And, like many other bloggers, I ended up realizing this process takes an insane amount of time…like, multiple years sort of time (unless you're some sort of marketing guru or SEO god).

Now, as I've shared in many of my blogging income reports before, WebMonkey was stuck at around $500 of monthly income for quite a while. I found it incredibly hard to scale my website, and I could never afford to outsource that much work or to pump money back into growth.

All of that changed the second I got approved for Mediavine.

Within a month, I doubled my blog's monthly income from display advertising and surpassed $20,000 per month!

If you want to learn more about why Mediavine is my favorite ad platform, Mediavine's requirements to join their network, and my tips for getting approved, be sure to read this Mediavine review until the end!

Let's get to it!

What Is Mediavine?

Mediavine is a full service ad management platform that aims to “build sustainable businesses for content creators.”

In a nutshell, Mediavine acts as a website's ad manager, allowing the website owner to focus on content. Once you're approved for Mediavine, you simply have to install its script and let their tech team handle the ads on your website. It's as simple as that.

In return for this service, Mediavine splits advertisement revenue with its publishers. This symbiotic relationship is what has enabled Mediavine to partner with thousands of publishers and become one of the largest ad management services around.

Mediavine has also been in the publishing game since 2004, so they understand where bloggers are coming from. Mediavine brands include The Hollywood Gossip, TV Fanatic, Movie Fanatic, and Food Fanatic.

After Food Fanatic launched in 2013, Mediavine opened the doors for other publishers to come along for the ride.

Mediavine Income Report – My Results After 3 Years

I joined Mediavine in December of 2019. In my first few months, I was able to make over $1,000 per month just from Mediavine display ads. And since then, my Mediavine earnings have surpassed $20,000 a month and let me become a full-time blogger.

In fact, in 2022, WebMonkey made $272,000. Mediavine income accounted for approximately $152,000 of this income.

I made a YouTube video that shares more insight on my Mediavine income report and my other blogging streams. But for some context, here are my all-time stats in terms of Mediavine income as of June 2023:

• Sessions: 8.8 million.
• Mediavine Income: $354,800.
• Mediavine RPM: $40.14.

My Mediavine income has been life-changing. I'm now a full-time blogger thanks to the company, and I now get to travel the world, making money with my laptop, blogging along the way.

I also have to say just how impressed I am with Mediavine's performance and how quickly it scaled my blogging income.

When I switched from Monumetric to Mediavine, my RPM increased significantly and I started making over $1,000 per month in Mediavine revenue. It wasn't long before I was making $10k a month, and more recently, I've passed the $20k a month mark quite handily.

My Mediavine RPM is around $35 to $40 depending on the time of year and what pages people read on my site.

It's been an insane experience to watch the ad revenue grow as my blog scales, and honestly, Mediavine has been the best company to work with along the way.

Its publisher support is incredible, and I always get timely responses when I ask questions over email.

Furthermore, Mediavine continues to innovate, adding new ad optimization settings and other tech to help publishers make more money while keeping readers happy.

I have to say, Mediavine changed my life and helped me create a career, and I truly believe this is the best ad network for bloggers (I'm obviously a bit biased, but still!)

I hope this Mediavine income report inspires you to grow your blog if you're not currently a publisher, or to even scale your traffic if you're currently with Mediavine!

Need help finding winning keywords? I suggest using SEMRush for all your SEO needs.

Mediavine Requirements

Mediavine has several requirements in place to ensure only high quality sites are allowed into the program.

However, Mediavine is not just for massive websites, and I believe it is possible for hobby bloggers to get into this ad network with 1-2 years of smart, hard work.

Traffic Requirements

As of June 15th, 2020, Mediavine has new requirements for publishers looking to join this ad platform. Mediavine now requires 50,000 sessions per month to apply, which is double the previous amount.

This is for applications moving forwards, so if you've already applied and are waiting, you're not subject to these rules.

And, if a website changes ownership, the new owner must re-apply. This is a big deal for anyone considering website acquisition, although clean sites shouldn't have a problem getting in again.

According to Mediavine, recent events have accelerated applications to the point where customer support and existing publisher support was slipping, hence the change.

Mediavine already has 9,000+ publishers and turns down 72% of applicants, so you can only imagine how many applicants they get per month.

Mediavine requirements might seem tough, but they're fair: this traffic restriction is in place to view how engaged a website's audience is, as well as monetization potential (Mediavine needs to make money too, after all).

If you're far-off from these session numbers, I definitely suggest taking a look at my Monumetric review to consider another advertising alternative!

Quality Requirements & Site History

Mediavine considers other metrics besides a simple session count.

Here are some other Mediavine requirements publishers should make note of:

• Original & Engaging Content – The Mediavine support team analyzes your top-performing and recent posts to analyze engagement.
• Clean Traffic – Potential publishers submit a Google Analytics PDF which outlines user acquisition and behavior. This is to remove sites with heavy bot traffic or fraudulent practices from consideration.
• Good Standing With Google Adsense – Mediavine doesn't work with Adsense-banned websites.
• Brand Safety – Mediavine has to protect their advertisers. Therefore, if your site contains anything that could tarnish their image, you won't be accepted. Basically, don't have radical, hateful, racist, or just generally terrible info on your site a brand wouldn't want to touch with a 10 foot pole.

Outside of that, having a high level of organic traffic will help your chances of getting in. This is because organic traffic is naturally more engaged than social media traffic. I suspect that having traffic from premium advertising countries (i.e. North America, Europe) will help as well.

Additionally, your site must be compatible with their ads. This won't be an issue for many WordPress websites or normal themes, but wonky sites might have to make some changes.

How To Apply To Mediavine

One of my favorite parts about working with Mediavine was just how simple everything is on the publishing side of things.

Here are the general steps that take place for becoming a Mediavine publisher:

• Submit An Application – Use this form to apply for Mediavine. This takes a few minutes.
• Send A Google Analytics Report – You'll be asked to send over a specific report from your Google Analytics if you pass step one.
• Partner On Google Ad Manager – Submit consent to let Mediavine to manage your ad inventory.
• Wait For Approval – Mediavine's various ad networks will have to approve your site before you're allowed in.
• Select A Launch Date – Choose when your Mediavine ads will go live!

If you partner with another ad network, be sure to read their Terms of Service before making the switch. Many networks require 30 days notice before leaving, and you don't want to jeopardize your earnings by leaving early, even if it is for Mediavine!

This process was incredibly easy to follow. It took roughly a month and a half from application submission to becoming a Mediavine publisher, which isn't too bad!

And let me stress this: Mediavine has amazing publisher support. I receive amazing responses and help whenever I reach out, and they've been such an amazing company to work with for the last few years.

Other Mediavine Features

Another aspect I love about being a Mediavine blogger is just how much the company continues to innovate.

Mediavine is a massive publishing network, and it keeps coming out with new features to help publishers make more money and nurture their audiences. Here are some of my favorite parts about working with Mediavine:

Mediavine Performance – Website Speed & Dashboard Control

If there's one thing you should know about Mediavine, it's that they are obsessed with speed.

In fact, Mediavine has invested into their tech so heavily and focuses on speed to the point that they claim to be 200% faster than their competition.

Mediavine accomplishes this largely by lazy loading their ads, as well as focusing on optimizing ads for desktop and mobile page speed.

It's also easy to set ad preferences, limits, and to adjust spacing through the Mediavine Dashboard.

The ability to tweak your display advertising frequency and to play around with various speed settings is why I like Mediavine more than any other ad platform (plus the added revenue is awesome).

With Adsense, you have to figure this out yourself. For Monumetric, you have to email their support team. With Mediavine, you just have to check some boxes.

Plus. the Mediavine Site Health Check feature lets you constantly monitor your website to ensure you're ‘staying teal:'

Mediavine Dashboard

I'm editing this post as of 2020-05-07 because the new Mediavine dashboard is absolutely unreal. It wouldn't be a fair Mediavine review if I didn't mention how awesome these new changes are.

First and foremost, the new dashboard now provides a breakdown of RPM by page level:

This is incredibly powerful for boosting your blog revenue and figuring out what's working and what isn't.

As you can see in the post above, there's a huge RPM discrepancy between my post on apps that pay you to workout and my post on trivia apps that pay.

This can vary for a few reasons. Engagement, content, and what advertisers are specifically bidding on all have an impact.

But, having more granular data is always better. With the new Mediavine dashboard, you can now prioritize backlinks and social media promotion for the posts that bring home the bacon.

The new dashboard looks more sleek overall, and there's also a handy RPM by country chart as well:

Ultimately, all of these changes to the new dashboard just give publishers more power and control over how they make money. Pretty awesome stuff!

Mediavine Grow.Me

I'm updating this review one more time because Mediavine recently released Grow.me, a new user engagement suite that's already driving some cool results.

In a nutshell, internet privacy standards are changing. Collecting first-party data, which is data publishers (bloggers) provide to advertisers, is going to become more important to help keep RPMs up and serve relevant ads.

Thankfully, Mediavine's Grow.me is starting to solve this issue by collecting first-party data as third-party cookies are phased out.

This has two implications.

Firstly, you now make more money today since third-party cookies are being phased out on IOS. Secondly, it will enable Mediavine publishers to thrive in the future when privacy standards change.

Anyway, Grow.me has other cool features too, including:

• Letting users favorite your site or specific articles
• Social share icons
• A search bar for your site
• Recommended content

I've enabled Grow.me and have seen some promising results so far in Google Analytics:

It's these sorts of innovations that are why I love being a Mediavine publisher. The internet is a volatile place, but the tech advancements at Mediavine seem to be one step ahead of the game.

Plus, these sorts of plugins and changes are better for user experience, blogger revenue, and privacy laws. Win, win, win!

Tips For Getting Into Mediavine

In my opinion, the best way to get into Mediavine is to consistently create quality content that focuses on SEO. This is how I got into Mediavine, and by publishing long-form blog posts that target specific keywords, I also got another niche site into Mediavine in 2021.

That said, getting to 50K sessions might seem daunting, and honestly, it is…it took me two years to figure out how to do it.

The main tips I can give are similar to ones I have outlined in posts like my Road to $500/Month Blogging:

• Learn SEO – Write content that targets keywords and focus on building backlinks.
• Diversify Traffic – Nail SEO to develop organic traffic, and focus on 1-2 other platforms for additional readers. Personally, I outsourced my Pinterest marketing and used Tailwind.
• Reinvest Your Earnings – If you make solid money from platforms like Monumetric, reinvest the money into more content, outsourcing, better hosting, or something that will benefit your blog. Your website is a business, after all.
• Use Data: When researching what to write about, keyword data is your best friend. Personally, I use SEMRush to find all of my post topics and juicy low-competition keywords.

And, lastly, if you really want to get into Mediavine, I suggest dedicating a month to absolutely push your website if you're sitting around 30,000 to 40,000 page views

In October of 2019, I decided to work on WebMonkey every single night. I published a ton of content, promoted my posts on Reddit, grinded out Pinterest, link-dropped on Facebook groups/Quora, and did whatever I could to reach the sessions

After a month of long nights, it finally worked. If you're getting close to Mediavine's requirements, I say go all-in.

Focus on SEO, great content, and one social media source. The rest comes with time!

Note: I got into Mediavine when the requirement was 25K sessions, but I think the same logic above still applies.

Mediavine Pro & Premiere – Two New Tiers For Bloggers

On August 31st, 2022, Mediavine announced it's releasing Mediavine Pro in October 2022. This new tier is for high-performing, full-time publishers and provides some incredible perks like:

• An 85% base revenue share (doesn't include your loyalty bonus)
• A dedicated Pro Support team
• A private Pro Facebook group
• The ability to add other sites you own to Mediavine with just 25,000 sessions

Your site needs to earn at least $100,000 in Mediavine revenue for the last trailing 12 months to qualify for Mediavine Pro.

Thankfully, WebMonkey meets this requirement. Since I've joined Mediavine Pro, I've noticed an immediate spike in earnings. And I've even made $1,000 a day or more from Mediavine ads alone.

In their announcement, Mediavine also released news about Mediavine Premiere, an even higher tier that provides perks like a 90% base revenue share and annual premiere retreat. However, you need to earn at least $500,000 in Mediavine revenue for the trailing 12 months to qualify.

It's programs like Mediavine Pro and Premiere that make this ad company so amazing to work with. And if you can't qualify for Pro yet, don't sweat! You can set your sites on the $100,000 mark and chip away at it with new energy!

Frequently Asked Questions

Mediavine Vs. Adsense – Which Network Is Best?

In my experience, Mediavine pays significantly more than Google Adsense and is a superior advertising network. I also like that it gives publishers more control and pays a high rpm.

I mention the difference between a managed advertising platform and Adsense in my Monumetric review, but I'll break it down here as well.

If you run Google Adsense on your blog, you will only show ads from companies advertising within the Google ad network.

This has implications for your website's RPMs, or how much you earn in advertising revenue per thousand visitors. This is because running with one single ad network is not as competitive.

I mean, just take a look at my all time Adsense earnings from WebMonkey…it took several months to achieve what Mediavine can produce in 15 days or so (granted I have more traffic now, but my RPM used to be around $7 compared to $28 now).

So, why the difference in RPM?

Well, when publishers opt-in for ads from platforms like Adsense, they're only opening the door to a single pool of advertisers. Additionally, platforms like Adsense ram ads onto your site almost 100% of the time, and don't have much of a bidding floor.

In contrast, Mediavine uses a variety of ad exchanges to ensure that the highest paying advertisers across a wider pool of competition are placing their ads on your website.

Plus, Mediavine doesn't use a 100% fill rate. This means a Mediavine publisher's website doesn't always show ads. In fact, Mediavine's fill rate fluctuates between 70% to 99%, but it's never 100%. 

This is actually a good thing. A 100% fill-rate (which you basically get with Adsense) means that just about anyone can advertise on your website…there's no price floor advertisers have to cross to compete to show ads on your website.

Mediavine implements a pricing floor to ensure that only premium advertisers who are willing to pay well can show ads on your site.

This increases your average RPM and actually results in a much better user experience than clogging your website with tons of lower paying ads absolutely 100% of the time. It's a win-win!

Mediavine Vs. Monumetric – Which Network Is Best?

It wouldn't be a fair Mediavine review if I didn't compare Mediavine to some of the other ad networks I've partnered with.

Obviously, managed ad networks are a step above platforms like Google Adsense. But, there isn't a cookie-cutter solution for what's best for your website.

Personally, Mediavine has emerged as my favorite partner.

Don't get me wrong, I really like Monumetric. I had a great experience with them, and the earnings from their network helped push WebMonkey to a new level.

However, from a revenue perspective, Mediavine is performing twice as well:

The revenue is stable, and the ads aren't clogging my website. Frankly, I'm kind of blown away by how great Mediavine is. Plus, from an onboarding and support standpoint, Mediavine is unmatched.

Granted, Mediavine has some boosted December RPMs, and I am also more aggressive with my ad layout than I was with Monumetric.

Ultimately, I think publishers should try both ad networks to see what works best for them.

Besides, Monumetric only has a 10,000 monthly page view requirement, and I think they're a great company to work with as long as you explain exactly what you want for your site during onboarding.

