{"id":17375,"date":"2024-02-09T15:28:25","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T15:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/blogging-income-report-august-2018-making-292-from-blogging\/"},"modified":"2024-05-24T19:38:48","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T19:38:48","slug":"blog-income-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/blog-income-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Blogging Income Report – August 2018 – Making $292 from Blogging"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the start of another month, which means it\u2019s also time for another blogging income report and update!<\/p>\n

As usual, I always aim to be 100% transparent and share as many blogging metrics, income screenshots, or tidbits of info as possible.<\/p>\n

While blogging income reports are a dime a dozen these days, I think the truly honest reports are becoming harder to find amidst swarm of \u2018blogging about blogging\u2019 niche writers.<\/p>\n

Thus, while this is getting repetitive, I will persevere and continue to write these reports because they help me stay motivated and will hopefully provide other writers or content creators with a realistic <\/strong>road map of what to expect.<\/p>\n

So, onto the details!<\/p>\n

Blogging Income for the Month of August<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I\u2019m going to start including my income numbers at the top of these reports since I figure these stats are more interesting to other bloggers.<\/p>\n

Despite only publishing 3 posts, August was the highest month of earning I have ever had.<\/p>\n

In August, WebMonkey or syndicated content from this blog resulted in $229.52<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Here is how the income breaks down:<\/p>\n

Google AdSense Blog Earnings – $166.17<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The bulk of my August earnings were driven by increased traffic to WebMonkey (I\u2019ll get to this later) and an increase in my Google AdSense average RPM (it was around $9.49\u00a0<\/strong>for the month, which is crazy).<\/p>\n

An increase in traffic bringing in additional display advertising revenue isn\u2019t surprising, but I was happy to see my RPM creep up.<\/p>\n

I also noticed CPC bids (cost-per-click) were appearing in my AdSense breakdown alongside CPM (cost per thousand impression) bids, which is new as far as I can tell.<\/p>\n

My gut is telling me that my recent posts on college related topics like college side hustles you should start<\/a> might have attracted some new display publishers in the education vertical, increasing my average RPM with back to school pumped advertising budgets.<\/p>\n

While this is just my guess, I think this month has proved that AdSense can provide publishers with strong RPMs depending on their niche and the season\/advertising economy.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still striving to reach the 25,000 session mark for Mediavine, but for now, I\u2019m happy to start making money with Google AdSense every month!<\/p>\n

Additionally, I also think this increase in earnings shows it is feasible to start your own blog and generate income within 6 months to 1 year.<\/p>\n

I recently published a post that outlines the steps I have taken to create a $100\/month blog<\/a>, and I think posts like that, coupled with these income reports, definitely prove that blogging isn't dead or impossible.<\/p>\n

The money isn't easy and blogging takes hundreds of hours of work to pay dividends, but the effort is worth it in the end!<\/p>\n

Content Syndication on Medium – $63.35<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"making-money-writing-on-Medium\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019m actually getting fed up with the content syndication system on Medium, and I expect my earnings to dip on the platform very dramatically over the next few months (until I can write some original content on the platform).<\/p>\n

2 months ago, I noticed that my phone farming guide<\/a> and \u2018how to make money on Medium<\/a>\u2019 guide were starting to receive organic traffic on Medium and were actually cannibalizing my own blog posts.<\/p>\n

Upon checking the source code for my stories, it was evident that my phone farming guide did not actually have a rel=canonical tag, and was therefore not informing Google to attribute WebMonkey as the original source of the article.<\/p>\n

My guide on how to make money on Medium was formatted correctly, but it was still receiving traffic from Google\u2026and a lot of it:<\/p>\n

\"Medium-organic-traffic\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

After contacting Medium\u2019s support team, I was assured that all the tags would be fixed and both of my articles would resume their rank 1 position on Google.<\/p>\n

After 2 more weeks, nothing changed.<\/p>\n

I have finally hidden both of those Medium stories so they won\u2019t appear on Google, and this has corresponded with an increase in organic traffic to these 2 articles:<\/p>\n

\"Medium-cannibilization-problem\"
Look at the difference in daily traffic now!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In other words, it seems like the cannibalization is finally over!<\/p>\n

While making passive income every month from writing on Medium was nice, I am frustrated that my blog lost several thousand views to the platform.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day I think content syndication on Medium is a valuable tool to explore for other bloggers.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the Medium support team is pretty stellar and very timely with responding to complaints or questions.<\/p>\n

However, something was just not adding up for my 2 successful Medium posts, and it was finally time to pull the plug on my highest earners.<\/p>\n

If you actively engage in content syndication on Medium, I suggest taking a look into your Medium stats to make sure your referrals aren't comprised of significant amounts of organic traffic.<\/p>\n

August still saw some decent passive income\u00a0from Medium, which is always welcomed, but I expect the next few months will only result in a trickle of money since I've hidden my most popular stories.<\/p>\n

However, I'm confident the increase in traffic I'm now receiving to my blog and AdSense earnings will make up for it!<\/p>\n

Blogging Affiliate Income – $63<\/strong><\/h2>\n

August was also my highest month of revenue in terms of affiliate marketing!<\/p>\n

To date, I\u2019ve never focused on affiliate marketing on my blog as a source of revenue, and the peppering of Amazon Affiliate links rarely make more than $5 a month in income.<\/p>\n

In the Amazon Affiliate department, this month was no different; I earned $5 in Amazon affiliate income this month:<\/p>\n

\"august-amazon-affiliate\"<\/p>\n

However, I\u2019m very excited to have earned \u00a0<\/strong>in income from 2 Shopify referrals.<\/p>\n

This was completely unexpected income for me, but I believe I\u2019ve discovered some new potential.<\/p>\n

A few months ago I published my guide on how to start a dropshipping business in 48 hours<\/a>, and wrote what I believe is a transparent and reasonable guide that outlines what to expect with dropshipping.<\/p>\n

Since then, Google has steadily been increasing my ranking on dropshipping related terms, and the traffic to that specific article keeps on increasing:<\/p>\n

\"dropshipping-pageviews\"<\/p>\n

Referring new dropshippers to Shopify is definitely my new favorite affiliate marketing effort because it provides value for both parties: I get paid, and the dropshipper gets 14 days of a free trial and some tips from my article!<\/p>\n

Additionally, the Shopify affiliate program is quite lucrative.<\/p>\n

If one of my trial referrals becomes a paid Shopify member, I can receive up to 2 months of their subscription fee.<\/p>\n

This month 2 readers subscribed for the $29\/month Basic Shopify plan, which resulted in the $58 of income:<\/p>\n

\"Shopify-affiliate-program-earnings\"<\/p>\n

I currently have a few other active trial users, and if the existing users continue to run their dropshipping business I will receive their second month of subscription fees as well!<\/p>\n

Ultimately, if you are a content creator who promotes Shopify related content or dropshipping material, I highly suggest looking into the Shopify Affiliate Program.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a generous program that also provides readers with some value, and that\u2019s the way a decent affiliate program should work!<\/p>\n

Additional Passive Income from Phone Farming – $40.23<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I decided to purchase 1 more device for my phone farm, and it was even ‘free' since my phone farm earnings paid for it!<\/p>\n

\"phone-farming-device\"<\/p>\n

My other devices have all been banned from MobileXpression, but my new device has allowed me to rejoin the program (I'll stick to the rules this time to avoid a ban).<\/p>\n

In terms of my phone farming routine, not much has changed.<\/p>\n

Currently I am running a mixture of:<\/p>\n