Hiya! Bjork here.
I hop on to Pinch of Yum once every month to write a post that we call an income and traffic report. What is an income and traffic report? Well, believe it or not, it’s a report on income and traffic, specifically the income and traffic as it pertains to this blog – Pinch of Yum.
It’s a bit strange to openly publish things that are usually so private, but we’ve found it to be valuable, both for us and (we hope) for others as well.
These reports are valuable for us because it keeps us accountable to continually improving. They also provide a real-life example of the things that we teach and talk about in Food Blogger Pro. We’ve also found that the people that read these reports (that’s you!) have been extremely helpful in offering insights, advice, and guidance as we try new things and attempt to solve difficult problems. We as a group are a lot smarter than just Lindsay and I. We appreciate when we hear ideas and suggestions from you!
We’re not the only blog or company that does reports like this. Pat Flynn at Smart Passive Income has been doing similar reports for a really long time, and companies like Buffer, Moz, and Baremetrics have embraced transparency as well.
This post from Josh Pigford, founder of Baremetrics, is a great overview of the positives and negatives of The Transparency Movement. We’ve definitely noticed some of the benefits he outlines, like press attention and community involvement. But we’ve also noticed some of the risks he talks about, like the potential for an increase in competition and extra scrutiny.
We hope that others find value in these reports by using them as a real-time case study of what’s working and what’s not working. The goal isn’t for you as the reader to feel like you need to make a carbon copy of the things that have been effective for us – although there’s nothing stopping you from doing that, but rather to put the pieces together so you can really understand what’s working and, most importantly, why it’s working, and then make it your own.
In short – our hope is that reading these reports sparks a new idea for you. Or, more accurately, pours fuel on the spark that you already have.
Let’s take a look at the numbers for August.
A quick note: Some of the links below are affiliate links. All of the products listed below are products and services we’ve used before. If you have any questions about any of the income or expenses you can leave a comment and I’ll do my best to reply.
Income
- Bluehost – $8,625.00 –> this income comes from a page where we show people how to start a food blog in three easy steps.
- AdThrive – $6,459.61
- Yellow Hammer Media – $5,316.45
- Tasty Food Photography – $3,596.00
- sovrn – $2,675.19
- Amazon Associates – $1,644.92
- Swoop (via BlogHer) – $1,642.59
- Federated Media – 1,588.49*
- Google AdSense – $1,382.46
- Gourmet Ads – $1,212.57
- How to Monetize Your Food Blog eBook – $690.00
- Genesis Theme – $689.05
- Everyday Healthy eCookbook – $264.00
- Elegant Themes – $153.50
- The Creamy Cauliflower Sauce eCookbook – $153.00
- Food Innovation Group – $125.38
- Martha’s Circle – $66.17
- AWeber – $28.80
*Federated Media is super delayed with releasing earnings reports, which means we don’t have hard numbers when we publish these reports. We estimate earnings by using CPM earnings from last month and multiplying that by the traffic we experienced this month.
Expenses
- Support Staff – $1,844.00
- Workshops/Education – $854.00
- eBook Affiliates – $774.70
- Photography Props/Gear – $545.16
- Event Expenses – $449.25
- PayPal Transaction Percentage – $431.45
- Media Temple (Hosting) – $429.00
- Food Expenses – $418.23
- Travel – $370.85
- Amazon S3 and Cloudfront – $273.07
- MailChimp – $216.00
- Photography Development – $128.22
- Domains – $127.40
- Overwhelmingly – $79.00
- LeadPages – $67.00
- Adobe Creative Cloud – $53.55
- Apps – $31.96
- PayPal Website Payments Pro – $30.00
- Shoeboxed – $29.95
- QuickBooks – $26.95
- SumoMe – $20.00
- VaultPress – $20.00
- E-Junkie – $18.00
- Backupify – $12.00
- Buffer – $10.00
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!