How Much Does Mediavine Pay Per 1,000 Views?

How much Mediavine pays per 1,000 views depends on your niche, how long advertisers have to get used to your website, and on-page RPM optimization. My historical average RPM is around $40. I've been with Mediavine for just over three years.

Your blogging niche is one of the main factors that determines Mediavine's RPM. This is because advertisers in certain categories pay more on advertisements each quarter than others.

Seasonality also plays a massive role…just check out my near $60 RPM during Black Friday last year:

Based on my experience and everything I've heard, I think any website should see strong RPMs with Mediavine, but again, your niche matters a lot.

Additionally, you can increase your Mediavine RPM by doing things like:

• Writing longer content.
• Adding images to your articles.
• Embedding ads in videos you place in-article.
• Using a theme that supports high-value ads (like your sidebar).

Is Mediavine Free?

Yes. There is no setup fee to join Mediavine.

How Much Does Mediavine Pay?

How much Mediavine pays depends on your traffic level, RPM, and ad settings. Different blog niches pay more than others, and Mediavine also lets publishers tweak their ad settings to show more or fewer ad units per session.

Personally, I scaled my Mediavine income from $1,000 per month to $26,000 per month at my blog's highest point. But I know some publishers who make even more than me, so the sky's the limit.

Ultimately, Mediavine is regarded as one of the highest paying ad networks for bloggers, and this has been my experience as well.

What Is Mediavine's Revenue Share Agreement?

Publishers start at 75% revenue share and increase by 1% for every year they are a publisher as part of Mediavine's Loyalty Bonus up to a max of 5%. However, sites with more monthly traffic use the following percentages:

• 5 million ad impressions in 30 days – 80% rev share.
• 10 million ad impressions in 30 days – 82.5% rev share.
• 15 million ad impressions in 30 days – 85% rev share.

So, if you have a massive site and stick with Mediavine for 5 years, you'll be at 90%, which is nuts. Even 80-85% is pretty high for the display advertising industry.

Also note that you can get higher revenue share percentages through the new Mediavine Pro tier.

Does Mediavine Have A Referral Program?

Nope! Mediavine states they don't want to skew reviews by offering a referral program.

Isn't Mediavine Just For Food & Travel Bloggers?

Mediavine does cater a lot to these two blogging niches through systems like their Create plugin, but this network is not exclusive to these niches. The main Mediavine niches include:

• DIY
• Health
• Fitness
• Fashion
• Travel
• Crafts
• Education
• Finance
• Lifestyle
• Entertainment

However, Mediavine still accepts and encourages sites outside these niches to apply.

Extra Reading – How To Start A Food Blog.

When Does Mediavine Pay You?

Mediavine pays in net 65. Payments are $USD and publishers choose between PayPal, check, wire transfer, or local bank transfer for deposit.

How Many Pageviews Do I Need For Mediavine?

Since Mediavine requires having 50,000 monthly sessions, you probably need 60,000 to 70,000 monthly pageviews to apply. However, this can vary depending on how well you interlink and how many pages your readers view in a single session on average.

What If I'm Not Exactly At 50K Sessions?

Apply if you're close. If you have a strong traffic profile, engaged audience, and are trending upwards, you might be let in.

What If My Site Is Brand New & Went Viral?

From my understanding, Mediavine doesn't really let brand new websites in. Plus, they want to see traffic diversity and to have confidence that you can maintain 50K monthly sessions or more (and aren't just banking on viral posts once a year).

Note, you won't get kicked out if you drop below 25K monthly sessions. However, I'm not sure what would happen if your blog just died.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to making money by blogging, there are a few approaches (or combinations) people use to start generating revenue…affiliate sales, selling products, sponsored posts, and advertisements.

At WebMonkey, running display ads has always been a core component of my monetization strategy. Whether you love them or hate them, ads are simply a part of the online ecosystem at this point.

Plus, when managed properly, ads should help companies promote their products/services to relevant users without significantly detracting from user experience.

Currently, Mediavine is my absolute favorite managed ad network. I can't say anything bad about them, in truth. I just feel lucky to be a part of the publisher network.

For anyone pushing towards Mediavine, hang in there. As long as you keep things simple and produce the best content out there, you'll get there eventually. And, in the meantime, there are other solid options like Monumetric out there that are a great way to make money online with your website.

Hopefully, this Mediavine review has helped clarify why this company rocks, as well as what to expect from the application and onboarding process.

That's all for now. Catch you guys in the next one!

Looking for more money-making ideas? Checkout:

• The Best Online Jobs That Pay You Daily.
• How To Become A Freelance Writer.

The post Mediavine Review – How I Grew My Blog To $20,000+ Per Month appeared first on WebMonkey.

2019 has been an absolutely incredible year. Between major growth for WebMonkey, starting to work remotely, and getting plenty of travelling done, I don't think I've ever experienced so much change in such a short period of time.

I am immensely grateful to every reader and subscriber. Your readership, comments, criticisms, and questions all make blogging that much more rewarding and enjoyable.

I know this blog is just a small and humble piece of the internet, but it's certainly one of my favorite pieces, and that is all because of you.

Since honesty and transparency has always been one of my main goals, I have decided to write another year-end recap post to break down 2019. I am beyond excited for 2020, and I can only hope that the next chapter for WebMonkey is as amazing as 2019 has been.

Time to break down my 2019 blogging income report, wins, losses, and plans for what comes next.

Let's get to it!

Blogging Income Report – Making $7,000 From Blogging In 2019

Since I started blogging, one of my main goals has always been to provide a transparent, honest look at the realities of creating a money making blog. Alongside increasing my own income streams, I've tried to share my own blogging experience with others to provide inspiration and advice.

Now, I'm no pro-blogger, and I haven't always been consistent with my blogging income reports or updates.

However, I think annual blog income reports have value. For new bloggers, I hope these reports can provide some inspiration and tips for how to effectively scale your blog. Similarly, for more experienced bloggers, perhaps there is a tip or trick regarding blog monetization you have not tried yet!

I earned $1,761 from my first year of blogging.

In 2019, I earned approximately $7,000 to $7,500 (there are some 12-month referral programs paying out, hence the range).

It was truly a crazy year of Google updates. Plus, with a site redesign, new ad networks, and a bunch of other changes, it definitely wasn't a smooth ride.

Now, I already broke down some recent blogging income in my post on if blogging is worth it. 

However, I'm going to share some year-end revenue screenshots to show the various ways I monetize WebMonkey.

Broadly speaking, I monetize WebMonkey in 4 ways:

• Display advertisements.
• Affiliate sales.
• Sponsorship deals.
• Medium syndication.

Let's dive into each income stream with a bit more granularity.

Blogging Advertisement Revenue

Ads are by far the easiest and most straightforward way to make money blogging.

If done properly, I believe ads don't significantly detract from user experience. Plus, advertisement revenue is a great way to build a foundation of income that you can use to reinvest into your website.

In 2019, I used 3 different advertisement networks to make money.

The first was Google Adsense, which earned slightly over $500.

I think Adsense is a great way for beginner bloggers to get their first taste of making money online. 

However, premium, managed advertising solutions can generate way more revenue and provide a better user experience than manually placing your ads.

After I switched to Monumetric, my second advertising network, in April, I saw a near 400% increase in blogging revenue just like that.

In total, Monumetric earned approximately $2,627 in 2019 (plus another few hundred dollars that will trickle in over the next 12 months due to referral bonuses).

Monumetric requires 10K monthly pageviews and a decent amount of organic traffic to be accepted. However, I urge anyone who is near that threshold to apply. The boost in revenue absolutely transformed growth for WebMonkey, which I'll get into in a bit

Finally, I switched from Monumetric to Mediavine for my third and final advertising platform at the start of December.

Mediavine requires 25K monthly sessions in order to be accepted. I've been trying to get into Mediavine for nearly two years, and that goal is finally complete!

It took a very sweaty, cabin-fever inducing month of grinding in October to get the job done, but hey, we made it!

In less than 30 days, Mediavine has already earned more than $900 USD, which is absolutely insane! I know that Q4 RPMs are elevated due to Black Friday and Christmas, but damn, consider me impressed!

The Mediavine team has been absolutely incredible in terms of onboarding and support. I'm really looking forward to a strong 2020 of ad earnings as a Mediavine publisher, and I hope the increased monthly revenue will open up plenty of opportunities for growth.

Extra Reading – My Mediavine Review + Tips For Getting Accepted.

My one tip for other bloggers: use advertisement revenue to reinvest into your website!

Getting into Monumetric transformed WebMonkey. I was able to pay for a site redesign and a Pinterest virtual assistant. Thanks to Mediavine, I will soon be hiring a writer to help out with additional content.

It might be tempting to use 100% of your earnings to pay the bills or invest.

While I think hobby bloggers should enjoy some of the fruits of their labor, you must always remember to treat your blog like a business if you want to continually grow.

For even more information on the topic of making money with a blog, be sure to checkout my YouTube channel and this video on how I now make over $1,000 per month from blogging.

Affiliate Income

I've always sucked at affiliate marketing. I just find it difficult to recommend various products/services (even when I use them) without ramming them down people's throats.

However, 2019 has shown a lot of improvement in the affiliate marketing department. I only made around $600 from affiliate sales in 2018, but more than tripled affiliate income for 2019.

In total, affiliate sales for WebMonkey totaled over $2,200.

Additionally, I've increased the diversity of programs and companies I promote, and started to figure out more effective ways to drive conversions. I won't share absolutely every screenshot or program here since I covered some in that previous post like I mentioned.

However, I will share the main breadwinners.

As with 2018, referring users to Shopify proved to be a fairly consistent earner:

My dropshipping guide doesn't even get that much traffic anymore. I think this shows that even a low-traffic post can still be valuable if the content is top-notch, honest, and worth people's time.

FlexOffers showed way more growth this year than 2018, and I'm finally getting a hang at promoting some of their lower-paying but higher converting merchants. Some of the income is still pending, but I've found that most conversions pay out so I'm not too worried.

I used a variety of other affiliate networks (Amazon, She Is Media, Aragon) and earned a few additional hundred dollars.

My post on starting an Etsy dropshipping store allowed me to promote Printify, which generated an additional $400+ from a single store that really took off. 

Finally, bits of income from referring users to start their own blog with SiteGround, and various other affiliate programs, brought in the rest.

Two main takeaways + tips for other bloggers.

Firstly, I think it's important to strike a balance between diversity and focus when it comes to promoting affiliate offers.

Personally, I hate reading a blog that promotes Bluehost every other sentence. Similarly, articles that lists 101 offers or use massive affiliate blocks every other paragraph aren't fun.

Secondly, the main lesson I learned throughout 2019 regarding affiliate marketing is to play around with your landing page styles.

After I made an affiliate pillar post for ways to earn free money and signup bonuses, I saw an immediate bump in revenue. I can funnel Pinterest traffic to it all day long to this listicle and expect around 1-2% of people to convert on something.

Keep testing things. Try new article styles, review posts, email marketing, or something different if you're stuck. Just be sure to remain honest and show integrity when recommending offers!

Sponsorship Deals

There really isn't much to say here for this section of the blogging income report.

I receive several weekly offers to promote products, sell links, or write review. 99% of them are for terrible companies or don't fit this niche, Most requests also ignore the rules I have set in place on my ‘Work With Me' page.

In 2019, I earned roughly $500 from sponsorship posts and deals. The bulk of this income came from my Emperor Investment Review. 

I'm looking forward to working with more brands in 2020, but only if they make sense. If I could give one piece of advice to other bloggers, it would be to tread carefully when dealing with sponsorship arrangements.

Sponsorship income is so easy to come by. In contrast, it only takes one incorrect or greedy recommendation to destroy your reputation forever.

Writing On Medium

I've always been a proponent of syndicating blog content on Medium.

Republishing content on Medium is free. Plus, making money on Medium is pretty easy nowadays, especially since they changed their payment algorithm to be based on read-time rather than claps.

In 2019, my Medium writing earned $520, mostly from posts I had already written on WebMonkey.

December was a particularly strong month ($200+) due to the algorithm change and my article on how to build wealth in your 20's being featured on The Startup, Medium's largest publications.

My only advice for making Medium work for you is to just start.

I don't put much time into Medium. However, it's an incredibly strong platform, and a single viral story there can result in months of steady passive income and exposure for your own blog.

Blogging Expenses

It wouldn't be a true blogging income report or worthwhile recap if I didn't mention the costs associated with running WebMonkey.

Here are my blogging costs for 2019:

• SiteGround hosting – $255.
• Pinterest virtual assistant – $829.
• Tailwind for Pinterest – ~$200 (this will be reduced in 2020 since I am dropping one of my Tribe PowerUps).
• Website redesign – $1,200.
• Random Fiverr + freelancer work (new logo, SEO help, Pinterest templates, a guest post) – $300.

Total blogging expenses = $2,784.

Learning how to reinvest into WebMonkey has been a challenge. However, I am increasingly learning the importance of delegating tasks and outsourcing work that is too time consuming or, in all honesty, trivial for you to handle as an owner.

I used to do all Pinterest work and graphic tweaks for the website. I sucked at both, and the results showed.

Pick your battles. Generate revenue from ads or affiliate offers, and don't be afraid to funnel some back in for growth. The results are often worth it.

I mean, just take a look at how WebMonkey's Pinterest presence continues to develop. I would never have the time or knowledge to do this on my own, so I decided to outsource it all.

Blogging Growth & Traffic

As any blogger will know, 2019 has been a roller coaster when it comes to organic traffic.

A slew of Google algorithm updates hammered and pumped up WebMonkey throughout the year. I was basically dead in the water in terms of organic traffic around June/July, but have since rebounded and continued to grow:

For anyone struggling with SEO or gaining organic traffic, here are my suggestions:

Stick with what you know – my blog posts on phone farming, Medium, and passive income apps are still my top performing posts because I lived and breathed this stuff for all of college. Write about what you know to have a competitive advantage.

Learn basic SEO – Read voraciously, subscribe to SEO news, and pay attention to the general chatter surrounding algorithm updates.

Write regularly, but focus on value – Google is becoming more competitive, and the only advantage small publishers have is in their quality. Go to a level of depth a salaried staff writer for a major publication cannot afford to go, and you'll win.

Backlinks are king – Write guest posts as often as you can, and focus on link building to your top articles to help move them higher on Google and protect their ranking.

Additionally, if you do get hammered by an update, take a step back and focus on the basics.

I was hit with two updates this year, and both times, I suspected it had to do with user experience and a lack of trustworthiness/backlinks.

I redesigned my website, added more comprehensive privacy/disclosure/about me pages, and focused on link building. 6 months later, it all turned out alright!

Favorite Reads & Watches

I included some of my favorite personal finance bloggers and reads in my 2018 blog report, and I want to keep the tradition going!

I was fortunate to meet an incredible number of people this year, both online and offline, and that's honestly one of the coolest things about blogging. I've also stumbled across some truly incredible personal finance websites this year, and have continued to read old favorites.

Wallet Wise Guy

The world really works in mysterious ways sometimes.

I decided to spend part of 2019 down in Florida. As it turns out, my decision to head down there would have me cross paths with Clint Proctor, one of the coolest and nicest guys I have ever met in my life.

