How I Made Money in my Ninth Month of Blogging

I’m so glad this month is over and I can start fresh. This was my worst month so far (income wise), but I still managed to make a profit!

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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: $14

Sponsored Content: $33

Affiliates: $34

• Zazzle: $20* (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: $3*
• Ebates: $5*
• ShareASale: $3*
• Impact Radius: $2*
• ShopStyle: $1*

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

How do bloggers make money?

Expenses

ConvertKit: $29

Mass Planner: $10

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

Totals for May

Income: $81

Expenses: $39

Net Income: $42

If you’ve seen my other income reports you’ll understand why I’m less than enthusiastic.

How much traffic did I get in May?

Sessions: 9,684

Users: 9,284

Pageviews: 10,851

Where did it come from?

Social: 60%

• Pinterest: 91%
• Facebook: 5%
• Twitter: 3%
• StumbleUpon: 1%
• Instagram: >1%

Direct: 26%

Organic Search: 13%

Referral: >1%

Top Posts for May

1. 9 Prizes for Baby Shower Games
2. 10 Things I Miss About Being Pregnant
3. Realistic Toddler Meals for Busy Moms
4. Why is My Baby Gasping or Sobbing in Her Sleep?
5. Baby Shower Games Your Friends Will Actually Want to Play

Published in May

1. How to Save the Most Money Shopping Online with Ebates
2. How I Made Money in My Eighth Month of Blogging – April Blog Income Report
3. Baby Shower Games Your Friends Will Actually Want to Play
4. How to Nurture a Love of Arts in Your Kids from the Earliest Age – Guest Post

What Worked

I think the only thing that really saved me this month was Google Adsense and Tailwind. I only make money from Google Adsense when I get traffic, and almost all of my traffic comes from Pinterest. If you don’t already know, Tailwind is my saving grace when it comes to Pinterest. It allows you to schedule your pins so your account is always active. Not only can you schedule other people’s pins to your own boards, you can send your pins to group boards to get more exposure.

Oh, and the Tailwind Tribes have really helped, too. I can tell when a traffic spike is coming from a tribe member pinning my post. It happens quite often.

You can join my Tailwind Tribe here!

Another thing that really helped this month was getting a sponsored Instagram campaign with Social Native. I also made use of the Content Amp section for sponsored tweets on IZEA. Luckily, I have more sponsored campaigns coming in June and July! For a while I didn’t have many, but now I’m getting a lot!

What Didn’t Work

Well, for one, I made products that haven’t found the right audience yet. For my Baby Shower Games post I included a printable game that I posted for sale on Gumroad. Everyone I’ve talked to said the game looks fantastic, but the problem is that no one really needs it right now. The people who need it have to find it through search. And it takes a while for it to show up in search results on Pinterest or Google. So I guess I have to be patient.

I spent a lot of time working on that post and those printables so I didn’t spend very much time promoting my blog post via Facebook groups or on social media. I kind of let my automation take over for a bit, especially on Twitter.

Speaking of automation, Mass Planner was a really good help, but like two weeks after I started using it, they said they were closing their doors. So no more Mass Planner.

Goals for May

• Update my about me page. PASS. It’s not perfect, but I updated it!
• Update my top posts page. FAIL. I’ll add it to my to do list.
• Create a product. PASS. I made some printables for my baby shower games post that are available on Gumroad.
• Post at least once a week. PASS.

Goals for June

• 4 Emails in my ConvertKit sequence.
• Create a resource library for moms.
• 4 Posts

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!