How Many Pageviews Do You Need to Make Money Blogging?

As a new blogger, I always wondered how many pageviews you needed to have to make money blogging. But when I spent time on Google trying to find the answer, I came up with nothing. And I spent a ton of time searching.

It was frustrating, to say the least.

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My pageviews and income.

I grew my blog to full time income in just 19 months (currently at 350,000 pageviews a month) and started working with other bloggers to help grow their blogs. As I got more experience working with bloggers, I answered my own questions.

I promised myself a long time ago to come back and write this article that I spent weeks unsuccessfully trying to find as a new blogger.

Because there’s nothing that you want to know more as a new blogger than how many pageviews you need to make money blogging!

The confusion with pageviews and income.

There’s a lot of confusion over how many pageviews you need to make money blogging. And for good reason. It’s hard for someone to give you a hard and fast number (but I will… bear with me) because there are so many variables that come into play.

I call it the “Do you know what you’re doing?” factor.

That means that if you have no idea what you’re doing or how to blog as a business, you could have hundreds of thousands of pageviews a month and be making just a few hundred dollars a month.

On the opposite spectrum, if you’re very experienced and know exactly what you’re doing… You could have 50,000 pageviews a month and be making $10,000/month from blogging easily. There’s even a cheat sheet called The First 10 Steps to a Profitable Blog that walks you through the things you have to get right in order to actually make money at this. You can get that cheat sheet for free here. 

The truth is, it’s not the pageviews that matter, it’s how you use them. But there’s a minimum number of pageviews where you should absolutely be earning a full time income (hold on…. we’re getting to that!)

 

The variables that affect how many pageviews you need to make money.

There are four main questions you need to ask yourself that affect the number of pageviews you need in order to make money.

• What kind of foundation have you set?
  • Is your content, titles, and graphics engaging?
  • Does your blog have a crystal clear focus?
• Do you have a newsletter list?
• How do you make money?
  • Ads?
  • Sponsored posts?
  • Affiliates?
  • Your own products?
• Is your audience engaged?
  • Does your audience care what you think?
  • Do they trust your opinion and seek your advice?

How many of those questions you answered yes to determine how much income you can make from the pageviews that you have.  The fact of the matter is that someone can make $5,000/mo with about 30,000 pageviews a month while someone else struggles making $500/month with 200,000 pageviews.

And that’s where most articles on the subject leave you. With a brief overview of why pageviews and income don’t always correlate closely.

But those articles drove me nuts when I was new.

So, we’re doing you one better.

At 100,000 pageviews a month, you should be blogging for full-time income.

How many pageviews you need to make a full-time income blogging.

If you have more than 100,000 pageviews a month on your blog (total pageviews, not unique) you should be blogging full-time (i.e. earning more than $3,500/month from your blog).

That doesn’t mean that the second you hit that 100,000/month pageview mark that someone will send you a check. It means that if you’re already at 100,000/month and you’re not pulling in full-time income then you’re doing something wrong (which is pretty common and isn’t a testament to your business sense or character at all).

How Many Pageviews Do You Need to Make Money Blogging?CLICK TO TWEET

That being said, if you have less than 100,000 pageviews and more than 30,000 pageviews a month, it’s possible to pull in full-time income from blogging if you really know what you’re doing.

Then the question becomes one of two things…

I’m not even close to 100,000 pageviews a month… How do I get to there?

Set a good foundation for your blog. If I thought I could teach it better than Elite Blog Academy, I would.  But I took Elite Blog Academy and that was the best course in the world for people who are trying to make a full-time income from blogging.

They took me from $18/month to full-time income in 10 months  and within 18 months this blog was supporting my whole family.

You need to work on the foundation of your blog. The foundation includes things like…

• The way your site looks
• The posts that you write
• The titles
• The graphics
• The content
• The structure of your blog.

Then you need to work on how to market your content effectively through social media (effectively being the operative word there).

Elite Blog Academy brings you through that step by step, but unfortunately, the class is only available once a year so you need to have almost perfect timing to get in. Your best bet is to get on the waiting list here…  

While you wait for the class to open up, your best bet is to go step by step through the First 10 Steps to a Profitable Blog worksheet and focus on each step in order. 

