How Much Money Does a Blog Make?
When I bought MomsCashBlog in early May I knew very, very little about how blogs worked and my technical skills were ah.. pretty low! lol. One thing I did know is that to make money sometimes you have to take a risk, and the best way to learn something fast is to just jump right in feet first! That way you have no choice but to learn the ropes. (it’s sink or swim… and most people swim! lol) So I bought a blog that was already in progress… already monetized by a pro, had good PageRank, and had a great tutorial to market and attract new visitors.
Back then I planned to tell my blog earnings after the first 3 months, no matter what it was. August 4 will be the official end of the 3rd month, but this is close enough to give you an idea as I’m rounding off the amounts anyways. I have never divulged any of my incomes before, much less put it on the internet! lol But I want to do my blogging earnings just this once. I feel obligated to tell this because I think it’s encouraging to others who are starting a blog and for those who want to get into blogging. It’s just good to know what some blogs make. This should give some of you encouragement because it’s coming from a beginner who knew nothing about blogs, but bought a “used” and well monetized blog! (used is a good thing in this case! lol) I have nothing to compare it to as I never found out my predecessor’s earnings. Some will say I should be making more considering I bought the blog… but, so be it….. it is what it is! It’s my 3 months earnings on MomsCashBlog.
May earnings – $ 475. Only a few of the existing ad accounts were transferred so I was doing some free advertising and getting no referrals! (lol) I got caught up in some negative thinking…. but by the end of the month, I knew I could handle it (even though it was scary at times!) by using my past experience in marketing.
June earnings – $ 685. As you can see things got better which gave me confidence. I got more ad accounts transferred into my name. I did a lot of experimenting and keeping track of my stats in WordPress and tweaking my posts, etc, to try different audiences.
July earnings – $ 940. Still learning… still marketing, still experimenting… some of the tech stuff is starting to really sink in and make sense to me. But I think I may have Ping trouble as the incoming links have stopped.
Before I bought MCB my big question was “Do blogs REALLY make money.. or is this all hype?” For me, it’s hard to believe anyone when they tell you their income because there’s no real proof they’re telling the truth. (income statements mean nothing as they can be doctored easily.) And as we know, some bloggers will exaggerate the amounts because it brings them a good following. If a blogger can convince other bloggers that they make loads of money, they can get a lot of followers… they’ll also buy whatever he’s selling in hopes of making a lot of money themselves, so I never take those BIG stories seriously. (I’m sure there are some who make it very BIG.. but as it is with incomes, it’s very few.)
Offline when someone tells you their income, even if they’re in the same trade as you, you don’t hang on their every word and you don’t really care what they make. (You usually know they’re BSing anyways! lol) But it’s different when it comes to blogs. I think we’d all like to have an honest, general idea of what the average income is or could be. Monetizing a blog as an “occupation” is a new thing… so there’s no official occupational guideline to go by as there are with other jobs. We may never get an “average” income amount because we just get “hearsay” and we’re on the internet. Anyone can say whatever they want on the internet… there is no accountability. Since most occupational income guidelines come from governments, we may never get one for a monetized blogger’s income where no one government has any control over the internet… which is a good thing! If they did we’d be taxed and probably need a license for blogging! (The US government has tried, many times, to figure out a way to license users and make money from it… but they are not able to legally do so!) For these reasons, we may always have to rely on each other’s “word” about how much the average blogger earns. Blogging (or online advertising) has so much potential that the amounts will vary radically anyways.
Since we’re all in this together I wanted to share my income with other bloggers just this one time, and maybe I’ll do it again in the future. I hope this helps some of you to see what happens when a beginner with no experience, jumps into an existing blog. I’m glad I took the risk and bought MomsCashBlog. I know some bloggers say that buying a blog (or selling a blog) is bad business, but I don’t understand that. I would think they would see it as a good opportunity for selling their own blogs some day if they decide to move on and do something else. I’m sure there are many others, like me, who would see buying a well monetized blog as a good investment opportunity.
Comments
Hi JJ,
Great post! That’s all I wanted to say!
How do you earn your monthly revenue? Advertising, affiliate marketing, etc… Just wondering. Thanks for stopping by. Have a wonderful day.
Thanks for sharing your income JJ… that’s just the type of honesty that wins over readers (in my opinion)I’ve enjoyed reading this blog since you took over. Keep up the good work! … I wish you more and more success… along with more and more profits!
