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Can you believe that it’s been a full year since I launched this blog? Time flies when you’re writing articles, learning SEO, and managing a website. And now it’s time for my first year blog growth and income report – woah!

Most beauty blogs don’t post growth reports, but I love sharing a realistic pattern of blog growth with my readers and other bloggers. Keep reading to find out all the stuff that went on with beautybrainsblush over the past year of blogging!

Check out my other income reports here:

Why I post blog growth and income reports:

When I started my journey of blogging, I read lots of posts titled “blog income reports” and “blog growth reports” where bloggers post all their traffic and monetary numbers for their readers to see, to be completely transparent about everything they do!

The first income report I read was by Create And Go, which they update monthly here. They have great info and you should check them out if you’re interested in blogging.Create And Go is a very successful blog, with many followers and high SEO ranking. Comparatively, I found very few new bloggers that post growth reports or income reports in the early stages of their blog.

Most people wait 4-6 months, or maybe a whole year, to post a growth report – enough time for them to build a social media presence and gain authority online.

I decided to start monthly growth reports at the beginning of my blogging career to show the process from the very start of creating a new blog! These blogging reports will include growth and income information, social media information, as well as my goals for the following month of blogging.

Now that I’ve been blogging for over a year, I won’t be posting growth reports every month – but I will post them at least yearly to show my growth.

Pin this for later:

First Year Blog Income and Growth Report for Makeup Blog Beautybrainsblush.com

General Information:

  • I launched BeautyBrainsBlush.com on December 1, 2018
  • This report covers my first year of blog growth, from December 1, 2018 – November 30, 2019
  • Beautybrainsblush.com is a beauty blog
  • I use WordPress.org and Bluehost for this site
  • My previous monthly growth reports compare my monthly analytics to my previous month’s goals – I won’t be talking about my goals for the first year, because I didn’t set any when I began. I had no idea what to expect!
  • Domain authority: 17
  • Total number of blog posts (including this one): 120

Page Views and Users

First year view statistics:

  • 85,296 unique users
  • 95,076 sessions
  • 111,829 pageviews

First Year Pageviews beautybrainsblush.com

It might not look like the most impressive graph, but it shows a lot of growth. If we removed the outliers, the rate of growth would look more impressive.

Let’s compare the average number of users per day for each month I’ve been blogging, without those outliers:

Monthly Average Users per Day (Without Outliers)

Without those huge spikes, you can see that my user count per day has risen a lot over the past year. The number grew quicker in the beginning, and has leveled out more towards the end.

I also love comparing the user and page view amounts per month. The monthly number can sometimes help visualize growth easier than the daily measures can.

Users and Pageviews by Month - first year of growth for beautybrainsblush.com

Goals for next year:

  • 500,000 users

The number of users (85k!) for my first year of blogging is really awesome. Thinking about THAT many people visiting my blog is crazy to me!

That’s more people than the population of my hometown (city & township) …doubled.

It’s 15k more than the capacity of the University of Memphis (where I live!) football stadium. It’s 10k more people than the capacity of Michigan State University’s football stadium (where my husband went to college). And it’s almost 20k more than the enrollment number of the largest public university in America.

That’s a lot. 

Part of me feels disappointed that I didn’t reach 100k, but when I realize how many people 85,296 really is, it feels a bit better!

I’m going to aim high for my second year of blogging. Half a million is a lot, but we can try!

I want to drive more viewers to my blog so I can apply for better paying ads than AdSense, as well as increase my affiliate sales.

Acquisition

First year statistics:

First year acquisition beautybrainsblush.com

The majority of my blog’s traffic is organic. This is extremely exciting, especially for my first year of blogging.

With a new blog, it can be very difficult to rank for keywords on Google. My domain authority has risen to 17 which helps a little bit, but I’m excited that so much of my traffic is organic.

Of the social traffic channels, I acquire the most traffic from Pinterest.

Social traffic channels first year of blogging beautybrainsblush.com

We will get to Pinterest in a bit, but I am happy with this number! The spread from social channels is exactly as I expected.

