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Online Business Income Report July 2019
Welcome to the July 2019 edition of our online business/blog income report.
As you’ll see by reading the report, the income does not only come from our blog but also our course sales. However, our blog has become the platform for us to provide these digital products for our students. Digital courses are a great way to monetize a blog!
This post contains affiliate links. Please see our Disclosure Policy for details.
Yes, our “Family Business” may be quite different than the image of a family business that you have in your mind. We are not a shop, a restaurant, a local service business, etc..
In fact, our Family Business is online and is location independent. We can run our business from anywhere in the world (and we do). We’re not tied to a physical location and we still operate a very profitable and successful business.
Not only are we location independent, but we also involve our whole family in our business. This gives us the opportunity to show our children how to earn money online, teach them many important business and life skills, and most importantly, show them that the world is much different in 2019. We’re teaching them the skills to thrive in the future, not the past.
Our online family business is about finding a way to enrich the world, provide value, and earn a very comfortable income in the process.
We’re passionate about showing others how to start their own blogs and online businesses. What we’ve done is very possible for others to emulate with the right knowledge and plan.
We know that the figures in this report may seem unattainable at first glance, but know that this did not happen for us overnight. Like any business, we made progress and improvements over time to get to our current income level. Feel free to browse our past income reports over the last 2 years to see our progression.
July 2019 Online Business Blog Income Report
July 2019 was a decent month, but nowhere close to our record-breaking January!!
We’ve been doing income reports since March of 2017, and if you read them all, you’ll see that our income has increased substantially over the past couple of years. I want you to know that it doesn’t take forever to scale things up if you provide a good service and use some solid principles to increase your business.
I know it’s a little crazy to post our income figures every month, but we do it because we know that it can help others on their own journey to increase their online income.
Here’s why we are publishing our income reports for the world to see:
We want these reports to motivate other bloggers and online business owners, both new and established, and help them attain their own income goals.
This is the perfect way to motivate ourselves and keep us accountable for our own business goals.
I started working on our blogging business full time at the beginning of 2017. Since I am more of a business and numbers guy, this is the exact type of project that I love.
Reading other blogger income reports over the years has really inspired us. We hope you will find inspiration and tips from reading our reports too.
Blogging can be a great way to earn an income, and the lifestyle associated with it is simply amazing.
If you are new to the blog, here is a little bit about us and what we do:
It’s A Lovely Life® is a family lifestyle and travel blog. We share about products and services that make life better and easier. We love to travel and we do so 150+ days a year as a family, featuring resorts and family-friendly destinations.
Heather is the main writer for the blog, and she has been blogging for over 10 years now. She started writing about budgeting and saving money and gradually transitioned to writing about our lifestyle and travel. She has built this blog into what it is today, and she loves every second of it.
I am a licensed real estate broker and have been for the past 12 years, owning our own successful brokerage. At the beginning of 2017, we made the decision that I would work on the blogging business full-time because the income potential was so great. I was also not enjoying real estate as much as I used to and we both believe that happiness is important for our family (especially me… haha)! I learned so much in the real estate world that directly benefits our online business, so this was a natural transition.
Our income has risen to the level that Heather and I can work together, and we absolutely love it! There is no more commuting to work for me (unless we are traveling for a story) and we are able to spend much more time together as a family. When it really comes down to it, that is the most important thing of all!
A number of years ago, we started to get involved more with travel blogging, and we are so glad we did! Last year we traveled 150 days out of the year. We were hosted on these trips, and in most locations, we received VIP treatment!
In 2017 we went to Orlando, Cabo San Lucas, Lake Tahoe, Rapid City South Dakota, The Cayman Islands, a European River Cruise with Adventures By Disney, Puerto Vallarta, and Miami (just Ashley and I). We have also done some local overnight trips including trips to Disneyland, a business trip to Austin, a Disney Cruise, and an overnight trip to San Diego for a conference.
