Welcome to our 8th month at RecipeThis.com and this is our food blogging and income report for what we got up to in June of 2016.
For two weeks of June we were on holiday in Spain. It was a eight hour drive there and the same back and we stayed at a lovely hotel in the Costa Almeria region of the country that is famous for its yummy tapas and its delightful Spanish culture.
Even though it is 700 kilometres away from our front door it never really feels like there is that much in difference between Portugal and Spain. And from the point of view of someone like me that is very passionate and very obsessed with food it was great to be there.
I ate a lot of tapas and loved swapping the Atlantic Ocean for the Mediterranean Sea. But at the same time as doing all this we were grounded and new we still had a blog to run and that we were not going to allow a holiday to stop our readers from still enjoying the same reader experience.
I send out emails sometimes and I am shocked when I get an email back two months later apologising that they have not responded because they have been on holiday and only just got around to getting back to me. These are the kinds of people that I don’t do business with, because I want to mix with reliable people that I know will get back to me in a few days. Plus with many things being seasonal what I have emailed them about in January would not necessarily apply in March.
But at the same time I don’t work more than an hour a day while on holiday. I plan my blog content in advance and at the time of going on holiday our content was six weeks in advance. Here on our return we were a month ahead with the content for weeks 5-8 already planned and ready to get started on when we got home.
Each day while I was on holiday I sent out my social media updates, answered emails and made sure that everything was running smoothly, all from the comfort of my hotels free Wifi service. Many people would have not even noticed any difference at all and didn’t even know I was away!
But when you fall into the trap of no content while you are on holiday it means that it will have a negative effect on your readership, your SEO and your social media which is never a good thing.
Though what I found made things easier, was knowing that when I got back and had loads of unpacking to do that at least I didn’t have to worry about content that week. I could have an extra week off and then get back into recipe production mode the week after.
So if you are planning on going on holiday this summer, then pre-plan things so that your blog can grow at the same time.
Our Food Blogging Income During June 2016
Food Blogging Consulting & Management = $2093.84 (hire us by the hour to coach you here)
Free Physical Products = $298.12 (read all about how to connect with brands even if you have little traffic)
MediaVine = $124.62
Sponsored Review = $125.00
Draft2Digital = $69.42
Kindle = $51.10
Social Media Ads = $50.00
Aweber = $8.70
Google Play = $3.10
Amazon Associates = $2.64
Amazon CPM Ads = $1.17
Total Revenue = $2827.71
Our Food Blog Expenses During June 2016:
Virtual Assistants = $205.00
Shutterstock = $135.00
Tailwind = $107.88
Bing Ads = $42.10
Knownhost = $36.00
Aweber = $29.00
Sumo Me = $20.00
Hubstaff = $15.00
Bluburry = $12.00
Freelance Writers = $9.15
Max CDN = $9.00
Blog Vault = $9.00
DMCA = $5.99
Total Expenses = $527.24
This leads to a total income from Recipe This For June 2016 of $2300.47
With the income and expenses things are about to change a lot for us at Recipe This. For example due to England leaving the European Union (or soon to leave) the exchange rate between the pound and the dollar is terrible meaning that paying for things is now a lot more than it was before. I was paying lots of bills last week and realised that it cost me $150 more than it did the month before due to the currency differences.
So we don’t want things to cost us more than they should so we are working at increasing our income and on driving down the expenses. So you’re probably wondering why we paid for Tailwind this month?
Well we are all for driving down costs but it also has to be a case of what makes us money or builds up our traffic is worth keeping verses something that isn’t working and is a drain on our finances.
Read How @recipe_this made over $2k Last Month From Food BloggingClick To Tweet
The following will of course be going:
Aweber – We are at less than 1000 subscribers and don’t have the time to work on our mailing list at the moment with us having other priorities. So our lists have been transferred to Mailchimp which is free for the first 1000 subscribers and then we will gladly pay for MailChimp when we need to. But the priority is that we can at least let our subscribers know when we post to our blog.
Bing Ads – The point of Bing Ads was to kickstart our blog from when it started. You can get good PPC (pay per click) for as little as $0.03 and it’s a good way to start when your blog is new. But once your blog is hitting 1000 page views a day and has regular social media shares you really don’t need it. If I am promoting a particular product or bring out my own products I will go back to using it.
Sumo Me – I got Sumo Me as a way to have a social share button on my site for Tumblr and Yummly as many of the sites don’t include this two. But the problem is that $20 a month is a lot just for the sake of 2 buttons that are not user friendly. We have found a replacement and will be rolling it out in early July. But if you are using Sumo Me make sure you’re aware that it is not suitable for using on Tablets and other similar sized devices.
Then from an income point of view we are working more on monetising the site. In the old days we would have gone after banner ad sales from fellow product owners, but with banner ads on their way out we will be looking more at social media mentions, social media shares, recipe featuring reviews of products and of course giveaway events. So watch this space for how we get along.
Recipe This Blog Traffic June 2016
Since we started Recipe This back in mid November every month has involved a traffic climb. I like the idea that you always do that little bit better than you did the month before and you are steadily growing. Then getting those amazing traffic figures that you’re desperate for is not so out of your league.
But June was that dreaded month when you end up with less traffic than the month before.
The reason?
Well the reason was simple and one many of you that have been around will be aware of and that is the summer crash. The fact that in the summer people are too busy enjoying themselves to care about what to cook and are having their summer nights out, days at the beaches and the holidays.
I also noticed that when I had my diet site the same thing would happen. It would go up by 25% in sessions in the first 3 months of the year and then in the summer lose a lot of traffic. And then it would suddenly return again.
But from a percentage point of view our traffic has only dropped by 14% so I can’t complain too much. But on further analysis of my traffic I have found that our SEO, Tumblr & Pinterest traffic is increasing.
Here is our traffic for June 2016:
As you can see it has regular traffic and it is still averaging at 1000 page views a day. When I consider that the site is not even a year old yet I really shouldn’t complain about it too much!
Another thing we noticed is that on previous months we would have a day or two when we went viral and had a 1500-1800 page views and then go back down to the typical 1000 page views days, but we never had a viral day in June. On the plus side this means that over the month that we have been consistent and that our traffic is naturally staying at that level via recipe submissions, social media and SEO.
Here is how our traffic has climbed since we started in November:
When I look back and see all those page views it is amazing to see it growing and if I am ever having a bad day on my site I look at this as it really cheers me up.
I also like the idea that you focus on ten top sources of traffic. 10 types that bring you regular traffic and add up to the majority of your visitors to your site. Some of us will have different results but all in all we will tend to have the same main ones. But as your blog grows you will start to appreciate what they are and then you can work on those and turn that 1000 visitors a month into 10,000 and then into 100,000 and then before you know it you’re getting a million visitors a month to your site.
Here is the top 10 traffic sources for Recipe This:
Well there are technically 11 here but I do count Facebook as one