June 2024 Website Income Report

June was a crazy month for me, as I moved back to my home town. My family is still not settled in 100%, but at least I found time to write this month’s income report, even though it’s a bit late. Better late than ever, eh?

While the first income report that I published here shared the data for all my websites, from now on I will only focus on those that I am actively working on, or at least plan on working on.

That is roughly 4-5 blogs each month. Still a big number for a single person to manage and handle, but with the uncertainty coming from the latest Google updates, I feel that I have to keep some options available.

Part of me says “Focus on one-two blogs at most,” but part of me is still afraid to commit. Still, dropping from 15 to 5 is still big. Now, let’s get it started!

June 2024 Website Income Report Overview

If you don’t want to go through the entire report, here is how things stand for my top 5 blogs. There’s some extra income from my other websites in the portfolio, but tiny amounts that don’t make any difference.

My gross earnings in June were $2,109.21.

These are my website-related expenses in June:

• Great hosting (BigScoots & WPX): $134.59
• GeneratePress Premium: $2.29
• WP Rocket Plugin: $19.76
• Domain-related expenses: 0
• Accountant: $182
• Other expenses: $0
• TOTAL: $338.64

Also, I pay social security and health insurance (around $286 per month), plus tax on profits (10%).

This means that, all in all, my net earnings from blogging in June were: $1,336.11. This is better than last month, but still extremely low.

In-depth look

I will get a bit more in-depth with each website below. If you’re curious to see some screenshots and other details/plans/whatnot (as well as income generated by each website), read on!

Website 1 (entertainment niche)

• Traffic: 25,632 sessions
• Gross income: $889.25
• Articles: 2 new, 0 edits

This used to be my main income source. It used to make up to $5,000/month, but now it’s getting most of its traffic from Bing. I did notice a small uptick in traffic from Google towards the end of the month, but nothing to write home about:

This website is, for the most part in standby mode. I had a team of writers creating content for it, but after Google killed it with the HCU and March core updates, as well as some failed attempts at recovery, nobody is working on it anymore.

Funnily enough, this is the one website that I had which I considered 100% AI-proof. It might be the case, since it only provides original content, but if Google doesn’t send traffic its way, not much can be done.

Website 2 (local travel niche)

• Traffic: 9,485 sessions
• Gross income: $169.96
• Articles: 2 new, 3 edits

This local travel website is more of a passion project of mine turned income source, but now struggling thanks to Google’s update. I have more authority than most websites that rank above mine in this niche, as well as direct, personal experience with the location I talk about. Google doesn’t care.

As a result, this website is struggling, having lost most of its traffic from Google. It’s still the #1 traffic generator at the moment, but Bing is catching up:

This is a niche that might do well on Pinterest and social media, and I am planning to look more into this and hopefully start driving some extra traffic through these new channels.

I also made some changes to the ad settings (the website is running Mediavine ads) at the end of June, hoping that a lighter load and overall fewer ads will result in a better user experience and maybe some recovery along the way.

I also launched a Patreon account for it, and the results were better than anticipated ($48 of the earnings come from Patreon supporters) and I am trying to find ways to turn it into a more premium membership type of website. After all, I have to give my Patreons something in exchange for their support, right?

Website 3 (health niche)

• Traffic: 11,898 sessions
• Gross income: $355.32
• Articles: 1 new, 5 edits

As you can see, Google absolutely HATES this website:

Google used to send 200 visitors PER day, now we have days with under 5. It’s a YMYL niche, indeed, and I am not a doctor, but it’s a bout a condition that I have direct experience with (for 10 years now) and I consider it the best resource on the matter available online right now.

But I might be biased. It’s still good, helpful, and extremely useful. But as long as it doesn’t have the signals Google looks for, I have to look at other traffic sources.

Website 4 (entertainment niche)

• Traffic: 34,170 sessions
• Gross income: $576.96
• Articles: 4 new, 4 edits

Another purely informational website, similar to Website #1 in this report. Strangely, it still gets some love from Google and little love from other search engines. Even so – you can see the difference it makes.

What scares me is the fact that most of its traffic comes to just one article. If that is penalized the Google, things will look A LOT worse overnight. I’m trying to add more articles, but the big G doesn’t like any as much.

Still, even though this gets no affiliate sales or anything else but revenue from display ads, the RPMs are decent (compared to my other sites), and I am really happy with it:

Website 5 (travel niche)

• Traffic: 6,306 sessions
• Gross income: $117.72
• Articles: 0 new, 0 edits

Can you believe that, right before Google’s HCU update I had applied to Mediavine with this website?

It grew nicely since the beginning of the year, getting more than 50,000 sessions/month in August. I applied for Mediavine, got approved – but I was still under contract with Ezoic and they didn’t let me end it early. This hurt a lot – I could be enjoying Mediavine rates right now, even though the traffic is ruined.

I am still getting some odd affiliate income at the moment, which sometimes saves the day, and June was a good month from that point of view.

Otherwise, it’s still AdSense ads only for me (I moved away from Ezoic with all my sites when my contract expired, because I don’t want to risk something similar happening in the future) – but AdSense pays pennies.

I am not focusing much on this blog, for the obvious reasons… but since it’s sadly still one of my top performers and I still have some hope that a future Google update will fix it, I’m still reporting on it (for now, at least).

Wrapping up

The situation doesn’t look good at all. Just like so many small publishers out there, I was pretty much wiped out from the internet by Google. I still refuse to believe that blogging is dead, although I am not going to be the last one still standing on a sinking ship.

The move back to my home town (mostly to reduce living expenses, since we own an apartment here) is over now, and starting July (and even more so in August), I will have more time to come up with a plan and start executing it.

I am not yet ready to jump head-first into new ventures or completely change focus, although some say this is what should be done. Even though the websites are generating less income that I need to cover for the monthly expenses for now, it’s still money that I need to survive.

So I simply can’t stop doing it – so instead, I will slowly shift to other things (I have to figure those out first, too!) and hopefully be able to recover.

Do you like this format for a blog income report? Would you like me to do it in a different way – show other stats/data/thoughts? Let me know in the comments section below. And if you want to be up to date with everything I post, don’t hesitate to use the GROW sign-up form in this article (the only thing I use for my email list for now).

Also, don’t hesitate to share how things went in June for you and your website business. Hopefully, you will have better news than mine!