How much money can I make blogging? – this is a really common question that, well…doesn’t get asked much! If you have a blogger friend, it is like asking them how much they get paid at their job! No one likes to tell. You might try and “Google it”, and you could find some blog income report lists that are published by some bloggers. Most of those bloggers only publish their income because they consider themselves successful at blogging. And you have a long haul before you get to that point. So let’s just have a pow-wow about the reality of how much you can make.
The honest truth is that most of blog income is directly related to Traffic. There will be the one-off blog here and there that makes their income with only a little traffic, but it is rare. Maybe they monetize with products or paid sponsors. But in many ways, traffic equals income and diversifying your monetization strategy is key. But there is no doubt that as a blog grows and traffic gets crazy, it is the ad income that really drives income.
The other honest truth is that it is different for everyone. But that doesn’t mean that I’m dodging the question.
When I started out, I was told that a good standard is $10 per 1000 hits for a blog with over 100,000 pageviews. But it isn’t true for me. The blog I started was an extremely niche blog in photography. I was in a non-mom/woman-blogger niche, so much of the high paying ads targeted at moms/women were not running on my blog. And, many networks made specifically for home, family, food blogging, would not accept me to their networks. So I was primarily relying on Adsense.
So in the past year that I have had that blog, I started out making around $2/1000pvs through the summer. By early fall it increased and by November I was making $5/1000pvs. That s really nice because I was just starting to hit 100K pvs per month, so my income was over $500 for those months.
Then…first quarter hit. No one told me that the bottom drops out of advertising in January! That was my hardest month of blogging EVER! I was on such a roll the end of the year. I was so motivated by the consistent improvement in traffic and income. I thought that was just how it worked. Just keep improving my blog and it will incrementally grow and make me more money. UGH!
Since then I have tried everything. I have had a few networks that have accepted me, but have had a few hiccups with them when they were running spammy ads that they would not control. I have a high standard for my blog and it is not worth the pennies I am getting to keep running ads that discredit my blog.
The hard fact is that Traffic is the magic. My traffic has flatlined since January and I am barely getting to 100Kpvs. Any blog under 100K pageviews will be variable in the ad income they can make. After 100K, you should be able to target a 0.5-1% of pageviews income (depending on your niche). So if you have 100,000 pageviews per month, that would be $500-1,000 ad income per month.
The point I am making is that traffic is everything. Popular sites get paid more, they get more brands that want to run ads on their site, and they leverage that to make Adsense pay more for the spots left over for them.
I am working toward that. In the meantime, you want to know if there is a future in this blogging thing as a part-time gig. I have survived this Ad income swing by having two products to sell. And so it is all still worth it because I am still selling a few of those each month. So…diversify!! I consider my blogging to be a really great mom job. It has great flexibility and I make more than I could at a part-time hourly job.
I remember the first month I started blogging, wondering if I could even make enough to pay my hosting fees. Could I make $10 a month on Adsense? $10? I think, if you have 2,000pvs per month, then you should be making $5-10. So shoot for that. And then, PLEASE…let me know here in the comments when you make your first $10!
Read this to figure out how to get started with Adsense: Getting Started with Adsense
Further Reading:
Here are a few bloggers who publish their Income:
Smart Passive Income – Income Report
Dollars and Roses – Income Report
The Endless Meal – Income Report
Here are some different ways to monetize your blog:
How to Monetize Your Mobile Ads with Padsquad
Where to get Sponsored Post Opps – List of B2B companies
Thanks for the info. So I’ve just started focusing on PVs and income in the last two months of so. I’m up to 7000PVS but I have not made $10 a month yet. More like $6. Ads will be one part of my revenue strategy. I do plan to focus more on my own products/services, but I do want to get this ad thing down. So thanks!.
You are welcome! I love the name of your site!
Hey, just saw my earlier comment. I made $20 last month in adsense and hit 15K PVs. Super excited…it’s the small things. Pinterest is really a game changer.
