This article contains affiliate links.
Welcome to my last monthly income report for 2018.
I publish these to share not just the revenue from my blog and online business, but also the mistakes, lessons and new projects.
You can find all income reports here.
I’m currently earning a few thousand dollars a month thanks to sponsorships, freelance writing and ads but I’m also working on 2 other income streams (affiliate marketing and selling online courses).
Read on to see what’s been going on over the past month. Hopefully, this will inspire you to add a new income stream to your business, start a blog, learn how to make money blogging, or simply work on new side hustles.
If you haven’t started a blog yet, enroll in my free course Launch Your Profitable Blog Today:
What Happened in December 2018 on My Blog and in My Business
December wasn’t a good month for me in terms of revenue. It’s also the month we are more distracted due to the holidays, spend a lot, and get the chance to analyze the past year and set goals for the new one.
I did get a lot done but for projects that will be bringing me revenue in the future, such as my new course Financial Freedom Through Blogging (although the first students are already enrolled and enjoying the modules I’ve published).
Some blogs have a big drop in traffic these weeks. Many bloggers also see little to no money in ad revenue as compared to other months. So whatever your situation was, it’s okay for a month like that.
Let’s use it to let go of things such as numbers and get ready for 2019, where we can do our best work ever and reach our financial goals.
Here are some things I worked on in December.
10 free printable to kickstart 2019
I created a new freebie for Let’s Reach Success. The end of the year is a good moment to get organized and start planning our time, activities and money better for the next couple of months so we can achieve our goals.
Tools such as a habit tracker, to-do list, goal tracker, monthly and yearly planner, and expenses tracker have helped me tremendously over the years. So I decided to design some printables and offer them for free to subscribes of the Let’s Reach Success newsletter.
Updated the pillar content on Let’s Reach Success
Cornerstone content is something every blog should have. These are the most important articles on the site, which are well-optimized, pretty long (thousands of words), well-formatted, researched, and updated frequently.
I freshened up 2 of my big guides here on the blog. They are How to Start a Profitable Blog and How to Make Money Blogging.
In addition, I’m updating old blog posts with potential to rank for a different keyword. I might re-write sections, add content, change internal and external links, and even re-publish it if I want to bring the piece back to life.
Two such examples are the following posts (titles are updated too):
Morning Ritual: A Habit All Successful People Share (+How to Create Yours)
How to Become Wealthy with No Money: A Simple Formula for Success
WordPress 5.0
The new WordPress update is here and it’s the biggest one since I’ve been a blogger. The new editor is now with the default system for everyone and those who want to keep the old look and feel of the WP editor can use a plugin for that.
The new one uses blocks of content and I find that a bit more complicated and time-consuming than the previous version. Many experts online also argued whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks
I’m still getting used to this new editing experience though and have noticed some errors. But that’s normal for every big change in a piece of software and each will be fixed soon.
A cancelled flight and getting a lot done
On a more personal note, I was supposed to go to my home country for some family time around the holidays, but my flight was cancelled. I didn’t want to deal with the chaos of finding another one from that same airport exactly when everyone else is visiting family for Christmas, so decided to put it off for this month.
Booked 2 weeks in January that I’ll spend in Bulgaria. Being in the Netherlands for Christmas also helped me get more done.
There was a drop in revenue like most blogs experience these months when everyone is buying presents and taking time off instead of actively reading blogs. I used this time to work more on the course I released last month – Financial Freedom Through Blogging.
Things are going well, the first students are already taking it, and I’m publishing new modules as we speak. Here’s what I did for the course exactly.
Progress with Financial Freedom Through Blogging
I completed and published Modules 4 and 5 from Financial Freedom through Blogging, which were quite the work.
Module 4 is about optimizing your blog. So I wrote lectures and tutorials on how to get Google to index your new site quickly, set up Google Analytics, make your site mobile-friendly, do on-page SEO, write content that ranks, and speed up your website.
I also shared my exact process of doing keyword research and writing a blog post that ranks for the keyword I targeted just 30 days after publishing.
In addition, I talk about the power of interlinking and how to properly interlink your blog posts, bad SEO practices that must be avoided, and how to do Pinterest SEO to get a ton of traffic.
Throughout the module I also show you what new and free tools to use that have helped me during my blogging journey. Also, I designed 3 freebies for the Bonus section that should be used when completing this module. They are:
- How to Build Quality Backlinks to Your Blog
- The Keyword Research Checklist
- What Google Wants: Your Guide to Creating a Google-Friendly Web Page
Module 5, on the other hand, is about growing your website by making it popular and stepping up your content creation game.
