How I Made $4,800 from My Blog Last Month (+ My Pinterest Strategy)

This article contains affiliate links.
Welcome to my September blog income report, guys.
I’ve been publishing these ever since I began making a real income from my blogging business and they’ve inspired readers and encouraged aspiring bloggers to launch their website and monetize it as soon as possible.
If you haven’t started a blog yet, make sure you enroll in my free course Launch Your Profitable Blog Today:

In this income report, I’ll share more about email marketing and the new steps I’ve taken in that direction as well as how I’m bringing traffic from Pinterest.
I’m often investing in new tools that can grow my blogging business, taking online courses by successful bloggers, interviewing people who are earning a full-time income with their side hustle, and sharing my numbers (+ mistakes and new goals) openly.
These income reports are my favorite ones to write because I also love reading other bloggers’ ones. It helps see what new things we can all work on, how we can combine different income streams, how others are growing their audience and what their content strategy is, what they invest back in their business, and so much more.
I once earned solely from freelance writing but have turned my blog into my full-time online business since then.
You can find all income reports here.
Now, let’s see what’s new on the blog since last month.
Blog Updates
Switching from MailChimp to ConvertKit
I started my blog back in 2013 and have used MailChimp (the free version) ever since I launched my newsletter. I had some optin forms and freebies and was sending out a weekly email, but that was it.
There was no real strategy, no sales funnel, no welcome series, no automation, no content created to connect with new subscribers and engage them with my brand.
I knew that one day I’d get to the point where I invest in a more professional email marketing provider and I knew what that product would be – ConvertKit. It’s made for bloggers and creative entrepreneurs and it’s basically what all highest-paid bloggers use.
Every next year I tackle new aspects of my blogging business, invest in it, do the work, research and learn from others in order to get to the next level. Now, it’s time for email marketing.
I was inspired to finally switch to ConvertKit thanks to the course I took this summer, Six-Figure Blogger. There, I learned a lot about selling digital products and setting up email trust funnels. These 2 things are necessary to go from a 5-figure blog (which is what Let’s Reach Success is now) to getting to 6 figures and dreaming bigger.
Switching from MailChimp to ConvertKit was quick and easy. As for getting to know the new software, I watched plenty of videos to create optin forms, sequences and automations (it even has different terminology than MailChimp so it looks confusing at first).
Now, the foundation is created and I have my welcome email series (which also introduces my main product to new subscribers) in place and I get people signing up through my optin forms on my list.
Ever since I switched, I feel more in control of my email list and have been gaining new subscribers on a daily basis. Now, income reports will also include how many new people signed up each month and the total number of subscribers I have 🙂
For anyone who wants to check out ConvetKit, here’s a 2-week free trial.
New Freebie: How I Built a Blog That Gets 100K Monthly Page Views
Speaking of optins and freebies, I created a new PDF file on a hot topic. Since I’ve been getting over 100,000 monthly visitors on Let’s Reach Success every month for a few months now, I also wanted to explain how I got there.
Current subscribers received a link to this already, but if you’re new and want to see the strategies I used in the last year to start getting so much traffic, sign up using the form below.
Over 5,000 page views in a day.
Another record month in terms of traffic but a new great milestone is that I reached over 5K hits (5,104 to be exact) on September 16. All in 1 day.
A few articles are performing better than all others. Most of them thanks to organic traffic and being optimized so well, others thanks to how I promote them on Pinterest.
The top articles are:
- How to Become a Self-Made Millionaire with No Money
- 12 Things I Believe In
- How to Plan Your Life and Never Be Stuck Again: 5 Steps to Succeed
- How to Become a Millionaire Online in 2019: 8 Realistic Million-Dollar Business Ideas
- 12 Evening Habits to Include in Your Night Routine
- How to Write and Publish a Book in Less Than 30 Days
- The Importance of Saving Money: 7 Reasons to Start Saving Today
- The Mirror Technique: A Beginner’s Guide to Self-Confidence
Now, let’s move onto the Pinterest and Traffic updates for the exact numbers.
Pinterest Update
In September, I managed to get back to 390K Pinterest page views (it’s 523K as of writing this), which brought around 6,000 visitors to my blog.
Around 200 Pinners are visiting my site daily which is okay. Please keep in mind I don’t yet have pins on all my posts (over 1,500 or more articles could have this addition in the future and be shared on and optimized for Pinterest).
Which means so far I bring traffic from Pinterest to interesting articles, such as my income reports, interviews, affiliate reviews, and posts on Blogging and Finance. These are great niches for the platform and also can lead to income from ads and affiliate marketing.
My Pinterest strategy in the last few months takes almost no time and looks like this:
When I publish a new post that’s worth sharing on Pinterest, I create 1 or more pins for it and immediately add it to my most relevant board. Keep in mind you should be the one to first pin your own pins from your blog, so don’t wait after it’s published.
I use hashtags and have good descriptions and I track all details (such as what boards a pin is saved to) in a spreadsheet.
I do this on the first day and leave the pin there (I also have it on my desktop to remind myself it’s not scheduled yet).
The next day, I manually add it to another board. That can continue 2-3 days in a roll, after which I will schedule the pin using Tailwind and add it to all of my boards that are relevant to it, after which I’ll add it to group boards.
I’ll also add it to my Tailwind Tribes and set an interval (usually, it’s to pin it to every next board from the list once a day at a time where Pinners are most active).
That’s it. I also do this for old blog posts as I’m constantly updating them and often a piece goes viral on Pinterest simply because I added a good pin and shared it. That’s a great way to bring old content back to life.
One new thing I’ve been doing lately is to change the design of my pins. I now use beautiful images from IvoryMix and have a new favorite font on Canva that I add to pins. Here are some examples:


