Hiya!
Bjork here checking in for Pinch of Yum’s monthly traffic and income report. As some of you might know, we’ve been doing these reports for quite a while now. Almost five years! We published our first one way back in September of 2011.
These reports started as an experiment to see if it was possible to build a food blog into a business. After a few years of hard work, we found that it was.
We continue to publish these reports as (1) a way to stay accountable to growing and improving and (2) a way to encourage others to work diligently and consistently on “their thing” (whatever that might be).
One of the things we noticed as we talked publicly about building Pinch of Yum was that there were lots of other people with similar goals and aspirations – people that wanted to build a blog (or online business or e-commerce site or social media following or non-profit) in the food industry.
But there wasn’t really a place for people interested in this foodie corner of the internet to connect and learn from each other.
That’s why in 2013 we started Food Blogger Pro: a site dedicated to this crazy lil’ niche of food and recipe content creators. What started as an idea that Lindsay and I had over coffee has turned into a thriving community of over 2,000 people spanning 61 counties and 1,773 cities around the world. We’re honored and humbled to be part of such an awesome community.
While this map doesn’t provide a pinpoint for every member, it helps to give an idea of the reach that this incredible community has.
It might sound silly, but as the world fragments and divides in some ways I find it inspiring to see that in other ways it’s actually coming closer together. From India to Qatar to Canada to the United States to New Zealand to Israel to Guernsey (we see you Guernsey!) people on Food Blogger Pro are gathering together to learn and support each other as we work on bettering our craft as creators.
So, no matter where you call home if you’re interested in starting (or growing) a food-related website we’d love for you to join Food Blogger Pro. We’re currently in a public enrollment session, which we do twice a year, but today (Thursday, June 2nd) is the last day to enroll.
Click here to sign up for Food Blogger Pro. <–
Enrollment closes tonight at 11:59 pm CST.
If you’d like to learn more about FBP you can read Lindsay’s post here.
Let’s jump into the numbers for April.
Income
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 we’ll do our best to reply.
- AdThrive – $22,464.41
- Sponsored Posts/Speaking – $7,666.00
- Tasty Food Photography Workshops – $5,445.00
- Bluehost – $4,140 –> this income comes from a page where we show people how to start a food blog in three easy steps.
- Gourmet Ads – $3,165.43
- Amazon Associates – $3,070.53
- Tasty Food Photography – $3,013.10
- Swoop – $2,678.16
- Yellow Hammer Media – $2,080.92
- Federated Media – $1,727.96
- sovrn – $880.09
- Genesis Theme – $573.74
- How to Monetize Your Food Blog eBook – $485.00
- Go Sugar Free Course – $199.50
- Elegant Themes – $69.50
- AWeber – $20.40
- ActiveCampaign – $6.41
Expenses
- Justworks (Staff and Contractor Salaries) – $12,921.06
- Studio Related Expenses – $3,876.66
- Amazon S3 and Cloudfront – $1,415.45
- Office + General Expenses – $1,114.90
- Food Expenses – $1,048.54
- Media Temple (Hosting) – $987.00
- eBook Affiliates – $767.25
- PayPal Transaction Percentage – $446.00
- ActiveCampaign – $415.00
- Facebook Advertising – $141.06
- Adobe Creative Cloud – $107.43
- VaultPress – $74.00
- LeadPages – $67.00
- Domain Names – $64.96
- Zapier – $50.00
- PayPal Website Payments Pro – $30.00
- Shoeboxed – $29.95
- Hotjar – $29.00
- E-Junkie – $28.00
- QuickBooks – $26.95
- GitHub – $25.00
- SumoMe – $20.00
- CrashPlan – $19.98
- Eventbrite – $19.90
- Pingdom – $14.95
- Backupify – $12.00
- Buffer – $10.00
- Link In Profile – $9.99
- BoardBooster – $5.00 (Update: BoardBooster has shut down)
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 Google Analytics screenshots from the month of April 2016.
Traffic Overview
Top Ten Traffic Sources
Mobile vs. Desktop vs. Tablet
Snapchat
Lindsay has been spending more and more time recently using Snapchat (you can follower her @pinchofyum). There’s a bit of a learning curve but the advantage with Snapchat is that it’s a platform that allows for lots of experimentation. It’s one of the nice things about creating content that disappears – you don’t have to worry as much about mistakes!
It’s not always easy to figure out where to focus your time as a content creator. There’s social media, there’s email, there’s content for your blog… I could go on and on. The point is that your time is limited and things to do aren’t, so you have to pick and choose what you’re focusing on.
Related: If you haven’t yet listened to my interview with Jay Papasan, co-author of The ONE Thing, I’d really encourage you to check it out.
As you’re making that decision for what to focus on, I’d encourage you to think about how you can leverage your time by thinking about what people are paying attention to. For instance, if you give a speech in an abandoned alley, you won’t have much of an impact. If you give a speech to a stadium full of people, you’ll have a big impact.
