My First Blog Income Report – How I Made $130 As A Newbie Blogger!

By all means, my first blog income report will not be that different from the hundreds of similar articles available online. These days, you can gain access to tons of income reports bloggers post all the time.

Why do they do that? Are they trying to make you feel bad and wonder why you’re not reaching the same numbers? Not at all:

If you read any blogger income report between the lines, it won’t take you to notice the ultimate goal of the content creator posting it. That goal is to push you in the right direction if you’re at a point where your blogging activities don’t deliver satisfying results.

Blog income reports are motivational and inspirational. Taking them any other way will be a disservice to your future (or current) online business.

If you want a blog that will allow you to quit your current nine-to-five job, earn a full-time income, and enjoy so much freedom, this guide to starting a blog that will make money is the only read you need.

While blogging for money is not a get-rich-quick scheme, getting into the blogging world is a great way to reach financial independence while doing what you love.

With that said, let’s get to the numbers, shall we?

This post may contain affiliate links – see my affiliate disclosure.

My Blogging Strategy

Chances are, you’ve read many blogger income reports so far. I did the same before and after starting my site.

Most blog income reports I’m familiar with have one thing in common:

The people behind them launched their websites as outlets or hobbies before deciding to take them seriously later. That’s where me and other blog owners differ:

I’ve never seen my website as a place to share thoughts or feelings. Instead, I wanted to turn my blog into a profitable online business from the start.

Similarly to most new bloggers, I had no business or marketing experience. Plus, I knew very well that making money blogging would not happen in the first month.

Be that as it may, I was determined to get this website to a point where it would become a full-time income source and not only a side hustle that brings extra money.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this:

To say that I didn’t know a lot back then would be the understatement of the year. But I was aware of two things:

Firstly, I wanted my new website to put me in a position where I would never have to do an ordinary full-time job again. Secondly, I knew I would never achieve that on my own.

My Blogging Journey

I launched this blog in March 2018 and had my first blog revenue in the month of May. That fact still fascinates me today:

After all, I had around ten blog posts, and my blog traffic was less than a hundred people. Sure, it was a small commission, but it was one more than anything I had the previous month.

How did that happen? Was that an accident, or was I lucky?

The truth is, I will never know. However, I like to believe that my early blogging strategy played a role in my making money blogging from early on.

Before I launched this website, I didn’t know the difference between domain and web hosting. Feel free to laugh about that – I still do!

Considering I had no idea how to start, build, and develop a blogging business, I quickly realized I needed help. And I found it once I signed up for this free training.

That training program allowed me to learn many blogging aspects without paying anything (that matters a lot if your blogging budget is non-existent). Furthermore, it taught me a lot about keyword research and making money promoting other people’s products.

Most importantly, my teaching program gave me access to a premium keyword research tool (Jaaxy) and free web hosting. Many web hosting providers do an excellent job for bloggers, but I don’t need their services – my web hosting doesn’t cost me anything to this day.

My blog income monetization strategy was simple – focus on writing high-quality content that helps readers solve their problems and monetize via affiliate marketing. I’m so glad this strategy paid out, and I’m sticking to it today.

A Little Bit Of Background

Publishing my first blog income report was never a priority for me. While reading other bloggers’ income reports was inspiring, it was also an intimidating experience:

What if I fail to build my own money-making blog? Likewise, what if my website never improves my financial situation despite my determination and willingness to make it work?

Chances are, my early fears sound familiar to you – most beginner bloggers feel the same way. Such feelings are valid, but you shouldn’t let them overwhelm you and stop you from achieving everything you want.

Not watching a YouTube video telling you that blogging for money is a thing from the past and not reading similar content on Google is the best thing you can do for yourself and your business. It worked for me:

I was working a full-time job with insane hours when I launched this website. Imagine getting an online business off the ground while working eighty hours a week!

It’s hard to achieve something when trying to run in many different directions. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, though:

Stop postponing the creation of your website, decide what to blog about, build a blogging strategy, and stick to it until it starts to work. And if it doesn’t, develop a new one and keep going.

