Welcome to June’s online income report where I show you how I made money online last month. It’s time to look at this month’s update and track how I did.
If you’re new here, you may be wondering why I would want to publish my income report each month. You can simply skip to the next section if you’re not new here.
This all started out as my extra income report because in the beginning it was all about the money I was earning from my side jobs. In my side income reports from the beginning, I included all of the income I made except for what I made at my day job.
However, I left my day job as a financial analyst in October of 2013 and now my monthly income reports consist of the many ways I earn a living.
Many have asked why I would ever want to publicly post my income each month. Some think I’m crazy, whereas some are glad I’m open about what I’m doing. Whatever you think, I enjoy publishing my monthly online income reports and I share them publicly for three main reasons:
Before I started blogging, I knew nothing about side hustling and making money online. I didn’t think side jobs were worth the effort and I thought the only way to significantly increase your income was through raises at your full-time job. If it weren’t for others publishing their monthly income reports, I don’t know if I would have ever tried side hustling. I want to help show others the positives in side hustling and how it can change a person’s life. There are many different ways to make money online, and I like to share my story each month to help motivate others to improve their financial situation by making more money.
Secondly, I like to publish my income reports because it’s a way for me to look back, learn from my mistakes and actually see what areas need improvement. I use my monthly income reports as a way to track how I’ve done and I treat it sort of like a journal.
Lastly, I like to show others that making side money is possible and that there are many legitimate ways to make money from your home. If you are looking for information on the many ways to make money online, I published the article Monthly Income Report Roundup that showcases many successful bloggers who are kind enough to share their income with the public each month.
I know I say this every month, but it’s the truth. Life is great now that I’m my own boss and a full-time blogger. I look forward to each and every day and it’s a wonderful feeling. I truly love waking up every single morning.
Above are just a few of the reasons for why I enjoy publishing my monthly income reports. I like to show others that you don’t have to hate your job and hate your life. You can make changes to your life and make money in a way that allows you to truly enjoy the life you are living. I’m not saying that you have to LOVE your job, I’m just saying that your job should, at least, allow you to do what you like to do outside of work (whether that be spending time with loved ones, painting, hiking, etc.).
How was my business income in June?
I earned $68,440 online in June, before expenses.
June was another great month in terms of income, work-life balance, and more.
I finally finished my course, and while it was a little tiring and stressful at the end, I am very happy with everything. I’m glad I worked ahead of time when it comes to blog posts because I was able to focus pretty much all of June on writing my course instead of creating content for Making Sense of Cents.
I recommend checking out my online course for bloggers, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. I earn over $50,000 a month through affiliate marketing and I share my exact strategy and tips in this very informative online course. If you’re a blogger, then you NEED this course.
Page views are a little down, but income is still at a great level. This is why I always say that blog income is not 100% dependent on page views.
I do expect income (as well as page views) to go down for around one more month. The summer months are usually a slow time for blogging, affiliate marketing and advertising as everyone is, understandably, enjoying the better weather and school being out. Everything usually resumes towards the end of August, so I’m looking forward to that time.
Anyway, my business is growing, income is increasing significantly, I have tons of awesome ideas for this year, and I am just extremely excited about everything. I really love my business and I don’t know where I would be without it.
The business is doing well and I’m very happy with it. I’ve been catching myself saying “Life is really good” a LOT lately. And, I mean it. Life is really good.
If you are interested in starting a blog of your own, I created a tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own for cheap, starting at only $3.49 per month (this low price is only through my link) for blog hosting. In addition to the low pricing, you will receive a free website domain (a $15 value) through my Bluehost link if you purchase, at least, 12 months of blog hosting. FYI, if you are asking yourself “can you make money blogging?” – my top tip is to be self-hosted. This is essential if you want to monetize your blog as you will appear more professional and this will help you monetize your blog tremendously. My blogging income did not take off until after I switched to self-hosted WordPress.
Breakout of June 2016 income – $68,440.23:
Affiliate income – $52,280.23 total:
Bluehost (check out my tutorial on how to start a blog) – $36,270.00
Survey companies – $11,714.75
MOTIF Investing – $1,104
Ebates – $1,000 (estimate as this is a tiered affiliate program)
Izea/SponsoredTweets – $480.33
Credible – $450
$5 Meal Plan – $209.40
Digit – $155.00
How To Work From Home Selling On Amazon FBA – $110.50
Beautiful Dawn Designs – $93.25
Building A Framework – $90.00
Mystery shopping – $35.00
Miscellaneous affiliates – $568.00 (smaller affiliate earnings from numerous companies)
Sponsorships and advertising- $14,400.00
Display advertising – $1,760.00
Staff writing – $0
The number above is for the month of June and before any fees and expenses (some fees and expenses that lower the amount above total around $2,700 (rounded up), which include virtual assistants, technical assistance, newsletter expenses, graphic design, PayPal fees, etc., however, this does not include taxes) being taken out. Expenses were higher than usual due to costs related to creating and launching my course. After expenses and fees, I made approximately $65,740.
