Living on Fifty

{Save. Invest. Retire}

Traffic & Income Report – September 2014 – My Actual Blogging Income

http://www.retiredby40blog.com/2015/08/31/elite-blog-academy-review/

During my 1st Year Blogiversary post, I asked you all if you would be interested in my doing both a Pinterest post (since 60% or more of my traffic comes from Pinterest) as well as an income report now that I am actually making some money!  Your response was overwhelmingly “Yes!” so I’m going to start doing these Traffic & Income Reports on a monthly basis!

I believe that more bloggers should reveal their income, as well as some stats about their traffic to inspire and encourage others, so I’m am giving monthly updates about my income and traffic statistics. This is my actual blogging income, folks.  Read on!

Let’s get started! actual blogging income

 

Traffic –

I’m going to share percentage increases from the month before for my traffic stats, as well as actual numbers :-).  Also, data is from either WordPress stats or Alexa.

  • Pageviews: 40,527 (47% increase over August)
  • Unique Pageviews: 24,236 (63% up over August)
  • Bounce Rate: 30%
  • Daily Pageviews/Visitor: 9.9
  • Daily Time on Site: 13:35

 

Income –

I’m going to my actual blogging income – the actual numbers! – as well as percentages increases in the income section.  Right now my income is small, but when I look at the percentage that it is increasing every month, I am really encouraged!

Keep in mind, this is purely my income.  This does not account for the 30% that I hold back for taxes.  Also, this does not take expenses into account – those will be covered in the next section.

  • Ad Networks: $244.69
  • Affiliate Sales: $13.80
  • Total Income: $258.49

If you want to start your own money-making blog, you can do so very cheaply.  I created a tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own in about 10 minutes, and very cheaply, with prices starting at only $3.95 a month.  This low price is only available through my Bluehost link, and when you purchase at least 12 months of blog hosting, Bluehost will even throw in a FREE domain name (a $15 value).  Again, this pricing + free domain name is only available through my link, and if you want to make money with your blog, then self-hosting through a company such as Bluehost is essential.

Expenses

    • ViralWoot – $15.00.  ViralWoot does my Pinterest scheduling so I don’t have to be plugged in constantly.  If you would like more information about how I drive 60% of my traffic from Pinterest, you can read about it here.
    • Elite Blog Academy – $249.00 Perhaps some of you have heard of Living Well Spending Less?  The site’s author, Ruth Sokup, created a class called the Elite Blog Academy.  She was offering it for $299, and I was on the fence, not really sure if it would be worth the money.  But then, I found a coupon code that took $50.00 off, making it $249, plus I realized that she offers a 200% money-back guarantee on the course, so I jumped at the chance.  Right now I am 1/4 of the way through it and I can already tell you that it is money well spent!  Expect to here more about the course in future posts!
    • P.S.  If you sign up for Elite Blog Academy before 12/5/14, you can get special Black Friday Pricing!  This course will run you $299, but it has already taken my blog so far beyond what I had ever imagined I know it will help you!  Plus, if you wait until after 12/5/14, the price will go up to $399 !  Click this link or the banner below to get started!

    • Total Expenses: $264.00

Goals for September –

  • I want to make $300 from ad networks, which works out to $10 a day – FAIL – my average was $8.16.  Still not bad since last month I averaged just over $5.00
  • I also want to do another eMeals post…..I love their service and they recently added some awesome new features to it!  Maybe that will provide a little boost to my affiliate sales income! – FAIL – I just got busy.  We’ll try again in October, eh?
  • Lastly, I want to get the Pinterest Guide out…. – PASS – You can check out the Pinterest Guide Here!

Goals for October –

  • Introduce ya’ll to my  new blog!  So exciting!
  • Average 1,.500 page views per day – so far this is not looking good….anyone every dealt with a massive drop in page views?
  • Finish the Elite Blog Academy with my full attention
  • Make $350 from Ad Networks – I started using BlogHer for my 2 main ad spots, with Adsense filling in the less advantageous areas, and so far this month, I haven’t been impressed.  If we keep going at this rate, I’ll definitely not hit my goals!
  • Redo my blog navigation

If you want to start your own money-making blog, you can do so very cheaply.  I created a tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own in about 10 minutes, and very cheaply, with prices starting at only $3.95 a month.  This low price is only available through my Bluehost link, and when you purchase at least 12 months of blog hosting, Bluehost will even throw in a FREE domain name (a $15 value).  Again, this pricing + free domain name is only available through my link, and if you want to make money with your blog, then self-hosting through a company such as Bluehost is essential.

