How I Made $42 my Second Month Blogging

**This page contains affiliate links to products I recommend. If you purchase something from this page, I may receive a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you**

Let’s Catch Up

Hey loves! Thanks so much in advance for taking the time out to read my post. Can you believe that it’s March already? Wow! Where did February go?

Now if you are new to my monthly income report and would like to play catch up here is the link to January’s income report blog post.

As some of you may know I started this journey  back in late November 2018, but I didn’t actually launch my website until January 1, 2019. In my last income report I mentioned how I read too many income reports that got me all hype and ready to go on this blogging venture.

Well as some of you may know I was rudely awaken to the LIE. As new bloggers we hold “tenured” bloggers to an extremely high standard. And why shouldn’t we? You are a proclaimed blogger who is world renowned and glorified by all the newbies in the world right? So I feel like your content should not only be amazing but also truthful.

Pinterest Income Reports

Now just because I realized that most of the income reports that I was reading was a complete waste of time, formulated to get my views and decrease their bounce rate on their website, does not mean I stop reading them. 🤷‍♀️😋

I am legit fascinated by the goals and obstacles of any and every blogger. No new bloggers journey will be the same, and if you read a couple of post that are, they either stole the material or copied their step by step method to a tee!

Either way, during the month of January I not only read more income reports but I pinned some that I felt were either good learning lessons or actually had valuable information. I’m more of a realist, so I rather you give it to me straight.

The Fluff Posts

Out of all the income reports that I read in the month of January I can say I only read ONE that was true to the core and had no fluff! It was gangsta and I  needed that post three months ago. But it’s never too late to change your journey and either stop blogging or boss up and become better then those other bloggers who may have lied to you.

The blogger didn’t hold back and make you feel like everything was going to be rainbows and sunshine. She gave real facts and I felt her message to the core. (If I can find her blog post I’ll definitely link it here)

If you want to see my most recent pins please follow me on Pinterest.

The Ugly Truth

In my last post I mentioned the ugly truth about blogging that other bloggers won’t tell you. Well nothing has changed this month. If you thought my first income report was going to have a comma 😂 let me glading put that joke to bed. Hell, I was lucky to get a decimal better yet a comma. 😒

When you start out as a blogger it’s soooo hard to gain momentum. The views are not easy to come by and if your site is monetized, it’s even harder to get a click on one of your ads. (Even if they do decide to click the ad, some affiliates will only pay you if they actually buy something. It’s hard out here.)

You will find out early on that even though you might have some people that want to support you, most people really don’t understand what a blogger does, and if they do they may or may not have time to actually read your post to support you.

Support

It is soooo hard to get CONSISTENT help from your friends and family members. Although they would love to see you succeed half won’t continuously support you. But hey, I could be wrong and you could very well be the exception, but let’s be real, the numbers don’t lie.

When you are a newbie trying to get your baby blog up and running you need to keep yourself surrounded by like minded people. Bloggers, friends, and family that will stay positive and keep you energized and motivated 110%.

Make Me a Believer

I have have sooo many people on Instagram who say they’ve read my post and comment and like my picture like they actually went over to my blog post and supported me by ACTUALLY reading my content. Well folks hate to break it to you, but 80% of them will only LIKE your picture on Instagram or Facebook and move onto the next. The other 20% will like your picture and actually take the time out to read your blog post and leave a meaningful comment.

I don’t blame any of my social media followers for looking like they support me and my grind. It’s sooo much easier to support people when it’s convenient for them especially when they too need some support from you.

Let’s Be Real

But let’s be real it’s easier to like a picture and write a quick comment on Instagram then it is to like the picture, make a comment on the picture, then click the link in my profile and read the blog post. Ok so the like and comment could take less than a minute and to read and make a comment on a blog post could possibly take 10-15 minutes away from you scrolling.

I know, I know that sounds horrible! How could I want you to take time away from scrolling through Instagram to read a post that could’ve taken me days or weeks to write. A post that I am EXTREMELY proud of and simply just want my friends and family to read.

