Happy New Year everyone! Since it is 2020 now, I decided to share my 2019 blog income report and tell you guys how much I really make blogging and freelancing as a student.
Disclosure:This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase via my link I may get a small commission at no additional cost to you. I only recommend things I use and love, but for any questions, refer to myfull disclosure here.
A few words about me: Hey! I’m Zsuzsanna, from Switzerland, blogging about travel, business building, making money, and school stuff for students. I have a Youtube channel since about 2016, and started this blog at the end of April 2019.
I only started monetizing my blog in June, so this isn’t a full-year report of blogging earnings, but a full year of online earnings, including my blog, freelancing work, surveys, and my Youtube channel.
PS: I share my monthly income reports with my email subscribers each month!
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Quick Stats of my Blog
Here are a few statistics of my blog, so you can scale my earnings a little bit.
Everyone’s blogging/ online business journey is different! Some will make much more money in less time, some make more with even fewer page views, and some make this much with more views than me.
It all depends on the niche, the monetization choices, and much more!
- Sessions have been ranging between 3k and 7k for the past few months (I will work on that in 2020).
- Pageviews are between 4k and 10k as well, October being my highest month in traffic
- Email Subscribers – 108
I am very happy about my email subscribers. They were pretty slow at the beginning but started really rolling in the fall months and Christmas time.
My highest traffic month was definitely October. I was hoping to keep it up in November for my Christmas posts, but it went back down and stayed down in December too.
The highest income month was December, with reaching $20 on the blog, and almost $100 on Youtube.
I am hoping to keep that up in January since I am planning to post lots of college-related videos that do well in my niche.
Now, let me share with you what sites I made money from and how much.
Affiliate Income
- Amazon – $2.67
- Awin – $44 (not paid out yet)
- CJ – $1.09
- Entscheiderclub (referrals to this survey site) – $74
- CreativeMarket – $6.40
Total: $127.07
Google Adsense – Blog
June – $1,99 – 1.2k sessions
July – $3.40 – 1.7k sessions
August – $9.04 – 4.2k sessions
September – $7.45 – 3.3k sessions
October – $14.33 – 7.1k sessions
November – $9.32 – 3.5k sessions
December – $19.69 – 3.5k sessions
Total: $65.22
Google Adsense – Youtube
Here, April is the first month that made me revenue on my account, because that’s when I finally transferred from my mom’s account to mine (I wasn’t 18 when I first created my Youtube channel).
So yeah there is still money on my mom’s but I didn’t count that in this report (no access to it).
April – $8.38
May – $9.15
June – $11.64
July – $36.67
August – $67.64
September – $39.44
October – $37.28
November – $53.53
December – $91.31
Total: $355.04
Products
At the end of August, I launched a German Ebook with 66 Side Hustle Ideas for Teens and Students.
I am currently working on the English translation, but here is how much I earned with it so far. (no big marketing yet)
Ebook: $33.95
Freelancing
I work as a video editor, translator, and Pinterest manager for my parents’ company, where I get money depending on how many projects I get.
Some months I don’t have much to do, so I’m good with not getting paid and make them put it towards my school (which is what I’m saving for myself anyway).
May: $470
July: $600
August: $600
October: $600
November: $600
Total: $2,870
Total Online Income 2019
So based on the numbers above, my total online income in 2019 was 3451.28 Swiss Francs (most of it. Some is in Euros and some in $, but all of those currencies don’t differ too much), which calculates to about $3,553.06 (as of January 2nd, 2020).
That amount doesn’t sound like much at first, considering that there are lots of bloggers making six figures a month.
But I am pretty happy with the amount because I am still a student, it is my first year, and I wasn’t blogging full time (had a job in the first few months of the year). So if I can get it together, you can too!
Blogging Expenses in 2019
To complete this post, I should probably share my blogging expenses as well.
- Hosting & Domain: part of my parents’ companies’ plan so luckily that’s $0 for me this year
- Tailwind: $119.88, a yearly subscription for Pinterest scheduling. Without that, I don’t think I could’ve reached 1.7 million monthly views! Check it out here if you’re interested.
- Tailwind before the subscription: $60 (4 monthly expenses)
- Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course: $197
- UseAnyFont Plugin: $10
- Pinterest with Ell course: $12 – can really recommend! She doesn’t sell the course for $12 anymore, but that’s fair! Her course is full of valuable info and tips. (and she shares coupon codes with her email list or her blog)
- Theme: $35 – I got mine from CreativeMarket
- Font Bundle: $25 – from CreativeMarket
- Scribble: $52 – an ebook creating software
- GBTK: $59 – the blogging toolkit from ultimate bundles that had a huge sale in fall! It has lots of great courses and ebooks included, the value was over $7,000!
Total Expenses: $569.88
That leaves me with a total profit of $2,965.18
Now, this was my 2019 blog income report and my expenses, but let me share my goals for 2020!
Pinterest Goals
I reached 1.7 million monthly viewers this year, and my goal is to reach 3 million in 2020! (ultimate goal is 10m, but I know that would be very tough to achieve in just a year, so I am breaking it down.)
Edit: I did reach 10 million hehe
I also want to reach 1,000 followers, since I am at 620 right now and it goes pretty slow for me there.
Blog Goals
For my blog, I have a few little goals that I’d like to achieve or do in 2020:
- Reach 10,000 sessions/ pageviews consistently (ofc it won’t be the same numbers each month, but keeping it at a higher number would be great)
- 250 email subscribers
- do a guest post for a blog in my niche
- Launch a product
- Reduce my posts to once a week but make those really helpful and valuable
Youtube Goals
I want to take Youtube more seriously in 2020 and niche down some more. I have been publishing content on a pretty wide range, which is why my subscribers aren’t very high.
I’d love to niche down to university videos, study abroad, and making money online, making it all relatable to students.
Here are some goals I have for my Youtube Channel in 2020:
- Reach 5,000 subscribers (at 2.8k currently but I’ve reached the 2k like 2 years ago so it’s time to step up my game!)
- Publish a video once a week (twice if possible)
Online Business Goals
These goals are my general goals for income and all of my online stuff in general.
- Make $500/month by the end of the year (hopefully more but I want to keep it realistic and achievable)
- Save 20% of my income
- Work on the English translation of my ebook
That was it, guys! My 2019 blog income report and my 2020 business goals. I hope I could give you some insight into my small business earnings and goals!
If you are a student reading this, you can do this too! You can make money in a flexible and limitless way! Here are some posts about making money as a student.
Don’t forget to sign up for my future income reports here!
Until soon,
