Wow, it’s already November and almost the end of my first full year with Mediavine. Before we get too far into November let’s talk about my blog income for October.
October didn’t go as planned, I started the month out strong but didn’t finish the way I was hoping. All of my kids got colds for the last couple of weeks of October and we had family visit which means I didn’t get as much blogging done as I was hoping.
But even though I didn’t get as much done as I was hoping, I’m still really happy with how the month ended and what I was able to accomplish.
October Income Report
As you probably already know income report is a little bit different than a lot of them you see out there. I’m only sharing the income I make off of having ads on my website.
While I do make income in several other ways I wanted to focus these reports on sharing how much money I make from Mediavine Ads my first full year.
Why I’m Writing a Blog Ad Income Report
I got accepted to the Mediavine Ad Network, Memorial Day weekend of 2020 and I decided I wanted to do an income report each month of my first full year in Mediavine (Hello 2021!).
Not only did I want to do this as a way to track my progress but also to encourage bloggers that are still trying to figure out how to monetize their blogs. (digital products and Mediavine ads are two of my favorite ways of monetizing.)
When I started writing these income reports in January I wasn’t really sure how I would like them, but I love writing them and seeing the growth and change each month year over year.
I love that I can see my goals and results all written out each month. I also love the accountability that putting this post out there puts on me.
One of the big reasons I wanted to write this income report series is because I rarely see income reports for lifestyle blogs, most of the income reports I see are from bloggers who blog about blogging, and often a big portion of their income isn’t even from their blog.
I want this income report to show that you can make money with a lifestyle or mom blog you don’t have to have a specific niche, you don’t have to blog about blogging and you don’t have to be a freelance writer to make money.
Keep in mind that I’m still a really small blog and not making that much money compared to many of the big bloggers. But I’m also making a lot more money than other blogs, so it just depends on where you’re at.
For years I dreamed about making as much money as I currently do now with my blog. While my blog still has a lot more growing to do I’m really happy with how much it’s grown in the last year and I can’t wait to see where it is a year from now.
I hope you enjoy reading this blog ad income report and it is motivating to you. (Reading other blog income reports has been very motivating to me over the years and helped me stick with this blogging thing when I feel burnt out!)
If this blog income report does nothing else I hope it helps you realize that not all bloggers are making a ton of money. And that it is possible to make money without selling a product/course or having tons of affiliate sales.
Remember there will always be someone more successful, but don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle or your middle to someone else’s end.
What I’m Including (or Not) In This Report
Before getting into my goals and income for October (all of the exciting stuff!) let me just clarify a few things.
#1 I will only be sharing my income from Mediavine. (Remember this is only 1 of the income streams I have for this blog) Some months it’s my highest income source but most of the time I make more on product sales.
#2 The income amount I share is the income before I take out expenses or pay taxes.
#3 Each blog will make a different amount of money with ads even if they have similar topics and traffic numbers.
#4 I was accepted into Mediavine before the traffic requirements changed to 50,000 sessions. So if you get accepted with the new requirement you can most likely expect to make more money in your first year as a Mediavine blogger.
— Previous Income Reports if you Missed Them —
Blog Income Report October 2021
I like sharing my income reports a little bit differently than other reports I have seen. I like to share the goals I set for the month and then share if I hit those goals. Along with telling you what my goals are and if I met them I also like to give you more information about why I set the goal, hitting it, etc.
October Goals
Okay, let’s take a look at the goals I set for October. I set several goals including the number of sessions I wanted to hit (traffic goal), the amount of ad income I wanted to make, and tasks I wanted to complete (number of posts written, emails, etc).
Traffic Goal
My traffic goal for October was to hit 20,000 sessions on my website. This is the same amount of traffic I wanted to hit in both August and September and I didn’t make it so I decided to fingers crossed to be able to hit it this month.
When looking at my blog traffic I personally like to set my google analytics to compare the current sessions/pageviews with the same days last year. This helps me have a better perspective of how my blog is growing year over year.