Resources & Blogging Courses That Helped My New Website

Generally speaking, I have somewhat of a controversial opinion about most blogging courses available nowadays:

Many of them are not worth your time or money. There, I said what I said!

Now, let me clarify how I got to this conclusion:

I get why so many bloggers have created online courses to teach newbies about the ins and outs of the blogging world. I respect the effort:

Any online course is a product of lots of hard work. Meanwhile, that online course is also a digital product that is another income stream for its owner.

My suggestion is to research the online courses you plan to take. If you don’t have a large blogging budget, go through a free email course (many of those are available) or a course that has a free version.

While many paid online courses don’t bring enough value, I know about a dozen that do. These are the online courses I took that changed the blogging game for me:

Pinterest Strategies By Carly Campbell

For those who don’t know, Pinterest is a visual search engine you can use to drive traffic to your website and make a ton of money. Even if you start to blog today, Pinterest can send you visitors before the day is over.

Unfortunately, Pinterest changes constantly, and you must be on top of it. Subsequently, you need an online course that keeps track of these changes and gets updates to help you master the platform.

Such an online course is Pinterest Strategies by Carly Campbell. That course is solely responsible for my first viral pin (and many more afterward).

Pinterest Strategies comes at an affordable price and gets constant updates. It will change how you approach Pinterest as a content creator and save you a lot of time trying to figure Pinterest out on your own.

Carly has an amazing Facebook Group (Blogging Like You Mean It). I highly recommend you join it to read invaluable blogging tips daily.

With that said, my first blog income report will continue with the second course I find invaluable!

Wealthy Affiliate

First and foremost, Wealthy Affiliate is not an online course. A more accurate description would be that WA is an online training platform for beginner bloggers without experience.

I’m a member of Wealthy Affiliate to this day, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon:

While WA mostly teaches the affiliate marketing business model, you can learn many other aspects of the blogging business on the platform, such as keyword research, ranking content, gaining a lot of traffic from search engines, etc.

To clarify, WA is a free course – you can start learning for free to keep your business expenses to a minimum. You can stay a free member without investing in the Premium Membership.

What I like the most about WA is not that the platform taught me how to make many affiliate marketing sales (even though I appreciate that). No, the best thing about WA is the free SEO tools, web hosting, main website, keyword research tool, and the thousands of training materials experienced bloggers upload on the platform.

In my opinion, WA is the best place to begin your blogging journey if this is the first time you have tried to build a business. It will give you a great start without spending anything at all.

Why Do I Publish Blog Income Reports?

Considering you’re reading my first blog income report, it’s safe to conclude that you probably check many others. Are you wondering why content creators publish blogger income reports?

Contrary to what some people believe, bloggers don’t upload income reports to brag about their earnings or make you feel worse about your own blog. Sharing a blog income report is about transparency:

Why wouldn’t online business owners reveal their earnings to the audience? It’s how they can show you where they are money-wise and how you can get there, too.

A content creator can track their blog’s growth by looking at the last income report before checking the first one. Typically, there is a big difference between the money you made in your first year of blogging and your current income.

The more you learn about utilizing the marketing power of social media and testing different monetization strategies, the more your monthly blog income will increase.

Long story short, blog income reports are educational, motivational, and capable of satisfying the curiosity of the newbie blogger. That’s why I’m sharing mine, and we should better get back to it already:

How I Make Money Blogging

Nowadays, bloggers make money in many different ways, including:

• Affiliate marketing (promoting products or services to make affiliate marketing sales)
• Displaying ads (joining ad networks to earn passive income)
• Creating and selling digital products (online courses, eBooks, etc.)
• Sponsored content

Sure, there are other ways to make money blogging, but the ones you see above are the most popular among content creators. However, I don’t use most of them:

My blogging income report will show you the earnings I made using only one of the monetization strategies.