Clint runs the blog Wallet Wise Guy. If you're looking for genuine, solid personal finance advice geared for younger adults, you need to check out this website and subscribe. Wallet Wise guy covers everything from side hustling to managing debt, and the quality/honesty of the content is what impresses me the most.

Outside of being on Clint's podcast, I was also lucky enough to learn an incredible amount about how to develop a freelance writing career and the mindset you need to take your writing to the next level. To say I am grateful for heading down to Florida would be an understatement.

Ben Leavitt

I actually met Ben when I was back in college, and he's one of the hardest working and genuine people I know.

I have also been lucky to feature Ben's story about starting a successful Podcast here on WebMonkey. Ben isn't a blogger, but he definitely has a killer YouTube channel and podcast.

Ben's videos cover social media marketing, entrepreneurship, and podcasting, so I highly recommend subscribing to his channel and podcast if you want to take your side hustle to the next level in 2020.

Dollar Sanity

I mentioned Dollar Sanity in my 2018 blogging recap post, but I couldn't omit it from this list either.

When I first connected with Peter in 2018, it was to write a guest post on his website about phone farming. I didn't know it at the time, but Peter would go on to teach me 90% of what I now know about growing a blog, networking, and monetization.

Dollar Sanity is simply a great blog with some very talented writers. Forget the bullshit or fluff – the content here is honest and a fun read. I highly recommend checking out some of Peter's more personal stories as well or any content covering business and making money online.

Finsavvy Panda

I was also fortunate to get to know Ling, the blogger behind Finsavvy Panda, this year.

Talking with Ling online about blogging was actually incredibly refreshing. We have similar blogs, and we even compete on some keywords for several of our articles.

Despite this competition, however, Ling has never hesitated to share advice or to talk shop when it comes to blogging. Plus, her blogging income reports and informative articles on ways to make money online are pretty killer, so I highly recommend giving her website a read!

Vital Dollar

I've been lucky to connect with Marc, the owner of the blog Vital Dollar, in 2019, and his website is definitely one of my new favorites.

Outside of teaching me some valuable lessons regarding SEO and managing a blog, Marc just writes awesome content. If you want to find practical ways to make or save more money, I strongly recommend adding Vital Dollar to your reading list for 2020!

Bible Money Matters

Peter, the owner of Bible Money Matters, has been blogging for a very long time.

However, unlike many older blogs that fall by the wayside, sell out, or lose quality as the grow, Bible Money Matters is a refreshing and impressive oasis of valuable personal finance information.

You don't need to be religious to gain value from this blog. Bible Money Matters encompasses the slogan ‘Give More, Save More, Live More,' and that's a worthwhile slogan to live by if you ask me.

If you're on the lookout for comprehensive reviews and honest personal finance advice, I'd add this blog to your list.

Eat Sleep Breathe FI

When it comes to Financial Independence, I think there are plenty of blogs and reading options out there.

However, Eat Sleep Breathe FI, run by a fellow Canadian blogger Chrissy, is one of my favorites. On her blog, Chrissy publishes plenty of honest and practical content relating to financial independence.

Plus, Chrissy is a co-host for the podcast Explore FI Canada (which is pretty awesome). If you're a Canadian, I definitely recommend checking this podcast out, as well as Chrissy's blog!

The Future Of WebMonkey & 2020 Goals

2019 was undoubtedly the craziest year of my life.

The start of the year was not a high-point. Between sleeping on a soggy mattress in my friend's basement after ending a relationship (classic lol) and having no idea what I really wanted to do in the future, I'm truly grateful for how everything turned out.

2019 was also a year with a lot of ‘firsts.'

I started working remotely for the first time. I got accepted into Mediavine, connected with dozens of other awesome bloggers, and also landed my first ever freelance writing clients.

Somehow, I was even able to attend QuickBooks Connect Toronto to help cover the event as a blogger! The experience of getting to meet business owners, accountants, and some very cool companies in the online payment processing space was awesome. Plus, I got to walk around with a camera as if I knew what I was doing! Pretty sweet!

Anyway, if there's one thing 2019 has taught me, it's this: we are in control of the life that we build.

I don't write blogging income reports to brag. I'm so immensely grateful for everyone who reads this blog, and making a few thousand dollars from a blog isn't anything groundbreaking when you consider how many massive websites there are.

However, if you're still reading, I hope these sorts of annual blog updates at least provide a bit of inspiration or useful advice on how to improve your own side hustle or career.

It has never been more feasible to change careers, start a side hustle/business, or to improve your finances and overall quality of life.

It doesn't matter if it's the gig economy, blogging, or nothing at all (not everyone has to have a side hustle). As long as you actively look for ways to improve as an individual and work hard/honestly, things always work out.

So, what's next for WebMonkey and 2020 in general?

Here are some exciting plans and goals!

• Blogging income – Scale to $20,000 (I figure Mediavine can do about 12K-15K and the rest will hopefully come from affiliate and sponsorship deals).
• Launch a course – I have a few ideas for what I want to create/how I want to position a course, so stay tuned!
• Start YouTube – I want to diversify traffic and YouTube also looks super fun. Goal: 10K subscribers by year end.
• Freelance income – Full-time income from writing. Stay tuned for some exciting updates/a new series on this front
• Travel – There's at least 5 countries on the list for 2020, but this is more up in the air. Plus, I'll be attending FinCon 2020, so see you there!

Anyway, that's my 2019 in a nutshell and some goals for the future.

If you're still here, leave a comment for what you're chasing in 2020.

Thank you to everyone who continues to support WebMonkey. I wish you nothing but happiness, health, and success for the decade ahead.

Catch you guys in the next one (see you next decade hahaha!).

The post Blogging Income Report – How I Made $7,000+ From Blogging In 2019 appeared first on WebMonkey.

This is a fair question. After all, people have been blogging for decades. And there's tons of new media forms out there that are much flashier and trendy.

But as a full-time blogger, let me tell you: starting a blog is still worth it in 2023 and beyond, but only if you do it the right way.

So, let's dive into why I think this business model is still profitable, what the pros and cons are, and how to decide if blogging is for you.

Is Blogging Worth It?

Blogging is worth it if you want to create a diverse digital asset that can increase your income, teach you new skills, and help you start a new career. However, blogging isn't worth it if you need quick cash since it can take months or years to turn a blog into a business.

The reality is that blogging is tough work. And here's a personal example.

It took me three years of consistent blogging before my income crossed $1,000 a month. But in 2022, WebMonkey made $272,000. And it's on track to pass $600,000 in 2023.

As long as you can build an online audience for your blog, it's worth it. And don't think that blogging isn't popular anymore or that it's impossible to turn into a business.

In fact, according to data from SEMrush, long-form blog posts are still one of the most profitable forms of content marketing. So, starting a blog is worth it if you pick the right niche, stay consistent, and continually improve.

How Blogging Changed My Life

In 2018, I was finishing my second year of college. I was also working at a digital marketing agency, and upon graduation, I was looking at a job paying about $45,000 in my field.

I decided to start WebMonkey in 2018 to document my journey of making money online. And in my first year, I only made $1,700 blogging.

At first, it seemed like blogging was a flop. And even my girlfriend at the time told me to quit and didn't like how much time I was spending on my website. Some things never change, I guess!

Anyways, I decided to stick with my blog, and my income and knowledge continued growing. Fast forward a few years, and blogging now makes $20,000 per month or more for me. I also earn money with my laptop while traveling the world as a digital nomad, and have lived on six different continents.

I wanted to share my blogging journey since it highlights how this business model can change your life. And this is the fundamental reason I'll always believe that blogging is worth it.

My Top 8 Reasons To Start A Blog

If you're wondering if you should start a blog or not, here are some of the top benefits you might want to consider:

1. Generate Income

One obvious benefit of blogging is that it can help you earn more money. And this was one of my main motivations for starting my blog back in 2018.

Personally, I like blogging since it has numerous ways to monetize, including display ads, affiliate marketing, sponsorships, online coaching, and selling digital products.

My blog makes most of its income with Mediavine display ads and affiliate marketing. And some months, I make $10,000 a week through affiliate marketing alone.

A lot of this income is also passive income; it comes from content I wrote years ago. And this is one of the most unique and exciting elements of blogging in my opinion.

2. Learn New Skills

I didn't know anything about digital publishing when I started my blog. But turning a blog into a business forces you to learn.

Some of the main skills you can expect to learn include:

• Affiliate marketing
• Content writing
• Email marketing
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Social media marketing
• WordPress design

These are the kinds of skills that can help you land new online jobs as well, or advance your career. In fact, I've started numerous digital marketing side hustles thanks to these blogging skills, and this income helped me a lot during college.

3. Blogs Are Still Popular

As mentioned, content marketing is still one of the most popular forms of marketing. It's highly profitable as well when done right.

The reality is that a ton of the web is blog content. In fact, 76.2% of all websites use WordPress according to data from W3Techs.

Yes, the demand for video content is growing. And people want more multimedia options than ever before. But this doesn't mean high-quality blog content can't add value to people's lives and build an audience.

4. Expand Your Network

Another reason to start a blog is to grow your professional network.

Networking with other bloggers happens naturally if you follow some fellow bloggers on social media. You can also attend conferences and conventions to meet like-minded entrepreneurs.

I've made heaps of blogging connections over the last 5 years. This has helped me land new freelancing gigs, jobs, and also helped me learn valuable skills while having a lot of fun.

5. Blogging Helps You Launch New Businesses

One of my favorite benefits of blogging is that you can leverage it to start new businesses.

This is exactly what I did when I started my YouTube channel; I used WebMonkey to promote it, and I now make money on YouTube and with my blog.

My YouTube channel now makes money on autopilot. And the best part is both my blog and YouTube channel promote one another now, so they each benefit.

You can do the same thing. Start a blog first, and then leverage your audience to branch into eBooks, podcasts, online coaching, print on demand selling, or some other business entirely.

6. Low Startup Costs

Blogs are an incredibly affordable business to start. And I'll share a personal example again.

I started WebMonkey with a $20 domain name, a $45 WordPress theme, and some basic hosting from SiteGround. This cost under $200 for my first year.

You don't need to spend thousands of dollars to start a blog. And you can always reinvest your earnings to begin scaling. This is what I've done, and I now outsource a lot of content writing and website design elements and have grown my blogging team over the years.

Extra Reading – The Best Side Hustles To Start With No Money.

7. Become A Better Writer

One more reason to start a blog is to simply become a better writer.

Blogging is competitive, so you need to create high-quality content that helps readers to win. This inherently makes you a better writer and content marketer, which is pretty neat!

Plus, blogging can help you branch into gigs like freelance writing or editing. This is what my blog has helped me accomplish, and I've written for dozens of publications, including Forbes, as a result.

Pro Tip: Check out my new Freelance Writing For Freedom eBook to learn the exact steps I took to scale from $0 to $100,000+ in annual freelance writing income.

8. AI Tools Make Blogging Easier

The year 2023 has been a massive year for AI developments. The introduction of ChatGPT alone has sent the blogging world scrambling.

But while some people think blogging is dead and these AI changes are bad news, I disagree. Quality content is still important, and AI writing tools just help bloggers and freelancers save time.

If anything, this is great news if you're thinking about starting a blog but don't have as much free time. You can now use tools like ChatGPT, or Koala, which is my personal favorite, to create rough content for your blog.

This is what I'm doing on one of my niche Amazon affiliate blogs. As you can see in the screenshot above, it's humming along at $100 in monthly commissions some months, which isn't bad for a small niche site test.

Just make sure you edit your content to make sure it's high quality and makes sense. But if you're strapped for time, you can still start a blog and publish consistently if you work efficiently.

What Are The Downsides Of Blogging?

Now that I've covered some popular reasons you should start a blog, here are some of the main downsides that are also worth considering:

• Competition: Blogging is competitive, especially in popular niches. This means you need to establish yourself as an authority in your chosen niche, which is easier said than done.
• Scaling Time: Due to competition, making meaningful income with a blog can take months or years. It took me 4+ years to go full-time, after all. So, if you need quick money, don't choose blogging.
• Industry Updates: Google and other search engines have algorithm updates all the time. Social media trends can change too. This means building your blogging traffic can be a bumpy ride that isn't always easy or stress-free.
• YMYL Topics: Some topics, like finance and health, are considered Your Money Your Life topics by Google. This means you need to have some serious credentials and authority to realistically build an audience in these niches, which again takes time.

Is Blogging Still Profitable?

Blogging is still profitable, and the low start-up and operating costs of running a blog also means it can be a high-margin business. However, most blogs need a large audience to make a full-time income and to run profitably.

However, this doesn't mean you can't run a small niche blog at a profit and put the extra money towards your savings. And plenty of beginner bloggers can make decent money, even if it's not full-time income.

Just check out this survey from Digital Nomad Wannabe that asked 600+ bloggers about how much they make:

As you can see, half of all bloggers are making between $0-$200, but 10.6% make upwards of $500. This lines up with a lot of my experience at WebMonkey as it took 17 months for me to hit the $500 a month mark in blogging income:

Data from the survey showed that only 14.9% of bloggers earned more than $5,000 a month, with a meager 1.9% earning more than $20,000.

So sure, most bloggers don't make tens of thousands of dollars per month. But this doesn't mean you can't run a profitable blog if you do it right.

Should You Start A Blog?

So, should you start a blog?

Well, I think the answer largely depends on your goals and interests.

If you want to build a business that can run itself and generate life-changing income, blogging is for you. I also think blogging is worth it if you like writing and content creation and want to sharpen your digital marketing skills.

Furthermore, if you're already a niche expert in your chosen niche, you're ahead of the game. Having credentials, authority, and real life experiences can help you hit the ground running and gain an edge over the competition.

That said, don't start a blog if you need to make money quickly. It took me 17 months to pass the $500 a month mark with WebMonkey, and a lot of blogs never make significant income.

If you fall into the “need quick cash” camp, I think you're better off using various gig economy apps or freelancing. But this doesn't mean you can't diligently work on your blog on the side to scale it into an income stream.

In any case, I hope sharing my story helps you decide if blogging is worth it. My final piece of advice is to take the leap if you're on the fence. After all, you never know where a blog can take you if you put in the effort and remain consistent.

Want even more ways to make money? Checkout:

• The Best Low-Maintenance Business Ideas.
• The Best Jobs That Pay $5,000 A Month.

The post Should I Start A Blog? – My Top 8 Reasons To Start Blogging In 2024 appeared first on WebMonkey.

The idea of being able to work remotely and to make money from a blog is certainly an alluring one, and I'd argue this is why many people decide to get into blogging alongside the fact that blogging is just a tonne of fun.

I've made an effort to create transparent income reports on WebMonkey to track growth and inspire others, and series like my Road to $100 Blogging Income A Month have set (I hope) a decent foundation for anyone who is just starting out.

However, I have 0 idea about what it takes to blog for a full-time job. I'd also argue that many of the top income reports from six figure sites are from bloggers who have been blogging for so long they have lost touch with what it's like to be a beginner.

So, if you've ever wondered how you can actually take a blog from a beginner to intermediate level and make the leap to full-time, this is the post for you.

