This article contains affiliate links.
Welcome to my April blog income report.
I publish these reports to share the numbers (earnings and expenses) from my blogging business and the mistakes I made, the lessons I learned, and the new projects I’m working on.
You can find all income reports here.
Read on to see what happened in April 2019 on Let’s Reach Success and in my business.
If you haven’t started a blog yet, make sure you enroll in my free course Launch Your Profitable Blog Today:
Blog Updates
I’ve been dedicating quite a lot of time to Pinterest. And in particular, how to not just grow my Pinterest account but also bring actual traffic from there to the blog.
Well, in less than a month, I got the following results:
- my Pinterest page views reached 470,000+
- a few pins went viral
- I brought thousands of new visitors to my blog
- that immediately almost doubled my income from ads on some days and I reached $1000/month in ad revenue
- my monthly blog page views reached 83,000
- I had a record day on the blog with over 4,000 page views (which I haven’t been able to reach with SEO, referrals, other social media channels or any other traffic source)
With that being said, my new goal is to reach 100,000 monthly page views on my blog. With Pinterest, it’s totally doable.
My progress is thanks to taking the decision to invest in the course Pinterest Traffic Avalanche, completing it and taking notes, purchasing Tailwind and scheduling pins daily, experimenting with Pin design, and reading strategies from other successful bloggers.
I will be sharing my results in the monthly blog income report starting today. That means there will be a new section for Pinterest Progress (below) and also one dedicated to Blog Traffic, as I’m back to focusing on this and trying to increase it.
Follow me on Pinterest if you wanna follow my journey there.
Pinterest Update
Views: 480K
Followers: 2450
I learned a lot about Pinterest in April 2019, both from reading about other bloggers’ results and tactics, and from my experience.
Tailwind
I’m finally using Tailwind (almost) daily. I’ve got over 1000 pins scheduled to boards.
Group Boards
I’ve applied to many group boards in the last few weeks. That didn’t lead to many responses as the owners get many of these on a daily basis and often don’t even reply.
However, it’s a must for anyone to keep applying to those and become a contributor to new ones.
I now create content for Pinterest in the following niches:
- Blogging
- Make Money Online
- Finance
- Business
- Travel
- Lifestyle
- Productivity
- Personal Development
The last 3 are something I just recently started doing (I didn’t have many pins on these topics before that). Which means, I’m not in many group boards in these niches, don’t know what topics perform best and haven’t researched the most popular pins and bloggers to learn from their strategy. In addition, I should create more of my own boards on subtopics related to Lifestyle, Productivity and Self-Help.
Each pin I create should be added to a few of my boards so I must have relevant ones for that to happen before I schedule it to be added to group boards.
Viral Pins
There are many factors contributing to viral pins.
The basic things are:
- Have great pin design (image that grabs attention, title that makes people click and text that can be read easily among all other pins);
- Optimize it well (description + hashtags);
- Add it to your most relevant board;
- Add it to more of your own boards as well as relevant group ones;
- Add it to Tailwind Tribes for more exposure;
- Be the first one to pin it from your own blog;
- Pin it when your visitors are most active (not a must as Pinterest is a search engine but it’s still best to make sure many people see it the day it’s uploaded);
- Make sure it leads to a great blog post (enough text, practical tips, well optimized, easy to skim, good blog design, page loads fast and is mobile-friendly).
Sometimes you might think you got all these right but the topic simply isn’t trending on Pinterest or the pin doesn’t seem to pop up to the right people (which means you didn’t optimize it well).
From what I’ve learned from other bloggers in the past few weeks, everyone has their own strategy. Some do it manually, others use only Tailwind and pin only their content. Some rely only on Tailwind Tribes, others create new pins every single day, etc.
The bloggers with many viral pins are mostly learning from experience and replicating the process once it happens. That includes things such as:
- Writing more blog posts on the same topic and creating pins for them;
- Creating new pins with a similar or different design for the viral pin every week or every few weeks;
- Promoting the pin with Pinterest Ads;
And more.
Let me share my experience. The pins of mine that went viral weren’t something I planned to. Actually, I wanted other pins to go viral, but that’s not really how it works.
I’ve heard from plenty of bloggers that most of their blog traffic is to posts on Lifestyle, for example, even though they are in the Blogging niche.
2 of the pins that went viral were from 2 of the articles I’ve published a long time ago that actually bring me the most organic traffic. This means the topics are hot on both Google and Pinterest and are optimized well.
I’m talking about How to Become a Millionaire Online: 8 Realistic Million-Business Ideas and How to Become a Self-Made Millionaire with No Money.
The pin from one of these articles is my best pin ever so far. It led to thousands of visitors on my website:
It was interesting to see that.
