How I Made $4,503.32 in May 2019: Monthly Blog Income Report

Welcome to my May 2019 income report. Last month, I was able to generate side income earnings of $4,503.32, with a net profit of $4,011.1.

The total month-on-month revenue was up by 5.58% and the profits were up by 4.34%.

It’s a marginal improvement over last month’s affiliate earnings and net profit, but nowhere near close to the achievements in January.

As always, before I reveal my side income earnings, let’s take a look at some of the key highlights of the month.

(To learn more about why I started maintaining monthly income reports, visit this page)

Content Creation — Latest (and Updated) Blog Posts, Videos, and Podcast Episodes

Blog Posts

There were three new blog posts published in May:

• 10 Actionable Things You Can Do with SEMrush to Boost Your Traffic — If you’re an SEMrush subscriber, please consider checking out this post. I did a lot of research to identify the ten most useful things a marketer can do with SEMrush and I hope this article contains a few new tips and tricks you probably weren’t aware of.
• How to Find and Fix Broken Links with Broken Link Checker — I find broken links to be extremely annoying and I tend to fix them as and when they popup on my site. I use the Broken Link Checker WordPress plugin to do this and it’s a remarkably effective tool to identify and fix all those infuriating 404s on your site that Google hates so much. This article contains a video tutorial on Broken Link Checker; so do check it out if you’re looking for a quick and easy solution to broken links.
• Nofollow Links: Everything You Need to Know — This is a guest post from Mayur Kamath who’s also a regular contributor at my agency blog. It’s a must-read article for those who believe “nofollow links” are useless and have no impact on search rankings or traffic. This article might just change your mind!

Updated Blog Posts

I’m a huge believer in the concept of evergreen content. Hence, I keep revisiting my old posts in order to add new information and fix any existing loopholes. To that end, here are all the articles that were updated in May.

• 6 Best Landing Page Builders to Increase Conversions — Originally published on November 17, 2017. The latest update takes into account the changes in pricing of these landing page builders and the addition of TARS Chatbots which recently launched Conversational Landing Pages, wherein you can use chatbots instead of forms in your landing pages.
• 25 Best Marketing Subreddits (That You Should Join Today) — Originally published on Feb 26, 2017. An update to this article was long overdue. The new update takes into account the update in the number of active monthly users and number of members/redditors in each of these subreddits.

Podcast Episodes

Three new episodes of Marketing Mantra last month, including an interview with our very first guest on the show, Ilya Lyubimov from SEMrush.

• Ep. #20: How to Boost Your Affiliate Income (with Ilya Lyubimov from SEMrush) — Ilya is in charge of developing affiliate partnerships and launching new projects at SEMrush. He has been my affiliate manager for over a year, and he’s been one of the most proactive affiliate managers I’ve had the pleasure of working with. His ideas and recommendations have helped me skyrocket my affiliate income from SEMrush. In this episode, Ilya shares his views on the latest SEO trends and tells us what’s next for SEMrush. He also shares some really cool affiliate marketing tips; so be sure to take notes.
• Ep. #21: 3 Best WordPress Plugins To Double Your Site Traffic — Would you like to drive more traffic to your WordPress site? Then this episode is for you! WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) in the world. It powers over 30% of all websites on the internet. In this episode, I talk about 3 best (and 100% free) WordPress plugins you can use to generate more traffic for your website and boost user engagement.
• Ep. #22: A Facebook Marketing Secret No One Is Talking About — In this episode, I reveal a Facebook Marketing secret no one is talking about. Learn this secret to gain a competitive edge and craft an effective Facebook marketing strategy.

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Marketing Videos

Just one tutorial video uploaded on our YouTube channel last month. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do an AppSumo deal review and walkthrough in May.

2019 Goodreads Reading Challenge

Like last year, I’ve taken up a Goodreads reading challenge in 2019 and the challenge is once again the same — to finish reading 100 books by the end of 2019; 25 of which to be business books.

Read just one business book last month — 18 Minutes by Peter Bregman. The other books I read last month were mostly fiction.

18 Minutes is the perfect blend of a business book and a self-help guide. The author Peter Bregman offers you a clear view of yourself and your surroundings, and then provides you with a map to help you get where you want to go. I really liked the productive tips shared by Bregman in this book and I can’t wait to incorporate some of them to see if they have a lasting impact on my productivity.

Quotes I’m Pondering (May 1 – 31, 2019)

Inspired by Tim Ferriss’ Tribe of Mentors, you’ll find thought-provoking quotes in all my income reports.

These are the quotes that inspired me and changed my thinking in May. I hope you find them just as insightful as I did:

“The beginning is half of every action.” — Greek proverb

“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” — Henry David Thoreau (19th Century American essayist, poet, and philosopher)

May 2019 Income Report

Now let’s take a look at my earnings in May. As always, this report consists of my affiliate earnings, followed by other income, expenses, and net profit breakdown.

Affiliate Earnings

• SEMrush – $2,375.08 (review / eBook)
• AppSumo – $596.01 (latest deals)
• AppSumo Briefcase – $96.29 (review)
• SendinBlue – $683.37 (review)
• Serpstat – $40.78 (review)
• ConvertKit – $32.4 (review)
• KWFinder – $131.19 (review)
• AWeber – $40.8 (review)
• Instapage – $23.7 (review)
• Book Like A Boss – $10
• Nord VPN – $9.2

Total Affiliate Earnings: $4,103.32

Other Income

• Sponsored posts – $400 (click here for more details)

Total Side Income Earnings: $4,503.32

Expenses

• Mailchimp (Recurring) – $50 (review)
• AppSumo Briefcase (Recurring) – $49 (review)
• Google Ads – $107.28
• Facebook Ads – $75.95
• Ahrefs (Recurring) – $99 (review)
• Buffer Pro (Recurring) – $15
• Alexa (Recurring) – $19.99
• Buildfire (Recurring) – $54
• TubeBuddy (Recurring) – $4.50
• GoDaddy Hosting Renewal – $17.5
• Tubics (AppSumo Lifetime Deal) – $39

Total expenses: $492.22

Net Profit Breakdown

• Affiliate earnings: $4,103.32
• Other income: $400
• Total expenses: (-$492.22)
• Net Profit: $4,011.1

That wraps up the income report for May 2019.

If you have any questions about this month’s income report, feel free to ask them in the comments section or connect with me via Twitter.

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If you’re interested to learn more about passive income, I reveal some of my affiliate marketing secrets in this article + webinar. Be sure to check it out!