How I made $6132 in a Month Blogging – My Latest Income Report

I’m so excited to publish my new income report! In November 2018, I reached above $6000 in my blogging income. Keep reading if you want to learn what are my income sources and how I drive traffic to my blog.

I have to tell you honestly that I don’t feel very comfortable sharing with everyone how much I make with my blog. But I do it because when I started, income reports of established bloggers were not only a source of inspiration for me, but also an incredibly useful and FREE way to learn how to properly monetize my blog.

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you purchase through these links, I might  receive a commission at no extra cost to you. For more information, see my disclosures here.

A couple of words about my blogging journey so that you could understand how I reached the $6132 income last month. If you read this story in my previous income reports, just skip the three points below.

1. I started my first blog anastasiablogger.com which you are reading now, in Feb 2017 and worked on it part-time while still having a 9-5 job. I decided to focus on Pinterest as a traffic source and even though I started from scratch, with 0 followers, Pinterest worked miracles driving to my blogs organic (free traffic). I get over 90% of all my traffic from Pinterest!
2. I quit my job on the 10th-month blogging when I was accepted to Mediavine ad network because traffic was quite high by that time and ad income alone could cover my monthly bills.
3. In Feb 2018, one year since I started the first blog, I launched my second blog momshealth.co. I wanted to test my Pinterest strategies on a brand-new blog in a different niche (this one was a so-called “mommy” blog) and see how fast I could grow traffic knowing all that I learned in the first year blogging. This worked perfectly well as in just 2.5 months my new blog was getting 74,000 monthly pageviews.
4. A couple of months ago I started the third blog in a completely different niche and this blog is already getting some income from Adsense + Ezoic (NEW!). I’ll talk about Ezoic in detail later in this report.

Below you’ll see the income report with the total of the three blogs for November 2018 (please note that this is income before expenses and taxes + for product sales, both mine and affiliate products, a 30-day refund policy sometimes can do minor corrections to the income report).

Ezoic accepts sites without any minimum required traffic, so you can try to apply as soon as you have some content on the site (and maybe not much traffic yet). Monumetric requires at least 10,000/mo sessions in your Google Analytics. Mediavine will ask for 50,000/mo sessions and Adthrive requires at least 100,000 mo/ pageviews.

I’m going through this holiday season with a great traffic growth, my old posts published in 2017, are bringing me traffic. My new posts (published at least 1.5 months in advance) also worked great.

My Pinterest account for anastasiablogger.com is currently at 6.1 Million views on Pinterest. This number is good to show for potential sponsorships, but what really matters is the amount of traffic that comes to the blog. I’ll talk about it in detail soon enough.

If you are about to start a blog and thinking, what should be your main focus for the first year – Google, Instagram, Facebook, paid ads (some newbies even think of this option!). My answer is: focus on Pinterest!

When you start a blog, most probably, you are still working full time, your blogging income is not high enough to quit, and you have a limited amount of time to spend on your blog. So, spend it wisely! Spend it on things that really work this year!!

November 2018 Blogging Income report

Did you notice that ad income (I am a publisher with Mediavine company) is a huge contributor to my income report? This is proof that bloggers can make money in any niche, you don’t have to sell products to other bloggers, such as courses or eBooks, to make money with ads.

I mentioned a company called Ezoic (it’s not yet in the income report though because I joined it with my third blog almost at the end of November). Looks like you don’t need to wait for 50,000/mo sessions to apply for Mediavine anymore. Ezoic accepts sites without any minimum traffic volume. And it is an official partner of Google AdExchange – so that brings the biggest advertising network that pays for 1000 views, not for clicks, to your website.

What is great about Ezoic is that they accept your website with any traffic volume, even if it’s below 1,000/mo pageviews! And it also doesn’t force you to disable your Google Adsense ad blocks. Ezoic doesn’t require exclusivity and doesn’t lock you into a contract for months. So when you are accepted to Mediavine, you can easily make the switch.

According to Ezoic’s own data, by adding their testing system to your blog, you can increase your ad income by at least 60%. So don’t waste your time with Adsense, just apply for Ezoic right away – you have nothing to lose!

Blogging Income Report Proofs

Note: These are the screenshots from the biggest income sources, I also have my second blog that has Mediavine ad income and product sales. The third blog has been with Adsense income, which is not high but I hope this will change soon with Ezoic or Mediavine if I get accepted. Some income sources pay directly to my bank account. With three blogs and this level of diversification, it’s just too many places I would have to screenshot! 

How Much Money You Need to Start a Blog?

Your initial investment in starting a blog is so much lower than any other potential business you might be thinking about! With the hosting provider I used for this blog for 1 year, for example, you can start a site at the price of one coffee a month! Literally.

I have a free 7-day course which will give you the right direction and will help you build a blog that’s not just a hobby, but an income source.

It’s also not as difficult technically, as many people think. I have a video tutorial which shows you how in about 10-20 min you can set up hosting and domain name for a WordPress blog – see a detailed post about it here.