In addition, a guest post from a long time ago on Google Calendar hacks also went viral.
Turns out the pin became popular for anyone interested in Productivity and Tools.
At the end of April, I decided to create a second one for it and it also became popular. The traffic from both of them, however, quickly disappeared a few days after the pin went viral. That’s normal.
The ultimate goal is to create pins that stay viral, but of course that’s not easy.
An infographic went viral too. It’s on sketching and is from this article on memory hacks. While these do well on Pinterest they don’t usually lead to clicks as all the information is there and the reader doesn’t need to go to the actual URL.
Other articles that did well on Pinterest include:
You can see how the traffic from a viral pin looks like on the image below from Google Analytics. Keep in mind that’s only my traffic from Pinterest.
Pinterest Resources
After completing the course Pinterest Traffic Avalanche, I didn’t stop learning. Yes, I focused on implementing all the strategies I learned there and finding what works best for me. But at the same time, I researched other bloggers that are successful on Pinterest.
The great thing is that they all write about it and some even share their unique tips that lead to millions of Pinterest page views and tens of thousands of blog visitors each month. Let me share some of them with you.
First, here are the posts I published last month sharing my experience with Pinterest so far:
How I Grew My Blog to 78,000 Monthly Visitors Using Tailwind
7 Silly Pinterest Mistakes I Was Making
Ell Duclos, with 2,5 million Pinterest page views, knows what she’s doing. I’ve been reading her tips lately and some posts that stood out are:
How to Get Your Pin to Go Viral
What to Do When Your Pinterest Views Decrease
The guys from Breaking The One Percent have a great strategy for group boards. Check out How to Find and Join Pinterest Group Boards.
If you’re looking for a free online course to get started with Pinterest, check out Pinterest Primer.
Now that we’ve covered Pinterest, let’s see how blog traffic was in April 2019.
Traffic Update
Pageviews: 83,010
Sessions: 68.074
Users: 59,455
That was my best month in terms of blog traffic so far and that’s thanks to the viral pins. My long-term goal is to bring as much traffic from Pinterest as I currently have from search engines.
Here are some of the top posts last as shared by MonsterInsights (a Google Analytics plugin for WordPress):
How to Become a Self-Made Millionaire with No Money
How to Become a Millionaire Online in 2019: 8 Realistic Million-Dollar Business Ideas
How to Plan Your Life and Never Be Stuck Again: 5 Steps to Succeed
How to Write and Publish a Book in Less Than 30 Days
25 Helpful Google Calendar Hacks You’re Probably Not Using
6 Simple Ways to Experience the Thrill of Becoming Emotionally Independent
The Bubble Boom: How to Open a Bubble Tea Business That Really Pops
The Mirror Technique: A Beginner’s Guide to Self-Confidence
Content Update
The last section I want to cover before moving onto the actual numbers is Content Update. Here, I’ll share what new pieces of content I created in April, who I interviewed for the blog, and what old articles I’ve updated/republished.
A total of 34 blog posts were published on Let’s Reach Success in April.
My new content strategy looks like this: I’m no longer accepting guest posts as I focus on updating many of the 2,000 articles that already exist on the blog.
I am publishing more content of my own and sharing the results from anything new I work on. Interviews with successful bloggers and entrepreneurs are also a priority as the advice in each such article can help anyone out there looking to achieve the same.
In addition, I’m writing affiliate posts sometimes, sharing my blog income reports, and publishing sponsored posts every now and then.
Let’s start with the amazing interviews I had the chance to share with you last month:
How to Get Paid to Travel and Earn a Full-Time Income as a Travel Blogger – an interview with Monica from The Travel Hack
How Kristin Larsen Earned $100K in Her First Full Year of Blogging – an interview with Kristin from Believe in a Budget
How a Non-Technical Founder Launched a Tech Company and Went from 0 to 100K App Downloads
How to Build a Top Travel Blog and Earn $10K/Month with Brand Partnerships – an interview with Jacob and Esther from Local Adventurer.
Blog posts I updated:
53 Solid Reasons to Become a Freelancer
14 Time Management Tricks You Must Know About
How to Think and Live Like a Millionaire
I’ve also updated my start a blog and make money blogging guides.
I also started reviewing some of the tools I’m using/recommending and sharing the results I have with them:
What Makes FreshBooks The Best Accounting Software for Bloggers and Freelancers
How I Grew My Blog Using Tailwind
How to Create Better Content with Grammarly for Free
How to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment and Skyrocket Your Sales Using OptinMonster
I shared all updates around the blog. Let’s get to the numbers now and see how much I made blogging in April.
April Blog Income Report
I earned a total of $2,665 in April 2019 from my blogging business.
