Today I want to talk to you about making money blogging and share how I made over $2,000 blogging last month with a blog that’s under a year old (yes, really!).
There are a lot of questions about blogging and whether it’s still profitable in 2021 so I wanted to share my income report to answer those questions.
I want to show you that you CAN make money blogging in 2020.
Even if you start today (enroll in my FREE course below to get started).
Because blogging isn’t going anywhere.
It’s just evolving and changing.
People are still reading blogs, they are still searching for answers for their problems and that won’t change anytime soon.
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This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Please see my full disclosure for further information.
ps if you don’t want to read all of this and just want to see the income, feel free to scroll down. you won’t hurt my feelings 😉
But I would recommend reading everything as I think these things I will talk about are even more important and helpful than the actual income report.
The back story
To understand better where I am and how I got here, I think, it’s important to know my full story.
I didn’t start blogging and made money the next day (unfortunately, that’s not how it works!).
I started a fashion blog in 2013 when I was only 13 years old and didn’t know anything about blogging.
I saw that people had blogs and thought it looked fun so I went on blogger.com and created my very first blog.
That blog wasn’t successful at all and it barely made any money but it did teach me a lot about blogging and social media.
So fast forward to June of 2019 when I was bored and didn’t know what to do so I decided to start blogging again (as I stopped writing that fashion blog a few years back).
I decided to start a blog about digital marketing where I could talk about social media and blogging.
And that’s how The Female Business (aka this blog you’re reading right now) was born.
Why am I sharing my income?
It might seem strange to share your income on the Internet for everyone to see (not gonna lie, it is a bit) but I’m doing it anyway.
As I think that income reports are incredibly valuable and you can learn A LOT from them (if they are done right).
That’s why I share mine. But I don’t do it every month.
Because there are months where I don’t have anything new to share so writing one wouldn’t provide any real value to you.
I share an income report when I have a reason to.
When I have something new to share, a new strategy, a lesson I learnt, an update on my blog, etc.
And today I have a lot to share.
April 2020 blog income report
Let’s finally talk about the numbers!
Traffic report
Let’s look at my traffic first.
In April I had a total of 45,107 pageviews which is an increase of 51.22% compared to March.
This makes April my highest traffic month yet!
Email subscribers
At the beginning of this month, I made some big changes with my email marketing strategy.
I removed all Instagram related signup forms from my blog and decided to only focus on growing my blogging related list.
This decision is a part of some changes that I’m making with my blog which I’ll talk more about later on.
Even though I removed those signup forms and only left the ones related to blogging I still managed to get over 600 new email subscribers. It’s mainly because my traffic grew a lot in April.
I am getting around 500 new subscribers a month but my list is still quite small (1,800) as I go through my list every month and delete people who aren’t opening my emails.
I only want to have people on my list who are interested in my emails and read them, especially because I’m paying for my list. This allows me to connect with my subscribers and build a community.
A small list of people who are actually interested in what you have to say and offer is a lot more valuable than a huge one where nobody is interested.
So if you haven’t cleared out your list in a while, go and do it right now.
If you haven’t started your list yet you can follow my beginner’s guide to email marketing for bloggers.
Income report
Affiliate income:
- Bluehost: $1,500
- Haute Stock: $29.70
- Legal templates: $212
- Tailwind: $36.07
- Grammarly: $20.60
- Thinkifit: $0.02
- Blogging ebooks: $30
Ads income:
*Total income: $2,047.32
*this is the money I earned in April NOT what I was paid out, and this is before any taxes or fees
Proof of income
Here are a few screenshots so you can see that I did make that money.
I made a total of $2,047.32 in April which makes April my highest earning month ever.
Affiliate marketing makes up the majority of my income which I’m not surprised about.
That’s the first way I started making money and it’s, by far, my favourite.
I recently put together an affiliate marketing guide for beginners so check it out if you want to learn how to get started and actually make affiliate sales.
In the middle of March, I added Mediavine ads as another income stream on my blog. And April was my first full month with them. (I’ll talk more about getting into Mediavine below).
It’s so important to have multiple income streams as a blogger, whether it’s affiliate marketing, ads, sponsored posts, creating your own products or something else.
You need to diversify your income and make money blogging in different ways.
Especially in hard times like this. You can’t rely only on one thing.
What I did this month
I thought I’d go over some things I did with my blog in April.
I’m very happy with how much work I was able to do on my blog even though I was quite busy with uni and had to write SO MANY papers (I still have many to write so May will be even busier 🙈).
I updated old posts for SEO
I finally sat down and updated some of my posts for SEO.