Traffic Totals
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 Vs. Tablet
Top Traffic Channels
MailChimp To ActiveCampaign
We’ve started the process of switching our email lists (both Pinch of Yum and Food Blogger Pro) over to ActiveCampaign. ActiveCampaign does a lot of awesome stuff, but the primary benefit is that we’ll be able to understand and segment the people that have signed up for the different email lists we have.
For instance, some of you are interested in blogging but not interested in recipes. Some of you are interested in recipes but not blogging. Some of you are crazy about Sage (like we are) while others couldn’t care less about dogs (who are you?!?). Some of you are trying to eat healthier while others are looking for the best dessert recipes that Pinch of Yum has to offer.
You get the point…
The needs and wants of people vary drastically, and up until now we didn’t have any way to speak to people based on their various needs and wants.
A service like ActiveCampaign allows us to understand the needs, wants, and behaviors of the people on our email list.
For instance, here’s a screenshot of the first draft of our “tags” setup:
Let’s take the TOP: Food Photography tag as an example. What we’re saying with this tag is that anyone that subscribers to a POY or FBP list that visits one of the Pinch of Yum food photography posts will be assigned the TOP: Food Photography tag.
As you can see a tag is a way that you identify what someone is interested in or an action that they’ve taken. Tags can be created when someone clicks on a link in an email, visits a certain URL, downloads a certain product, signs up for a list, or blah, blah, blah…you get the idea.
The goal with all of this is to understand the things that people are interested in and, perhaps more importantly, the things that people aren’t interested in.
This is important because we don’t want to send an email about food photography to people that have signed up to get Pinch of Yum blog posts sent via to them. It’s not something that most people on that list would be interested in.
This resulted in us (almost) never sending emails to the general Pinch of Yum email list because we didn’t want to send a niche email to the entire list when in actuality it only applied to 5–10% of the list.
Ideally, we’d be able to see the interest of subscribers clearly like this:
But without segment (where we are right now) it looks like this:
The question I’m guessing most people are thinking right now: Should I be doing this?
Yes. And no.
If you’re in the beginning stages of building your blog you probably don’t need a tool like this (see Intentional Ignorance section below, specifically the last half of that section). Focus on getting stuff up and running with your blog, creating great content, and encouraging people to sign up for a basic email list that you can offer through a service like MailChimp.
The exception would be people that have (1) the money to invest in a tool like this or (2) the time to learn it or (3) a site that you’re growing as a product first business (eCommerce for instance) vs. a content-first site (like a food blog with free recipes).
Speaking of #2 in that list (time to learn) that brings me to my next takeaway from this month…
Intentional Ignorance
Intentional ignorance <—- I’ve been thinking about this concept a lot lately.
The phrase came to me after hearing (and pondering) a story about Henry Ford.
In 1919 Henry Ford sued The Chicago Tribune after they published an article that accused Ford of being an ignorant idealist and an anarchist. (Interesting side note – the issue had to do with the U.S. and Mexican border….some things never change).
Part of the trial involved an attempt by The Chicago Tribune to prove Ford was an “ignorant idealist.” Emphasis on ignorant, as you’ll see below.
A quote from The Henry Ford Museum website:
“…the greatest damage came when they focused on the charge that Ford was indeed an “ignorant idealist.” All of Ford’s published articles were ghost written and implied he had a great knowledge of politics and history. The Tribune’s attorneys began to demolish the auto giant with simple questions about topics found in American history schoolbooks. When asked the date of the American Revolution Ford replied 1812, he thought Benedict Arnold was an author, and he was unable to say when the United States was created or why.”
As Napoleon Hill tells it, Ford eventually became frustrated with the questions and responded with this:
“If I should really WANT to answer the foolish question you have just asked, or any of the other questions you have been asking me, let me remind you that I have a row of electric push-buttons on my desk, and by pushing the right button, I can summon to my aid men who can answer ANY question I desire to ask concerning the business to which I am devoting most of my efforts. Now, will you kindly tell me, WHY I should clutter up my mind with general knowledge, for the purpose of being able to answer questions, when I have men around me who can supply any knowledge I require?”
