Blog income report 2021 — The full year blogging income report detailing how I made $1,131.73 from blogging. This article may contain affiliate links.
As the mantra of this blog would suggest, I am pursuing financial independence through blogging and investing.
Frankly, I just want to spend all my free time on blogging and investing because it’s the work I find most fulfilling.
Anyways, to chronicle the journey to financial independence, I publish monthly dividend income updates and blog income reports.
Recently, I decided to switch to annual blog income reports instead of monthly.
This will be my first annual blog income report, hopefully the first of many.
In this article, I will discuss my blog income, blog expenses, website traffic, and set my blogging goals for 2022.
Let’s dive in.
Blog Income Report 2021 — Why I Publish My Blog Income
Before I elaborate on how much blog income I earned, I want to share on why I publish my blog income.
Mainly, I am analytical and I enjoy publishing blog reports. It’s fun to document the growth and to compare results to past reports.
Furthermore, sharing my blog income fits in line with the tagline for this blog — financial independence through blogging and investing. Similar to how I share dividend income updates, I share blog income reports to chronicle the journey to financial independence.
Finally, I share my blog income because I love blogging and I want to share what I’ve learned with other bloggers.
Blog Income Report 2021 Highlights
- Earned $1,131.73 from blogging in 2021
- 460% YoY blog income growth
- 288% YoY Advertising growth increase
- A record $233.03 was earned in May 2021
- 9.5% YoY page view growth
- 137,059 page views in 2021
- 66% User Growth
You Might Also Want To Check Out These Blog Income Reports From 2021:
Blog Income Report May 2021 — How I Made $233.03 From Blogging
Blog Income Report October 2021 — How I Made $183.16 From Blogging
Blog Income Report 2021 — $1,131.73
I earned a total of $1,131.73 from blogging in 2021.
This was the first time I’ve ever earned more than $1,000 from blogging in one year.
For the most part, I have just been covering my blog expenses with the small amount of income I earn.
But in 2022, blog income blossomed by 460%.
Unexpectedly, my blog income is generating more income and growing faster than my dividend income now. It takes quite a chunk of money to generate over $1,000 worth of income from investments.
Perhaps blogging could lead to reaching financial independence faster if I improve and spend more time on it.
Below is a breakdown of my blog income.
Blog Income Report 2021 — Earnings Breakdown
Advertising Revenue — $784.82
Affiliate Sales — $232.43
Sponsored — $114.48
Total — $1,131.73 CAD
As you can see from the numbers above, my small blogging business has three income streams — advertising, affiliate marketing, and sponsorships.
Frankly, I don’t really focus on sales. I just focus on writing content and creating the blog I wish existed.
Hence why advertising revenue from display ads and in-email ads generated the bulk of my blog income in 2021. It accounted for 69% or $784.82 of my total blog income in 2021. This income was from a combination of Monumetric and Interactive Offers. Compared to 2020, advertising revenue was up by 288%. Of course, I don’t want to rely on advertising income too much. But I still see plenty of room for growth in 2022. In theory, advertising income from display ads is an extremely easy business to scale. All I need to do is grow website traffic.
Onto affiliate income. One of my goals last year was to increase affiliate income. On the bright side, I increased affiliate income from $0 in 2020 to $232.43 in 2021. Of course, this is still not a lot of money. But the progress is significant and could be replicated. I see affiliate marketing as a tremendous area for growth going forward.
Otherwise, sponsorships accounted for $114.48 or 10% of my blog revenue. I work with the occasional company on sponsored content as long as it is a good fit for the blog.
Blog Revenue Growth Since 2017
Reverse the Crush has been a slow growing blog since 2017.
Although some bloggers become profitable quickly, I only began to earn consistent income from blogging in 2020. Before then, it was sporadic.
I started the blog during a mini-retirement year off work. I really didn’t know what I was doing with blogging back then. Then I spent nearly three years working at a company that limited my ability to blog. So, I laid low and didn’t aim to make any money from blogging.
Then in 2019, I switched to a part-time job which provided more time to blog.
For the most part, my blog income is used to cover my blog expenses.
But now that the blog is becoming more profitable, I plan on reinvesting profits back into the blog. Hopefully I can grow revenue and achieve financial independence faster.
Here is an overview of my blog income since 2017:
Blog Revenue:
2017: $401.89 CAD
2018: $139.91 CAD
2019: $369.49 CAD
2020: $201.92 CAD
2021: $1,131.73 CAD
Blog Expenses In 2021 — $715.69
To put it bluntly, I spent a lot of my blog income in 2021. I certainly wasn’t frugal with it.
