January 2018 Income Report: How I made $6.02 blogging

I got a lot of positive feedback from my December income report, so I decided that I would do one for January. Income reports are a great way for me to track my progress with monetizing my blog, and they ‘re also an opportunity for you all to see how I am making money blogging!

This post contains affiliate links. Read my disclaimer here. 

Previous income report:

December 2017: How I made $4.25 blogging 

Why I’m sharing how I make money blogging

I know that a lot of people are curious as to how people can make money blogging, so I’m doing this not only to show people that it is possible, but also to be transparent about where my income is coming from.

I for one have spent so much time reading other bloggers’ income reports in hopes of finding ways to monetize my small blog. I’ve seen a lot of bigger bloggers say that you can’t make money until your blog gets a bunch of traffic, but the income reports that I have read from other small bloggers (and my own income report) prove that isn’t true. After reading other small bloggers income reports, it has made me feel hopeful for my small blog! So if this helps or encourages even one person, that’s good enough for me.

I also think that income reports are a great way to track how well my blog does over time. Without further ado, here is my January Income report for 2018!

January 2018 Blog income report

December 2017

Money made: $4.25

Total amount of pageviews: 2,030

January 2018

Money made: $6.02

Total amount of pageviews: 3, 323

I’m super happy about the progress that I made with my blog in January! I made $1.77 more and got 1,293 more pageviews than in December! It might not seem like a lot, but any progress is great in my eyes.

Programs:

Google Adsense: $5.35

So far, google Adsense has been the primary way that I monetize my blog. You just post ads on your website and generate income per view or when someone clicks the ad.

Amazon affiliates: $.67

I didn’t make any money with Amazon in December, but in January I tried to improve some of my affiliate links and I actually made some sales!

Amazon has pretty much anything anyone could ever want, and the way that the affiliate program works is you link a product in a post and get a commission when someone makes a purchase through your link. The cool thing about this program is that you get a commission from anything that the person buys within the next 24 hours, even if it’s not the product that you linked!

Awin: $0

I didn’t really spend a lot of time focusing on Awin this month, but I have heard that a lot of bloggers have had great success making money with this program. Awin is an affiliate program that features over 200 brands including Etsy, Hyatt, and HP. If you’re trying to monetize your blog, Awin is definitely a program that you should sign up for! When I put more time into using this program, I am sure that I will start making income from it.

Expenses

Boardbooster plan: $5:00

Boardbooster is a necessity if you have a blog. It has helped SO much with getting more traffic. Pinterest is the main source of traffic for my blog, and Boardbooster has gotten me from 30K monthly views on Pinterest to 80K monthly views in the 2 months I’ve been using it!

The more that you post pins on Pinterest, the more likely it is that your posts will be seen. The awesome thing about Boardbooster is that it posts pins for you. It has saved me so much time and has helped my blog traffic so much that I gladly pay $5.00 a month for it. If you click my link you can get a month free of boardbooster services! At the very least you should try it and watch how much it helps your blog. You have nothing to lose–you get the first month free! Click here to start your board booster free trail.

Overall income: $1.02

Yay! This is the first month since I started blogging that I actually made some income! Since I pay for boardbooster, up until now I’ve spent more money on my blog than I’ve been making. I’m super excited about actually making some money!

If you’re looking to start a money making blog, the first step is getting web hosting. I personally use BlueHost, and I love it! The service is awesome and reliable. Setting up a website using BlueHost is painless, quick, and affordable, and if you sign up using my link, you can get a free domain name! Click here to join me and the numerous other bloggers using BlueHost for their money making blogs.

Goals for February

Post more 

I would really love to post more in 2018. One of my goals for January was to post twice a week, and I didn’t quite get that every week, but I did most more than I had been! I’m working on creating a schedule to keep myself on track posting twice a week for February.

Work on affiliate marketing

I’m honestly not the best at selling affiliate links in my posts, I just kind of throw them in there and cross my fingers that someone clicks on them. However, I’ve been working improving my affiliate links and I actually made some sales during January. I’m going to keep working on it, and I’ll update you on how its going on my next income report!

Create freebies for my email list

I love to create cute little quote graphics, and I plan on making some as freebies for when people subscribe to my email list. I researched how to do this a little bit last month, but I had trouble finding anything on ways to send multiple freebies when someone subscribes. If anyone knows how to do this and would like to help a girl out, please let me know!

Work on getting sponsored posts

Last month I signed up for some sponsor programs that work as the middle man between bloggers and companies. Some opportunities have popped up for me to sign up for, but I’ve been so busy with starting school and stuff that I just haven’t had the time to pursue any of them. I’m going to try harder this month, though!

Sponsorship programs that I’ve signed up with so far:

• Linqia
• Brandbacker
• Izea

All three of these are programs that connect bloggers and social influencers with brands for paid sponsorship opportunities. If you’re looking to make money using sponsored posts, you should sign up with as many programs as possible, and these are ones that I have seen recommended by so many different bloggers!

Participating in the blogging community more

I’ve been working on participating in the blogging community more recently. I’ve been following lots of bloggers on Insta and participating in Facebook groups more, but I still think that I need to do more and make some more blogging friends.

I hope you enjoyed this post! If you liked this post and would like to see my future income reports and content similar to this, be sure to click the button below to subscribe! See you next time!