Welcome to the August 2017 edition of the Money Manifesto blogging income report.
Each month I share how much money I make online to inspire those who want to earn money online while motivating myself to keep my income at a decent level.
In August, I finally started to get my blogging groove back. After our son was born, it was difficult to carve out time to work.
Even when I could work, I wasn’t often inspired to work on Money Manifesto.
Now, I’m slowly getting back into the game and plan to start improving Money Manifesto.
Let’s dive into this month’s report with what I learned last month.
What I Learned About Self Employment Last Month
In August, I made an effort to start working ahead as much as possible. Why? While I do have a short trip coming up, I really wanted to feel like I could take a day or two off here or there without stressing about what won’t get done.
Working ahead has given me this freedom. Working ahead is tricky, though. If you sit back and relax too much, you’ll notice you aren’t as ahead as you once were. The key will be balance.
I’ll have to figure out how far ahead I want to stay and stick to it. Then, I’ll know when I need to kick things into high gear to get back ahead versus enjoying the benefits of working ahead.
August 2017 Blogging Income – $3,496.50
August was a decent month for blogging income. Nothing amazing to write about, but a solid month that was above my monthly income target of $3,000.
Freelance Writing
Freelance writing continues to be one of my main sources of income. I continued writing for my current clients and even picked up a couple of new clients in August.
I don’t know how long term these new clients will be, but I’ll take the income while I can get it.
Freelance writing is a great way to start earning online income. If you want to get into freelance writing or you’re already a freelance writer that wants to earn more, I highly recommend Holly Johnson’s Earn More Writing course.
When I took the course, I learned quite a few things I could use to grow my freelance writing income even more. I wish this course was available when I first started freelance writing. I could have skipped a lot of the mistakes I made early on.
Affiliate Income
Affiliate income makes me some money, but I’m not getting rich off of it. I do plan to kick my affiliate marketing up a notch, but first I have to take care of other tasks.
Once I do get to the point where I’m supposed to tackle affiliate income in the Elite Blog Academy course, I’m going to take the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course, too. I’ve heard great things and can’t wait until I get to this point.
Traditional Advertising
Not much to update here. Traditional advertising, mainly the banner ads and end of post content you see on posts, won’t start increasing until I start increasing my traffic.
I will eventually get to that point, but I have a couple other things to work on first.
Branded Content
Branded content brings in a decent amount of income for me. I’ve recently started to direct the requests I turn down for Money Manifesto to an old site I no longer care about.
Anything I can sell on that site makes me a bit of money and I don’t have to feel conflicted about posting anything I don’t believe in.
What I’m Doing To Improve
While working ahead helps me feel better about taking a day or two off, it also allows me to spend time on tasks I haven’t had time for lately. I have and will continue to take days here and there to work on improving my site.
Some of these improvements include redesigning Money Manifesto and beginning to promote the site more. These two tasks should eventually pay off with more traffic for the blog which hopefully translates to more income as well.
You Can Start Your Own Blog In Just A Few Minutes
If you want to get started earning money online, you should definitely start a blog. While you may not earn money from your blog immediately, a blog allows you to have a platform to share what you know with the world.
If you want to start freelance writing, it gives you a place to share your writing without having to land a job. Same goes for photography. No matter how you want to make money online, having a platform almost always helps.
To start a blog, I highly recommend you do it right from the beginning. That means getting a self-hosted WordPress blog with SiteGround.
It’s super easy and takes just a few minutes. I even wrote out a step by step tutorial to show you exactly how to start a self-hosted WordPress blog on Siteground.
While other popular bloggers recommend BlueHost, I can’t do so with a good conscious. Other bloggers recommend BlueHost because of their high affiliate payouts and their name recognition.
At one time, BlueHost was a great host. Unfortunately, their service and performance has only gone down over time. While BlueHost does have rock bottom prices, their product matches those prices.
I’d rather pay just a tiny bit more and get the much better service and product from SiteGround. That’s why I recommend them to new bloggers.
If you have any questions after you start your blog, please send me an email. I’ll be happy to help if I can. I may even answer your question in a future post or income report.
Do you have any questions about my income report or blogging journey? Leave a comment below!
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