We’ve all done it, we’re human and I’m sure that most people would love to support us bloggers but most friends, family, and associates sometimes don’t see value in what we do. So if your not interested in the topic why would you want to learn more?

This is why it’s soo important to build a community surround by people who get it. Which leads me to my next point and again most blogger won’t tell you this.

Blogging Mentor

I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to find yourself a blogging mentor. Someone who has been doing it long enough to keep you on your toes, review your site, read your blog post when you’re feeling a little iffy about it, and give you all their tips and tricks that they might have up their sleeves for you to be successful.

Ironically I actually found my blogging mentor through Instagram. Shout out to Morgan! Not only is she an amazing blogger but she is a badass entrepreneur. She has amazing engagement groups, blogging groups, Pinterest groups, and so much more.

Morgan is always there to answer any of my questions and most importantly tell me how fantastic I am. (Who doesn’t want a mentor like that??😏🤷‍♀️😂) She also tells me how great my baby blog is coming along. (Even though sometimes I think my blog sucks.) She always keeps me pushing and moving forward. Always around to keep me motivated and to keep it 100% real.

Now the things I looked for in a mentor was:

1. Had a blog (& been blogging for a while)
2. Like the vibe of the blog and the person
3. Willingness to answer any and every question
4. VERY relatable
5. Keeps it 100% real and no sugar coating
6. Wants to see you succeed
7. Cheers you on because nobody else will understand the struggle of starting a new blog
8. Innovative (Who wants a mentor that’s behind the times?)
9. FUN
10. Great collaborator

My Morgan are all these things and more. I promise you my blog wouldn’t be where it is today without the help of this woman! (She hates a lot of attention so she will probably kill me later for calling her out like this but OH WELL 😝😘)

Here are some of Morgan’s Groups and her website

• The Secret Tribe
• Pinterest Growth Group
• Barbed Wire and Lace

I’m pretty sure she had/has no idea I considered her my mentor nor did she have any intentions of being a mentor better yet mine. 😂😂

Let’s just say when you know you know. You and that person vibe right off the bat. You follow their work and love their content.

Morgan wears a lot of hats in her personal life and wears just as many in her business. When you get a chance definitely check out her work.

Newbie Status

When you are a new blogger checking your stats is like second nature. You want to be able to celebrate every win. No matter how small, and you should. You will be able to tell where EVERY view, click, and comment is coming from. (Well at least you can with WordPress😂 ).

What you need to Know to start your baby blog

Now again I want to refer you to my first income report because it has most of the information that I will skim through on this post.

1. You will want to set up hosting. I would recommend that you start your blog off self-hosted because you have no restraints as to what you can and can not do. Plus you can monetize your website if you choose to. If you choose to go the self hosted I personally would recommend using bluehost as your hosting company.

2. Create a name and domain name for your business. Make it short & sweet. You don’t want your domain name to be www.mylifeasanewblogger.com (sorry if that’s your domain name 😂) Pick something that is easy to recognize and even easier to type if your reader happens to be on the go.

3. Create or hire someone to create your logo. This is the first step to creating your brand.

4. This goes with your logo but pick the colors that will stamp your brand. I built my website around the colors in my logo.

5. Choose your niche. Will you be a lifestyle blogger like me or would you rather focus on finance or fitness?

6. Set up all social media platforms as possible!

7. Join as many Facebook, Pinterest, Tailwind Tribes, and blogging groups as possible!

8. Follow as many inspirational blogger, vloggers, Influencers, social media experts as possible.(Don’t forget to find a blogging mentor while doing all of this.)

9. Comment and share as many good bloggers blog post as possible. The blogging community is ginormous and we stick together! If you’re in this for the long haul I promise you will meet some amazing people who will end up being your life long supporters and friends.

10. Write as many blog post as possible. Try to have at least 4 blog post before launching. (This stops other new viewers from thinking your too much of a newbie to know anything.)

