Blog Income Report: How I made $9482 in December 2020 (2024)

Hey there 👋,

Welcome to the blog income report of December 2020, where I made over $9400 off of this blog while enjoying my holidays.

If you’re fairly new to this blog, I am Sayan Neogie, owner/founder of this website, where I write content mostly about personal finances and starting a business.

And on the series of blog posts titled “Blog income report,” I share my monthly income through the very blog you’re reading and talk about significant changes/updates that happened over that period.

Firstly, let me start things off by saying, “Congratulations on surviving 2020“. I guess we can all use some cheer and excitement after that nightmare of a year.

Last year was pretty challenging, to say the least, and I really hope no one will have to witness that in their lifetime ever again.

To be completely honest with you, I was hoping to break the $10K threshold in blog income by the end of 2020. But obviously, you can see that I missed that mark by a few hundred.

I guess, due to the “2020 situation”, people had to stay at home, so obviously, they weren’t spending as much as they used to. And due to shutdowns, businesses (both big & small) faced customer issues or lack thereof.

Many became….how do I say it…Economically Cautious !?!? And very mindful of the things they were spending their hard-earned money on.

So obviously, that impacted various businesses negatively, which explains the decline in overall revenue in various industries.

Having said that, $9482 is still a considerable number. I am beyond grateful for the gradual growth of this blog since I started it as a side hustle.

Also,

I’ve also created a segregated list for you if you’re interested in blogging, making money through blogging, getting traffic, or anything blogging related in general.

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I graduated from college in 2020, and to be able to make this much right out of college is really something *pat on the back*, and I am so excited to share this income report with you!

Speaking of which,

Why do I publish my income reports?

I am not the only one who does that; many bloggers share their income and their blog updates on a monthly basis. On YouTube, too, I’ve seen quite a few videos where creators share their income journey.

But the question remains, why though?

For me, the income reports are a reflection of the journey so far, the monthly progress of a brand new blogger, an inexperienced college student who just wanted to build a full-time income stream.

And thus, I wanted to share all that it took me to make this happen.

Publishing an income report isn’t about bragging about the income, not at all.

Nobody wants to share something that is so personal and potentially vulnerable to their competitors just to show off. These kinds of “inside peek” blog posts often come with some surprising benefits.

For example, I’m publishing these income reports for two primary reasons:

1. To motivate you
2. To motivate me

Let me explain…

1. It motivates people

It’s no secret that people are largely motivated by results!

Are you ever inspired by a tiring workout? Probably not, you are inspired to have a well-shaped body which is the end result, and thus you work out.

It’s not the process that gets people moving but the euphoric feeling to have achieved the end goal that motivated them to start in the first place.

Hence, I share my results to motivate you!

And if, after seeing my results, you do decide to start your own blog, I’ll say this article served its purpose well.

In my case too, my first impression of this whole blogging industry was through an income report of a wildly successful blogger who had 6-figures in her monthly income reports.

And that was enough to start my very own blog.

Witnessing someone make hundreds of thousands of dollars in a month working for nobody but themselves really gave me a strong dose of motivation.

I wanted those results and the financial freedom that comes with it.

By giving you the inside scoop on what a blog really makes (which is usually kept under wraps) by giving you those exact income digits, it’ll show you what is really possible and hopefully motivate you enough to start your own blog.

2. It motivates me to be better

Publishing my progress and the journey online for people to read also benefits me in specific ways.

Sure, I make a little ad income every time people read through an article like this, but that’s not the most valuable thing I’m acquiring here.

When I have a like-minded community that monitors and analyses my progress over time, it makes me do things more sincerely and responsibly. And this makes me want to give my 110% in everything I do on this blog.

In short, It keeps me in check when it comes to slacking off.

Moreover, it will help me to keep track of the blog like a well-sorted document and how far the blog has come in terms of growth, both readers and income.

Now let’s jump right into the income breakdown of December 2020.

The Income Breakdown: $9482

First, let’s talk about ad income,

As you may or may not know but income through ads whether it being on a blog post or a YouTube video or anywhere else, tends to be a little higher during the holiday season.

Brands and companies tend to spend more on ads because this the time people do a lot of shopping. And thus the RPM (rate per millie) or CPM (cost per millie) is generally the highest compared to the rest of the year,

p.s. RPM is a representation of how much money 1000 views make. (Millie= Thousand) So if the RPM is $25, and I got 10,000 views, my income would be (25*10,000/1000) $250.

From January 2020 to October 2020, I had an average session RPM of about $24.74. In December, that number jumped to over $51.3, which is a little more than double.