Last year in September I had 12,447sessions so hitting 20,000 sessions would be a big stretch, but I had a lot of new content I was planning on sharing.
Goal Met? No
My goal was 20,000 sessions and I got 17,600 sessions which was an improvement of a couple of a few thousand sessions but not as much traffic as I was hoping to get.
While I wish I was reporting much bigger numbers for my traffic last month, I am excited by the growth. The number of sessions in October 2021 is a 41.40% increase from last year (2020). While not as impressive as the increases I have seen in other months it is still progress!
I’ll be honest at first, I was really discouraged that I haven’t been able to hit my traffic goal for the last few months. But I have been trying to remind myself that my traffic and income is improving year over year. Plus this is giving me insight into what type of content I need to create more of to grow my traffic.
The best way I know of to get more traffic is to create content optimized for google (this is especially important as this past year social media especially Pinterest has sent me a lot less traffic).
I have been working on creating more posts on seasonal topics as well as continuing to create evergreen content that will get views year-round. These new posts haven’t brought me much traffic this year, but I’m really hoping they will help my traffic increase even more next year.
Content Goals
For October I set the goal to publish 21 blog posts one post for each weekday Monday through Friday. This was a huge goal for me and something I have been building up to. I know that when I have been able to publish a large amount of content in a short time in the past it has really helped my blog traffic in the following months and especially the next year.
Goal Met? No
As I mentioned above my month did not go as planned thanks to my kids getting sick. In October I published/updated 10 blog posts, so I was only about 50% successful in achieving my goal of publishing 21 posts.
While I really wish I would have been able to hit my goal of publishing 21 posts I’m really happy with the posts I published. Most of them are over 1,000 words in length and several of the posts have multiple freebies. (Creating those freebies takes a lot of additional time).
October Income Goal
Reminder – for my October income, I’m only sharing the income I made with Mediavine ads. You can read about all the different ways I make money on this blog here.
It’s crazy looking back at the last year and seeing how much Mediavine ads have changed my life with the income from the blog. I know I’m still not making that much money, but I’m making so much more from my blog than I ever have before. It’s so exciting to see the money I have earned get deposited into my account each month.
My October blog ad income goal was to make $600 from Mediavine Ads.
Goal Met? No!
I was so close to hitting my goal of $600 in October but I missed it by just a little bit. I finished the month of October making $588.30 from Mediavine.
Email Newsletter Goal
I have been doing better at consistently sending emails to my newsletter list but I still haven’t been doing very well at sending a weekly email like I would like to. So for October, my goal is to send 4 emails, one each week of the month.
Goal Met? Yes
I sent 4 emails to my subscribers in October and met my goal of sending an email each week.
Goals for November
I have a lot of posts I’m wanting to get published this month that I’m really excited about. But I also know that the holiday season can get really busy, so figuring out a balance and how big to set my goals is hard. But here we go.
20,000 Sessions
Ok, so it’s probably crazy to set this goal yet again when I haven’t reached it in the past few months. But I’m still going to try to hit it before the end of the year (so it’s either November or December that needs to be 20,000 session months!)
8 New Blog Posts
This month I’m setting a more realistic content goal of publishing 8 new blog posts. I will also be continuing to update older posts but I really need to get some new posts shared. Hopefully, I can do more than 8 posts, but the goal is 8 posts.
$800 Income from Ads
I’m really hoping to be able to hit at least $800 in ad income from blog traffic in November. I know my RPMs are a lot higher this year than they were last year so I really think this could happen (fingers crossed).
4 Email Newsletters
In October I was able to send an email newsletter each week and I’m planning on continuing doing that this month. I already have a sale planned with a bonus coupon for my email list, so if you’re not already on the list be sure to join.
Thinking of Starting a Blog? Here are some posts that you might find helpful.
Why I wish I started my blog on WordPress
Free Blogging Tools Every Blogger Needs
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