We all know that Henry Ford was smart. But he wasn’t the most knowledgeable.
I’m learning the same needs to be true for us as we continue to find ways to build and grow our blog. We can’t be experts on email, ad networks, design, development, marketing, video, photography, accounting, and all the other things that come along with building a website. But we do have to be excellent at email, ad networks, design, development, marketing, video, photography, accounting, and all the other things that come along with building a website.
It’s hard to be excellent at something if you’re not an expert, so if we’re making the decision to not be an expert, that means we need to find people who are experts and (this is hard part for me) release the need to individually be the person who fully understands all processes, tools, or skills.
It’s the difference between being the team and building the team.
But what if you’re just getting started or you don’t have a budget to hire experts to help out?
My encouragement to you would be to allow yourself to be intentionally ignorant about certain things, even if people are telling you that it’s important to be an expert. Pinterest is important. Instagram is important. Email is important. Photography is important. Networking is important. Reading these income reports is important. But you can’t do it all, and if you do, you’ll be overwhelmed.
Declaring intentional ignorance on many of the so-called “important things” allows yourself to focus on the things that (1) you enjoy the most and (2) you’re best at.
Sure, there are some things you can’t ignore. Like accounting, for example. You need to pay taxes and follow the rules laid out by your government. But you don’t need to be an expert at the majority of things.
For example, when Lindsay started Pinch of Yum, she had no idea how to use Pinterest (and didn’t have much interest in it, either). Even though lots of other bloggers were getting on board with Pinterest in the beginning, she declared intentional ignorance on that in order to focus on creating more content for Pinch of Yum until she came to a point when Pinterest had really proven its worth as a tool for building traffic.
One thing at a time.
Burnout and overwhelm are very real. It’ll be much easier to build consistent momentum if you’re intentional about being ignorant about certain things while at the same time focusing your attention on the things that you enjoy, that you’re good at, and that really hit at the core of what you’re trying to do.
Recipes, Videos, Phones, and Cookies
In last month’s report, we talked about the importance of video.
There are three big reasons why we think video is important:
- The increased rate of video consumption on mobile devices.
- The decreased spending on traditional banner advertising (see Ad Blockers section below)
- The increased spending on video advertising.
It comes down to attention economics, and brands are most willing to direct resources into areas where they know that people are paying attention.
If you watch a video on your phone, you’re probably holding it a few feet from your face. You might even have headphones in. That’s pretty focused attention.
The issue is that videos can be difficult to produce. They can be costly, time-consuming, nerve-racking, and hard to edit.
We asked some food bloggers what their biggest struggle with creating recipe videos was. Here’s a word cloud highlighting the most common words that people used in describing their struggle.
What are your biggest struggles with creating recipe videos?
But I think there’s a sweet spot with video, at least recipe videos, where you can get 60–80% of the value for 20–40% of the work. Lindsay and I have been experimenting with ways to do this. Our most recent experiment was on Tuesday this week.
Our goal was to create a basic recipe video but to do all of the shooting and editing on a phone. I was there for the shoot to see how it went and take notes, but Lindsay did everything on her own.
Here’s the equipment we used:
- Lindsay’s iPhone 6
- Basic tripod ($35 used tripod from the local photo store)
- iPhone clip ($10 clip kind of like this.)
- Iced Coffee (optional)
Here’s the software we used:
- iPhone video camera
- iMovie for iOS ($4.99)
Here’s what the editing studio looked like:
Here’s how long it took:
- Shooting the video – 1 hour – from pressing record for the first time until pressing stop for the last time)
- Editing the video – 1.5 hours – Lindsay has used iMovie for iOS a couple of times before, but not much, so it was still pretty new. All editing was done from the couch, which is a nice perk.
Here’s the final video:
We’re excited about the first take, and we know that if we apply 1%∞ we can make some real progress towards improving the quality while at the same time cutting down on the production requirements.
