Monthly Blog Income Report – June 2017

Hi, friends! Today we’re taking a break from summer salads (opens in a new tab) and frozen treats (opens in a new tab) (cause it’s HOT out there, y’all!) and talking income with June’s Monthly Blog Income Report!

If you’ve ever wondered how a food blogger makes money, are wanting to grow your traffic, or maybe even start a blog, (opens in a new tab) these monthly blog income reports have tons of resources and tips. You can check out why we started these income reports in our first one (Monthly Blog Income Report – April 2017 (opens in a new tab))! As a reminder, these monthly blog income reports are NOT about the money, but are instead a way for us to share how we’re reaching our goals as a business and what we’re doing to grow. They’re a way for us to be transparent with you guys in order to (hopefully) help you achieve your blogging goals!

If you have any questions or thoughts, be sure to let us know in the comments below (or email us over on the contact page). We want these reports to be helpful to you guys!

Here’s June’s Monthly Blog Income Report:

Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links. These are products that I’ve used before and stand behind!

INCOME:

• A Month Of Healthy Eats Paperback (opens in a new tab) – $65.66
• Sponsored Posts (Sway, Social Fabric, Linqia, and brands) – $969.60
• A Month Of Healthy Eats Ebook – $38.22
• Amazon Affiliate – $30.80
• Mediavine Ads – $16.79

Total Income: $1,121

EXPENSES:

• Food – $126.61
• 1&1 Internet – $10.99
• Food Blogger Pro (paid yearly) – $0
• Active Campaign (paid yearly) – $0
• Tailwind (paid yearly) – $0
• CoSchedule – $360.00

Total Expenses: $498

NET REVENUE: $623

A couple of months ago we switched all of our ads from our previous ad companies over to Mediavine (opens in a new tab) (since they handle all ad placements and optimization). Y’all, they’re AMAZING! We love them so far. This month we had a very small amount of income from them because we didn’t actually start with them until the end of March, so what you’re seeing here is actually a few days of income with them. Additionally, their payments are approximately 1.5 months after the money was actually earned, which is why it’s just now showing up in this month’s income report. Next month should show a more accurate amount!

Also, we ended our free trial with CoSchedule this month and decided to go ahead and pay for an entire year’s worth of scheduling! CoSchedule is a great way for bloggers to manage their editorial calendar/content schedule. We love the way CoSchedule organizes blog posts, social media posts, and videos in a color coded and easy-to-view way! You can also drag and drop posts to different days and push social media posts straight from your blog posts. It’s truly amazing!

Traffic

We had a 15% increase from May to June! While it’s not as massive as last month’s (opens in a new tab) increase, it’s still a win to us. Also, this month’s Google traffic has increased! We think this may have happened for a couple of reasons. First, as mentioned in last month’s (opens in a new tab) report, we’ve been updating all of our old recipes from the Easy Recipe plugin (which is no longer supported) to the WP Recipe Maker plugin. Since WP Recipe Maker is SEO friendly, this change could have possibly helped us out when it comes to Google! Secondly, we’ve been hitting republish on old recipes and updating them with new photos, writing, and videos. This has also majorly helped out our SEO!

Goals & Takeaways

Last month we mentioned wanting to take a break in June. Friends, we DEFINITELY did that! Part of that break was intentional, and part of it was just life. We were getting ready to move to our new house and also ended up going through a little bit of a tragedy with our family (we might share more about that soon, stay tuned), which forced us to shift our focus from Jar Of Lemons to family/life outside of work and food blogging. The good news is that through that, we are now feeling refreshed and ready for some new things on this site!

Christine’s Favorite Blogging Things!

Cody’s busy updating ALL THE THINGS on our house (opens in a new tab) this month (I’ll do a post about house updates soon), so I thought I (Christine) would take over his tech section and share some of my fave blogging resources! Don’t worry, I’ll keep the list short and to the point. But I do have to mention that these are the resources I contribute a lot of my blog growth to! Well, other than hard work, content (always the #1 thing), and time, of course!

• Food Blogger Pro (opens in a new tab) <—- #1 thing that helped me grow Jar Of Lemons!
• SEMRush
• The SITS girls (opens in a new tab)
• Food Bloggers Central (opens in a new tab)
• Sprinting The Blogging Marathon book
• ByRegina
• Chopped Podcast (opens in a new tab)
• Share My Post FB Group (opens in a new tab)

And if you’re just starting out, be sure to check out this post on How To Create A Blog (opens in a new tab) and How To Grow Your Blog! (opens in a new tab)

Have questions or thoughts about this month’s report? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!