250K In 5 Years Blog Income Report
You’ll never guess how I get paid to blog! Actually, you don’t have to guess. I’m here to reveal all in my blogging income report series, where I share live updates on my blog earnings journey and how I make money blogging.
Ever since I earned my first $100 with this blog, I’ve been writing and sharing detailed income reports for every big milestone, and every $50,000 earned.
This blog post is no different, as I’ll be sharing how long it took me to earn a total of $250,000 with my blog and what ways of monetizing my content and traffic worked to get me there.
If you’re new here and you’ve missed my previous posts in this series, you can find them here:
- How I Made My First $100 Blogging
- How I Made My First $1,000 Blogging
- How I Made My First $10,000 Blogging
- How I Made My First $25,000 Blogging
- How I Made My First $50,000 Blogging
- How I Made My First $100,000 Blogging
- How I Made My First $150,000 Blogging
- How I Made My First $200,000 Blogging
You can also watch the breakdown of this milestone on my YouTube channel in video format. But stick around, as I’ll be sharing some extra fun stats and earning goals in this blog post!
And for my regular disclaimers, keep in mind that:
- This is the gross revenue $$$ generated by my blogging business.
- It doesn’t take into account expenses, taxes and other fees.
- But it is all income that I’ve actually earned and been paid for.
- This blog makes me a full-time income, but I don’t work on it full time, as I’ve started a few different online ventures and businesses in the last few years that I also dedicate time to.
- I converted all my earnings to US dollars to make it easier to track and report to you.
- This post contains affiliate links for products and tools I love.
I write these income reports to inspire bloggers who are just starting out to see what’s possible, and to share a few strategies that work.
I love to be transparent about my own marketing and monetazation strategy, but keep in mind that these strategies might need to be adjusted for your blog and audience.
If you need help setting up a blog or growing it to be profitable, hire a blogging coach to work with you 1-on-1 and offer bespoke advice, feedback and accountability!
And now let’s get to what you came here to learn!
How I Earned $250,000 Online With A Blog
Today I’m sharing my brand new income report of how I earned $250,000 within 5 years of starting my blog. So although I am posting this in 2023, this milestone was actually accomplished by August 2022.
Here’s a breakdown of how long it took me to monetize my blog:
- It took me just under 6 months to make my first $100.
- It took me 1 year and 3 months to make my first $10,000.
- It took me 2 years and 6 months to make my first $50,000.
- It took me over 4 years to make my first $200,000.
Don’t you just love progress! This just goes to show that blogs are usually slow to take off, especially if you don’t have the right strategies at the beginning, but they can turn into a profitable online business if you stick with it and improve as you go!
Here’s exactly how I made it happen:
💎 Affiliate Marketing Sales: $96,566
(+ $19,016 since the last income report)
In the five years that I’ve been blogging, I made close to $100,000 with affiliate marketing alone. These are affiliate commissions that I get paid for recommending certain products (both physical and digital products).
Because of the nature of my blog, I usually tend to promote a lot of digital assets, tools, software and things that you might need to start a blog or manage it, as well as educational courses and eBooks.
If you look at my previous income reports over the years, this has been one of the most consistent sources of income for my blog. And although the affiliate programs and products that I’ve promoted have changed over the years, my overall affiliate marketing strategy has been pretty good and consistent despite fluctuations in blog traffic.
For example, a lot of my high-earnings programs have closed down in recent years and I had to adapt and find alternatives, or pivot and create my own digital products.
Here’s my advice to you when tackling affiliate marketing:
- Create really good content that actually provides value and information that others seek around the tools or products that you’re promoting. Don’t just slap affiliate links on your website and socials, and expect people to buy through your links just because you asked them to.
- Think about what you can do for others – how is the content you publish around these products helpful to people? Does it help them make a buying decision, does it offer insight into how the product works and what it can do for them? Does it help them discover something new?
- Share tutorials and show the product in use. Show how you use it, what you use it for, and what difference it makes for you. And be enthusiastic about it (in real life I mean, not just to sell – because it shows).
- Talk about the benefits. What can somebody get out of using what you’re promoting? Does it solve a problem for them? Does it save them time, money, or frustrated tears? Collaborate and keep the benefits realistic.
