Blog income report May 2021: Tallying up how much blog income was earned, detailing website traffic, and discussing marketing strategies. This article contains affiliate links.
As the tagline of this blog would suggest, I am pursuing financial independence through blogging and investing.
On the investing side, I invest in dividend stocks and post monthly dividend income updates.
On the blogging side, I earn income through display ads, affiliate links, and the occasional sponsored article.
Today, I am excited to share my first blog income report of the year.
In this post, I will show you how much blog income I earned in May 2021, and I will share details about my website traffic and marketing tactics.
Let’s get started.
Blog Income Report May 2021: Why I’m Sharing My Blog Income
There are a few reasons I decided to disclose my blog income.
Firstly, it fits in line with the tagline for this blog: financial independence through blogging and investing. Originally, I began pursuing financial independence to be able to spend more time on blogging and investing. My goal is to help others do the same by sharing what I learn. By adding a blog income report to my dividend income updates, I am able to show you exactly how I am achieving financial independence through blogging and investing.
Secondly, I decided to share my blog income because I am an analytical person. Putting together a blog income report allows me to gather and analyze data about my blog so I can learn how to improve it.
Thirdly, I love blogging. Blogging is one of the reasons I aspire to reach financial independence. I am not pursuing freedom to sit around and do nothing—I want to blog and invest full-time.
Finally, to help other bloggers learn how to blog. I learned so much from other blog income reports and I always enjoyed reading them. So, I felt like it would be an interesting report for other bloggers to read.
With that said, I will publish my blog income numbers for May 2021 and gauge the audience’s interest. Depending on how interested people are, I may begin publishing monthly blog income reports.
I will begin with the blog income numbers, then show you the traffic breakdown, and will finish up with marketing strategies.
Blog Income Report May 2021: $233.03
I earned a total of $233.03 from blogging in May 2021.
Although this may not seem like a huge sum of money for the amount of time I spend on blogging, I am so appreciative of every dollar I receive because I would blog for free.
The majority of this month’s income was from my affiliate, Bluehost, and another large chunk of it was from Monumetric display ads. I also received a small payment from Amazon.
Here is a breakdown of how much I earned:
Bluehost – $169.43 (after USD to CAD conversion)
Monumetric – $51.17 (after USD to CAD conversion)
Amazon – $12.43
Gross income: $233.03
Net profit: $123.65
Blog Income Report May 2021 – Expenses Breakdown: $109.38
In May 2021, I spent a total of $109.38 of my blog income.
I think it’s important to reinvest a portion of blog income to grow the blog.
It’s also fun to have money to pay for blog-related tools that I wouldn’t normally pay for with my own money.
But since this is money I earned from blogging, I view it as money to spend.
Here is a breakdown of my blog expenses in May 2021:
Mai Styles Plugin – $49.54
Ubersuggest – $29
Canva Pro – $16.99
Web hosting – $13.85
As for the remaining $123.65, I saved $23.30 of it in a non-registered investment account, and the rest is sitting in my blog spending account waiting to be reinvested.
Regarding the expenses, I paid $49.54 for the Mai Styles plugin in order to improve the font and colours of my blog. The theme I use is limited in that regard and I am not much of a coder.
Furthermore, I spent $29 on Ubersuggest to help with keyword research. It’s one of my favourite tools for keyword research.
And I spend $16.99 monthly for Canva Pro to market the blog. Canva Pro is an amazing app that allows me to create pins and it provides images to market the blog.
Otherwise, I spent $13.85 on hosting with Bluehost. This is the amount I spend monthly and it is after the conversion from USD to CAD. Of course, I could pay for a longer term to lower the cost, but I have chosen to pay monthly because I pay for it with blog income.
Traffic Breakdown – Blog Income Report May 2021: 11,985 Page Views
The blog had 11,985 page views in May 2021.
This was actually one of my lowest months of the year.
Since about December 2020, the blog normally receives anywhere from 15,000 to 20,000 page views per month.
Nevertheless, I am more focussed on user, session, and organic search growth than anything else.
Fortunately, my organic search growth continued to climb over the previous month, and my sessions and users were about the same as April 2021.
Website Marketing Strategies
Now that you know how much income the blog generated and how much traffic was received, I want to go over how traffic was generated.
As you can see from the Google Analytics data above, organic search dominated traffic in May 2021. 54.3% of my traffic was from organic searches.
For the record, 2021 is the first year that the majority of my traffic is coming from organic search.
Prior to 2021, social media was my main traffic driver. But in May 2021, social media only accounted for 17.7% of my website traffic.
Ideally, I want to continue to grow my organic search traffic, but I also see social media as an area of opportunity now.
Content In May 2021
Of course, the most important part of a blog is its content.
In May 2021, I published 13 new blog posts and updated two old posts.
I was able to publish 13 blog posts by sticking to a three-posts-per-week schedule.