If you’d like to follow along on our quest to find the best way to create recipe videos, you can sign up for the video VIP list by clicking here.
Ad Blockers
This week (September 16th, to be exact) Apple released a new version of the operating system that powers their mobile devices (iPhones, iPads, and the iPod Touch).
There were lots of updates and features with this update, which is called iOS 9, but the most important one that I wanted to point out is an update that allows apps to easily block ads on mobile websites.
This is a big deal for bloggers that get a lot of traffic from mobile. In other words, this is a big deal for almost every blogger.
Here’s an equation that illustrations the issue. The variables are (1) traffic we get from iOS devices (2) the top downloaded apps for iPhones (on Friday, September 18th) and (3) how it makes me feel expressed via emoji.
It’s tough to say what the bottom line outcome of this will be, but it’s important that you’re aware of it.
Our plan? Make a slow but steady shift in focus towards email and video, especially for mobile (see the MailChimp to ActiveCampaign and Recipes, Videos, Phones, and Cookies sections above).
Photography Workshops
Lindsay wrapped up her first every Tasty Food Photography Workshop at the beginning of the month. These initial workshops aren’t huge income generators yet – and that’s okay. The goal is to work with small groups before opening it up to a larger audience. At this point, Lindsay is aiming to keep it to 10–15 people for each workshop.
We have two more of these intimate workshops that we’re launching in just three days. The first workshop sold out in just over 24 hours, so if you’re interested in getting first dibs on a spot when they become available, you can sign up for the TFP workshop email list.
Food Blogger Pro Update
We’ve made some big updates with Food Blogger Pro. Here’s the quick overview of what’s been happening over the last 30 days:
Private Forums
For a long time, the Community Forums were open to the public, but we’ve recently made the switch so they’re completely private. The feedback we heard from members was that they were hesitant to post content about brand partnerships, pricing, or traffic due to the open nature of the forums (previously, non-members could see the content but not post to the forums).
Email Exclusives
This month we launched a monthly bonus for members called Email Exclusives. Each month members get a long-form video or PDF resource. The first Email Exclusive is an Income Tour of Pinch of Yum, which is kind of like a house tour but with a blog, and instead of showing you different rooms, we show you the different places where we create an income on the blog.
If you just recently signed up to Food Blogger Pro, you can keep your eyes on your inbox – you’ll be getting this email in your third week of being a member (21 days).
Live Q&A
I’m excited about this one! Starting in October we’re launching a monthly (live!) Q&A call with Lindsay I (and occasional special guests when needed). The plan right now is to use a Google Hangouts live steam along with a ChatRoll chat box below the hangout. Should be fun! We’re really excited to be able to “Hangout” with FBP members. FBPers can stay tuned for more details.
Podcast
The podcast is moving forward full-steam. We’ve had some awesome guests on lately, like Kelly Senyei from Just a Taste, Beth Moncel from Budget Bytes, and Beth Le Manach from Entertain with Beth.
You can check out all 13 episodes here on iTunes.
Because Of You
Lindsay and I fully realize that it’s because you – the readers, commenters, silent observers, and share-with-your-friend-ers – that Pinch of Yum is what it is today.
Thank you. We so so so appreciate you.
Every month we donate a portion of this blog income to the Children’s Shelter of Cebu, an orphanage in Cebu City, Philippines that we know and love. Here’s a video of two (which turns into five) CSC superstars singing Peace Like a River with Lindsay.
This month we’re supporting CSC by donating to their tuition fund. If you’re interested in learning more about CSC you can check out CSC’s special projects page.
And with that, I sign off from this month’s report. 🙂 See you in October!
That video =
I Soooooo prefer this type of a video vs the cauliflower sauce one not long ago. Also, please continue including Bjork in videos …it makes me laugh every. Single. Time.
Thank you guys for the hard work you put into this job. I use your blog almost every day for meal planning and it takes stress out of my life. I’m a huge fan.
Yea! Thanks for the vote of confidence with my cameos. 🙂
Awesome income report again guys! It is such a great resource for a new bloggers like myself. 🙂
Thanks Ann!
