Interested in knowing some of the behind the scenes stuff for Kitchen Sanctuary? Here’s the latest in my blog income and traffic report March 2017. Check out my previous reports and more info on how to make money from your blog here.
Although it takes me a long time to write these reports (into my 6th hour now after pulling together stats and photos for this report and my Feb report – although admittedly, I have been sat on the sofa half-watching Ghostbusters with the kids at the same time for some of that), it’s so useful to take time out to write them.
It gives me the push to:
- Analyse the information and compare to previous months
- Look for trends (such as the type of posts my readers are interested in)
- Spot issues or areas that I need to keep an eye on (such as my reducing Pinterest traffic)
- Make myself accountable for working hard on the blog and not get distracted by Facebook. Or at least, not get distracted by Facebook for hours on end…..
- Look for areas I can improve in
It’s all too easy, especially when I’ve been busy, to let these things slip and ignore them, but knowing that I’m also sharing this info with you, really helps me to stay on track. So Thank You for helping me!
I really hope the info in this post gives you some insight and ideas if you’re new to blogging and monetization. Also check out my How to Start a Food Blog post if you are thinking about giving this blogging thing a go too!
Ok, let’s get down to the numbers for March.
Income Breakdown
Note – there are some links in this post that are affiliate links – which means that if you click on them and then sign up to the service/product I’ll get a small commission (at no extra cost to you of course). If you do click through then thanks!
Income (fyi – this info is based on earning reports and invoices for work done in the month of March, it’s not based on money that has actually come in yet, so there may be some variations based on things like paypal fees or exchange rate fluctuations):
- Freelance writing & video: £6375.68 ($7941.09)
- MediaVine: £1565.55 ($1950.11)
- Sponsored Work £540 ($672.57)
- Amazon Affiliate sales £23.34 ($29.07)
- FoodBloggerPro affiliate sales £56.44 ($70.30)
- Tailwind Affiliate £0 ($0)
- StudioPress Genesis Theme affiliate sales £0 ($0)
- How I earned $40k in my first year of blogging affiliate sales £0 ($0)
- Tasty Food Photography £0 ($0)
- The Food Photography book affiliate sales £0 ($0)
- You Tube Ads (just started my You Tube channel – check it out here) £0.25 ($0.31)
- Stock Photography Sales: £44.96 ($56.00)
Total = £8606.22 ($10719.45)
Expenses (currently this includes regular payments for tools, membership fees and advertising but not inconsistent things like courses, trips and props):
-
- FoodBloggerPro: £16.37 ($20.83)
- Hosting and backups: £64.08 ($81.50)
- Tailwind: £8.02 ($9.99)
- Tailwind for Instagram: £8.02 ($9.99)
- MailChimp £60.21 ($75)
- Adobe creative cloud £47.76 ($60.79)
- Facebook Ads £0 ($0)
- OptinMonster£12.00 ($15.27)
Total = £216.46 ($273.37)
Net Profit = £8389.76 ($10,446.08) WHOAAAA!!! I hit the big $10k yayyyyyyyy!!
Traffic
I’m so so happy with the freelance work for March!
However, the blog itself has seen a drop in numbers (from around 290k views in Feb). I haven’t looked too much into it yet, as I’ve seen drops in traffic before where it’s taken 4-5 months for traffic to come back up to a previous number. Feb-May generally aren’t my best months, so I’m going with the flow at the moment. If work slows down a bit and I find my figures are still dropping by June, I’ll start doing some serious investigation and testing.
A screenshot from Google Analytics for March:
This is a breakdown of my traffic sources based on the number of sessions (not pageviews).
Here’s the info on the location of my readers – Those US and UK percentages certainly seems to be converging. This time last year, the percentage of my readers in the US was 46% with the UK hovering around 18%.
March Happenings:
- Oh my gosh, I think March has been my busiest month ever. Working daytime, evenings and weekends to meet deadlines. I’ve had a lot of freelance work come my way this month, and with Chris finishing his IT job to join me on Kitchen Sanctuary soon, I’m hesitant to say no when I’m faced with a good opportunity.
I certainly wouldn’t recommend working at the pace I’m working at at the moment, but I know some of it is pretty short term, so I’m happy to suck it up until the work tails off, or until Chris is around to share the load. - Lots of video work has been taking place in the new kitchen! I think the longest day was 3 back-to-back videos, which was exhausting. New rule – no more than two videos in a day!
- Chris and I attended a food styling workshop at Woodrow studios – it was great to get out of the routine and try a few different styles.
- My birthday (yay! I took half a day off and just lazed) and Mother’s day (I had to spend most of the day working, so I’ve told the kids I might re-schedule so they can pamper me another time :-))
- I started using Tailwind for Instagram. I’d been trailing it for a month or two and decided to take the plunge. Right now I’m not sure it’s paying back, but that’s probably because I haven’t put a lot of effort into it yet. It costs the same as Tailwind for Pinterest – which I love!! But since I wouldn’t post more than twice a day to Instagram, it feels like a little less value for money. I haven’t yet gotten myself into a routine to schedule to Instagram consistently, so once I get a little time, I plan to work that into the routine, whilst also taking a course on Instagram.
April Plans:
- Kitchen reveal video – I know, I said March (sorry), hopefully we’ll get there for April
- More videos!!
- Easter holidays! Fortunately the kids have been looking forward to a bit of quiet time – so I can work. But we’ve also got a couple of trips planned (can’t wait for Chester zoo!)
- A press trip! More on that towards the end of the month
I think that’s all from me. I hope you found all of the info helpful. Please let me know if there’s anything you want me to talk about in a future report. Just drop me a note in the comments