Please keep in mind that I work for myself when you read my monthly income report. This means I have to cover taxes (which are over 30%), health insurance, and all other benefits/expenses that an employer may provide.
Check out The Ultimate Guide To Making Money Blogging for all of the different ways you can make money through a blog.
Below are some of my other monthly online income reports. I publish an online income update every month but only included some of them below as it would be a very long list. If you head on over to my income page you can find all of my monthly income reports from the past few years.
$672 extra in May (2012)
$6,523 in January Extra Income (2013)
$11,927 in October Income – I Finally Left My Job (2013)
$12,640 in January Income (2014)
$23,758 in February Income – My Monthly Online Income Report (2015)
How I Made $300,000 Online In 2015
Comparisons and 2016 online income total:
Total income in June of 2016: $68,440
Total income in May of 2016: $69,085
Difference: -$645
Total in 2016: $375,871
Blog news.
Making Sense of Cents is doing well and I’m very happy with everything.
Overall, traffic dipped slightly due to the summer (traffic always seems to go down in the summer months) and I received around 425,000 page views. I expect to hover around that traffic level until around the month of August.
Below are several blog-related updates:
I released my How To Start A Blog FREE Course. If you’ve been wanting to start a blog, then check this out. I recently created an email course for those who are interested in starting a blog, but haven’t made the leap yet. It’s completely free, and over 2,000 people have already signed up. Thank you to everyone who has sent me kind emails about how great the course is. I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner!
In April, I switched to ConvertKit. Aweber was great, but I’ve been hearing amazing reviews about ConvertKit from several bloggers. The switch has been going very well so far. I never really understood email marketing before, but ConvertKit makes it so easy and now I feel like I’m an expert!
In March, I started using BoardBooster. Tailwind was great, but I needed something that would help me save more time. BoardBooster takes a moment to set up in the beginning, but then it runs very smoothly from there. I highly recommend checking out BoardBooster and using it for your blog! I love how much less time I now spend on Pinterest. Now, I only use Tailwind as a way to schedule other bloggers’ images to my board. Both are great services, so you can’t go wrong choosing one (or both).
Also, there is currently a GREAT Pinterest bonus that you receive if you purchase Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. I learned my Pinterest strategy from Rosemarie at The Busy Budgeter. She is currently selling her Pinterest strategy for $34 (great value!), or you can also get it for free if you purchase Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. Rosemarie is a Pinterest consultant and helps bloggers increase their Pinterest traffic tremendously. Because I am a huge believer in how Pinterest can help you to improve your affiliate income, I asked Rosemarie to share her Pinterest strategy for my course as a guest instructor lesson. I use this same exact strategy for Pinterest, and it has helped to increase my traffic tremendously. This strategy has allowed both her and I to receive hundreds of thousands of visitors from Pinterest each month, significantly improving both of our affiliate incomes.
Also, I have received many questions recently about how I’m staying connected to the internet so that I can work and travel in my RV at the same time. I use a Verizon Mifi and I am able to stay connected pretty much anywhere with it. It really comes in handy because you can’t always trust free wifi. Sometimes free wifi is slow, hard to find, or not safe. I don’t know what I would do without this device!
Top new posts on Making Sense of Cents last month:
17 Personal Finance Books That Will Change Your Life
How Saying “No” to Money is Saving Me Money
How To Find Time To Make More Money
Becoming an RV Family – How We Travel Full-Time With 4 Kids and 2 Dogs
Why You Need To Grow Your Affiliate Income
How To Take A 10 Day Trip To Hawaii For $22.40 – Flights & Accommodations Included
Are These Bad Money Habits Making You Broke?
Featured Question: What is affiliate marketing?
I feature one question from a reader in each monthly income report. Please leave a comment below if you have a question that you would like me to answer.
Affiliate marketing is when you try to earn money by placing an affiliate link on your website, social media account, etc. and have people purchase a product through your link.
An affiliate is a person or business who promotes a product or service offered by other businesses, and you become an affiliate when you promote an affiliate product.
An example would be Amazon book sales, where you link to a specific book on your website and try to get people to purchase the book through your affiliate link. Amazon and other companies want quality affiliates under their belt, because they want all the help they can get to promote the products and services they are selling.
If you get someone to sign up through your affiliate link, you are then rewarded by the company for promoting their product.
This is what is known as a conversion. A conversion is when a person completes a specific action designated by the affiliate program. It may be when someone enters their email address on a company’s website, when they make a purchase, fill out a form, or some other action through your affiliate link.
