Welcome to my third blogging income report!
My income increased from last month, which I'm super proud of!
In this months blogging income report, you'll learn the following
- How to make money blogging
- A breakdown of the $4,612
- Top affiliate incomes I make income from
- The blogging courses I recommend to become a full-time blogger
- How to start a blog
- What helped my blog improve
- What did NOT help my blog
- and so much more!
A little about me.
I started FITnancials back in 2013 as a hobby blog and to document my 60-pound weight loss. I spent around an hour a week on it and sometimes didn't touch it at all. One year ago, I decided to go full-time on the blog and also quit my day job that was bringing me great income for someone my age.
Now, I'm making a steady $4,000 a month from my blog, and I get to work from home. My income has increased dramatically since October of 2016! I'll be making a post about my earnings for the first full year of full-time blogging soon. 🙂
Apart from blogging, I'm a senior in college with a 6-year background in the special needs community. I have been a Paraprofessional, Behavioral Therapist, an in-home caregiver, and more. I absolutely love this field, but after 6 years, I became incredibly burnt out. I miss working in the field and sometimes think about becoming a special needs teacher. However, I love my blog and the life it gives me too much to give it up.
Are you interested in starting a blog and becoming a full-time blogger?
If so, check out my FREE 7-day course that will tell you everything you need to know, including how to create your own blog from scratch, essential blogging tools successful bloggers use, how to monetize your blog, grow a loyal audience, and so much more!
Previous income reports:
- How I Went From $1,000 to $10,000 Per Month On My Blog In 1 Year
- How I Made $5,047 in August 2017 From Blogging
- How I Made $4,018 In September From Blogging
How much time do you spend on your blog?
I spend around 20-30 hours a week on my blog. When traveling, the hours tend to be all over the place. During Fincon, I only spent maybe 5-10 hours on my blog due to being at the conference all week. I also bought my pass for #Fincon18 in Orlando, which I'm super excited about!!
How to make money blogging
There are many ways you can make money blogging. Some of these are:
- Sponsored posts
- Affiliate income
- Ad revenue
- Creating and selling your own products
How much did you make in October of 2017?
Sponsored posts: $2,178
Affiliate Income: $859
Virtual Assistant: $900
Ad Revenue: $675
My first product: Making Sense of Sponsored Posts
Learn everything there is to know about sponsored posts with my course Making Sense of Sponsored Posts.
Sponsored posts helped me become a full-time blogger and is my favorite way to make money blogging!
You also get access to a private mastermind group where you can ask any blogging questions and get help from me and other successful bloggers.
Top affiliate companies
- Ibotta
- CreateandGo
- The Selling Family
- Pinecone Research
- Raw Till Whenever
- Maxbounty
- Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing
- $5 Meal Plan
- Ebates
My #1 Recommendation For New Bloggers
If you've never taken a blogging course and aren't sure which one to choose, Blog With A Full-Time Job is IT.
Do you want to build a successful blog but have a full-time job?
Do you want a profitable blog but aren't sure what steps to take?
If so, you must check out Blog With A Full-Time Job.
This is THE course to take if you want a step by step plan to build a profitable blog.
Use code ALEXIS15OFF for 15% off!
Here are just a few of the things you'll get:
- A specific plan for launching, growing and monetizing your blog while working full-time
- The exact strategy to grow and monetize your blog to a six-figure blog
- Learn how to manage your mind, productivity, time management (all VERY important for working at home and running a successful business)
- How to set up a beautiful looking blog that is completely customizable
- How to write blog posts specifically for monetizing
- Sooo much more + tons of bonuses, templates, worksheets, etc.
What worked
- Creating infographics and savings plans have been a game changer for Pinterest. My most seen pin (very different from most clicked on, but regardless, great for my Pinterest profile) is a travel savings plan which has been doing amazing for months.
- Creating a free resource library has increased my email list dramatically. People love free stuff! I add printables to this monthly, and they're also a lot of fun to make.
- I also created a How To Start A Blog free email course, which has done tremendously well, too. This email course is my highest converting opt-in on my blog.
- I also decreased the number of ads that are on my blog. My website has too many ads, and I feel like this is hurting my affiliate income. No idea if this helped, but my ad income almost tripled, which is awesome!
- My Instagram is improving! I am now posting an inspiring quote every 3rd picture, along with my fitness and travel posts. Follow me here!
