I love affiliate income because I’m making money off referring products that I already use. Your readers can tell when you are being genuine and will buy from you when they feel they can trust you.

But you can’t just slap affiliate links into your posts and expect to see big results. There is actually more to making money through affiliates than meets the eye. A couple of months back I wasn’t getting any clicks on my links and I couldn’t figure out why. Then I took Michelle’s Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course. I learned in a couple of weeks what took her years to learn and this course has already paid for itself for me.

Sponsored Posts

I had never done a sponsored post before this month because I didn’t really like the idea of it all. I mean most sponsored posts that brands want you to write are about things that you have never even tried or only pay like $10 for you to write it. I would never betray my readers trust and honestly $10 isn’t worth my time. And it would only annoy my readers anyways.

But this month a company sent me an offer to write a post that I was actually interested in and they offered $350 for me to do it. I said yes because I would have written the post for free, but they got a link back to their website (and that’s not free ?). I figure I’ll at least do one a month since my readers liked it and it was good money.

Last month’s goals

I did okay this month but didn’t quite hit my goal of writing at least five posts. It sounds like such a small amount to write and I have no excuse for not meeting my goal. Laziness is all I can say. But the good news is, I don’t feel like I’m in a funk anymore.

This move was harder on me than I realized. Getting myself and my little one back into a routine has taken a while longer than I expected. It’s a new year and it’s time to get back to business. Plus, a reader of mine reached out and gave me the kick in the butt I needed. She said I wasn’t posting enough! She was so sweet but gave me some tough love. That’s exactly what I needed. Thanks again if you’re reading this!

But I did make my other goal. I made more in affiliate income.

Goals for January

Redo images for my best posts- Since I get most of my traffic from Pinterest my images are a big deal. It doesn’t matter how great your content is if you are not promoting it properly. And with Pinterest, images and titles are so important for getting people to view your content! That’s probably how you found this post.

I have used a certain pinnable image on Pinterest for a post and got minimal traffic from it, but then changed the image and it went viral. It makes that big of a difference. I plan to make one new image for each of my top ten posts and promote that for a couple of weeks to see how it does. Whatever doesn’t do well, I will quit promoting and change the image again.

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 hosting which starts at $2.95/month. (I’ve negotiated with Bluehost to get my readers the best deal possible, so this low pricing is available through my link only!)

You may also enjoy…

• This 1 Thing Will Get You Banned From Applying To Google Adsense
• 100+ Ways To Make Extra Money This Year
• 8 Simple Things Aspiring Bloggers Can Do Now For Future Success
• 15 Best Online Survey Companies To Join For Extra Money
• Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing: How Michelle Makes $50,000 A Month in Affiliate Income With Her Blog

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.