December had almost the same amount of traffic as September but,

• Ad income for September – $3289
• Ad income for December – $6756

These RPM numbers are hard to get if you’re not with a premium ad network such as Mediavine. I got accepted in Mediavine on May 2019, and I don’t think I will ever change this ad network for obvious reasons.

So if you ever start a blog or already have a blog, aim for at least 50,000 sessions per month and apply on Mediavine to avail such a high pay rate.

Next comes, Affiliate income:

I feel like my affiliate game isn’t as strong as I want it to be. This something I would like to improve from this point on.

Income from Bluehost is quite substantial and because of December’s performance, I got a commission bump. Yay!!!

Moving on, here’s a monthly income progress over time for quick comparison.

Blog Expenses for December 2020

My expenses are pretty much same every month for keeping this blog up and running.

Net profit: ($9482.5 – $146.9)

+ $9,335.6

Income Proof:

1. Mediavine

2. Bluehost

2. Proofread Anywhere

Traffic stats:

158,457 Pageviews (+31.79% since November 2020)

131,705 Sessions (+33.15% since November 2020)

In December 2020, this blog has witnessed the best month in terms of traffic to date.

As I’ve already mentioned in my previous income reports, I get more than 90% of the overall traffic from Pinterest. And I would very much like to diversify the traffic sources.

Slowly and steadily, I am implementing SEO strategies to improve my search traffic from Google.

Traffic from Google was on the rise this year,

• August 2020:600
• September 2020:854
• October 2020:1420
• November 2020:1640

But then a major algorithm update took place around the beginning of December, and as a result, my google traffic dropped a bit.

Only 1352 visitors on December!

This is just part of the process I guess. I will be implementing a few SEO tactics (mentioned below) and will update you every month in these income reports. Stay tuned!

On the fence about starting a blog?

You should go for it, here’s why!

Building a personal brand not only helps you make money but it might drive to financial freedom. To not be able to depend on others and/or not having to tolerate your 9 to 5 just to make a living is the definition of time and money freedom.

Other perks about blogging are:

• You don’t need any technical or coding knowledge prior to starting a blog
• Starting a blog is super cheap (only $2.95 a month)
• You can create your blog on any topic you like or passionate about, ANYTHING!
• Create a passion project under your own name ( Example: yourname.com. I’ve started mine, mentioned below)
• High-income potential (a lot of established bloggers make over $100,000 a month)
• What do you have to lose? (other than those $2.95/month, some coffees are more expensive than this)

Here’s how to start your own blog in 10 minutes:

Open a new tab, follow this step-by-step guide on starting a blog. It’s that easy!

Blog updates & Goals for 2021:

Since I am diving deep into the whole SEO thing after enrolling in the “Stupid simple SEO” course by Mike Pearson.

I will be doing a whole lot of page changes, category assortments, and adding new navigation friendly pages to the blog to improve the overall SEO.

So the Homepage and a few other category pages will change soon. I am trying to make the Google search algorithm happy, y’all!

New website/blog alert:

I’ve been thinking about starting another blog for quite a while now which will encompass topics such as productivity talk, overcoming procrastination, personal growth, my life updates, etc.

And during the last days of December, starting that blog was added to my resolution list. So may I present to you my brand new blog 🖥 SayanNeogie.com.

But fair warning, there is literally nothing on the blog right now. If you tap the link, you’ll see nothing but a “coming soon” banner. I haven’t done anything with it yet as I just bought the domain and hosting on Jan 1.

Update: SayanNeogie.com is live!

The reason why I chose personal development as the main niche is that I am fascinated by Personal Development.

I have been watching a lot of personal development content made by YouTube creators such as Matt D’Avella, Ali Abdul, Thomas Frank, etc. They have taught me a whole lot of things that helped me grow.

And I guess it’s safe to say that “I am hooked” in personal development. Anything to do with improving oneself, productivity, overcoming procrastination, financial freedom, etc, I am more than interested.

So yeah, over time SayanNeogie.com will be loaded with practical, useful, and actionable personal development stuff, tried and tested by yours truly.

Let’s talk goals for 2021:

The numbers mentioned below are the goal numbers that I would like to reach before 2022 hits.

• Monthly Traffic goals: 350,000
• Monthly Income goal: $20,000
• New blog post addition: 100
• Total email Subscribers: 20,000

This might seem a little crazy but whatever, I think I should always set my goals higher so that I’ll try my best to reach that goal and if I fail to do so, I will still be doing better than the original goal.

Does that make sense?

That’s it, folks!

Thank you so much for reading, if you’re able to reach the end of this page, you’re the real OG and I am really grateful to have you!

If you have any questions, suggestions, or something you want to let me know, feel free to comment down and I’ll get back to you.

See you next time! Byeeeeeeee…