In May of 2023, I earned $10,964.40 blogging. I didn’t get there right away. In this post, I’ll share what I did to get to this point, and explain how you could do the same.
If after this post you’re interested in starting your own blog that can generate passive revenue, your first order of business is to open a hosting account. This is crucial to owning and having full freedom to growing your blog. I always recommend using Bluehost. I’ve been with them for over 12 years myself. If you use my affiliate link, you can get up to 75% discount depending on what hosting account you choose. I always recommend the BluehosPlus Hosting, however you can start a hosting account for as little as $2.75/month.
Why blogging?
I’ve been blogging for about 10 years, since 2013. The reason why I started blogging, is because I was told it was a very creative way to create an expandable online business. It’s also a very underrated method of creating an online business.
Over the years, I’ve seen and met countless of bloggers who have made between $1,000 and $100,000 per month. I was always in awe of them, especially because the really successful ones were really transparent about their journey, sharing their experience and statistics in something called: blog income reports.
I’ve had 2 blogs since I’ve started. I’ve made so many mistakes since I started blogging in 2014. Everything from getting my traffic throttled, blacklisted, monetization shut down and more. I stopped blogging for a few years when I was pursuing other career opportunities. I mainly stopped, because I was facing so many controversies online and felt like giving up.
The moment Covid happened and the world stopped, and work stopped, I knew that I could never go through something like that again on a financial level especially. When I had that thought, the thought of blogging came back to mind.. Because even when I first started, I was making on average between $500 and $1,500 a month. The cool thing about blogging is that it’s evergreen and passive, meaning once you build it up, you can sort of chill and relax. Not really, but you get the point. More flexibility.
In between my last blog and now, I pursued a career in web development and digital marketing, and about 10 years later, I realized I knew so much more now, than what I knew then, so I felt confident I would succeed in building a successful blog that this time would go the distance. I’m hoping you can learn something from what I share here.
The purpose of the blog income report
The main purpose of my blog income report is to inspire you to start your own blog. For two reasons, one, it is a very underrated way to start an online income source where you don’t trade your time for money, and I can embed some affiliate links in here that you can use to start your blog in order to help you and for me to earn commissions on those sales/links.
That’s a bit how the game works. I like to be transparent about these things. When you can openly talk about the process, you start to see the path. Ultimately, the amount of money you can make is connected to the amount of knowledge you have. I’m hoping to help bridge the knowledge gap for you a little bit so you can take your first step.
Blog Income Report
There are many ways to earn income with a blog. The main thing you need is traffic or a highly desirable/profitable niche. I know people with little traffic who make a lot more. However, once you have some traffic you can start running ads, embed affiliate links, do sponsored posts etc. I’m really good at getting traffic, so I’m not too concerned with optimizing earning methods because I know some value is already there due to the traffic, however this post is the first post where I am actively pushing a few affiliate links. Like the one in regard to Bluehost.
As a blogger you need a few key things. One of the most important things you need is a hosting account to own your content. This is crucial to expanding your online business and having the freedom to optimize your site and earnings. An excellent hosting account I’ve been with for over 10 years is Bluehost. They also have an affiliate program, so if you do decide to start your own blog, sign up with Bluehost. You can start blogging for as little as $3 a month, and that’s it. As you grow, you can expand your hosting needs as needed.
Traffic
In the month of May the blog reached a little over 3 million pageviews. The graph shows 2.9, but some data is missing since we were all forced to switch Google’s tracking code from the old Universal code to the new GA4. GA4 is so much worse of a platform, but we didn’t have a choice as the old Universal code would stop working on June 1st.
May: 2,917,206 pageviews
This was quite the increase as I only had 300,000 or so page views in April and about 10,000 in March, so I know I’m doing something right. There’s much more to running a successful blog than traffic, but having a good amount of traffic is a great indicator that whatever you do works. It’s downhill from here.
Earning Avenue
May Earnings: $10,964.40. (Adsense)
Those 3 million visitors earned me roughly $10,000. I could make much more off of those 3,000,000 visitors, but I gained 3,000,000 from 0 in about 2 and a half month. And with fast growth like that comes overwhelmingly more responsibilities. While monetization is important, User Experience is more important to me at this stage, because I want people to come back and not have the site feel like a cheap thing that just exists for money. I’m trying to build something here, but when you’re a one man show, there’s a lot of things that require attention so it’s important to prioritize.
Some Future Revenue Avenues
The important thing when you have a growing site, or even when you have a smaller site that has traffic is that you optimize your monetization. Not overwhelm people with many ads and affiliate links, but strategically and purposefully fill a need. If you can monetize it, great! In this case, because you might be reading this post, your need might be to figure out a way to start another income source/sidehustle. Creating a Bluehost account is the first step in that.
I’m looking at releasing some eBooks to help educate more in depth, optimize ad revenue by trying out different providers and more. It’s all up in the air right now. The site is making money, and my focus is on the experience of a visitor…
Future Decisions
Ultimately, the most important things a site can have is purpose and a great user experience. Without those two things, revenue optimization does not matter, because people won’t come back. The issue I had with this site is that it kind of blew up out of nowhere, so there are a lot of priorities. I still don’t know what the site really does, other than provide some solutions to some needs. It doesn’t have a personality, but that’s okay.
Many great things started in a weird place. Some things were a catalyst to a greater thing. Ultimately, it’s a journey that can be incredibly fun, and that’s what matters most. To have fun in a creative way while not feeling the worry of money. Boy how times have changed..
Start Your Own Blog
Starting your own blog is very straightforward. It’s a super fun, however can sometimes frustrating journey. Frustrating because anything worth pursuing isn’t the easiest, and you’ll have to learn many new things. However, if you’re a little computer savvy, you can figure it out.
Also, I wrote out a complete to help you navigate setting up your own blog. You didn’t think I’d leave you to your own devices!
Click here to set up your own blog with Bluehost, and use this guide!
Conclusion
There’s no better moment to start now. When I purchased my first hosting account I did it on impulse. Then, I felt the pressure to actually do something with it. When I started, I felt the joy of seeing traffic come in, which pushed me to go further. It’s all about momentum. Go the distance, and you’ll succeed!