Please keep in mind that’s gross income.
After extracting fees I pay to other platforms, transaction fees, paying my own taxes and insurance and covering my pension as a solopreneur in the Netherlands, there’s much less left for me to spend.
You can see the progress here together with all other income reports.
Blog Income Breakdown
- Sponsorships: $1885
- Ads: $494
- Courses: $117
(Financial Freedom Through Blogging)
- Affiliate earnings: $95
- Books: $74
TOTAL (Gross Income): $2665
While the income was lower than previous months, it came from different places – ads, sponsors, affiliates and products.
The ad revenue for April was the highest one so far, exceeding $1000. That’s passive income and it’s directly related to the traffic I get. However, I will get that income in 2 months even though it was earned in April.
I shared what it takes to get to $1000/month with ads in this post.
I’m still not actively promoting my course Financial Freedom Through Blogging. Instead, I’m focusing on Pinterest and increasing my blog traffic from there.
Blogging Expenses Breakdown
WPX Hosting – $0 (paid yearly)
Teachable – $0 (paid yearly)
Tailwind Plus – $104 (paid yearly)
Tailwind Tribes Max – $119 (paid yearly)
Accountant – €180 (paid quarterly)
Mobile Plan – €27
Additional Mail storage (Zoho) – $59
Health Insurance – €118,50
Domain Renewal – $18
PayPal fees – $88
Teachable fees – $29
TOTAL: $781
If you’ve checked out my other income reports, you’ll notice that expenses were higher this month. That was due to some yearly payments for new subscriptions, mainly, Tailwind. The domain renewal and mail storage are also something you won’t see often in my expenses list.
The quarterly payment for accounting services is another reason why this month’s expenses breakdown looks like this.
What I’ll Be Working on Next Month
In May, I plan to:
- Review other tools I’m using and for which I’m an affiliate for;
- Review Pinterest Traffic Avalanche;
- Mention my Productivity course in relevant posts on the blog;
- Add more personal boards to my Pinterest account;
- Add pins to old blog posts that don’t have one;
- Apply to more group boards;
- Consider switching to another email marketing services;
- Plan new freebies for subscribers and to what articles to add them to.
If you too are a blogger and want to earn more from your business, check out these resources:
Courses:
Financial Freedom Through Blogging – My Ultimate Course for Bloggers Looking to Start, Grow and Monetize a Blog and Become Their Own Bosses
Launch Your Profitable Blog Today (Free Course for Beginner Bloggers Looking to Quickly Set Up a Blog)
Make Your First Money Online Freelancing [Free Course] – I created a free course sharing my journey to making more than $4,000/month blogging. It all began with freelancing and you can use this course to follow the steps I took to become a freelancer with no experience and earn my first income online.
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing (The Ultimate Affiliate Marketing Course for Beginners, Created by Michelle from Making Sense of Cents Who Earns $100K/Month Blogging)
Pinterest Traffic Avalanche: A Solution for Beginner Bloggers to Drive 10,000 – 100,000+ FREE Monthly Visitors to Your Blog – on Autopilot!
The Passive Income Boss (Free Course on How to Earn Passive Income from Your Blog)
Posts:
How to Start a Profitable Blog and Make Money: A 6-Step Guide for Serious Blogger’s Only
How Much Does It Cost to Build a Blog (+ My Blogging Expenses)
How I Earned $250 from 1 Sponsored Post on My Blog
How I Made $47,479 Blogging in 1 Year
How This Stay at Home Mom Earns $30K/Month Blogging and Retired Her Husband at 30
Tools:
WPX Hosting – my recommended hosting provider
Mag – the premium theme I’m using for Let’s Reach Success.
Teachable – best place to create and sell your online courses.
Reviews:
The Only Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Review You’ll Ever Need to Read
WPX Hosting Review: The Many Positives of Using WPX Hosting for Your WordPress Site
Final Thoughts
Thanks for reading this far. I love writing my income reports so much. It helps me look back on what I did last month and analyze the results.
Studying the numbers related to my blogging business helps a lot and all the milestones, calculations and graphs are necessary to help me see the big picture but also what’s working and what isn’t on per week/month basis.
If you’re a blogger, start doing the same as soon as possible. I’ve seen many pins on Pinterest titled something like ‘How I Earned My First $100 Blogging’ or ‘How I Made $48 in My First 2 Months of Blogging’. So it’s not about the income, it’s about sharing the journey.
Even if you aren’t making money blogging just yet, share the traffic, social media followers, number of posts, your expenses, and more. All this can inspire others to start a blog and will be something you’d enjoy reading once you’re making a real income from your blog.
Stock Photo from Poh Smith @ Shutterstock
