OMG, It’s My First Income Report! Is It a Boy or a Girl?
- Date Range: April 2022
Exactly a year after launching my Blogging Empire, I broke the $1,000/month threshold!
You might be thinking, “Golly-gee-willickers, that’s amazing! I haven’t made a $1,000 a month ever, and I’ve been blogging for four years!”
Or you might be smirking, “Eh, what a slow-poke. I cracked $1,000 per month in three months from launch. Chump.”
Whatever. You do you. I’ll just explain how I got here.
You New To These Parts, Stranger?
New to My Income Reports?
If this is your first time visiting one of my Income Reports, welcome! (Here’s a strong, firm handshake). Let me explain how they work.
I report how much income I made or lost every month. These reports help me analyze and track my progress, and they (hopefully) help you benchmark your own performance. I don’t have to worry about boasting about my income, because as of now, my income is non-boastable!
I don’t disclose actual URLs. Like a good journalist, I keep my sources safe.
New to FLUB?
If you’re visiting FLUB for the first time, sit down and stay a while! This is my blog about blogging, or more specifically, about my journey to create a six-figure income stream through info blogging. I’ve been doing this since April 2021, so I’m still a greenhorn!
With the exception of FLUB, none of my websites are in the how-to-make-money-online niche. I’m reporting straight from the front lines.
Income Report Table for April 2022
| INCOME | |||||||
| Niche | Size (Posts) | Type | Ads | Affiliate | Digital Products | Physical Products | |
| Website 1 | Transportation | 100-200 posts | Info blog | $563 | $262 | – | N/A |
| Website 2 | Transportation | 200-300 posts | Info blog | $216 | $2 | $64 | N/A |
| Website 3 | Travel | 30-100 posts | Info blog | $1 | – | – | N/A |
| Website 4 | Outdoor Recreation | 0-30 | Info blog/online magazine | – | – | – | – |
| FLUB | Online Business | 0-30 | Info blog | – | – | – | N/A |
| TOTAL | $780 | $264 | $64 | N/A | |||
| EXPENSES | |||||||
| Hosting | Content | Labor (Other) | Software | Advertising | Fees | Other | |
| TOTAL | $32 | $102 | $0 | $52 | $0 | $110 | $0 |
| SUMMARY | |||||||
| REVENUE | EXPENSES | PROFIT | |||||
| GRAND TOTAL | $1,108 | $296 | $812 |
LEGEND
- N/A = Non-Applicable, Not Offering
- ( – ) = Not Monetized (Yet)
- $0 = Attempted Monetized, Haven’t Make a Dime
Reflections On This Month
Where I Came From
It’s crazy to think I’ve been slaving away at my computer for a year now! Maybe I’ll use my blogging profits to pay for my carpel tunnel surgery …
It was a rather slow month, personally. I’d been on a blogging binge since January, so I slowed down in April to give myself a chance to breathe.
On the face of it, $1,108 in revenue isn’t exactly impressive. But I console myself by remembering that 90% of my work hasn’t even been monetized yet!
And on the sites I have monetized, most of the content hasn’t even had a chance to reach its full ranking potential. If I quit blogging today, I would still expect my income to rise month-over-month for at least another 1-2 years.
Where I’m Going
I’m reinvesting every cent back into the business. That means increasing content production, investing in productivity software, and searching for other websites in my niche[s] to buy.
I am paying more for content than I used to. At this point, I only work with writers with hands-on experience in their topics, and I prefer articles written from an autobiographical perspective. Writing from experience builds up EAT like crazy!
I think my growth strategy is fundamentally sound? It’s certainly not the fastest way to grow. I’m the tortoise, not the hare. I’m putting almost all my eggs into the basket of organic SEO and info blogging. But most of what I publish is A) written from a biographical perspective or B) breaks down technical answers to common questions, so both human and AI competition is low.
One area that needs a LOT of improvement is my affiliate marketing strategy. I’ve been copying what I’ve seen other people do rather than really getting to know my audience’s pain points so I solve their problems. Throwing an affiliate link in someone’s face is like trying to shove a spoon into a toddler’s mouth, I think.
How I Make Money Online
My Content Strategy
- I specialize in info blogging. I build authority niche websites with a focus on evergreen content written by people with hands-on experience.
- At present, I don’t drive traffic to my websites other than organic SEO and a very limited presence on social media platforms, namely Pinterest. I’ve done virtually no active backlink building or guest posting. Therefore, I don’t expect significant traffic to a website for 6-18 months after launch.
- I’m working on too many websites. I drip content (1x post per week) onto every website, but I’ll publish at least 2 posts per week on sites I’m actively growing.
- I founded most of these websites, but I did purchase and overhaul one of them.
My Monetization Strategy
Affiliate marketing
I earn a few hundred dollars a month from Amazon (which I have a love-hate relationship with), and spare change here and there from other affiliate partners. But I feel like I’ve barely tapped the potential of affiliate marketing. .
Advertising
I use Ezoic for all my sites monetized with Ads. I’m a Premium Publisher. Currently, advertising makes up the lion’s share of my income. Because my content is usually long-form response posts to search queries, there’s ample inventory, and Readers are open to buying products or services to fix their headaches. I love that advertising is so easy, but I dislike that it’s purely a scale-numbers game.
Digital products
I’ve just dipped my toe into this field. I sell a few digital downloads via Etsy, and while each one may only make $10-$30 a month, if I can build up a portfolio of at least 50 digital products, that’s not a bad income! And it’s wholly passive.
Strategies I Haven’t Used (Yet)
- Email marketing. I have a confession to make. While I’ve been passively growing my email list through newsletter subscribers … I don’t even have a newsletter :/ I just stockpile email addresses in subscriber lists.
- Social media marketing. I’m not on Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, Whushmygush, or whatever other social media platform is currently blowing up.
- Pay-per-click. I’m a firm believer that paid traffic should never be sent to your general site or blog post, but to a targeted landing page with a high-value call-to-action. I don’t have a high-value CTA right now, so no need for paid traffic.