New Signature *This post may contain affiliate links

Linked up

You May Also Like:

$247.42 in October Blogging Income - find out how I did it, what I'm learning, and how you can combat Pinterest's Smart Feed!Traffic & Blogging Income Report – October 2014 I made $817.10 in blogging income in November - a number I'm super happy with! Get the low down on how I earned it, what my page views were, and my goals for December!Traffic & Blog Income Report – November 2014 While I'm not perfect, I remember how inspired I was by posts about how to make money blogging when I was just starting out. So here's it is, my actual blog income, how I made it, and how I'm trying to constantly improve!How I Make Money Blogging: September 2015 Blog Income Report Traffic & Income Report – August 2014 December's blog income here at Retired by 40! was more than $1,100. This is the first time I've cleared more than $1,000! Read all about it!Traffic & Blog Income Report – December 2014 $1,713,11 June Blog Traffic & IncomeJune Blog Traffic & Income Report May Traffic & Blog IncomeMay Traffic & Blog Income Report $1,420.96 is what I made in Blog Income in January 2015! The income continues to climb higher and higher, as do my page views, and everything I'm learningTraffic & Blog Income Report – January 2015 Blog Income was a bit down in February, as were page views, but that's to be expected. Get the breakdown of exactly what my traffic was and where my income came from in February!Traffic & Blog Income Report – February 2015 I believe that more bloggers should reveal their blog income, as well as some stats about their traffic to inspire and encourage others, so I'm am giving monthly updates about my income and traffic statistics. This is my actual blogging income, folks.August 2015 Blog Income & Traffic Report

Comments

    • Thanks Adam! It was definitely a slow start with my ad networks (I should do a catch-up post for all the months I only made $20 haha) but I’m really enjoying it now that it’s a more significant amount of money!

      Reply

  3. I love your Pinterest guide! I’ve started employing some of the techniques you suggested. Can’t wait to start seeing some results.

    Reply

  5. I love that you do this! I feel like blogging numbers are always surrounded by a shroud of mystery. It’s so refreshing to see someone put it out there. I look forward to the “I made $3,000 this month!” Posts in the near future!

    Reply

    • I couldn’t agree more! I figure that my readers are what make me the money, so should they be told exactly how much and how I go about it? I don’t know that I’ll ever reach $3k, but I’m certainly going to try!

      Reply

    • I try to pin 20 pins, 3x per day, during the most peak hours of the day. Those 20 pins are all other people’s content – and mine is already scheduled during peak hours! Does that make sense?

      Reply

  10. Congrats on having a great month. It’s very interesting to see your numbers. Just starting out myself so hopefully I can achieve numbers like you in the near future.

    Reply

    • the crazy thing is, my numbers don’t seem that high – I’m actually almost embarrassed to put them out there because I feel like they’re pretty low. But, your comment kind of brought things into perspective for me. There was a time when I was thrilled to have 100 pageviews a day, and now if that happened I would be checking to see if my site was broken. It will happen for you, as long as you put in the work!

      Reply

  13. I signed up for Elite Blog Academy too. I’ve got to say I think it’s the best course I’ve ever taken. It goes beyond just the basics.

    And I notice you on Pinterest all the time – you’re killing it.

    Out of all the Ads I’ve tried Adsense has been the most successful. I get around 40k pageviews per month (mostly from Google search, working on Pinterest :) ) and earn $350-$500 per month with Adsense and average another $150 per month with Media.net

    Maybe with some different placements you can increase your ad revenue. Have you played around with that?

    Reply

  14. I’m new to blogging but would love to make some sort of income from it. I have a lot to learn since I have no idea where to begin. Good luck, us bloggers must support each other! :)

    Reply

  15. You may not have met all of your goals for the month, but you still did well! I give you a lot of credit for sharing your stats and inspiring us.

    Reply

  16. Yes, since I did the switch from bloggerto WordPress, then I had a struggle for views because I had to redo my blog from scratch I masked my domain to my redesigned blog and I’m not any where near where I used to be. I’m slowly building up page views I been blogging for a year but it feels like I’m starting from scratch

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Show Buttons
Hide Buttons