March 2019 Blog Income and Traffic Report

This post may contain affiliate links. Click here to read my full disclosure.

I’m a little late sharing my March 2019 blog income report, but I have a good reason! I’ve been busy with sponsored posts!

I’m going to share a terrifying goal with y’all. Are you ready? My stretch goal for the blog is to consistently earn $10,000 per month from Perfection Hangover by December 2019.

That goal seems pretty far away but remember…I have only been blogging here for a little more than a year, and my income is growing every month!

I just celebrated my one year blogging anniversary, and while I built a great foundation of content the first year, I only earned a total of about $1500 the entire year.

There were times I wanted to give up. Blogging isn’t for everyone. You have to be willing to put in the work and believe that you will eventually get paid!

Although my income for the entire year of 2018 was a mere $1500, I’m starting to see much more consistent income!

The best part is….we are able to use this blogging income to pay off our debt fast!

If you’d like to start a blog of your own (that actually makes money), check out my comprehensive blog tutorial. In this tutorial, I share blogging tips and tricks, including what not to do when starting out.

Related: How I got 10,000 Blog Page Views my 4th Month Blogging

March 2019 Blog Income Breakdown

Google Adsense: $0 – Last month I switched to Monumetric, and ad revenue increased by 800%!

Amazon Associates: $93.96 Every month I earn more and more from this simple affiliate program.

Bluehost Affiliate: $0 this month earned (although I was paid out $150 in affiliates from previous months so that was a nice surprise!)

Monumetric Ads: $375.09 ;

YouTube Income: $263.46

Sponsored Posts: $895 I am so grateful that income from sponsored posts tripled compared to last month!
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Total March Blog Income: $1627.51

March Perfection Hangover Traffic Stats

In March, I had 29,996 pageviews, which was a slight decrease.

The majority of my traffic came from Pinterest and Google.

I run a real estate business, manage a household with three kids, and manage my blog and YouTube channel.

I don’t have much time to devote to social media promotion (particularly Pinterest).

Tailwind is my go-to scheduler Every single time I publish a new post. I create 3-5 unique pins for posts that are doing well, and I rinse and repeat.

Several pins for my Extreme Frugal Living post have had thousands of visits and repins and are trending upwards (all without paying a dime for promoted pins).

But I couldn’t have done it without Tailwind.

Sign up for the basic plan to start, and then you can always power-up later when you’re ready to take it to the next level.

As far as increasing traffic from Google, I still recommend and use the Squirrly SEO plugin for keyword research, optimizing posts, and tracking my position on Google.

I also recently tried out SBI! for WP and found that their BrainstormIt! tool to be very effective for keyword and site concept research. I’m currently using both Squirrly and SBI! for WP for keyword research. And it’s paying off.

Of the 30k pageviews to MelissaBlevins.com in March, nearly half (12,076) came from Google SEO efforts.

I think it’s safe to say that SEO should be your #1 source of incom,e as it’s certainly the safest one.

Check out Squirrly plans here.

Blogging Expenses

BlueHost – $0

Very soon, I will be switching to BigScoots for hosting.

BigScoots costs a bit more than Bluehost, but since I’m now consistently earning income blogging, I’m willing to pay extra for more uptime and better service.

With my current traffic stats, I can sign up for the 155cc shared hosting plan and upgrade at any time when the blog outgrows it.

One of the best features of BigScoots is that you can pay for a subscription monthly, and it’s very inexpensive. The 155cc plan I’m on costs just $10.95 on a month-to-month basis. Compared to Bluehost at $3.95/month, it’s a bit more, but you can pay monthly instead of years in advance.

Compare BigScoots pricing and plans here.

ConvertKit – $29

I started out with Mailerlite because it’s free up to 1,000 email subscriptions. I switched to ConvertKit because the forms are so much cleaner and more professional.

But when I migrated all of my email subscribers from Mailerlite to ConvertKit, my sequences were difficult to switch over, and I had to go back into every old post that had a form embedded and change them to the new ones. It was such a pain.

ConvertKit has a starter plan at just a $29 fee per month and is well worth it if you’re looking to make money from your email list. Don’t worry about what you’ll sell to your people! Just worry about growing your list for now by offering killer freebies and opt-ins.

Trust me! I agonized over monetizing my list, and I STILL have yet to sell them anything. It’s okay to just get started and worry about all of the details later.

Insiders – $125

Insiders is a content syndication and distribution network to amplify member bloggers’ reach. The program is for bloggers looking to grow their sites, increase exposure and boost domain authority (DA) to turn their blog into a sustainable business.

In February, I joined Rockstar Finance’s VIB program. Unfortunately, the site was sold shortly after joining, and the VIB was disbanded. I secured three features/guest posts in my month as a member.

I’ll miss it, but I think Wealth of Geeks is picking up where VIB left off. Everyone talks about social media and SEO traffic, but domain authority and backlinks are sexy, too!

I’m looking forward to growing my blog with Insiders. Click here to learn more about the Money Mix Insiders program.

Tailwind – $0

I paid a year in advance for Tailwind, which has provided me with over 32,000 pageviews my first twelve months just from Pinterest alone! (Note, from January 1, 2018, to January 1, 2019).

So far this year, the blog has received 25,613 pageviews from Pinterest alone. It’s safe to say I got my Pinterest game figured out in the past few months! Here’s a link to my winning Pinterest strategy.

Don’t have a blog yet? Check out my comprehensive guide on how to start a blog that makes money.

Net Blogging Income: March 2019

After expenses, my total net blogging income for February was $1,473.51.I spend $0 on Facebook ads or promoted pins at this time. All of my traffic has grown through hard work and (mostly) SEO efforts.

My income tripled, and that’s extra money to put towards our debt snowball, I am happy!

Monumetric Income Report

I know Mediavine and Adthrive are the bees’ knees.

I’m convinced we all want to get into Mediavine because it’s exclusive and only allows those with over 25,000 sessions into the program. In fact, my first really big stretch goal was to get to 25k sessions so I could be accepted into Mediavine.

When I signed up for Monumetric, remember I had only made $63 from Adsense the previous month. February was my very first full month with Monumetric, and I earned more than I did the entire first year of blogging with Adsense….$453.48.

As detailed above, Perfection Hangover earned $375.09 from Monumetric in March. It took a slight dip, but I’m okay with that. It’s still 6x more than I ever earned in my best month with Adsense.

I wish I had signed up with Monumetric as soon as the blog had 10,000 page views. I missed out on a lot of cheddar, but that’s why I am sharing it with you.

Monumetric charges a $99 setup fee if you have less than 80,000 pageviews. And you need 10k pageviews before you can apply.

I wrote a comprehensive review of Monumetric and shared screenshots of my RPMs. Please read this before you sign up for an ad account with Monumetric. In the post, I share a couple of warnings, and if you don’t know about these things going in, you’ll probably get aggravated.

Skip the Blog Share Groups

Facebook blog sharing groups are a massive waste of time (except for the FinCon Bloggers groups or those very specific to your niche). Don’t spend your time sharing random bloggers’ content in exchange for them sharing yours.

Blogging Action Steps:

1. Read How to Start a Blog That Makes Money
2. Sign up for a FREE Tailwind trial.
3. Check out BigScoots if it’s time to move to a better host. If not, Bluehost may be just fine for you (especially if you’re just starting out and on a budget).
4. Add the Squirrly plugin to start getting more Google traffic.
5. Skip the blog share groups on Facebook!

As always, thank you for being a reader of this site! If you’d like to learn more about me and what I’m doing here at Perfection Hangover, click here.