First Blog Income Report Breakdown

First and foremost, the numbers you’re about to see are not that impressive – other blogger income reports show much bigger earnings than mine. But that doesn’t matter to me, and it shouldn’t matter to you either:

Every blogger is on their journey, and comparing yourself to others is the last thing you want to do.

Affiliate Income: $130

Here comes the big surprise:

The earnings I made this last month came from affiliate marketing. So far, affiliate marketing is the only monetization strategy I use to earn money from my blog.

I’ll explain why later in this income report. Before I do that, let’s get back to the numbers:

Wealthy Affiliate: $78,50

As you already know, Wealthy Affiliate is the online training platform I use to teach me about monetizing an affiliate marketing business. I believe affiliate marketing is the best way to monetize a new website:

You can make money blogging via affiliate marketing even if you don’t have a lot of blog traffic yet. As long as you promote products that can help your readers solve their problems, making affiliate sales is possible with low website traffic.

Earning affiliate commissions by promoting WA is easy since the platform offers so much to first-time bloggers. Each new member receives free perks like one website, keyword research tool, web hosting, and hundreds of training materials.

More importantly, Wealthy Affiliate provides ways to make money on its platform while you’re learning. In other words, you can start earning early in your blogging journey.

Thrive Themes (Now Thrive Suite): $31,50

My second affiliate sale came from Thrive Themes – a company that provides bloggers and marketers with premium WordPress themes, tools, and plugins. Selling Thrive products is an easy way to boost my bank account:

Thrive Suite specializes in blogging tools and plugins that focus on increasing the conversion rate of any web page. Any blogger who wants to build an email list that will convert will appreciate everything Thrive Suite brings.

Milo Tree: $20

Milo Tree is a valuable tool for bloggers who want to increase their online presence and boost brand awareness. It’s a plugin that will place a small slide-in on your blog.

That slide-in will prompt your readers to follow you on a social media platform of your choice, such as Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest. By all means, Milo Tree is a great way to increase your page views on Pinterest if you use the platform as a blog traffic source.

Ad Income

At the time of writing this first blog income report, my website is not earning any ad revenue. Why is that?

Chances are, you already know that placing ads on a site often affects the user experience. Many blogs report slower loading times after ad placement.

However, that doesn’t mean I’ll never use ads as a monetization method. My page views last year weren’t enough for ad networks like Mediavine, and I’ll wait until they are.

With that said, Mediavine doesn’t have to be your choice of a digital advertising agency. You can always use Google Adsense if you want to start earning an ad income.

What is Google Adsense?

Google Adsense is a free program that allows content creators to place media advertisements on their websites. It’s the first place bloggers go to once they decide to begin displaying ads to make money blogging.

Unfortunately, Google Adsense doesn’t pay much, especially if your blog traffic is low. Don’t expect the program to do wonders for your monthly income as a newbie blogger.

Digital Product Sales

Selling your own digital products is an excellent way to earn passive income. Creating your own products requires time and effort, but it will be all worth it in the end:

Once you build a profitable blog, think about a product that will serve your target audience and make sense for your niche. How do you do that?

For instance, if you own a travel blog, you can create an eBook that teaches your readers how to earn a living while traveling full-time. People owning lifestyle blogs can come up with templates, printables, and planners their readers will love.

Use your real life experience and blogging expertise while deciding on a digital product type to create and sell. Popular digital products are online courses, seminars, eBooks, and templates.

Digital product creation takes so much time and comes with an extra cost. That’s probably one of the reasons why I haven’t started with it yet. If you’re ready to do it, selling your products might be the thing that will make a huge difference between your current and previous income reports.

Related Read:

• How To Make Money Selling eBooks

My Blogging Goals

My first blog income report will not be complete unless I share my blogging goals for the near future. Setting up such goals matters a lot for your development as a business owner:

A clear plan will keep you on the right track. With that said, here is what I’ll work towards in the following months:

Increase My Blog Traffic

First and foremost, you have to make at least one sale to be able to write your blog income report. While you can achieve that with low blog traffic, increasing it will make it much easier.

That’s why getting more visitors to your pages always has to be one of your main goals as a blogger. More readers equals more potential affiliate sales – it’s that simple.

