Welcome to June 2019’s business report where I show you how I made money online and traveled full-time last month. It’s time to look at this month’s update and see how I did.
If you’re new to Making Sense of Cents, you may be wondering why I would want to publish my business report each month.
This all started out as my extra income report because, in the beginning, it was all about the money I was earning from my side jobs. In my side income reports from the beginning, I included all of the income I made except for what I made at my day job.
However, I left my day job as a financial analyst in October of 2013 and now my monthly business reports consist of the many ways I earn a living with my business.
Many have asked why I would ever want to publicly talk about what I’m working on each month. Some think I’m crazy, whereas some are glad I’m open about what I’m doing. Whatever you think, I enjoy publishing my monthly business reports and I share them publicly for three main reasons:
Before I started blogging, I knew nothing about side hustling and making money online. I didn’t think side jobs were worth the effort and I thought the only way to significantly increase your income was through raises at your full-time job. If it weren’t for others publishing their monthly income reports, I don’t know if I would have ever tried side hustling. I want to help show others the positives in side hustling and how it can change a person’s life. There are many different ways to make money online, and I like to share my story each month to help motivate others to improve their financial situation by making more money.
Secondly, I like to publish my business blogging reports because it’s a way for me to look back, learn from my mistakes and actually see what areas need improvement. I use my monthly blogging reports as a way to track how I’ve done and it helps to keep me accountable.
Lastly, I like to show others that making side money is possible and that there are many legitimate ways to make money from your home.
I know I say this every month, but it’s the truth. Life is great now that I’m my own boss and a full-time blogger. I look forward to each and every day and it’s a wonderful feeling. I truly love waking up every single morning.
Above are just a few of the reasons for why I enjoy publishing my monthly income reports. I like to show others that you don’t have to hate your job and hate your life. You can make changes to your life and make money in a way that allows you to truly enjoy the life you are living. I’m not saying that you have to LOVE your job, I’m just saying that your job should, at least, allow you to do what you like to do outside of work (whether that be spending time with loved ones, doing crafts, hiking, etc.).
A quick reminder on the recent announcement.
I want to repeat the announcement again because I have been asked – How I Made Over $1,500,000 In 2018 – Is This The End Of Income Reports? so that no one is confused. I’m sure I’ll receive many questions from readers who missed it.
How was business income in June of 2019?
In case you are new to this blog, the main areas I earn a living from include:
Affiliate Marketing – This is the largest chunk of my income.
Courses – Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course and Making Sense of Sponsored Posts
Display Advertising – I use Adthrive. Another great option is Mediavine. If you are a new blogger, then another option to check out is Media.net.
I regularly earn over $100,000 a month blogging, and I have earned over $5,000,000 from my blogging business total over the years.
Check out How I Successfully Built A $1,000,000+ Blog for all of the different ways you can make money through a blog.
Anyway, it’s hard to believe that 2019 is already halfway over. I feel like it only has just started, and that I have a lot to work on still. I’m starting to wonder how life keeps flying on by, haha.
June of 2019 was another great month for Making Sense of Cents and the whole blogging business. I earned a great income and enjoyed my month.
I have many plans for the rest of 2019, and I have a jam-packed to-do list that I am very excited to start crossing off and accomplishing. I am wanting to grow Making Sense of Cents in many areas – income, readers, more helpful blog posts, and so on.
Some of the things that I plan on doing in order to grow Making Sense of Cents include:
Focusing on SEO. I will be taking an SEO course soon from start to finish, in order to start growing Making Sense of Cents in this area. I tried a few years ago, but stopped. While I get decent traffic from SEO without much effort, I do think this area can be a great way to further grow my website.
Learning about Pinterest advertising and Facebook advertising. I would like to use social media advertising to grow traffic as well as to grow my email list.
Adding an online shop to my blog. I would like to create a shop for Making Sense of Cents, where I sell products such as printables.
Creating new optins. I don’t have many optins for my email list, and haven’t added a new one in quite some time. This is currently on my to-do list so that I can reach new readers and gain more subscribers.