I'm incredibly excited to have Shruti from Indian Girling to break down how she recently became a full-time travel blogger.

Keep in mind, Shruti started her blog around the same time I started WebMonkey…it's safe to say that she is absolutely killing it while simultaneously providing an immense amount of value to her readers about how to effectively monetize and grow a blog while travelling the world.

Time to let Shruti take over with her incredible story about how she scaled to a full-time blog in under two years.

Let's get to it!

Extra reading – Check out the 5 previous entrepreneurs in the Young Money series!

About Shruti:

Hi! My name is Shruti Pangtey. I’m a full time travel blogger and online entrepreneur. I was born and raised in India and had a traditional childhood where getting good grades was valued above all else. 

I studied economics as my major during bachelors and went on to do an MBA straight after.

During my MBA, I had the chance to spend two semesters abroad. One semester was in Indonesia and the other one was in Poland. Having never traveled that far alone, I was positively bitten by the travel bug. 

After finishing graduate school, I worked with a both big multinational company and startups for two years, until I realized I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life.

I wanted my life to be about more than a 9-5 job.

I wanted more control, more travel, more freedom.

Realizing this made me pack up my life and move to Germany for a second master degree. I figured this would give me enough time to travel, learn a new language, and hone in on what I really want to do in life. 

What Side Hustle Did You Start?

After moving abroad in late 2016, I wanted to be able to share my adventures with my friends and family back home.

As far as I knew, I was the only person from my circle of friends who had chosen to move to Germany. As you probably know, most Indians head to the US, Canada or the UK to study and work, so I was quite the odd one out. 

The desire to stay connected made me start an expat blog in 2017, and I worked on it during my free time. It wasn’t until I accidentally had a post go viral on Facebook and reached 20000 page views in a week that I realized I had a voice! 

I realized I had so much potential to create an impact with fellow millennials around the world. However, having come to the end of my “expat advice” as a blogger, I realized there was one thing I was more passionate about, and that was travel.

The Second Blog:

The desire to write about travel made me start my second blog in July 2018, and this was the start of Indian Girling.

I focused this blog on my travel tips for Europe and a bit of life in Germany.

I knew traveling to Europe is such a dream for people around the world, and I wanted my blog to be the go-to Europe travel planning resource. I also wanted more people from developing countries to be able to explore the beautiful continent that I now call home.

Extra Resource – Checkout SiteGround if you're thinking of starting your own blog and want affordable hosting!

Blogging Results:

I had started my second blog in the hopes that I would one day be able to monetize it.

I also wanted to make sure I didn’t make the 100 mistakes I made with my first blog. You can say that this was true start of my “side hustle”.

At this point, I was still finishing my master, learning German, and working 20h/week to pay for my living expenses. So, I basically spent every weekend and free hour I had working on my blog. 

In the first six months, I didn’t see massive growth. However, I was busy with reading, studying, and educating myself about how I could convert my blog into a business.

After six months, I hit a point where my traffic started to grow thanks to my new found Pinterest marketing expertise, and I started to cross tens of thousands of page views a month. A big turning point was when I hit 40000 page views in a single month and qualified for Mediavine.

Even before I hit this point though, I had read and found that digital products were the way to go.

Having dabbled a bit in product sales myself, I found this to be a good fit for my personality and I decided to give it a try.

I launched a travel ebook to my email list and made $200 in a single day. This was absolutely monumental. 

You see, as a blogger, you often have to wait months if not years to make $200 in a day. And here I was, with a product that I put together in 6 free weekends, that made me $200 in 24 hours.

I was hooked!

I started to experiment with more digital products, and along this way I had also found a passion for teaching other bloggers how to use Pinterest to grow their traffic.

I made my course Pinterest Traffic Explosion and pre-sold the course to a small list of 100 bloggers. This made me $600 in a weekend. 

Looking back, I started out with zero revenue in July of 2018, and by the next summer I was averaging $1000/month using various monetization methods. My main methods of monetization include ads, affiliates and digital products with a few sponsored posts sprinkled here and there, but it adds up!

Wins & Losses:

The biggest win so far has been to be able to help over 40+ bloggers grow their Pinterest following by using my marketing strategies and see how successful they have been after using my course. In terms of income, I had a month recently where I made over $3000 and I was on holiday for two weeks of the month. 

For me, THIS WAS IT.

A career where I could have location and financial freedom while still being able to impact a ton of people. 

Shortly after, I decided to quit my day job and jump into blogging full-time. I’m now a full-time blogger and online entrepreneur. 

The biggest loss (or learning, as I like to call all my failures) was initially thinking that just because a monetization strategy works for someone else, it does not mean it will work for you.

Affiliate marketing, while all the rage, just doesn't scale that fast in my niche. 

You have to realize that there is no custom monetization strategy that fits every blog.

You have to be willing to experiment, listen to your audience, and find a way that best helps them all the while still growing your income. This realization made me pivot my focus from affiliate marketing and focus more on ads and products.

I am also guilty for trying to do too many things at the same time. When it comes to make money with a blog, it is SO important to focus on 1-2 things each month and to exclusively work on them before you make any conclusions or rule anything out.

What Advice Do You Have For Other Bloggers?

As a new blogger who is learning the ropes of a non-traditional career, I believe it is hard to stay consistent when you don’t see immediate growth. Add friends and family who do not understand your passion at all to the mix, and this becomes as much a mindset challenge as anything else.

I believe the thing that kept me going was connecting with other bloggers and seeing their success online.

I knew that it wouldn’t happen overnight or even in a year, but as long as I was consistent, invested in myself, and treated my blog as a business, things would work out. 

As a business woman with a startup background, I am very well aware of what scaling a tech business looks like: years of hustle with no pay or profits.

I believe having this mindset where I don’t expect instant gratification has been key to growing my blog into a business in a short period of time.

If I had to look back and give one piece of advice to my past self, it would be to invest in your blog.

I went into $40000 in debt over my MBA, but when it came to $100 for an e-course, I hesitated.

There are people out there who are miles ahead of you and can teach you how to fast-track your audience and income.

Learn from them.

Make a “l(fā)earning budget,” and use that to buy books, courses, or even coaching (if you can afford it).

It doesn’t matter if you can only afford to spend $10 a month, just do it. I promise you it will come back manifold. Listen to podcasts, watch videos, talk to other bloggers, but always keep learning.

This industry moves fast and you gotta keep up if you want to grow!

Final Thoughts:

I want to thank Shruti for taking the time to share her amazing blogging journey for the 6th Young Money interview (these interviews are coming in quick eh?)

While many bloggers start with dreams of monetization, I think it can be hard to keep focused during the grueling hours of work and early stages where zero revenue is coming in,

However, I think it's critical that bloggers remember some of the realizations Shruti has outlined.

Starting a blog is like building a startup. You will not make significant income in the early stages, and sweat equity is what you need to put in to get things up and running.

Additionally, you need to view your blog like a business. Investing into better hosting, SEO, social media marketing, or content is what will drive growth.

I've just recently had the same realization, and I'm now outsourcing all of my Pinterest marketing and looking to improve site speed and content production. While it might be tempting to take your blog earnings and to funnel them towards grocery money, there's also value in funneling your revenue back into growth.

At the end of the day, if you want to build an online platform and audience, you will have to put in the time and dedication. It might take months or years to achieve your goals, but the only way to get there is to start and never look back!

If you're looking to accelerate your Pinterest marketing efforts, I highly recommend checking out Digital Empires and Shruti's Pinterest Traffic Explosion course.

Since I've implemented some of Shruti's tactics and passed on the advice to the freelancer who is managing my account, I've seen month over month improvement in terms of traffic and follower growth. I'd also suggest signing up for Shruti's email blasts since she puts out a lot of informative content about how to design viral pins and grow a Pinterest audience.

If you're super serious about Pinterest marketing, I also recommend checking out Tailwind app review and my and tips on how to automate most of your marketing efforts.

That's all for now! Catch you guys in the next one.

The post Young Money Interview # 6 – Shruti On Taking Blogging Full-Time appeared first on WebMonkey.

The last 3 months have been an absolute blur. While I've enjoyed switching to a quarterly blog recap format, it really makes these updates harder to write…I mean, I can barely remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, let alone what I've been up to in the blogging world for the past 3 months.

But boy, has it been a busy quarter.

I've ramped up my publishing schedule, dramatically increased my blogging revenue, published my first sponsored posts, and fixed some critical SEO issues for WebMonkey.

Simultaneously, I've been hammered by a recent Google algorithm update and am seeing some pretty significant dips in organic traffic. I've also had a myriad of website usability issues to tackle over the past few weeks.

Revenue is at an all-time high, traffic is on the decline, and some big changes are coming soon to WebMonkey. Will this project be able to recover and continue to grow, or are we headed to 0?

No idea, but let's enjoy the ride!

What's New With The Blog –?Massive Revenue Gains!

I think one of the main reasons to remain consistent with blogging and to approach this side hustle with a long-term plan in mind is because?it takes time to figure everything out.

When it comes to actually monetizing your website, this is even more apparent.

Balancing affiliate sales, advertising platforms, sponsored content, or other revenue streams is a tough job. There's no cookie cutter solution, and optimization is an ongoing and critical process.

After about 1.5 years of blogging, I finally feel like I'm seeing some revenue diversification on WebMonkey which really gets me excited.

Anyways, here are the revenue results from Q2:

April was a pretty standard month and saw just under $400 in revenue.

May and June are where things really took off. After I made the switch to from Adsense to Monumetric, my advertising income increased by roughly?400%, and this was just the start.

I also published 2 sponsored posts.?Adding in sponsored content isn't something I plan on over-doing.

However, I think these sorts of posts can be very valuable for increasing income and providing additional content, provided the content is actually worth reading/matches the theme of your website.

Note: I have a third sponsored post scheduled for this month, but I have included the income from the deal for the month of June since that is when the deal was worked out and when I actually wrote the article.

Finally, affiliate sales also saw a pretty significant increase in performance. Regular channels like Shopify and FlexOffers continued to perform steadily, and I ended up referring an absolutely killer Etsy shop owner through my article on starting an Etsy POD shop (more on these results in a bit).

Amazon Associates and some other random affiliate programs/referral links also trickled in some income, but this was probably under $30 and I'm too reluctant to track down all those numbers (plus I redeem all that stuff for Amazon gift cards anyway).

Medium payments have also continued, although the platform has been fairly bipolar. Some months I can make $50+ through content syndication, but most months range between $10-$20.

You can checkout my post on how to make money on Medium if you want to see how I syndicate my blog content and make free money by doing so!

Here is how all the channels broke down:

Key Takeaways:

I'm still blown away that I've been able to scale from a blog that was making a few hundred bucks a month to a blog that topped $1,000 in such a short amount of time.

If you want to checkout the major milestones so far and how I've worked on scaling WebMonkey I suggest reading my ‘Road To' series:

• The Road to a $100/Month Blog.
• The Road to a $500/Month Blog.

It has honestly been a very rewarding grind that has taught me incredibly valuable lessons and helped supplement my income. The combination of skills and money you can learn through blogging is why I suggest people (especially young adults or students) start a blog in the first place.

Now, I'm expecting Q3 to be much, much lower in terms of revenue for a few reasons I'll get into later in this post, but I wanted to highlight some of the main lessons I've learned about blog moneitization in the last 3 months.

Identify & Promote Your Money-Makers

This sounds like a very simple concept, but it's easier said than done.

I've spent so much time promoting posts like my list of gig economy jobs, or various blogging guides in an effort to generate affiliate sales, when in reality, these posts rarely generate any leads (a massive overhaul is coming soon to the gig economy post so stay tuned).

After a new Etsy shop I referred generated almost $300USD in just a few weeks, I realized I may have been barking up the wrong tree.

Once I realized how lucrative Printify referrals could be (they give 5% of any purchase for 12 months for referrals), I started promoting my Etsy POD article on Reddit.

With some relatively light promotion, I've managed to refer another 6 people to Printify, and someone has even made their first sale!

Long story short is?listen to the data.

You don't have to promote Bluehost or Personal Capital just because other bloggers do. See what speaks to your audience, and follow the money/conversion data, not what's trendy.

Don't Shy Away From Opportunity

I was hesitant to switch to Monumetric because I was scared to slow down my website.

I was also petrified of accepting my first sponsored post as it was something I had never done before.

But here's the thing:?accepting opportunities opens up new ones.

My increase in blogging revenue from Monumetric is going to enable me to reinvest more into growing WebMonkey, and I was able to land my 2nd sponsored post simply because I accepted the first one and established a new connection.

Don't shut down new chances to increase revenue as long as you are taking sensible, calculated risks.

Costs

I've managed to run a pretty lean operation on WebMonkey for quite some time, but this is the first quarter I invested heavily back into growth.

My Q2 costs included:

• Siteground web hosting – $19.95/month on the mid-tier plan (which gives me a SuperCacher, so that's nice) – $59.85
• Pinterest templates (I bought a few packs to steal some design ideas/learn how people actually make nice graphics in Canva) –?$30
• Tailwind for Pinterest Marketing (read my Tailwind review to see if you should use this software) –?$9.99
• Upwork Pinterest VA – I tested out hiring a virtual assistant for Pinterest marketing just to get an idea for the future – $120
• Website redesign and some graphics stuff I have planned – $1,200

Total costs: roughly?$1420.

Okay, so a few things.

The website redesign is currently in progress, and while I could have gone for a cheaper option, I elected to hire the designer I did because:

• My current website looks like shit
• The new site will be built on the Genesis Framework and a lightweight theme, which should help boost page load speed.
• The new site will have a robust, static homepage that will improve user flow.
• Overall user experience is going to improve.

Hiring the VA at this point in time was a mistake, but it was also a solid learning experience.

As for marketing/hosting related software, I plan to continue to pay for these quality services as I believe they help spur growth. Once the redesign is done and traffic is back on track I will probably invest in more (I want to use a CDN for this blog and I'll probably get some sort of marketing software, like SEMRush).

Google Updates, Traffic & Recovery Plans

As I mentioned, a recent Google algorithm update was rolled out, and in it, there were some major winners and losers.

I wasn't one of the sites that was absolutely massacred, like The Daily Mail or CCN, but I'm definitely bleeding quite badly:

While previously Google algorithm updates have largely been focused around the topic of improving EAT factors (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness), it's clear there's more to this recent update than just EAT…I mean, The Daily Mail is certainly high in authority if you consider traditional metrics like backlinks, and they got hammered.

The consensus in the SEO community seems to be that it once again comes back to quality content and meeting user intent, but there's also a fairly strong and pessimistic vibe going around that argues ‘there's nothing to fix,' and that we're all at the mercy of these sporadic updates anyway.

Regardless of the camp you're in, if you're a small blogger like me, we must recognize these key points:

• Small publishers still need to work on developing better EAT signals. Just because the pro SEO guys say this update wasn't about EAT factors, that doesn't mean they aren't immensely important (especially for small websites that still need to focus on building authority).
• If we get hit by updates, it's time to double down and create an action plan to recover.

I was tempted to go along with the line of thinking that says to ‘not overreact after an update,' and that I would give things a few weeks to see how the dust settles.

But, if I'm honest with myself,?my website has severe problems and this update was a long time coming.

