How long does it take to start making money with a blog? This is probably the biggest question on
your mind if you are thinking about blogging. I started my blog in 2017, so I've been
doing this for about 5 years now. I was working full time back then, and
had only a few hours a day to work on the blog. I spent more time working on it on the weekends.
And as many bloggers do, I was documenting the growth of my blog in my income reports. I
wouldn't say I've done it for every single month but I've done income reports on many milestones.
And I have the whole history of income reports on my site. I don't do them now
so regularly as before. You see, at some point,
it just becomes too repetitive - month after month the income
streams remain pretty much the same and the only thing that changes is the total number.
Plus, when you start working with people who help you on the blog, even if it's a part-time VA,
it's not the same "blogging" income report as what you had when you started it as a one-man show.
So it's not entirely relatable for beginners who usually are reading
income reports for inspiration and to learn about the early stages of the business.
They usually don't need and don't want to know about my advanced strategies,
tools and expenses I have as a 5-year old business. They want to simply make some money
with display ads and get into a premium ad network like Mediavine to start with.
What I think would be interesting in this video is to look back and see how my income streams
changed or how I diversified from one year to another. But anyway, if you want to check in
detail my income reports, they'll be linked in the description below this video. Personally,
I learned a lot from income reports of bloggers who were established before
I started my blog. So I hope my income reports could help you in a similar way!
So this was my first income and traffic report, I made
$770 in total in the first 3 months of blogging. I didn't have any display ads income at that time,
my traffic wasn't big enough to get accepted to a premium ad network. But I was writing
content in the personal finance niche and I earned these $770 in affiliate commissions,
mostly thanks to Pinterest traffic. I was getting about 93% of traffic from Pinterest at the time.
Then my next income report was for the first 6 months of blogging and I made a total of $3178.
I was still getting mostly affiliate income from the same type of offers like hosting services,
online surveys and a few others. I still didn't make almost anything with display
ads on the site. So if we divide it by 6, it's what, a little more than $500/mo.
And then I had a breakthrough income report when I made about $2000 in one month,
I only had about 2000 followers on Pinterest at the time. The income
has gone up so much because I finally got accepted to Mediavine, it's a premium ad
network. So in the first month with Mediavine I made about $1400 just with display ads. I still
had the affiliate income on that month as well so it added up to about $2000.
You can see here some screenshots with my Google Analytics for that month, I had viral spikes of
traffic from Pinterest and that really helped me get an amazing ad income right off the gate.
And I kid you not, I immediately decided to quit my day job to focus full time on the blog.
The thing is, while working full time, I knew what my hourly rate was. And it was lower,
SO much lower compared to what I already was making by working in my free hours on the blog.
So I felt there was so much potential for growth
if I had only spent more than a few hours a week working on it!
And if you check my income reports for the next months and years,
you'll see my gut feeling was right about growth potential.
I then had a month closer to the end of 2018 when I made over $6000 in one month. This is
already the end of my second year blogging and by that time, I already had my second
blog monetized with Mediavine, so the majority of this income came from display ads on the 2 blogs.
I also made over $1000 with one survey offer as an affiliate. And then I also started selling my
Pinterest SEO Course so it added up to the income report about $1700 dollars.
So you see, in my second year of blogging, ad income has become the top income stream for me,
and I've seen the same happened to many other bloggers who shared their income reports.
I also have seen a very common pattern for the traffic sources - a lot of bloggers are
getting most of the traffic, in the first year at least, from Pinterest.
Because Google SEO takes much more time to take off. For most people,
it takes about 2 years to see any kind of results with Google SEO. A brand new site
has no domain authority so it's hard to rank for any popular keywords on Google.
Pinterest on the other hand, doesn't care about the domain authority of your site. And
it works as a search engine that shows image results to users.
Plus, you can often get some traffic from google through Pinterest if your Pinterest images or
boards start ranking in Google. It's very common for niches and keywords imply that images will
be shown in the search results. Something like home decor ideas or recipes for example. So your
pins can often rank on Google before your own website ranks for the same keywords.
So there are many benefits that free Pinterest traffic can give you as a new blogger,
if you are new to this, you can sign up and watch my Free Pinterest Masterclass,
I'll give you a link up there and in the description below.
