Food Blog Income Report July 2020

This food blog income report gives you a behind the scenes look at what it takes to run Midwest Foodie Blog as a full-time job that supports a family of three!

 

Let’s take a look at the stats for July…

TRAFFIC:

Pageviews: 518,645
Sessions: 410,827
Users: 317,310

Traffic Sources:

Social: 59.74%
> Pinterest: 97.65%
> Facebook: 1.64%
> BuzzFeed: 0.40%
> Instagram: .32%
Organic: 29.05%
Direct: 8.97%
Referral: 2.12%
Other: .06%
Email: .06%

For reference, at this time last year – in July of 2019, I had 59,375 page views with 47,067 sessions, and 37,693 users. 

INCOME:

This was my second full month with AdThrive and I’m still super happy that I switched. July RPMs were definitely lower than June, but that is to be expected as it’s the end of the fiscal year for many companies and also the beginning of the quarter. RPMs were starting to go up towards the end of the month which was great. But still, the RPMs I’m getting with AdThrive are the highest my blog has ever seen!

• AdThrive (income from ads): $8,571.00
  • average RPM (pageviews) of $16.53
  • average RPS (sessions) of $20.86
• Amazon Associates (affiliate income): $89.56

TOTAL PROFIT: $8,660.56

DONATIONS:

This month we donated $100 of our profits to Black Voters Matter Fund. Here is a quote from their site that shares a little bit about the important work that they’re doing:

“Black Voters Matter goal is to increase power in marginalized, predominantly Black communities. Effective voting allows a community to determine its own destiny. We agree with the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he said, “Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

We will continue donating each month to an organization that benefits the Black community. I will keep you posted on where we donate next month and would love any suggestions you may have for us!

EXPENSES:

Groceries: $200
Nerdpress (site maintenance): $122
Agathon (hosting): $70
ConvertKit (email service): $49
Canva (graphics for Pinterest): $13
Gsuite (email provider): $12
Lightroom (photo editing): $11
Tailwind (Pinterest scheduler): $10
Akismet (site security): $5
KeySearch Subscription: $8.50
Samsung Chromebook: $200
New Camera & Lens: $2425

TOTAL DONATIONS/EXPENSES: $3,228.50

PROFIT: $5,432.06

WHAT I’VE BEEN WORKING ON THIS MONTH:

Personal Stuff

• We are preparing to home school our 4 year old this Fall. And by “we” I mean I’ve been psyching my husband up to home school our daughter this Fall (since I spend most days working on the blog) 🙂 We recognize that we are very lucky to be in a situation where we have the option to keep our daughter home from school this year and the resources to teach her. Although cases in our neck of the woods of Wisconsin are lower that some of the hardest hit cities across the US, we still feel that keeping her home is the best choice for our family. I can appreciate that everyone does not have this option and do not hold judgement against anyone that has to send their kids to school or daycare. My hope is that children, teachers, and support staff are able to stay safe this school year.
• My friend Sarah over at Sustainable Cooks gave me a good reminder that even things not traditionally considered “schooling” still count towards your children learning. Measuring ingredients for a recipe = math. Helping with household chores = home economics. Planting seeds in the garden, watching them grow and then picking the tomatoes = science. There is a lot of learning to be had in the everyday moments that we share. That is exactly what I needed to hear right now. Although, she only 4 and to be honest I’m pretty sure if we did no formal “schooling” with her she still wouldn’t be too far behind by the time kindergarten rolls around. We didn’t have 3K in my day and all I remember of preschool (4K) was biting this one boy everyday (yes – I was a biter!) and peeing my pants under the easel (I remember frequently laughing so hard I couldn’t help it). So if you’re doubting your skills as a home school teacher, cut yourself some slack. You’re doing fine. Your kids will be fine. This too shall pass.
• On a bit of a sad note, our mini weiner dog, Bella is not doing well has passed away. Literally as I was writing this last night, she stopped being able to walk and we took her to the emergency vet. She just celebrated her 10th birthday in March and it’s all been downhill since then. She’s been losing weight but still eating and drinking. But she had a large hernia that was scheduled to be removed mid-August, and a small cut (from a tooth abscess) under her eye that required antibiotics. But just last week she developed another large mass on her side so we took her in for some blood work. We were still waiting for the results from that, when on Sunday she became extremely lethargic, her urine was dark orange and her gums and tongue were extremely pale. The vet was able to get us in about an hour after we called and said that she likely would have passed overnight if we hadn’t brought her in. They think that she had a tumor that was bleeding internally which is why she deteriorated so quickly. Because of her age, size, and weakness, she was not a great candidate for exploratory surgery and we made the very difficult decision to put her to sleep. We each got to snuggle her and basically bawl into her little blanket wrapped, snuggly, little body and say goodbye. It was absolutely heartbreaking and honestly I’ve been in bed ever since. She was the first dog of my very own and I am going to miss her very, very much. Also, I really appreciate all the love and support I’ve received after sharing this on my IG stories. Sincerely, thank you.