Snapchat is a stadium right now. It’s a place where people are spending time and attention. See for yourself – when you’re waiting in line what are people doing with their phones? My guess is that they’re on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and (if they’re under 14) Musically.
This doesn’t mean that you give up creating content for your blog and building an email list. Far from it. That should be the first place you focus your time. This just means to think critically about the time that is dedicated to social media and spend it creating content on platforms where people are paying attention.
Recipe Video
We’re continuing our slow and steady move towards creating recipe videos. The reason for video is two-fold:
- It’s becoming common for brands to request a video when doing sponsored content.
- It helps to make a post “sticky” and keep people around longer.
In the past, Lindsay and I have done the videos on our own. Sometimes I would help by shooting the video (with a DSLR) and then editing, but a few times Lindsay would just shoot and edit the video on her iPhone. This chocolate chip cookies video is an example of an iPhone only video and this report talks about the process Lindsay used to shoot and edit the video.
It’s a lot of work, but there’s also a big upside, as the video space isn’t as crowded as the general food and recipe space.
Between POY and FBP, we’re no longer at the point where we can sustain creating the videos on our own, so we’ve started the process of building a little video team (three cheers for Steph and Alana).
Keep an eye out for more videos in future POY posts!
Cloudflare
As POY has grown over the years, so have our server bills. We’ve been working with Daniel to try and find ways to optimize our server and hosting setup, starting first with cutting down on the cost of our image CDN. The first step we’re taking is setting up Cloudflare to sit in front of Cloudfront. This will help mitigate the Cloudfront costs. We’re using the $20 professional Cloudflare plan.
I know that’s a lot of “clouds,” but the basic idea is that Cloudflare is a set cost per month (we’re on the $20 plan) while Cloudfront (an Amazon service) is a sliding scale depending on usage. The big question is if the $20 plan with Cloudflare will perform as well as the sliding scale with Cloudfront.
Keep an eye on our Amazon S3 and Cloudfront costs in the months to come to see if the experiment works. So far the results look good.
Here’s a screenshot that shows the cost savings after we turned on Cloudflare for serving POY’s images.
As always, we’ll be sure to keep you updated along the way!
Because Of You
It’s because of you that this thing we call Pinch of Yum can exist as it does today. Thank you so much for making these recipes, leaving comments with your love and feedback, and sharing this food around the table with your families and friends.
Every month we use a portion of the income from the blog to support a special project at The Children’s Shelter of Cebu. We view it as a donation from the POY community, not just Lindsay and me.
This month we’re supporting CSC by donating to their meal fund. Every child at CSC gets three solid meals a day. All 90+ of them! That’s a lot of hungry mouths to feed. 😊
helpful as always! was wondering what was happening with the videos, since i hadn’t seen them in a while (but man, i know how much time + work they require, so i wasn’t too surprising given everything else going on).
I know! So crazy how much work can go into a 60 second video. 🙂
These are always so helpful to read! Thanks so much for posting. I am so tempted by FBP but can’t swing the cost right now what with my blog being now and not providing any income. Planning to join on the next round!
http://www.sprinklesandsaturdays.com
Sounds like a plan Julia. No rush at all with joining. 🙂 You can always follow along with the podcasts for free. Lots of awesome content from incredible guests! https://www.foodbloggerpro.com/podcast/
Hi, I really enjoy receiving new recipes by email, but I’m really not interested in the food blogger pro info. Is there a way to stop these other emails without totally unsubscribing? Thanks!
Totally get it Jody. The bummer is that people that are subscribed vs. RSS (like you) get an email any time a new blog post is published. There’s no way we can filter those out based on content type. Sorry about that! One option would be to switch to the weekly summary vs. the daily full post email. You’ll see that option at the bottom of the email.
Are these numbers POY only? I don’t see an income line item for FBP subscription and wondered how that factors in. Thx for all your great work POY & FBP team.
Just POY for these numbers. We don’t include FBP in these reports. We wanted to keep it specific to one blog vs. multiple businesses.
Hi, I enjoy your your report very much. Thank you for all the informations you give here. This is a very good inspiration for us (blogger) to grow and becoming better in our business. I´m not a food blogger, but love your site!
Thanks Bettina!
What are sponsored posts exactly?
I tried to write up an explanation but realized this Wiki probably does a better job of explaining it. 🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsored_post
Thanks for another great income report, Bjork!! I’m really looking forward to seeing more videos on POY and just generally loving all the great blogger videos that have been popping up lately!
Keep up the good work on your site Brita! We’ve loved watching you continue to rock it.
Love your reports, as always!
Video is also something I’ve been looking into for my site, and it is quite arduous and I’ve just been putting it off for ages, though I know I need to get it done.