Here are the greatest challenges I'm facing in regards to recovering:

1. Website speed and usability is currently poor.
2. I have some very outdated articles that need edits/re-writes.
3. I have some content on this blog that should never have been published in the first place (i.e. posts that don't really align with my niche).
4. My website sitemap and back-end SEO has been a mess for ages.

I'm going to fix the website speed and usability issues through the redesign, so this should hopefully be taken care of.

Additionally, I'm going to be editing and optimizing many of my older posts over the next 2 months. I wrote many of my existing posts before I knew proper on-page SEO techniques, so this will ideally assist in recovering some rankings.

Thirdly, I've actually deleted 3 posts from my archives and redirected the URLs back to my homepage. These were random, poorly written posts on social media marketing, and one was a post about college side hustles that was frankly too similar to one of my other articles.

Content audits can help boost organic traffic if done correctly, but you need to judge if a revision is a better alternative to deletion (this is especially important if the articles in question have backlinks pointing to them).

Finally, thanks to some awesome advice from my friend Peter at DollarSanity, I was able to reduce some pretty substantial errors in my website sitemap and reduce a lot of duplicate content that was in there.

Peter noticed that my blog ‘categories' and ‘tags' were being included in my sitemap, and Google was indexing them:

If you don't have unique content on each individual category or tag page, you should only have the 1st page indexed (or perhaps none at all). In my case, I had nearly identical pages indexed for every category and tag (i.e. Passive Income Page 1, Page 2, etc.)

Not only does this waste your ‘crawl budget' by having Google crawl your useless pages for changes, it's bad to have duplicate content and there's really no need for that stuff to be indexed as it doesn't help users.

If you want to de-index your categories or tags, you can do it pretty easily by using the Yoast SEO plugins and changing some settings under ‘Taxonomies:'

Hopefully, this 4 step action plan will help get growth back on track!

Moving Forwards – The Good

I'll admit, I was quite disheartened by the recent update, and it'll probably be 3 months before I can fully recover.

Revenue has reached an all-time high, which is awesome, and I am so incredibly grateful for all of your readership and support.

I know revenue is going to decline as I work through this update, but honestly, I think the silver lining behind this traffic slump is that it has been a true wakeup call.

I want to publish the best personal finance content I possibly can and to provide readers with real value. Hopefully the upcoming changes will help improve the quality of this site and provide everyone with a better reading experience.

On that note, I've been trying to implement a more aggressive publishing schedule (I think I published something like 9 posts in June, which is nuts), and I hope to continue producing great content at a decent rate moving forwards (along with editing old ones).

Ultimately I think this whole blogging for income thing is a very long-term game. If you're currently struggling to grow your site or have been impacted by recent Google updates, just remember that growth takes time and setbacks are a part of the process.

As long as you improve every day and don't quit, you're making progress!

That's all for this one! I'll catch you guys soon with some more exciting posts!

The post Quarterly Blog Report – How I Made $2200+ From Blogging In 2019 appeared first on WebMonkey.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of bloggers who make a killing with affiliate marketing, selling courses, or offering sponsored posts.

However, for novice and experienced bloggers alike, there is generally a time and place where hosting ads on your blog makes sense financially.

I've had advertisements on WebMonkey for quite some time now, and while I've bounced between Adsense and Media.net in the past, I'm happy to have finally found an advertising solution that is working.

And by working, I mean increasing monthly advertising revenue by roughly 400%.

Yup, you heard me: 400%.

This spike in income is a result of my switch to Monumetric, an ad management platform for publishers that is helping websites of almost any size with their monetization needs.

So, if you're looking to learn more about Monumetric and how to make money with a blog, this is the review for you!

What Is Monumetric?

Monumetric, formerly known as The Blogger Network, was originally founded in 2012.

As mentioned, Monumetric is an advertisement management platform that is designed to help publishers (i.e. bloggers) effectively monetize their website with display advertisements.

Monumetric has 2 goals, as outlined on their website: to help publishers reach their revenue goals and to provide the best possible user experience at the same time.

These are certainly lofty goals, but to understand what these goals even mean, it's important to understand a bit about managed ad platforms in general.

Monumetric vs. Adsense – Managed Advertising Services –

I'm going to compare Monumetric to Adsense briefly to help highlight the difference between the most common display advertising platform on earth and something that is, well, a little more premium.

I'm also going to explain a bit about how the advertisement ecosystem works in general.

Let's say you visit an informational website about vacuum cleaners that has ads on it.

When you hit the landing page, all of the advertisers who want to advertise on websites related to vacuum cleaners enter a bidding war to show their ads to you…maybe Dyson is marketing heavily and floods the page with ads, or maybe a few manufacturers share the units.

Or, alternatively, maybe vacuum advertisers are all outbid by companies that are running remarketing campaigns (i.e. the creepy ads that follow you around the internet based on your browsing history), and all you see are ads for products/services from the websites you previously visited.

Point is this: the highest paid advertisers show their ads, and this is how the bidding system works, generally.

Now, if you host Adsense ads on your blog, you will only show ads from people advertising with Google.

In contrast, with a managed ad service like Monumetric, you can show ads from a variety of networks because Monumetric uses a private ad marketplace and header bidding to ensure your ads are always shown by the advertisers that pay the most.

This is the critical difference with a managed ad platform: you get more competition, a variety of ad exchanges involved, and a support team that works behind the scenes to maximize your revenue per pageview.

Additionally, services like Monumetric work with publishers to do things like:

• Optimize ad unit placement.
• Help with setup and reporting.
• Work behind the scenes to secure new advertising partners, which can lead to better rates.
• Deal with any technical issues or problems.

In contrast, with a self-service platform like Adsense, you basically have to slap some ad units wherever you think they'll make money and pray to god you're not going to break your website in the process.

Not ideal.

Monumetric Requirements

Since Monumetric is a managed ad platform, which comes with some perks, there are requirements to join the program.

Monumetric splits their services into 4 tiers:

• Propel: 10,000 monthly pageview  minimum. For beginner publishers.
• Ascend: 80,000 to 500,000 monthly pageviews. Get a customized-ad strategy for your website.
• Stratos: 500,000 to 1 million monthly pageviews. This unlocks access to an ad ops team.
• Apollo: 10 million+ monthly pageviews. At this point, you're working super closely with Monumetric's ad team.

Most publishers will probably find themselves in the Propel-Ascend range, but it is nice to see that Monumetric can (and does) provide support for websites of all sizes.

Additionally, Monumetric also has some ‘soft' requirements, or at least this is what I gathered from the onboarding process.

When I was applying to join Monumetric, my account manager asked for screenshots of the last 30 days of Google Analytics data and a geo-traffic report.

Essentially, this means Monumetric (like every other ad network) is looking for publishers that have a decent amount of organic traffic and have users from premium countries, such as the United States, Canada, or the U.K.

This isn't explicitly stated anywhere I can find, but other ad networks like Mediavine have the same standards and it just makes sense for everyone involved: organic traffic + premuim countries = more money and happy advertisers.

The 10,000 monthly minimum is undeniably the best part about Monumetric.

If you're at this traffic level and with Adsense or Ezoic, do your revenue and website a favor and make the switch ASAP.

The Onboarding Process

This is how my on-boarding process unfolded:

• I applied to join Monumetric through their website.
• I received an email from my account manager the next day.
• My website was submitted to their advertisers for approval. This process can take 1-2 weeks.
• In the meantime, I scheduled a call with my account manager to discuss goals, strategies, and ad unit placement.
• I provided a few screenshots to help speed up the process, and I created a second user for my WordPress back-end to allow the Monumetric Team to start the setup process once I was approved.

In 1-2 weeks, I was beginning to make money with Monumetric ads.

2 absolutely vital things I want to point out here.

The call you have with your account manager is critical.

In this call, you can and should outline what sort of vision you have for your blog. I explicitly stated I did not want video advertisements, and I also elected to go with a fairly aggressive advertisement layout on both mobile and desktop.

I'll get to this ‘aggressive' layout later and the pros and cons, but do some reading/thinking and picture the sort of layout you want. Monumetric is very good at compromising, but they are also ad experts and give great advice. I'm very happy with the layout ideas they gave me, and things have been going well so far.

Note: publishers in the Propel Program have to pay a $99 setup fee. This is absolutely worth it in my opinion since your earnings will most likely make up for it/cover the cost entirely in your first month with Monumetric ads. This fee is paid during the on-boarding process.

Monumetric RPM Performance – Impact On Revenue

 To get an idea of how Monumetric has impacted my blog earnings, take a look at the spike in income I've seen since implementing them:

As I explain in my post The Road To A $500/Month Blog, the switch to Monumetric has really helped take me to the next step compared to when I had Adsense on my blog.

Adsense had a much lower RPM for me, and I also didn't have the greatest layout or a support team to work on optimization.

And, most importantly, Monumetric uses a pay-per-view (PPV) system.

Adsense publishers are paid anytime a user clicks an ad unit. In contrast, Monumetric pays per view, and this is important for 2 reasons:

• With Monumetric, you can generate revenue on every website visitor, not just clickers.
• You can expect more stable revenue with a PPV model, assuming your monthly page views are consistent.

Adsense revenue was all over the place.

In contrast, I'm now earning a stable $7-$15/day with Monumetric ads and I can factor this in to decision making (like paying for a website redesign, which is currently in progress).

Alright, so what about site speed?

Impact On Website Speed

Anytime you add something to your website, it will impact performance in some way.

Ad units can be especially demanding on your website, and the fact that you have to serve more stuff to your viewers inevitably slows things down a tad and changes the reading experience.

However, the internet is full of ads, so it isn't like this is a new concept for readers, and if done correctly, ads shouldn't negatively impact user experience.

This is where I, along with the Monumetric team, messed up.

I elected to go with an aggressive ad unit placement that had in-content/sidebar ads, and I also wanted to units to refresh periodically.

After running this system for a few weeks, I started to get emails and comments along these lines:

My site was becoming slow and painful to read, and when ad units were refreshing, things just bounced all over the damn place. I apologize to anyone who had to go through that mess of a website.

Thankfully, after emailing the Monumetric Support team with my concerns, the refresh issues were fixed and everything seems fine (I think? Let me know if not).

Now, this brings me to my next (and perhaps most important) point: the Monumetric Support Team.

Publisher Support – My Favorite Aspect Of Monumetric

When you become a Monumetric Publisher, you gain access to a support team that is always an email away from being able to assist you.

I've emailed the support team many times since becoming a publisher with requests to change my ad layout, panic attacks over site speed, and a myriad of other questions.

All of my concerns have been appropriately answered within 12 hours or so, and the quality of support is very good.

It did suck to have ads bouncing all over the place, and I don't really know how that was allowed to happen, but the support staff is great at answering concerns and fixing problems quickly.

Plus, if you are a publisher in a higher tier, you get even more love and attention (each tier gets one level higher in terms of their personalized Ad-Ops service team).

Again, you will not get this type of support with a self-serve ad platform, so keep this in mind if you are on the fence!

Payment Schedule

The Monumetric dashboard makes it quite easy to track your daily revenue and payment schedule:

However, be aware that Monumetric pays in net 60 terms.

This means that after you earn revenue for one month, you will have to wait an additional 60 days for that revenue to be paid to you (assuming it clears, which is should, unless you're doing some fraudulent stuff…very naughty).

Monumetric currently pays through PayPal if you are not a resident of the United States, while U.S. residents can use direct deposit. Payments are also processed within the first 10 business days of a month.

Monumetric Pros, Cons & Alternatives

It wouldn't be a fair review if I didn't go over both sides of the story, as well as some Monumetric alternatives.

The Pros

• Revenue Potential – I saw a 400% increase in revenue from making the switch, and from the feedback I've seen, many other bloggers experience the same thing when moving from a self-service platform to a managed ad service.
• Stable Earnings – this is thanks to PPV.
• Great Support Team.
• Ongoing Optimization.
• Low Barrier To Entry – 10,000 monthly pageviews (not sessions) can get you in.
• Low Commission Sharing – Monumetric only takes 15-30% commission on your revenue (this is taken before the numbers you see on your dashboard).
• A Decent Referral Program – Earn 2% of the revenue generated by any publisher you refer for 12 months.

The Cons

• Next-Day Reporting – Unlike Adsense, you don't see your revenue until the next day. I don't really care about this, and this shouldn't be a big deal for most publishers, but keep this in mind.
• Net 60 – Unlike Adsense which pays in net 30 terms, Monumetric pays in net 60. However, this is fairly common in the managed ad universe.
• Setup Fee – Smaller publishers need to factor in the $99 to their earnings.

Now, I left out information about the onboarding process because while I had a stellar experience, it seems many people are not having the same luck:

I've seen a few threads like this, and here is what I'll say.

I get the vibe that Monumetric is a growing, excited tech company with a lot of potential and exciting ideas, but that they are probably swamped with work.

I don't know if they are short-staffed or undergoing some changes, but it definitely seems like many publishers have to wait a while to get in the program. Again, keep in mind that advertisers also need to approved publishers, so the delay might not be entirely on Monumetric's end.

Whatever the case, all the changes I've seen over the last 2 months have been great…we got a better reporting dashboard, a referral program, and access to blogging training videos and tips. It's all good stuff so far!

I'm loving my experience with Monumetric so far, and I definitely think it is worth giving them a try!

Edit: 12/04/2019 – one of my friends who runs the blog A Purple Life has shared her unfortunate story of Monumetric onboarding with me.

As you can see from her message, it seems like the Monumetric team didn't follow what was outlined in her strategy call, and ads were also pushed live on the incorrect date.

A few of her other messages outlined more problems: delayed communication, poor publisher support, and an overall rough onboarding procedure.

My friend's experience has been completely different than mine, and it's really unfortunate. I've had an amazing experience with Monumetric ads, but you need to proceed with some caution.

Don't expect a smooth ride, fast setup time, or a flawless launch. Monumetric seems like a young company with a lot of potential in my eyes. However, they certainly haven't given everyone top-notch service and have a ways to go in the custom service department based on what I've heard.

Monumetric's New Interstitial Ads & Video Ads

I wanted to write another quick update for this review since there's been some changes recently that should help boost your Monumetric RPM.

Most notabl, Monumetric now lets publishers enable interstitial ads.

Interstitial ads are ads that take up the whole screen and appear between content or activities on a website.

For example, if you enable this feature, a reader can get served a full-screen ad if they click to another post or category on your blog.

Interstitial ads pay very well because of their commanding nature, and if you run a website with a lot of traffic/a news style website, this feature should be great news. Just keep in mind, it does impact reader experience so make the change with caution and monitor feedback.

Another feature that will help your Monumetric earnings is the new video feature.

Monumetric is still rolling this out to different publishers, but you can now upload video content to your blog and have ads play within the video! Pretty awesome!

Monumetric Vs Mediavine

People generally make the Mediavine vs. Monumetric comparison since these are two managed ad services with some of the lowest monthly session requirements.

However, I wanted to update this Monumetric review because things have changed pretty significantly here.

Firstly, I have left Monuemtric for Mediavine because I wanted to try a new ad network out. The change has been phenomenal for my revenue:

Mediavine is basically doubling my advertising revenue per month, and the onboarding experience has also been stellar.