11. Create a mailing list for all your amazing viewers who would love to receive your weekly emails.

12. Create a bombass freebie that your viewers need and want so you can start your subscription list. (This will be VERY important later on down the line, so start now).

13. Promote, Promote, Promote ( This is when you will find out who is REALLY for you and your new hustle. Will your friends and family help promote your website or will all your promotions sit on their screen unnoticed.)

Ha, Ha I’m sure you’re thinking if this chick say “as possible” one more time! 😂🤣😂🤣

Hosting

Now like I stated before, I started my blog off self hosted. While doing ALL my research on Pinterest for starting a blog it was 50/50. Half of the blogging community uses Bluehost, while the other half uses Siteground.

Honestly whatever you choose will be fine. I can only speak from my personal experience with Bluehost. The customer service is amazing! They are always available to help you and extremely patient and nice. Which is very important when you’re a new blogger in the game an get fustrated very easily.

Bluehost

I won’t lie to you and have you thinking that when you sign up for Bluehost that you will only pay $3.95 because that’s NOT true, and I’m sick and tired of bloggers making it seem that hosting is REALLY that cheap.

Please believe that buying hosting cost more than a happy meal at McDonalds. Hell, you can’t even get a happy meal for $3.95 anymore. 😂

If you do decide to go with bluehost use my link to start the process. But I want you to know that you will have to at least sign up for a year of hosting. So that means $3.95 x 12 = $47.40 which is not bad right? Well we haven’t entered in the taxes and security that you will need for your site. Then you realized from the pricing chart that it’s sooo much cheaper to get hosting for two or three years versus the one.

By time it’s all said in done you will be paying around $106. (Hints the title of the Ugly Truth) The good thing about Bluehost is that you can pick your domain name for free while setting up your hosting and the customer service once again is amazing! If you choose wordpress as your platform they even have tech guru’s to help you setup your website as well.

I don’t know if siteground offers that. (I’m just saying 🤷‍♀️)

Logos

You definitely want to make sure you start out with a logo. Brand yourself early on and get your color palette together from the very beginning. If you want to create your own logo there are a lot of different apps that you can use to start the process.

I personally hired someone off Instagram and she was absolutely AMAZING! I mean have you not seen my logo?

Now ya girl is very creative (and by ya girl I mean me 😋) but not creative enough to design my own logo. Heck I didn’t even know what I wanted it to look like.

Lisha Panzarella-Eubanks

Which is why I am sooo glad I found Lisha. When I tell you she is soooo professional, I mean it. Work ethic is great and she has a great eye for design and can pick up on the vibe of the look your actually going for.

I legit gave her my current business cards and I let her work her magic. She was a sweetheart through the whole process. I tend to be a little picky and a tad bit impatient. Especially when it comes to something I’m extremely excited about.

Lisha very patient with me but she also understood the type of design I was going for without me telling her anything. Ladies and gentlemen this woman is a BEAST period! Not only will I use her again but I recommend her to all my friends, family and fellow entrepreneurs.

If you would like to see her work or use her in the future here is her contact information.
Instagram: StripezandDesign

• 

• 

• 

• 

I promise you won’t be disappointed. Tell her that Vee sent you! 😉

Let Me Be Very Blunt

When you start out, I don’t care how many followers you have on any social media platforms, they will not equal views. You have to write AMAZING content in the very beginning packed with lots of information and FACTS to back it up. And you have to do this on a consistent basis.

In the very beginning when you launch your blog and you let the world know your site is live, you will get hella views. Why you ask? Because people are nosey! 😂😂 let’s just call a spade a spade.

If you launch and you get thousand views in one day, you can bet 70% of those views were from people being nosy and wanting to see what you had going on, on your website. Some will be haters and other will be genuinely intrigued to see what you have accomplished.

