How I Made $7,057 Blogging in May 2020

How I Made $7,047 Blogging in May 2020; Details on how I made money blogging including tips and goals for the next month!

Hi Beauties!

Coming at you with another income and traffic report! It has been a while since I last posted an income report.. so I figured it was time to update everyone!

If you missed my last income and traffic report make sure you check it out here: January 2020 Blog Income and Traffic Report

May was a great month traffic wise for my blog and I think a lot of it had to do with quarantine. People are sitting at home, surfing through Pinterest and it really showed with my traffic this month. I know it will drop once summer hits because it does every year. Summertime slump is a real thing in the blogging world!

Blogging in May 2020 was definitely a higher month for income and traffic.

Before I jump into more details from this month, let’s start with a little back story..

Back Story of Nikki's Plate:

I started Nikki’s Plate in 2015 as a creative outlet (which many bloggers do).

I have a strong passion for creating healthy recipes, DIY/Home decor and photography. Being a university nursing student left me feeling empty. I didn’t love being a student (who really does?) and wanted a hobby to relieve stress and take my mind off studying at times.

I quickly fell in love with the blogging world. I got sucked right in! I wanted to eat, breathe, and sleep blogging.. which I couldn’t really do. For those who aren’t aware, bachelor of science in nursing degree is one of the hardest undergraduate degrees! It is very time consuming and left my blog in the dust most months. I was lucky to post 1 blog post a week while in school.. so needless to say, my blog was put on the back burner for a few years.

Now that I have graduated and am a nurse, I am able to focus on my blog again. I spend some of my days off blogging. For a long time I didn’t have a blogging schedule and just blogged as I wanted… but now I have decided to start taking my blog more seriously to improve my traffic and income.

Of course my dream is to become a full time blogger, and nurse casually on the side. Blogging is where my heart is, and I want to pursue my dream of blogging as a career.

Why I Share My Traffic and Income Reports:

I want to share these reports for several reasons:

1. Blogging is freaking AWESOME. I want to inspire others to start blogs. I am hoping that sharing these numbers with others with encourage passionate people to make the leap to start their own blog. I have NEVER regretted starting my blog and I love every minute I get to spend on it. 
2. Educational Information for other Bloggers. I want these reports to also be informative and educational for other bloggers looking for additional new tips to help grow their blogs and make money with their blogs. Blogging is a continual learning process. I love reading other bloggers tips and advice for growing my own blog, and want to contribute to the blogging community with my learning experiences.
3. A way for me to keep track of my blog statistics. I will have to say that when I looked up my income and traffic reports from 2017, I was extremely happy to see how far I have come. Sometimes when you get discouraged with your progress, it is nice to look back and see actual numbers to show you are actually improving. Therefore, these income and traffic reports are just as much for me as they are for all you!
4. I love reading other income and traffic reports. I cannot express how grateful I am for all the blogging income and traffic reports out there! I find so much value in reading other blogger’s reports and always take away something from each one. What better blog post to write then one you love reading!?

Is Blogging For You?

If you have a passion that you want to share with the world then YES. Blogging is such a great outlet for sharing what you love in a welcoming online community. 

If you want more financial freedom than blogging is also for you! Blogging allows me to pick up less shifts at the hospital and helped me pay off my student loans. I love having an extra income from a hobby that I truly LOVE.

Blogging gives you the opportunity to:

• Work from home 
• Stop living pay check to pay check
• Spend more time with family and friends
• Get out of debt and pay off those loans
• Travel whenever you want
• Be your own boss! 

If your ready to start blogging then follow my step by step start up guide here!

To be honest though, blogging is a lot of work.. and it took me a long time to get to where I am now in the blogging world. I know a lot of bloggers advertise things like “How I made this much money in my 3rd month of blogging!!”.. but they are all false (for the most part). Many of these bloggers spend along time preparing for their initial blog launch or have blogger connections to skyrocket traffic, which usually they fail to mention in these blog posts…

I just wanted to make this clear because I am not the kind of person to lead anyone a stray! I want to be honest with all my readers and tell you that yes blogging is an amazing adventure, but yes it is a lot of work and can take you a long time to start seeing results. 

