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Home Income Traffic and Income Report – December 2015 – $7,585

Traffic and Income Report – December 2015 – $7,585

by Jennifer Debth January 15, 2016
17 Comments

TrevorHeadHey everyone! Trevor here, bringing you another hot off the presses income report for this chilly month of December. Seriously, the heat is on in our apartment and I have an additional mini-heater blowing.

If you’ve been following along lately, today’s contains a special announcement that I hinted about last month that we’re really excited about!  Before we get to that though, let me talk you through the backstory and the numbers for December…

I know, I know, food blog… income report… huh? As always, the food will return shortly. I just polished off the last of the Vegan Flourless Chocolate Cake from Monday, so I feel confident recommending that one if you need something to tide you over 😉 Here’s a brief introduction to these traffic and income reports…

If you’ve stopped by our about us page, you know that Jennifer and I started this blog thirteen months ago with the hopes of it earning an income for Jennifer. I’ve since quit my job and we’re taking a calculated risk that we can make this blog both of our full-time jobs. We still have a long way to go before it’s to that place and we owe a lot of our realization that this was even a possibility to income reports like this. Our hope is that, for those interested, these reports can help to show what worked for us, the mistakes we made and that it is possible to make an income online doing something that you love if you work hard and stick with it.

None of these reports on their own tell the story of how to create, grow and monetize a blog. Think of each one as a chapter in a book that continues to be written. To get the full picture, I suggest looking at our traffic and income reports page where you can click into individual reports, like this one, to get the details.

Okay, enough with the backstory, let’s get on to the report and announcement…

Income: $7,585.44

AdThrive: $4,070.44
Sponsored Content: $2,066.67
Google AdSense: $892.47
Swoop: $316.33
BlueHost: $100.00 <– this is from our How to Start a Blog page
Amazon Affiliates: $52.90
Genesis Framework: $34.98 <– the framework our site is built on
Gourmet Ads: $26.85
YouTube: $24.84

Expense: $239.72

Synthesis Hosting: $87.33
Adobe Creative Cloud: $54.79
Capture One: $10.00
Tailwind: $11.00
Buffer: $10.00
OptinMonster: $16.60
VaultPress: $5.00
ActiveCampaign: $45.00

Net Profit: $7,345.72

BOOM!  That’s how we felt in December. What a great way to end our first full calendar year of blogging, probably the best Christmas present we could have asked for!  We are so thankful to anyone who represents any part of that graph, it means so much to us that you come to us to find something yummy. For those of you who just come hoping to see a picture of Teddy, you won’t leave disappointed, he makes an appearance below 🙂

While this was our biggest traffic and income month ever, we’re bracing ourself for next month to be our first down month in awhile… and it’s most likely going to be significantly down. Advertisers reset their budgets not only for the quarter, but for the entire year which means most likely our advertising income is going to drop in half.

Traffic-wise, we’re hoping that all of the new people that found the blog over the holidays decide to stick around, but we’ll just have to see. This is a great example of why it’s so important to make sure you’re putting out great content because on a recipe site like ours, a lot of people will try something once with two possible outcomes.  They love it and add you to their list of reliable recipe sources, maybe add a bookmark or follow you on social media. The other possibility of course is that they don’t like it which most likely means they won’t be running back to your site any time soon, you just ruined their dinner after all 😉 So always put out your best and never settle!

Tis the Season

What better time to talk about seasonality than the most recognizable season of the year.  We had several recipes featured in December on various recipe sites as well as BuzzFeed etc. (which we’ve talked about is all about preparation meeting opportunity) as part of “Holiday Roundups”.  Last month I mentioned Google Trends and I want to explain how that helps us to prepare for those potential seasonal opportunities. It’s actually really easy:

Plan ahead

Each month, we like to look ahead two months to see what holidays, events, etc. will be occurring.  From that information, Jennifer starts to brainstorm recipe ideas that seem like a good fit.  To test the ideas, she then pulls up google trends and enters the keywords that would describe that particular recipe. Ideally, we’ll see an upswing in the chart during the period we’re targeting, which means it would be a really good fit and has potential to get picked up and be timely for our readers.

Those recipes will then be put on the editorial schedule beginning anywhere from 4-6 weeks out depending on how many recipes and the size of the event.

