Lessons Learned After One Year Of Blogging + Yearly Income Report (2024)

The end of May marked my first full year of blogging. I can’t believe it has been one full year already. Time has flown by and I have genuinely enjoyed becoming a blogger and starting up Cash Flow Diaries. For the past year I have been keeping traffic statistics and income made from this blog on my monthly income reports. I decided to change it up for this post to show the top lessons learned after one year of blogging + yearly blog income report.

As you may have read before, when I started this blogI literally had zero experience blogging, creating a website or even writing. The only writing I had ever done was years ago for college essays and reports. It was very exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time starting the blog with no experience and no idea where this would lead me. I am deeply proud of what I have accomplished so far and am looking forward to what my future years of blogging brings to me. If you are looking to start a blog, I highly encourage you start now. If I can do it, you can do it plus I created an easy step by step tutorial on how I created this blog. So feel free to check it out. Here are some lessons learned from my first year of blogging that may help you out on your journey to become a blogger.

1) It is possible to make money blogging your first year with no experience but it is not easy.

• You will see in my income report below that I was able to successfully make a profit for my first year. I even broke evenon my total startup costs within 4 months of starting. It literally only takes a few minutes to create a blog when you use Blue Hostwhich is the hosting company I used to start this bad boy up.

2) Write about your own experiences and what you are passion about.

• Having actual experience and a passion forwhat you write about will show in your writing. People notice this type of stuff and it creates a good writing personality. Readers enjoy this!

3) Social Media is crucial to marketing and building page views.

• Looking back, the majority of my traffic has come from social media. You must learn how to use and promote your blog in as many social media sites that you can. I spent a lot of time creating and learning how to do this via facebook, twitter, pinterest, linkedIn, and StumbleUpon. Build as many followers as you can, engage with other users and promote your blog posts as well as other people’s. You will be rewarded with traffic and page views.

4) Communicate with other bloggers

• The blogging community is full of great people. Most other bloggers are super friendly, willing to help out and also engage in your content. Make sure to take the time to engage with other bloggers by commenting on their blog posts, sharing their posts and even just flat out directly communicating with them via email or anything. I have gained a few new real friends by doing this and its great!! I have also done a few podcasts and have done guest posts on other blogs because of this.

5) Write down your blogging ideas and article topics.

• When you first start blogging you will have so many different ideas on what you can do to your blog and what posts you can write. Definitely remember to write this stuff down because you will forget them. I keep a notepad for blogging ideas and jot down everything that comes across my mind. It makes for great ammunition later on when you are in a slump or looking for something to do with your new blog.

6) Never stop learning or trying to get better.

• You may think you know it all but you will soon find out that you don’t! From SEO practices to how to do marketing, you should research and learn from other bloggers. Learn how they blog, write and even make income. I have learned so much about how to make money blogging by reading the income reports on my Ultimate List of Blog Income Reports. It is a great source to see how others are making a killing with blogging.

7) Take the time to proofread your blog posts.

• I have had other readers and even other bloggers call me out on bad grammar and typos. There have been times when I am in a hurry and really want to get a blog post out so have rushed posts. You should try to avoid doing this and really take the time to re-read what you have written. It’s possible that some people may stop reading your blog if they see how bad your writing/grammar is. The quality of your posts is more important than the amount of posts you publish.

8) Do not EVER use any images you find online without purchasing or getting approval.

• In one of my earlier posts, I thought it was okay to grab a random image online and use it in one of my blog posts. This turned out to be a big no-no and I was threatened to be sued because of it. Luckily I was able to resolve the matter but it was a huge scare and a lesson learned. I highly advise you only use pictures you take yourself, grab from a legitimate free stock image website or that you purchase from a legitimate site with the proper licensing.

So now let’s get to the income report section which will show you my stats and income from my first year of blogging.

For all you new readers, here is a little info on when I first started blogging: Cash Flow Diaries was born on May 22nd, 2015, that is day I bought the domain name. The remaining month of May I spent creating the first posts and making the blog ready for showing the world. June 2015 was the first full monthwhich I was very pleased with.

Startup Costs: (Born on date – May 22,2015)
Site Purchase from Blue Host for 3 years: $-226.08
Logo Purchase: $-50
Total Startup Costs: $-276.08

• As of September 7th 2015, the blog has officially generatedmore income to cover allmy total expenses and startup costs since day 1. We are running free and clear until May 2018. So for all you new bloggers out there, if you are wondering how long it takes for a blog to recoup all its startup costs for a 3 year plan. It took me 3 and half months (108 days) to earn enough money to cover it all. Initially I had thought it was going to take me a whole year to do this but the blog has really taken off in my opinion and I am definitely making more money from the blog then I ever thought, especially this early in the game. It has not been easy at all so don’t think it is but if you want to see how I created Cash Flow Diaries, you can check out my step by step guide I created.

