I’m finally feeling settled in my new home and starting to get to grips with blogging again. I just love that you can dip in and out of blogging without losing income. This is my fifth blog income report for my lifestyle blog. It’s a fraction down on last month but I’ll go into the reasons in this report. I’m still finding it hard to believe I’ve spent so little time on my blogs these last few months and I’m still making money from blogging.
November is the start of the build up to the holidays and I’ve seen increases in my Amazon affiliate income. It’s still quite a small part of income for my lifestyle blog and there’s lots more I can do to improve this. Next year’s plans include writing more posts specifically targeting user intent – people searching for products and solutions.
December is going to be a bit of a holiday for me. It’s long overdue! I should be blogging to you from Spain right now but all my travel plans have gone to pot this year. I’m just pleased that I still managed to move house. I’ll be having a staycation – my son will be home and we have the English Lake district on our doorstep.
So my big plans for driving my lifestyle blog forward will wait until next year…
✳ For new followers, my lifestyle blog is now 18 months old and it started making $1000+ just after the one-year mark. It started as a project in the summer of 2019 to find out just how easy, (or hard), it is to start a lifestyle blog right now. You can read all about it here.
✅ Ready to start your own blog? My How To Start A Blog in 2021 (The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide) will help you start your blog right now. Don’t put it off – the longer you have a blog, even if it only has a few posts, the more potential it has to make money.
How I Earned $2884.16 With My Lifestyle Blog
This month my traffic took a slight dip. Am I disappointed? No, not at all. My traffic for October was propped up by a viral post on Google Discover, hitting an incredible 18,611 sessions in one day.
Instead I’m just chuffed that my traffic is only slightly down on October.
For November I managed almost 110,000 sessions and over 123,000 pageviews. When you consider how little time I’ve spent blogging these last few months it’s incredible!
Most of this traffic comes from Google, all organic traffic. Only around 10% of my traffic is now from Pinterest. I’ve put less effort into my Pinterest account lately but I’m planning to increase my Pinterest presence in 2021. Just because it makes sense not to rely on only one source of traffic.
Blog Income Report For November 2020
Advertising Blog Income
Yet again the majority of income for my lifestyle blog continues to be from the premium ad network, Mediavine. My payout for November is $2,341.
RPM, revenue per thousand pageviews, is up reflecting the lead up to the holiday period and Black Friday sales.
Affiliate Blog Income
My Amazon income has also increased. Despite being a health and fitness blog, (which tend to do better in January than Q4), I’m still benefiting from people shopping for gifts.
My Amazon earnings are up 28%!
My other affiliate income is negligible. I need a plan to improve this in 2021. Of course I could just concentrate on Amazon earnings but it makes sense to diversify.
Blog Income Breakdown For November 2020
Gross Income: $2884.16
Mediavine Advertising Income: $2341.44
Affiliate Income: $542.72
Amazon: $539.66
Other: $3.06
Total Expenses: $214.95
Hosting WP Engine $157
Email Service $15
Stock Images $30
Canva $12.95
Net Profit: $2669.21
Hosting Costs For My Lifestyle Blog
For my first year of blogging, I hosted my lifestyle blog with SiteGround. I’m no longer with them. The hosting was slow and they have some very restrictive traffic limits. It’s not great when you hit their limits before you start making money from your blog.
This is one of the reasons I recommend Bluehost for brand new bloggers. It’s so affordable and easy to set up. One big advantage is their hosting is geared towards brand new bloggers plus you can grow your blog to 50,000 to 100,000 monthly pageviews without having to upgrade. I’m hosting my new niche blog on Bluehost.
These are affiliate links and I’m an affiliate with Bluehost. This means I receive a commission if you make a purchase through my link, but this is at no additional cost to you. Please read my disclaimer for more information.
✅ Special Offer for Simply Hatch Readers: As I write this post, Bluehost have an offer exclusive to Simply Hatch readers to set up your blog with Bluehost for just $2.95/month including a domain name! This is a 63% saving.
The problem is as your blog gets bigger you need better FASTER hosting. I migrated my blog to WP Engine and it’s really helping to grow my blog.
Next month my hosting costs will go up as I take the plunge and move into WP Engine’s higher tier hosting for sites up to 400,000 sessions. I’ll be going for growth in 2021 to make up for the extra hosting costs!
If you’re looking for new hosting WP Engine will migrate your site for FREE. Mine was up and running in a few hours with practically no downtime.
(I don’t recommend WP Engine for brand new bloggers. It’s a big step up in cost. You can grow your new blog cheaply and easily on affordable shared hosting such as Bluehost. It’s just that when your blog starts to get BIG you need to rethink your hosting needs. This could be a dedicated server with Bluehost but in my case I was already using WP Engine for Simply Hatch – it was the obvious choice for my lifestyle blog).
Earlier Blog Income Reports
You can read my earlier blog income reports here:
- Blog Income Report July 2020
- Blog Income Report August 2020
- Blog Income Report September 2020
- Blog Income Report October 2020
Plans For December
I’m taking a holiday! (Staycation).
As it’s the main gift buying season I’m expecting my income to remain strong!
✳ Interested in starting your own lifestyle blog? Follow my start a blog guide and remember I’m here to help! 😍