January 2017 First Income and Traffic Report – How I got 15K pageviews and made $14.46

(This post contains affiliate links. My full disclosure is very boring, but you can read it here.)

I am so happy, excited and nervous to hit the publish button on this post. This is my first income report.

Ok, so I didn’t make much but I am happy that at least I started out. This is just the start of many more income reports (hopefully). I hope to see this increase in subsequent months.

[UPDATE] You can also find the list of all my past income reports here.

[UPDATE] – If you want to start your blog today and make money from it, then this tutorial will help you get started. It includes a step by step way to start a blog with just $3.95 per month  (only when you register with my this special link)  on Bluehost from scratch and assumes that you have no prior experience with blogging. Also, you get a FREE domain name!.

Blogging has changed my life for good. I enjoy the freedom and work on my own terms. Read the tutorial on how to start a blog and make money from it.

Why write an income report?

A lot of bloggers nowadays write income reports. I think blogging is the only industry where you can do that and I really enjoy it. I guess Pat Flynn was the first blogger who started doing this.

Learning

When I started blogging I used to read a lot of income reports about how bloggers make thousands of dollars per month by sharing excellent content with their readers. I feel there is a tonne of information that a blogger can take up from an income report.

It has the much-needed information about how to grow traffic using various tools, how to engage users using emails and also how to make money from your blog.

Bloggers share their real-life experiences about blogging which have great value. Every blogger can relate them to it.

Income reports help other bloggers by giving the much-needed motivation to think about starting a blog and running it full time. It did that for me at least.

Also, I know I have made pennies this month, but I still believe this income report will help other bloggers in some way.

Transparency

It provides transparency and builds the necessary relationship between me and my readers which will go a long way. This income report is all about “you can do it too“.

This transparency is much needed if you are looking to have a healthy relationship with your readers.

Tracking and Analyzing

This is for me. Income reports help me to track my progress and goals. It helps me understand whats needed and what not.

How all of this started?

Alluringsoul was born in September 2016. But I was not too serious about blogging at that time. It started because a couple of my friends wanted to seek advice from me about the DIY beauty and healthy living.

So I thought I would just put those in a blog, which will help a lot of people who were looking for solutions.

I used to write around 5 posts per month.

It was in December 2016 when I got serious about my blog. I started writing 3 times a week, consistently. That time I used to get most of my traffic from Google search and few from Pinterest.

I started monetizing from alluringsoul in last week of January 2017. I put a few ads from media.net and started making a few bucks from it.

Traffic

Page views – 15,026

Most of this traffic that I got was because of Pinterest. I did a lot of changes to my Pinterest profile and also to my pins and boards. Also, I started pinning consistently almost every single day. I made sure that my pins were a mix of my own and others.You can clearly see, that have paid a lot for itself.

You can clearly see, that have paid a lot for itself.

Just to show you the difference in traffic I got because of the changes I did on Pinterest, here is the screenshot of my previous months’ traffic.

You can clearly see the graph going up after December when I got serious about Pinterest.

Pinterest is great to start with. It proved that it gives instant results if you make sure that you are consistent with your pinning activity.

Here is another screenshot which shows 10,096 sessions on my blog coming from Pinterest this month.

Also, I don’t need to have a lot of followers on Pinterest either. I just have 500 followers on Pinterest and I still get around 10k traffic from it.

Blog income

Media.net – $14.46

I made $14.46 purely from ads. These ads were provided by Media.net.

I made this in the last week of January when I started with advertising for the first time on my blog.

Media.net is great if you are just starting out with your blog. They pay through PayPal which means you can accept payment from anywhere in the world. They are trusted and safe to work with. The ads they put on your website are great and nothing to worry about. Highly recommended if you are starting out.

A lot of bloggers suggest Google Adsense as well, but I think it’s a little tough to get accepted in it when you are just starting out.

Blog Expenses

Expenses – $0

The only expense I have made right now is on hosting for which I have paid for a year. I use Bluehost for hosting my blog. They are great and very simple to use. Also, they have an excellent support if you need any help.

Starting a blog on Bluehost will cost you just $3.95 per month (only when you register with my this special link) . Plus you get a free domain as well.

[UPDATE] – If you are thinking of starting a blog then I would like to remind you again that I have written a step by step post on how to start a blog and make money from it. This is the post I wished I had when I started blogging. Here is the tutorial.

Net Income (Income – Expenses): $14.46 – $0 = $14.46

Tools and Services

Here are the tools and services I use in my blog

1. Bluehost – This is where my blog is hosted.
2. Media.net – Ads on alluringsoul.com comes from media.net.

Goals for next month

1. Double down on Pinterest. I will have to find different pinning strategies to get more traffic.
2. Creating great pins. I am following a lot of fellow bloggers on Pinterest and learning from them especially how they create pins. What works for them and what not. It’s going to be a learning and then implementing month for me.
3. Get added to Pinterest group boards.
4. More helpful posts.
5. 1000 followers on Pinterest.
6. 50 followers on Facebook.
7. Increase my traffic to around 25,000 pageviews.

Takeaways from this income report

1. Select one social media platform to master, like the way I selected Pinterest. Before that, I have been trying my best on Facebook and Pinterest together with no success to either of them.
2. I highly recommend you to invest your time on Pinterest. It’s highly rewarding for the time you put in it.
3. Revamp your Pinterest profile. Add relevant boards and pins.
4. Be sure to pin on a consistent basis on Pinterest. You should be pinning yours as well as others pins.
5. Don’t get overwhelmed by other bloggers having thousands of followers. You don’t need that many followers to get a good about of traffic from Pinterest.

This is it, my friend. I hope you enjoyed reading my first ever income report. I hope it will help you in some of the other ways. Hope it gives you the required motivation to start a blog, create awesome content and make money from it.

If you have any questions, just email me or comment in the post and I will surely reply to it.