From the beginning of this year, I have been publishing new posts on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
Here is a recap of the 13 blog posts that were published in May 2021:
Best Websites For Stock Research: 6 Websites To Analyze Stocks
Self Directed Investing: Pros and Cons Of Self Directed Vs Advisor
Stocks That Pay Dividends In February, May, August, and November
Dave Ramsey On Investing: 3 Reasons To Find Someone Else For Investment Advice
Investing Metrics For Research On Stocks: 10 Key Metrics
How Many Stocks Should You Own?
What Percentage Of Your Income Should Go To Retirement Savings?
How To Dig Yourself Out Of A Financial Hole
How To Save Money On Cable TV, Internet, And Phone
Money Problems In Relationships: 17 Signs Your Relationship Has Money Troubles
How Much Money Should I Save To Move Out?
Dividend Income April 2021: 47 YoY Growth
Social Media And Email Subscriber Growth In May 2021: 6,302
Social media accounted for 17.7% of my total blog traffic in May 2021.
When taking a closer look at the numbers, Twitter dominates my social media traffic.
In total, Twitter accounted for over 75% of my social media traffic. To market blog posts on Twitter, I use a combination of scheduling posts with Hootsuite and manual tweeting.
For whatever reason, my Pinterest traffic dropped off a cliff this year.
Pinterest was actually the leading social media traffic driver in 2019 and during the early part of 2020. However, it has declined so much, it is hardly worth my time. I’m not sure if it’s because I am paying more attention to Twitter and organic search traffic now. Hopefully I can figure it out, because that could be a huge area of opportunity.
Here is a breakdown of my social media and email subscriber audience as of June 8, 2021:
Twitter – 3,445 followers
Pinterest – 1,623 followers
Instagram – 698 followers
Facebook – 114 followers
E-mail subscribers – 422 subscribers
Total RTC audience – 6,302
Total comments on the blog – 3,623 approved
Thank you to everyone who subscribed, commented, or followed on social media. I sincerely appreciate it! It really means a lot.
Goals For June 2021
For the most part, I am looking to maintain my current schedule.
I write new posts on days off from my job, and I focus on marketing and social media during downtime on the days that I work.
Otherwise, I try to work through a daily checklist to stay on top of things.
This includes tasks like scheduling Hootsuite, creating a new pin for Pinterest, and answering comments.
Here is a summary of my blogging goals for June 2021:
Publish 13 blog posts. Content matters the most, so my main goal is to maintain my Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays posting schedule. To be honest, I already have posts scheduled until the end of June 2021. So, this shouldn’t be a problem. But since my work schedule is getting busier, I am challenging myself to write two posts every day I am off work.
Update 3 posts. Another goal this month is to update 3 old blog posts. Last month I updated 2 blog posts, so my aim is to step it up by one.
Comment on 32 blogs. I try to stay in touch with the personal finance community as much as I can. Between my job, writing posts, answering comments, answering emails, and managing social media, it can be difficult to keep up. To make sure I stay in touch, I try to comment on blogs in the community. Since I commented on 30 in May 2021, I am aiming for 32 in June 2021.
Research Pinterest marketing. As I mentioned, my Pinterest traffic has fallen off a cliff this year. My theory is that it’s because of an algorithm change. As such, my plan is to do some moderate research on Pinterest marketing this month. I might read some blog posts, listen to podcasts, and watch a few YouTube videos to learn how to market on Pinterest again.
Promote more affiliate links in posts. I haven’t had the most success with affiliate marketing, to tell you the truth. Most of my income has been from sponsored posts and Monumetric or Google Adsense display ads. Now that my blog is starting to generate more organic search traffic, I am planning to add more affiliate links with posts in hopes to increase blog income.
Blog Income Report May 2021 – Final Thoughts
I hope you enjoyed my blog income report this month.
In summary, I earned $233.03 from blogging in May 2021.
When combined with my dividend income for May 2021, I earned a total of $275.69.
Just a few years ago, this was something I only could have dreamed of. Now, I’m making over $275 worth of passive income in a single month to do what I love.
Now I’d like to hear from you. Did you enjoy this blog income report? Did you find it valuable? Would you like to see more blog reports? Please let me know in the comments below.
Interested in starting your own blog? Use my special Bluehost offer to get a free domain and get started for as low as $3.95 per month.
Related Articles On Blogging You Might Like
Tool For Keyword Research: 9 Tools To Increase Organic Search Traffic
How To Blog Successfully (in 2021) – 8 Blog Tasks With The Highest ROI
Monumetric: A Simple Way For Blogs And Websites To Earn Monthly Income
How Much Does A Blog Cost Per Month?
I am not a licensed investment or tax adviser. All opinions are my own. This post may contain advertisements by Monumetric and Google Adsense. This post may also contains internal links, affiliate links to BizBudding, Amazon, Bluehost, and Questrade, links to trusted external sites, and links to RTC social media accounts.
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