Example

Valentine’s day is coming up in the middle of February.  Let’s go through the process above. I’m brainstorming and I want to see if a Molten Lava Cake would be a good recipe fit.  I head over to Google Trends and type in “Molten Lava Cake”, and here’s what I get back:

That’s a good sign.  It shows us that a lot of people search for a recipe like that around Valentine’s, we’re not crazy and just really hungry for cake, and we have an opportunity to try and maximize that traffic for us. Now what we’re going to do is make sure we get that post out toward the end of January or very beginning of February so that:

  1. Our readers have some time to plan for it and get it on their list of options to make and shop for.
  2. Google has some time to pick it up and hopefully rank it well.
  3. We have time to share it across various social media channels and recipe sites.
  4. Editors at those sites or that may be looking around for content can find it as they plan for their roundups that will most likely be created 0-10 days before the actual day.

So that’s our plan.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The most important thing is #1, our regular readers are getting something valuable that they have time to prepare for, turns out great and they share with their friends which can be more powerful than getting featured in any article.  We can also feature the recipe again the week or so before in a roundup this year, next year, and so on.

That’s the brief tip and insight for this week… now on to the announcement.

I’m excited to finally announce what I’ve been working on the last few months, The Blog Village, a membership site where blogs of all kinds will learn to create, grow and monetize their content. This project was inspired by our experiences in growing our blog over the last fourteen months and wanting to help others achieve success of their own.

It’s still in the development phase, but I, Trevor, will be starting to blog there regularly in the meantime as we continue preparing for the launch which is planned for the end of March.

And visit: theblogvillage.com to see my first blog post about the popular fast motion assembly videos that you’re seeing all over facebook, how we make them, the tools we use and important tips and tricks when creating them!

Here’s to an amazing 2016 for all of you!

Happy New Year from myself, Jennifer and Teddy!!!

New Years Eve 2015

Filed Under: Income

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  1. brita

    Nashville, Tennessee

    February 18, 2016 at 10:18 am

    Hi Trevor! I was wondering if you could give some insight on your sponsored posts. I’m specifically wondering if you work with a certain group that pairs you up with brands, if you reach out to companies yourself or how does that work for y’all? Thanks as always!
    Reply
    • Trevor @ Show Me the Yummy

      February 18, 2016 at 12:58 pm

      Hi Brita, Of course! I talked about it a little bit in an earlier comment from Warren you can read through above, but here’s a detailed breakdown: 2015 we did 2 posts via TapInfluence and the rest were from PR agencies. One of our 2016 goals is to be more proactive about reaching out and building more relationships with brands and PR agencies because to this point they have found us on their own. We’re also exploring other sites like TapInfluence that pair up brands and publishers. As soon as we have more experience with some of those sites, I’ll be sure to let you know! Let me know if there’s anything else you’re curious about!
  2. Alexander

    Austin, Texas

    January 26, 2016 at 10:34 am

    Hi Trevor Awesome income report. Im glad I found you. I have been keeping track of all the bloggers who track monthly income reports so I have officially added you to The Ultimate List of Blogger Incomes! Yay! Thanks
    Reply
    • Trevor @ Show Me the Yummy

      January 26, 2016 at 11:02 am

      Hey Alexander, that’s great! What a great compilation of blogs, thanks for including us 🙂
  3. Daria

    Denver, Colorado

    January 24, 2016 at 1:36 pm

    Thank you so much for sharing your findings! I am in the design stages of my very own blog/online pt website. I am curious to know how many posts you guys had on your website before you felt confident to make it live and began your advertising? Thank you for you answer in advance.
    Reply
    • Trevor @ Show Me the Yummy

      January 24, 2016 at 8:02 pm

      Hi Daria, If I remember correctly, Jennifer had 3-4 posts written and ready to go when we made the first post live. We wanted to have some ready in case anything went wrong we’d have a little buffer. In hindsight though, that really wasn’t necessary. My advice is just start posting sooner than later. If anything, you can wait until you’re comfortable with how everything looks before you start all of your social media efforts. Until you do that, the number of people that are finding your site will be pretty small… so don’t worry about everything being perfect. In my opinion, it’s much more important to just start making content live. As far as advertising goes, we had google adsense ads in place from the beginning and then slowly expanded into other ad networks. Hope that helps!
    • Daria

