It’s time for the September 2024 income report for my portfolio of websites. For the first time ever, there is some good news to share… but nothing too spectacular. But at this point, any sort of improvement or boost makes me happy.
I will go a bit more in-depth below, but first, if you’re only interested in the money – here are the numbers for each of the top five websites in my portfolio.
September 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 – and they’re even smaller now after the latest core update.
In September, my websites generated $1,658.38 in gross revenue. That’s $82.28 WORSE than last month!
These are my website-related expenses in September:
- Great hosting (BigScoots & WPX): $134.59
- GeneratePress Premium: $2.29 (read my GeneratePress theme review here)
- 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 September were: $930,74. (+$41.95 vs. last month). So even though my gross earnings were lower, my profits were still better thanks to spending less.
Still… this amount remains incredibly low. But as I said, there were some wins in September, and I will share them below:
- Two of my websites were accepted into Journey by Mediavine. I had been waiting for a long time for this to happen and I was extremely pleased (and a bit surprised) when I received the good news. I only have about half a month’s data for now, but things are promising, with Journey delivering, as expected, more than AdSense. Expect a review soon, once I have at least 30 days on the platform. Until then, you can check out my SHE Media Review.
- Two of my top 5 websites have FINALLY seen an uptick in traffic compared to last month. Overall, I’m still down if I look at all the traffic… but seeing something go up (even though it’s just a blimp) was extremely pleasing.
- Higher ad earnings overall, as Q4 nears. Hopefully this will keep up too.
So… not much in terms of good news, but at least I have something to share. For more of what I did this month and plans for the future, read my Final thoughts & plans section at the end. Until then, let’s see how each of my websites performed last month!
Website 1 (entertainment niche)
- Traffic: 20,815 sessions (-6,622)
- Gross income: $421.78 (-$136.22)
- Articles: 7 new, 0 edited
Massive drop here, but somewhat expected due to last month’s traffic being inflated by welcome, but temporary traffic spike from Bing.
This was once my flagship website – now it’s in ruin. If I have time for that, I want to try publishing some news on it (since it is accepted on Google News but getting zero traffic from it, mainly from me not publishing any news). If this doesn’t work… then there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s not a niche I am interested in any longer, I can’t afford to pay for content to be created for it… so not much I can do.
I did a content purge and deleted a few hundred articles (all those that got 0 traffic from ANY source, not just Google). No effects so far.
Website 2 (local travel niche)
- Traffic: 10,468 sessions (+442)
- Gross income: $173.52 (+$39.15)
- Articles: 1 new, 2 edits
One of the two websites that saw an increase this month – and unexpectedly so, especially since it’s the off-season and traffic usually drops during this time of the year. This makes me happy, even though overall we’re still way behind its prime.
I did some minor tweaks to the homepage layout and I am planning to keep working on improving its navigation – mainly to make all (or most) content 2-3 clicks away from the homepage. It’s slow-going since, even in its prime, this website didn’t make much and I don’t see it a money machine ever.
But it’s a passion project of mine and one of the few websites I own that REALLY shouldn’t have been hit by the HCU and other Google updates.
Website 3 (health niche)
- Traffic: 11,065 sessions (-1,857)
- Gross income: $403.54 (+$2.72)
- Articles: 0 new, 4 edits
My health website, which should also not be penalized by the HCU due to my expertise and experience on the subject matter, is dead on Google. Still getting traffic from Bing, but mainly from social media (Pinterest mainly).
The strange thing is that it’s getting most of its Pinterest traffic from OTHER people’s pinning of my content. I am not a Pinterest expert and I barely used the platform… but that’s something I am trying to change. I slowly started to create Pins and dip my fingers into it, as I need – like everybody else – an alternative to the lost Google traffic.
So far, no progress made on my website, but I will keep learning and trying. It’s good that at least income was steady, despite the massive drop in traffic.
Website 4 (entertainment niche)
- Traffic: 42,785 sessions (+1,011)
- Gross income: $581.91 (-$25.09)
- Articles: 5 new, 7 edited
This is the only website that still gets love from Google (and unfortunately little from Bing). Either way, it’s been growing for two months straight now, and I love to see that, even though it wasn’t reflected in the earnings (surprisingly so, I might add).
I plan to keep on producing articles for this website – and especially editing old ones, as some haven’t been updated in several years.
Website 5 (travel niche)
- Traffic: 5,726 sessions (-90)
- Gross income: $77.63 (+$38.12)
- Articles: 2 new, 3 edits
This is one of my two websites that were accepted by Journey by Mediavine. This puts me in a tough situation, as I wasn’t planning on working on it since it keeps going down. But with potentially double RPMs from the premium ad network, I got some momentum and published a few articles, and worked on a few old ones.
This is a travel blog, so it’s no longer in peak season… but it’s still not getting any real love from Google. I am still unsure if I should put my efforts into it, since I won’t travel as much (so not producing as much original content)… but we’ll see.
For now, I’m enjoying the extra earnings coming from Journey by Mediavine!
Check my previous earning reports:
If you want to get more in-depth with how things were in the past months, click the links below:
Final thoughts & plans
In September, I was a busy bee. My son started school and I managed to get a bit into a rhythm with my work (we have recently relocated to another city and went through some personal problems as well). But I was able to finally put in more work than I did in the past few months.
What I did?
1. First of all, I started working on reducing costs. I merged two of my smaller blogs into one; then four others – also into one. These are small blogs that produce little money (think under $20/month gross, together), so it made no sense to keep spending on keeping them alive.
I could’ve just let them expire and be done with it… but it’s content that I wrote (I write most of my content on all of my blogs) and it was content I was happy with.
Yes, I did end up with a magazine-type of blog covering unrelated categories, which can not be good for SEO… but at the same time, when you’re getting 50 visits from Google each day, you are ready to take the risks.
2. This will also help me reduce my hosting bill. I now use two companies, paying around $135 each month… and for the current state of things, it’s too much. I still have to decide which of the two companies I will continue working with (each has its Pros and Cons)… but a move will have to be made soon.
3. I also decided to delete articles that were getting no traffic (not just from Google, but for any source). This was time-consuming and had no effect on overall traffic at the moment, but it’s something I was always curious about, as some claim that reducing low-performing content can give you a boost.
I found a nice method to discover all articles on a website that get no traffic, and if there are people interested in it, I will create an article on how to do it. There’s no need to keep articles that NOBODY sees – just move them to draft and decide what to do with them (rewrite, repurpose, etc).
For October, I hope to finally complete (and ideally publish) the book I have been working on for Website #3. December would be the worst time of the year to publish it, so it’s either ASAP, or January… we’ll see.
Over to you know – how was September 2024 for your online empire? Anything in particular that seems to work right now? Let me know by sharing your thoughts down below in the comments section!