In 2018 we’ve been to Hawaii on (2 separate trips), St. Croix (US Virgin Islands), Miami, Orlando, an Alaskan Cruise, Victoria (BC, Canada), San Francisco, Arizona, Disneyland (2 separate trips), Pasadena, Seattle, Montana, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park, London, Ireland, a transatlantic cruise, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New York City, Los Angeles, and Austin, TX!
In 2019, we’ve already been to Mexico, Orlando including Disney World and a Disney Cruise, and a cruise in the Caribbean, Las Vegas, Kauai, and Victoria, BC. In July we continued our month-long stay in Victoria, BC. We’re excited to see what other travel plans we make in 2019!
While travel blogging does not contribute to the majority of our income, it is increasing. The travel blogging market is still in its infancy as many resorts and destinations are now beginning to offer payment in exchange for sponsored coverage.
We also have gotten heavily involved in video over the past couple of years. We film some standard vlogs, travel vlogs, room and resort tours, as well as some short funny videos. We have been hired to do numerous sponsored video content projects over the years for lifestyle and travel.
We’re continually stepping up our video efforts and are excited about the content we are producing!
Here is a video from when we were hosted earlier this year at the Grand at Moon Palace in Cancun earlier this year:
HERE is our YouTube Channel (we’d love it if you subscribe). We also post most of our videos on our Facebook Page.
Starting in March 2017, we added a major aspect to our business. We began to help other bloggers on a formal basis. We do this by showing others how to start their own blogs, how to treat their blogs like a business, and how to incorporate travel blogging into what they do. Heather has always had a passion for helping new and fellow bloggers in any way that she can. We decided it was time to organize her knowledge and we introduced our first course:
- Start A Money Making Blog – Free 5-day Email Crash Course (click the link to signup) – This course was designed for new bloggers to help them start a blog the right way.
So far, the results have been amazing. Over 350,000 people have signed up for this course since mid-March 2017, and we’re constantly expanding our marketing efforts to reach as many interested people as possible.
Having over 200,000+ people on our email list really helps to get our message out there. We also get countless great emails from our subscribers telling us how they love reading what we send out.
We’re able to hit these types of numbers because we’ve been using ads on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube. Some subscribers come organically from visiting our website, but there is no way we would be achieving these subscription numbers without spending a substantial amount on ads.
Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube ads are a difficult thing to master, but after some trial and error, a LOT of research, and a considerable amount of money spent, we’ve been able to learn how to bring a consistently positive return on our ad investments.
We spent a sizable amount on ads in June and we foresee spending even more in the future.
A big step forward for us came in June 2017 when we launched our premium course, the Blogging Blastoff (formerly known as the 30 Day Blogging Fast Track). This is an intensive course that we designed to provide bloggers with exact money-making systems, the steps to dramatically increase their social accounts, and also provide a defined system to drive traffic to their blogs.
We have successfully launched over 25 months of the Blogging Blastoff course. So far, over 4000 students have enrolled in the course and we look forward to many more successful launches.
The course is structured in a unique way. Each day a new lesson is presented and there is a corresponding assignment/activity that is provided for those that wish to participate. The course comes with a lot of bonuses including access to the VIP Blogging Blastoff Facebook group, and those that take the course will also be able to resell the course as affiliates and earn a 33% commission!
To read all about the Blogging Blastoff course, click HERE. The curriculum is what we are most proud of. We provide a lot of information in this course, and I really recommend scrolling down the page and reading through the whole curriculum so you can see what is included.
The Blogging Blastoff is open for enrollments once a month for about a week. Provide your email address HERE to be notified when the course will re-open for enrollments.
There is a new class that starts on the 1st of every month. Spots in the class are limited.
We made another HUGE leap at the end of 2017 when we introduced the Travel Blogging Blastoff. This course is 100% focused on travel blogging. It’s 21 days of learning and interaction designed to show you exactly what you need to do in order to become a thriving travel blogger yourself. More on the Travel Blogging Fast Track below…
Are you interested in learning how we travel for free around the world? If you are considering a career in travel blogging or simply would like to add travel to an existing blog, we have free training that walks you through it all.
