Income Report: Fitness Blog Income April 2019

Hey there! Welcome to my income report for April!

You may have noticed that I have been a bit MIA lately, but I wanted to do an update anyway. We are in the middle of selling our house, and I have been busy with cleaning, packing, showings, inspections, and everything else! Needless to say, I’ve been neglecting the blog.

P.S. I have some updated (and more exciting) income reports here.

Why Write An Income Report?

If you’re not new to the blog, you probably know that much of what I do is trial-and-error (a lot of error). I share the ups and downs and wins and failures about pretty much everything on my blog.

My hope is to address topics related to blogging for beginners, or anyone else who is interested in how blog income works.

I started blogging after my daughter was born in 2014. My primary goal was to earn money from home. However, it took me about two years to teach myself how to blog and really feel like I knew what I was doing.

But once I did, I figured out how to make $900+ per month in just a few months with my little mom  blog.

I could have made a lot more (some bloggers do it full time and make 5+ figures monthly). But I got overwhelmed and my fitness goals started to take a backseat to blogging, so I took a break. For almost a year, I focused on just getting healthy again.

But something didn’t feel right. I felt like blogging was a big, powerful secret I was keeping. It felt like it was what I was meant to do.

Yet I didn’t take blogging back up because I was worried that I couldn’t balance it with my fitness goals. So I gave myself an ultimatum – if I wanted to blog, it needed to be about health and fitness.

Related Reading: How I’m Using My Blog To Reach My Fitness Goals (& Make Money!)

For the sake of my mental and physical health, I didn’t want to be less committed to fitness. I decided to go all-in and become a personal trainer. (Mission accomplished in November 2017!)

But I knew that I didn’t want to go back to work immediately (I just had my second baby in January 2018) and I knew that I wanted to tap into the crazy income-generating potential that blogging held. I just knew in my heart that a virtual business was in the cards for me.

So I started this blog knowing that it would take some time to build and knowing that it would be mostly fitness related.

But like I said, I started talking to more people about health and fitness and realized that blogging can be more than a tool for accountability. It can be used for making money, too – no matter who you are.

P.S. This post contains affiliate links. If you choose to make a purchase using my link (at no extra cost) I may receive a commission. Read more about that here. 

I want to share my monthly income report with you so that you can see how blogging helps me stay accountable for my health, income, and business. If that’s something that can inspire you, soak it up and roll with it!

If you’re looking for a way to expand your business as a health professional, or you’re looking for a way to be accountable for your own fitness goals, this is something you’ll want to be reading.

You don’t have to be a personal trainer, health coach, Beachbody coach, etc. You just have to be someone who has health or fitness goals.

And of course, you don’t need any special credentials if you want to start some other type of blog!

A Very Short Explanation of How Blogging Works

If you’re super new to blogging and all of this lingo and ranting hasn’t scared you off, I’ll try to explain blogging to you. 🙂 A blog is just a website. To own a website that has income-generating potential, a domain name and independent hosting is needed. My domain name is ironwildfitness.com and I am hosted using a company called Siteground.

Once you have a website, you can build it and write about anything you like. Your blog can be promoted in several ways (so people actually visit it) but most bloggers use social media for primary traffic.

You provide content (blog posts, articles, whatever) and people read it. You can then make money by promoting products you’ve created or by promoting for others. This can be done with links or ads that link to other brands. You can promote essentially anything. The brands or networks will track the source of their sales or leads (your blog) and give you a cut. Easy, peasy.

That is a very short, very general explanation – but you can see how it’s like any other type of marketing. Your blog is a marketing tool.

Or, if you want, your blog can just be yours to vent, share fitness goals, and connect with others.

It’s pretty cool!

If you’ve never been a blogger, it may sound intriguing but very confusing. Here are some more in-depth posts about blogging for business or fitness.

• How to Start a Health, Food, or Fitness Blog
• How to Make Money Blogging
• Ultimate Blog Startup Checklist for Beginners
• Introduction to Blogging for Fitness Professionals

How a Blog Can Be Used to Reach Fitness Goals

Without accountability, no goals would ever be met. I use this blog to share before and after pictures, workouts, recipes, and reflections PUBLICLY. I also run challenge groups that keep me highly accountable. Building a community and telling others about my goals is big-time effective when it comes to follow-through. With blogging, you decide everything that happens on your blog. That means the level of transparency and vulnerability you take your blog to is your own choice.

For me, the more transparent I am, the more people I really connect with. You can have that, too!

Types Of Blogs That Make Money

I want to address something that comes up in the blogging world often. That is what types of blogs make money. The answer is that ALL types of blogs have the potential to make money. The only limits to blog income are the limits we place on ourselves as blog owners.