The month was great in many areas – blogging, course-wise, life, and everything else. The business is doing well and I’m very happy with it. My business is doing well, I have a lot of ideas for the year, and I am very excited about everything. I really love my business and I don’t know where I would be without it.
Below are some of my monthly online income reports. I publish an online income update every month but only included some of them below as it would be a very long list. If you head on over to my income page you can find all of my monthly income reports from the past few years.
If you are interested in starting a blog of your own, I created a tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own for cheap, starting at only $2.75 per month (this low price is only through my link) for blog hosting. In addition to the low pricing, you will receive a free website domain for the first year (a $15 value) through my Bluehost referral link if you purchase, at least, 12 months of blog hosting. FYI, if you are asking yourself “can you make money blogging?” – my top tip is to be self-hosted. This is essential if you want to monetize your blog as you will appear more professional and this will help you monetize your blog tremendously. My blogging income did not take off until after I switched to self-hosted WordPress.
Blog/life news
June was a fun month!
At the last moment, I signed up to go to the Outwild event – it was a weekend full of yoga, rock climbing, yummy food, and hanging out. I’ve never done a retreat before (I also have never been to a yoga class), so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I’m so glad that I went.
As a full-time traveler, it can be hard at times to meet and hang out with other people who enjoy the outdoors, so I jumped at the opportunity to attend. I also wanted to try something new, which was yoga, and to simply get out of my box and meet a bunch of new people. I went solo as it was for women only, and it felt like a grown-up summer camp. It was amazing to disconnect from the real world too, haha. I didn’t have to plan anything, and it was a weekend full of fun and delicious food.
The rest of the month, we spent most of our time fixing up the boat, buttoning it up for hurricane season, and completing our van build.
I also got a ton of work done, and caught up on the tons of emails and messages that I received while we were in the Bahamas. I also wrote several blog posts and outlined even more. It was a good month, but I still have a ton of work to do to catch up on my to-do list.
Below are several other business and blog-related updates:
I’m currently around one month ahead in blog posts. I would like to be around 2-3 months ahead. I do have several months of blog posts planned, though, I just need to finish writing them and hand them to my editor.
Traffic for the month was over 400,000 page views.
I am working on a series where I will help readers with specific financial questions, and tutorials to go along with them. Topics such as: How to open a bank account, How to write a check, Finding an online bank, Building and creating an investment account, etc. What other topics would you like to see me cover?
My community group for Making Sense of Cents is continuing to grow. This is a Facebook group in which you can seek advice from other readers on all sorts of topics such as finance, blogging, travel, running a business, and so on. There are already over 15,000 members!
I released my How To Start A Blog FREE Course. If you’ve been wanting to start a blog, then check this out. I created this email course for those who are interested in starting a blog, but haven’t done so yet. The course is free, and over 50,000 people have already signed up. Thank you, everyone, for the kind emails about how great the course is. Glad everyone is enjoying it!
Due to how well my first free course went, I also created the free Master Your Money email course. It’s full of great money management lessons and financial worksheets (such as a free budget template), and I’m loving the positive response from this email course as well.
Other freebies I have include 10 Easy Tips To Increase Your Affiliate Income and 8 Easy Tips To Make Money From Sponsored Posts On Your Blog.
Popular new posts on Making Sense of Cents last month:
Featured Question: What blog freebies do you recommend?
I feature one question from a reader in each monthly income report. Please leave a comment below if you have a question that you would like me to answer.
I understand that as a blogger, there are many, many topics for you to learn about. Freebies can help fill some of these gaps, and what’s better than free anyways?
Whether you’re looking to start a blog or if you already have one, I have several great free checklists and guides to share with you today.
The resources below will help you create your blog, come up with blog post ideas, grow your blog income, grow your page views, learn how to guest post, and more.
These are all valuable tips that will help you grow your blog correctly.
First, if you don’t have a blog, then I recommend starting off with my free blogging course How To Start A Blog FREE Course.