- Invest in a good affiliate marketing course. My sales have gone up year after year because I invest in courses from top affiliates in the blogging world. If you’re yet to make your first $100, get the Affiliate Marketing Training Bundle, or if you’ve started to make sales, but want to convert better and make consistent affiliate income, join the 14 Days Affiliate Surge Challenge for bloggers! Or even better – upgrade to the full affiliate bundle, and get both courses for a fraction of the price!
New to affiliate marketing? Find out how to make more sales on your blog with this in-depth training course pack!
Other affiliate marketing resources:
Besides a good strategy and a good course to teach you how to do affiliate marketing right, you will also need a few tools to help you manage your affiliate links and content.
Here’s what I use:
- A self-hosted blog – must-have if you want to make money and get paid for affiliate commissions.
- An affiliate management plugin – I use Lasso to create affiliate links displays like the one above and to manage my links. It works really well for the Amazon affiliate program as well, as it alerts you if products are out of stock, and allows you to quickly replace a product link without having to manually find it and replace it in 20 different places on your site.
- An email list – building a community is vital as an affiliate marketer. If there is no way to reach your audience, there is no way to make sales. So start your email list and start collecting emails and sending newsletters! But remember – keep them useful first, sell later.
💎 Ebooks & Digital Product Sales: $102,985
(+ $13,160 since the last income report)
Speaking of my own products, out of the $250k that I earned with my blog, about 40% has been earned through digital product sales.
This number is a combination of everything that I sell online from my ebooks, my courses, templates and challenges (which can all be found in my shop) and even Amazon planners, Kindle books and paperback books (which can be found here).
Over the years I’ve added more and more to my library, but I started with only two ebooks in the first couple of years. It really took me a while to develop the skills and the confidence to build online courses or challenges for bloggers or anything that required a little bit more effort and skill to put together.
If you’re starting and you’re brand new when it comes to creating digital products, you can do one of two things:
- Start with writing an ebook. These are easy to put together and can be a collection of your best advice and tips for a topic that’s popular in your niche. You can also use Jasper AI to help you write faster, outline your eBook or your chapters, or write the boring pages – such as the introductions, disclaimers or conclusions for each chapter.
- Create a low-content book. These are books that require the buyer to fill out the information by themselves (such as organizers, planners, diaries, puzzle books, journals and so on). You only need to create and replicate the template pages, which often repeat themselves. I use Book Bolt and their ready-made templates.
- Come up with a profitable eBook idea (in your niche)
- Learn how to design, create and write an eBook quickly
- Get my entire system on how to publish an eBook on your website (or on Amazon!)
- Start getting paid in eBook sales in 30 days or less!
If you need help figuring out what your audience is buying online, just look at your affiliate sales. Then review the top converting products and figure out if you can replicate what they are selling by creating a unique product of your own (or something that solves a similar problem).
For example – if you have a cleaning & organization blog and you notice a lot of people buying organization books on Amazon or house-cleaning schedule printables on Etsy, take note and write your own book detailing your knowledge, and create a weekly home care planner to sell.
RELATED ARTICLE: How To Create KDP Planners For Amazon
More resources to help you create & sell digital products:
- Elementor page builder – This is what I use to build all my sales pages and display my products and shop on my blog. They have a free and a pro version that does offer a couple of extra features and templates. Or you can use the free version and get an eBook sales page template.
- Thrivecart sales platform – You will also need a sales processer – a tool to allow you to complete the sale and deliver the digital good to the customer. That’s where Thrivecart comes in. For a one-time fee, and no monthly fees or transaction fees ever again, this tool allows you to create checkout pages, connect with all major credit cards and Paypal, and convert visitors to buyers. They also have a course hosting platform where you can manage your students and host all your digital assets. Get Thrivecart and start selling digital products!
- SendOwl – This is a more affordable sales processor if you are just starting out and have 1-2 product tops. They integrate with Elementor and create quick purchase links that you can share online to finalize the sale and deliver eBook PDFs.
💎 Blog Coaching Services: $42,950
(+ $13,583 since the last income report)
Next up are my coaching services. If you didn’t know this already, I am a blogging strategist and coach and I offer one-on-one coaching sessions for bloggers who want a bit of bespoke advice for their blogs and their blogging strategies.
It’s something that I’m super passionate about and it allows me to take something as confusing as the blogging world and tackle it with someone and answer all their questions, monitor their progress, and keep them accountable so that they meet their goals!
What you’ll need to start offering services:
- A client management portal like Honeybook to create interest forms, follow-up email templates, send contracts and manage all the communication with your clients.
