February Blogging Income Report: What to Do When Income Dips

Welcome to this month’s blogging income report, where I share how much money I’m earning online through my blog and freelance writing.

I started blogging 2 1/2 years ago. Back then, all of my income came from freelancing. Now, I’m happy to say that all of my income comes from blogging! It’s taken a while to build up, but it was absolutely worth it now that I have a relatively passive stream of income coming in each month.

And – BIG NEWS – I was able to quit my job to focus more on my blog! I also plan on spending a lot more time with my daughters. But honestly, I was at a crossroads with my blog. Continue doing minimal work each month, or quit my job and see if I can take it to the next level. I decided on the latter, because, you only live once right? Here goes nothing 🙂

Last month, I made over $2,000 blogging. This month, my income took a dip.

Each month, I report all the money that actually hit my bank account. Since many affiliate companies pay out 60 days after the money was earned, most of what you’re seeing in my income reports is money that was earned two months ago. February was particularly low because most of this money came from December’s earnings. I would guess most people aren’t focusing on growing their blogs and businesses over the holidays, which is understandable.

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Now, onto February’s blogging income report

I share income reports for two reasons: 1) To keep myself accountable and motivated, and 2) To help other bloggers. It was reading others’ income reports that made me realize blogging could be profitable. For me, it’s been a slow journey, but that’s OK! Blogging is not my full-time job and I have three little kids, a house and a husband. Those are my priorities and always will be.

If you’re interested in starting your own blog, check out my tutorial on How to Start a Profitable Blog. Blogging will not make you money right away, but I truly believe that if you stick with it for a good year, you’ll start to see your hard work pay off (big time!). Right now, I’m spending just 10 hours per month on my blog (and again, I’m making over $2,000 on average). If I can do this, so can you!

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In February, I made $1,573.19. After adding that all up, I’m actually pretty happy with my results 🙂

Here’s a breakdown of that income:

• Affiliate Sales: $964.44
• Ads: $278
• Product Sales: $55.75
• Sponsored Posts: $275

So, even though most of this money was earned in December (a holiday month) and I’m still happy with the results, I wanted to provide a few things to do when your blog income dips.

What to Do When Blog Income Dips

Change up your strategy! For me, Facebook has never been a huge focus on mine. Since I saw in December that my income was declining, I figured I’d focus more of my efforts on Facebook. Most of my traffic comes from Pinterest and SEO (this course is amazing!!!), but I know many bloggers who receive a TON of traffic from Facebook. I think my efforts have been paying off, as I’ve been seeing an increase in both traffic and income over the past two months.

Update older posts. If you look in Google Analytics of Jetpack (I love Jetpack!), you can see what your top posts are every day. Go through ALL of the older ones and see what improvements you can make. Perhaps you can add in an affiliate link, direct the reader to a new post that relates to the old one, or change some of the content to make it more relevant to today.

Create new images! So much of my traffic comes from Pinterest. When traffic is low, I again look at Google Analytics or Jetpack to see what my most popular posts are. Then, I create new images on older posts and repromote that content. The post will usually get a spike in traffic, which can result in an affiliate sale, more ad money, or just more eyes on my site.

Don’t panic. In the past, if I had a slow week I would assume that it was just all over for me. I now realize how ridiculous that is. As with any business, you’re going to have good months and not-as-good months. That’s OK!! I’ve actually stopped focusing so much on traffic and sales, and have been spending more time creating quality content, sharing my good posts, interacting in Facebook groups, helping others, and working on my newsletter. Staring at my traffic isn’t going to improve it, so why waste my time on that?

But, in all seriousness, I am just so thankful that this little blog of mine actually makes money each month. I mean, we actually live in a world where you can make GOOD money online?! How cool is that??! Even $300 a month is fantastic! You’re creating something that others are reading, forming a community, helping people, and getting PAID to do that?! And all from home?!?! Sometimes it just seems too good to be true, and for that I feel so blessed for every single dollar that this blog makes.

How was your February?! Are you thinking of starting a blog? What’s holding you back??