But I don’t rely on it and view it as income to reinvest back into the blog.
In total, I spent $715.69 on blog expenses in 2021.
For the most part, they were monthly recurring expenses to run and market the blog.
Every month I pay for Bluehost web hosting, Canva Pro, and Ubersuggest.
In addition, I had to renew my domain and pay for security features.
As for reinvesting back into the blog, I spent some money on a plugin to improve the blog’s font. Otherwise, I paid for a few trials to test various blog products.
Net Profit —$416.40
After my blog expenses are subtracted, the blog generated a net profit of $416.40 in 2021.
It may not sound like a large sum of money to earn for writing three posts per week all year long.
However, I am grateful for any income I earn from blogging. If I didn’t earn anything at all, I would still publish my dividend income updates for free. It’s fun and it is a great way to chronicle the journey and hold yourself accountable.
Plus, it’s fun to have spending money to reinvest back into the blog.
So, a net profit of $416.40 to do something I love, learn about investing, and document my portfolio is such a bonus.
And now I have another income stream to grow along with my dividend income.
The combination of blogging and investing might help me reach financial independence faster than investing alone.
Blog Income Report 2021 — Financial Management
So, I made $416.40 after blog expenses were subtracted.
What did I do with that money?
10% of blog income was set aside for savings. I have a separate savings account for savings from blog income. It’s an interesting challenge to grow a savings account with blog income.
Otherwise, the rest of my blog income is sitting in my blog spending or holding account. I hold blog income there and use it to pay for expenses.
I plan to use this money soon to either market, improve, or lower the costs of the blog. But also, I am holding it for tax purposes.
Website Traffic In 2021 — 137,059 Page Views
In case you were wondering how much traffic it takes to make $1,000 from blogging, it’s around 137,059 page views.
In truth, other bloggers with similar traffic are better at monetizing than me.
Nevertheless, the blog hit 137,059 page views in 2021, which was 9.5% higher than in 2020. It’s also more page views in one year than my total page views from in the first four years.
This was despite working more hours at my job and also switching blog strategies. Instead of focusing on the social media, I focussed on writing three posts per week in 2021.
More important than page views, though, was that user and session growth spiked. Users increased by 66% and sessions increased by 44% respectively.
Overall, it was a solid year for the blog. But after experiencing rapid page view growth at the beginning of 2021, page views hit a wall towards the end of the year.
The main reason was due to a lack of time. I was back to full time hours at the end of the year.
As such, I have been forced to focus on efficiency. I spend my days off work writing posts and my working days marketing the blog on social media.
Social Media & Email Subscriber Growth
Unfortunately I do not know the exact social media numbers at the beginning of 2021 for comparison.
So, I will have to use my blog income report for May 2021 as the point of reference.
Overall, social media accounted for nearly 24% of my website’s traffic. As per usual, Twitter my was best performing platform, as it accounted for almost 60% of all social media traffic.
Surprisingly, Facebook was the second leading social media traffic generator in 2021.
Otherwise, Pinterest came in at number three, as it generated over 11% of social media traffic. I have really taken a step back from it lately because my effort didn’t seem to be having much of an impact.
Instagram accounted for a very small percentage of my social media traffic. As such, I will likely focus on it less in 2022.
As of January 14, 2021, here are my social media & email subscriber numbers compared to May 2021:
Twitter — 3,752 (Up 307)
Pinterest — 1,644 (Up 21)
Instagram — 881 (Up 183)
Facebook — 133 (Up 19)
Email subscribers — 452 (Up 30)
Total — 6,862 (Up 560)
Thank you so much to everyone who follows and subscribes. It means a lot!
Blogging Goals For 2022
Now for my favourite part of this blog income report 2021 — goal-setting.
Towards the end of the year, I was almost feeling burnt out. I hate to admit it but I was thinking of scaling back my blogging efforts. I wanted to focus more on investing.
But then I was reminded of how much I enjoy it and how it’s part of my plan for financial independence. Blogging is something I want to spend my time on when I retire early.
Additionally, I actually have a small business on my hands now. I can literally generate over $1,000 on the internet by writing my thoughts on a blog. It’s pretty damn cool.
At the same time, this could actually be a big opportunity. I don’t want to take it for granted.
So, I’m going to push myself in 2022 to take the blog even higher.
Of course, I do have a job and growing portfolio to manage, so I will keep balance in mind.
