Blogging for me has been something that has changed my life forever! I started out simply obeying God out of duty, rather than from the heart, and the more I got into it, the more I fell in love. I fell in love with all of you.
Helping you…
Serving you…
Teaching you…
Being someone you can depend on. Count on…
Being a role model…
Showing you what a Christian looks like…
Being an encouragement to you in your daily life…
Inspiring you to go after your dreams, to take a chance and go for it…
Within 12 months of blogging, I was making $10,000! Now, within 2 years blogging, I’m making over $23,000.
If you would have asked me two years ago, if I thought that was possible, I’d say no. $1,000/month was my BIGGEST dream, no lie! I see where God is taking me and it’s so exciting to be a part of all that. Not about the money, but how He is using me to help others. How He is building my life up, this blog, and all of you at the same time. It’s incredible to watch.
If you are feeling like He’s calling you to blog, my biggest advice is to not run away! You have no idea where He can take you when you place your trust and faith in Him and obey Him! I’ve living proof of that! From skeptical to $23k/month!
If you want to know more about the details of the income, where it comes from, where it goes, etc. keep reading…I’m putting the actual numbers below, for you to see how REAL this is. I’m not saying it will happen for every new beginner blogger, but I AM saying that it IS possible. It may not be the fastest way to make money blogging, but even if it takes you 5 years to get there, getting there is still worth it!
How I Started Making Over $23,000/m My Second Year Blogging
There are a few things you should read if you don’t have a blog yet. One is How to Start a Money Making Blog. A guide to helping you make all the upfront decisions before starting a blog and How to Start a Blog the Easy Way, where I take you step by step and show you in the video tutorial, how to set up a blog for yourself. You can find those posts here:
• How to Start a Money Making Blog
• How to Start a Blog the Easy Way
• How I Made $10,000 My First Year Blogging
I’ve also created a post that goes in depth on How I Made $10,000 My First Year Blogging, which is a guide that I wrote to accompany the income report, to help you get from whatever point you are at in your blogging journey to the next point. You can see that article here.
Now, before I get into any numbers, please know that I only share this to inspire you and to show you what’s possible when working from home as a blogger, not to make anyone feel bad. We ALL grow at different paces and according to our subject matter, previous expertise, and a hundred other variables. I’ve also been working this blog 80+ hours a week since I started it (up until 3 months ago, when I dropped my hours down to 40/week) and have posted almost every day since going LIVE (again until recently). If you’re putting in 10 hours a week, you can’t expect the same results. But….it’s not all about time either. I was spending a lot of time in the wrong places, so do your due diligence and figure out where is best to spend your time on your particular blog, and it will serve you well.
In order to know exactly what steps to take, where to spend your time and what’s a huge waste of your time, I’ve created a road map for you, How to Turn Your Blog Into a Six-Figure Money Making Machine. You can read this eBook in my Blogging Bundle here and I can tell you right now, the price is not even a millionth of the reward you will see when you start applying what’s in that book. Whether you’re a new blogger or a seasoned blogger, ALL bloggers I’ve talked to have learned A LOT!
In December of 2015, I made $23,424.18.
That came from many different sources and for the companies privacy, I’ll just lump them into categories. This does NOT include any companies that I am in for network marketing, including essential oils (I’ve been using and selling essential oils for about 6 years now), and Biomat (been with these guys about 4 years).
Affiliates: $13,916.88
A few of my favorite affiliate companies are:
Having trouble finding affiliate programs to join? I hear ya! You can spend weeks searching for different affiliate products to recommend and make money online OR you can click here to get my free eBook, Huge Affiliate Products Resource List for Lifestyle Bloggers!
Ads: $7,299.74
I use these two ad networks:
- Google AdSense – Find the two ads that do best on your site and keep them. Delete the ones that don’t do as well. There’s no point in showing an ad that doesn’t make you GOOD money!
- Media.net – What I love about Media.net is that you can put the ads where you want them. I like to put them in some of my more popular posts. You can customize the ad colors any way you want and Media.net will automatically A/B split test them to get you maximum results.
Book Sales: $1,707.56
My most popular books are:
Although I have many books that sell well for me (and that’s awesome because this is my future; I LOVE to write books and see being an author in my future!) these are the two that do the best. Those two books have hit Amazon’s #1 Best Selling Lists several times.
Coaching (had coaching closed, but did coach one friend): $500.00
VA work (I don’t do VA work anymore): $0.00
Sponsors (I’m not a fan of doing sponsored work, so it’s very rare): $0.00
Freelance Writing (although I haven’t done this consistently, I will be opening it up soon, which I’m excited about as I love to write!): $0.00
With running a blog comes expenses…
- Advertising: $84.95
- VA Work (I hire my daughter for a few things as well, as she is fantastic at pictures and business coaching; she’s 10! This blog is definitely a family thing): $726.50
- Host/Email/Etc. (I use Madmimi for email and ViralTag for Pinterest): $344.27
- Technical Support: $0 (none this month, but usually there is some in that category)
- Photography (supplies, photos – I use BigStockPhoto, PicMonkey, etc.): $69
There are other things to consider like office supplies (ink, etc.) and training, conferences, email signatures, etc.
Expenses came to: $1,224.72 (not including those misc. things).
Profit came to be $22,199.46 that month (not including those misc. things).
Traffic:
My traffic has been pretty steady at a million all year, and currently I’m up to about 1.5 million pageviews per month and expect to stay around that level through the rest of the new year. As I grow; it’ll get higher of course, but I don’t anticipate a drop. My traffic is very, very stable, so that even if I lost my biggest traffic source, I’d still be around a million in pageviews, which is something I’ve been working really hard on this year. Building my newsletter. Building trust and brand awareness and so on.
