Blog Income Report: How I made $7542 in September 2020 (2024)

Welcome to the Blog Income Report of September 2020.

It really feels like yesterday when I published the very first income report for august 2020 where I showed how I made around $5266 from this blog (and through which channels).

One month slipped by in a blink! *swooosshh*

Anyway,

I am so blown away by the progress this blog has made in the last few months that I am kinda scared if this is just a long term fluke 😂.

And It still baffles my mind to even comprehend that this blog that I started as a side hustle back in college makes me more money than I have ever contemplated, which still keeps growing every month (mostly). And I am beyond grateful to have this in my life. Honestly!

Blogging was one of the things that I thought of trying during my college years because of it’s utter inexpensiveness.

Trust me, starting a blog is so cheap, it’s like $2.95 a month.

And for a broke college kid, starting a small business without putting a huge upfront investment is kind of a big deal.

So, I had to start a blog, I owed myself to give it a try!

Even if it doesn’t work out later, that’s fine, at least I’ll be losing close to nothing.

So I did!

I initially launched this blog on a combination of two niches (topics): Blogging and Finance, but after a few months, my focus started to lean more toward “Finance”.

I became really interested in personal finance, making and managing money, and becoming financially free. And naturally, I became eager to share those with my audience.

And on this blog, I share all the finance savvy tips and strategies that I’ve come across and/or have used it myself.

If you want to know how to start a blog, tap the button below to get the step-by-step guide to start a blog within 10 minutes.

If you’re new to the Prosmartrepreneur blog or haven’t really heard the concept of an “Income report”, you might be wondering what it is and why would one publish it?

Benefits of Publishing Income Reports (according to me)

The income reports are a reflection of the journey and the progress of a brand new and inexperienced blogger who just wanted to build an income stream reliable enough to bid adieu to the corporate 9 to 5 world for good.

And thus I wanted to share all that it took me to make this happen.

Publishing an income report isn’t about bragging about your income, not at all.

Nobody wants to share something that is so personal and potentially vulnerable just to show off to the whole world. These kind of “inside peek” blog posts often come with some surprising benefits.

For example, I’m publishing these income reports for two primary reasons:

1. To motivate
2. To make myself more accountable

What? Let me explain…

1. It Motivate the Right kind of People (A.K.A You)

It’s no secret that, people are largely motivated by results!

Are you ever inspired by a tiring workout? No, you are inspired to have a well-shaped body which is the end result and thus you work out.

It’s not the process that gets people moving but the euphoric feeling to have achieved the end goal which motivated them to start in the first place.

Hence, I share my results to motivate you!

And if after seeing my results you do decide to start your own blog, I’ll say this article served it’s purpose well.

In my case too, my first impression of this whole blogging industry was through an income report of a wildly successful blogger who had 6-figures in her monthly income reports.

And that was enough to start my very own blog, just like that!

Witnessing someone make hundreds of thousands of dollars in a month working for nobody but themselves really gave me a hefty dose of motivation.

I wanted those results and the financial freedom that comes with it.

By giving you the inside scoop of what a blog really makes (which is usually kept under wraps), by giving you those exact income digits, it’ll show you what is really possible and hopefully motivate you enough to start your own blog.

2. It Helps Me Be More Accountable

Publishing my progress and the journey online for people to read also benefits me in certain ways.

Sure, I make a little ad income every time people read through an article on this website but that’s not the most valuable thing I’m getting.

When I build a like-minded audience community that monitors and analyses my progress over time, which makes me do things more sincerely and responsibly. And this makes me want to give my 110% in everything I do on this blog.

Also, it keeps me in check when it comes to slacking off.

Moreover, it will help me to keep track of how far the blog has come in terms of growth, both audience and income.

The Income Breakdown: $7542

September was a great month in terms of both income as well as blog traffic. The income breakdown is as follows:

While I still haven’t got any relevant sponsored deals yet, my ad and affiliate income is still strong enough to bump up my total income.

I said “relevant” because I get a lot of emails requesting to insert some links to existing blog posts, and requests to post random blog articles on this website for money.