But based on the results from 2021 and on my blogging strategy, here are my blogging goals for 2022.
Increase Blog Income by 50% ($1698)
Blog income increased by 460% in 2021 compared to 2020.
Of course, this was partially due to switching ad networks during the year. I had to forfeit my earnings from my previous ad network, and then I didn’t start earning until the last few months of the year.
Nevertheless, I am aiming for at least 50% blog income growth in 2022.
Although I expect my advertising revenue growth to be lower than the 288% it was in 2021, I do expect modest growth during the year. I would be satisfied with 20% advertising revenue growth.
In addition, I am hoping to see significant affiliate income growth. Ideally, affiliate income will grow by more than 100%.
Otherwise, one or two sponsored deals should put my over the top for my 50% revenue growth goal.
Increase Website Traffic By 15%
In order to increase my blog income, I will likely need to increase my website traffic.
In turn, I am setting a goal to increase website traffic by at least 15% in 2022.
This would be a significant step up from the 9.5% growth in 2021.
However, I believe it’s possible if I focus on my areas of opportunity.
Grow E-Mail Subscribers To 550
Since I do not know the exact number of subscribers I had at the beginning of 2021, I am setting a goal of 550 email subscribers in 2022.
I made some slight adjustments to the email newsletter in 2021, but I still think it could be improved.
As of January 2022, there are 452 email subscribers.
Thank you to everyone who subscribes, I sincerely appreciate it!
Grow Twitter To 5,000 Followers
As mentioned above, Twitter accounts for nearly 60% of my social media traffic.
Personally, it’s my favourite social media platform to use by a long shot.
It has the most useful information and is a solid source for news.
Furthermore, it has the financial Twitter community. I have met so many inspirational investors and bloggers on Twitter. It’s awesome to find like-minded people to share posts and thoughts on investing with.
My stretch target for Twitter is 5,000 followers by the end of 2022.
As of January 2022, the RTC Twitter account has 3752 followers. Hopefully I can add another 1250 followers by the end of the year.
Publish Eleven Enhanced Dividend Income Updates
Dividend income updates are the very core of this blog.
If I ever lost interest in blogging and decided to only focus on investing, I would at least continue the dividend income updates.
They are the main reports and are the most fun to write because I don’t have to worry about writing for SEO or anything like that. I just analyze the numbers.
Some types of monthly reports can become repetitive, since the numbers don’t change much.
But with dividend income, it’s possible to achieve consistent growth just by continuing to save money and invest.
Anyways, my main content goal in 2021 is to continue publish monthly dividend income updates. I need to publish eleven of them during the calendar year to be exact. Also, I plan to publish enhanced updates this year that will include commission fees and my forward dividend income.
Blog As An Extension Of Investing
Another one of my goals for the blog in 2022 is to blog as an extension of investing.
In short, I plan to primarily create content on investing.
Ultimately, my main interest is investing so I want to write and learn more about that.
Readers can expect more content on investing and personal finance rather than branching out into other topics.
This is also one of the main reasons I want to switch to annual blog income reports reports instead of monthly.
I am looking to niche down to content centered around investing.
Blog Income Report 2021 — Final Thoughts
Reverse the Crush has officially been around for 6 years now. I almost can’t believe it.
It has been a long journey and I made a lot of mistakes over the years.
But finally in 2020 and 2021, after I made the switch to part-time work, I am beginning to see signs of growth.
My plan to become financially independent through blogging and investing may be a reality in 10 years if I keep putting in the work.
In total, I earned $1,131.73 from blogging in 2021. If I combine blog income and dividend income, I made $1,948.55 in 2021. That’s nearly $2,000 worth of passive income.
Now if I can increase these income streams by just 10 times, I could meet my goal to retire early.
Similar Articles To Check Out
Blog Income For May 2021 — How I Made $233.03 From Blogging
Blog Income Report October 2021 — How I Made $183.16 From Blogging
How To Blog Successfully — 8 Blog Tasks With The Highest ROI
Year End Review 2021 — Financial Accomplishments (Dividend Income | Blogging | Personal Finance )
Financial Goals For 2022: 7 Momentous Personal Finance Goals
I am not a licensed investment or tax adviser. All opinions are my own. This post may contain advertisements by Monumetric. This post may also contain internal links, affiliate links to BizBudding, Amazon, Bluehost, and Questrade, links to trusted external sites, and links to RTC social media accounts.
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Email: graham@reversethecrush.com
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