If you’re thinking about blogging, you definitely should start a blog! You never know where it can lead you!!!
My top 10 posts for this month were (in order of views):
- 20 Companies That Offer Legitimate Work at Home Opportunities (this post went viral on Facebook and was shared over 178,000 times thus far and still going strong a month later!)
- Top 5 Habits to Create a Better Life
- A couple gift guides do very well this time of year
- One Simple Trick Saves Me $125/month in Groceries
- DIY Bath Fizzy Bombs
- Why You Should Never Shop Walmart or Dollar Stores
- 15 Things I Don’t Spend Money On
- 5 Real Ways to Add $500/month Steady Income
- 10 Easiest Ways to Earn Extra Income from Home
- How to Make $10,000/month Online
What I’ve changed since last December’s income report (which you can find here):
- The biggest thing I’ve changed this year, is that I’ve cut my blogging hours from 80+/week to only working 40 hours a week. Seriously, it feels like I’m on vacation only working 40 hours! I’ve been working 80+ hours a week in eBay and on this blog for over 3 years!
- I stopped posting regular size articles every day, and started posting 2-4 times a week more lengthier articles. I try not to post anything that isn’t at least 2,000 words long.
- Went back through and deleted over 300 posts on this site and am cleaning it up so that only THE best is showing.
- Adding more content to old articles. My goal this year is to take all my old articles that weren’t deleted and re-do them into solid 2,000+ word posts. This will take a very long time, but again, my focus this year has become high quality, not quantity.
- Discovered some key things on Pinterest, which has brought my traffic up in a major way and I’ve moved away from focusing on followers to focusing on traffic. I currently receive more than 500,000/month in traffic from Pinterest.
- Taken off ads. I’ve taken off over 20 ads off my site and my goal is to remove most of them, if not all, in the future. This takes time, but is the path of where I’m going.
- Taken steps to post more about making money from home. It’s something I’ve done for 18 years now, back when I was still underage. I’ve seen a lot and when I started this blog, I had every intention of teaching all that, but felt it was important to lay down the foundation of saving money FIRST. What’s the point of making more money, if what you have is already flying out the window?! So, step 1 was all about saving money, step 2 is about adding in making money posts as well.
- Started writing ebooks. I was convicted to start writing books and when I started, I got bit by the author-bug. I just ADORE writing ebooks. One day, I’d love to start writing traditionally published books. I feel this may be God’s path for me.
- I hired an assistant (Katie), who is making my life SO much easier and I’m so thankful to have her on the team!
What I’m still doing since December:
- Producing quality content, although stepping up my game in a MAJOR way.
- Taking one platform or program at a time and learning it fully before moving on (I learned monetization of ads and rocking Pinterest. Next, I learned all about affiliates and am rocking that. I also started learning about creating products and have just gotten to the point where I’m rocking those as well. What’s next? Coaching!)
- Investing in women’s lives. Answering emails personally, and showing God’s grace and love to others. Not only taking the time to help others, but also genuinely caring about them and truly wanting to serve.
- Talking about God. Although my blog has been the target several times of people wanting faith off my site since I started blogging, it’s not going to happen. If I absolutely had to pick, I’d lose everything I’ve worked for on the blog than to take His name out of my blog. It is who I am, whether accepted or not.
What my goals are for the next year:
- Create some sort of course that is 100% focused on one-on-one coaching. It will be a course that readers will have to apply to and only a very small number will be able to get in, in order that I be able to PERSONALLY serve all their needs.
- Continue writing ebooks. I absolutely love them!
- I have a whole year worth of fun stuff planned, from challenges to new books, from a course to a 60 day teaching event – my goal is to keep you motivated and excited where ever you are at in your journey
- Get to the $30,000/month mark by next Dec 2016, and then $40,000/month by Dec 2017.
- Keep working on building my newsletter subscriber base. I’m currently get about 3,000 new subscribers a month, so I’d like to stay stable at that number or increase it.
- Stop being so shy in person and take more initiative to be a leader by speaking, investing in others more, and being someone people can depend is going to be there, etc.
- Conquer more fears!
- Get to 3 million pageviews by Dec 2016.
- Delete more ads off my site.
- Write my first women’s Christian devotional book.
Have you ever considered how much blogging income you can bring in? Has this post helped show you what’s possible? How does it inspire you in your blogging journey?
If you are interested in creating a blog of your own, I made a step by step video tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own on the cheap, starting at only $3.49/month for hosting (you can only get this lower price through my link). You will receive a free domain name ($15-$200 value) if you purchase at least 12 months of hosting. Of course, you want to be self-hosted, especially if you are wanting to make money blogging and this is the most cost effective way to go. My post here will walk you through everything you’ll need to do to get up and running in less than 5 minutes!
If you’d like to learn more tips about how to make a full time income blogging, see my post, How I Started Making $10,000/month My First Year Blogging. This will help you get a better understanding of how to get to the next level in your blogging journey. If you’d like a complete, step-by-step road map of how to turn your blog into a six-figure money making machine, be sure to check out my new ebook on Amazon here.
Are you ready to start your blog?
If you are, you’ll want to click here and sign up with BlueHost. They are the most economical with fantastic customer support you can get when you are first starting out and they make everything completely easy for you. When you go through my link, you are sure to get the best specials and deals that are available at that time.
Click here to see a video of the process and get more information about how to go about starting up a site, and don’t forget to read this post here on all the things you’ll need to think about when starting up a blog. Still not convinced you should? Read my post on 47 Reasons to Start a Blog to see if it’s the right decision for you.