Would much appreciate a post or any tips on how you guys got started (besides the iphone one), how you learned to edit, and all that jazz – if there is one already and I missed it, my bad!
Teff xx
Stay tuned Teffy!
What app did Lindsay use to edit the video on her phone? thanks
Heyya Chef Juan! She used Apple’s iMovie mobile app.
Hi Bjork, I’m a new member of FBP but have been listening to your podcasts for the last 4 months. My son Justin works with me on my blog and he pushed me to listen! So glad I did. I’m a long time blogger but only recently realized I could probably become full time. Thanks to you for sharing your experience with others and helping us out in realizing our own dreams!
Woohoo! Many thanks to Justin.
And thanks to you, Shelby, for tuning in!
Thanks for this- always so informative! Two questions. I’m confused. Doesn’t Adthrive manage all your ads? I still see income coming from Gourmet Ads and Sovrn, but thought that once you switched to Adthrive, that the other income stops? Or how does that work? Do you keep other ad units going with Gourmet Ads in addition to Adthrive, and if so, why is that? Sorry if this seems like a dumb question…I just switched to Adthrive and obviously am still figuring it out. 🙂 Second question, at what point should one consider getting ones own sever? Mine’s on flywheel, is it based on traffic? Thanks
Not a dumb question at all. It’s actually a bit confusing.
AdThrive used to do more ad management vs. being just an ad network. We started at the point where they managed a group of ad networks and we were grandfathered (or grandmothered if you prefer) into that relationship with them.
No need for you to move off of Flywheel. They’re solid.
Woohoo!
According to your map you have 4 members in Nepal, and I am one of them!
वे लोवे नेपाल!
How did I do? 😉
I used CloudFlare for a while, when I ran my own hosting company, and now I manage a hosting company a friend runs. I personally liked it, but I stopped using it because I stopped having a photoblog. The more pictures I upload, though, the more I can see myself needing it again in the future.
I hope it works well for you guys! ❤
For sure! The photo bandwidth savings have been HUGE.
thanks for the beautiful work!
🙂 !
Once again you guys keep me inspired to keep plugging along! Thanks for sharing, it’s always so helpful!
Keep on keepin’ on!
Thank you for sharing this! I’ve been looking at “how I make money from blogging” posts lately and I think it’s great that you share not only the revenue figures but also traffic.
So many blogs neglect to mention traffic and that can really be confusing for people who are new to blogging who could be wondering just how can a single page/post make more than $4K in revenue like your page about “how to start your own food blog” does.
Much appreciated!
Sure thing Anne! It’s also important to remember the variable of monetization path as well as industry. Monetizing a food blog through ads takes a lot of traffic. But if you have a niche produce or a blog in a different industry (finance, for instance) it’ll be a bit easier to monetize w/ less traffic. Not easy…but you know what I mean. 🙂
This is quite an informational and inspirational post. Thank you for showing how you are doing this while creating delicious food. Best of luck!
Thanks ZJ!
Very insightful read, thank you for sharing this. A lot of very useful information. Also, we’re loving your food photography!
All credit due to the one and only Lindsay Ostrom on that one.
Seriously impressive! You guys put in a lot of work. I look forward to reading more 🙂
Thanks Francesca!
I’m considering setting up a separate blog feed on my WordPress install to talk more about how to run a travel blog. Would you recommend setting up a separate WP install in a subdirectory or simply setting up a category that does not display on the front page?
How much time do you have? Most people don’t have enough time for one blog, let alone two! If it were me I’d stick to having everything under one blog and separating it out with a category tag. But if you have lots of time you could build it out as a different blog altogether.
thanks for sharing your revenue as it helps us to know which aource is good for earning for bloggers.
Sure thing sachin! Thanks for the thanks. 🙂
Great website! Quick question- do you use a plugin to create the shadow effect for all your images? (by the way, the commenting tool doesn’t seem to allow caps, incase you were wondering about the poor punctuation!)
We actually just use Keynote for the image shadows. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
Thank you for all the awesome info! So inspiring!!! I feel like I’m at a point that I need to re-setup my blog to optimize it so that it reaches beyond family and friends. I’m wondering which direction to take it. So far:
BlueHost – check
Wordpress.org – check
What “theme” do you suggest?
Any other suggestions?
Thanks in advance!
Hi Gita! We use the Genesis theme. You can get a great glimpse of our past themes in our December Income Report here: http://wvaea.org/traffic-and-income-report-december-2015
Your work is amazing. Both, the educational and the “food blog” part. We are foodbloggers from Munich, Germany and already met a lot of other bloggers who know you and think you helped them a lot.
Keep it up! 🙂
I really enjoy many of your recipes and look forward to them coming to see what’s new ! Keep up the great work . I live in Charlottetown , Prince Edward Island , Canada . I LOVE getting new recipes YUM !