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In this post you will find out how I made $11 133 from food blogging in July 2023 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.
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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.
July 2023 Recap
I took the whole month of July off.
Yep, like a real Swede I took a 5 week vacation and only worked a tiny little bit during those weeks. It was nice, but I actually think I prefer to work.
What's exciting though is that I still had my 2nd best month ever - while chilling, reading books, and furnishing my new house. Now this is why we love the "passive" income!
Anyway. "Time off" for me did not mean time off for the blog. I still had posts going out and with the help of my VA managed to publish to MSN every single day.
This is exactly what I did this month:
Published 5 new recipes:
- Air Fryer Potato Skins
- Apple Cider Vinegar Salad Dressing
- Garlic Butter Shrimp Pasta
- Air Fryer Baked Potatoes
- Strawberry Muffins
Other things I did:
- Created 30+ new slideshows for MSN
- Republished 90+ slideshows on MSN
- Read 10+ books because that's what I do when I take time off!
July 2023 Traffic
| July 2023 | July 2022 | Growth | |
| Page views | 327 446 | 142 966 | 129% |
| Sessions | 295 209 | 136 274 | 116% |
Once again, I hit my highest traffic yet. July was ~10 000 page views above May, which is super exciting. And that growth versus last year is super exciting!
July 2023 P&L
Let's see what this traffic brought me in terms of monetary results!
July 2023 Income
| July 2023 | July 2022 | Growth | |
| RPM | $25.66 | $21.14 | 21% |
| Page RPM | $22.49 | $18.51 | 22% |
| Total Ad Income | $7 220 | $2 712 | 166% |
MSN: $3 784
Amazon: $129
Total income: $11 133
July 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: $557 (still recipe testing despite the vacay!)
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: $66
Canva* (for making collages & printables): $10
Akismet (site security): $7.50
WPRM: $6.80
Jetpack: $2.50
Shutterstock: $354 (for images for MSN posts)
VA: $1 020
Total expenses: $2 942
April 2023 Profit
| Income: | $11 133 |
| Expenses: | -$2 942 |
| Profit: | = $8 191 |
The profit above does not take into account taxes.
Goals and Plans for August
I'm super excited for this fall and full of energy after my vacation. Let's see where we can take it for the final part of this year!
August Goals
Pageviews: 350 000
Total income: $12 500
August Action Plan
- Post at least 4 new recipes
- Post at least 2 new resources & roundups
- Publish 1-2 new slideshow per day to MSN
- Republish 4 slideshows per day on MSN
- Quit doing web stories - they are really not giving enough results to be worth it for me at this point
- Hire another VA to help me with MSN
- BE SMART! MSN is giving great traffic and who knows how long this will be the case. It also gives great RPMs! So doubling down on that for now.
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
Emmeline
Emma
Hello, What is MSN?
Emmeline Kemperyd
Hi Emma,
This is MSN: https://www.msn.com/en-us
I post slideshows to MSN and in return get a share of ad revenue.
/Emmeline