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How I Made Over $1500 Blogging!

How I Made Over $1500 Blogging! November 29, 201615 Comments

Hi, I’m Kari, creator of Keep it Simple, DIY. I’m a lifestyle blogger with an MBA who blogs about finance, Home & DIY, blogging, and more. My main motto is that if you just try, you will succeed. The key is to Keep it Simple.

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**This post contains affiliate links**

Today’s post is a very exciting one!  I began blogging in July of 2015 and by the end of October 2016, I had made over $1500!  I began this blog because I thought about it one day and realized that I no longer had any hobbies.  I had previously been in grad school, working 50 hours per week, and buying my first house.  This definitely left me no free time.

A few years after life settled down, I was working 40 hours per week and had no side obligations.  I thought about creating another book but I wasn’t really in the mood for a long drawn out project.  Thus, I began the blog with no idea what I was going to write about!

In November of 2015, I made my first $9 on Izea. I think I just got lucky with this one.  I hadn’t been trying to make money blogging at this point but I did know if was something I wanted to look into.  At this point I decided I was going to take my blog more seriously in 2016.

The first steps

The first step I took towards monitizing my blog was to become self-hosted through wordpress.org.  I made this transition at the end of 2015 and in January of 2016 I added Google Adsense.  Adsense has been by far my most consistent income source.

Here is a rough breakdown of my income sources.

Ads – $1020.00
Freelancing –  $410.00
Affiliate –  $15
Sponsored – $140.00
Product Sales – $8.00

Ads

Ads have been by far my largest income source.  I use Google Adsense and Media.net but I’ve only made about $4.00 from Media.net.  The rest comes from Google Adsense.

I do have a trick for Google Adsense.  The more present I am on my blog and social media, the more money I make.  There are quite a few Facebook Groups that I use to gain interaction through my site.  As long as I’m consistently participating in these threads, I see the reward.  One thing to note is that you cannot ask anyone to click on your ads!

Freelancing

Earlier this year,  Izea had a survey for Ebyline, a company they bought that creates product descriptions for Ebay.  I participated in their projects for two months and earned over $400.00.  I haven’t had any freelancing work since.

Affiliate Programs

I’ve heard a lot of great news about affiliate programs but honestly I haven’t been that impressed.  I’ve made about $15 in affiliate programs and could list all of the ones I belong to but, I wouldn’t recommend using any of them.  Plus, it just adds a bunch of unnecessary selling to a page which could turn off your readers.

Sponsored Posts

Sponsored posts are something that just starting working for me!  Early in the year, I had a couple of small sponsored posts through Izea (roughly $10 total).  Once I hit 3000 followers, I was able to sign up for Linquia.  I have now participated in two campaigns and have made about $120.  Something to note here is that I also turned down two campaigns because they didn’t align with my blog or my opinions.

Product sales

This area is one of my goals to improve over the next year or so.  I have a couple digital products on Etsy and I have my book.  Once I finish my Paycheck Series, I will compile the posts into a digi-book.  At this point, I haven’t seen very much activity or income generated from Product Sales.

Something else to note is that I don’t have a large following.  I get roughly 3000-4000 page views every month.  This stat also just increased from the 2000-3000 range a couple months ago.  Anything is possible.  Best of luck to all of you bloggers!  Let me know if you have any tips as well!

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Hi, I’m Kari, creator of Keep it Simple, DIY. I’m a lifestyle blogger with an MBA who blogs about finance, Home & DIY, blogging, and more. My main motto is that if you just try, you will succeed. The key is to Keep it Simple.

15 comments

  1. I didn’t know Google Adsense could be so profitable! I guess I’ll have to add that to the list. I make most of my income using affiliate marketing and sponsored posts and through my services. But nothing wrong with adding one more thing to the list! Congrats on a successful month!

  2. So encouraging. I’ve been blogging almost a year. I still have tons to learn, but your life experience is super helpful. I’ll keep plugging away and working hard and some day….

  3. I love that you mentioned that you cannot ask anyone to click on your ads and that you are still seeing a reward. It drives me insane when people ask you to click on the ad, I never do. I always choose something else because it is against the TOS.

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