Welcome to my income diary. If you wonder how do websites make money and how to make money with a website, you may find my reports useful.

I will keep my promise of releasing monthly reports on my online income. I decided to do that regardless of how much I make; In 2017, I am projected to made $20k on online income.

online income blogging diary report

The viral effect of two of my posts in December is over, and this month returned to normality. Last month, I made over $1000 online. This was an exceptionally good result, which I should re-experience once again should any of my posts go viral again.

In January, my Facebook page grew by 116 likes, and I am now close to 400 likes. I still think that this is very little, considering that I have big goals regarding Facebook. We grew the subscriber count from 762 to 841, which means an increase of almost 10%. I am excited with the subscriber count, and I project to be at 2500 by the end of the year. Sadly, I failed to increase the subscriber list to 1000, as I said in my previous online income report.

 

I’ve received many e-mails concerning this matter. Most people ask me “What can I do to start a side online business?” or “What can I do to make a few hundred bucks at the end of the month”? First, know that I offer consulting services for this, on 1:1 consultations. Either way, let me hash out a general recipe here:

0) Choose a niche. Many people choose niches based on keyword search. I highly recommend people to blog about what they are passionate about instead. If you add value, any niche will work out for you.

1) Set up a website. I host my website on Bluehost, which I highly recommend. For one, its cheap, two is highly reliable. If you are interested in starting a blog of your own, I created a tutorial here, to help you start off.

2) Blog. A lot. You may have noticed that I’ve posted twice in the month, on specific months, when I started From cents to Retirement. Doesn’t work. It won’t tie people in, it won’t please search engines and your blog will rapidly be forgotten. Note that I am not saying “publish crap”. Do not, if you expect to have loyal fans and grow. But do not forget to publish.

3) Promote your blog. A big part of having your blog out there for people to see is through high quality posts – eventually, people will share. Promoting your blog will not only get it out there faster but deeper. Promoting your blog can be very hard, but its necessary.

4) Monetize. Adsense is an option. I like Amazon a lot. If you offer consultancy services, as I do, you need to show you can do it yourself first, but clients will pop up eventually.

 

So, how did I make over $350 this month? First, the breakdown:

Bluehost : $65
Affiliate marketing : $250.78
Consultancy fees : $25
Google adsense : $12.77

Total : $353.55

Disclaimer: the BlueHost and the Amazon links are affiliate links, which means that I get commissions if you buy products or services through them.

The amounts above are for the month of December and they are before any fees, taxes or expenses. I can’t say exactly how much I will net from this.

Views

This month, the blog had a considerable decrease in views. As I show below, I’ve only had about 37k, which is considerably less than last month, when 2 of my posts went viral.

views february online income

I have started to believe that my previous goal of reaching 250.000 views in a month may be too ambitious. I will, however, work hard towards this goal. As I also said, I have finally started to invest into SEO and I will invest towards social media (such as Facebook), plus be promoting my blog through high quality, highly informative posts on Real Estate. I hope this pays off. It is crucial that I reach 100.000 views before July, but I am confident that this goal is achievable.

Consulting

I have also worked much less on consulting through the blog, as I was really busy writing my book (which I hope to release in February). While Adsense made more or less the same money, my affiliate revenue was way lower than in December (because it is highly connected to the number of viewers).

I had one Bluehost (Affiliate link) sign up, which leaves me happy. One to three a month is what I think I can do in 2017.

As I go, I will increase the content and detail of each online income report. Next in this regard:

  • Expand in partners for Affiliate Marketing.
  • Resort to other sources of online income (e.g. surveys).
  • Promote my blog massively – includes SEO!
  • Publish a book.

Goals for January 2017:

  • Increase the number of likes on my Facebook page to 1000. FAIL.
  • Increase the number of blog subscribers to 1000. FAIL.
  • Finish writing my book. DONE!

Finally, something I can be proud for, as far as this month is concerned! I expect you guys to get a kick out of my book, and find a lot of valuable content there. It was a heck of a hard task! I have no idea how much do publishers make, but I expect to make a few dollars with my book.

Goals for February 2017:

  • Have over 15% of my traffic from search, due to SEO optimization.
  • Increase my traffic from Social Media.
  • Reach at least 50k views on my blog.
  • Make over $1000 online.
  • Surpass 1100 subscribers.

In the meantime, let me know if this information is useful to you in the comment section down below.

Your biggest fan,
Ben Davis