Sign up for: EMAIL YOUR WAY TO COMPED TRAVEL
Another big addition to our business has been the popularity of our Start A Blogging Business Facebook group. This group is an amazing support network for bloggers, both new and established. It has really been fun for us to interact with the group and help other bloggers in many different ways!
The Start A Blogging Business Facebook group now has over 150,000 Members and is growing rapidly. It is the largest new blogger group on Facebook!
We run a free monthly 10k Traffic Challenge that provides information for 10 straight days to the group on techniques to increase blog traffic. The 10k Challenge starts towards the beginning of each month and we would love to have YOU join in too on the next one. Join the Facebook group and you will be notified when the free 10k Challenge starts.
We are very active in our Facebook Groups answering questions, doing live videos, and running our challenges.
Recently we moved the instructional/learning component of our Challenges and course onto our very own platform, CourseGo.
CourseGo is the First Digital Course And Membership Platform Focused On Selling Your Program and we are thrilled to finally have a platform that is geared just to digital creators and learners.
So, without further delay, let’s get to the fun stuff.
Here are our income figures for July:
Sponsored Content and Affiliate Income: $108,762.21
This includes Sponsored blog posts, affiliate sales, sponsored social content for It’s A Lovely Life® and sponsored content written for other websites.
Affiliate income was generated by our participation in the following programs:
- Tailwind
- Picmonkey
- Fiverr
- Amazon
- Bluehost
- Warfare Plugins
- Grammarly
- Constant Contact
- SEMRush
- Numerous Travel Related Affiliate Programs & Resorts
Course Sales: $121,675 (after Paypal fees, credit card processing fees, and affiliate commissions). These are sales that we made during June. If someone opted for the payment plan, we did not receive the full amount this month. However, we did receive payments from the previous month’s payment plans not reflected in this figure.
The Course Sales for July came from two separate courses:
Blogging Blastoff (Formerly known as Blogging Fast Track) – August 2019 class: $69,475
We are very pleased with how many students have taken and are participating in this course. Our goal from the beginning was to provide something of such value that it would be a “no-brainer” for those interested in progressing their blogging careers. I’m confident we’ve accomplished that task by providing such an extensive curriculum and also providing some great bonuses.
Want to see some actual comments and feedback about the Blogging Blastoff course from students that have taken it?
Travel Blogging Blastoff – Our travel-focused course $52,200
BIG NEWS!! We have a new webinar that we just completed teaching all about how to line up comped travel. It is available now! SIGN UP HERE FOR FREE.
In this free class, we show you exactly how we pitch for sponsored travel opportunities and how we travel over 150 days a year with our entire family!
The Travel Blogging Fast Track teaches you everything you need to know to become a successful and professional travel blogger including:
- How to pitch for comped rooms, restaurants, attractions, etc..
- How to create travel content for your blog
- How to make money with a travel blog
- Much, much more…
If you are a blogger and would like to learn how to travel the world (like we do), we HIGHLY SUGGEST you take a look at everything the Travel Blogging Blastoff has to offer. Make sure to scroll down to the bottom to read the full curriculum.
This is more than a course… it is 21 days of interactive assignments and knowledge not being shared by other travel bloggers. Plus we have some AMAZING BONUSES too. This course is open for enrollments NOW and we’d love to have you join in the course too.
Want to see some reviews from our students on the Travel Blogging Fast Track? CLICK HERE
Total Income July 2019: $230,437.21
***Please note that much of the income listed above has not been received yet. These figures are based on projects committed or contracted during July. Some of the projects have been completed already, and some have not. For the purposes of these income reports, we recognize the income in the month in which the work is committed or contracted. It also includes affiliate income generated. In both cases, there is sometimes a lengthy delay between these steps and when the funds are actually received. For course sales, some of the courses were purchased using a payment plan. We have not received all those payments yet, but the amount above reflects the amount we project to fully receive. We have left out individual names of sponsors for their privacy.