There, I cover important aspects of blogging such as the different types of blog traffic and how to get each (plus a separate section on proven ways to bring organic traffic).
I talk about domain authority and how to increase it, give tips on how to find popular topics to blog about, and show you the best strategies for writing great articles.
I dig deeper into what cornerstone content is, how to write it and how it can help you become an authority and get a lot of people to read your work. You’ll also learn what to do after you publish a blog post in order to promote it, how to update old ones, how to start guest posting to grow your brand and how to find guest bloggers for your site so you can get free content.
Included is a freebie with 39 awesome types of blog posts and you can use it any time you feel stuck and are looking for new ideas.
December Income Report
I earned a total of $3,067 in December 2018 from my blog and freelance writing 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.
This Month’s Revenue Breakdown
Total Revenue (Gross Income) – $3067
FREELANCE WRITING: $565
Upwork
Clients outside of any platform
SPONSORSHIPS: $1868
AD REVENUE: $609
Mediavine
Check out: How to Optimize Your Site to Increase Ad Revenue
BOOKS: $25
Smashwords
Amazon
This Month’s Expenses Breakdown
Web Services
WPX Hosting – $25 (Read my honest WPX Hosting Review)
Teachable – $0 (paid yearly)
Professional Services
Accountant (paid quarterly) – €0
Office Supplies and Misc.
Mobile Plan – €27
Upwork fees – $59
PayPal fees – $88
Last month’s best content on Let’s Reach Success
42 blog posts were published in December, 2018.
Here’s some of the content worth checking out if you haven’t already:
How to Start an Online Business, Move to Thailand and Earn $500K a Year [Interview with Jill from Screw The Nine to Five]
6 Big Things I Did with My Blog This Year (And What’s Next)
How I Earned $3,650 Blogging Last Month [November Income Report]
8 Habits That Lead to Millionaire Business Success
The Creative Spaces of Famous People
How to Brand Your Business on a Budget
How Many Pageviews Do You Need to Make Money Blogging
Free Marketing Calendar Template for 2019
Stay tuned for the annual income report.
For the very first time, I’ll publish an income report sharing my income for the whole year, together with the biggest happenings and projects and what’s next for me and Let’s Reach Success.
That’s an important article for me. Thanks to these income reports, I’ve been tracking my money but also my progress.
I can always go back and analyze what I did that month and how it led to something that happened a few months after it.
It’s also the type of content people like as it shares my mistakes and shows how much time and effort it takes to earn money online. At the same time, it shows people it’s possible thanks to the exact numbers I provide.
Resources to Help You Start Making Money Blogging
Launch Your Profitable Blog Today– If you just want to take the first few steps in your blogging journey, I have the right resource for you. This is a free course and will help you set up a site in less than an hour so you can move onto creating content, building your brand and monetizing your site.
Blogging Resources – To build a powerful site that turns visitors into buyers and monetize it well, you will need the right tools. In my Blogging Resources page, I’ve gathered the best of the best and the exact tools I’ve used to grow Let’s Reach Success and be able to make a full-time living as a location independent freelance writer.
10 Things I Did in The Last 6 Months to Double My Income and Make $5,000 a Month – It takes some courage and strategic actions to double your income online. Here’s exactly how I did it.
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.
The Passive Income Boss[Free Course] – That’s another free course I released on the topic of earning passive income through blogging. You’ll learn what passive income is exactly and how it works, how to get started with blogging and make your site powerful, and the 4 main passive income streams you can create using your blog.
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing – If you’re not earning money through affiliate marketing, then you are leaving money on the table. This step-by-step affiliate marketing strategy course shows you how to increase your affiliate income and make more money blogging. It’s by Michelle from Making Sense of Cents who went from $0 in affiliate income to over $50,000 per month (and also the first online course I’ve ever taken).
How Bloggers Can Make $10,000 a Month from Home– Curious how bloggers get to 10K/month working from home and what you need to do differently? In this article, I discuss why it’s possible for everyone to make that much on a monthly basis and how to get there.
WPX Hosting – the fastest web host for WordPress.
Mag – the premium theme I’m using for Let’s Reach Success.
Teachable – best place to create and sell your online courses.
Thanks for reading this far. I hope you enjoyed what I shared in my December income report. Till next time.