After that initial week or two your views will drop like crazy. This does not mean your not a great blogger by any means. It just means everyone who wanted to be nosy is gone. Halfway into the month you will see what your REAL viewer numbers are. (You can check this by logging into your google analytics)

Don’t Get Discouraged

No matter how much you read, how much research you have under your belt, nothing will fully prepare you to be a blogger other than taking a leap of faith and putting yourself out there.

Like I said before no beginner blogger will have the same journey. If this is what you REALLY want to do, let nothing discourage you. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again! You wouldn’t be reading this post if you didn’t want to learn! So you’ve already taken the first step, believe in yourself. You will do great things.

Now that we have all the informational part done let’s talk BUSINESS shall we?

How I made $42 in my Second Month Blogging

Now compared to my first month blogging I would say that I’m crushing the game. My baby blog and I really outdid ourselves and that’s thanks to fantastic people like you.

Just when I thought my blog wouldn’t take off for another six months, I wrote my first income report and that post took off! I mean I haven’t had a post go viral like my first income report did since I started this blog. It definitely motivated me, and most importantly, it told me what you, my viewers, wanted to see from my platform.

I mean really what is a blogger without viewers like yourself?

Like I stated before in my last income report. I work two jobs! So staying true and consistent is extremely hard work ladies and gentlemen but I think I’m doing a pretty good job. 😁😏

My Blogging Schedule for the month of February

Blog Post: Now my goal was to post at least twice a month. I ended the month with 2 blog post! Yay!!! 💃🎉🎊

How I Made 91 Cents in my First Month Blogging

How to use Ibotta to make Money

Retail Rants: My goal is to write a rant every Thursday! I held true to my goal! Yay!! 💃🎉🎊

Started with:

Retail Rants #10 – Pay Attention and Respect my Space

Retail Rants #11 – Nothing in Life is FREE

Retail Rants #12 – Use Your Words

Retail Rants #13 – Thank You for Calling

Motivational Quotes: My goal here is to post once a week. I actually did 4! So One motivational quote a week! Yay me!!! 💃🎉🎊

Get the Look for Less: Is supposed to be bi-weekly. I actually fell short on this goal. My last post was January 25th.

Get the Look for Less – Spring into Fashion

Interior Design: Goal is to post a topic here one or twice a month. I fell short of this goal in February as well. My last post was January 31st.

Buying a Home for the First Time

My February Income Report

Previous Income Reports

• January 2019: 91 cents

February Income Report

Google Adsense – 32 cents

Designer for Hire – $41.67 (PayPal had to get their cut)

TOTAL: $42.00

Google Adsense for the month of February

Designer for Hire

The Second part of my income came from me designing Pinterest Pin graphics for my clients. I got into designing graphics because of my wonderful blogging and Instagram friends thought my pins on Pinterest were amazing.

I am very much an entrepreneur and I decided hell what do I have to lose? I did my research and in less than a week I was open for business. I then received my first client within two weeks of opening up shop and before I knew it I had more emails coming through the pipeline.

To get more specifics check out my Designer for Hire page Now!

Now for security reasons I am unable to show you the exact numbers I made from PayPal but clearly after PayPal got their cut I made $41.67.

Create Your Own

Now there are hundreds of way to make money off of your blog. Some may take longer than others to generate income but there is no way to guarantee you will make a set amount of money every month.

As you can see I am an Affiliate with ShareaSale, and although you can make money by putting their ads on your website you’re not guaranteed to make a sale. After reading more and more income reports I’ve realized that most of these bigger bloggers make their money off of something they created themselves.

You have to create your own destiny in this blogging world. If you want to make good money create a ebook, e-course, you could even become a blogging coach, if your really good! The best part about creating your own business is that you make the product so you set the price.

Did I mention how AMAZING it feels to make your first sale? There is something that you know that someone else in this world would be more than happy to pay you to learn. Maybe you make awesome mugs, people will pay you for a cute mug.

