It’s been a little over three months since I started this blog after branching out from my other one, and despite the initial stress that came with promoting a new blog and trying out completely new post topics, I could not be more excited with how far it’s come! I’ve loved being able to blog about college and other lifestyle topics instead of just blog tutorials (what my old blog was entirely composed of), and I can finally say that I’m confident this was the best decision for me and my blog(s).
I made income reports a long time ago for my other blog, but I soon realized that a blog all about blogging wasn’t exactly the easiest to monetize without spending a ton of time making e-courses and e-books and whatever else starts with an “e”. I knew I didn’t have the time to devote to that strategy (thanks college), which is part of the reason why I created this blog! That’s not to say monetizing a lifestyle blog is easy (if only), it just offers more opportunities for making passive income without a huge following. That said, April was my first month trying to monetize this blog, so I want to give y’all a background on that before going into the numbers.
The first three months
When I first started this blog, I knew I didn’t want to monetize right away. I had some affiliate links scattered throughout posts I’d moved over from my old blog, but sponsored posts were out of the question. It just didn’t feel right to join influencer networks with a 30-day old blog, and I also wanted to give brands an idea of my writing style, so I knew I needed a good portfolio of posts before applying.
My focus for the first three months was on updating, rewriting, and promoting posts that I transferred from my old blog to increase my pageviews and get my name out there. I set some ground rules for myself to follow in order to achieve those goals:
- Every post needs to be around 700 words of quality (no fluff!) content.
- Only post when you feel like posting (I’ve found that this helps me produce better content, even if it means posting less).
- Pin pin pin! I focused entirely on promoting through Pinterest, so my other platforms stayed pretty stagnant, but this was the best way to expose my new domain to the most people.
- Work the SEO! I tried to come up with the most keyword-friendly titles I could, and keep that Yoast light green.
Honestly, a lot of these three months was spent just experimenting with strategies and topics and learning about how the best lifestyle bloggers out there got to where they are today. This is totally new territory for me, but I loved the challenge!
Those strategies seemed to pay off, and while all of my non-Pinterest social accounts are strugglin’, those first few months gave me a good foundation to start monetizing off of, which is where today’s topic comes in! If you’re not a blogger I know it’s kind of weird to see someone sharing their income, but I promise it’s a normal thing in the blogging community! I absolutely love reading other blogger’s income reports, especially those who have been posting them for years, because you can see just how far they’ve come and remember that everyone starts somewhere. That’s why I wanted to start posting these reports as soon as I started making money, even if my numbers are super low compared to other lifestyle bloggers. They sort of serve as my own record of how my blog is doing, but they also
- Help other bloggers learn about monetizing their blog
- Remind bloggers that having ups and downs in traffic/income is okay (I’m definitely 10k pageviews down from last month and that’s totally fine)
- Show other college students that making money blogging is totally fun and cool and you should all start a blog!!!
So with that, here’s my income + traffic report for last month!
April Income
ShopStyle Collective: $27
Bluehost: $195 (from this post on creating a blog!)
Amazon: $1.14 (lol)
Total: $223.14
April Expenses
Creative Cloud: $10.91
Boardbooster: $5
Hosting: $8.95
Total: $24.86
TOTAL INCOME: $198.28
So as you can tell, my entire income right now is from affiliate links, but it’s a start!
April Traffic
Every time I feel like my traffic is starting to settle around a certain number per day, a pin gets super popular or falls off the face of the earth, so while my pageviews are about 10k down from last month, I’m not really concerned. One obvious trend I noticed is that Sundays are always my biggest traffic days!
My biggest takeaway from this month though was that it takes about two weeks for a new post to gain traction, meaning it’ll get maybe 20 views a day for the first two weeks, but by pinning it on different boards every few days, that number grows to 100-200 after the two week mark and pretty much stays there from then on. Because of that, coming up with a better Pinterest strategy is becoming a huge focus of mine!
May Goals
- Post once a week: While I’m super eager to start working on tons of posts this summer, finals are unfortunately taking priority, so I’m limiting myself to one post a week.
- Become more active on Twitter: With all of my focus being devoted to Pinterest for months now, my Twitter has definitely suffered. I still scroll through my feed every hour though, so I might as well be connecting with followers!
- Start joining influencer networks: I’m currently a member of InfluenceHer Collective and Socialstars, but I want to start joining other networks and figure out which ones best fit my niche. I don’t want to go crazy with sponsored posts, but I’d love to see what other networks have to offer and hopefully land some opportunities!
Merging Blogs
As this blog continues to grow, I’ve realized that I have basically zero motivation to post on my other blog consistently, which is why at the end of this month I’ll be moving all of The Blogging Brew’s posts over to this blog! I had such a great time blogging there for over a year, but I know I’ll never get back to posting on it weekly, and I find myself constantly referencing those posts to readers here. I still want to post blogging tips, but not on a weekly basis, which is why I think it’s best to combine the two. I’ll make an announcement when all of that happens, but be ready for blogging tips galore!
Finally, if you have any questions on making money blogging, why I made a new blog, why I’m merging two blogs (I’m literally breaking every blogging rule, holla), or anything really, feel free to ask in the comments!! I haven’t gotten to spend much time getting to know my followers yet, so don’t be afraid to reach out about anything! ☺️