Welcome to my very first blog traffic/income report! I, myself, love reading others’ income reports! It’s always super interesting to read and learn about other blogs and their traffic or monetization strategies.
But today, it’s all about my blog! I’ll break down my traffic, income, goals for September, as well as helpful tips for new bloggers!
However, I do want to make a quick disclaimer:
I have no means to brag by writing income reports. I love them and love learning from them, and I’m sure there are people out there who’d find this helpful. And for those of you who are seeing less traffic and making less money than you wish, please don’t feel discouraged. The secret here is persistence, so just keep going and keep learning, and success will find you.
Now, let’s get right into it.
Starting my blog
Now, I’m not 100% new to the blogging world. I started a casual blog in June of 2020 on Blogger then made the switch to my current blog 2 months later. During those first 2 months, I learned a whole lot about blogging, including the importance of self-hosting, Pinterest, SEO, etc.
So while I was a complete beginner in June, I was much more experienced (but still very new) when I launched my new blog on August 1st, 2020. I knew exactly what I had to do to build at least some traffic and possibly earn money from this blog.
That’s how I was able to get stats like this on my new blog in 5 weeks:
You can read my detailed, step-by-step Start A Blog guide to learn exactly what I did to find success like this. You’ll learn all my secrets– these are the reasons why I’m able to write this post today!
Traffic Report
I launched my blog on August 1st, and I ended the month with 10,984 pageviews. I know what you’re thinking. That’s crazy.
The truth is, traffic was not consistent at all during the first month (or the second by any means), especially because most of that traffic came from Pinterest.
Let’s look at my stats (this is from July 30th to September 1st so you can see how I really started from 0):
As you can see, there was a big spike in traffic at the beginning of the month (just 2 days after I launched my blog). I have no idea how that happened, but it did, and I’m not complaining.
Over the next couple weeks (pretty much until the end of the month), traffic fluctuated a lot. It wasn’t until a couple days before September that my pageviews stabilized. The large rises and falls did turn out to equate a very satisfactory amount of traffic, and I’m very happy about it.
Income Report
Here’s the exciting part. Money!
During most of my first month, my only income source was affiliate marketing. If you don’t know what affiliate marketing is, it’s basically advertising for other brands/companies and earning a part of their commission if someone buys their product through me.
I’m only a part of a few affiliate programs and networks, because I couldn’t find many suitable programs for my niche (studying and productivity). Here they are:
- ShareASale: Includes many individual companies like Grammarly.
- Amazon Associates: A huge variety of products, so is a great option for lifestyle bloggers.
- Bluehost: My blog’s web host and the best (and cheapest) choice for new bloggers.
However, near the end of the month, I was (finally) accepted into Google Adsense and was able to make a couple dollars from display advertising, as well.
My income for August (not including expenses) was a grand total of… $12.78.
$5.84 came from Google Adsense…
And $6.94 came from Amazon Associates.
Though I wasn’t actually paid this month (there’s a minimum payout threshold for both), I consider this a win. After all, it’s very rare for new bloggers to earn any money during their first month, and I’m happy to be one of them!
September Goals
I know very clearly that my August success may have been a stroke of luck (though I’m hoping it wasn’t). Therefore, I’m playing safe with my September goals.
I decided to set some mostly-realistic goals that wouldn’t cause me to go bonkers trying to achieve them. Here they are:
- 15k sessions on my blog
- 1m Pinterest monthly viewers
- 100 active email subscribers
- 200 Instagram followers
- 100 Twitter followers
- Send 2 newsletters
- Write 6 posts
- Make 7 affiliate sales
- Earn $20 or more
That looks like a lot, doesn’t it? Sometimes, I feel a little intimidated looking at this list. However, I know that these goals and my persistence and hard work will pay off in the long run.
Speaking of the long run, one of my goals for the future is to get accepted into Mediavine Ad Network, a display advertising platform that requires a minimum of 50,000 monthly sessions.
That number seems so far yet also kind of close, so I’m willing to keep grinding until I reach that goal.
Extra Tips
If you haven’t started your blog yet, what are you waiting for? Here’s my number 1 tip: just do it. Your blog won’t start itself, and money isn’t going to make itself, either.
So hop over to my guide and start your blog! You, too, can have an amazing first month – if you start now.
If you already started your blog but aren’t getting satisfactory results, here are 3 more of my top tips:
1. Invest and learn. This was a mistake I made when I started. I was so determined to make 0 investments that I missed out on valuable information that could’ve boosted my blog earlier!
For example, my first blog was on Blogger, which means it wasn’t self-hosted and didn’t have a custom domain. That was a newbie mistake and I hope you’re not doing that!
If you’re not sure which host to go for, I highly recommend Bluehost. You can start for only $3.95 a month and will receive a free custom domain for 1 whole year!
2. Be organized and consistent. Look, you can’t publish 4 blog posts in 1 week then go on a hiatus for a month. Neither your readers nor search engines will like that.
Plan ahead by using a content calendar, and batch posts so you’re making the most out of your productive juices. I do this, and it’s much less stressful than forcing myself to write because I haven’t posted in a week.
You can get a free content calendar template now from my Freebie Library!
3. Study SEO from the very beginning. Even though Pinterest is going to be your main source of traffic for probably months, Google is undeniably the best source of traffic – if you actually receive it.
In order to start getting Google (aka organic) traffic, you must start implementing SEO strategies as soon as possible. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it’s everywhere. In your post titles, subtitles, introductions, image alt texts, social media names… you name it.
I have an entire section dedicated to SEO in my Start A Blog guide, so if you want to learn more about SEO and how to implement it, give that post a peek.
Conclusion
I hope this first-month blog traffic/income report was helpful to you! I am by no means an expert, or even a real blogger yet. My journey has only just begun, but I’m glad you’re on it with me.
If you haven’t already, check out this post for all the blogging tips you’ll need to start a successful, money-making blog: How To Start A Successful Student Lifestyle Blog