Today I'm going to share with you how I went from $0 to $10,000 per month from my blog over the course of 1.5 years.
While I have been blogging for longer than this (and my income has increased), I like showing you how you can earn $10,000 per month as well. This is a GREAT number to achieve and is completely realistic for anyone.
YES, anyone. It won't happen overnight, but it can happen if you stick with blogging!
Now, as I have stressed before, this didn't happen overnight. During the year and a half period, my income started increasing every month.
Here's an example of how much I made each month from multiple revenue streams. More information can be found here if you would like to read all of my income reports.
Based on this chart, it looks like my income increases everywhere there is an asterisk. This is true, but not true.
While it looks like almost every month's income increased due to a new source of income, this wasn't always the case. Sometimes other revenue sourced dipped and the new income source was just that – new.
For example, one month my income from brands/sponsorships might have increased my overall blog income, but my ad income might have decreased. However, the increase in income lead me to making even more per month!
Every month, every income amount from all my revenue sources is different. No two months are ever the same!
In the early stages of blogging, I knew nothing about how to create a profitable blog, I just knew I wanted one, ha! I was really confused and a bit all over the place.
In the first four months of blogging, I didn't spend all my time trying to monetize my blog. Instead, I knew that I needed to have amazing content first, write consistently and establish myself as a reliable blogger.
After publishing content, I would go back through blog posts and see how I could add in various things to make money.
Here's why. First, you never know when a revenue source will stop. Here's a couple of examples:
If you are a freelancer, it's possible your client might want to end your services and you are out of a job.
Hopefully you have more than one client or can see this coming so it's not a surprise!)
If you are an affiliate for a popular program, what would you do if the affiliate program was discontinued?
These are just a couple things you need to watch out for.
For example, affiliate income is one source of revenue. Within my affiliate income, I have 20+ products/courses/apps/etc. that I recommend on my website.
By having multiple income streams, I increase the likelihood that I will make more money!
Over time, I've realized that the more sources of revenue I have, the better chance I have to increase my income or at least keep it consistent.
Here's why.
First, you never know when a revenue source will stop.
Here's a couple of examples:
If you are a freelancer, it's possible your client might want to end your services and you are out of a job.
Hopefully you have more than one client or can see this coming so it's not a surprise!)
If you are an affiliate for a popular program, what would you do if the affiliate program was discontinued?
These are just a couple things you need to watch out for.
When I first started monetizing my website, I started with one source of revenue.
My income was low and it was hit or miss when it came to making money.
By having multiple income streams, I have a better chance to earn income consistently.
If one source of income decreases, my other sources of income are generally fine, so I don't have to worry too much about taking a hard hit. This creates less stress for me!
Months 1 – 3
In my first few months of blogging, I started trying to use affiliate income. I didn't really understand how it all worked or how to use it properly on my blog.
I decided to add in a few products to my site.
I really want to emphasize that I only had three affiliate products I was promoting. They were all products related to my website that I was using, like my blog theme and a book I was reading about blogging.
Of course, looking back, this was a good start but I didn't really use affiliates properly. I mentioned the products in a couple sentences here and there on a few different blog posts. Somehow, I managed to get some sales during this time.
Affiliate income was my sole source of blog income during this time.
Months 4 – 5
During this time, I started sharing blog posts on how Pinterest was helping my blog get more traffic.
Generally I was sticking to personal finance blog posts, but decided to venture out past my comfort zone and write about Pinterest.
I wrote a blog post about how my traffic went from 5,000 to 17,000 page views in one month and the post received a lot of social media shares and traffic!
Fellow bloggers reached out to me and ask for assistance in helping them with their Pinterest accounts.
Not sure what to do, I debated this new opportunity.
On one hand, potential clients are wanting to pay me to help them. What an amazing opportunity! On the other hand, I had never really thought about freelancing as a source of income.
I decided to take advantage of the opportunities being presented to me and go for it! After all, I'm all about the side hustles and this seemed like a pretty good side hustle. I decide to work with a handful of clients and became a Pinterest Manager!
I added a Hire Me / Work With Me page on my blog. This page lets potential customers learn about my services that I offer with sample pricing.
Over the next couple months, I continued to receive interest from potential clients wanting my help.
My blog income during this period now comes from affiliate income and freelance income.
Month 6
Finally, after months of waiting, I received my first check from Google Adsense. Praise the Lord!!
By far, this was the hardest $100 paycheck I've ever had to work for.
This is why you should not rely on ad income in the early stages of blogging.
My freelance income also starts to increase as I started pricing my services at a higher rate due to the demand.
This was a surprise area of income for me! I'm really grateful I said yes to the opportunities I was given, as it's really increased my income. Having additional income in addition to my full time job is amazing.
My blog income now comes from three sources: affiliate income, freelance income and ad income.
Months 7 – 10
I released my first product, an ebook, on how to side hustle. I started promoting this book on my website, as well as asked a handful of fellow bloggers to become affiliates and promote my book too.
On a side note, this time frame was around the end of the year, mostly fourth quarter and into the new year.
Ad revenue was through the roof due to it being the busiest quarter of the year (this is industry standard for ads.)
My page views were crazy high due to my Pinterest strategy and a number of my clients were demanding, with everyone trying to get things done before the holidays.
