The Unsuccessful Blogger’s Income Report

The Unsuccessful Blogger’s Income Report

blogger income reportOkay, maybe unsuccessful is a little harsh. After all, this blog has opened me up to all kinds of opportunities. For those of you that do not know how this blog originally came about you are welcome to stop by my “About Me” page.  Soon after I started this blog in 2009 I was offered a social media community manager position. I worked in that position up until somewhat recently. I learned a lot and it was great income during that time but because I am also a homeschooling mom of four and there are only so many hours in the day, my blog was usually neglected in exchange for the paying gig. I have also been offered freelance writing jobs because of my blog, some of which I still do to this day.  Really I have been very blessed. Sometimes, though when I see all the blogger’s income reports floating around from bloggers who have been blogging for a lot less time than I have then I start thinking about the potential income I could have generated if I had been able to spend my time focused on my blog instead of other company blogs.

Some of you that read my blog are already bloggers and maybe some of you who are not have considered it as an opportunity to earn money from home. Those of you who may not be aware of how much successful bloggers can make should visit some of these blogger income reports below. Prepare to be impressed.
Obviously those bloggers know what they are doing but to new bloggers those figures can look pretty intimidating and unrealistic. It can be done, but part of my motivation for showing you how little I am currently making is to show you step-by-step along the way as I improve, and hopefully you do too. My other goal in sharing this information is to show you that you do not have to be a huge, successful blogger to bring in income from your blog.
Over the next couple of months as I go through and make changes to my blog you will be able to learn from the mistakes along the way and see how to start, grow, and monetize your blog. Oh yes, in my rush to throw up a blog and in my business of working other jobs, there have been plenty of mistakes. If you haven’t noticed, two big changes were made to my blog this week already. I finally made the big move from Blogger to WordPress and I had a redesign done on the blog. Would love to hear feedback on it from some of you bloggers out there.Because I now am only working on a few small freelance projects, I have the time to focus on my blog for once. My traffic and my income right now are not impressive by any means but considering I have often gone months without posting here, it is to be expected.  For now, though here is the not-so-impressive blogger income report. Drum roll please…

Right now this blog is monetized through Google ads, Yahoo ads, affiliate sales, and a rare sponsored post here and there. I am not going to include income made through freelance gigs, even though they were obtained because of this blog. You will notice that I only posted twice in February and once in January so no, I have not been doing much to bring in visitors to the blog.  Just for comparison I am including the last five months worth of income from Google Adsense because obviously this amount varies depending on how much I post.

Google Adsense for

February $18.58(posted twice)
January $22.67 (posted once)
December $27.30 (posted four times)
November $30.95 (posted five times)
October $46.90 (posted twice)

Not impressive, huh? But keep in mind I hardly spent anytime on my blog at all. For affiliate sales I made the following;

February $43.47
January  $41.11
December $36.83
November $36.94
October $29.95

For Yahoo ads;
February $5.19
January  $7.88
December $3.06
November $4.91
October $10.44

Pretty dismal, right? Add it all up and each month I made between $60-$80. Considering I maybe spent an hour or two working on my blog those months it really isn’t as bad as it seems. But remember, we are making some changes around here and besides improving my blog, hopefully I can help you improve yours along the way too. Besides moving to wordpress and doing the redesign, my first step in increasing my income was to generate a very comprehensive list of all of the blog networks, brand opportunities, and blogger ad networks that I know of. I will be checking all of those to make sure my blog is listed with them or to see which opportunities will work best for me. You can check out that list on the “Blogging for Money” tab. Stay tuned for more info on what affiliates I use and other ways to monetize your blog.

Alaina Forbes

12 Comments
  • Abby Flynn

    March 27, 2015 at 4:39 am Reply

    Alaina thank you for sharing, seriously! Saw this on Pinterest and it caught my eye because I feel like most bloggers only really show you their shiny, amazing stats and numbers. Thank you for talking about this on the real!
    I’m just learning about monetization, so it’s a long way down the road, but I’m excited to learn and hear more.

    • Alaina Forbes

      March 27, 2015 at 7:14 pm Reply

      Awww, thanks! I know sometimes those income reports can be motivating but other times they are kind of intimidating

  • Star Traci

    March 27, 2015 at 4:18 pm Reply

    Thanks for being honest. I have been blogging for about the same length of time and while many opportunities have come my way, I have not reached anything near the numbers that others have. I feel very blessed for what I’ve received but I, too, am trying to grow. I look forward to your journey.
    🙂
    Traci

  • Julie

    March 27, 2015 at 5:08 pm Reply

    Thanks for the realistic numbers! I need to implement Google AdSense on my blog. And I’m looking forward to the affiliates tips!

  • Jaime

    March 27, 2015 at 6:27 pm Reply

    That’s still very impressive! Granted, my blog has only been up for less than a month, but I’d love to see income like yours. 🙂 Is that ad income from people clicking the ads, or just from the traffic of all the people visiting your blog?

  • Kristen @ Practical Mommy

    March 28, 2015 at 1:05 pm Reply

    I actually think that’s pretty good for only posting once or twice a month! Good luck with the blog 🙂

  • Andi

    March 28, 2015 at 11:10 pm Reply

    You made more than me with a lot less effort, great job! I need to get better at Affiliate links!

  • Amanda

    September 17, 2015 at 3:16 pm Reply

    I’m you and you are me. I have had blogs for years (Like 1998-ish) and used them as a diary. Sometimes I posted and sometimes I didn’t. They were all blogger style. I finally created a blog a few years back on WordPress and sporadically posted on it. Now I am trying to rebrand myself and make some cash at this. At this point I’d be happy if things paid my hosting.
    I’ll be back for more tips and to know that the money I’m making is realistic.

  • Manidipa

    November 7, 2015 at 5:38 pm Reply

    Hi Alaina,

    I was going through some awesome Pins when this title compelled me to land to your site. I must say this one is a really innovative way to see the bloggers’ income report.

    As you said, most of the newbie bloggers get intimidated by seeing some huge numbers in bloggers income report. It becomes hard to realize that it is not the result of a single day.

    Thanks for showing the real picture for the beginners. Take care 🙂

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