I bought an SEO book back in February but never did anything with it as I was too busy.
But in April I told myself I had to to put some time aside and do it.
I took a few hours and went through some of my posts and updated them.
I first went through the posts that were already ranking on the first few pages to get them higher.
And then I updated some posts that really needed an update (not just for SEO) and targeted a new keyword.
I’ve already seen results just from updating a few posts.
Just take a look at the screenshot below.
Compared to March, my organic traffic increased by 78.39% in April which is amazing.
I’m still not getting much organic traffic but it’s growing.
There is so much work I need to do and so many posts I need to update but I’m glad I did get some of it done.
Also, the ebook I mentioned above is Easy On Page SEO and I’d highly recommend checking it out.
It has so much helpful information and tips for optimizing your posts for SEO.
>> Check out Easy On Page SEO here! <<
I created fresh pins often
Another thing I did in April was creating fresh pins often.
I talk about Pinterest and how fresh pins are important all the time and I will never stop talking about is (unless Pinterest changes things).
Lately, I’ve been adding 1-3 fresh pins a day and it’s made a huge difference in my traffic from Pinterest.
Blog update
This is one of the man reasons why I’m writing this income report.
I have some things to update you on.
Getting into Mediavine
First things first, I want to talk about getting into Mediavine.
If you don’t know what Mediavine is, it’s a premium ad network that offers a full ad service, not just the ads.
Getting into Mediavine had been one of my goals ever since I started this blog and I can’t believe it happened so soon.
Back in January when I shared my 2019 income report I wrote down my goals for 2020 and getting into Mediavine was the first thing on the list.
When writing that post I didn’t even think I would smash that goal in less than two months. (along with the goal to make $1,000 in one month which I also did).
I’ve really enjoyed being a part of Mediavine so far and would highly recommend them.
My favourite part is the community and how invested and involved everyone is.
Some changes in the content
I also want to talk about some changes in my content.
When I started this blog I decided to write about blogging and Instagram.
But now I want to move away from Instagram and focus on blogging.
I want to focus on creating content for beginner bloggers to help them get started and make money with their blog.
I decided to stop offering any Instagram related freebies (like I already mentioned) and stop writing about Instagram.
I’m not saying I will never write another post about Instagram but it’s not something I will be spending a lot of time on.
There are a few different reasons why I decided to make this decision.
The first one is that I hardly spend any time on Instagram (I’m just not interested in it as I once was) so it’s hard to write about something you aren’t staying up to date with or enjoy.
Another reason is that Instagram isn’t profitable for me. I can’t justify all the time I spend on writing a post that I barely make any money from.
That’s why, from now on, this blog will be dedicated to beginner bloggers who want to turn their blog into a business.
What helped me reach $2,000 in under a year
I know I’ll probably get a lot of questions on how I made so much money and how I was able to reach $2,000 so fast so I thought I’d go over a few things that helped me make this happen.
Starting on the right platform
I wouldn’t be able to make $2,000 so fast if I didn’t start a self hosted blog.
I said it before and I’ll say it again, if you are serious about blogging and would like to make money, you should invest in self-hosting.
Self hosting doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg, you can get started for only $3.95 a month by clicking here.
Treating my blog like a business
Another thing is that I treated my blog like a business (not a hobby) from day one.
Going self-hosted is only one part of it, I also invested a lot of money on things like stock photos, plugins, resources to learn more about blogging and other things.
Because if you want to make money blogging, you need to invest in your blog.
I’m not just talking about material things and spending money, it’s also important to invest your time in learning (there are so many free resources and articles) and working on your blog.
Running a blog is a lot of work and you need to be ready to do that work, especially if you want to turn it into a business.
Promoting the right products
The majority of the money I make with my blog is through affiliate marketing.
An important part of affiliate marketing is understanding your target audience (aka your readers) and promoting products that they need, products that will solve their problems and make their life easier.
You need to know what their needs are so you can find products that will fulfil those needs.
Because people aren’t looking to buy products they are looking to fulfil a need!
Creating valuable content that promotes those products
Once you find that product you can’t just randomly add it to a post and expect people to click and buy it.
You need to give people a reason to buy that product.
Show them what that product does and how it will solve their problem, and THEN they will buy it (expect for impulsive purchases when people just buy something they like without thinking about it.)
Final thoughts
Overall, April was a really good month for my blog.
I reached lots of milestones I didn’t even think I would so fast and I made lots of changes.
I’m so excited for May. I have so many plans and ideas that I can’t wait to do and show you.
Read my other income reports here
Is Blogging Still Profitable In 2021?
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