Business Stuff

• Pinterest is still rocking as far as blog traffic goes. BUT MY ACCOUNT GOT SUSPENDED A WEEK OR SO AGO. To say that I was FrEaKiNg out would be an understatement. It was a very shocking thing and then just like that, 12 hours later it was back. They said it was a mistake and they reactivated my account! I did not appear to lose any traffic during that time and my number of followers and views is still right where it was before. But it was still a very sleepless night waiting to hear what they said!
• I am continuing to make TONS of new pins, and have also started diving into my highest RPM posts, and creating new pins for those. I’m working through my highest RPMs now and just creating 5-10 pins for them and scheduling them through Tailwind. I haven’t seen a huge spike in increased income from this, but I think it will definitely pay off in the long run.
• I’m currently taking part in a mastermind class with Matt Molen which AdThrive has so graciously provided to all it’s publishers. JUST ONE MORE reason why I love them so much!!! It’s been super helpful in figuring out how to drive traffic to my best content through email. Email is something that has always kind of stumped me, but I feel like I’m finally starting to figure it out. Also, if you’re not signed up for my email list, first of all why not!?! And second of all, click here to sign up!
• I got a new camera!! I got a Canon 6D Mark II and a 100mm lens and I am IN LOVE. If you’re in the market for a new camera, I highly recommend this one! The flip out screen is a total game changer and the touch screen is divine. I can literally just touch the screen and it takes a picture! It’s considerably heavier than my Canon Rebel T5 and I am seriously debating getting a C stand because my cheap tripod is not holding up too well with the weight. Not quite ready to make that purchase yet though as I’m still having a bit of sticker shock from the camera/lens purchase.

WHAT I’LL BE WORKING ON NEXT MONTH:

Personal Stuff

• Trying to do better with logging off in the afternoon instead of working through the night. It’s just so hard when we can’t really go anywhere or do anything. I just find myself trying to do one more thing, and then one more thing. And then of course one more thing.
• Trying to take the same and space to grieve the loss of our fur baby. She was my Queen B and I am going to miss her so very much.

Business Stuff

• Working on the HashtagJeff course. Remember how this has been on my “to do” list for the last 4 months? Well, AdThrive is setting up small group audits with Jeff for all of their publishers so I am planning to just do that instead. Again – big thank you AdThrive for being SO freaking awesome!
• Continuing a new Instagram strategy. I tried increasing my posting frequency over the last month and saw great results! Although, I swear I get more followers on the days that I forget to post…which is frustrating to say the least. But I’m finding that I’m getting more engagement and more followers the more I post to my feed and my stories. I’ve also started using the hashtags again and am trying to implement some of the strategies outlined in this podcast. It’s a lot of work but I’m finding that I’m genuinely connecting with more people and gaining real followers. Although I’m still definitely getting the crazy follow/unfollow people which is not surprising I guess, but I kind of thought people were over that. Clearly, they are not – it’s depressing to look at the audience stats and see that in a week I had 300 people follow me and 230 unfollow me because I didn’t follow them back (or possibly just didn’t deliver the content they were looking for). But either way, let’s just stop with the follow/unfollow business – just follow who you want to and move on with your life!

As always, I want to thank you again for your continued support. I really appreciate each and every one of you. This blog would be nothing without my readers!!

DON’T FORGET TO CHECK OUT MY PREVIOUS INCOME REPORTS!