How I Made Money in My Tenth Month of Blogging

Whoa! So I went from my worst month ever income-wise to my best! Here’s what happened in June and how everything all came together.

{ Post contains affiliate links }

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 This one is actually late because I’ve been so busy!

Income

Ads: $29

Sponsored Content: $406

Affiliates: $73

• Zazzle: $19* (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: $2*
• Ebates: $45*
• ShareASale: $5*
• Impact Radius: $2*

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

Expenses

ConvertKit: $29

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

Totals for June

Income: $508

Expenses: $29

Net Income: $479

How much traffic did I get in June?

Sessions: 11,846

Users: 11.119

Pageviews: 13,433

Where did it come from?

Social: 75%

• Pinterest: 91%
• Facebook: 5%
• Twitter: 3%
• StumbleUpon: 1%
• Tumblr: >1%
• Google Plus: >1%

Direct: 11%

Organic Search: 13%

Referral: 1%

Top Posts for June

1. 9 Prizes for Baby Shower Games
2. 9 Amazon Prime Benefits You Probably Don’t Know About
3. Why is My Baby Gasping or Sobbing in Her Sleep?
4. Baby Shower Games Your Friends Will Actually Want to Play
5. 10 Things I Miss About Being Pregnant

Published in June

1. 9 Amazon Prime Benefits You Probably Don’t Know About
2. How I Made Money in my Ninth Month of Blogging – May Blog Income Report
3. Amazon Prime Just Got More Affordable if You’re on Government Assistance (Sponsored by Amazon)
4. What Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Taught Me About Parenting

What Worked

Well, getting a lot of sponsored campaigns really helped! I had a few through several different companies. So shout out to Influence Central and BlogHer. Spoiler alert: the following month I made even more money from sponsored content!

You can see why I was so busy and didn’t get my June blog income report out until August. lol

I also really worked through Elite Blog Academy this month. I finished up with Unit 2 and worked on assessing what I needed to redesign. I can’t say enough about EBA. It’s so worth it. She really teaches you how to focus on what you need to get done and even how to write better content. Her freebies are awesome too. So since EBA is only open for enrollment once a year, you can grab her freebies and start with those.

The Blog Structure Blueprint is amazing for helping you understand the framework of your blog content.

I also started focusing more on my email list! I knew it was important and that I should have a good one. I have ConvertKit. But I haven’t been focusing on it. I started to really work on my sequences and stuff and I’m getting more connected with my readers and providing some VIP info. Let me know if you want in on my blogging tips list!

Another thing that really worked was working in batches and having most of my content done ahead of time. I wrote three posts all at once and had more time to focus on other things during the month!

What Didn’t Work

I’ve backed off from doing a gazillion threads in Facebook groups since May. I was doing as many as I could, but then I started focusing more on creating content rather than promoting it. So doing so many Facebook threads my eyeballs were bleeding from going through and pinning or tweeting or commenting didn’t work for me. I’ve limited myself to two “do all” threads a week and maybe one “do 10” or “do 5” if I have the time.

There really wasn’t a whole lot that didn’t work this time because I did so good this month!

My favorite tools and resources for blogging

• ConvertKit – for my email list! Awesome for auto-responding sequences and segmenting your list.
• Tailwind – for scheduling my pins on Pinterest! And Tribes to share my pins in.
• Genesis Framework – for my blog theme.
• Elite Blog Academy – for overall guidance and the best blogging info.
• Shareasale – for affiliate marketing.
• Linqia – for sponsored campaigns.
• IZEA – for sponsored campaigns.
• BookBoss – great course on how to write an ebook and launch it. Still working on mine!
• Grammarly – for proofreading.

View all of my blog income reports here!

What about you? What are your goals?

Let me know in the comments below!