How I Made Money in My Eighth Month of Blogging

Blogging is hard, y’all. I’m starting to feel that blogger burnout. It’s been 8 months. This month was a bit slower than last month. Spoiler alert! But I think once I get past my blogging slump I’ll be able to get back on track! Let’s take a look at how April went for my blog.

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Why I blog

Before we get into the numbers, I just want to give you a brief overview of the blog if you’re new around here. I started Toot’s Mom is Tired to share parenting tips and life hacks for new moms. Toot was born at the beginning of a baby boom among my friends. It seemed like everyone I knew announced that they were pregnant right after I did.

Since Toot is the oldest of this new generation, I had to go through every milestone first. And I figured I might as well pass on any useful information to my friends that I had learned so they could be prepared for what was coming up.

So that’s how the idea of a blog was born. I randomly came across a post about blogging on Pinterest and found out you can make money from blogging! I thought, “Ok, why not give it a shot?” Instead of just relaying parenting tips to my circle of friends on Facebook, I can put it out there for everyone who is interested and maybe make a few bucks, too.

Turns out, you can actually make a living off of blogging! So that’s my overall goal. I’ve always loved writing, and now I get paid to do it!

Why I do blog income reports

Comparison is a tricky thing. You shouldn’t compare your blog stats to mine exactly. Every blog is different and every blogger puts in a different amount of work, has different skills, has different content, and tries different techniques. Not to mention sheer luck. So I don’t really post these for you to compare them to yours.

I post blog income reports to inspire other bloggers and to give helpful tips to what worked for me. Maybe what worked for me will help you, but maybe it won’t. So don’t feel discouraged if you aren’t making any money. Try new techniques!

You should also know that I’m not a top blogger. There are other bloggers making more than me, and some that have been blogging for a shorter amount of time make more money. It’s not an exact science.

So this post is for informational purposes only, and I hope it will help you! I also have all of my blogging tips in my How to Blog free email course!

Once I get past a year in August, I’ll only do quarterly income and traffic reports. I want to go through each month during the first year though because I’m a completest, and I’ve already started. lol

Income

Ads: $17

Sponsored Content: $3

Affiliates: $147

• Zazzle: $15 (Please note that I’ve been on Zazzle for years so this isn’t specific to my blog. I’m including it because I have had a lot of traffic from my Ultimate Guide to Earning Extra Money with Zazzle post.)
• Amazon: $20
• Ebates: $50
• ShareASale: $58
• Impact Radius: $4*

*I haven’t hit the payout threshold for these so they are still pending

How do bloggers make money?

Expenses

ConvertKit: $29

I pay yearly for a lot of things like Tailwind and hosting.

Totals for April

Income: $167

Expenses: $29

Net Income: $138

How much traffic did I get in April?

Sessions: 12,344

Users: 11,748

Pageviews: 13,702

Where did it come from?

Social: 79%

• Pinterest: 94%
• Facebook: 3%
• Twitter: 2%
• StumbleUpon: 1%
• Instagram: >1%
• Reddit: >1%

Direct: 13%

Organic Search: 8%

Referral: 1%

Top Posts for April

1. 9 Prizes for Baby Shower Games
2. 10 Things I Miss About Being Pregnant
3. 7 Ways to Overcome Motherhood Anger
4. 5 Baby Items I Couldn’t Live Without
5. Realistic Toddler Meals for Busy Moms

What Worked

This year I decided to take the plunge into Elite Blog Academy. So far it has been the best investment I’ve made and I’m still in the very beginning of it. There’s so much information, and the way Ruth teaches is phenomenal. She really gives you the tools that you need to work through it yourself.

Tailwind Tribes has really been beneficial. I even talked to the people at Tailwind about it since it’s still in beta testing. They spoke with me for an hour about what I liked and what I wanted to see in the future. I told them I wanted the tribes alphabetized on the drop down but mine on top. And they did it! Within a few hours they sent me an email and said “HERE YOU GO!” I don’t know if they did it for everyone or just me, but it made me feel special.

I know Tailwind Tribes is working because in the WordPress analytics you can see which pins are referring traffic. So my top referring pins are from people in my tribes! They’ve really sent me a lot of traffic. I love having the ability to get my pins in front of some huge bloggers.

Join my Tailwind Tribe!

I made a lot of money on Amazon this month primarily from my Easter Basket gift guide. I really should’ve made a gift guide for Mother’s Day but I didn’t have time to. Maybe I’ll get one going for Father’s Day!

What Didn’t Work

I stopped posting twice a week, and I think it’s affecting my pageviews. They were down from last month. I like having more time to work on other things like my ConvertKit emails to my subscribers and my social media strategies. But I think I set the bar too high for myself in the beginning because I feel like one post a week isn’t enough.

I think I’m finally giving up on Digg for my posts. I’ve been Digging every post for months, and I still can’t tell if I’ve even gotten a single pageview from it. That goes for Delicious, too. I’m not even sure what those do. It’s time to stop doing that and wasting two seconds of my life.

Speaking of social media not bringing in pageviews, Google Plus is like screaming into a void. I tried working on that by setting up a new profile and joining groups. Out of the past 8 months, I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten one pageview. I’m still going to try to figure it out though.

Goals for April

• Finish Unit 2 of EBA. – Fail. I just have one more assignment to do.
• Write more in my ConvertKit sequences. – Pass. I even set up a new sequence that I’m going to add to instead of doing a weekly newsletter. I plan to send a monthly broadcast to my subscribers with new posts and updates. The weekly email will be filled with useful info and extras. Sign up if you’d like extra goodies and tips!
• Do at least one sponsored post. – Fail. I applied for a few but didn’t get any. Hopefully some come through in May.

Goals for May

• Update my about me page.
• Update my top posts page.
• Create a product. (Ebook or video course. I have a few in mind! I just need to do them!)
• Post at least once a week. (I’ve been slacking on the posts because I’ve been working on extra stuff.)

I try not to do traffic or monetary goals because those aren’t actionable. They’re just results of actions. I have to write down what I’m going to do to achieve those goals in order to actually do what I need to do.

View all of my blog income reports here!

What about you? What are your goals?

Let me know in the comments below!