If you came here looking for a blogger income average, or some sort of way to know how much you can make as a blogger, you’re thinking about it wrong.

Blog income is dependent on the blogger alone. Want to be able to write a big fat, impressive income report? Work more, make more. It’s that simple.

As many readers know, I am currently a pretty inconsistent blogger, and I’m okay with that. I have a one year old and a five year old. This is the season I’m in, and I don’t have time to be a full-time blogger. But, I have every confidence that the things I do to build my blog now will help me make money later. You have to be patient if you don’t have hours per day to dedicate to your blog like me.

With that in mind, I AM excited about my little bit of blog income.

A few things set this month apart for me as far as blog income, but I’ll reflect on that later in my income report. 🙂

Blog Income & How It All Works

There are many ways to make money online, but blogging is unique and versatile. There are a few major ways to make money blogging – affiliate sales, selling your own products, with ads, etc. I’m not going to go into much detail about those because I already wrote an entire post about that here. But I would like to share with you my current “income report” for this blog, even though I currently don’t have any real specific monetary goals set for it.

If you want to learn about starting your own blog, I wrote this post just to explain it.

I did, however, make a few dollars this month through social media, program sales, and blog stuff. Keep in mind that I am not currently trying to make money actively, and I still consider myself in the “building” phase.

If you’re a blogger (fitness related or not) maybe this will give you some ideas of how to monetize. I personally don’t like to put all of my eggs in one basket! Okay, onto the income report.

April 2019 Fitness Blog Income Report

Workout Program Sales: $29.98

A few months ago I created a core workout program. I finally figured out how to sell them on my site and a few people have purchased the program that can be downloaded instantly.

Amazon: $2.04

I have been having a hard time with Amazon commissions lately, but I’m okay with it since it hasn’t been a primary focus. It’s still cool that you can link to almost any product.

Ebates: $0

I only include Ebates in my income report because it’s something I mention as a side hustle on my blog. Linking to companies that offer referral rewards can be a way to boost blog income.

SwagBucks: $12.42 (converted from SwagBucks $)

SwagBucks is one of those painless side hustles I use every month, and I get a small commission when I help others sign up. Since signing up for these cash-back type of apps is free, it’s a win-win if you share these types of things on your blog.

Siteground: $25

I helped someone start a blog with my tutorial. The one thing to note is that these commissions are usually not paid out for up to 60 days. But they are definitely worthwhile and I recommend having a, “how to start a blog/website” tutorial on your blog no matter what kind of blogger you are.

Inbox Dollars: $9.62

My longest-lasting side hustle. It’s another one of those survey sites, but this one also features games and other ways to earn money. Even though I run a fitness blog, I am mostly targeting moms and a lot of them are stay-at-home moms. So sharing the ways that I pay for my gym membership or help offset the whole “one income thing” is relevant to many of my readers.

Activate: $50.00

Activate connects influencers with brands that want to promote something. I was sent a free package of diapers PLUS paid $50 just to write a review of those diapers. Not bad for 5 minutes of work.

IZEA: $0

This used to be my favorite influencer marketing hub but I haven’t seen any good opportunities from them in probably two years. It’s worth signing up if you’re a new blogger, but you’ll probably not see this on my next income report.

Display Ads (I use Media.net): $0.98

I don’t know why my ad revenue dropped so much (it was like $15 last month) but I’m hoping to be eligible for a better network soon. I know bloggers making $1000+/month just from display ads.

ShareASale: $3.67

This houses many affiliate programs for the products I feature on my blog, like Paleo Plan. If you want to focus on affiliate marketing as a blogger, definitely sign up for ShareASale.

Total: $133.71

As you can see, my current fitness blog income is nothing to write home about. But I mentioned that some things were different this month, and I am excited about this income for a few reasons.

First of all, this month’s blog income was almost entirely passive.

I neglected the heck out of the blog, but with the links and systems I have in place, I was still able to bring in some money. Without really pushing any traffic. I hardly published anything (compared to normal), and I didn’t send out a single promotional email.

I also saw my ebook getting a few sales, which was really encouraging.

Also noteworthy, I did hardly anything on Pinterest (which is my biggest traffic source), and my traffic didn’t falter from last month. I was still able to pull in some decent traffic. Part of the reason is that I’ve been focusing on growing my organic traffic and that actually seems to working. I’m not seeing crazy jumps in traffic, but I feel like I’m finally cracking the SEO code (search engine optimization).

Do you have more questions? I look forward to sharing next month’s income report with you!