Additionally, I find Mediavine ads perform better, and I haven't had any issues with ads causing my pages to bounce or lead to an unpleasant experience for readers.

However, Mediavine now has more strict requirements for publishers.

Mediavine used to take 25,000 monthly sessions to apply, alongside having a quality site. It now takes 50,000 monthly sessions.

You can read more about these changes in my Mediavine review. However, the bottom line is that Monumetric is now the best choice for smaller publishers.

Reaching 50,000 sessions takes time, and I even know publishers who are at that amount but have stuck with Monumetric.

My Overall Experience With Monumetric – Final Thoughts

If you're just starting out and are growing your blog, aim for Monumetric. The revenue boost you can get has the potential to transform your website, and it's a great alternative to Adsense or Ezoic.

Whatever route you take, I think there are an overwhelming number of benefits to using a managed ad platform instead of something like Adsense or Media.net.

I suggest you take some time to research your options, but also remember to let things play out.

If you pick a network, give them 60-90 days to see how performance shakes out, and try not to be like me and have an aneurysm the second an ad unit breaks.

Just note: if you want to leave Monumetric for another ad program, you must give them 30 days notice. After that, you can take their ads down and integrate a new provider on your website and incur 0 fees. You will still be paid out your remaining ad balance and referral earnings as well.

I hope you have found this review of Monumetric to be useful!

If you want to signup for Monumetric with my code, I would really appreciate the support.

If you're planning on starting your own blog, I also recommend using SiteGround web hosting to get started. I use SiteGround on every website I launch, and I absolutely love their performance and customer support.

You can also watch one of my latest videos on the exact methods I use to make money blogging!

The post Monumetric Review – How I Increased My Blogging Revenue By 400% appeared first on WebMonkey.

That post was an amalgamation of everything I learned in my first 8 months of blogging, and I highly recommend starting out with that post if you are relatively new to blogging.

However, if you've been stuck in the $100-$300 range of monthly blogging income like I have been for the past few months, I hope that this post will provide some insight into how I managed to get over the hump and continue to grow.

Let's get to it!

Current Blog Traffic – Growth, Stagnation & More SEO:

I've always focused on growing organic traffic as a means to generate revenue on this blog.

While Google's landing page environment is changing and pushing organic search results lower than ever before, the point remains: quality content that provides an incredible user experience is key.

Since writing my $100/month blog post, most of my time has still been dedicated to content creation.

Back then, I had written a total of 34 posts and roughly 93,000 words. Since then, I have written an additional 39 posts and essentially doubled the total word count on WebMonkey.

Here is how my traffic has broken down:

Between a mix of algorithm updates that both benefited and hindered my position in the SERPs, I experienced a fair amount of traffic fluctuation since August.

However, with the exception of January (my best month ever), I've struggled to generate the same sort of monthly traffic as I did in August.

Solid content, some basic SEO, and obtaining new backlinks has kept organic traffic numbers fairly steady, but it is clear that things will have to change moving forwards.

However, while things have been fairly stagnant/the same in the traffic generation department, I've made some major changes in how I make money by blogging, and this will hopefully open up opportunities to grow WebMonkey at an even faster rate.

Making Money With A Blog – How I Ramped Up Revenue:

I've always relied on Adsense to generate most of my blogging income, with affiliate income, sponsored posts, or other revenue streams mostly taking a back seat.

If you've read my Yearly Blog Recap or latest Quarterly Income Report, you'll see the formula has been fairly consistent…make $100-$150/month from Adsense, and maybe make another $50-$100 in affiliate income from random links on my blog on a good month.

This was a great strategy for monetizing a fresh blog, but after doing some reading/thinking I decided to really step things up in the income department.

The main changes I made over the past 2 months include:

• Switching from Google Adsense to Monumetric, another advertisement management platform for publishers.
• Selling my first sponsored post.
• Investing back into the blog.

Here are the results:

April saw approximately $372 in revenue, and May is on track to easily do $600 or more.

Time to break down the changes!

1 – Switching From Adsense to Monumetric:

At the start of April, I decided to start the process to move from Adsense to Monumetric (formerly The Blogger Network) with hopes of increasing my blog advertising revenue. I plan on writing a more in-depth Monumetric review in a week or two that breaks down the platform in greater detail, but I'll briefly discuss Monumetric right now.

Monumetric is an advertisement management platform. This means that publishers who are part of Monumetric can focus on content creation and marketing while things like advertisement layout, split-testing, optimization, and reporting are all taken care of.

Monumetric naturally takes a cut of any ad revenue, like all other ad management platforms, but the commission ranges from 15-30% which is low for the industry.

Anyway, here are the available tiers publishers can apply for in the Monumetric network:

Each monetization program has varying requirements, and publishers with more monthly pageviews obviously get more support and are prioritized.

However, even the Propel Network (which I have joined) has provided an exceptional on-boarding and supportive experience, and the RPMs I am seeing have absolutely crushed Adsense.

On Adsense, I was seeing page RPMs of about $10 on a good day, and despite my split-testing efforts, I really had no idea what I was doing.

Here are my results with Monumetric after less than 30 days:

There are a few reasons Monumetric is performing much better than Adsense:

• Monumetric utilizes a? bidding system to try and fill all your ad units at the highest rates possible – this is critical!
• Monumetric uses a PPV (pay-per-view) system, not a PPC (pay-per-click) system.
• The Monumetric Support Team handles all ad placement optimization, with input/feedback from the publisher.

I firmly believe that a strong advertising backbone is essential for growing a small-medium blog, and I finally feel as if I have this foundation with Monumetric.

Other bloggers looking to grow their revenue and online presence should consider networks like Monumetric, Mediavine, or other premium ad networks. The reason is quite simple:?these networks provide some relative stability in your earnings.

Adsense is great for beginner blogs, but the PPC model and fact that you are responsible for your own optimization tends to make earnings more volatile.

In contrast, with a PPV model, I'm relatively certain I can squeeze out around $15/day with Monuetric ads.

While the Propel Program has a $99 setup fee and Monumetric pays out on net-60 terms, I can now forecast my earnings more accurately, and this has allowed me to confidently invest resources back into WebMonkey (more on this later).

If you have reached the 10,000 monthly session threshold, I highly suggest giving Monumetric a try!

2 – Selling A Sponsored Post:

If you've kept up with WebMonkey, you probably noticed that I had a sponsored post published recently that broke down 5 Alternatives to Google Adsense.

This was the first sponsored post I ever published, and while I don't recommend bloggers make a habit of publishing sponsored posts, here are a few reasons why I decided to do it:

• The post is very high in quality, in my opinion, which is surprisingly hard to find in the world of sponsored posts.
• The content fits perfectly with WebMonkey since I frequently blog about how bloggers can make more money.
• I was able to mark the post with a rel=canonical tag to signal the original article source to Google and I could make the links?nofollow.

This last part is crucial for publishing a sponsored post, in my eyes.

Adding a rel=canonical tag ensures that my blog cannot be penalized for duplicate content since it points to the original source. Additionally, having nofollow links means the article isn't passing any link juice to the various websites mentioned in the post, so it isn't really a case of selling backlinks.

Again, this is a somewhat gray area in the eyes of Google, but it was cool to create a new revenue stream for WebMonkey (even if it rarely happens).

3 – Investing Back Into My Blog:

For the longest time, I have been very hesitant to spend any of my profits on WebMonkey.

However, I'm finally starting to see the wisdom behind the the saying “it takes money to make money.”

Don't get me wrong:?I still argue that novice bloggers should minimize cost until they have a solid foundation of organic traffic.?

But, for a blog making 100-300$/month in profit, I think funneling some money back into growth actually makes a lot of sense.

So, what have I been spending my money on?

Faster WordPress Hosting:

Well, one of the first things I decided to do was to upgrade my SiteGround web hosting plan to their mid-tier hosting plan, which gave me access to Premium WordPress features like the SiteGround SuperCacher and automatic backups.

Website speed is a major ranking factor, and having something in place like the SiteGround SuperCacher helps make my website faster by caching all static content on my site (i.e. CSS files, Javascript, images).

Basically, when users visit my blog, cached content is served to them rather and server calls are avoided, and this helps cut down on page load times quite significantly.

SiteGround's GrowBig plan is $19.95/month versus the $11.95/month of their StartUp plan,?but this is absolutely worth it for a blog generating thousands of views a month.

You can read more about why I chose SiteGround hosting, but regardless of your hosting provider, don't be afraid to spend more money on speed!

Tailwind for Pinterest Marketing:

I decided to purchase Tailwind, a Pinterest scheduling/marketing tool back in January, for around $250 (which includes some add-ons as well as the yearly fee).

My marketing efforts have seen some benefit, and while I'm still seeing inconsistent results from Pinterest, I'm at least getting 10-50 visitors per day onto my website:

You can read more about why I bought Tailwind in my Tailwind App Review, but I think it was a good decision because it is slowly helping me to diversify my traffic sources.

Don't get me wrong, organic traffic is awesome.

However, after being hit by a few Google algorithm updates I realize the importance of diversity. Plus, Pinterest is a great traffic driver for so many other bloggers, so I wanted to get in on a slice of the pie.

I'm still not quite sure of how to maximize my Pinterest marketing efforts, and my Tailwind work is still taking up 15-30 minutes a day, so this brings me to the final way I have invested money into growing WebMonkey.

Hiring A Pinterest Virtual Assistant:

My friend Peter from Dollar Sanity actually recommend I look into hiring a VA to help with Pinterest growth and time management, and I couldn't happier that he did.

I decided to hire a Pinterest VA from Upwork two weeks ago, and there are a few reasons I decided to go through Upwork:

• Upwork makes payment processing, security, and communication very easy.
• It is easy to find reputable virtual assistants on Upwork who have plenty of experience and screenshots of their work/a portfolio.
• You can find Pinterest VA's who work for between $4.50-$10/hour (and they delivery decent work).
• A fellow blogger of mine actually uses the same virtual assistant I am working with, so I already know the quality of work.

This last part is quite crucial in hiring the right VA, if you ask me.

I've had friends hire very cheap Pinterest VAs in the past, only to find the VA ripping off other people's graphics and spam-posting to get fast (but not sustainable) results.

I'll now be spending about $150/month for Pinterest marketing, but this basically takes all of the work off of my plate and the VA I am working with is very skilled. Money well spent, and Monumetric revenue can cover the cost!

If you know someone who is using a reputable VA and want to invest into blog marketing, this might not be a bad route to take.

Just make sure you know what you're paying for, and if your advertisement/affiliate revenue can keep up with your costs. I know I will incur a loss for the first few months by paying a VA to grow my Pinterest traffic, but I'm hoping to eventually drive a few thousand people a month via Pinterest, which can end up generating a profit.

The $500 Blogging Mark – Some Final Thoughts & Tips:

Looking back, not much has changed in my current blogging approach from when I was only making 50-$100 a month to now.

I still focus on content creation, gaining new backlinks/SEO, and networking. These are the critical elements to running a successful blog.

However, earning $500/month compared to a hundred bucks actually makes a massive difference in terms of how fast you can start growing your business, and this is why I encourage bloggers to take the leap and apply to new advertising networks.

You only have so many hours in a day, so gaining the ability to outsource tasks like marketing (or even content, if you find a skilled writer) is incredibly valuable because?it lets you focus on what matters most.

You can't do every job under the sun with limited hours, so it is crucial to view the blog as a business. As a business owner, you shouldn't be afraid of putting in crazy work hours, but you should always keep your eye on the bigger picture as you scale.

I love writing content and social media marketing, but I also have aspirations to outsource more work as WebMonkey grows to keep the ball rolling.

I'll probably always write content because it's my favorite part of blogging, even if it's at a slower rate, but I definitely hope to outsource most of my marketing and backlinking endeavors so I can focus on networking and taking on new projects down the line.

Just remember to be smart; spending hundreds of dollars on VAs, marketing software, outsourcing, and website hosting won't matter if you don't have a firm base of organic traffic and monetization methods already in place.

However, don't be afraid to invest back into your business or dream about how to take things to the next level.

My Road to $100/Month post was the starting point for how you can make money with a blog.

In contrast, a $500/month blog is hopefully the launch pad for where real, sustainable growth can start taking place. Hopefully I see you all with a Road to $1,000/Month Blog in just a few months

Catch you guys in the next post!

Tom

The post The Road To A $500/Month Blog – How To Grow A Money Making Blog appeared first on WebMonkey.

Content planning, marketing, graphic design, SEO…the list of tasks associated with blogging seems endless, and I have certainly gone through periods of uncertainty and confusion when it comes to blog management.

Now, I've already written a blogging SEO basics post, and other posts that aim to help novice/intermediate level bloggers grow their audience and make more money,  but I want to expand on those helpful resources by discussing some of the greatest mistakes or missed opportunities I experienced when first starting my blog.

I've definitely been lucky to have a lot of great people share their blogging tips with me over the past year, so I figure it is time to pass some of them on! Additionally, I hope that by outlining some of my own blogging mistakes and missteps, you can avoid some unnecessary aggravation and setbacks and fast-track towards success.

On to the blogging tips!

Note: these are actionable blogging tips, not shit like ‘just be yourself,' or ‘know that blogging is hard work' We're here to grow our blogs, not sing Kumbaya!

Blogging Tips for Beginners – Organization

I'm going to break this post into a few different sections, but the most foundational advice I can give for new bloggers relates to organization.

Without a sense of your blogging direction, goals, or action plan, you run the risk of aimlessly working away at a project that doesn't even have a purpose or outline. Hopefully some of these organizational blogging tips can help set things straight!

Don't Start With Too Many Categories

Let me preface this entire post by saying that a lot of the mistakes I made when starting WebMonkey are either still present or have only been patched up slightly (some mistakes are hard to revert, and I also need to put more time into fixing things).

WebMonkey is, to be blunt, a complete mess. It's better now than it was in the past, but it really is a spattering of money making/money saving ideas, blogging tips, and bits of marketing/tech talk.

I'm personally okay with this, but I know that I didn't help myself by writing about several different topics at once out of the gate. For the first few months this blog was truly all over the place.

If I could redo the launch of my blog, I would have only had 2 categories: making money and saving money. I would have spent a few months filling out those categories before adding an additional category such as investing or marketing…think of it like adding layers to the foundation of a house before moving on to other parts.

If you are starting a new blog don't bite off more than you can chew! Pick 1-3 categories to start with and really flush them out with content before expanding.

Extra Reading – 45 Blog Niche Ideas & How To Pick A Niche.

Use A Content Map/Planner

A blogging content map can help keep you on track with your content, maintain a consistent brand image, and even improve how you utilize on-page SEO to link between your articles.

At the start of my blogging journey I didn't plan anything. I just wrote posts as ideas came to me, and that's why I was publishing social media marketing guides one day and hating on Bitcoin the next. It made no sense.

As I mention in my post on how to start a successful blog, even a simple Excel spreadsheet that maps out your post ideas and what articles will link to them can go a long way in keeping you organized:

Do yourself a favor and map out at least 10-20 post ideas before launching or in the early phases of your blog!

SEO Blog Tips for New Bloggers

Once you have your blogging organization down to a science, there are some critical search engine optimization tips I think you should follow!