And here are the reasons why my Pinterest strategy gets results:
- You don’t need to pin manually every day or a few times a day. When you have pins scheduled in Tailwind, it’s more than enough to pin manually only when you have a new post;
- Create more than 1 pin for a blog post, you never know which will go viral;
- Keep logging into Pinterest often and pinning manually from your blog, don’t rely solely on Tailwind;
- I took a Pinterest course recently that changed the game for me. It’s Pinterest Traffic Avalanche. You too might want to invest in a resource like this to get to know how the platform works for bloggers;
- I constantly tweak my pin designs;
- I often embed infographics on my blog and share them on Pinterest. They are often much more likely to go viral but might also not lead to traffic (as the content is visible on the image and people don’t need to click). Still, however, they are a good addition to your overall Pinterest strategy as they lead to engagement.
PS, Read more about the new Pinterest best practices here.
Traffic Update

Pageviews: 119,247
Sessions: 99,736
Users: 85,268
Email Subscribers Update
New Subscribers: 120
Cancellations: 13
Total list size: 2,066
From this month on, I will also be tracking my email subscribers and will discuss what I’ve done each month to gain more, clean my list, or else. That might be new optin forms, testing a new feature of ConvertKit, updating old content, etc.
Content Update
I published 35 blog posts on Let’s Reach Success last month. Let’s go through some of the most interesting pieces.
First, the 3 new interviews.
The first one is with a blogger you’ve heard me mention many times as she’s one of the highest-earning ones online. That’s Michelle from Making Sense of Cents and you can check out the interview here.
What’s interesting about her story?
Well, she was once $40K in debt and started a personal finance blog just for fun and to share her journey and what she learns about making and saving money.
The result? A few years later she was earning over $50K/month from it (mostly from affiliate marketing), had the chance to become self-employed and a full-time blogger and began traveling the world.
Making Sense of Cents is now a Million-Dollar blog. That’s right. She earns over $100K/month (again, half of it comes from affiliate marketing) and has been able to reach millions of people over the world and help them with her money tips.
She’s been featured on Forbes, The Huff Post, Business Insider, and almost any other big publication we’ve heard of. She’s been traveling full-time for quite a while now and lived in RV after which she and her husband moved onto a sailboat. She shares more about all this in her interview for Let’s Reach Success.
The second interview is with Samantha, who started her food blog and managed to reach 8 million page views (and a pretty good monthly income) in 3 years. Read more about her successful venture in this post: How Samantha Successfully Monetized a Brand New Food Blog
And finally, Andrew from WealthyNickel has seen some extraordinary results with his side hustles.
He is a 35-year-old dad who earns $100K/year on top of his side job, thanks to his side hustles. His passion for real estate investing also allowed him to generate over $1 million in 4 years.
In this interview, he shares exactly how he did all that, his views on renting vs buying and financial independence, how much he’s earning and from what, and much more.
Read the interview with Andrew here.
My August blog income report is worth checking out too. It’s the only one where I share the big vision for my business and what I’d like to achieve in the future.
And here are some guest posts on Blogging for aspiring bloggers that want to monetize their side hustle:
5 Essential Things to Do Before You Launch Your Blog
6 Types of Blogs That Make The Most Money
How Do Bloggers Get Paid?
If you’re a fan of daily rituals of successful people, you’d also love the infographic in this post sharing the daily routines of 36 of the most famous and powerful women in history.
That’s it for the content and traffic updates. Now, let’s see the numbers for September.
September Blog Income Report

I earned a total of $4,800 in September 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.
Blog Income Breakdown
Sponsorships: $3,710
Ads: $1,070
Books: $20
TOTAL (Gross Income): $4,800
Blogging Expenses Breakdown
WPX Hosting – $0 (paid yearly)
Teachable – $0 (paid yearly)
ConvertKit – $29
Tailwind Plus – $0 (paid yearly)
Tailwind Tribes Max – $0 (paid yearly)
Accountant – €0 (paid quarterly)
Mobile Plan – €27
Health Insurance – €118,50
PayPal fees – $196
Helpful Blogging Resources
Courses:
Financial Freedom Through Blogging – My Ultimate Course for Bloggers Looking to Start, Grow and Monetize a Blog and Become Their Own Bosses
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