That segmentation will be so powerful for you down the line. Recently I started assigning tags and segmenting based on email link clicks but I don’t have the ability to segment based on website activity. That’s powerful stuff! Do you have to make any changes to the links or do you just add a little JavaScript and Active Campaign does the rest?
Have you thought about asking your new subscribers what they’re interested in? They could respond by clicking a link in their first ever email from you and then have a tag assigned. I’ve been a recipient of those types of emails and I always appreciate it. Once I have my various resource pages setup to serve the few segments I plan on testing this approach.
Loved the video btw! I would’ve bet it was shot with your expensive dslr. It’s amazing what a little iPhone can do!
JavaScript to the
and AC does the rest!**Have you thought about asking your new subscribers what they’re interested in?**
Love that idea. I have some doubts as to the % of people that would actually participate though. I’d be really curious to know the open percentage and then the click percentage once you test it. My guess would 20-30% range after it’s all said and done. Something like 50% open and 50% click.
Wow! As always awesome post. But that bit about the iphone video and editing was a game changer for me. We’ve been toying with the idea of video, but were really intimidated but, after seeing this we’re just gonna dive right in. Thanks for all that you do!
And that was just the first pass! I imagine someone that dedicates some time and energy to it can really get efficient with it.
Hi Bjork!
I’m totally agree with you about the intentional ignorance concept, I think the better you can do to success in anything in life is to focus on important things and leave the rest. I’d say the most important things in blogging are helping other people with your content, networking and introducing improves as often as you can, what do you think is more important?
We’ve been thinking about video for a couple weeks, but we thought it was really time consuming to make one. By the way, where do you get the music for your videos?
I guess one way of solving the advertising issue we have is to focus on creating products and maybe other offline income sources.
Thanks for your income/traffic reports, I really appreciate them!
Alberto
Thanks Alberto!
Tough question re: what’s most important. All of it? 🙂 If I had to pick one of those things it would be helping other people with your content.
https://audiojungle.net/ for the music.
Awesome job. guys!! I always learn a ton when reading these income reports. My blog is on personal finance, but there are a lot of similarities when it comes to making money 🙂 🙂 🙂
Thanks!! Hope you are both having a wonderful weekend!
Thanks Sarah.
Personal finance is such an important topic. Keep up the good work!
Love the video! My 4 year old watched with me (so of course we watched it twice), and she would like to request one for vanilla chip cookies next. 😉 Also, we made those cookies this week (triple batch!) for the college students my husband works with and they made me super popular!
Woohoo! Thanks for the 2x view Bet. 🙂
Alright, alright, alright… you sold me on the videos! I was skeptical that you could make a good video with an iphone, but that was really good! Now I’m actually excited to start experimenting with video. 😀
Hopefully you will include tutorials on how to monetize those videos. 😉
Thanks guys! You’re the best!
Thanks Beth!
First things first. 🙂
Hey!
I’ve spent the last couple of hours of my life this sunday scrolling through the last 14 pages of your blog – AND LET ME JUST SAY, IT WAS DAMN WELL SPENT HOURS!
The best thing about all of this isn’t the recipes – don’t get me wrong, they’re pretty much the most awesom-est thing I’ve seen and I would like to make and eat all of them – but the star of this blog truly is Lindsay’s rambling in every damn post. I love it so much and I really enjoy reading it all, and it makes the blog so much more than just a food blog. Keep it up sistah (I call you sistah cause it feels like I know you after spending so much time with you this fine sunday evening. OK?!)!
Now, let me get back to page 14… I have a couple of pages left to go through before I hit the slack.
G’night and fuckin’ awesome job! (Sorry for my language, I’m high on delicious food pictures)
Haha. Thanks Sandra. Means so much to us!
I’ll make sure that Lindsay sees your kind and vulgar words. A rare combo!
Love this! 🙂 Thanks for the sweet comment Sandra! So fun to hear.