Toni! I just saw this comment! How did I miss it? Yay $20!! My Adsense is better and better. For this blog I had 22K PVs last month, and $60+ in Adsense. Have you set up Custom Channels in your Adsense? Might help. I have a tutorial on doing that on here! Thanks for pinning to my group boards! Love all the Debt FREE pins! My friend Cherie Lowe (Queen of Free) just published a book about her families Debt Free journey called “Slaying the Debt Dragon”. But, you have probably heard of her! 🙂
Oh & thanks!!!! (name compliment lol)
It’s so good to know this!! THANK YOU for providing actual figures. What I can’t work out is what I’m doing wrong. I’ve only recently begun to run ads on my site through BlogHer and Today’s Mama. My traffic has been 150,000 page views per month, and I made a grand total of $30 in one month from both ad networks. I’m so confused. I felt sure it was supposed to be higher than that, but I’m not sure what I can do to fix it. I have a feeling my ad viewability is very low on mobile devices, which may be part of the problem. And perhaps I’m using the wrong stats? Those figures are as per Blogger – Google analytics gives me a much lower traffic count. Hmmm. Frustrating, but at least now I know what I should be able to expect – I just have to figure out what I’m doing wrong. Thanks for the helpful article!
I just wanted to tell you how much I love your blog! I just started my blog (like, JUST started it this month) and your website has been so helpful.
Thank you so much McKell! Glad you found me!
Thanks for posting the actual figures and not acting as though income is so easy once it starts rolling in. I was initially quite content to blog on Hub Pages and was seeing around about $9 per month (not sure how many page views that was) but the point is that all of a sudden views dropped dramatically – I now earn about $3 a month. Anyhow, that why I decided to get my own blog up and running. Thanks for the info!
You are welcome Fiona. It is not always easy and it is so different for every blog. I find that having some numbers just helps me know that there is something to work toward. But you truly have to be happy as a hobby (as it seems you are) to keep going, and then decide what to do next to “make more money” if you decide to do so.
Thank you Jill for writing this post…you’re right, not a lot of people address this and I’m ALWAYS curious what “income” really means when bloggers say they make money. And thanks for the links to the other blogs as well! I blog for fun, but realize I could be making money doing it. I actually have quite a few pageviews, definitely worth making it a part time income. I just haven’t had the time/knowledge to know where to start and if it’s even worth looking into. I think any money (if I’m going to be doing it anyway) is worth it. Thanks for the info and advice.
Olivia, I hope this really helped you to go for it! It doesn’t take much to throw up some ads, and go from there!
Good post ma’am. I found very useful.
Thank you Mahesh!
I’m just starting to learn this world if public blogging a little and have been frequenting your site. Thanks for the helpful posts!
I’m looking at adding ads, and I know some have a deal with Amazon, thru links. I’m not sure where to even start? I don’t have a high traffic blog, but wold like to earn something. Any suggestions for our smaller blogs? Adsense sounds like it wouldn’t work for me…. Thanks, Nancy LittlehomesteadinBoise
Hi. I just started blogging maybe like 1 year ago. My story is long but I will keep it short. You are right. I am getting around 280,000 sessions a month, and roughly 600,000 pageviews on average per month. I made from Adsense (not supposed to say) around $10 per 1000 pageviews in the $650 dollar range just like you said. My CTR is around 0.9%
I am growing my audience exclusively on social, which primarily includes Facebook and Twitter. To supplement income with adsense, I created a store which has very little sales (1 or 2 sales a month ) and then adblade, which is similar to Taboola and Outbrain.
All together, between adsense and adblade, I am makeing a little over $1,200 a month. I am also using Amazon associates, which isn’t yielding any substantial income. When you subtract expenses for server, CDN, and Facebook ads to promote the page for likes, I am taking home around $8-900 hundred dollars a month.
These numbers aren’t spectacular but to those starting out, that’s what you could make with that many pageviews with adsense, and a content marketing platform like adblade, taboola, or Outbrain. They require 500,000 to one million page views to approve you as a publisher but to be frank, Adsense does in fact pay better.
How do you get people to see & like your blog? I have a FB page in conjunction with my blog but people follow that it seems, not the blog. Can you advise? Much appreciated.