Blogging is not a get rich quick option! So make sure it’s something you’re passionate about because you may be working on it for a while before you start making any income.

If you are looking to start your own blog, I HIGHLY recommend Bluehost to start. I LOVED working with them at the beginning. They not only have amazing customer service, but their hosting fees are super affordable! For those who don't know what BlueHost is.. it is a web hosting service so you can have your own domain (website), mine is 'www.nikkisplate.com'. I had to move to BigScoots once my page views increased because it was slowing down my website (BigScoots is obviously a lot more money per month but I had to do it). So if you are just starting a blog, go with Bluehost!!

Anyway, with that being said, lets just jump into the numbers shall we?

Nikki's Plate Traffic and Income Report:

May 2020 Blog Traffic:

Like I said earlier, I had great traffic this month to my blog.. I am assuming due to quarantine and people getting bored at home. Heck I find my self surfing through Pinterest whenever I am bored.. not that I get bored these days with a 7 month old baby at home.

Pageviews: 263,516

Sessions: 191,820

Another aspect that I am still hoping to improve on is my organic search. I have said this before in previous income/traffic reports, but have finally made the plunge to get help with it. I hired a company to help fix my website issues and edit old posts to improve the SEO. This is a huge step for me and hoping it helps in the long run.

Why did I hire someone? I honestly don't have time to learn and edit things on my own right now.. because a mom to a little baby is VERY time consuming.. and to be honest, I hate doing the behind the scene tasks. I love blogging and am passionate about writing + creating content.. and that's what I want to spend my time doing.

Due to my social traffic I am able to put money towards SEO help and for that I am super grateful. I am still continuing to learn along the way and hope my new posts find their way on google search!

For those wondering.. my social traffic is 95% from Pinterest. Pinterest is amazing for driving traffic to a blog. If I could give a new blogger one piece of advice.. it would be to focus on your Pinterest strategy FIRST. Stay away from all other forms of social media for now and focus on Pinterest.

I do use Tailwind for Pinterest now. I didn't at the beginning but once my blog started to make a little bit of money, I put all my earnings back into the blog to improve it. And honestly Tailwind has been AMAZING for growing my Pinterest account and driving blog traffic. I would be lost without it now.

May 2020 Blog Income:

Now for the income numbers. This month was high because I was still in the process of switching Ad Agencies. I recently moved from Mediavine to AdThrive. Why? Because I had hit the 100,000 pageviews a month requirement to join AdThrive.. and it seemed that that's what most bloggers do.

Am I happy with the switch? Not sure yet! Everything is still playing out and things got rough with this pandemic.. RPM dropped drastically for all bloggers.. mostly due to companies putting a stop on advertisement funds. My RPM dropped from $23 to $15 YIKES. Luckily my boost in traffic helped my income stay a float.

This Income Numbers:

Adthrive: $3931
Mediavine: $2695
RewardStyle: $240.57
Amazon: $191.69
ShareASale: $1.50

Total: ~ $7058

There you have it folks. The numbers for May 2020. I will try and pump out an income report more often because you all really seemed to like my last one. I will do my best to stay on top of them this time around!

If you want to start blogging and generate an income that allows you to work from home and make your own schedule, make sure you check out my post on starting a blog. I give you all my tips and tricks to starting a successful money generating blog! If I can do it, you can too! What are you waiting for!!

Next Month Goals:

• Publish two posts a week
• One newsletter a week
• Prioritize behind the scene tasks to improve productivity (example: limit time spent reading/responding to emails per day)
• Complete editorial calendar for July
• Read one educational business book

Until next time!

Don't forget to pin this image below! Share this income/traffic report with the rest of the Pinterest world! Also make sure to follow my account to see when I post new recipes or home inspired content at Nikki's Plate.

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How I Made $7,057 Blogging in May 2020; Details on how I made money blogging including tips and goals for the next month!