Here are 9 freebies that I recommend and there are affiliate links below to freebies from others that I enjoy as well.
Affiliate Marketing Cheat Sheet – With this time-saving cheat sheet, you’ll learn how to make affiliate income from your blog. These tips will help you to rapidly improve your results and increase your blogging income in no time.
8 Easy Tips To Make Money From Sponsored Posts On Your Blog – Sponsorships on your blog are a great way of earning a living online. Learn how I made my first blogging income, and how I’m now making $10,000-$20,000 a month with sponsored partnerships! This is a free cheatsheet.
The Essential Blog Post Promotion Checklist – This is a great checklist that goes over what you need to do after your blog post is published.
20 FREE (or almost free) WordPress Plugins – A very common question I receive is “What plugins should I use on my blog?” This freebie will tell you exactly what you should use!
7 Surefire Ways to Boost Your Blog Income Overnight – This free ebook gives great tips on how to increase your blogging income.
120 Awesome Blog Post Ideas – Are you struggling to come up with new content for your blog? Here are 120 great blog post ideas that will help you beat writer’s block and create great content.
The New Blogger’s Guide To Guest Posting – Guest posting is a great way to improve your blog traffic. However, there is a right and a wrong way to go about it. Here’s exactly what you should do!
The Secret Blueprint For Blogging Success – This shows you the exact steps you need to grow your blog and make money!
Facebook Ads For Bloggers 101 – This free training will show you how to increase your blog’s traffic with Facebook ads. This is the top area I’m working on this year, and I recommend you do the same!
Enjoy!
Past featured questions:
Do I need millions of page views a month in order to make money blogging?
Do you mind sharing a detailed list of what processes you have with new blog posts?
How do you keep track of accounting and taxes for your business?
What’s the best topic to write about so that I can make money blogging?
How can I get the most out of a blogging/writing/media/industry conference?
My plans and goals for my blog and my business.
I have so many plans right now for my business that sometimes I feel like I don’t know where I want to start! But, that is a good feeling to have.
Plans and goals can help you run a successful business. I believe that working towards a goal can help keep a person motivated too.
Below are some of the areas I am currently working on:
Complete the Facebook Ads For Bloggers course. There are two courses that I am really wanting to finish so that I can continue to grow Making Sense of Cents. Learning about Facebooks ads is so important and I think I will benefit from this course a lot.
Complete the Stupid Simple SEO course. This is the second course. SEO is something I just have never really spent much time on, so I know that this course will be extremely helpful! I’m hoping to finish the above course and this one by the end of July.
Create a freebie optin for affiliates to share for Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. I have been asked by several affiliates for this, and I’m glad to finally start working on it! This is a great thing to do because my affiliates can easily promote my course with this freebie optin, and then be credited for future sales. For me, as an affiliate for other products, freebie optins are usually the very first thing I promote (as well as my favorite) because it’s a great way to introduce an audience to a new product/service/company.
Get at least three months ahead on Making Sense of Cents posts. Being ahead in blog posts makes life much more enjoyable because I can focus on other things knowing that the majority of my writing work is already done. This is one of my major 2019 goals!
Work less than 30 hours per week. For the most part, I am working less than 30 hours per week. However, there are some weeks when I spend all day and night on my laptop, not even sure where the day went. Due to that, I would like to continue to work on a better work/life balance.
Be more present. My main goal in 2019 is to be more present, and I recently wrote about it here – My Quest To Be More Present And Enjoy Life More. I’m excited for the year of travel and sailing we have ahead of us, and I want to enjoy it as much as we can. I’ve been so focused on the business the last several years, that I want this year to be focused on life outside of business. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE running Making Sense of Cents, and that’s what makes it so hard to break away and be more present outside of work.
Have fun. Okay, so this isn’t really a goal that is quantifiable or something that I’ll track, haha, but I am really looking forward to 2019!
Affiliate marketing results.
Affiliate income was at a normal Making Sense of Cents level in June of around $50,000.
It will be increasing in July and the following months as I will be promoting a few affiliate offers to my readers. I have most of the rest of 2019 planned for affiliate offers, which is great.