      Brighton, Colorado

      January 25, 2016 at 6:23 am

      This definitely helps, thank you Trevor! Good luck in the new year, can’t wait to see what you guys come up with.
    • Jennifer @ Show Me the Yummy

      January 25, 2016 at 8:12 am

      You’re welcome!! You too! 🙂
  4. Warren

    Redding, California

    January 17, 2016 at 10:14 pm

    Great job guys! That’s quite a leap from Nov-Dec. You’ve achieved what many newbie bloggers wished they could in just a year! It always puts a smile in my face when bloggers are able to have financial independence, doing what they love in a short period of time. On a side note, I’ve always wondered about sponsored content and how to attract sponsors – is it because of your huge audience and blog quality? Did they sought you guys out? Also, are payments negotiable? Anyway, keep up the good work and keep inspiring with what you do! Stay Creative, Warren
    Reply
    • Trevor @ Show Me the Yummy

      January 18, 2016 at 1:35 pm

      Hey Warren, thanks! It was a big jump! December is such a big ad spend month, January will be the opposite… so we’ll try to keep the December feeling going 🙂 Great question about attracting sponsors. Here is our experience: We’ve been primarily approached by PR agencies that have found us by seeing our content somewhere on the web, be it a BuzzFeed or other media feature, a recipe sharing site, etc. We also have used TapInfluence, which is a site that you can set up a profile that aggregates all of your traffic, social presence etc. and brands can make you offers. We do plan to be more proactive this year and attend some blogging conferences where you can also meet new brands. One big thing is to mention brands (in your posts, social media, etc.) if you use their products. It’s natural because you’re already a fan of the product, they’re watching and if they like what they see, they or a PR agency that represents them will reach out. Our first paid sponsor post was back in July and the month prior we had 150k pageviews which is good but not huge by any means when compared to what else is out there. I think the biggest thing is quality of content and consistency. A PR agency wants to make sure you’re going to bring value to the brand and they want to look good when they show their client what’s been produced for them. As they say, everything is negotiable. We start with what the current industry rate is and then adjust based what we’re producing and anything extra we’re doing. Hope that helps!
    • Warren

      North Pole, Alaska

      January 19, 2016 at 9:44 am

      Hey there Trevor, As always, you guys go above and beyond when answering my questions – I really appreciate that. I’m always informed and satisfied whenever I receive a reply. Thanks again for the help! Stay Creative, Warren
  5. Marina

    Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

    January 17, 2016 at 6:23 am

    This is such an exciting thing!!! Oh my gosh I cannot wait until March! Thank you for making this process so accessible for other bloggers, I’ll definitely be joining 🙂
    Reply
    • Jennifer @ Show Me the Yummy

      January 17, 2016 at 4:58 pm

      Thank you so much Marina!! We’re glad you’re excited, too! 🙂
  6. Jess

    Denver, Colorado

    January 15, 2016 at 7:43 pm

    Guys–this is awesome! I’m so happy for you and your record-breaking month! What an amazing way to end your first year of blogging. I hope 2016 brings even more satisfying results. I’m curious what your experience has been with posting income reports? I know that I personally love reading them (and find them SO helpful!) I’m curious if it feels emotionally vulnerable to share your income details, especially with people who know you? For some reason, it’s the people in real life that hang me up far more than the general internet population. Anyhow, I’d love to know how you’ve felt about it?
    Reply
    • Trevor @ Show Me the Yummy

      January 16, 2016 at 1:45 pm

      Hi Jess, Great question! It was definitely difficult to pull the trigger initially, but we’re so happy we did. Talking about income has always been taboo for whatever reason, but I think that’s changing with the rise of sites like Glassdoor where you can pretty much get an idea of how much anyone makes and other companies who have moved to full transparent salary disclosure, try googling “buffer salaries” to see what I mean. And honestly, after the first post we haven’t even thought twice about it, feedback has pretty much a been a universal thank you for sharing and it’s helpful to people. We hope it’s encouraging and also a reality check (stay tuned for a down month in January) for those looking to make a living online. We’ve found that the people we know have been even more supportive having that transparency out there. It lets them cheer you on or cheer you up and come along for the ride. For us, the number one question we get from people when we tell them we have a blog as our jobs is… So… How do you make money from that? I think that’s a question a lot of people have and we would not be where we are today if other people hadn’t shared their income reports and answered that question for us. Sometimes just knowing something is possible is all you need.

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