Here is our published income report history:
January 2017 Blog Income: $28,346.00
February 2017 Income: $29,220.00
March 2017 Income: $37,809.75
April 2017 Income: $26,938.69
May 2017 Income: $36,010.20
June 2017 Income: $98,202.78
July 2017 Income: $90,117.90
August 2017 Income: $66,665.09
September 2017 Income: $87,519.56
October 2017 Income: $92,976.40
November 2017 Income: $138,240.33
December 2017 Income: $139,462.40
2017 Total Income: $871,509.17
January 2018 Income: $229,137.06
February 2018 Income: $170,705.02
March 2018 Income: $208,558.17
April 2018 Income: $207,476.93
May 2018 Income: $167,435.01
June 2018 Income: $208,524.27
July 2018 Income: $238,027.82
August 2018 Income: $193,131.57
September 2018 Income: $192,886.02
October 2018 Income: $178,625.40
November 2018 Income: $132,533.97
December 2018 Income: $147,833
2018 Year Total: $2,274,874.24 ***A Record Year!!
January 2019 Income: $316,330.20
February 2019 Income: $185,667.06
March 2019 Income: $214,229.99
April 2019 Income: $210,680.62
May 2019 Income: $170,352.45
June 2019 Income: $182,628.40
July 2019 Income: $230,437.21 (This is the report you are reading now)
Expenses & Blogging Tools that we pay for:
- ConvertKit – Email list service for our courses
- Constant Contact – Email list service
- Facebook and Instagram Ads – Used to drive sign-ups for our free email courses and build our email list. We spent $141,259.40 in July 2019.
- Pinterest Ads – We spent $0 on Pinterest Ads in July 2019
- YouTube Ads – We spent $0 on YouTube Ads in July 2019
- Tailwind – Pinterest Scheduling
- Bluehost – Web Hosting
- Grammarly Premium – helps us with our Grammar!
- Teachable – Online course platform (we now use CourseGo!)
- Social Warfare Plugin – A premium plugin that makes blog posts easily shareable
- PicMonkey – Premium version. We use it for video thumbnail editing, Pinterest images, and various graphic design projects for the blog
- Canva and stock images
- Video Editing – We have most of our video content edited for us
- Themeforest
- Fiverr – mostly miscellaneous graphic design work
- Google Apps for Business – Gmail, Google Drive, calendar, etc..
- Namecheap & Godaddy – domain registrations
- Assistants
- Professional Services
- Facebook & Instagram Ad Management
- Adobe Creative Cloud – We edit some photos here
- Clickfunnels
- EverWebinar
- Vimeo
- Wistia
- Zapier
- ManyChat
- Proof
***We do not detail our exact expenses aside from detailing our ad spending and providing a list of tools that we use to run the blogging business. Please note that we have MANY additional expenses not reflected in this report that relates to our overall business operations. Since we have our own company, we are responsible for substantial other expenses and taxes (health insurance, retirement plans, tax preparation, legal fees, etc) that would be too extensive to document in this report. We also pay for numerous assistants and service providers that help us run our business.
From the list above, you can see that our expenses for our business are extensive. However, many of these tools and expenses are things that helped us get to where we are today. Over the years we have tried out many additional services and tools that did not work out, but the above list of items is crucial to our success.
One note about our ad spend amounts noted above… Yes, this is a lot of money that we spent this month. Most of this money was spent to promote our free 5 Day Email Crash Course for starting a blog. We also normally spend a considerable amount on promoting our travel blogging webinar. We do get some immediate return on this amount that we spent, but mostly, it is an investment in the income for future months.
Spending this money builds our email list, grows our Facebook group, and expands the number of interested people that we are able to reach in the future.
We know that our business has plenty of room to grow and we can’t wait to see where we can take it.
Our 2017 income was $871,509.17
Our 2018 Income was $2,274,874.24
That means that our 2018 income was 2.61 times our 2017 income.
The next big monthly milestone we will be looking to achieve is $400,000 per month.