You can share an affiliate link with your audience in many different ways, such as:
By adding an affiliate link to your blog (you can do this by inserting a link within a blog post, page, email, etc.)
Promoting it on social media
Sharing it in a podcast or webinar
And more!
I recommend checking out my online course for bloggers, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. I earn over $50,000 a month through affiliate marketing and I share my exact strategy and tips in this very informative online course. If you’re a blogger, then you need this course.
Past featured questions:
How do I increase my affiliate income?
Do I need millions of page views a month in order to make money blogging?
How do you build websites up to sell them?
Do only celebrities make money through owning websites?
How much money can a person make blogging?
Where does blog income come from?
Is there enough room for new bloggers to make money?
What should a person blog about?
How can a blogger increase their page views?
Should my blog be self-hosted?
How should I launch a new blog?
What blogging tools or resources do you recommend?
What should you do when a blog post goes viral?
My plans for my website and making money online.
Without plans and goals, it would be very hard to run a business. I believe that working towards a goal can help keep a person motivated.
Below are some of the areas I am currently working on:
Promote more. I am doing much better at promoting my articles and I’m noticing a huge improvement. One area is still Pinterest, and it brought around 150,000 clicks to my blog just in the month of June. I would like to see this number be at 500,000 or higher by the end of the year.
Continue learning. I took a pause in June in this area, but I plan on starting again in a month or two.
Accept more interviews. I took part in a few interviews in June, but for the most part, I have been mainly focused on my course. I do have a few interviews lined up for this month already, though.
Double my income. Yes, I said double. I would love to double 2015’s income and I think it’s possible considering how well 2015 ended. That means I will need to average around $53,000 a month. It won’t be easy, but it will be fun to attempt. Currently, I am well on track with this goal! In fact, in 2015 I earned $320,888, which means that I’ve already made more in 2016 than I made in all of 2015!
Create a digital product. PASS!!! I recommend checking out my online course for bloggers, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. I earn over $50,000 a month through affiliate marketing and I share my exact strategy and tips in this very informative online course. If you’re a blogger, then you NEED this course.
Increase my page views to 1,000,000 each month. I realize this is a superficial goal, but it’s quantifiable and that’s what I like about it. I would like to hit one million page views a month before the year ends. Wish me luck!
Staff writing.
I didn’t write a single staff article in the month of June. I received many emails asking me to staff write, but for the most part, I have been referring these potential clients to other people.
As you can tell, I’m taking staff writing very slowly.
Now, this doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy staff writing. I do enjoy it, but only in limited quantities.
I believe that making this change and focusing more on my blog instead of freelancing has really helped me. Ever since I made the shift to focus on my blog and my own business, I have seen an increase in the amount of income I am earning as well as a better work-life balance. I think this is because I am a lot less scattered now that I have one main focus.
Related articles:
How To Start a Successful Freelance Writing Career
So You Want to Be a Freelance Writer?
How To Become a Virtual Assistant
What Does a Virtual Assistant Do?
Affiliate income.
Overall, I earned $52,280.23 in affiliate income in June, as outlined above.
Affiliate income was nearly the same as the previous month, and consists of a significant part of my business income. It’s something that I really love due to how passive it can feel. It makes full-time traveling much more enjoyable when I know I can bring in an income while having a ton of fun exploring new places.
My affiliate strategy course finally went live on July 5th, 2016. I’ve already had over 150 people sign up for the course, and I’d love to have you as well!
I recommend checking out my online course for bloggers, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. I earn over $50,000 a month through affiliate marketing and I share my exact strategy and tips in this very informative online course. If you’re a blogger, then you NEED this course.
In this course there are 6 modules, over 30 lessons, several worksheets, bonuses, an extremely helpful and exclusive Facebook group, and more. I go through everything that you need to know about affiliate marketing, such as:
What affiliate marketing is and how it works
Why affiliate marketing is great
The exact steps I’ve taken to earn over $300,000 from a single blog post
How to pick the right affiliate products to promote
How to increase conversions
How to build trust and not lose followers
Required disclosures that you need to know about
The one major tool you need for affiliate marketing
Different strategies to use to promote your affiliate products
How to use Pinterest to succeed at affiliate marketing (yes, this includes the newest Pinterest affiliate rules!)
And much, much more!
This course is anything and everything about affiliate marketing. This course is perfect for you whether you are a new blogger or if you’ve been blogging for years, no matter what topic your blog is about, where you live, and so on. I wrote this course so that it would benefit everyone, and there is so much to learn from it!
How was June for you? Are you interested in earning income online?
The post My June 2016 Blog Income Report – $68,440.23 appeared first on Making Sense Of Cents.