This post may contain affiliate links, which are always marked with *. Please read my disclosure for more information.
In this post you will find out how I made $18 059 from food blogging the past month, and what I'm doing to grow my traffic even further. I hope you will get as much value from these, as I have from other bloggers' income reports! Find all the income reports here.
Jump to:
Why I share my income reports
I decided to start sharing my income reports for four reasons:
- Keep myself accountable! What better way to make sure I reach my goals, than to share them with you?
- Give back! I've found so much value from other bloggers' income reports over the years, it's time I started sharing what's working for me as well!
- De-mystify blogging! Food blogging is a marathon, not a sprint - and entirely possible to succeed with.
- I love sharing my journey! And I hope you enjoy following along.
Why This Is My Final Income Report
This will be my last income report, at least for now. I made a commitment to myself that I would do them for a year, and see what results I could create during that time. And wow, the results have blown me away!
A big goal for this year was to find another income source, besides display ads on my site. I now make a big chunk of money from a source I didn't even know about a year ago, and this source also sends me lots of traffic.
If I hadn't done these income reports and so publicly committed to finding new revenue streams, I'm not sure I would have put in all that effort and got the needle moving.
That being said, I did what I set out to: I documented my efforts for a year. After a year I can now close the books knowing I tripled my traffic and increased my income by a factor of six (from ~$3 000 in August 2022 to over $18 000 in August 2023).
August 2023 Recap
I got back to work in August after a 5-week summer vacation. Full of energy and excited to get back to work - and what a month it turned out to be!
I got lucky quite a bit this month, but I also worked hard - and as the famous Swedish skier Ingmar Stenmark once said "The more I practice, the more luck I have." I truly believe luck is a factor in most success, but luck also comes easier to those who work their butts off.
More specifically, this is how I worked my butt of this month:
Published 3 new recipes:
Published 2 new resources and roundups:
Other things I did:
- Created 60+ new slideshows for MSN
- Republished 120+ slideshows on MSN
- HIRED MY BEST FRIEND! She's now working for me one day per week, helping me update MSN content, and I am super pumped to actually have some company for this year's office Christmas party.
August 2023 Traffic
| August 2023 | August 2022 | Growth | |
| Page views | 467 957 | 149 820 | 212% |
| Sessions | 388 140 | 137 851 | 182% |
August traffic was insane. The month overall was fine, and then the final two days were through the roof thanks to Google Discover sending me loads of traffic.
I ended up with more than 60 000 page views per day for those two final days of August, which drove my total traffic for the month to a new record high. And what a record! Far surpassing my earlier best months.
August 2023 P&L
Let's see what this traffic brought me in terms of monetary results!
April 2023 Income
| August 2023 | August 2022 | Growth | |
| RPM | $34.53 | $21.87 | 58% |
| Page RPM | $27.59 | $19.21 | 44% |
| Total Ad Income | $12 530 | $2 967 | 322% |
My ad income alone for August was above $12 000, which is insane, and more than 4x what it was this time last year. To say I am happy with these results is far too mild.
As you can see, my RPMs are also up a lot. Google Discover traffic brings amazing RPMs and my highest day was around $75 RPM for the day. However, my RPMs are up in general as well, thanks to both MSN traffic and my increase in US traffic.
MSN ad income: $5 420
Affiliate: $108.70
Total income: $18 059
August 2023 Expenses
I run my own business full time and divide my time between food blogging and business consulting. Here I only include the expenses that are directly related to my food blog - other shared expenses like cell phone costs, company car, new computer, etc. are not included here.
Groceries: $324
Nerdpress: $379 (these guys are my lifesavers!!)
The Insiders Mastermind: $395 (this is how I can publish to MSN!)
Keysearch: $14
RankIQ*: $29 (RankIQ has really helped me grow my traffic!)
Lightroom & Premiere Pro: $45
Feast Plug-in*: $8
Big Scoots hosting*: $48
ConvertKit: $48
Canva* (for making collages & printables): $10
Akismet (site security): $7.50
WP Recipe Maker: $6.78
Jetpack: $2.50
Shutterstock: $354 (images for MSN slideshows)
VAs: $800
Total expenses: $2 489
August 2023 Profit
| Income: | $18 059 |
| Expenses: | -$2 489 |
| Profit: | = $15 570 |
The profit above does not take into account taxes.
Goals and Plans for September
September Goals
Pageviews: 375 000 (I don't expect to surpass August!)
Total income: $15 000
September Action Plan
- Post at least 4 new recipes
- Post at least 2 new resources & roundups
- Publish 2 new slideshows per day to MSN
- Republish 5 slideshows per day on MSN
I hope you got some value out of this income report. If you did - please leave a comment below and let me know what was most valuable to you! And if you have any questions, please reach out through commenting or by sending an e-mail to emmeline@alwaysusebutter.com
All the best luck for Q4, it's almost here!
Emmeline
Comments
No Comments