Greetings from Seattle, WA!
Lindsay and I are on the last leg of a Tour de West Coast. Lindsay is attending a photography workshop today and I’m hanging out at Roy Street Coffee & Tea putting together this month’s income report. Thanks to you Seattleites for sharing your city with us. It’s beautiful and inspiring.
If this is your first time reading one of these reports here’s the quick back story:
Three years ago Lindsay and I started something called “The Food Blog Money Making Experiment.” We promised to publish a post every month where we’d provide a “behind the scenes” look at what we were doing to grow the blog’s traffic and income.
If you’d like to look through the past reports you can do so on this page.
We’ve learned a lot over the past three years while doing this experiment, but the most important thing we’ve learned is showcased in the results of the experiment itself: Growing a blog (or business or non-profit) takes time and a lot of work. It doesn’t happen overnight, in a few months, or even in a year. Are there exceptions to that? Sure. But the vast majority of full-time bloggers have been doing it for a long time and have been working really hard during that time.
We’ve talked in previous reports about what hard work looks like when building a blog. There’s grit, 1% ∞, and thinking like a cross country star (not a tennis star).
Another simple but critical skill is the ability to focus on one thing.
When you’re building a blog there are thousands of things that you could be working on (no exaggeration), but the most important thing for you to be working on is the thing that you’re working on.
Said differently, one of the biggest competitive advantages that someone can have in today’s work world is the ability to focus on a single task until it’s done.
Think about this: What if you (1) developed your ability to focus on a single task while (2) improving your skills and knowledge in that area (3) over an extended period of time?
You could do some incredible things if you did that.
It’s easier said than done though, isn’t it?
There’s unanswered emails, the new iPhone, a new level of Angry Birds, that text message that just came through, Madden 15 (no? just me?), a new follower on Instagram, your favorite news site, and a laundry basket that’s spilling over the top.
There are hundreds of things that are trying to steal our focus, and the problem is that they’re pretty darn good at it.
So how do you recapture that focus?
What about doing less in order to do more? Is there something that you need to cut out of your life that will allow you to focus without feeling completely distracted or stressed?
On Pinch of Yum, we’ve started to hire support staff to help with different social media channels – right now we have an intern working on community management for Pinch of Yum Pinterest and Facebook. We also have an admin who manages all our submissions to food sharing sites and optimizes some of the existing Food Blogger Pro videos. And then there’s our beloved accountant who does everything that we don’t want to (read: can’t) do on our own.
In the life department, we have made the intentional decision to bring on a team to complete all the steps of our kitchen remodel rather than doing it ourselves, which would inevitably result in a) stress from us trying to do remodeling things that we don’t know how to do, and b) yet another distraction that would prevent us from doing what we’re actually good at doing.
The bottom line: You don’t have to do it all, in your business or in life. We sure don’t!
Pick your priorities, focus on them, and don’t feel guilty about moving some things (even if they’re good things) to the back burner.
If you’re looking to take this concept to the next level I’d suggest reading Essentialism by Greg McKeown. It rawks.
Let’s take a look at the numbers for September.
Income
- BlogHer (now SheKnows) – $7,277.11
- Bluehost – $7,130 –> this income comes from a page where we show people how to start a food blog in three easy steps.
- Sponsored Posts/Speaking – $5,650.00
- sovrn – $5,534.49
- Tasty Food Photography – $3,483.25
- Yellow Hammer Media – $1,935.44
- Ziplist – $846.53
- Everyday Healthy eCookbook – $474.25
- Swoop (via BlogHer) – $923.53
- Genesis Theme – $906.18
- Google AdSense – $533.74
- Gourmet Ads – $424.32
- The Creamy Cauliflower Sauce eCookbook – $324.00
- Say Media – $176.54
- How to Monetize Your Food Blog eBook – $120.00
- Elegant Themes – $118.00
- Thesis Theme – $93.72
- SkimLinks – $51.31
- AWeber – $17.10
Total Income: $36,019.51
Expenses
- Flights/Hotel/Travel – $1,663.81
- eBook Affiliates – $993.89
- Food Expenses – $947.09
- Media Temple (Hosting) – $728.10
- Amazon S3 and Cloudfront – $468.73
- Support Staff – $330.19
- Gift Card for Giveaway – $307.94
- PayPal Transaction Percentage – $253.17
- VSCO Actions – $208.25
- MailChimp – $150.00
- Facebook Ads – $108.43
- Kitchen Supplies – $101.24
- LeadPages – $67.00
- Office Expenses – $60.25
- Adobe Creative Cloud – $53.55
- PayPal Website Payments Pro – $30.00
- ViralTag – $28.00
- QuickBooks – $26.95
- Audio Jungle – $20
- E-Junkie – $18.00
- VaultPress – $15.00
- Time Doctor – $9.99
- Rafflecopter – $7.99
Total Expenses: $6,597.57
Net Profit: $29,421.94
If you’re interested in learning more about some of the ways that you can monetize a food blog, we encourage you to download this free ebook, “16 Ways to Monetize Your Food Blog,” from our sister site, Food Blogger Pro!
