Happy blogiversary!

This blog, Happier Freelancing is officially 2 years old. Woohoo!

DISCLOSURE: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a small commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no additional cost to you. Please read my full disclaimer here for more info.

Happy blogiversary! This blog, Happier Freelancing is officially 2 years old.

I started this site on January 1st, 2020 in order to create an online library for freelancers and side hustlers.

In summary, my website traffic was very little in 2021. However, I still made over $600 a year from this site. I know, it’s not a lot of money but enough to cover all of my blog expenses. I really appreciated all the sponsors & bloggers who collaborated with Happier Freelancing.

Special Thanx to:

• How to Find Your Perfect Client Niche to Build an Awesome Freelance Business / Matt Saunders
• What Are Dividends and Are They Worth It? / Jeff 
• 5 Things That You Can Do On Your Phone Instead Of Scrolling Through Social Media / Zenobia Kapadia
• The Dumbest Purchases I Made In My 20’s / Brittany
• Tips to Plan a Budget on Fluctuating Income and Saving Money / Linda Richardson

In this post, I’ll share all the stats and blogging income from the second year of my blogging journey.

First, Why Monetize the Blog?

Because running a blog is not free. For example, here are my blog expenses in 2021:

• Domain Name $13.16 a year
• WordPress Hosting $29.88 a year
• Canva Pro $119.40 a year
• SSL Security $16.98 for 2 years
• Buffer $144 a year

Total $323.42

I’m not blogging to make money, but if I can cover the blogging cost, that’s a good thing.

Total 94 Blog Posts

I’ve been busy with my freelance project last year, so I couldn’t achieve my goal such as posting 12 articles a month. I really wanted to try Blogmas! Maybe this year…. maybe… lol

Most Popular Blog Post in 2021

Here were the most popular blog posts in 2021. I used MonsterInsights to collect these data.

1. My Experience with Ulta Beauty’s New Lasership Shipping Service
2. How to Create an Effective Business Plan
3. 59 Inspirational Blogs & Websites in 2021
4. Blogmas Post Ideas for Bloggers in 2021
5. Dividend Aristocrats List for 2021
6. How to Create a Monthly Dividend Portfolio

Total 5,513 Users

“Users” is the number of actual people that have visited the website. An anonymous person on a digital marketing forum wrote:

“I have 10 – 20 WordPress blogs most of them are 2 – 5 months old at the moment and each of them gets traffic around 150 -1500 Users per day.”

Here are my numbers:

• January 2021: 440
• February 2021: 369
• March 2021: 399
• April 2021: 428
• May 2021: 405
• June 2021: 394
• July 2021: 455
• August 2021: 346
• September 2021: 961
• October 2021: 334
• November 2021: 567
• December 2021: 415

Total 5,513 Users

Total 18,470 Pageviews

“Pageviews” is the number of pages that people have viewed in total. According to a study by Blogelina, 20 bloggers found the average number of monthly page views to be around 4000.

4000 pageviews in a month… wow… too far. Lol

• January 2021: 1491
• February 2021: 1590
• March 2021: 1960
• April 2021: 1940
• May 2021: 1557
• June 2021: 2051
• July 2021: 1742
• August 2021: 1398
• September 2021: 2372
• October 2021: 482
•  November 2021: 1001
•  December 2021: 886

Total: 18,470 Pageviews

SEO Tips: The Difference Between Users and Pageviews

Say I visited your site on January 1.

While I’m there, I visit the homepage, about page, and contact page. If I’m the only one who visited your site on January 8, here’s what your analytics looks like: Users: 1 Pageview: 3 The next day on January 2, I visit the homepage, about page, and contact page again. Now here’s what your analytics looks like:

• Users: 2
• Pageviews 6

Traffic Sources & Social Media Followers

Traffic sources mean where site visitors came from.

Organic is my biggest traffic source and Facebook is my biggest source of social traffic. In my opinion, Instagram is difficult to drive traffic to the site. If you are a fashion blogger, you may have a different opinion… If you are a personal finance blogger and use Instagram successfully to drive traffic, please let me know. I would like to introduce your Instagram on my site.

• Organic (search engines like Google, and Yahoo) 2991 traffic
• Facebook: 499 traffic /62 Likes & Followers
• Twitter: 187 traffic / 1442 followers
• Instagram: 96 traffic / 665 followers
• Pinterest: 223 traffic / 301 followers

TOTAL: 3996 Traffic / 2470 audience

The blog title is very important to drive traffic from the search engine. I think MonsterInsights helped to boost my organic traffic! MonsterInsights is a WordPress plugin that allows you to easily add, customize, and manage Google Analytics on your WordPress site. And also, it’s helped me to create SEO-friendly blog titles. MonsterInsights is free to download, the paid plan provides more features, and always a 14-day money-back guarantee.

Blogging Income $647.74

As you see, my website traffic was very little. However, I still made enough money to cover all the expenses to run this site.

In 2021, I had 21 sponsored post opportunities from the ShareASale affiliate network. (I think I was very lucky. I hope the luck will keep continuing) If you want to make money through affiliate marketing and blogging, I highly recommend signing up for ShareASale.

• Sponsored Posts $575
• Affiliate Marketing $72.74 (4 different affiliate networks/programs)

Total: $647.74

Net Income: $305.06 = $647.74 – $323.42 (blog expenses) –$19.26 (PayPal fees)

Blogging Goals for 2022

How was your blogging journey in 2021? My blogging income is decreasing, but I like blogging. I maybe will continue to document my finances constantly. It’s always fun to talk about money.

I’m hoping that I could focus on marketing more in 2022.

Here is my blogging goal for 2022:

• create 1 post a week
• 1000 followers on Instagram
• 3000 followers on Twitter
• 1000 followers on Pinterest
• 100 followers on Facebook
• Collaborate with other bloggers

Happy Blogging!