Blog Traffic and Income Report August 2018

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This year I decided to do something different with my monthly goals post and my blog income report. I was feeling like these two posts each month were feeling pretty stale and I wasn’t excited to write them as much. At the same time, I love setting monthly goals and find it helpful to share my reports and goals each month.

It was just time to shake things up and make these posts more fun and interesting to write so that they are more enjoyable for you to read. So I began combining the two posts in a way. Sharing not only how my blog had done in the month prior but what I was hoping to accomplish in the current month.

Blog Traffic and Income Report August 2018 #makingmoneyblogging

Blogging has been such a positive experience for me. Even after doing it for years I still enjoy it and love the lessons I’ve learned from it and the people I’ve met. It’s also so amazing to be able to earn some extra money doing something I enjoy while at home. If you are looking to begin Making Money blogging here is what helped me have a major breakthrough and begin earning money on my blog and I know it can help you too.

Why do I share my blog income report each month? I have a few reasons

I have loved reading other bloggers reports and still do. I learn so much from them and hope to offer the same to other bloggers. I enjoy reading reports from bloggers bigger and smaller than me. I have learned a lot from bigger and smaller blogs.
It holds me accountable to my blog and continuing to grow my business. Even on months where my growth is smaller I still feel accountable to share
I also want to show that even as a long time blogger I am just starting to learn to grow my income. This way I can share this journey of blog growth and my making money from the early stages.

Income report August 2018:

August was not as great of a month for my blog income but I had expected that it would be lower. A lot of July’s income came from a good sponsored opportunity and in August I made less than half from sponsored content than I did in July.

I just started reading The Essential Habits Of 6-Figure Bloggers: Secrets of 17 Successful Bloggers You Can Use to Build a Six-Figure Online Business by Sally Miller. I’m learning a lot and hopeful that some of these tips from experienced bloggers will help me start making a higher and more consistent income from my blog.

I’m not there yet but that’s ok I’m getting there and growing each year. Maybe this year I will hit the five-figure a month goal I have for myself. That’s what I’m working hard towards. I still have to remind myself that last year I didn’t even hit $100 a month each month and now I’m hitting almost a $1000 a month pretty frequently. That’s ten times growth. If I do that between 2018 and 2019 I will be hitting $10,000 a month. Which would be incredible.

I find it important to share my not so good months as well as my good months because I want you to know that it’s possible to make money blogging. That blogging can be an up and down journey. It will take work and time but you can do it. I wasn’t sure if I would ever make money with my blog and I now am and you can do it too!

If you are a blogger I would love for you to check out my e-book Boost your Pinterest Presence. In this book, I walk you through how to use Pinterest to grow your blog and create pins that get shared. Once you get your copy I will also make sure to send you updated versions of the book as I make them. Pinterest is constantly changing and I am always learning new ways to use it.

Mediavine: $382

Expenses:

Convertkit $29 This is the email subscriber that I use to send my newsletter and grow my list. When I was first blogging I used Mailchimp but as my blog and list grew I needed a provider that could do more. With Convertkit I can separate and tag my list as well as send out my FREE challenges.

Ivory mix: $12 ( technically it’s $24 for 2 months) – this is the best price I’ve found for good photos. You get dozens of new images to use each month and Kayla who runs the site constantly asks for what her subscribers want in photos so she creates what you need. I use these images in blog posts, landing and sales pages, social media and more)

Blogger’s Guide to Membership Site -$20- This is a great membership site. I’m a big fan of Terra from Uncork your Dork so when she put together a membership site with all her challenges and pieces of training I knew I wanted to check it out. I’ve done a few of the pieces of training in the membership site and next I want to go through the SEO training. There is so much valuable information in this membership that the monthly cost is worth it because I need to keep learning to grow my traffic and income.

Also another great benefit of this monthly membership is that you get access to all of her summit videos. Which is a great value and I can go through them at my own pace. Instead of having to stress out about watching them live.

Tailwind –$15 Tailwind is the scheduler I use when I do all my pinning on Pinterest. It’s my favorite scheduler that I’ve tried out and makes it possible for me to be very active on Pinterest. I cover a lot of why I love it and how to use it in my ebook.

Thrive architect: This is a one time purchase and not a monthly charge. I liked using Instapage and have no complaints about them but my products are not bringing in enough monthly to cover the cost. So when I heard about thrive architect. Which allows you to build pages on your blog that I can create my sales pages on I was ready to make the switch. (This was a one time fee of $67 and it was the most affordable option for building my landing and sales pages.)

Total Expenses: $76

Looking back:

Now that I’ve been doing income reports for more than a year! Which is crazy it feels like I just started sharing them I want to see how I’m growing. Here is last years blog income report.

August 2017-$625

My Blog Traffic in August

My traffic continued the summer slump in August but I am confident that now that it is Fall and people are back from summer vacations and school is in session things will begin to go back up. Of course, it still hurts to see those lower numbers but I know that if I keep up the work and push through that my traffic will be back up in the fall and Winter.

There is still lots of room for improvement in my traffic though. I want to continue to grow my blog traffic and see improvements from year to year.

What worked for my blog in August

1. Spending more time on my blog education. I find continuing to learn about blogging is so important to my blog growth. I haven’t had as much time for education recently but in July I made more time for it and am excited to try things out and make my blog better.

2. I have been hard at work trying to improve my SEO this year. To start getting more traffic through search engines. I think it’s starting to pay off. I still get way more traffic from Pinterest but the traffic from searches is beginning to go up. It’s a process of trying new things and seeing what works. My goal is to keep learning SEO and watch those numbers go up.

What didn’t work for my blog in August

Being consistent with my newsletter: I put out more blog content in August but then didn’t communicate with my email list as well. I need to find a way to make time for both because both are so important.

Connecting with my audience: This is a major area I am working to improve because I know that the more I connect with and get to know my audience the better content I can give them.

Here are my top blog goals and priorities for September 2018

I want to reach out and connect with other bloggers and hopefully guest post on their blogs or websites. To hopefully find some new readers for my blog
To create an implement funnels on my site leading from free content to paid products. I have free and paid stuff on my blog but no clear path for my readers to take. My goal is to create these funnels and hopefully increase my income as well as get my readers a better idea of where to go and get information.
My big goal for 2018 is to get my email list to over 5,000 and right now I’m at about 1,000. So I’m going to begin putting a lot of focus on my list. Both in growing my list and nurturing it with consistent newsletters.

To help you grow your own blogs and start making your own income I wanted to include some resources. The best way to grow your blog is to always be willing to learn.

The Best Books I’ve found on blogging that will help you take your blog to the next level:

Building A Framework ( check out more about this here.)
Blog, Inc.
How To Blog For Profit Without Selling Your Soul
#GirlBoss
You are a Badass

Other posts you might like:

Grab a copy of my new book to help you learn Pinterest to grow your blog traffic. This book will help you finally understand Pinterest. So you can start growing your blog on this amazing platform!

*If you have any questions about blogging or making money blogging feel free to leave me a comment or send me an email and I will do my best to get you an answer!