Thoughts On Income
Amazon Affiliate Program in Minnesota
Amazon finally allowed Minnesota back into their affiliate program at the start of October.
Before October Minnesota wasn’t allowed because Amazon wasn’t collecting sales tax on orders made in Minnesota (it’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s the basic reason). Amazon recently changed this and is now collecting sales tax on orders made in Minnesota, which has allowed Amazon to open their affiliate program back up to residents in Minnesota.
We’ll soon start experimenting with different ways to use Amazon affiliate links throughout Pinch of Yum. If you’re interested in getting an inside look at what we plan on doing you can check out the 5 Ways We Plan to Use Amazon Affiliate Links post on the Food Blogger Pro blog.
Advertising on Facebook
Understatement: Facebook advertising is powerful.
It’s amazing how detailed you can get when creating targeted Facebook ads. There are some really awesome things we could be doing with Facebook ads but it’s currently not the time for us to be spending a lot of time with Facebook (see beginning part of this post).
That being said, I wanted to have a basic understanding of Facebook ads, so I took a few hours to create an ad that pointed to a page on Pinch of Yum with affiliate links.
The good news? We came out with a profit!
The bad news? The grand total was two cents. Literally, $.02.
After spending $114.98 on Facebook ads we earned a total of $115. I consider it a success as a proof of concept and something that I might be revisiting when time allows.
The thing that really fascinates me about a setup like this is that it’s extremely scalable because the traffic is purchased as opposed to earned via organic search and social media. If you can make $101 dollars for every $100 you spend then there’s little risk in spending money advertising.
That being said, paid advertising is a foreign space for me, so I’m approaching with caution. For now, we’ll take the $.02 and buy a couple of Tootsie Rolls. #datenight
Video Ads
We’ve been fighting a mean fight with auto-play ads with audio.
They’re terrible. We apologize if you’re run into them. If you still continue to see them, especially the weird one with the sheep-goat baaaing and the dog on the skateboard (?!), please let us know. If the issue continues, we’ll have to pull the plug with certain ad networks. We really can’t afford to have “bad tenants” renting Pinch of Yum’s digital real estate.
rpm
RPM stands for page revenue per thousand impressions. RPM shows you the average revenue you earn from every 1,000 page views on your blog. It’s a helpful metric because it allows you to see how effective you are at monetizing your blog.
Below is the RPM that we had for Pinch of Yum in the month of September.
Traffic
Below are some screenshots from Google Analytics. You can click on these images to view a larger size.
Traffic Overview
Top Ten Traffic Sources
Mobile Vs. Desktop Traffic
Thoughts On Traffic
YouTube
We’ve started posting some videos to the Pinch of Yum YouTube Channel. Did you see the one of Lindsay smashing the wall with an ax? 🙂
I’m really excited about the potential that video holds. However, one place it doesn’t (yet) have an impact for Pinch of Yum is traffic.
That’s a grand total of 40 sessions from YouTube in September. It’s nothing to write home about (then again, I’m writing about it in this report, which my parents read, which is kind of like writing home).
The biggest potential that YouTube holds isn’t the potential to drive thousands and thousands of visitors to your blog, but the potential to connect with readers and build a relationship with them, which I would consider more important than traffic. After all, it’s better to have 1,000 readers that care than 100,000 that don’t care.
Have you ever met someone in person that you’ve watched on video? It’s kind of like you already know them.
Have you ever met someone in person that you’ve only read, not seen on video? Did it catch you off guard a bit how they looked, acted, or sounded?
That’s why video is powerful – it allows us to “know” each other better than just written content does.
Is it scary to jump in front of the camera and press record? You bet.
Is it worth it? We think it is.
Viral Posts
50% of Pinch of Yum’s traffic comes from 10% of the posts. That means that out of 600 posts, 50–60 of them are driving half of the traffic to the blog. These are kind of like Pinch of Yum’s hit songs. They’re the ones that people know, recognize, and share.
Needless to say, having a “viral post” will give your blog a huge bump in traffic, just like writing a hit song will give a musician a huge boost in their music career.
We often get emails from people asking how to write a really popular post, and the answer is much simpler (but not easier) than people think. I share more in a post called Viral Posts and Hit Songs on the Food Blogger Pro blog.