What? I have over 100,000 pageviews and make almost nothing from my blog! What do I need to do?

If you aren’t making a full-time income from blogging and you have over 100,000 pageviews then you’re probably equally excited and frustrated by this news. It’s not fun to waste time doing the wrong things!

Why aren’t you making money from blogging if you have over 100,000 pageviews?

First, you need to identify what you’re doing wrong…

• Are you self-hosted?
• Do you have a newsletter list?
• Are you in a premier ad network?
• Do you accept sponsored posts?
• Do you have an affiliate marketing strategy?

Those are the things that will directly affect your income.

 The order in which to increase your income if you have over 100,000 pageviews a month.

Get Self Hosted.

If you aren’t self-hosted, you should do that first.

You can grab hosting for only $3.49/month here. Need a step by step guide for those that suck at computers? You can find that here.

Get Better Ads.

Once you’re self-hosted,  join a premier ad network. Join Adthrive if you have over 100,000 pageviews a month or Mediavine if you have over 25,000 pageviews but haven’t cracked 100,000 yet.

There may be a waiting list, but this will give you an instant income boost. Just for an example, my RPM with Adsense and Media.net was $2 RPM and with Adthrive it’s $11 RPM.

So for the same 100,000 pageviews a month, I would be making $200/month in ad income with Adsense and Media.net or $1,300/month by switching to Adthrive (which will only accept your application if you have over 100,000 pageviews a month). Keep in mind that everyone’s RPM is different and I have a fairly aggressive ad strategy that you can read more about at the bottom of this post, but that’s a good example.

Focus on Your List.

Your email/newsletter list and affiliate marketing go hand in hand. The best course of action is to invest in the Core Affiliate Strategy which step-by-step leads you through how to make (a lot of!) income from affiliate marketing.

The best part of that strategy is that it teaches you how to grow your affiliate income as fast as possible without requiring you to work more hours by using the 80/20 rule.

When you have affiliates mastered, then I would analyze your current content. Make sure your foundation is solid going forward. If you’re kind of just “winging it” and still getting over 100,000 pageviews then you should absolutely grab Elite Blog Academy which sets the foundation of your blog as a business.

Elite Blog Academy covers everything from your content, your graphics, and the business structure and strategy. It’s AMAZING. I can’t recommend it enough. If you look at your titles, content, and graphics and you know that you have a solid strategy and that they’re converting well, then leave EBA on the table for now and focus on affiliate marketing.

My caution is that if you’ve been winging it and your getting over 100,000 pageviews a month then your potential is actually so much more than that. Elite Blog Academy would firm up your foundation and teach you how to blog from brainstorming to business structure. Again, it’s only available once a year so you need to have almost perfect timing. Your best bet is to sign up for the waiting list here.

How much are others making blogging and what are their pageviews?

Pinch of Yum – January 2016 Income Report – 5,905,833 pageviews – $70,000+ income.

Just a Girl and Her Blog – June 2016 Income Report – 450,000 pageviews- $32,913 income

Matthew Woodward – June 2016 Income Report -121,202 pageviews-  $19,357.38 income.

What Mommy Does- October 2015 Income Report– 316,403 pageviews- $7,495 income.

The Busy Budgeter (Me!) – May 2016 Income Report– 380,880 Pageviews – $22,930 income.

Believe in a Budget- January 2016 Income Report– 120,000 pageviews – $3,640.89 income.

Our Small Hours – January 2016 Income Report– 160,009 Pageviews – $2,668.78 income.

*While there are quite a few blogs that release income reports, few of them release their pageviews as well… If you decide to release your income report in the future, consider throwing your traffic report in as well, it helps new bloggers to see the correlation.  

That should answer every question you have about how many pageviews you need to make money blogging.

Update 11/16/2017: If you’ve got over 100,000 pageviews and are looking to increase your blog’s income, the FREE guide to Finding Affiliates that Work for You is a MUST GRAB. It even lists all of the top affiliate programs in every niche, organized by commission and topic. Grab it for FREE here for a limited time.