You guys this is the earliest I have ever shared an income report. But I have some really big goals for October so I need the accountability of getting this post up early in the month.
For August I had some big goals but didn’t write them down until over halfway through the month so it was a lot harder to achieve those goals.
October is the start of the 4th quarter which means bigger ad spend by companies so hopefully that also means higher income for bloggers and other creators.
Anyway, let’s take a look at September’s goals and numbers and how I did then we can talk more about October and my goals for this new month.
September Income Report
This income report is probably 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.
This income report is the 9th income report I’m sharing (only 3 more to go!). 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 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.
Yes, I’m still really small 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 September (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 Ad Income Report September 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.
September Goals
Okay, let’s take a look at the goals I set for September. 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 September was to hit 20,000 sessions on my website. This is the same amount of traffic I wanted to hit in August 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 11,426 sessions so hitting 20,000 sessions would be a big stretch. I had this same big stretch goal for July and August and wasn’t able to hit it so I was really hopeful that I would finally start to see my traffic pick back up in September
Goal Met? No
My goal was 20,000 sessions and I got 15,578 sessions which was an improvement of a couple of hundred sessions from August 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 September 2021 is a 36.34% 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 then I realized that my traffic is improving year over year and I have the opportunity to get more traffic.
The best way I know of to get more traffic is to create content. I have been working on creating more posts on topics that trend in the late summer and early fall. While these posts haven’t brought me much traffic this year I’m really hoping they will help my traffic increase even more next year.
Content Goals
For September I set the goal to publish 20 blog posts. 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
In September I published/updated 15 blog posts, so I was only 5 away from hitting my goal of publishing 20 posts.
You may have noticed in my last couple of income reports I have talked about updated (updating) blog posts. In the past, I haven’t included these in my content goals. But the last few months I have realized how much time I have been spending updating old posts, in some cases, it’s like writing a whole new post and even taking new pictures.
So I decided to start counting updated posts toward my content goals because those updated posts take almost as much work as a new post.
In case you’re wondering I have been updating posts from the early days of my blog with better SEO and keywords (to hopefully improve google rankings), optimized posts for more ad placements, and checked to make sure the information is up to date and that links in the post are working. In most cases, the posts end up 500+ words longer after updating.
September Income Goal
Reminder – for my September 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 September blog ad income goal was to make $500 from Mediavine Ads.
I know it’s not that impressive of a goal but July – September are my lowest traffic months, which also means the lowest income months.
Goal Met? YES!
After 2 months of not being able to hit the $500 mark, I was finally able to make it to my goal! In September I made $592.84 in Mediavine display ads. This was a big improvement from last month.
Email Newsletter Goal
I have been doing better at consistently sending emails to my newsletter list but I still haven’t been doing very good at sending a weekly email like I would like to. So for September, my goal is to send 4 emails, one each week of the month.
Goal Met? No
I sent 3 emails to my subscribers in September so I missed my goal by 1 email. I did learn how to schedule emails though so I’m hoping that will help me in the next few months.
Goals for October
Okay, guys remember how I said I needed to get this income report up early so I had more accountability for this month’s goals? Well, are you ready? I think I might be crazy to set these goals, but I’m really hoping I can hit them all.
20,000 Sessions
Looking at my traffic from last year hitting 20,000 sessions would be almost double the traffic I got last year. I did add several Halloween posts last year that I’m hoping will boost my traffic to hit that 20,000 sessions mark.
Publish 21 Blog Posts
My goal for October is to publish a blog post each weekday (Monday – Friday) so that’s a total of 21 blog posts. I’m planning to publish a mix of fall activities, free printables as well as Thanksgiving and Christmas posts.
$600 Ad Income
I’m hoping to be able to hit at least $600 in ad income from blog traffic in October.
4 Newsletters
This month I’m going to send an email each week and really work on getting them scheduled ahead of time so I don’t miss a week.
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