In my case, working to attract a bigger pool of readers is always an ongoing process I keep working on.

Diversify My Monetization Methods

Doing affiliate marketing on this blog is one of my best decisions ever. After all, scoring affiliate commissions is why I can write my first blog income report.

But plenty of other monetization methods exist, such as creating digital products, displaying ads, and even getting a lucrative brand deal.

First Blog Income Report Takeaways

1) Blogging For Money Is Possible

Nowadays, thousands of new websites come to life online every single day. So much competition might make you feel like there is no point in starting a blog:

Anything and everything already exists. Subsequently, what could your blog offer to an audience that is not already out there?

I’ll tell you what – you. Yes, there is something your site will have that no other blog has – and that is your unique voice and perspective.

Using that voice to connect with the readers will put you in the perfect position to make money from your blog. As long as you can identify the problems your visitors have and solve them, there is no reason not to earn money as a blogger.

I made my first three affiliate sales a few months after starting this site. At the time, I was getting around 100 page views a month!

2) Success Blog Income Reports Will Help You Set Up Monetization Goals

Quite frankly, blog income reports are rarely just about blogging revenue. More often than not, they show a lot about making affiliate commissions and building a passive income stream.

Looking at a detailed blog income report will assist you with setting up goals for your business.

For example, what affiliate income do you hope to make until the end of the year? Do you see valuable affiliate marketing strategies while reading someone’s blog report you can implement in your business?

Looking closely at such a report will help you evaluate your blogging strategy and adjust it if necessary.

3) First Blog Income Report Will Introduce You To High-Quality Blogging Courses

When a blogger reaches four, five, and even six figures in blogging income, we can’t help but admire that accomplishment. Naturally, you’ll want to see that happening to yourself as well.

Here is the thing:

To become a hugely successful blogger or affiliate marketer, you’ll need to go through top-notch online courses to show you the road to success. Learning from the most successful individuals in your industry is an opportunity you can’t afford to underestimate.

I suggest starting your blogging career with this free online course – it will help you launch your business and learn the craft behind internet marketing at the same time. If you plan to rely on affiliate marketing as a monetization strategy, you can invest in one of these invaluable courses as well:

• 1K A Day Fast Track (Free Webinar)
• Wealthy Affiliate (Free To Join)

First Blog Income Report FAQs

Is Blog A Source Of Income?

Yes, you can turn your blog into a source of online income once you develop it into a profitable online business.

More importantly, your blog can become a passive income stream that will allow you to quit your full-time job, travel the world, and spend more time with your loved ones.

How Much Can I Earn From My First Blog?

Most bloggers make between $500-$2,000 within the first year of starting a website. Your blog revenue depends on different factors, such as blogging niche, monetization methods, monthly page views, etc.

How Much Money Is 1000 Views On A Blog?

Google Adsense and other advertising networks pay between $2 to $15 for 1,000 page views. That means your blog will make between $20 to $150 if you’re getting 10,000 page views a day.

How Long Does It Take To Make $500 Per Month Blogging?

It will take over six months until your blog starts to make $500 a month. Some bloggers hit these numbers faster, while others need more time.

Earning $500 a month depends on your traffic size, monetization strategies, and the competitiveness of your niche.

What Is A Realistic Income From Blogging?

According to statistics, the average blogger makes around $65,000 annually. Of course, your blog revenue will depend on different factors.

How Do Beginner Blogs Make Money?

Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular business models you can use to make money from your blog.

Other ways to earn from your website are selling digital products, doing sponsored posts, and displaying ads on your web pages.

My Closing

Hopefully, my first blog income report will help you on many levels:

It will inspire, motivate, and convince you that making money with a blog is possible.

Remember, don’t be afraid to share your reports, regardless of what your earnings look like right now. You never know who you might help start a blogging journey.

Is there anything you would like to add to this article? How is your blog doing at the moment? Are you surpassing your past income already?

Feel free to share anything you feel like sharing!

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