I also share about having a song of mine featured on MTV (teaser!).
Blogging As a Business
Lindsay and I are humbled and grateful for the growth that Pinch of Yum has experienced. We feel a (positive) sense of obligation to continually and consistently create content that is helpful and inspiring.
One of the ways that we feel that pressure is with these income reports. We want to continue to find creative ways to grow and monetize Pinch of Yum so we can report back and share what we’ve learned about creating an income from a food blog.
Part of the pressure we feel is to report back each month with numbers that are higher than the previous month.
But the reality is that won’t always be the case, and while it’s hard to say for sure what will happen, we anticipate the next season of Pinch of Yum to be a building phase, which means that we’ll be incurring more expenses in order to build the business.
We report the profit on these income reports (profit = revenue minus expenses), which means that during this building phase the income report profit totals will most likely go down.
Many readers won’t know why this is happening because they’re “check and go” income report readers, which is totally okay and expected. But I’m really excited that not everyone is a “check and go” reader.
How do I know that?
Because you’re still reading even though it’s the last few paragraphs of a 2,000-word post about generally hard to read stuff like numbers and analytics. **high five**
We’re excited that you’re part of this journey as we continue learning about building and growing a successful blog. We have some really exciting stuff in store. We’re thankful that we can share it with you.
I’ve polished off my mocha and Lindsay should be wrapping up soon, so it’s time for me to close down my laptop.
One more thing before I go:
Because Of You
It’s because of you that this thing we call Pinch of Yum can exist as it does today. Thanks so much for reading, tweeting, commenting, emailing, and sharing these recipes with your families and friends. We love hearing from you!
This month the special project that we’re focusing on is buying birthday gifts for the kids at the Children’s Shelter of Cebu, an incredible orphanage in the Philippines where we lived and worked for a year.
When we lived in the Philippines, attending these kiddos’ birthday parties was always a bright spot in our long, hot days. There were always big smiles, loud singing, and plenty of rice, chicken, and birthday cake.
We really think of this as the Pinch of Yum readers supporting CSC right along with us. Thank you for standing with us to give these kids the care, love, and special birthday attention they deserve as they wait to meet their forever families.
i always get inspired & motivated after seeing your incoem reports.
I’ve been considering adding blogging as a way to further engage with and reach prospective and existing clients. I just stumbled on this series and all I can say is “Wow!” Your willingness and generosity in sharing all this information and the step by step explanations you provide are nothing short of mind-blowing.
Thanks so much – because I think I now have the confidence to finally tackle blogging as a way to continue growing my business.
– Jessica
It’s pretty shocking that you’re admitting to making over $29k yet in your income expenses, you’ve listed
Support Staff – $330.19.
Wait. You have admin, accountant and an intern? Why is this amount so small for so many people supporting you? I actually greatly appreciate you for giving us a look into what blogging at this level entails, but I’ve just lost complete respect for you and this site. Interns should be paid Lindsay and Bjork, and judging by this number, someone isn’t getting paid, and my guess is that it’s not the accountant.
You have proven that you two make enough money month on month to pay your intern instead of using them for slave labour. But as you mentioned, the remodelling of your kitchen is far more important than paying for someone to manage your social media. I hope your intern isn’t getting the impression that this job will land them a real job, because a real job pays. I mean, that’s why you both quit your jobs right? To make money blogging?
All of our support staff are paid. During September we were not paying our intern yet because she started working for Pinch of Yum in October, and if you look at that income report you will see that reflected in the payout to our support staff. To be clear, all of our support staff work just a few hours each week with the exception of our accountant who works even less than that. Thanks for your concern Kennedy.
Hi Bjork! You’ve probably mentioned this somewhere but I’m curious about how you got your RPM so high when one of your biggest $ networks, BlogHer, does not allow backfill?
This is probably going to be too long to qualify as a comment, but here we go….I am overwhelmed by the generosity you have shown in sharing all of this information! I’ve been to your site over the years for recipes mostly linked from foodgawker though I never fully engaged…It was just this week that I found this particular series. Having worked most of my life in the corporate world where there is data to look at every hour if you choose and lots of points of comparison, going into the food blog world was like a big black hole. Don’t get me wrong, I have my data, but no relative comparison to know if my performance is good, bad or indifferent. Just watching the trends from my own site and trying to glean everything I can from them.
I had a million questions and lots of difficulty finding answers. You have given me a reference point for my experiences. I am floored by your level of transparency. I’ve been thinking that I’ve been doing not half bad…my first submission to foodgawker from my first post was accepted and a couple more after that so we did a happy dance. Lots of work still to do on photography. I used to only have to create the vision and the product for a marketing piece, then pick the selects…not actually photograph them, so that’s been a new challenge for me. That and not knowing if I’m doing well as a new blogger.
