Maybe I’m a Real Blogger? June Income Report: $1,286
This month was a biggie. I felt like a real blogger! I had big jump in income.What what?!For the longest time, I didn’t want to do the typical blogger income report, but here I am sharing my June income report with the world!
Why did I choose to do an income report even though in my archives, I have a post called “why I’ll never post an income report” with many reasons not to post and income report?
I decided to post an income report because I want to give you hope that it is possible to bring in an income from your blog. Blogging has opened up a whole world of opportunities for me and I want to share that with you.
My hope is that if you were ever thinkingmaybe I’ll start a blog some day, that you’ll start it today. I’m hoping to increase my income but for now, I’m thankful for where I am right now!
First, a little bit about me:
Less than a year ago (11 months to be exact), I thought that it was a joke to be a “full-time blogger.”And now here I am making a part-time income from it! I started getting serious about my blog less than 5 short months ago and it’s been a wild ride from there.
I work from home, between 10 and 20 hours a week. I am a homeschooling mom of 3 boys ages 5, 2 and 1. We live on one low income, and my husband works second shift. We don’t have any family close by to help watch the kids so that I can work and they can babysit.
If you only remember one thing about me, it’s that I’m not special… not even close. I’m so average. I’m not a millionaire (far from it!), who can invest thousands of dollars into a blog. I don’t have the time to spend 24 hours a day working on my blog. I don’t have an English or journalism degree. And I’m definitely not a grammar pro (thanks to a free app called Grammarly, I don’t have toworry about looking like an idiot when I post things).
I do love to write and I love to help people. And I’m really good at cutting out spending and finding new ways to save money. Through my blog, I have a way to help people find answers to their questions about how to save money, live on a budget, and get in control of their finances.
By writing about what I love, I’m hoping to be able to provide my family with a second income, while getting to stay at home with my children.
**If you’re thinking about starting your blog for profit, you need to read Abby Lawson’s book Building a Framework: The Ultimate Blogging Handbook. If I had this book when I was starting out, it wouldn’t have taken me so long to figure out what I was doing! She has seriously amazing content for you to know exactly how she went from a hobby blog to earning a six-figure income very quickly!**
So here’s my June income report:
Affiliates: $582
Ad Networks: $704
Total: $1,286
Affiliate Income:
Amazon affiliate income has been basicallymy source of income since I started blogging and wrote this essential oil rollerball guide that went mini-viral after I wrote it. I LOVE Amazon’s affiliate program. Sure, it’s not the highest commission rate, but where else would I be able to get a commission from my laundry hacks post for both wool dryer balls AND a pilates machine(I’m serious)?!
Ebates is another affiliate win! I love itso much I wrote a post about my love for Ebates, and it’s been really good to me in June!
Being an affiliate for other blogger’s products has so been amazing. I love helping them out as well as helping my readers.
Here are my highest earning affiliates from other bloggers:
Rosemarie from Busy Budgeter:Pinterest Strategy Guide. I love Rosemarie, and I love that she shared her complete strategy for Pinterest in her guide. This has been a big hit!
Crystal from Money Saving Mom: Make Over Your Mornings. This is a great course that really helps set you up for success in your day. This might not be about blogging or about saving money, but it’s about taking control of your day. It’s done really well for me thanks to Crystal sharing the post I wrote about it with her 800,000 Facebook followers!
Abby from Just a Girl and Her Blog:Building a Framework: The Ultimate Blogging Handbook. I love helping other people start their blogs! It makes me so happy to see more and more people starting out. And this is the book that I recommend everyone to read when you’re starting out. Since this book basically sells itself, it’s been a hot sell!
Brittany Ann from Equipping Godly Women: Strategies Worth Sharing. With Facebook being the constant source of a giantheadache for bloggers, this book is another self-seller.Brittany Ann took her Facebook from 1,000 to 100,000 Facebook likes! This is admirable and really desirable for bloggers.
