Blog Income Report: $1,254 in July 2020
This is my second-ever blog income report for Simplifying College.
You might be wondering why exactly I choose to share my blog income online.
Reading blog income reports from other bloggers is what inspired me to start my first blog almost three years ago when I was in college. I was amazed at how much money people were making from their blogs, and it sounded like the perfect thing for me to do as a college student.
Now, I have graduated college and I earn a full-time income from blogging!
I started Simplifying College at the end of March 2020. I’m sharing my blog income reports to show you that it’s possible to make money with a new blog and hopefully inspire you to start blogging too.
If you want to start your own blog, be sure to read my guide on how to start a blog for beginners. It literally takes less than an hour to start a blog!
Previous Income Reports
Looking for my previous income reports? Here they are:
- April 2020: $33.47
- May 2020: $205.42
- June 2020: $681.50
Traffic Breakdown
July 2020 Blog Traffic:
- Pageviews: 41,814
This was an increase from 31,835 pageviews in June. I am happy to see that my traffic keeps increasing month over month and I hope this trend continues!
July 2020 Email List:
- Subscribers: 535
A big win here! I started an email list for Simplifying College in late June. I went from less than 100 subscribers in June to over 500 subscribers this month.
Income Breakdown
July 2020 Blog Income:
- Amazon: $606.85
- Mediavine: $647.89
Total: $1,254.74
Amazon
This was another good month for the Amazon affiliate program!
As I expected, my affiliate income continued to increase as my readers shopped for college. My blog posts about things I wish I brought to college and the best dorm room essentials were especially popular this month and contributed to a lot of my affiliate income from Amazon.
I’m hoping that these earnings only continue to increase throughout August as people keep shopping and getting ready to go back to college.
I am very curious whether this month’s income would be even higher if it was a “normal” year for college shopping. But with many colleges going virtual for the fall semester and uncertainty about when things will return to the way they were, I can imagine that sales for back-to-college shopping have been down.
It’ll be interesting to see how the numbers look next year around this time!
Mediavine
Wow! I am very happy with the increase I saw in my Mediavine income.
This month was my first full month with my ad network Mediavine..
Last month, ads went live on my site on June 9. So I did not experience a full month of earning with Mediavine until this month.
I am really happy with this income because it’s passive and consistent. Once you are getting a decent amount of traffic, ads can be really lucrative.
Every blogger should make it one of their goals to get into Mediavine. While they recently upped their requirements to 50,000 monthly sessions (about 60,000 pageviews) in order to apply, it’s still a worthwhile and attainable goal.
Blogging Expenses
Like any business, blogging has expenses. Luckily, there aren’t very many.
The only consistent expense I have for Simplifying College is web hosting. This is something I pay annually, and it’s about $170 a year with Bluehost.
I have multiple blogs so I pay for a higher-priced web hosting plan, but if you’re just starting one blog you can get web hosting for about $70 a year.
This month, I also had a one-off expense of $18 because I hired a graphic designer to make a free printable I give away to my email list.
Blogging Goals
Last month, I shared three goals for my blog which were:
- Diversify my income with more affiliate programs.
- Increase my traffic through Pinterest and SEO.
- Publish 50 blog posts by the end of the year.
My first goal, I did not reach. I incorporated affiliate links in my blog posts for products like Dormify decor and Erin Condren planners, but I didn’t see any conversions. Honestly, I am not going to worry about this much and just keep focusing on Amazon instead, since it’s obviously converting so well.
I did increase my traffic this month, and I hope for that trend to continue. While almost all of my traffic came from Pinterest again this month, I am starting to see this site begin ranking in Google for some keywords which is great!
Finally, I am definitely on track to have 50 blog posts published by the end of the year. I published 10 new blog posts this month, for 40 blog posts total!
Once I have 50 blog posts published, I will slow down on creating so much new content, but right now my focus is to build up a solid “library” of blog content. I want to publish at least four new posts this month.
What Worked This Month
Would you be surprised if I said that a new blog post about college Halloween costumes was one of my top five most popular posts this month? Yes, people are already planning for Halloween as early as July!
I have always heard that it’s a good idea to publish seasonal content early, and for me this just confirms that it’s true.
With that in mind, I will be writing more Halloween content in August and maybe starting to get out some Christmas content too.
Another great thing that happened in July was that I basically front-loaded all of my work into the first half of the month. I spent a lot of time working on this blog creating content in June and the first half of July, and then I basically stepped back and stopped doing anything for the past two weeks.
But my traffic and income just kept going up! That’s what I love about blogging.
Want to Learn How to Start a Blog?
Starting a blog was by far the best decision I made in college!
I now earn over $5,000 a month between my three blogs, and this is still something I do only part time!
You can read more about how I started blogging, along with the step-by-step guide to start your own blog, in this post.
Basically, it boils down to the following steps:
- Decide what you want to blog about (AKA your blog niche.)
- Choose a name for your blog.
- Get your domain name and web hosting through Bluehost. (Your domain name is FREE and web hosting with them is only $3.95 a month.)
- Choose a WordPress theme. (Mine is from 17th Avenue Designs.)
- Write your first blog post!
Starting a blog is actually really easy and something you can do today. You don’t need any experience. My biggest tip is just to get started and learn as you go!
Click here for the full step-by-step guide on how to start a blog.