This is so helpful. I didn’t know you were a new blogger. It’s cool of you to tell us what you are making and I agree with what you are saying here.
I found this blog a month or two before the previous owner sold it. I continue to regularly visit this blog and I am glad you decided to share your earnings. So far so good. I agree with Steve, could share a brief breakdown of where your income is generated from this blog? Again, thanks for sharing!
JJ, I agree with Sean….your honesty won me over from the start. I know you had a rough go of it with bloggers saying you shouldn’t have bought this blog. You got flack for saying you had no tech skills and only made 17 cents online. You could have lied about that and we would never know the difference…. from what I see the norm is to start a blog and pretend to know everything. You got my vote and my referrals when I start a blog.
wow! this is a very informative post esp for beginning bloggers like me! i wasnt really convinced before that i can make money out of blogging, but now i know that it is indeed true that there is some money here. thanks for sharing the details of your blog earnings! nice post!
What a lot of people don’t understand fully is that if you put in the work to monetize a blog then it can make you a great income. How many blogs are making money online? Maybe 1% or even less. There are millions and millions of people letting their online space go to waste!
BTW, congrats on the earnings and I am sure it will keep going up as long as you stay consistent. I am looking to make more money from my blog, right now I’m making thousands of dollars a month with affiliate marketing within the online poker niche.. but the blog isnt making too much. It still goes up every month though
What are some of the advertising ideas that you would suggest to new bloggers?
Thanks for the comments guys! For those who are wondering, it is affiliate ads, text link ads, and some paid advertising. I am definitely going to get into Affiliate Marketing (and you all should too!)… seems like the more blogs you have the better chances of making money, but one thing at a time for me! lol
I’ve known I have had something wrong on MCB since we did the data transfer in June and I just found out it must have something to do with RSS.. when we put data from one server to another all the setting went back to before I bought the blog and something happened to the RSS feed which is a BIG DEAL from what I’m reading. (means I’m not linking to much of anything!) A little later I will make a post to see if any tech savvy bloggers can help me out with this. (crossing my fingers!!)
Dan, For the record, I said I only made 11 cents online before buying the blog… it was another blogger who said I made 17! lol And when I said that, I forgot about online stock. I did make quite a bit of money years ago with stock that I chose online but I turned them over to a financial advisor and I completely forgot about that. Out of sight, out of mind. So I have made money online before if you count the stock market. I plan to get back into choosing stock online because I think now is a very good time to be buying some.
Glad it helped some bloggers to see my income!
JJ, Great post! It sure helps to know what amounts are possible for blogging.
I hope you get your problem solved. Your RSS comes to me OK if that is what you mean. Good luck.
I’m glad to see your getting the hang of it now when are you going to start posting in video.
I also would of liked to see what is making you that money.
Hi jj,
Looks like you’ve got a great blog going here. I’m just really curious about buying blogs, how you got into it? what is your blogging background? When you bought the blog how well was it monetized compared to what you have done?
Without telling us what you paid for the blog, how much would a blog go for in general? I’m assuming it is a percentage of the monthly income.
In any case, good luck and thanks for visiting and commenting on my sites. http://www.suckypoems.com is also mine.
-Lucky
I found this post very interesting, thats amazing how fast your income can change.
Cory
http://www.cashmakingblog.com
thanks for dropping by…
hmmm.. affiliate marketing.. I haven’t tried that yet..I’ll check on that too.
You doing well.
Keep up the good work…
Congrats on your “used” blog! LOL. I appreciate you posting your earnings so far … I try to do the same on my blog and I know my readers really appreciate it. Sorry to hear about the “glitches” you’ve had and good luck getting everything resolved. I too have purchased some online businesses … and it seems something has gone “wrong” with each and every one of them! But … it’s always been resolved so keep thinking positively and it’ll all come together. Wish I knew how to help with your issue *huGs* Suzanne
Affiliate programs is definately the way to go. I would try to split test if I was you since I think you could earn more by removing some of the ads on the right site.
BBut very good blog
nice site, really nice to read out story on how you improved the site in due time
Well, Blogs can make some money online. But it is not that we can become rich the other day. Slowly and gradually we can attain some development. The most important part of it is to update on continuous base.
congratulation, do you a very good job in your website,your alexa is low but you can earn so much money,that is a very beautiful thing