It was the busiest part of the year for me and the busiest period in general.
My blog income now comes from four sources: affiliate income, freelance income, ad income and product income.
Months 11 – 14
These were crucial months for me. So much happened during this time, it was overwhelming, but in a good way.
Sponsors/Brands
I ventured into new territory by reaching out to brands.
For some reason, I had a personal goal of waiting to get 100,000 page views consistently before thinking my blog was "good enough" to work with brands.
Total mistake waiting to do this.
I fell into some kind of hype and read too many poorly informed blog posts that convinced me I couldn't get a brand to work with me until I had certain numbers. Why did I do this? So, so dumb. This is so not true!
Looking back, I should have started reaching out to brands at a much, much lower number and just asked for less compensation and different terms.
Either way, brands jump to work with me and this becomes a new, fun source of income for me!
While I enjoyed working with brands, I turn down about 90% of the offers I receive. I find this ironic. In the early stages of blogging, I dreamed of working with brands and thought it would be an easy way to earn income.
Instead, my blog is now like my baby, and I want to protect it at all times.
Every decision I make is based on if my readers will find the brand helpful and worry I'll look like a sellout.
Luckily, this has not been the case at all! I've limited the amount of brands I've worked with and every brand has been a perfect fit.
AdThrive
By now, I've also been accepted into a private ad company.
I stop using Google Adsense and used AdThrive for all my ads on my website.
My ad income essentially doubles overnight without my blog doing anything different. By being in a private ad income, I'm exposed to better paying ads than I was with Adsense and the like.
Mind blown my ad income can increase so much without doing anything differently to my blog.
Course Creation/Freelancing
I now have a VA that is helping me manage all my Pinterest work. It's become a lot of work!
I have too many clients and couldn't keep up with new client requests. I realized that something needed to change. This leads me to brainstorming and creating my first course called Pinterest Presence.
My blog income now comes from five sources: affiliate income, freelance income, ad income, product income and sponsors/brands.
Month 15
During this time I started receiving income from the Pinterest Presence course I launched in month 13.
If you're wondering why it's not included in the previous months, it's because it took a couple months before I received any income for it.
The course was created because I was feeling stretched with freelance work and overwhelmed.
I'd been turning down potential new clients on a weekly basis for the past couple months and had even took down my Hire Me / Work With Me page, but people still found me or were referred to me.
The course immediately takes off the pressure I've been feeling about not being able to help every potential client or reader that had emailed me.
Now I could direct them to a course that included my exact strategy I used for my blog and my clients' websites.
My blog income comes from five sources: affiliate income, freelance income, ad income, product income (two products!) and sponsors/brands.
Month 16
Everything is steady and had been for the past three or four months. My income goes through phases.
I feel like I stay around the same amount for a few months and then something happens, and it bumps up a nice chunk. Then it stays the same for a few months, and then bumps up again.
I introduced my third product, which was a surprise and not something I had really thought about earlier on.
Listening to what my readers want and trying to help everyone, I find that I'm getting a lot of requests on how to create a Pinterest pin.
I put a lot of thought into how I can help everyone on such a custom product. Everyone has the same needs, which is to create a Pinterest pin that readers will want to click on.
The problem was how can I create a product that can be automated that will require little work for me in the long run?
Finally, I realize the solution is to create a bunch of Pinterest pin templates that have all the basics, but clients can customize on their end.
Basically, I provide the layout, bones and structure and all a client has to do is make a couple small changes. Perfect!
In a very short time frame, I created and started offering this product. While the product itself is under $30, it started bringing in new daily income that I hadn't planned on!
My blog income comes from five sources: affiliate income, freelance income, ad income, product income (three products!) and sponsors/brands.
What will your journey be?
As you can see from above, earning income started snow balling into more and more!
While there are many ways to earn an income online, I hope my journey can inspire you to see the big picture over time.
Please don't let me journey overwhelm you either! Remember, focus on growing your blog and things will start happening.
Take Action: What to Do Now
Now that we have gone though some tech training, it's time to take action. Please try to set aside some time and start researching!
As a reminder, here are 5 different ways to earn online income:
- Affiliate
- Freelance
- Products
- Sponsorships/brand work
- Ads
If you are interested in learning more about affiliate marketing, I recommend checking out Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.
In this course, you will learn how Michelle, the creator of the course, makes over $50,000 per month with affiliate marketing.
I also recommend signing up to be an affiliate for Ultimate Bundles.
Ultimate Bundles is one of the BEST affiliate programs available. The creators walk you through how to have a successful affiliate campaign with their products!
If you are interested in freelancing in addition to blogging, this is a super quick way to start earning an online income.
Many students complete each of these courses in 30 days, and go on to earn $500-$1,000+ per client per month.
Sponsored posts are a great way to start working with brands. Don't feel like you have to have a large audience to worth with brands either!
I recommend checking out Making Sense of Sponsored Posts. Michelle shares how she earns $10,000-$20,000 per month working with brands.
Here are your action steps:
- Decide how you would like to earn income. It can be through one method...or all five!
- Once you have selected one source of income, think about how you plan to make this happen. Start brainstorming complimentary ways you can help serve your blog's readers and provide additional value by sharing helpful products, services, etc.
Until next time,
Jon-jon
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