All of which seems a little shady and it’s always better to stay away from. These are not genuine companies looking to advertise on your blog the legit way.

Accepting such offers might seem like a quick way to make a few bucks, but trust me when I say: This can harm the quality of your blog in a long run.

So if you get such emails, where they are just looking for a quick link insertion for money or something similar to that, just stay away.

Research well about the company/organisation from which you get the email from and act accordingly.

Blog Expenses for September 2020

Net profit: (7542.69-83.9) = + $7458.79

This is by far the biggest income month I’ve seen so far and I am so happy to witness it. And I hope that we will see more of such record breaking month in the future.

When it comes to expenses, the hosting and email service provider usually are a fixed expense for the blog but from the next month, I might get charged $99 (compared to $29 as of now) for my email service provider as I’ve added 6000 extra subscribers from my old ESP.

Nothing to be alarmed, It’s a good investment!

Now, lets talk about Canva.

If you don’t already know what Canva is, it’s a graphic designing platform from which I create all my website graphics and Pinterest pins.

A few months back I switched from “Canva” to “Canva Pro” and since then I haven’t been able to downgrade the subscription. It’s so good!

You should definitely try it if you need to make graphics or Pinterest pins.

Income Proof:

Mediavine:

Bluehost:

Proofread Anywhere:

Blog Traffic for September 2020:

157,624 Pageviews (+23% since August 2020)

127,767 Sessions (+23% since August 2020)

This month I haven’t done anything extra compared to what I did in August. But despite that this blog received an extra 23%, not that I’m complaining.

Currently, I receive most (like 92% of my total traffic from Pinterest (and I am really grateful for it) but I think I have to diversify my traffic sources through various channels such as Google through SEO because depending on a single source isn’t a wise choice.

Search engine traffic for July 2020 was 384, August was around 600, and for September it was 854. So I guess, it’s climbing slow and steady!

Hopefully, this blog gets the majority of its organic traffic (60% or above) from Google soon, that’ll be totally awesome. But of course, there is a lot of work involved and I am willing to make that happen.

See the $7 spent in “Ahrefs” on the expense table? Yeah, Ahrefs is a tool to help me up my SEO game.

In the next coming months I’ll be learning SEO through a course that I bought (Stupid Simple SEO) a few months back and will be making the necessary changes in this blog.

In terms of blog posts published, I wanted to publish 4 to 5 articles but ended up publishing only two, August 2020 income report and “How Can I Get Rich in my 20s? 6 Money Moves to Get Rich Fast“.

Though I wasn’t able to write the desired number of articles, I actually updated a few old blog posts to feel a little less guilty about not giving my 100%.

But no worries, I have a feeling that from October onwards things will be a little different in terms of my work input.

How so? Well, let me introduce you to “Blogging Goals”…

Blogging Goals for October 2020:

I’ve never done anything on this blog according to a plan or a schedule, ever. Every blog post, every single change that I’ve done was according to my own convenience.

And that has resulted in tons of wasted time. I was using my freedom of convenience as a self-employed individual to make excuses for my laziness.

This is why, preparing a blog plan seems like a step in the right direction.

It’ll motivate me to complete the checklist because from now on, I’ve involved you (and everyone who’ll be reading this) to act as my accountability partner.

And the following month, I’ll include a section to reflect on the point completed in the blog plan.

Here’s the blog plan that I’ll be following for this month:

1. Publish last month’s Income Report (you’re reading it)
2. Publish 6 more blog posts.
3. Create an “About me” page.
4. Learn more about SEO.

I’ll keep including the “Blogging goals” section sort of like a personal challenge until I’ve developed a habit of putting in the work necessary and eliminate procrastination for good.

Challenges may have a reputation of being hard but it sure helps you grow out of your personal comfort bubble!

And that’s exactly we all need!

If you’re still contemplating about starting a blog, I suggest you to just see what really goes into starting a blog and how much you can earn form it. Just tap the button below!

This is it for this months income report and I hope that I covered everything you were looking for in this article.

If you have any questions of suggestions, feel free to comment down and I’ll get back to you.

See you next time!