Ad Network Income
I joined AdThrive this month, and WOW what a difference it’s made! I was “down” for 5 days and for a few hours here and there as they added the ads to my site, so my income from ads would’ve been higher. But I’ll take the $8-12 CPM (the payout I get per thousand clicks on my site) over AdSense’s $1 CPM any day!!
*Fair warning, AdThrive will only accept you once you have 100,000 pageviews per month. There are others out there that are awesome if you have lower pageviews. BlogHer, and The Blogger Network are 2 of the highest earners with lower pageview requirements.
What worked:
What worked:BoardBooster for the perpetual win!
This has been the key to my growth and I love it! I don’t know what I’d do without BoardBooster. It schedules my pins for me all day.
I’ve been shifting the amount that I’ve posted to certain boards though. The BoardBooster algorithm sometimes floods boards at the same time with pins because that’s when the board is most active. This is both great and horrifying.
The traffic and exposure is great, but seeing 3 of your pins on the same screen is awful. So I shifted the amount of pins to those boards, and haven’t had that problem since.
Making a Top 5 campaign on BoardBooster.
I took a page from Rosemarie’s book and tried this campaign on BoardBooster. It sets up your top 5 pins to go to your top 5 group boards. It took some doing (and a lot of worry that I wasn’t going to do it right), but I got it set up and the results have been great!
Check out the video tutorial Rosemarie set up if you want to give this a try with your BoardBooster.
Finding a community
I don’t know what I’d do without my blogging groups on Facebook! Seriously, they’re amazing! I find answers to questions before I even ask them. We support each other and cheer each other on.
It’s especially helpful as a personal finance blogger. Traffic was super great in May! Then suddenly it went down in June. When I feel like crying that my traffic is disappearing, I find comfort knowing that summer is a slow time for bloggers, especially for personal finance bloggers. I never would’ve known that if I hadn’t asked it in my blogger Facebook group!
I’ve made so many friends and I love the community that I’ve become a part of!
SumoMe
I decided to try out SumoMe this month. I wanted an easy to see bar at the top of the screen to tell you about my email giveaway. It’s not in your face, but when you think to yourselfwhere can I subscribe? I don’t want you to need to go searching for the subscribe bar.
The return has been incredible. I mean… knock your socks off. I’ve had four times the sign ups that I normally had thanks to that tiny bar at the top!
Plus, I started using the heat maps to see where people are clicking on my site when they visit. It’s been a really amazing tool.
Convert Kit
I love ConvertKit! They’ve made sending my newsletters much less scary and painful! I can even make signups really easily from their site. In the past, I’ve had to use things like HelloBar and Mailchimp and no matter what I did, I always wound up messing something up and losing out on subscriptions. Not good.
Being able to do everything through ConvertKit makes it easier and much less scary. Because, let me tell you, sending out an email to thousands of people is still nerve-racking!!
See how pretty it is? And so easy to make:
What didn’t work:
Pinterest Ads. I tried these out for the first time and it was just awful. For my highest pinned pin, I was basically paying $1 per repin. Not worth it at all. Pinterest Group Boards are so much better for generating traffic!
Doubting myself. I was mad at myself for a lot of reasons this month. Mostly because I didn’t smash any records.
Let’s be real though… when has being mad at yourself ever accomplished anything? It really doesn’t. So I bucked up, got out of the funk, and kept chugging along.
Next month’s goals:
An ebook is in the works! Actually, a few of them are… but I just have to pull the trigger and actually put them out there!! In July, I want to have at least one of my ebooks out there making some passive income!
Setting up email courses. I’ve wanted to do this for a while, but it’s time to get serious about it.
Here’s my biggest goal: to get out of my own way! I’m my own worst enemy to success. I really do self-sabotage way too often. My goal for this month isto really turn the corner to make the most of my business and really start treating my work like a business and less like a fun thing to do on the side.
Here’s to more adventures and learning in the next month!Just keep swimming!!