Use The Right URL Structure from Day 1

If you've ever taken a look at my blog permalink structure, you'll notice that I include the date in all of my URLs.

This is not intentional. 

In fact I hate that my blog currently does this.

There are 2 main disadvantages to including the date in your URLs.

Firstly, adding the date to your URLs lengthens them, and shorter URLs are generally better for marketing/are more use friendly.

Secondly, including the date in your URLs means that if you ever update your old content (which you should do regularly), you're either forced to change the URL entirely and redirect the old article to updated version or to just keep the date the same.

Personally I update the ‘time of publication' whenever I edit old posts so there's at least some new change (hopefully Google knows to crawl these articles for new information, but I am unsure if this is the case) to avoid having to redirect. I know this is a band-aid solution and I should migrate to a standard permalink structure, but I like to suffer needlessly I suppose.

So, for this blogging tip, check your permalinks before you spend months publishing content like I did!

To check how your URLs will be structured, go to Settings and then Permalinks in the WordPress back end:

A subtle change, yes, but an important one!

Don't Wait Too Long to Obtain Backlinks!

I mention some of my blogging mistakes in my post on the journey to a $100/month blog, and waiting to backlink was certainly one of the main ones.

Backlinks help boost the authority of websites in the eyes of Google, and they are one of the most important ranking factors out there. In short, the more do-follow backlinks you have from high quality websites (that are also authoritative), the better.

Anyways, I don't think beginner bloggers should worry about backlinking for the first few months of blogging or until their blog has enough content to not look skeletal.

However, once you have 15-20 posts you should definitely start putting some effort into obtaining backlinks from relevant websites within your niche.

I took about 5-6 months before I actually started paying attention to my backlinks, and this was a significant mistake.

Once you have enough content, you should consider some of the following methods to start obtaining more backlinks to your blog:

• Write guest posts: If the CEO of Buffer, a major social media marketing tool, could gain 100,000 customers from guest posting, you can probably gain some traffic too.
• Mention other bloggers in your posts: People love to be mentioned, and citing high quality content in your own posts is a great way to improve your content, provide value to your audience, and network. Build relationships with other bloggers in your niche and promote your content where it makes sense. You'd be surprised…people will return the favor without you even having to ask.
• Join relevant directories: Submit your blog to directories or forums in your niche to gain some freebie backlinks. Don't submit your blog to spammy directories or directories that are completely unrelated to your niche.
• Use HARO: HARO connects reporters and sources together via email, and you can help reporters with their stories by providing quotes/information to act as a reliable source. Answering queries on HARO is a great way to gain backlinks from some major websites, so definitely check out this option!

Remember the Reader Matters Most – Don't Over-Optimize

I think one of the most crucial blogging tips for beginners is to always remember that the user comes first.

I have been incredibly guilty of over-optimizing some of my content over the last year of blogging, and I need to remind myself to forget keywords and SEO sometimes and to focus on user intent.

For example, take my post on gig economy platforms. At the time of writing it, I thought it was a SEO behemoth that would take over the SERPs within a few months.

Recently, this is the sort of thing I have been seeing in relation to that article:

In hindsight I realize the post is nearly 6,000 words long and stuffed with keywords/useless information, and the ranking drops are completely justified.

Did that article need to be 5,000+ words long? Did I need to write about Uber, or AirBnB, or half the shit the internet had already heard about a thousand times over?

Probably not.

Remember the reader, and don't overthink or over-optimize your content to try to outsmart Google!

Don't Wait To Tackle Website Speed Problems

There was a period of a few months where WebMonkey has a horrendously slow mobile page load time, and while website speed is something I am always looking to improve, my website is currently faster than in the past (it isn't amazing, still, but I digress).

Website speed/performance is a ranking factor, and since Google has switched to a mobile-first indexing strategy, you want to have an optimized blog that performs smoothly on both mobile and desktop.

After putting off site improvements for many months, I finally decided to do 2 things:

• I hired a Fiverr WordPress developer to improve my site speed for about $40.
• I upgraded my SiteGround WordPress hosting plan to their medium tier to support WebMonkey's growing audience. You can read about why I chose SiteGround for my hosting if you are curious to know the benefits.

Ultimately these were not very considerable expenses, and the Fiverr project was particularly useful because learning to do that sort of work myself would take a few hours and I'd rather spend my time creating content or marketing my blog.

So, the moral of the story is this: work smart and not hard.

If you can spend time improving your website speed and functionality, great! If the work will simply take too long, don't be afraid to outsource it or invest into better hosting for your blog, especially if you are profitable!

Get started with Fiverr and start outsourcing to grow your blog!

Monetization Blog Tips for Beginners

In this next section I'm going to cover some of the mistakes I have made in terms of generating revenue on WebMonkey, as well as some strategies new bloggers can use to earn more income.

Pick A Blogging Monetization Strategy And Actually Stick With It

When I started blogging, I somehow had the idea in my head that I wouldn't put advertisements on my blog until I was at least reaching 10,000+ people per month.

As my blogging journey progressed, I eventually added some Google AdSense ad units to WebMonkey…then took them away…then put them back…then switched to Media.net ads for a while…

Anyway, the result was a somewhat tumultuous few months in early 2018 in terms of blogging income.

Here's the thing: if you make the decision to make money with blogging, you need to actually stick to a strategy.

I consistently grappled with the fear that having ads on my blog would hurt my overall SEO or annoy users, but honestly, ads are just part of the entire internet ecosystem and they don't have to detract from user experience if you maintain a healthy balance between content and ads.

Additionally, seeing your blogging income grow alongside your traffic is immensely empowering. It doesn't matter if you use affiliate sales, sell physical products, or rely on ads for your income; tracking revenue is going to help prevent burnout or feeling like nothing you do has an impact.

So, if you go down the road of adding some revenue streams to your blog, make sure you devise a strategy and stick to it!

But…Don't Be Afraid to Optimize

The beautiful thing about sticking with a blog monetization strategy is that you will actually be able to collect meaningful data on what does and doesn't work.

After consistently earning ad revenue for a few months, I realized I probably wasn't maximizing my revenue potential and that my ad unit layout could use some work.

So, over the past few months I have been tinkering with my AdSense layout for both mobile and desktop, copying what other successful bloggers are doing and mixing in some of my own ideas.

It's hardly rocket science, but I'm starting to learn more about optimizing ads for higher RPMs and have seen some increase in revenue (this month in particular is on track to be the best month so far for AdSense):

Testing new ad layouts isn't too difficult, and I use the Ad Inserter WordPress plugin to insert my ad units.

I really like this plugin because it makes it easy to copy over Google AdSense code and to specify parameters for when and where your ads should appear:

As you can see, I've set this particular ad to show right after the first few sentences in a post and only on tablet and mobile devices.

Anyway, I highly recommend using this plugin to test your ad layouts every few weeks/months!

Don't Neglect Lead Magnets

Time for the most hypocritical tip for new bloggers in this entire post seeing as I'm still not doing this (I'm honestly too lazy and can't come up with an idea for the sort of lead magnet I want to offer, but I know this is terrible of me).

Anyway, why is having a lead magnet important?

Well, offering valuable resources to your readers in order to build an email list is a great idea for several reasons:

• As your email list grows you can send post alerts or affiliate offers to your subscribers, increasing blog traffic and income.
• You can even create niche/product specific lead magnets and segment your email list into narrow groups (i.e. one group interested in blogging resources and another that is interested in side hustles).
• You can actually give some value back to your loyal readers.

I haven't created a lead magnet yet because I feel pressed for time/resources and I haven't come up with a good freebie to provide readers, but this is probably on of my greatest blogging mistakes so far.

Once you hit the 20-30 post mark and have some depth on your blog, I highly recommend coming up with some sort of grab to build your email list. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to creating one too!

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, blogging (especially by yourself), is quite difficult.

Between content creation, marketing, SEO, and a myriad of other tasks, you have to wear multiple hats if you want to run a successful blog. This is part of the fun and rewarding nature of blogging, but also the greatest challenge.

I could list a thousand different blogging tips for beginners, but ultimately, I think the process really boils down to a few simple points:

• Start out with a realistic goal, pick a niche, and focus most of your time on creating stellar content that utilizes some basic SEO practices.
• Gradually mix in social media once your blog has some depth. I recommend using Pinterest (and maybe Tailwind) or Quora marketing to start out with. Don't start out with every platform under the sun.
• Use methods like guest posting, round-up posts, or HARO to obtain backlinks.
• Join relevant forums/communities relating to your niche, use Twitter or other platforms to network with other bloggers in your space, and establish mutually beneficial relationships.

Rinse and repeat.

Ultimately I think these are the fundamentals that lead to a successful blog. I've made plenty of blogging mistakes over the past year and missed out on some opportunities, but I think if you stick to the basics, you will see steady progress in the long run.

You will definitely make mistakes throughout your blogging journey, but that is also part of the process! Just remember to focus on the bigger picture, stick to what works, and have some fun with things!

Out of curiosity, if you currently run a blog, leave a comment with your own greatest blogging-related mistake or lesson. I would love to hear what some other bloggers have experienced!

Catch you guys in the next post!

Tom

The post What I Wish I Knew Before I Started Blogging – Blogging Tips For Beginners appeared first on WebMonkey.

However, the first quarter has had a fair share of ups and downs when it comes to the growth of WebMonkey, and my personal life has also been quite up in the air as of late. Overall, I think taking a step back from tracking monthly progress has been quite positive.

I still want to remain 100% transparent in terms of the income I make from blogging, so I'm still going to get into all of the nitty gritty revenue details in this post, as well as some useful blogging tips I have learned along this journey.

Let's get to it!

Blogging Income Report – Holding Steady

I'm going to cut to the chase and get right into the income since I know this is what interests many readers.

WebMonkey generated roughly $578.96 over the past 90 days, with income-per-month descending from January to March:

More specifically, my income-per-month breakdown is as follows:

• $204.50 earned in January.
• $196.96 earned in February.
• $177.50 earned in March.

I'll cover why income has slowly decreased over the past 2 months when discussing my monthly traffic over the past 90 days, but I'm quite happy with the fairly stable level of income since Google updates have hit me hard the past 2 months.

In any case, here is how my blog revenue breaks down over the last 90 days:

• Google AdSense revenue: $383.79
• Affiliate revenue: $195.17

I've recently added more ad units to my blog and experimented with new ad sizes and various layouts for mobile/desktop, and I think I'm slowly getting the hang of AdSense optimization the more I tinker with things, which is cool to see!

I definitely recommend other bloggers split test or mix up their display advertising placements every so often to see the impact on revenue! If you are ever lost on how to even effectively implement AdSense on your blog, you can also hire plenty of skilled developers on Fiverr for less than $50.

I expect RPMs (revenue per thousand views) to increase in Q2 as January/February often see a RPM dip following the massive amount of ad spending during the holidays.

As usual, I don't make any money through course sales, and I think I have a fairly weak affiliate presence on WebMonkey (I find it hard to write single product/service reviews since I don't personally purchase many of them for blogging/personal finance purposes).

Most of the affiliate income stems from my dropshipping guide and from referring new bloggers to SiteGround web hosting.

I'm still seeing bits of revenue trickle in from Amazon Associates and FlexOffers every single month, but I rarely cross the $10/month mark in that branch of affiliate income.

While I don't prioritize affiliate sales on WebMonkey, I highly suggest other bloggers take a look at FlexOffers. They have over 10,000 vendors to choose from, and there are some high quality offers in plenty of verticals!

As I mentioned, I'm pretty ecstatic about the revenue over the past 90 days.

I haven't been able to put as much time into blogging as I would have liked to because of a bunch of personal matters and work, but it's reassuring to know that even with 3 months of reduced work performance doesn't completely tank.

If you want to check out how I reached the first $100/month threshold, definitely check out my post on The Road to a $100/Month Blog!

Quarter 1 Blog Traffic – 2 Steps Forwards, 1 Step Back

Q1 has been quite an interesting one in terms of blogging traffic, Google updates, and my progression with social media promotion, and I've had a fair share of ups and down.

First off, I want to thank all you lovely readers because I finally crossed the 200k pageview mark, which is pretty exciting!

Secondly, I actually had my highest pageview month ever in January, and while I've still only hit around 16,000 sessions/month the progress is very reassuring. Once again (for any potential bloggers who are on the fence about starting out), I think this is simply a testament to the fact that decent content + basic SEO + time can equal growth!

In terms of my traffic breakdown, most of my strategies have remained the same; I focus on writing content around long-tail keywords that are low in competition, and I use Google KeyWord Planner to find most of these (I explain how to do this in my blogging for beginners guide).

Additionally, I've also been doing a lot more manual searching on Google to find topics to write about. If the entire first page of Google is covered by enormously powerful websites/really stellar content, I generally won't waste my time writing an article on the subject because I won't rank and the existing content is already solid.

One notable change/experiment that yielded nice results was writing my Hurdlr App Review at the end of December.

I had never written a specific app review before, but I decided to give it a whirl after a Hurdlr employee approached me and taught me more about the app (which is pretty useful for anyone hustling in the gig economy).

Anyways, after about 75 days, I was rank 1 on the term ‘Hurdlr Review' and sometimes rank 1 on ‘Hurdlr App Review,' having pushed some fairly decent websites out of the way:

Now, the keyword only gets around 200 searches a month, but if I hold my position I will theoretically benefit from any marketing/growth Hurdlr experiences. Since I believe the platform is solid, I think there is a decent chance they will grow with time.

I think this whole experiment shows that there is some value in mixing up your post styles!

If you find a new and exciting app or service you want to promote (for the right reasons, hopefully), you might be able to snag some high rankings before the subject is saturated with reviews. You don't always have to write about the most popular apps or software out there if you find and use alternatives.

Just a thought Hopefully this strategy works for you as well!

Anyway, aside from that, there has been the same emphasis on establishing backlinks, and I've managed to get some very juicy links over the past few months from a mixture of roundup posts, networking, and just generally being linked back to (I love when people do this).

WebMonkey is almost at the 1000 backlink mark according to The Hoth backlink checker, so that's very exciting progress!

I'm still looking to get more total referring domains and some higher authority ones, but hey, good enough for now.

If you struggle to get backlinks, I highly suggest:

• Joining as many relevant forums/communities to your blog niche as you can, and actually collaborate with people!! This is a great way to find roundup post opportunities or guest post exchanges.
• Join blogging Facebook groups. I don't use them very much for promotion, but there's a fair number of roundup post offers that get tossed around in them as well.
• Using HARO (Help A Reporter Out). Make an account, and respond to reporter inquiries via email for a chance to be featured in their pitches.

If you diligently do these 3 things, you should see some backlink progress!

Recent Google updates have been wonky and I've been hit slightly by both the Valentines and March algorithm changes, but at the end of the day everything is more or less the same: write great content, establish authority, and provide enjoyable user experience/an optimized website. The rest is all noise.

Social Media Marketing Changes + Pinterest Progress

One of the major changes/actions I took at the start of the quarter was to purchase Tailwind, a Pinterest (and Instagram) scheduling tool many bloggers rave about.

