How I Made $2,149.98 In August 2018 Blogging

Welcome to my second income report ever for August 2018!

August was a really exciting month for the blog because it is the first time I not only passed $1,000 in a month but actually $2,000!!! Majorly freaking out over here.

It really is crazy what a ton of hard work and prayer can do!

This past month I was able to quit my job because my blog makes nearly double what I was making so now I officially blog for my job!

If you are new to my income reports (it is only the second one ;), read below to see why I am sharing how much I make. If you’ve already read the last one, feel free to skip that part.

First, if you are thinking about starting a blog of your own, I created this tutorial showing you how to start a blog today in less than an hour (the same steps I followed when I started this blog!). This post will help you:

Decide on a topic for your blog.
Shows you how to create a professional looking website.
How to get a FREE domain (your website name). This usually costs at least $15 dollars!

First things first, why am I even sharing with you how much money I am making from my blog?

I am a full-time college student paying entirely for my school on my own. I also nanny (quit!) AND like to have a social life.

After looking at how much college costs, I knew that the money I made from nannying was not going to cut it.

I spent my freshman year feeling bad for myself that I was the only one I knew who had to pay for their own college (which I am sure is not true, I was just in a major pity party). By the time sophomore year rolled around (August 2017) I was ready to stop feeling bad myself and figure out a way to pay for this freaking college debt.

However, I quickly learned that finding a job that pays a lot of money AND will work around your college schedule (that changes every semester) is nearly impossible.

What did I do? I took my search to the internet.

After doing major digging I found blogs that were putting out these posts all about how they were making money on their websites.

Majority of them were stay-at-home moms doing blogging on the side and earning over $10,000 dollars A MONTH from their website!!

As a nanny, I know how hard it is to do anything besides watch your kids, so I figured if these moms can do it around their young kids, I sure can do it around my crazy college schedule.

The good news for me – I already had this little secret blog that I started when I was in high school.

Bad news for me – This blog hadn’t been posted too in months, barely got any views, AND was on a Blogspot platform (if you read my post on How To Start a Blog you will know just how BAD this is!).

I was starting over.

But, I was SO excited and motivated to start. I researched SirLinksalot case studies and everything I could about making my blog successful and began writing posts that I thought people would like to read.

…and now here I am. Less than a year into blogging, I have almost $800 dollars being deposited into my bank account JUST from money I made from my website.

I am writing this blogging income report because I KNOW I am not the only one struggling to find a way to make money in college.

Anyone can do this, and I am going to show you how you can get the same success I am having.

*I also want to note, I blog anonymously. There is nowhere on my website (unless you do MAJOR digging) where you can find personal information about me or my social media. I know a lot of people are “embarrassed” to have a blog, so just keep this in mind, that it is possible to have a blog that makes money without the world knowing that you’re a blogger :)*

AUGUST 2018 BLOG INCOME REPORT (+ TRAFFIC)

(I am only reporting income that has actually been deposited into my bank account. This means all the money that I am showing you today was actually made in May 2018, but most of the programs I am making money from take around 90 days to be deposited into your bank account. In August, I actually am estimating to have made over $3,000 from my blog but that won’t be deposited into my bank account until November (I REPEAT, I almost made $3,000 with my blog last month! Holy shi*!!)

Proof of Income:

Breakdown of August 2018 Blog Income – $2,149.98

In August 2018, I made $2,149.98 from my blog. Here is the breakdown on where exactly I am getting that money from.

Affiliate Income – $689.62
- Bluehost (check out my tutorial on how to start a blog): $75.00
- Amazon Affiliates: $294.68
- ShopStyle Collective: $211.74
- 17th Avenue Design Studio: $0.00
- Ebates: $108.20
Advertising – $1,460.36
- Mediavine Advertising: $1,460.36

TOTAL: $2,149.98

The total amount above is for the month of August before any taxes have been taken out. To save my butt when tax season comes around, I put 30% of that money into a bank account just for taxes.

My Blogging Stats:

July Traffic: 179,534 page views.

Pinterest Followers: 3,001 Followers (didn’t get this exactly on the day the month ended so it is an estimate)

What did I do in August to grow my blog?

*I highly recommend subscribing to my blogging email list. Every Monday, I send out an email that shows exactly what I did the previous week to grow my blog. It is WAY more detailed than I will be able to get in this post!*

I am officially a junior in college!

August was a crazy busy month for me. I went on a wonderful vacation with my family, said goodbye to my boyfriend and all my hometown friends who are now off to college, and started school myself.

For a girl that absolutely hates change, there was a whole lot of that going on!

I am going to be honest, I didn’t work on my website a ton in August. Probably around three times a week for a couple of hours.