You can also check out my Pinterest course,
I'll drop a link to it down below as well. I mentioned it as it will make a part of my
income reports starting around the end of my second year blogging. Personally,
I've learned a lot about blogging and Pinterest from courses, and I keep doing it now to cover
some of the areas where I need to learn to move my business to the next level.
And then I have an income report for a month in the spring of 2019 when I
made over $8000 in a month. Again, very similar income streams responsible for this total number.
I then also had two income reports one with $25,000 and my biggest month so far was when I
made over $40,000. I've got to this number because it was a spike in sales of my courses in 2020,
and in sales of other products which I promoted as an affiliate because of a Black Friday sale.
And you see, this year of 2020 was very good for my business and we all
know what happened in 2020. Just like everyone,
I was very worried at the beginning of the year. We all didn't know what to expect form
that year. But it ended up being a very strong year for many online businesses including mine.
Now, looking back at my strategy, I think my choice to focus on Pinterest
as a traffic source in the frist year of blogging was the right one.
I will be honest, it doesn't mean it would work in EVERY niche. Some niches are just
better for Google traffic. Anything that's very technical, very serious, like science or most
of the topics that are mostly interesting for men - this will not work great on Pinterest.
The majority of the audience are women and they are kind of in a discovery
mode. They are not inclined to type in long-tail keywords,
very specific queries on Pinterest app. For that type of research people go to Google.
And for me, this focus on Pinterest free traffic allowed me to get accepted to a
premium ad network a lot faster than I could do it
if I tried to focus on Google right off the gate with a brand new blog.
I didn't use display ads on the site before I was accepted to Mediavine. You can actually
apply for Google Adsense but it pays so little that it's not worth the hustle. And even for
that little money, you'll probably need to apply many-many times because they've become
more strict and don't accept new sites, most of the times they'll just reject
you in the first 5-6 months since the blog was created, under some nonsense excuses.
If you remember when I showed you some of my first income reports, I had all the income
coming from affiliate marketing before I joined Mediavine for ads. So That's what I can recommend
anyone of you starting today to focus on in the first place, for your blog monetization.
Check out the video about my top 10 highest paying affiliate programs and products. It will
help you understand how to make money with your blog faster, even if you have a small audience.
The thing with blogging income, it will be always going up and down,
it's usually not like a stable salary and the same amount every month. Your ad income can
double due to the seasonal effect if that applies to your niche. Or it can double simply because in
the last quarter of the year advertisers usually spend more money, so you can earn
a lot more with ads in the last quarter of the year even if your traffic didn't grow.
I think I also have seen better results in 2020 because some of my videos on Youtube
went a bit viral, and when you have just a blog it's one level of trust and engagement.
When people can see you and hear you, it's a different level, and I think that helps with
conversions. If someone comes to your site once from Google or Pinterest,
they are still a cold audience. But if they later keep seeing you on social platforms
and especially in the video format, it turns them into a warm audience.
What you haven't seen in my early income reports is any kind of sponsored content.
I've been adding more of it 2021 and 2022 and Youtube helps because brands
reach out more often to get a package, something like a video integration,
plus an affiliate review of their product on my site, just as an example.
And compared to the first year, I'm now on many platforms that helps me
negotiate better sponsored deals than I could in the early stages.
And in general, if you look back to my first income reports,
back then I was making money mostly with affiliate marketing on my site. Nowadays,
there is at least 4 extra income streams - display ads, sponsored content,
my own products, and also 1:1 consultations that I still like to do a few times a month.
Again, the first year of blogging can be very hard because you put a lot of time and effort,
so you need to be driven by a dream or your long-term goal.
Think of how your life will change with blogging when it finally starts paying off. And I promise
it will change in many ways. When I started that first year felt as long as the following
4 years of full-time blogging combined. It was so long and tiring because I had to put in a
LOT of time without seeing any financial reward. And it wasn't JUST time, it was THE time in the
evenings and on weekends when other people would prefer to watch Netflix and just relax from work.
But the extra effort eventually was totally worth it.
I hope you'll learn something from this video but probably if you are just at the start of
your blogging journey, the income reports I mentioned today will be even more interesting
for you. Again, the links are in the description below. Now check out that video up there to learn
how to get free Pinterest traffic to monetize your blog faster. I'll see you in the next video!