This post contains affiliate links to Bluehost. This means I might receive a commission if you buy their hosting using my link (no extra cost for you involved). For more information, see my disclosures here. Using my link, you can get hosting + free domain name + free SSL certificate (https) at a 50% discounted price.

You can use this handy Bluehost’s tool to check whether the domain you are thinking about is available:

I recommend this hosting because I was still on Bluehost’s basic plan when I got 13.399 sessions in just one day (you’ve seen it in the screenshot in this traffic report)!

I had to move to another hosting plan only 11 months since I started the blog because my traffic for January exceeded Bluehost’s basic plan about 10 times. But for a blog that’s just starting, Bluehost’s basic plan will be more than enough!

Blog Traffic Report for November 2018

You can see from my Google Analytics that I received 126,000 pageviews on this blog in November.

I’m getting almost 90% of all my traffic from Pinterest. 

An important note I’d like to make here: if you think that Pinterest traffic only works for advertising income – you are wrong. Do you see that Goal I have in the screenshot above? It’s the visits to my page where I invite everyone to my watch my Free Pinterest Traffic Masterclass. I get people to learn about my Pinterest strategy and essentially I get more subscribers into my email list. I can later monetize through affiliate offers and my own products. Check out how many goals just for this Workshop I hit per month with free Pinterest traffic! Just so you know, in this make money online niche people pay on average $10 per sign up for their free webinars. I do it for free with Pinterest traffic.

What I’ve Done Right to Get These Results

1. Improved my connection with readers through emails.

In October, I participated in the promotion of the Ultimate Bundles as my Tailwind Scheduler course was included in the bundle. It was my first time as an affiliate for Ultimate Bundles. And I had a chance to see the results of other bloggers in the leaderboard. I was blown away by their conversion rates from the email campaigns. I realized that I’ve built a solid list but I totally failed at building a relationship with my readers.

To change this situation, my first step was starting a weekly Blogging tips series which I always send on Thursdays. I realized that it’s not enough to send my readers an email whenever I feel like. I had to be more serious and strategic about email marketing. I never realized how important it is for blogging income potential. I’m working on it and hopefully will have a better level of trust and connection with my readers.

2. Started promotion of my products about a week before the Black Friday + Cyber Monday madness. I knew that your inboxes will be full of offers from all kinds of companies, not only blogging products. I made sure to inform my loyal readers in advance and also offered extremely generous discounts (up to 40%) for action takers.
3. Prepared my blogs for the holiday season (Halloween + Thanksgiving + Christmas) by publishing lots of seasonal content about 1.5 months in advance so that my new pins have a chance to get traction.

My Blogging Income Growth From the Beginning

Your Takeaways From this Income Report

I already mentioned that I don’t publish income reports to brag about the numbers. I do it so you can LEARN what actually works for blog monetization. Let me make it even easier for you. Here is what I would have learned from my income report if I were a new blogger.

1. 1. I mentioned that my third blog is a few months old and is about to reach 25,000/mo sessions. Your conclusions? Growing blog with Pinterest traffic to get to Mediavine’s required 25,000/mo is totally doable – you should not ignore Pinterest especially as a new blogger. When your blog is 2-3 years old, Google SEO might be more helpful to you, but with a new site, your chances on Pinterest are much better.
   2. Ezoic – if this is a new word for you and your blog is already getting 10,000/mo sessions or is close to this number, you should apply for Ezoic to get access to Google AdExchange and increase your ad income by at least 60% compared to what you are getting with Adsense.
   3. You are only safe if you diversify your income streams. You noticed that I made a lot with ads, but I also work hard on my affiliate income and I sell my own products. I also work on building new blog(s) to make sure that if anything happens with one blog, I still have the others to maintain a reasonable blogging income. I don’t want to go back to my day job! 🙂

Remember, even if you play a super clean game on Pinterest, your account can be suspended just because of a glitch on the platform (this happened to my blog and it was really scary, it also negatively affected my traffic for many months after my domain was marked as spam).

If you rely on Google traffic, not every algorithm change works to improve your traffic. We’ve seen in the last few months some blogs losing 50% of their traffic in niches like nutrition, diets, even some mommy blogger were affected (those who were giving some advice on sensitive health-related topics).

4. Whatever your monetization options are, you can’t make money without traffic. If you don’t bring traffic to your website, you can’t sell affiliate products, nor your own products or services. The fastest traffic source for a new blog is Pinterest – and I am sharing all my Pinterest SEO Secrets here.

Did you find this Income report useful? Did you learn something from it? If you did, SAVE THIS PIN below to your Blogging board on Pinterest and check this detailed report later at any time.

How I made $6132 in a Month Blogging – My Latest Income Report

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Instructions

1. Blogging Income Report Proofs
2. How Much Money You Need to Start a Blog?
3. What I’ve Done Right to Get These Results
4. Your Takeaways From this Income Report

Anastasia Blogger

I’m Anastasia and I’m a full-time blogger, online entrepreneur, and Pinterest marketing strategist. I help digital entrepreneurs and bloggers drive targeted traffic from Pinterest either through my online courses or through Pinterest consultancy.

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