The biggest thing I did was get a new host for my website. I have been with Bluehost from the beginning and really love them, but they are more suited (and priced) for beginner blogs. I am close to 200,000 views a month (insane) and my website was loading suppperr slow.

I had to dish out $400 dollars a YEAR for this new host (for reference, I paid $100 for Bluehost for THREE years! I guess it takes money to make money;/). However, my website runs SO much faster now so I am happy.

Summary of what I did in August:

Updated old posts
Got Thrive Architects!
Wrote posts focusing on SEO

The time I did spend on my blog this month was almost all put towards revamping old posts.

My Halloween posts were super popular last year and I am hoping that they remain popular this year. I wanted to make sure all links were working and set up the best way for affiliate marketing. I also needed to go back and make sure I have sources for all the pictures (major mistake of me not having done that last year…if you are a new blogger DON’T do that!).

When studying other websites who have amazing SEO, I realized that a lot of them were setting up their blogs in a certain way. I researched forever how to make this happen and found out that the most efficient way was to buy Thrive Architects.

Thrive Architects is basically an editor when writing blog posts that makes setting everything up so much easier. So far I am really happy with this purchase. The only thing I am not happy about is that it does not work with my ad company! So I have to manually place ads which isn’t the biggest deal but definitely not ideal.

The last thing I did this month was write posts focusing on ranking for SEO. Pinterest is where the majority of my traffic comes from and while it does great right now, I am nervous that one day it will just stop bringing me traffic. Ranking in SEO ensures that you will have traffic continually coming to your website.

As you already know, In the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, driving sustainable and consistent traffic to your blog is paramount for brand growth. As an astute blogger, you understand the significance of strategic SEO practices. By crafting high-quality, optimized content, you’re not only catering to the current algorithms but also fostering a lasting online presence. Their expertise in leveraging proven strategies and staying updated with industry trends ensures your blog remains visible and engaging to your target audience, allowing your brand to flourish organically.

However, that’s easier said than done and posts that rank in Google are usually very long. AKA they take a boat-load amount of time to write! This is where the expertise of skilled SEO professionals comes into play, as their guidance and strategies can streamline the process and help you create substantial, search-optimized articles that have a higher potential to rank and attract valuable organic traffic.

Last months goals for August:

I REALLY want to make over $4,000 dollars in August. If I estimated correctly, I should be around $70 off of making $4,000 dollars in August. I was SO close! Oh well, I am still very happy!
Edit SEO on all old posts. Did this!! Whew, this one took a lot of time (almost two months) but I finally got it done! Yesterday I even had 500 visitors to my website just from SEO. If you’re wondering, that is a lot for me!
Email each subscribers list once a week. Okay, I did this every week but one week…so I am giving myself a go on this.
Batch create posts for the month of September. This definitely did not happen. I am scrambling to get posts up because I am so busy with school.

My goals for September:

Earn over $2,000 in September from my website. I am going to be honest, I have NO idea how much I will make this month. My posts are almost all on college and the college buying season is over. This is the first year I have had to deal with this so I KNOW my income will go down, I am just not sure by how much. If I could make over $2,000 that would be AWESOME!
Get at least one post up per week. I am getting slammed with school work and just don’t have the amount of time I thought I would to work on my blog. I am really trying to prioritize my time and need to get at least one post up per week.
Upload two Youtube videos. I am planning on starting to do more Youtube videos because I think it will be a lot more relatable for my viewers!
Work on Elite Blog Academy once a week. I’ve been putting this one off but when I work on it my income increases by a ton so I really should be getting the hint to keep working on EBA!
Come up with a new email opt-in. My current email opt-in is a dorm room packing list which did great but not that people aren’t moving into dorms anymore it is barely converting. I need to come up with one that will convert people into subscribers asap!

More on the YouTube- I don’t really use YouTube at all but posted a vlog of my sister moving into her dorm last week and it already has over 100,000 views! So crazy.

You can check out the video here: College Move In Day Vlog 2018 (freshman) | University of Wisconsin-Madison

Make sure you subscribe to my blogging email if you are interested in blogging or have one of your own:

Every Monday, I give my blogging subscribers an inside look at what exactly I did last week to grow my blog business by taking a picture of my overflowing, jam-packed with information, and real planner. It’s an amazing learning tool for anyone looking to earn over $3,000+ a month from their website in less than a year.

Click here to join my blogging email list.

I still can’t believe I made over $2,000 from my blog in August!

Do you have any questions about what I wrote? Email me at [email protected]. I would love to help anyone looking to start (or already have) a blog of their own.

Want to see my last income report? Click here, How I Made $781.88 in July 2018 Blogging