Have you ever wondered how much money I make? In this article, I will explore how much money I made in the year 2022.
I have seen quite a number of videos on YouTube of creators talking about how much they made and their monetization challenges and experiences. I found these videos interesting and motivating so I said, why not? I decided to share my own story to help motivate fellas out there and give them an insight into my own journey.
Spoiler alert: Despite the usual ‘How much money I madeā stories you have read or watched, this one is different.
I do not talk about how I made vast loads of moneyābecause I did not make it, but that’s the twist!
Letās dive right in as we explore how much money I made in 2022 as a blogger, freelancer and law student based in Uganda.
My blogging Journey
Fact: I got into blogging accidentally. Curious to know how?
Read on;
After the pandemic, around 2021, I became curious about creating my personal portfolio website. I just wanted to establish my online presence so that any person looking for Kityo Martin could easily find him.
So, here we go.
I managed to create one and discovered it started to feel blank. I started sharing some blog posts of what happened in my life, motivation and inspirational stories, sharing school notes to help other law students like me.
After a while, I stumbled on the so-called ‘blogging‘. I realized there was so much more I could do than just having a portfolio site expressing myself and my skills. That there was much potential to discover and make money along the way.
So I got curious and started learning more about blogging and SEO.
Monetization Journey
Fast forward, I applied for AdSense, and I got rejected several times. I couldn’t notice what the issue was at first, but I finally realized it.
I ran my site through various audits to determine what was making it fail. I later found it, and it was an article that scored a high plagiarism score due to the multiple quoted sources. I unpublished it and successfully applied for AdSense once again.
I got accepted this time!
I was so excited, expecting millions of dollars to drop into my account daily.
Guess what?
It was the opposite.
That wasnāt the case, they lied, and all the money-making videos and blogs I read online were a scam š£
I hardly made a buck in my early days.
I barely got traffic to my site, and things started frustrating me. I later disabled ads because they didn’t make sense. They made my site’s speed degrade, yet I earned nothing.
Within this time, I researched a lot on how to drive traffic to my site, and gladly came across SEO and learned the nitty gritty.
I purchased an expired domain name Workaguide.com which had authority in Googleās eyes since it had aged well (2018)
And yeah, it started to work. I started receiving some tiny bits of traffic and got my Got my AdSense verified by then. When I saw things sparking, I decided to start a professional site on WordPress, which changed everything for me.
Toward the end of the year, the site had already picked up and was gaining some traffic. I started seeing some bucks earned in my AdSense dashboard, and I got motivated.
Income Streams
This article will explore four income streams that helped me make money in 2022.
- AdSense
- Affiliate Marketing
- Freelancing
- Graphic Designing
AdSense
There are two modes of making money with AdSense. The first is through clicks on ads, and one where a publisher is paid for impressions on ads (RPM). A publisher gets show ads on their website and pays money for impressions and clicks those ads generate.
So, if a user visits my website and finds an ad they are interested in, they click it, and I earn money for that.
The other model is where Google pays per 1000 views on your website or YouTube channel.
My RPMs (Revenue Per Mile) were low at the start of the year, ranging from 0.03 to 0.5 $. That is low, considering some creators reach about $10 RPM and above.
When I enabled ads in October 2022, my RPMS skyrocketed towards the end of the month. This is when advertisers are willing to bid highly on ad placements. There is usually a lot of activity and promotions like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
In total, I made $82 from AdSense
Affiliate Marketing
I made a total of 2 affiliate sales totalling $100. Affiliate sales are pretty profitable, but I still need to learn what makes their clock tick to make them stable.
Freelancing
I started Freelancing as early as 2021. I created profiles on all prominent freelancing platforms like Upwork and Fiverr.
The truth is, I didn’t get any gigs until late 2022, when I got my first client on Upwork. In August 2022, I got my first client on UpWork; everything was history. The client was impressed by my work and ethic; she gave me a 5-star review which spiked by demand in the industry for SEO writing and translation job categories.
Graphic Designing
This is one of the self-taught skills I have learned that I didnāt expect could earn me money. I entirely use Canva Pro to develop designs, and I do not use Photoshop since I do not know how to use its features. It is impressive how this drag-and-drop tool has helped to make a superhero of graphic design.
I managed to make $150 on the side by designing flyers, posters, Christmas cards etc., for clients.
How Much Money I Made in 2022
The total amount of money I made in 2022 as a Ugandan blogger/freelancer/law student from all the above ventures adds up to $994, which is approximately $1000.
Now that figure might look small or a lot to you; it entirely depends on how you perceive it. This figure is satisfying and motivating as a student who is not doing this full-time but just as a side hustle.
2022 was better than the previous year, 2021, when I barely thought I would make such money entirely from the internet.
I do not spend on rent, shelter, food, clothing or anything that requires expenditure since I am still in the custody of my parents. As a person in my 20s, this is the time to build assets that will work wonders for me as time goes by.
My earnings for 2022 give me a clear picture of where I am headed and the success I achieved in such a short time.
Conclusion
So, even with a few views, I earned a considerable amount with ads towards the end of 2022.
Even though I got monetized early, my sites did not earn much of a penny, and I reached and extent of disabling ads.
It is not actually how much I made but the satisfying progress. That alone fueled my motivation and made me realize that ‘Oh, you can earn money online in Uganda.‘
My Journey has been a challenging one. I had to endure and be patient for over a year before I saw any glimmer of hope.
Because I almost quit because of a lack of money to pay for hosting, this is a significant milestone.
2022 was a phase in my online businesses where all my side hustles showed me that they could generate income.
2023 will be the year where I make this income stable and later scale.
My first AdSense paycheck will cater for operational bills like hosting, a significant expense I have to incur to run Workaguide.com.
And for this, I will opt for the 2-year hosting plan from Hostinger. This is relatively cheap and affordable. It will help me focus on growing and scaling my content and revenue.
Hopefully, when the two years elapse, I will have generated enough revenue to upgrade to a higher hosting package that can handle my siteās traffic.
To anyone struggling to make things work, getting traffic to your site, landing your first freelance client, or earning your first dollar online, things make sense sometimes.
All I can tell you is to keep going; don’t stop.