Online Income Report: Blogging and Freelancing

It’s that time again, August’s online income report! If you’re new here, I share monthly income reports to track my earnings through blogging and freelancing. I’ve been freelance writing since May 2012 but don’t do too much of that anymore. For now, my focus is on earning and income through my blog. And, I’m happy to report that so far, so good.

I started this blog in Sept 2014, so exactly two years ago. It took me five months to make my first $100 blogging; and now I’m consistently making over $1,000 per month.

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 $1,000). If I can do this, so can you!

*If you do decide to start a blog through my Bluehost link, you’ll receive a special discount from Bluehost for my readers only! And, I’ll send you my blogging ebook – The Beginner’s Guide to Blogging – for free!

Now, onto August’s online income report.

August Online Income Report

Total: $1,123.60

Income Breakdown

• Blogging: $485.60
• Freelancing: $638

Blogging was lower than last month (last month I made over $1,300 blogging. You can read that income report here!).

The reason for the decrease is most of my payments are made 1-3 months out. So, the money I took in in August actually reflects what I earned as far back as June! September and October both are expected to be $1,000+ months blogging, and I can’t wait to share those with you!

To stay up-to-date on my blog income, blogging tips, my upcoming course, and bits of my personal life, make sure to sign up for my newsletter!

Blogging Income Breakdown

• Affiliate Income: $293.20. Affiliate marketing is where it’s at when it comes to blogging. If you sell a product as an affiliate, that means you’ll earn a commission off of that sale at no extra charge to your customer. I only recommend products I use and love. I’m an affiliate for Bluehost, a few freelance writing courses, a Pinterest course, Tailwind, and some others. Bluehost is my biggest earner, so much so that I’ve decided to release a course on how any blogger can make money as a Bluehost affiliate! You can read more about my course here.
• Ad Income: $192.50. While I don’t love having ads on my site, they do help me generate an income since my blog is still so small. Once I have a bigger audience and am able to release a few products, I plan on doing away with ads. I know, they can be annoying! Thanks for sticking with me!!

Ways to Make Money Blogging

This month, affiliate sales and ads are what made up my monthly online income. However, there are many other ways you can make money blogging, including:

Sponsored posts

At this point, I don’t spend any time reaching out to companies to see if I can sponsor them (this usually includes writing a post, sharing your post on social media a few times, etc.). I do plan to do that in the future, though. For now, I will only do a sponsored post if a company reaches out to me and it’s something I agree with. This month, I have one lined up and another that’s pending. You should see those earnings reflected in this month’s income report or next month’s.

How much should you charge for a sponsored post?

This is totally up to you. I base it on how much work is required of me, not how many pageviews I have. I usually charge $100 to insert a link in a post that’s already written and $300+ for a sponsored post and some social media shares. My blog is NOT big, so don’t undersell yourself!! Aim high!

Product sales

I have one product available for sale – my blogging ebook, The Beginner’s Guide to Blogging. I usually sell a couple of these each month since my release last January. In August, though, I didn’t sell any. No harm done, as I’ve already got a few sales so far this month.

I know writing an ebook can seem daunting, but it really wasn’t that bad! I wrote the entire book in Word, saved as a PDF and then signed up with Gumroad to sell it. If you’ve been thinking of writing an ebook, I highly encourage you to go for it!

And remember, you can get mine for free by starting a blog through my Bluehost link! 🙂

Those are the four best ways to make money blogging – affiliate sales, product sales, ads and sponsored posts. And yes, any type of blog in any niche can make money these ways!!

How was your August? How do you make money blogging?!