Pin this:

First Year Blog Income and Growth Report for Makeup Blog Beautybrainsblush.com

Email

First Year Statistics:

  • 230 subscribers

I didn’t have a goal, and I know I don’t utilize my email list very well.

Over the past year, I have switched from Mailchimp to MailerLite (much more user friendly, I recommend it over Mailchimp for sure). I have created a couple opt-in freebies to grow my list.

This next year, I want that number to multiply. I need to create more opt-ins do successfully grow my email subscribers!

Social Media

First Year Statistics:

  • Pinterest: started at zero, grew to 10,001 followers and 3.1 million monthly reach.
    I peaked at 4 million monthly reach earlier this past month!
  • Instagram: 1369 followers.
    I didn’t start this account at zero, I converted my hobby makeup account into my makeup blog account. I have not grown a lot on Instagram at all.
  • Facebook: started at zero, grew to 107 followers.
  • Twitter: started at zero, grew to 14 followers, I don’t really use Twitter I just have the account.
  • Youtube: started at zero, grew to 21 subscribers.

Pinterest is fantastic. This is the platform I focused on this year. Beauty and makeup is a perfect niche for Pinterest’s user base, and I really feel like I have cracked the code on this platform! I use Tailwind, group boards, and tribes to expand my reach.

Instagram. The algorithms don’t favor small creators like me, and I have become very frustrated with Instagram’s platform. You would think it would be perfect for a makeup blog since there are so many beauty creators on IG, but it is proving very difficult to grow.

Facebook. I post new blog posts, I occasionally post old blog posts, but I need to be doing more! This is the platform I want to focus on more in 2020. I attempted to create a Facebook group for makeup help, and it hasn’t done very well. Maybe I can grow that group too!

Youtube. I posted a couple videos, and fell off the YouTube wagon. When I started, I vastly underestimated the amount of time it takes to film a video and edit it – easily 8 hours for a half hour video! I’m sure as I practice I will become more efficient at editing, but right now it was taking too much time to focus on Youtube.

Goals for next year:

  • Focus on growing my Facebook following (possibly Facebook group following, too)
  • Continue Pinterest strategies to expand Pinterest growth and traffic

Income

First Year Income Total: $1181.18

Here’s the breakdown:

  • Google AdSense: $84.64
  • Amazon affilate income: $52.78
  • Bluehost affiliate income: $65.00
  • Other affiliate income: $978.76

Income for first year of blogging beautybrainsblush.com

I adjusted a previous month’s data (month 4) due to a return that caused the amount actually earned to be about half of what my blog report said.

Overall, I think a thousand dollars for my first year of blogging is pretty good!

Of course, I wish I had made more (why wouldn’t I aim higher?) but most bloggers tell themselves that if they can make just $1 or just $10 in their first year of blogging, they can successfully replace a full time income in the next 3-5 years with their blog.

Based on how much more money I made this year than that, I believe I can do it, maybe even sooner!

Goals for next year:

  • $15,080 is the full time yearly salary for someone working minimum wage in my state. I’d like to make at least that much next year with my blog! (edit 3 years later: haha).
  • I will also be offering VA services, and hope that I can make money through that side business as well.

Pin this to support me!

First Year Blog Income and Growth Report for Makeup Blog Beautybrainsblush.com

Conclusion

  • I made back all expenses concurred from my blog, plus profit
  • My blog has grown a TON in the past year
  • I can’t wait to see where next year takes me!

I hope my first year blog growth and income report was helpful for you.

If there is any information not covered in this report that you’d like to see, leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to provide the data!

Helping other bloggers is something I love to do. Feel free to leave a comment for me, message me via my blog’s IG page to get in touch. I’d love to check out your blog and see what I can do to help you grow!

Check out my other income reports here:

If you’re a blogger that posts similar growth reports, let me know in a comment. I want to read yours too!

Thank you all for your support this past year, and (hopefully!) your continuing support in the future.

xoxo, Kailey

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