How I Made $5,267 Blogging This Month (+ Proof of Income)

Hey everyone and welcome to my first blog income report for 2020. It’s been a good start of the year (compared to how my blogging income was in January in the past 2 years).

Traffic is now getting back to normal (after a dip the last 2-3 months). Pinterest page views are more than ever and that brings me solid traffic. My email list also reached a new milestone: 2,500+ subscribers (you’ll see why below).

I keep interviewing successful bloggers and online business owners (even featured some on my homepage) and sharing their stories and tips with my audience. In the Content Update section later in this report, you’ll see the best content for January that you should check out.

I’ve been dealing with administration related to last year’s income and expenses, will pay my tax as a solopreneur next month, and also published my annual blog income report.

I’ve also made many updates on the blog in terms of updating old content and optimizing and republishing it. These and other SEO principles are what I learned in Stupid Simple SEO – the latest online course I’m taking to boost my traffic and rankings.

I also keep working on my premium blogging course Financial Freedom Through Blogging and was able to add a whole new module to it last month! (it’s about Pinterest and teaches all the things I did to bring thousands of Pinners to my site).

So, I’ve been productive, working both on new and old things, and that motivates me knowing it’s just the first month of a new year. Imagine how much more can be achieved in 2020!

Read on to see what happened in January 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:

how to start a blog in 1 day - free course

Now, let’s move onto the numbers. I constantly tweak my income reports and how I present all I have to say in them. From this month on, though, I’ve made some bigger changes in the format.

I know most people visit them for the numbers (although I think the Blog Updates section is much more valuable as I share exactly what I worked on and how it brings me revenue).

So, to make it easier for readers, I share the numbers first. Also, I will include more proof of income such as screenshots.

After that, I’ll mention the expenses I have related to my blogging business, followed by a traffic and email list update (with screenshots and exact numbers).

Only after that will I share what’s been going on that month, what worked and what didn’t, and what new things I’m working on.

Right after that, I’ve included a section with resources for new, intermediate and advanced bloggers.

Last, there’s a Featured Readers Question, where I include questions I’ve received from readers about blogging, and my answers.

Blog Income Report

I earned a total of $5,267 in January 2020 from my blogging business.

Please keep in mind that’s gross income. A lot of it goes for fees I pay to other platforms, transaction fees, paying my own taxes (close to 30% of my income), insurance and pension.

You can see all income reports here.

Proof of Income

Here are some screenshots showing some of the revenue:

Ad revenue from Mediavine

january mediavine earnings blog income report

Course sales

Affiliate income from Teachable

affiliate income from teachable monthly blog income report

PayPal earnings

Earnings from each income stream:

Sponsorships

Blogging Expenses

WPX Hosting – $0 (paid yearly)
Teachable – $0 (paid yearly)
ConvertKit – $0 (paid yearly)
Tailwind Plus – $0 (paid yearly)
Tailwind Tribes Max – $0 (paid yearly)
Accountant – € 181,50 (paid quarterly)
Mobile Plan – €27
Health Insurance – €118,50
PayPal fees – $117
Teachable fees: $20

Blog Traffic

Pageviews: 86,865
Sessions: 73,099
Users: 63,709

Traffic is increasing every next month again. In January, I got 14K more page views than the month before.

Also, nearly 10,000 page views came from social channels (mainly Pinterest) and 7,500 from direct traffic.

Talking about Pinterest, I reached nearly 600,000 monthly page views on the platform. Traffic from there has been consistent for months now and I get 200-300 people from Pinterest to my site on a daily basis.

The ideal combination for blog traffic is to combine organic traffic from Google with 1 other platform, such as Pinterest. That’s why each of these has its own module in my course Financial Freedom Through Blogging.

I’ve worked hard to make these 2 traffic sources work for me and they are the only reason why I earn passive income from advertising each month.

But it’s all connected. Sponsors contact you more often and you can charge more for sponsorships if your traffic is higher too.

Email Subscribers Update

email subscribers january blog income report

New Subscribers: 246
Cancellations: 32
Total list size: 2,611

I reached a new milestone. My email list is now over 2,500 subscribers. That’s mainly thanks to the fact that I’ve been growing my email list significantly ever since switching to ConvertKit and there’s no sign of slowing down.

As I now enjoy email marketing more too, I also keep updating old freebies and creating interesting optin forms and adding them to relevant posts.

I once thought it’s hard to get people to sign up for your email list. But now I see I just had the formula for email marketing completely wrong.

Blog Updates

Pinterest Module in The Course

Something I had on my to-do list for a long time now was adding a whole new module in Financial Freedom Through Blogging about Pinterest.

I finally prepared and published it and now students who’ve enrolled in the course will have the change to learn the following:

How to Use Pinterest for Bloggers
How to Make Your Pins Go Viral
How to Skyrocket Your Traffic Using Tailwind
My Current Pinterest Strategy: How I Bring Thousands of Pinners to My Blog
9 Tips I Wish I Knew Before Joining Pinterest
10 Pro Bloggers (with Millions of Pin Views) Share Their Best Practices

If you haven’t checked out the course yet, you can see what else is inside it here:

SEO Progress

SEO for bloggers is like a game. I’ve been playing it for a long time now, but quite unprofessionally. Thankfully, I found the right course for it – Stupid Simple SEO – and now follow all the steps outlined in it.