- I also added a Pinterest sidebar to my blog, which (I believe) has helped me increase my followers! You can follow me on Pinterest here.
What failed
- I've been wasting too much time on Twitter. I've been attempting to gain traction on this platform and it's proving to be useless, haha. I have 4,000 followers, yet my views from Twitter are very little. I think this is because people don't usually go on Twitter to read articles, but instead read tweets.
What I'll be working on next month
- I also started a free Facebook community. There are currently around 70 members, which is awesome! However, there is very little interaction between readers, and I definitely need to work on this.
- My affiliate marketing strategy needs some work. Though I managed to double my affiliate income this month, I still believe there is a lot of work to do in this area.
- My digital product is finished, and now I need to create a sales page for it. Super excited about this!
- A few of you have been telling me to create a digital product related to scoring sponsored posts. I've been considering this, so I might start working on it!
Blog related posts
- How To Start A Blog – Beginner Edition
- How I Doubled My Pageviews In 1 Month
- How My Sister Went From $0 Affiliate Income to $50,000+ A Month
- Officially A Full-Time Blogger + Tips For You
New posts from FITnancials this month
- 10 Work From Home Jobs Hiring For The Holidays That Pay Up To $70,000 Per Year
- How Melissa Made $133,000 Flipping Items In 2016
- Find Out How Brian Started A Six Figure Business With A Broom
- How To Make $18+ Per Hour As A Freelance Proofreader
- 15+ Finance Bloggers Share Their Top Money Saving Tips
- 10 Tricks And Tips To Save Tons Of Money On Books
- How To Make Over $10,000 Per Year By Selling Your Poop
Future Plans
- Since I started full-time blogging, I made approximately $30,000 in the past 12 months. I'd love to double that income to $60,000 in the next 12 months. I've been making a steady $4-5K the past few months, so I feel good about this!
- Work more. Yep, you heard that right! I need to work on being more productive. I've only been working around 20 hours a week. Although, I dedicate the entire day of Monday to school work and that burns me out pretty hard.
- Stay above 100,000 page views. I just hit 100,000 page views last month, but I know keeping it up is going to be hard!
- Improve my Facebook strategy. I'm stuck at 3,000 likes and would love to increase this and reach more people.
Recap
I hit over 107,000 page views this month, which is soooooo awesome!
I also just got back from Fincon. Fincon is a 4-day conference targeted to online influencers in the personal finance niche. I met so many people that I'm going to miss SO much over the next 11 months!! If you're in the personal finance niche, you MUST go to this conference. I've read that people that aren't in this niche still go to the conference due to how much it can change a person's business.
See you guys next month. Again, thanks for being so supportive. This was a great month for me and I'm loving where the blog is headed. I also feel like I'm in such a good place mentally.
Love you guys!
Below is a photo of me at Fincon with a few ladies that I really look up to! <3 (Oh my gosh, did I really just insert <3?)
– Alexis
Are you interested in starting a blog and becoming a full-time blogger?
If so, check out my FREE 7-day course that will tell you everything you need to know, including how to create your own blog from scratch, essential blogging tools successful bloggers use, how to monetize your blog, grow a loyal audience, and so much more!
What else would you like to see in my next blogging income report?
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Thank You, Alexis, for the very informative post! I don’t usually comment but reading your article is something I can relate to.
I am a 51-year-old Mom who just began a food blog back in June! I can relate to Special Needs and your burnout. My teen son has Autism. So I have been there done that. He had ABA Rx for years. But you are inspiring and trying to run a blog while in school? Impressive! I am struggling with visitors to my website. One day at a time I guess. Twitter? Haven’t found it to be useful for social media at all.
Oh wow, that’s so cool! Yes! It has been tough and I can’t wait to graduate so I can totally focus on my blog.
I just recently decided to stop bothering with Twitter (for now). I realized only like 2% of my traffic comes from Twitter and I just don’t have the bandwith to work on it right now.
Yeah, same here.
Twitter is the worst place for conversions but I go on the hang out and waste my time with other blogger friends…so bad ;( I need to start being more serious.
I totally shared this on Twitter for irony by the way 😀
You are too funny! Haha
Congratulations on all success you have had with this blog so far! I love this blog and can’t wait to see more from you! I have thought of doing income reports but I think my blog still may be too new. We shall see. Cheers!
Thank you so much!
This is really amazing and inspiring! Thank you for sharing with us! 🙂