I’m also hoping to improve my affiliate income by growing my traffic through SEO, as well as advertising on Facebook and Pinterest.
Some of the areas that I am working on to improve my affiliate income include:
Planning out 2019 for affiliate offers. I’m not really much of a huge planner, but I am changing that in 2019. I already have affiliate promotions planned out for almost all of 2019. This will help to keep me organized and better prepared.
Learning about SEO and applying techniques to my blog. This past guest post has me super interested in starting to take SEO seriously – The exact template that helped my site earn $95,000 in affiliate income last year.
Using Facebook ads to my affiliate marketing advantage. This past guest post also has me interested in growing in this way as well – How One Blogger Grew His Blog to Over 2 Million Visitors In A Year.
Creating a high-quality funnel. Funnels are something that I have never really spent any time on, but I would like to change that. I want to create a high-quality funnel where I continue to give valuable information to my readers, and keep them happy for the times when I may not have the greatest wifi.
Continuing to grow the reach of Making Sense of Cents. Traffic has been a little stuck lately, and I want to change that! I want to see what I can do to grow the traffic, as that will help me to reach new readers.
Analyzing popular affiliate blog posts to see how they can be improved for the future.
Seeking out new affiliate products to promote, and seeing what my audience is interested in.
And more!
Earning affiliate income is something that I’m extremely grateful for, especially lately. We have been so busy lately and I haven’t spent as much time on the business as I would normally like.
Even though I am spending less time on the business, I am still earning a great income each month and this allows me to focus on a better work-life balance.
I’m a very big fan of affiliate income, of course. It’s something that I enjoy due to how passive it can be. It makes full-time traveling much more enjoyable when I know I can bring in an income while having fun seeing new areas.
If you want to learn more about affiliate marketing, I recommend getting the free guide 10 Easy Tips To Increase Your Affiliate Income. With this time-saving cheat sheet, you’ll learn how to make affiliate income from your blog. These tips will help you to rapidly improve your results and increase your blogging income in no time.
I also have a course too!
In the course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, there are 6 modules, over 30 lessons, several worksheets, bonuses, an extremely helpful and exclusive Facebook group, and more. I go through everything that you need to know about affiliate marketing, such as:
A quick introduction to affiliate marketing and how it works
The exact steps I’ve taken to earn over $500,000 from a single blog post
How to correctly pick affiliate products to promote
The steps to increase your conversion rate
80+ affiliate program ideas for different niches
How to build trust with your readers (this is a MUST!)
The required disclosures you need to know about
The many different strategies to promote your affiliate links
My course is anything and everything about affiliate marketing. This course is perfect for you whether you are a new blogger or if you’ve been blogging for years, no matter what topic your blog is about, what country you live in, and so on.
Sponsored partnership results.
June was an average month for sponsored partnerships. I secured a couple of deals with new advertisers that I’m excited to work with, and I’m thinking that the fall months will be quite busy as well.
For some reason, sponsored blog posts and sponsored social media ads seem to scare bloggers, whether they are brand new or have been blogging for years.
What do I charge? How do I find companies who will want to work with me? What are the rules?
There are SO MANY QUESTIONS when it comes to sponsored posts.
I started Making Sense of Cents in August of 2011, at the age of 22, without any hopes of ever earning an income from it. It started as a hobby – just a way to journal my life and talk about my personal finance situation.
Then, around six months after I started my blog, a blogger friend of mine connected me with an advertiser and I earned $100 from that advertisement.
It wasn’t a lot of money, especially considering the amount of time and work I had already put towards my blog. However, it was very motivating to see that something I absolutely loved to do could actually make money. I honestly had no idea that blogs could even make money when I started mine!
After that first $100, my blogging income quickly grew.
I now charge, on average, around $5,000 per sponsored post.
You can learn more about sponsored partnerships in my free guide 8 Easy Tips To Make Money From Sponsored Posts On Your Blog.
Are you interested in earning blogging income?
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