Tailwind is only $9.99/month, but when you factor in the Tribe Power-Up that I argue new bloggers need to ramp up their exposure on Pinterest, the total comes to around $240/year.

I've written a post that covers if Tailwind is worth buying for new bloggers, but here are some of the reasons I decided to dump more than $200 into this marketing tool.

Firstly, I've come to realize that SEO takes a lot of time (why am I surprised by this, still?). Between Google updates and the nature of the beast, it will help to have supplementary traffic sources to help this blog grow. This is why I've also put so much effort into things like Quora marketing.

Secondly, I believe that if I can crack the Pinterest/Tailwind puzzle and consistently add just another 50-100 people in traffic per day, the software will more than pay for itself. In fact, I'll make a profit from all the display advertising and affiliate sales that are generated.

Anyway, Tailwind, like Q1, has had a fair share of ups and downs.

Starting up on Pinterest again spiked my initial traffic for January/February, but I'm convinced I actually over-spammed Pinterest near the end of February out of excitement and that caused my reach to drop back down:

After tinkering with my Smartloop and general strategy to reduce quantity while focusing on building mutually beneficial relationships with other Pinners, the algorithm seemed to have forgiven me and traffic is back on the rise.

The last few days have been particularly good with several 50-75 users coming to my blog ever day from Pinterest, and I'm starting to see my follower count and general reach improve.

I think I'm finally starting to understand more of the Pinterest algorithm and how to grow sustainably, and I have to give a massive thank you to Shruti from Indian Girling for helping me out on my Pinterest journey.

Shruti has guest posted on WebMonkey before about social media marketing, and she also has a really awesome Pinterest marketing strategy/following and was kind enough to share some tips with me.

Some of the best tips she gave me regarding Pinterest marketing included:

• Creating more boards – I've tried adding more niche specific boards, and this is definitely helping in terms of making my Pins more relevant.
• Sending out more requests to join group boards (the more the merrier). You can use Pin Groupie to browse a directory of group boards.
• Actually invest time into Pinterest SEO! Don't just write basic descriptions for your pins/boards, or leave those fields blank. Add some keywords into the mix!
• Manually pin alongside automation.

I cannot stress how important this last tip is.

I don't know if the Pinterest algorithm seriously rewards manual action over automated ones, but lately I have been making an effort to manually pin throughout the day on my breaks or at home and it is slowly paying off.

If you are currently struggling with your Pinterest blog marketing, I suggest trying out these tips! They certainly helped me, and I believe with enough diligence this sort of work can grow Pinterest into a serious driver of traffic.

Wrapping Things Up

I just wanted to give another massive thank you to everyone who sticks around and reads WebMonkey.

I'm not going to lie…Q1 was a shit show in every sense of the phrase.

Between getting out of a relationship, moving 3 times (twice for myself and then once to help some family move), and working full time, it has definitely been tough to consistently create content.

However, I am now settled in, more motivated than ever before, and I have some great posts and other fun experiments coming in the not too distant future!

Aside from my plans to post more frequently, I also want to mix up some of my content moving forwards to deliver fresh and exciting things. So, expect some more interviews in the near future, as well as some other fun stuff (maybe some YouTube? I'm on the fence about this one, but I have so many ideas!)

I've also been looking into some other advertising networks while I'm working towards my 25K monthly session goal, so there might be some changes to the ad layout on WebMonkey. Hopefully things go smoothly and I have some new money making tips for other bloggers come Spring/Summer!

As always, I'll catch you guys in the next post.

Tom

The post Quarterly Blogging Income Report – Making $500+ With Blogging In 2019 appeared first on WebMonkey.

I spent a lot of time manually pinning resources from my blog, joining group boards, following other people in my niche, and creating eye-catching graphics that have the potential (I hope) to go viral.

For the longest time, all of my efforts Pinterest marketing efforts resulted in barely any website visitors at all.

After putting a lot of effort into a lackluster social media strategy that wasn't panning out, I finally decided to purchase Tailwind, a useful Pinterest marketing tool, in late December.

This is how my Pinterest blog traffic developed over the first few days:

And this is how my Pinterest traffic is developing after a few months of tinkering with my pinning strategy and optimizing how I use the Tailwind app:

I've gone from barely receiving any Pinterest traffic to getting 25-100 visitors a day, and the traffic seems to be growing steadily.

However, there are a few important things I think bloggers should know about Tailwind, and this software is not for everyone. 

Contrary to what a lot of other bloggers in the space might promise, I believe the Tailwind app that should only be used in specific scenarios.

Time to break down the truth behind this marketing tool in my official Tailwind review!

What is Tailwind?

Tailwind is a marketing tool for Pinterest (and recently Instagram) that allows users to manage their Pinterest account from a centralized platform, saving Pinners time and helping to increase their reach.

With the Tailwind app, it's incredible easy to schedule Pins to be published throughout the day, create an automatic ‘Smartloop' that continually publishes evergreen content, and to bulk upload new Pinterest graphics.

In other words, it's a way to automate the manual process of creating Pins and posting them to your various boards.

As you can see, I have 186 pins currently queued in my Tailwind schedule, and my pins consist of evergreen content I systematically re-pin throughout the month and new content I add or create.

Theoretically, by consistently pinning every day and at optimal times, Tailwind will allow me to steadily grow my reach on Pinterest while driving traffic back to make money with my blog.

Most of the Pins I schedule with the Tailwind app are my own content and direct people back to WebMonkey, but many of the pins also come from some of the Tailwind Tribes I have joined.

What are Tailwind Tribes?

Tailwind Tribes are the most powerful feature of using Tailwind in your Pinterest marketing efforts, and this is also how bloggers can successfully use Tailwind to drive traffic to their blog in a matter of days or weeks.

Tailwind Tribes are groups of Pinterest members who create content in similar niches and have agreed to work together as a community.

I've been able to publish plenty of viral pins thanks to Tailwind Tribes, and this has truly helped accelerate my growth on the platform.

In the Tailwind app, you can access Tribes, which are basically community pools where people upload their Pins and select other ones to share.

Most Tailwind Tribes have a ‘scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours' approach where Tribe members are expected to maintain a 1:1 ratio in terms of the content they upload to the Tribe (seeking shares) and the Tribe content they add to their Pinterest scheduler (giving out shares).

This mutual agreement to grow alongside one another is how bloggers effectively use Tailwind to market their blogs on Pinterest.

Here is a small data set from my Tailwind Tribe results after using the platform for about a month and a half:

You can also breakdown Tailwind Tribe effectiveness on a per-Tribe basis, which I recommend doing to keep track of which Tribes are the most effective for your Pinterest marketing efforts.

What I find interesting is that in almost every single Tailwind Tribe, I receive more reach than I return even with share/upload ratios of 2:1 or 3:1.

I've received as much as 275K in reach from the Tribe ‘Bloggers Chalkboard', yet I have only contributed 27.4k in reach despite sharing almost 4x as much content as I have contributed.

This truly indicates that small players have the most to gain from using Tailwind Tribes, and this is because Tailwind Tribes allow small Pinterest accounts to gain shares from some massive and already established Pinners.

It's not uncommon for a pin to be shared by multiple people after you upload it to a Tribe, and many of the members you will encounter on Tailwind already have 1K+ followers on Pinterest and can instantly give you reach.

Tailwind Price:

While Tailwind pricing might seem straightforward on the signup page, there's a lot of hidden costs when you consider potential Tailwind Power Ups.

So, how much does Tailwind cost?

Well, at first glance Tailwind only costs $9.99/month, and unless you operate a very large blog or have multiple team members, you don't need to venture beyond the Tailwind Plus plan.

However, where Tailwind gets you with an up-sell is with their Tribe Powerups.

Tailwind Plus only gives members the opportunity to share 30 pieces of content to Tribes in a 30 day period, and since Tailwind Tribes are a main way bloggers can actually see results with Tailwind, this often isn't enough.

I realized this fact pretty quickly, and pretty soon I elected for the $9.99/month plan plus a $119.88/year Tailwind Tribes Max Power Up, which provides me with unlimited Tribe memberships and 200 submissions per month:

There are plenty of other powerup levels as well where bloggers can gain even more Tribe submission slots or expand their Tailwind Smartloop automatic pinning system.

Ultimately, this means Tailwind pricing can vary greatly depending on how much you use it.

I recommend just starting out with the basic $9.99/month plan to see if it is for you, but keep in mind, it may be worth investing in things like the Tribes Max Power Up or more Smartloop slots as you grow.

Who Should use Tailwind?

Time to get to the main point of this Tailwind app review and to dispel some of the bullshit advice that is passed around on seemingly every blogging forum or group.

If you've ever seen a thread that covers ways to generate blog traffic, you've probably seen some advice like this:

Now, this advice is terrible for a few reasons.

Firstly, pinning 200 or even 30 pieces of content to Tailwind Tribes requires you to actually have some content depth, and new bloggers will lack the article variety to take advantage of everything Tailwind has to offer.

Secondly, getting results with Tailwind or Pinterest require time and effort, and the second you stop putting in work, you will stop receiving traffic.

Bloggers who are just starting out should focus on SEO basics and growing a foundation of organic traffic because this is the backbone of developing a successful blog.

What would happen if you put all your eggs in the Pinterest traffic basket, and an algorithm change or the growing state of competitiveness on Pinterest made all of your traffic disappear overnight…This happened to Facebook organic traffic and pages with thousands of likes, and I'm betting Pinterest will become pay to play in the next 2-3 years anyway.

Finally, paying $200+ dollars a year on software when you are starting out as a blogger does not make sense.

If you are willing to spend the money and want to use social media as your primary traffic source then I say go for it, but otherwise, run a cost analysis to see if it is worth it.

In order to judge if you can afford Tailwind or if you should buy it, I think you should consider if your blog is in a position to pay off the cost of Tailwind (and make a profit) within one year.

Personally, I decided to buy Tailwind because:

• I'm trying to push towards 25,000 monthly sessions to join Mediavine.
• I am confident Tailwind will actually net a profit within 365 days between the extra Monumetric ad revenue I gain from the extra traffic (I'm already seeing AdSense revenue increase and more affiliate sales).

You can approach this decision making process in a few ways, really.

If you blog has advertisements, look at your page RPM (revenue per 1000 views) and see how many Pinterest visitors you would need from Tailwind to recoup some of your cost. Also consider the fact that within one year, you can probably generate some affiliate sales from Pinterest if you send people to the right sort of article.

If the math works out, buy Tailwind. If Tailwind's pricing is too steep or you lack content depth, don's waste your money.

Other Tailwind App Reviews

I wanted to update this post because there have been some shifting opinions in the blogging community about Tailwind.

Lately, it seems like Pinterest traffic is tanking for a lot of bloggers.

Additionally, many users are dropping Tailwind. Just checkout a screenshot from a recent blogging thread I saw (there were dozens of comments like this):

I've been seeing the same thing with my Tailwind account: lots of pins, almost no impressions, and a steady decline.

Manually pinning has been way better for me so far, so for now, I recommend sticking with that strategy.

My Tips for Effectively Using Tailwind:

I'm going to finish off this Tailwind review with a few of the tips and tricks I have started to use in order to save time, increase efficiency, and gradually develop more reach on Pinterest.

I still think manually pinning is better right now, but I'll admit that Tailwind Tribes can still work quite well.

Have ‘Canva' Sessions and Create Pin Images in Bulk:

Canva is a free tool that makes it easy to create eye-catching graphics for social media posts or other forms of media. Canva also has a nifty tool that lets you create vertical images that are the perfect size for Pinterest.

When creating Pins for Tailwind, Canva is your best friend because you can bang out 5-10 designs within a few minutes and repeat the process for multiple articles on your blog.

Once you've found a layout you like with Canva and have created your first graphic, simply use the Canva image search to find several relevant images per design. By shuffling in a few images for each post of yours, you can have some variety in your Pinterest content and share more of the same content without looking spammy.

As you can see, I simply changed the image for these 3 pins, but that gives enough variety for me to share each one of these to a Tailwind Tribe or through my scheduler without spamming the same graphic.

Join Pinterest Group Boards:

Pinterest group boards are collective boards in which many members can share their content, and it is a good idea to join these sorts of boards if you use Tailwind.

Many group boards are niche specific, and scheduling your content (or content from Tribes) is a nice way to expand your reach and mix up the boards you save to.

When you're pinning several hundred pins a month (or more), it will be helpful to have some extra boards to spread your content to.

Monitor tailwind Tribe Performance:

The Tailwind Tribes Max power up gives access to an unlimited number of Tribes, but you should still be selective with where your 200 Pins a month are shared.

Tailwind sends out weekly emails that summarize the reach you have gained from all of your Tribes, and you can also view this data in the Tribes Insight tab on. Check this tab every 1-2 weeks to see if there are some clear winners in your Pinterest marketing efforts.

Always Return the Favor:

I try to maintain a 2:1 or higher ratio in terms of shares to uploads for my Tribes, but go one step further and make sure you share content from the people who have shared yours.

When you receive a re-share in a Tailwind Tribe, you will see the notification under your Pins in the ‘Yours' section of a Tribe:

If you click on the icon of the person who shared your content, you will also be able to quickly filter the Tribe content to only show things they have uploaded to quickly share some of their pins.

I've tried to do this for all Tribe members who share my content, and you can actually end up in a sharing contest with people where you just try to one-up each other on shares…everyone wins!

Mix up Tribe Share Times:

I'm still working out this theory and am waiting for more data, but I'm fairly certain that sharing content to my Tribes in the morning, lunchtime, and after dinner is more effective than randomly adding content to Tribes at random points in the day.

This is just a hunch, but I figure if you can time your Tribe shares to when people are more likely to be checking Tailwind and doing some work, you can get to the top of the Tribe queue at the opportune time.

Don't Spam:

This one is a fairly simple one, really.

It can be easy to get lost on Tailwind, but you should always try to pin a variety of your own content and the content of others. Additionally, I wouldn't recommend pinning more than 30-40 times a day, especially right out of the gate with a fresh account.

Take some time to build a schedule that works for you, use your Smartloop wisely, and monitor traffic to see what works.

Pin Manually:

The Tailwind app is great because it saves time and Pins your content as if you were pinning it manually, but I think there is value in actually hopping on Pinterest sometimes to Pin, comment, and follow people.

The Pinterest algorithm is weird, and part of me even wonders if they like this sort of manual action every so often. Better safe than sorry, anyways!

Final Thoughts:

Well, there you have it!

I hope you have found this Tailwind review and set of Pinterest marketing tips to be somewhat helpful!

As a new blogger Pinterest can seem like the answers to all of your problems, but trust me, Tailwind and Pinterest have a specific time and place and you shouldn't spend money on resources you aren't ready to use.

There's plenty of ways to make money online or to leverage social media to drive traffic to your blog, but you need to approach it in a sensible manner.

Focus on developing organic traffic first, and then use Pinterest and Tailwind as a way to diversify your blog traffic and grow!

If you would like to try out Tailwind while supporting WebMonkey, you can signup with my link!

The course breaks down Pinterest strategies, graphic design tips, scheduling/algorithm information, and plenty of optimization/SEO tips!

Hopefully, the tips I have provided can get your Pinterest marketing efforts back on track!

Catch you guys in the next post!

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