I can’t count the number of old blog posts that I updated (and often republished) in January. But it’s a lot.

I also analyzed my competitors and took many decisions for my content strategy from here on. I saw what the keywords I already rank for are (but not on top positions in Google) and went and optimized these pages further to boost their rankings.

New Content

If you haven’t read last month’s income report, here it is. I share how I deleted over 300 posts (for SEO reasons again) and how I made over $4,000.

I published 2 great interviews. The first one is with Kayla Sloan who went from a 6-figure debt to a 6-figure business. She started making money as a virtual assistant and shares her best tips for that. She then turned it into a business and now teaches others how to do the same.

The other interview is with fashion blogger Corina who went from $0 to $10,000/month blogging.

New posts work checking out:

Updated Printables Library + New Optins

Printables are fun and a great way to stay organized. What’s more, they are one of the best lead magnets and so many bloggers create many of them to share with their audience.

I recently updated mine. They resonate more with my brand colors now and look good together. I also added new ones such as a Debt Payoff Tracker, Savings Tracker, Side Hustle Income Tracker, and more.

There’s also a whole 2020 calendar you can download for free and print out so you can set goals for each month and stay on track.

If you’re already on my email list, then you got the direct link for downloading them. If not, you can sign up here:

Because I got plenty of these, I also created separate opt-in forms to place in relevant articles.

For example, now people landing on posts on how to pay off debt on my site, will see this opt-in form inside and can instantly download the freebie:

The same goes for the Savings Tracker freebie. I will create an opt-in for goals/organization too and will include the printables related to habit and goal tracking. These will do well in personal development articles on Let’s Reach Success.

But that’s not all. To really make this work, after creating each opt-in form in ConvertKit, I also create a separate Sequence for it and Automation. That means each subscriber, depending on which freebie they singed up though, will be welcomed by a series of targeted emails from me. There, I share more helpful content as well as my story, ask about the reader’s struggles, and introduce my brand and premium blogging course so I can further help them take control of their life and achieve financial freedom.

New to Blogging? Check Out These Resources

Start a Blog

How to Start a Blog That Makes $1000/Month: A Beginner’s Guide

How Much Does It Cost to Build a Blog (+ My Blogging Expenses)

Financial Freedom Through Blogging – My Ultimate Course for Bloggers Looking to Start, Grow and Monetize a Blog and Become Their Own Bosses

Grow Your Blog

How to Grow Your Blog and Reach 1 Million Page Views

How I Got 103, 231 Page Views and Made $4,305 from My Blog in 1 Month

Pinterest Traffic Avalanche: A Solution for Beginner Bloggers to Drive 10,000 – 100,000+ FREE Monthly Visitors to Your Blog – on Autopilot!

Make More Money Blogging

How to Make Money Blogging

How Many Page Views Do You Need to Make Money Blogging?

How to Make $50,000/Year Blogging from Home

How This Stay at Home Mom Earns $30K/Month Blogging and Retired Her Husband at 30

How These Highest-Paid Bloggers Earn Over $100K/Month

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)

How I Earned $250 from 1 Sponsored Post on My Blog

Featured Readers Questions

Do I have to start a blog on Pinterest before I can make my pins go viral and get traffic? And what is Tailwind?

You need your own blog (have you started one already?) but on Pinterest you just need a profile (a business one so you can connect it with your site).

I wrote a post about Pinterest for beginners here.

And here I explain a lot about Tailwind.

You don’t need to use and pay for a tool like Tailwind, though. You just need a Pinterest account so you can create Pins for your blog posts and share them on your Pinterest profile so they can get seen by others.

I’m not generating traffic. What should I do?

Question: I’m confused about my blogging carrier. I’ve been blogging for 7 months with no success. My blog contains 21 blog posts but none of them are ranking on the first page of Google. I’m not generating traffic. What should I do?

How many hours per week are you investing in your blog?

There is a lot to learn. Also, you’ve published only 21 posts in 7 months. You need a lot of content to make Google take you seriously and these posts need to be interlinked well.

You can’t simply have a blog, work on it in the beginning, publish some content and wait for it to rank.

Also, while you’re working on SEO you should also be utilizing Pinterest. It’s a great chance to get quick traffic with a new blog and when you don’t have this content.

Alex and Lauren teach exactly these strategies for your situation in their course Pinterest Traffic Avalanche (I took it and recommend it):

Pinterest Traffic Avalanche create and go courses

I checked your site. It’s nice that the posts are long but you also need to constantly create new content (a few posts a week) and promote it heavily.

Why is my website not loading fast?

Your site might be slow for many reasons.

I was once using Bluehost as a hosting provider and my site wasn’t fast. I then switched to WPX Hosting and everything changed! Yes, it costs more, but there’s a reason why.

I’m not going for cheap hostings since then and will never do it again.

Also, you only need to use the right plugins. Some of the ones you have might be slowing down your site.

There are plenty of free tools online to check your site speed and see the exact problems, then go fix them. Start with this free one.

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That’s it for January’s blog income report. I hope you enjoyed it and like the new format I use.

How I Made $5,267 Blogging This Month (+ Proof of Income)