But getting traffic information not to mention all of the other business information you’ve shared makes me feel like I used to when I had my Monday reports before me to analyze and decide where to move the business. You are amazing and what you’ve provided is a gift, really, and I deeply appreciate it. So, my blog is just over a month old and I haven’t gotten out of the triple digits in a day yet, but it continues to grow and that’s good. A year from now, I’ll have year over year comparisons, so I look forward to that, but right now I’m focused on building and creating. I have a million ideas and a lot to learn, but I’m taking it one step at a time.
Thanks again…for the information and inspiration…and good luck with the next steps to grow this amazing blog/business you’ve created. Talent, passion and business sense…humility and humanity…you guys have it all!
Wow, this comment! Thank you so much for your kind words, Ramona. We are really humbled to know that the information that we’ve shared as we’ve grown has been so helpful and inspiring to others. I hope you truly enjoy this stage of your blog – I look back on those days as some of my favorite times with Pinch of Yum. It’s so much fun to watch something grow even and maybe even especially when the numbers are small at first. Thanks again for the words of encouragement Ramona!
Thanks so much for all of your continued generosity to share information so others can be blessed. I just need to jump in and start blogging again. You both give me hope and I also really love your recipes. God bless you both for supporting the orphanage and also giving so generously to your readers.
I just love that you donate to the Children’s shelter.
We just love that place!
Hi!
Do you find that blogs (especially ones with fresh up to date content being distributed around different channels) make more money than static websites? I’ve tried the blogging but my consistency fell off because of other various things I have to do. However, I wanted to develop a static site with rich content. And I would blog perhaps once a week rather than daily. Your thoughts are appreciated. Great job!
Thanks for being open Bjork & Lindsay. I do have a question about Amazon AWS/S3 – where do you use it? I don’t see you mention it anywhere in your tutorials.
Sure thing Yoda…er…Satya! 🙂
We use CloudFront as a CDN for POY’s images. If you open an image in a new window you’ll see that it’s an Amazon CloudFront URL.
Awesome! So do you manually upload the images to CDN and link them into the post or a use a plugin?
Again thank you for a very informative income report. I and I’m sure other bloggers are grateful for the info you post here. I have been reading these posts for a few months now and to be honest I am slowly applying what I learn here to my own Blog negativetopositivenetworth.com It’s still in it’s infancy stage but I am excited to help people with there own finances. Blogging is basically new to me and any info I receive ( whether direct or indirect) is always appreciated.
Bjork and Lindsay, keep up the Awesome work!
Thanks Michael.
The switch from negative to positive net worth is a really important change for people to make. Not easy though!
Thanks for your work on helping to educate people on that, and thanks for your kind words.
Just came across your site a few days ago and I’m just so inspired by you! Thank you for being so transparent…I’m learning to grow my blog bit by bit and focusing on one thing at a time is something I’ve been working to try and do, especially since I don’t have a lot of time, working full-time and all. I find that managing social media interaction sucks up a lot of time so I’m still trying to work out how to juggle writing post and interacting with people all at the same time. Would love to hear you share your experience with regards to have someone managing your social media marketing sometime in the future but keep up the good work. xxx Keren
Great question Keren.
My thoughts? Focus first on your site. Once you have that taken care, then you can focus on social media. So, in list format, it would like this:
1. Blog posts for your blog
2. Anything social media related
Hi Bjork!
I’m using Foodie theme with Genesis, but I can’t seem to figure out how to get the two little boxes you have below the comments that say “Notify me of follow-up comments by email.” and “Notify me of new posts by email.” Can you let me know how to set this up on my site too? Much appreciated!
Cheers,
Sam
You bet!
It’s a feature in JetPack: https://jetpack.com/
Hi Bjork,
How are you using gourmet ads? I haven’t heard of them before? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Sure thing!
You can apply here: https://console.gourmetads.com/apply
I always find these income reports interesting and useful, but what I really admire is your bravery in being willing to share … and also the fact that you’ve continued so faithfully! At the beginning you risked ‘looking stupid’ (?) if things didn’t work out. I’m not sure many others would be willing to do that!
Haha. No question mark needed there. There were definitely times when I thought “Why are we doing this again?”
Thanks for the kind words Helen.
You Guys are Inspiration to Me, Keep up the Good Work Going 🙂
Thanks Rebecca!
You guys rock. That is all. 🙂
So fun to meet you in person Jennie! Thanks for connecting this weekend.
