I’m struggling to believe it’s already mid-November and I’ve just had my best month ever on my lifestyle blog. Why am I in disbelief? Because I’ve barely touched my blog! This is my fourth blog income report for my lifestyle blog, Love Life Be Fit, and this month the income has been completely passive. It’s hard to believe it can be this easy to make money from blogging.
Of course, this income hasn’t come completely out of the blue. I’m seeing the benefits of working on my blog earlier in the year. The posts I updated in September. Work on improving my affiliate posts in August.
It’s just that it may be ideal to work on your blog regularly but it’s not essential. A blog can often survive for several months with just minor updates.
I like to think the work you put into your blog is like investing money in a savings account. Just like interest accumulating, your blog posts will continue to provide revenue month after month and year after year.
Of course, there are no guarantees for how long a post will continue to bring in income and it’s always good practice to keep updating posts to make sure they maintain or improve search engine rankings.
My lifestyle blog relies purely on organic traffic to make an income. No advertising spend or money spent on promotion. I also write all my own posts.
I could probably make a lot more money by outsourcing writing but I’m opting for the easy life. I’m already making a comfortable income, I don’t have to manage other writers, it’s just me and my blog.
It’s good having an empty diary I can fill with the things I want to do rather than be tied down by commitments. So although more content tends to mean more income, I am happy to grow my lifestyle blog at a steady pace.
My lifestyle blog is now 17 months old and it started making $1000+ just after the one-year mark. If you’re an okay writer and can string sentences together, I think this is achievable for most people. It’s so much easier to make money from a lifestyle blog rather than a blog about blogging like this one.
The success of my lifestyle blog depends on a grasp of SEO and providing answers to the questions people are searching for.
Just pick a topic that interests you and write to target your readers. If you’re not sure how to get started blogging, my guide to how to start a lifestyle blog will help!
✅ 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 $3084.19 With My Lifestyle Blog
You can read all about how I grew traffic to my lifestyle blog in my first blog income report. This month my traffic is still growing significantly, up a massive 48% on last month!
Now some of this massive increase is down to one single day in October when a post took off on Google Discover, hitting an incredible 18,611 sessions in one day. Amazing!
So amazing I was on the live chat with my hosting company to check all the traffic was legit. It was and I made a record $661 in one day!
Traffic like this doesn’t tend to last forever but even without this record-breaking day, I was still up 20% on September’s figures.
For October I managed almost 115,000 sessions and over 129,000 pageviews. Wow! These are figures a year ago I barely dared to dream about.
I’d love to tell you I was hard at work in October but it just isn’t true. Instead, I’ve been moving house and barely touched my blog. All I’ve done is update a few old posts but one of the posts I updated brought in a huge amount of traffic on Google Discover.
The gift guides I finished last month have only had a tiny amount of traffic. I’m not hopeful about making money from them this season. At least they will be in position for 2021.
In contrast, the clothing guides I wrote last winter are soaring. All it took was a little updating to get these guides earning money from both advertising and affiliate income. Time really helps.
Blog Income Report For October 2020
Advertising Blog Income
The majority of income for my lifestyle blog continues to be from the premium ad network, Mediavine. I continue to be blown away by the professionalism of Mediavine and how they’re such a great company to work with.
I certainly can’t complain about the income with a payout of $2,633 for October 2020. This is completely passive income.
RPM, revenue per thousand pageviews, was a little down for October. Possibly this was the impact of the US election. It’s hard to know when I’ve only been running ads on my site for five months. So far I don’t know what’s normal.
RPM will always vary depending on your blog sector, the length of your posts, which countries your traffic comes from, and visitor retention. The aim is to keep traffic on your page as long as possible.
With so many variables you can’t compare the RPM of different blogs. What’s good for one blog may be bad for another.
Affiliate Blog Income
I am so chuffed with my Amazon income for October. It’s up 126% on September figures! Yes I know that’s heading into Q4 when more people are shopping for gifts. Yet earlier in the year, I was beginning to think Amazon affiliate income was a complete waste of time.
The truth is you need traffic – lots of traffic to make Amazon Associates work. You also need to write posts that provide solutions to people’s searches and problems.
It’s not difficult, it is time-consuming but it works. There’s a lot more incentive to put in the time and effort when you know you can get results.
For October, most of my affiliate income has come from the guides I wrote last winter and recently updated. My instinct and patience in nudging these guides along and giving them time to make money eventually paid off.
Of course, you can make money from smaller blogs with affiliate income – this blog is a good example, but with Amazon income, high traffic is best.
With a small blog, you need to pick products that really match your audience. This means building rapport and making sure the product is a good fit.
With Amazon, you’re just aiming for the click. It’s a shopping platform your customers already use. They may not buy your recommended products on Amazon but they’ll shop around the site and hopefully buy something.
Blog Income Breakdown For October 2020
Gross Income: $3084.19
Mediavine Advertising Income: $2633.24
Affiliate Income: $449.56
Amazon: $422.12
Other: $27.44
Total Expenses: $394.71
Hosting WP Engine $157
Email Service $15
Stock Images $30
Canva $12.95
Tailwind $179.76*
*My Tailwind cost is an annual fee and includes a booster package for access to Tailwind Tribes. I checked the traffic I get from Tailwind tribes recently and in the last year, I’ve received 82,000 sessions from Tailwind Tribes. That’s an approximate income of $1500 just from adverts. For my lifestyle blog Tailwind definitely pays its way.
Net Profit: $2689.48
Hosting Costs For My Lifestyle Blog
For my first year of blogging, I hosted my lifestyle blog with SiteGround. It wasn’t great. My hosting was slow and I had to upgrade twice because I hit their traffic limits. That did get expensive.
This is one of the reasons I recommend Bluehost for brand-new bloggers. It’s so affordable and easy to set up. I’m hosting my new niche blog on Bluehost.
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. It’s faster and my Google rankings keep on improving. (I’m now using Agathon – it’s even faster and more affordable).
(I don’t recommend Agathon 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.)
Earlier Blog Income Reports
You can read my earlier blog income reports here:
Plans For November
I’m late writing this report so the plan for the rest of the month is to get organized in my new home and get my head around blogging again!
✳️Interested in starting your own lifestyle blog? Follow my start a blog guide and remember I’m here to help!?