Hi
Why did you stop posting total sum earned?
it was great seeing how you guys did comparing to previous months.
Am i missing something?
Thanks!
In July’s report. You can read about it here: https://pinchofyum.com/july-traffic-income-report
Hey guys, just wanted to give a bit of feedback on the email thing… I don’t know if this has anything to do with you switching services or not, but I have noticed that your post emails are coming in at really random times, sometimes WAY after Lindsay posted. Your emails used to come in at 9:05 sharp my time, and now it’s a total grab bag. I used to be in the habit of going to POY every morning, but when my routine changed, I started falling back onto the email to remind me. I like to be able to read Lindsay’s posts on the first day when I can, so that if I comment, Lindsay can see it (no offense, Kristen!), because I am all about the relationship. <-Ok, does that sound too weird-creepy? I hope you understand what I mean. Anyway, I just thought you might want to know about this aspect in case it does have something to do with the new service. Don't know if it really matters to anyone besides me, and it's not really a big deal. 😀 You guys are awesome no matter what! <3
Thanks Abbie! Feedback like this is incredibly helpful.
We haven’t actually switch to the new email provider yet for RSS emails. The issue with the timing email dealio is actually tied to some caching issues we’re troubleshooting. When that gets sorted out we’ll set things up so the emails will go out at 11 AM CST.
Wow that might be one of my favourite ever income reports!
I love that the Transparency Movement article states that most of the transparency for tech startups began in late 2013 – and you guys were already 2 years into your income reports by then!
The recipe video is amazing. I was one of the people who responded to the question re:creating recipe videos – stating equipment (and a bit of shyness) as my reason for not getting on with it. You’ve totally given me the push to try videos out mobile-POY-style.
Thankyou!!
Happy to hear it Nicky! Fire up your phone and press record. 🙂
Before my freak out…thanks again for another thorough income report…I soak these up and study them! I am also SO excited to know that you guys made such an awesome video with a phone…and in that amount of time!! That makes me feel like video would be much more do-able for a newbie like myself with a fulltime job and little money for video equipment! 🙂
Would you guys have heard of any video editing app for Android, by chance?
Okay, you aren’t the only one with that emoji after that Ad blocking equation! I was just beginning to approach the idea of adding a couple ads to my site to begin gaining a small profit, so if ads are becoming a thing of the past, what would an income suggestion be for a newbie? I don’t feel like I have gained the credibility yet for sponsors and not sure I have gained enough traffic to bother with affiliate links.
The answer may be to just plan on not making money for a while still, but if there is a way to be earning even a little, that would help!
Thank the Lord I enjoy food blogging with no pay…but a couple dollars wouldn’t hurt 😉
I am happy to say I feel comfortable enough to retract my freak out statement, I have since taken the Monetizing 101 course on Food Blogger Pro and feel that I definitely have some options to work towards now!! Thank you so much guys…
Although I may still add a small ad to my site, I definitely wont be focusing my energy towards it, and feel my time would be spent more wisely on the other income options.
So fun to read that regarding the FBP course and happy to hear the freak out was retracted. 🙂 Thanks for the follow up Brittany!
Wow guys. This report is incredible. Thank you so much for putting it all out there! Such useful info, I feel like I am going to need to go through and read it a few times!
And great video!! Loved it 🙂
Thanks Ashley!
I always read your income posts and always learn some thing new. I’m glad you’re thinking about making recipe videos. I just creating my own videos. it was really time consuming to make a couple of them and it is so expensive, but I learned so much, and I love it an I continue making more.
Thanks,
http://www.chefrachida.com
**..but I learned so much…**
That’s what it’s all about Rachida! Keep up the good work.
Thanks for the video piece. I’m so not a video viewer, but I know so many people love them and that’s the big thing to be getting into, apparently. You make it a lot less intimidating!!
Not a video viewer?!? You must have never come across these https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pugs
Thank you for posting all of the valuable information. I look forward to your income reports. They’re inspiring, and educational!
Thanks Emily!