Hi, I have a bit of a technical question to ask you about ads. I remember how you taught us to have multiple ads network lined up to increase the CPM. But for some reason, the second or third network performs much more poorly than the first. I used Gourmetads Publisher first and it always has a 99% fill rate. Then I added BlogHer and Sovrn, and the fill rate drop to 45%. Is there any reason for that? And how do I fix this? Sorry for this boring question… Thanks in advance!
Not boring. 🙂 It’s a great question!
It really depends on each ad network. I’d follow up with Gourmet and ask them. Wish I could give you a concrete answer other than it depends!
Hi Bjork and Lindsay,
Discovered your blog throught Mixergy.com and might I say, the interview and your blog is such an inspiration.
Thank you!
Elaine
Yea! I love Mixergy.
Good job Lindsay. 😉
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that Elaine!
Hi Bjork and Lindsay! Thank you for another fantastic post. I just (painstakingly) switched my blog from Blogger to WordPress and am looking forward to taking advantage of some of these streams of revenue. I’m obviously very new to the world of plugins and CSS. Can I ask what plugin (if you use one) you use to manage your ads? Yours seem to display very reliably and I’m struggling with this a bit!
Congrats Chelsea! That’s a HUGE accomplishment. You’ll be really happy that you did that. Short term pain, long term gain.
No plugin used. We just drop the ad code straight into a text widget. 🙂
Thank you! I’m still figuring everything out, but really excited.
Rereading, I thought of another question for you. I also just joined the BlogHer network, which I’m thrilled about! How do you work with Sway Group and BlogHer? I’d like to do more sponsored posts but not sure how to do that while a part of the BlogHer network.
Thank you again for sharing your wisdom and being so open about everything you do!
Thanks for another wonderful report Bjork! I so need to pick one thing and focus on it and I think I am slowly getting better at it.
Thanks Claire! Slowly but surely. That’s the name of the game. 🙂
Thank you for posting these monthly reports! I am extremely impressed at how successful you guys have become. I have been an avid food blog reader for many years now and I just stumbled upon your blog a few months ago. Your photos are beautiful and your recipes are delicious, you guys have inspired me to finally start my own blog. Thank you for all your advice pages on the subject, they have been incredibly useful!!!
Awesome! Congrats Jen. 🙂
Keep us in the loop and let us know if you have any questions along the way.
Thank you Bjork for the time you take in doing these reports. Focus is very difficult for me because I always feel that I am not doing enough. I am a newer blogger, and appreciate your counsel in not doing it all and doing what you feel is important. I am a crazy organized person who is looking for organization. I have the Pinch of Yum food photography book and appreciate Lindsay’s explanation of how she organized her posting within her busy life.
The struggle with time is SO common. For us. For bloggers. For other creatives. There isn’t a clear answer that’s the same for everyone, but the first step in finding the answer is to start searching for it, which it sounds like you’re doing! I’m sure you’ll figure it out if you stick with it.
Keep up the good work Julie!
Bjork + Lindsay,
You know what I always feel after reading these income reports?
I feel a sense of complete humility – in the sense that when I read how you guys are humbled by the growth of POY and how you keep sharing, I feel so inspired and humbled at the same time. Thanks for being the kind of successful blogger that really gives back in every single way.
Oh and btw, thanks for the recommendation on Essentialism. Definitely gonna read it, just as I did with Crush it! and the War of Art. Very good recommendations!
love,
felicia
Thanks Felicia. That means so much to hear that. Really, really appreciate it.
i LOVE that you have read those books. I’m so glad that we share the knowledge and ideas that are discussed in those books. So good!
Hey Bjork! The first time I heard your voices (I think it was on a podcast-maybe the Microblogger one?) I was really surprised. You two sound completely different than I would imagine (I know…weird). When I saw your videos though I wasn’t surprised-as I already heard your voices and saw your pictures it was just putting them together.
Thanks again for this income report. I read Every. Single. One.
One of these days I’ll sign up for Food Blogger Pro. I’m waiting for the right time as I’m doing a lot of traveling these days and can barely keep up with things.
Haha. Yeah – that’s exactly what I mean. Isn’t it funny how that works?
Sounds good re: Food Blogger Pro. Let me know if you have any questions about it in the meantime.
I’m excited to see how you grow the business over the next while. I think it’s hilarious that you made 2 cents with the facebook ads, but I totally agree that it’s all you need for proof of concept. My blog is still a baby, but before I made my first penny I thought, if I can just earn 1 cent, then I can earn 2, and 3, and so on. 🙂
“…if I can just earn 1 cent, then I can earn 2, and 3, and so on.”
Exactly!