- A payment processor like Thrivecart – to take payment and even start a referral program and reward those who promote your services or products with a cut of the sale!
- A good course about your niche so you can master your skill. For example, you can learn how to become a Pinterest virtual assistant and offer Pinterest management services. This course will teach you both how to grow anyone’s Pinterest account, but also how to promote your services, charge for them and get new clients!
Replace your 9-5 income as a Pinterest Virtual Assistant or Pinterest Manager. Enroll today to find out how to:
- Launch a Pinterest VA side hustle
- Grow an active client base
- Learn highly-skilled tasks from Pinterest experts
- Create and sell client packages
Selling or providing a service can be a great way to generate some income in the first few years, as your passive income activities (such as affiliate marketing and selling digital products) can take a while to grow and become passive.
Think of a skill you have, and if you can package and sell it. It can be anything from copywriting, design work, social media management, coaching & consulting, and more!
💎 Ad Income: $3,016
(+ $869 since the last income report)
Now let’s talk about ad income. Over the years I have earned just over three thousand dollars with ad income which is kind of laughable when you think about it.
But it’s something that I really haven’t prioritized. I had Google AdSense on my blog in the first year, but then took it down as my website was overwhelmed with ads which were becoming distracting to my readers.
I have since joined the She Media ad network, which not only pays a lot better, but who worked with me to set up ad blocks the way I wanted them, without becoming a big distraction on my website.
- Easy setup
- High RPMs
- Passive income
- Great support team
She Media is currently taking new applicants – so if you have over 10,000 to 15,000 monthly pageviews, consider joining as it’s a great passive ad revenue!
As always, my advice is to limit ads so they don’t interfere with your user experience on your site, and allow for your affiliate links to still convert.
But if your blog tends to get good traffic that you can’t monetize with affiliates, then you can rely more heavily on ad income, and that means picking an ad network that pays better than Google Adsense.
Join the She Media ad network here!
💎 Sponsored Income: $3,957
(+ $2,673 since the last income report)
Moving on to paid sponsorships! I have earned just shy of $4,000 with sponsored posts and content over the years. This also includes a few sponsored videos for YouTube, where I had a few collaborations since starting my channel last year.
That being said, I have also declined a lot of requests just because they were very random and had nothing to do with my content or niche. So I am very picky when it comes to accepting sponsors or collaborations.
Depending on your niche or platform, collaborations can still be incredibly lucrative. Here are a few resources to help you score more well-paid sponsored posts:
- Sponsored Success Course – The one-stop shop to learn everything you need to know about working with brands.
- Sponsored Post Calculator – it helps you determine what to charge for every post you write.
💎 Blog Management & Freelancing: $1,340
(+ $900 since the last income report)
Last but not least – freelancing work and blog management work. I have earned $1,340 dollars with it from just 2 clients.
I offered VA services as a trial run alongside my blog coaching services, and recently opened it back up again under my Blog Management services and packaged them a little differently.
This means I offer bespoke VA services that are made for bloggers and I take over the time-consuming tasks of running and optimizing a blog so that the bloggers in question can do what they do best and focus on generating awesome ideas for their blogs.
This brings the total to:
TOTAL BLOG EARNINGS: $250,814
TIME ELAPSED SINCE BLOG LAUNCH: 5 YEARS AND 8 MONTHS
And there you have it! This is the breakdown of how I earn money blogging and make a living online.
This is the result of a couple of years’ worth of work, and a lot of experimentation! I try to hone down on the strategies that work for me and put less effort into the ones that don’t.
This follows the 80/20 rule – where 80% of your income is probably going to come from 20% of your efforts.
And while it’s always good to generate multiple income streams (that’s why it’s a great idea to train to become a Pinterest manager or sell low-content books on Amazon), if something is working well for your blog, do compound more of your efforts to maximize that first!
As always, thank you for following along with my blogging journey and supporting it!
Let me know in a comment below how I can support you in your journey!
And if you haven’t started your blog yet, don’t put it off! Join my free course and launch your blog today!
Hope to see you on the other side and read your future blogging income reports!
More Free Blogging Tips:
- How To Make Money Blogging – The Ultimate Guide
- How To Make Money On Pinterest (And Become A Pinterest VA)
- How To Make Passive Income By Selling Ebooks
- Best Blogging Income Reports – How Much Do Bloggers Make?
So inspiring! thanks for sharing Ana 💕
Great post and gives me lots of ideas, I think a coach is next on my list