There is always a lot of interest in our online course business. We’re working on a magnitude of new content now that will show you more specifically how we create, market, sell, and support our students. Creating an online course is an excellent way to monetize a blog and one of our big goals is always to help as many people as we can live the lives of their dreams.
Heather and I have been doing Facebook live videos on our Facebook Page. We will be doing many more broadcasts and will cover all things blogging, family business, and online course creation. Please JOIN US by following our page!
Here are a couple of live videos we’ve filmed already:
12 Necessary Steps To Start A Blog
Top 5 Ways To Make Money Blogging
We’ve started using a system called ManyChat. They are an approved vendor with Facebook that works with Facebook Messenger. It automates some messages and people are really using it in unique ways to enhance interaction with their followers. For instance, on these videos above, we use ManyChat to automatically deliver a pdf document of the material we discuss in our videos.
We’re also working very hard to streamline our operations in our business and the support that we offer to our students. Our goal is to overdeliver on the services we provide and we’re constantly striving to do that.
One thing I would like to note is that we turned down numerous sponsored opportunities that were not a great fit for our blog this month that would have increased our income even more. At this point in our development, it is very important for us to only work with brands that align very closely with our vision. We have learned that even though this may hurt our short-term income, it really helps to increase our revenue in the long run.
In the past, sponsored blog content was a huge part of our income. In fact, when we started doing these income reports and a couple of years before, it was the majority of our income. In fact, sponsored content alone was responsible for about $30,000 per month. Now, our business and priorities have shifted and we only work on sponsored blog content when the fit is perfect.
Where did we travel to in July 2019?
We continued our amazing month-long trip to Victoria, BC. This was our longest trip yet and we were so lucky to be able to spend so much time in such a beautiful place.
Here’s our second video from Victoria:
By the way…you really should be following us on Instagram! We’re always having fun in our posts and stories over there.
Follow Heather HERE @itsalovelylife
Here are our top blog and business goals for 2019:
- Grow our income to $5,000,000 in 2019! That would be over double our 2018 income.
- Book additional sponsored family travel destinations for 2019. We already have some big trips on the books for 2019 that we will be sharing more about soon.
- Grow our Facebook group to over 200,000 members in 2019: Start A Blogging Business Facebook Group
- Spread the word about the Travel Blogging Fast Track course. The information in this course is a goldmine for bloggers that are interested in adding travel to their blogs.
- Launch our new course in the first half of 2019!
This month’s screenshot again focuses on our Teachable school. This screenshot shows our 2019 course sales from our Teachable dashboard (January through July 2019). The $708,390 is the amount of sales, while $624,656 is the money we actually received…it is after affiliate income and credit card processing fees have been deducted.
We made $1,000,000 in earnings in our online course business for 2018 and we are thrilled about it! We are confident we will build upon that in 2019.
I dive further into our online course business in our monthly income reports on our site PeteandHeather.com
Our blog is our family business….a business that produces a substantial income for us and allows us to travel the world to some incredible destinations. It also provides us with access to amazing events that are simply not available to the general public.
As you might have guessed, this makes us big fans of blogging. The best part about it all is that it is a business that requires very little investment to start (only $59/yr or less with our recommended host), no inventory to buy, and can be done either full or part-time on your own schedule.
The sky is the limit for blogging and we would love to help you on your own journey!
Are you interested in blogging? The first step is to sign up for our FREE course:
Start A Money Making Blog – 5-day Email Crash Course – this free course is designed for new bloggers to help them start a money-making blog the right way
Also, we would love for you to join our Facebook group. This is a private group, so click the link to request access:
Start A Blogging Business Facebook Group – for those interested in starting a blog
So that’s it for the July 2019 Online Business Blog income report. Follow along each month as we detail our money-making efforts on the blog.
Remember, this is something that YOU can duplicate too. You just need to have a plan in place and be persistent in your efforts. Blogging or having an online business isn’t a get rich quick scheme and success doesn’t happen overnight. However, it is within reach for those willing to work for it.