Even though my blog is not a business and is not about food, in addition to loving Pinch of Yum recipes I also very much enjoy reading the traffic & income reports. It’s interesting to see what you go through for the blog (loved the cookie video!). And I love that you support that orphanage in Cebu. I’m a strong believer in supporting good charities, and Cebu is a place we almost got to go to (our visit was cancelled because it was just after a huge, damaging storm. Maybe one day… BTW, Bjork, I am not a dog person – never was, never will be – but I still enjoy seeing Sage. She’s obviously very special. 🙂
I hope you get a chance to visit Cebu someday. We love that island!
Sage transcends all levels of dog love. 🙂
So much information in one post! Wow. I’m still just working on the writing and trying to get decent photographs with my now ancient iPhone, but one of these days, I hope I am far enough along that I can spend a good deal of time with your program.
Thanks for showing us the video. Nicely done. I see a lot of videos running on fast speed as yours does. They are uncomfortable for my old eyes, but I imagine the young, impatient crowd loves them.
Little-by-little, day-by-day!
Great post Bjork! Hey I’m curious why you don’t include YouTube earnings in your income reports. Are you monetizing your videos?
Great question Jason. To be honest I never think to include it because it’s so small, and I think YouTube has certain rules against sharing earnings. I’ll make a note to look into it it for next month’s report. I don’t think it’s more than $20.
Yeah I hear ya about the small earnings from YouTube, but it would be cool to see the progression of nothing into something someday like your other income sources. Let me know if you find the language from YouTube, I had heard about that as well but after reviewing their terms I didn’t see any specific language that said you can’t share earnings, but I could have completely missed it with all that boring legal text.
Hi Bjork
Great post. It just keeps getting better and better.
And yeah the Adblocking thing that’s a serious threat to bloggers. So many Adblocking apps are gonna take away a lot of earnings. Infact, I installed one of the best adblocking app called AdblockPlus yesterday and realised that they not just block ads but even affiliate banners on my sites sidebar 🙁
Later, while researching I stumbled upon this site https://acceptableads.org/
Interesting!
I thought this idea was pretty clever: https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/22/9376065/ethical-ad-blocker-chrome-extension
Your Income Reports have been such an inspiration. It helped me increase my monthly revenue. Now I’m a six-figure blogger. Please keep inspiring others.
Congrats Tamara. So happy to hear that!
You guys kill me. The good kind, not the murderous kind. 😉 This bit about the video spoke right to me and zapped my excuses. Dangit! 😉 I was really hoping the video had speaking, because that is the biggest hurdle for me – how to keep costs down but still get good audio, how to put the sound over the video, etc. But you’ve got me on Amazon now purchasing a tripod adapter and a lav mic. I’m DOING THIS!
**The good kind, not the murderous kind.**
*Sigh of relief…*
🙂
Good for you for jumping in!
The video has done really well on Facebook despite no speaking and no “real” camera.
https://www.facebook.com/pinchofyum/videos/vb.114911288583641/919322371475858/?type=2&theater
Hi Bjork and Lindsay,
Thank you SO much for sharing these traffic and income reports!
I have loved your recipe posts and admired your photography for a long time but only really got to a point with my blog where I could properly appreciate blog monetization recently. So, I have binge read them all over the last few weeks and just wanted to say thank you so much! Your reports are so very helpful – I have learnt so much about the business end of blogging and have already used some of your tips, successes and challenges to help guide the optimisation of ads on my blog and have now added affiliate links. I can see myself reading them many times over, as I move forward in my blogging journey and I in a different place, ready to pick up on other aspects of what you’ve shared. So appreciate your blogs and willingness to share and support others!
Thanks Cheryl. Honored to have you following along!
I was wondering why the income from FBP is not included in the income reports.
We wanted to focus on the income specific to the blog, not the multiple businesses that we run. Our assumption is that most people that read these reports are focusing on a blog, not a blog AND a membership site. As a reference, we have just under 1,100 active members on FBP right now.