Monthly Earning From a Blog
I must say I am a sucker for monthly blog income reports. I love seeing how others are earning from a blog. However, these reports can be both encouraging as well as daunting to even downright discouraging.
Let me put that statement into some kind of perspective.
If I jump into reading reports of bloggers making massive amounts each month, I feel totally out of their league.
On the other hand if I study the reports of bloggers who started slowly and built up a modest side income or even a full-time income, success appears more achievable. Not only that, there is so much that we can learn from income reports.
I like to go back to the first income report the blogger has published. And work my way forward from there. That way I can learn from mistakes they may have documented as well as from strategies they have put in place. I can also see how they have monetised their blog.
How to Blog for Profit: Without Selling Your Soul
What to Look for in an Income Report
The information I am looking for, when I do read each report, includes the following:
- What affiliate networks are the bloggers using?
- Do they also use display ads?
- What strategies did they change along the way and why?
- How quickly did their traffic grow?
- Did they use social media for promotion and marketing?
- Are they targeting organic search engine traffic via less competitive keywords?
If you find a blogger in the same niche as yours, you can use their monthly income reports as motivational targets for yourself.
This blogger might have been at it for 2 or 3 years, maybe longer. However, if you are just starting out, you can try to match or come close to just the 1st income report and then the 2nd.
You can set similar goals for each month. Many of these income reports outline goals to be achieved during the following month. Then the bloggers review the results and analyse where and why they might have fallen short.
Longevity of Income Reports
You will often find that successful bloggers will stop publishing their income reports after a few years. The reasons are varied but in many cases the motivation behind doing so has gone.
When a blogger is just starting out, keeping tabs via an income report can have a disciplining and a motivating affect. After a while that might no longer be needed.
In addition, writing each report can be a lengthy exercise. And I expect that the higher the income the greater reluctance to divulge such figures.
Blogs that Document Their Earnings
Published Blog Income Reports 2020
As the title of this post suggests, I was most interested in finding blogs that still reported their monthly earnings last year, 2020.
Given that it is just February 2021 at the time of publishing this article, there is a better chance of finding bloggers who updated their 2020 December earnings. They might not have been able to do so this year yet.
Let’s take a look at a couple of examples.
I used 2 criteria when trying to find these examples to show you:
- The blog needed to have published an income report in 2020.
- The blog needed to be current. That is, I wanted to see that it was still active, that there were still blog posts being published. Naturally I eliminated, from my selection, those blogs that didn’t display a published date.
So let’s see what I came up with.
The Hangry Woman Blog
Mila started her blog in 2016 to address issues arising from a diabetes diagnosis. In particular, her blog includes relevant recipes and provides a place for like-minded people to communicate about diabetic concerns.
Since then, her achievements have been nothing short of amazing. You just have to read the reviews written by customers who have purchased her book on Amazon:
But back to the topic of income reports. Whilst there is not a report at the end of every month, there are period reports. I find these just as valuable. These will be of real interest to those of you who have created a food blog.
Her first income report reviews 2019 and highlights the impact that a popular post can have on traffic. And you can’t always predict this. In fact, you can probably rarely tell ahead of time which of your blog posts will be hits and which will fade into the background. You just need to keep on writing but with the knowledge of keyword competitiveness etc.
I highly recommend that you read that first report. There is an interesting discussion on whether or not paid advertising is worth it.
You can also see the 2019 goals and the extent to which they were realised followed by a list of intentions for 2020.
Let’s fast forward to 2020, December to be precise. Reading the end-of-year income report provides an impressive overview of what was achieved during a pandemic year.
The Savvy Couple Blog
This is a blog that was also started in 2016, this time by a couple. They have done exceptionally well, providing a wide raft of financial tips and advice.
If you click the link above, you can see an income report from August 2019. Fast forward 3 months and you can read another income report to see their goals, strategies and growth. I suspect the income reporting stopped after that but the latest was updated at the end of 2020. And they have already provided tips for 2021.
The Finsavvy Panda Blog
Here is another fascinating and encouraging blog written by Ling.
I like the transparency of Ling’s writings, in particular her income reports. She provides endless tips that you can use yourself and/or apply to your own blog.
Check out her first income report. Scroll down to the end to see a list of links to each of her reports.
You will be fascinated to see how she increased her income from $703 in July 2018 to thousands at the end of 2020. I won’t spoil the surprise.
I’ll let you read, for yourself, just how much this was.
The Making Sense of Cents Blog
I have mentioned this blog before. What a success Michelle has achieved!
Whilst you won’t see monthly reports from 2020, you can see detailed monthly writeups of her income journey from $672 in May 2012 right up to more than $150,000 in November of 2018. And since then you are provided with annual wrap ups.
There is a wealth of frequently updated information on this blog.
Blog Income Reports 2020 in Summary
There is invaluable information provided by each of these blogs.
If you are feeling overwhelmed in starting your blog journey, I suggest that you look at each blogger’s initial income report. That is where you can find tips that are more relevant to you during the beginning stages.
From there you could read successive monthly reports as you progress.
You could even write up your own income report, just for your own eyes, so that you have a diarised record of what you have been doing.
I am sure that your enthusiasm for blogging will be renewed as you check out the reports listed above.
~~~~~~~