Just Do It

When I started this Designer for Hire business I never would’ve thought that people would actually pay me to create a design for them. But then my blogging and instagram friends basically broke it down for me. They told me they don’t have time to sit there and make amazing designs because they are too busy running a business, so if they could pay someone to do it for them, they would!

Just like that a business was born. I took a leap of faith and threw it out there to the world in hopes that there were more people who could use my assistance and it just so happens that there are.

Never sell yourself short on the things you know how to do! Even if your specialty is growing gardens, I am sure if you put your services out their someone will definitely reach out for your expertise. Shoot after my blog goes viral and I’m making thousands of dollars off of it in a month, I might want to hire you to show me how to grow a garden from scratch.

Because by then I would’ve kicked my other two jobs to the curb and I would actually have time to grow my own fruits and vegetables. 🤣😂🤣

Traffic Breakdown

In my last income report I did not set any goals for myself. I set expectations but I need to be able to push myself a little bit harder every month. You know? Set goals so that way you can crush them! Well one of the things I want to start focusing on is my traffic report.

Since I creating this goal for myself going forward I wanted to play a little catch up and give you my traffic breakdown for January and February so that way in March we can start fresh.

As you can see I circled my page views. If you don’t know what page views are I’m going to break it down for you real quick.

Page views is the total number of pages viewed. Repeated views of a single page is counted.

(So in layman’s terms: it counts all the pages that you view once you click my website. So if you clicked on my blog post and then went to my ‘About Me’ page that would count as two page views.)

Now that you know what a page view is let’s talk facts! In January I had a total of 336 NEW USERS. Overall I had a total of 353 people visit my site in January!! If that was you and your back again, just know that Designs by Vee LOVES YOU! Although I had 353 people view my site I only had 786 page views. So that means some people came and saw my content but didn’t come to look around.

So if you start your blog and see in your very First month that your page views are low, that is totally fine! Like I stated before some people just want to be nosy. I love nosy people, they give me life, so I give them something amazing to look at. Even if they only visit once, it will be THE best experience they ever had!

Now for February

In February I want you to keep in mind that they jipped me three whole days! So my numbers don’t look AS great. Plus I didn’t post half as much as I did in January.

I had a total of 330 users and 304 were new viewers to my site. Out of those 330 users I had 619 page views. Still not bad for a baby blog, but the goal is to start trending upwards every month going forward.

March Goals

I would like to get back on schedule with my Get the Look for Less. Also post more on my Interior Design of my new house. As well as stay up to date with the rest of my monthly post. I would love to hit 1,000 page views in March! So that means I need you to view every last inch of my site starting right after this post.

Social Media

Get my Pinterest followers up to 200
Facebook likes to 150
Instagram followers to 1,500
Twitter followers to 20
Tumblr followers to 10

So if you’re not already following me NOW is the time!

Affiliates

ShareaSale
Make at least 5 affiliated sales

Google Adsense
Make at least $5

Designer for Hire
Get 6 more clients for the month.

If you haven’t started working with me, I suggest you do so asap! Remember consultations are FREE!

My top pin graphic design for the month of February was:

Before You Go

Before you go I want to Thank you again for taking the time out and reading my post. If you found any value in the information I presented to you please make sure you share with your friends and family members. Pin this post, and let me know in the comments what helped you the most? (Sincerely didn’t mean for that to rhyme but hey ya girl got skillz) 😎💁‍♀️

Like I stated earlier, a blogger is nothing without it’s viewers, so if there is anything that you would like me to cover in the future please let me know. If you would like me to add more information to my income reports or have questions that you would like me to answer please leave a comment below. I want to make sure I leave you feeling full off the information I provided.

Join My Tribe

I have created a Brand New Tribe on Tailwind  called Bosses on a Mission. If you would like to join please click the link. It cost you nothing to promote yourself and I would love to Build a Friendship through design. This is a Pinterest focused group where you can pin your own content for other members to share. The more repins the better right? Come join the rest of the Bosses and let’s Build Your Brand today!