Blog Income Report – Yearly Totals

Income:

Google AdSense: $497.29

• After a full year of blogging I made almost $500 just from google adsense alone. This consists of having just 3 adsense ads somewhere in my blog. This alone was enough to pay off my startup costs and provide additional income.

Amazon Affiliate: $39.26

• It’s not easy making amazon money unless you are doing product reviews but I am super grateful for have made anything from it.

Flex Offers Affiliate: $600

• This one was a pleasant surprise as the payouts are nice but they are not easy to come by. I make a $100 per sign up with myPersonal Capitalaffiliate and was able to get 6 sign ups in one year. What makes it difficult is that the person signing up needs to meet a certain criteria to get the payout. Theymust have over 100k in invest-able assets for me to get the pay out. Anyways,for those of you who do not know what this is, Personal Capital it is apersonal finance manager online site/appthat aggregates all your income and expenses and provides cool graphs and charts for you. It’s completely FREE and exactly what I usefor tracking my net worth.

Blue Host Affiliate: $520

• BlueHost offersa $65 payout per sign up. I like to promote Blue Hostbecause they are who I use to host this site and I have had very little problems with them. Plus they have great deals. Highly recommend to use them for starting a blog.

Media.net Ads: $177.20

• I actually only started using Media.net 5 months ago and have been able to make a nice amount of income from them. They are basically just like google adsense.

Coaching/Mentoring: $690

• I only started offering this service about 4 months ago as well and so far it has been able to provide me with a decent source of additional income. So if you are a newbie and are looking for help, additional information or advice on how to purchase a turnkey rental property in a different state, please check my consulting packages on my Contact Me page.

So I made a total of $2523.66in income my first year of blogging. Not too shabby if you ask me. 🙂

Expenses – Yearly Total

$453.51 – This is the total accumulation of all the expenses I had my whole first year of blogging. This includes startup costs, paypal fees from the coaching, boardbooster and some minor web design customizationI had done. I intentionally try to keep my blog expenses down and thought I did a good job for my first year.

Total Yearly NetIncome: (Income minus Expenses)

$2070.15

Yearly Blog Statistics and Traffic:

Page Views: 167,413

• I honestly am really proud that I was able to accomplish these kinds of numbers in my first year. It was not easy to do this and I only hope that I can match that or get better traffic for my 2nd year of blogging. Hard work, a little bit of luck and a lot of social media marketing is basically what it comes down to.

Subscriber Count: 777New Subscribers

• I somehow was able to acquire 777 subscribers to this blog. From the beginning I set this up and it has been a slow crawl to get this but I am extremely happy with that number. I just love getting emails when someone subscribes. So if you want to be part of the awesome feeling I get when I get a new subscriber!! ?? Then please subscribe just by typing in your emailin this little box right here. Nice and easy. I promise you won’t get annoyed by my posts. 🙂

Social Media Stats:

Twitter: 7986 Followers Follow me

• I figured out how to get over 1000 followers per month for free using theCash Flow Diaries Twitter Strategy. What sucks is that I didn’t learn about it until about 6 months ago. If I would have known from the beginning I would have a lot more followers. But either way, it’s okay. I am very pleased with all my twitter followers.

Facebook: 4953Friends 401Page Likes Friend meor Like My Page

• I have been generating friends from the beginning but only created my blog page about 5 months ago. It’s not easy getting likes on your blog page without paying for facebook advertising which I refuse to do at this point. I’m okay with just trying to grow these numbers organically. I’m just about capped out on friends though but it’s okay.

Pinterest: 11000Followers Follow me

• Since I started using Board Booster, my pinterest page views gotmuch better. Nothing earth shattering but I have way more traffic coming from pinterest now considering I was getting practically none before. I highly recommend to getBoard Boosterif you havent already as a way to promote your pinterest and gain additional traffic to your blog.

So there you have it folks, my blog statistics and income for my very first year of blogging. I hope you enjoyed reading the stats. I seem to find great pleasure in reading how other bloggers do each month. I really love the idea of posting the monthly income report which is why I created:

The Ultimate List of Monthly Blogger Income Reports where you can view actual monthly incomes fromover 30different bloggers.

How do you think I am doing so far? Any tips or suggestions? If you would like to receive emails on future income reports and others posts when they are released, please subscribe here: