Thyme & JOY

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Blog Income Report January 2019

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Blog Income Report January 2019 : Find out how I made $1334.94 through my blog with various strategies. 

Matcha Tea with blog income report numbers

Welcome to my 11th blog income report! This obviously been a record breaking month for me and I owe all of that to the traffic that comes with being a “health food blogger” in the month of January.  I really thought November and December were going to be high and didn’t really believe the January hype, but it is REAL and now that I know this, I will be fully prepared for an even BETTER January in 2020 . . . hopefully. 

What’s weird is that right now I am writing this from a strange mindset. As of right now my traffic is TANKING HARD.  I am definitely not on track to make anywhere near this income for February and the best way to combat it is with more recipes and I literally have done NOTHING in January for February.  Read below to see why. 

The good thing is, all of the compounded work from OCT-JAN has made me a January income that is enough to pay my mortgage!  My short term goal is to get this blog to consistently be paying the mortgage and even though I probably won’t hit this amount of money for a while, I know it is possible and that is so motivating! 

Blog Income Report January 2019

Here are some noteworthy things that happened in January:

  • Uhhh . . . I kind of really hate food right now: Yeah, so this thing happened where I found out I was pregnant on Christmas day and about 6 weeks in I started to HATE FOOD.  It’s not so much that I’ve been hit with nausea, but I have had a low level aversion to pretty much everything.  It honestly has me into a little depressed state.  Food is literally everything to me. I have built my career and life around it and to be so uninspired by it has been really sad.  
  • I barely made any new recipes in JAN: Because I have been saving all of my energy for taking care of my clients, I have had no energy or desire to put up new recipes let alone cook food at home. I made a commitment to post almost every single day in January so it really looked like I had my shit together, but honestly it was mostly older stuff I have been hanging on to for later promotion.  I don’t really have that back up now so I kind of screwed myself.  But I mean, its for a good cause . . . creating human life and such. 
  • I got a traffic bump from Whole30 Facebook:  The official Whole30 facebook page posted my Chicken Pot Pie recipe during the middle of January Whole30 and it got me 10k page views in just that day!  I wish that kind of luck could happen every day but again, just knowing it’s possible keeps that fire under me. 
  • I’m being coached: I hired one of the most successful people in this space to look over everything and give me a swift kick in the pants for what I need to do to reach my goals.  It’s been strange only because I haven’t really posted recipes so there is nothing to critique besides basic structure etc. but look forward to more content, videos AND how I schedule out my recipes for a maternity leave during the holidays *gasp*
  • I’m shooting in Manual AND using Lightroom: I have to admit, I have been taking so many short cuts with photography.  Mostly I have been shooting in auto and JPEG, then uploading to my phone and editing on the free version of light room.  This did get me pretty far in improvement BUT having a coach was just what I needed to really value doing it right.  Honestly, if I don’t have stunning pictures my traffic won’t gain momentum as fast.  Also, having beautiful photos allows the opportunity for more sponsored work and to make a side business out of food photography.  I have a LONG way to go but I actually started and have seen many peaks and valleys getting to know how to do this right.  But, it’s addicting and I am determined. 

A note on the metrics below: All of this is income that was MADE in January.  I don’t actually see any payment for this money for about 2-3 months depending on how the schedule works. 

Blog Income Report January 2019 | Metrics

Food/Recipe posts that were created in January: 3 (SERIOUSLY!?…)

Amazon Affiliate Income: $79.98

 Mediavine Income: $704.97

Recipe Development Projects Paid Out: $500

Virtual Assistant Work: $50

Hours spent working on the blog: Ummm… like 5?

Blog Income Report January 2019 Total: $1334.95

I know I am going through a strange time with being in my first trimester and all of these food aversions. I was SO determined to make sure I met my goal of having this blog pay my mortgage consistently.  Although that is STILL my goal.  I must realize that I have a full time business that comes first and not as much TIME as a full time blogger to make this happen when I want it to. I also need to prioritize rest and enjoy this pregnancy as it will likely be my only one. 

My next blog income report will be a FULL YEAR of blogging seriously.  I honestly feel like I am just “getting it” now.  It took that long and I still have so much to change and improve on. 

I am so glad I continued to write these because they allow me a physical representation on how far I came when we are so hard wired on only seeing how far we have to go. 

Even though it’s likely I will come back next with a much lower income number I am still so proud of myself and can’t thank everyone enough who has visited my corner of the internet to make it possible.

God I’m sappy . . . damn hormones . . . 

Valerie Skinner is a Whole30 approved personal chef & recipe developer that bridges the gap between healthy eating and busy lives by providing simple healthy meals and recipes for you and your family.Charleston Personal Chef Thyme and JOY

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Check out my Podcast: Food Conversations

Email me: thymeandjoy@gmail.com

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Blog Income Report December 2018

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Blog Income Report December 2018 : Find out how I made $919.76 through my blog with various strategies. 

Blog Income Report December 2018 : Find out how I made $919.76 through my blog with various strategies. 

Welcome to my 10th blog income report!  To be honest, when I added up the actual blog income for this month, I actually thought I maybe should stop doing reports.  Making over $900 this month was a BIG deal to me. 

It almost feels selfish.

I have this weird thing where I feel like I always need to be struggling in the trenches to be accepted by my peers and community.  I feel like if I start becoming successful or my dreams I work hard for start coming true that I will lose the respect of others.

Honestly, even though you all KNOW I work my ass off for this, that feeling still rings true. My dream is to make a decent income off of this blog and as success follows hard work, I know that I WILL lose some valuable people that were on my team.  I know I will make mistakes and I know I will open myself up to a lot more negativity along with the positivity.

That shit is SCARY

But my two choices are clear:

  1. I can stay in the trenches, play small and keep working my ass off to inevitably never get anywhere
  2. Or I can take the growing pains in stride and know that the people that are on my team will come and go with the seasons but the right ones will always be there. 

The blog as a whole this month had me questioning so many things.  In the beginning of the month, my traffic was so LOW that I almost gave up yet again. I kept plugging away regardless and I’m glad I did because by the end of the month I was in a much better place. 

Blog Income Report Decmber 2018

Here are some noteworthy things that happened in December:

  • Everything (still) dropped DRAMATICALLY:  On the heels of Octobers Whole30 traffic and a decent week or two in November because of Thanksgiving, I expected December to be overall a higher traffic month for me.  I even made quite a few dessert recipes as people were asking for them, but the first 3 weeks of December were just depressing in blog land for me.  I even saw it on IG and FB as my follower count would go up and drop down even further. I seriously questioned it all. 
  • I have more value than just recipes: One thing I was able to realize this month is that my How-To’s and demonstration and posts with information that weren’t recipes sometimes do even better than recipes themselves.  I often forget that as a chef, people look to me for cooking advice and not just recipes. Because of this, I have started to demonstrate more things in the kitchen and even started creating more resources along with recipes.  It makes total sense. 
  • I hired a coach:  I’m not usually a fan of coaching programs but I have hired a personal chef coach and have done other courses in the past. This year, my December personal chef income was so low, I have a client gap in my schedule and I decided I need to make a decision.  I wondered if I should replace that weekly client or spend that time and really go for it with the blog, a risky financial decision.  If I were to do that, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t making any more mistakes or putting myself in a hole that I would need to dig myself out of 6 months later.  After much research and debate, I decided to invest money on a blogging coach.  I haven’t started yet because of the holidays, but I am excited to get a deeper look from an outside source of how I can be maximizing my time to reach my blog goals in 2019.  
  • I have an amazing support group: I know quite a few women in the same boat as me that want to reach the same goals.  Instead of suffering alone, I reached out to them and created a little IG group where we vent, share and even collaborate on posts.  This group has helped me feel less alone in the process and has further solidified the fact that everyone is on different journeys and success is so different to everyone.  If you think you need support, reach out!  You never know what you all could help each other with. 
  • I expanded my Keyword Research: Last month I had said that I was focusing on writing for search engines instead of social media.  This has continued to pay off this month.  I research my keywords and try to put as much valuable content in my posts as possible.  At first it didn’t seem like it was working, but it really does take some time for that compounding SEO juice to start paying off.  I continue to research all of my posts (with the exception of these) and I am excited to see my posts become more popular over time!
  • I landed my first sponsored post: Valuing my work has always been difficult for me, so I never sought after any sponsored work because I was afraid my work and traffic weren’t good enough for any. I am SO wrong about this.  Companies need content and chances are, they can’t always make it themselves. The New Primal was the first company to hire me for recipe development and I am so grateful to them for the past 6 months of learning and growing. It was a shock to me when another company reached out to ME to develop a recipe and asked me for rates.  I learned so much through the process and because of them and The New Primal, I now have so much more confidence to go after what I want even though scary rejection is going to be a part of it all.
  • I’ve Increased Recipe Development Projects: Speaking of The New Primal, we had a meeting in December and they are up to some AMAZING things in 2019 and have asked me to help create more content for them which I am super excited and grateful for!
  • I Finished my first month with Mediavine: In November, I was in their ad network for about 10 days. This month was a full 31 days and I couldn’t be more happy with them. I know it is going to take a good chunk of time and solid work to get where I want to be income wise, but they are super helpful, responsive, they care so much about their publishers and are always creating content for us to learn how to succeed. Super happy! 

A note on the metrics below: All of this is income that was MADE in December.  I don’t actually see any payment for this money for about 2-3 months depending on how the schedule works. 

Blog Income Report December 2018 | Metrics

Blog posts that were created in Decmber: 22

Amazon Affiliate Income: $39.57

 Mediavine Income: $300.13

Recipe Development Projects Paid Out: $580

Hours spent working on the blog: 25-30 Hours Each Week

Blog Income Report December 2018 Total: $919.76

As far as I know, the downward trend of blog traffic starts NOW.  But, if you’re a health food blogger your traffic could actually increase even though your ad revenue may go down. After that is pretty steady until the end of June where everyone’s traffic plummets until the fall rolls around again. 

I still have so many lessons to learn and all of this information will help me plan my content and strategize my time better so that I can reach my short and long term income goals with the blog! I feel more motivated than ever! 

Valerie Skinner is a Whole30 approved personal chef & recipe developer that bridges the gap between healthy eating and busy lives by providing simple healthy meals and recipes for you and your family.Charleston Personal Chef Thyme and JOY

Lets Connect!

Check out my Podcast: Food Conversations

Email me: thymeandjoy@gmail.com

Follow me on Instagram

Join my community on Facebook

See what I’m pinning on Pinterest

Blog Income Report November 2018

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Blog Income Report November 2018 : Find out how I made $345.42 through my blog with various strategies. 

Blog Income Report November 2018 : Find out how I made $345.42 through my blog with various strategies. 

Blog Income Report November 2018 : Find out how I made $345.42 through my blog with various strategies. 

Welcome to my 9th blog income report! November 2018 has been really challenging for me if I am being honest. I made some great strides but I also became super obsessive about numbers and comparison and really kind of hating on those that seemed like overnight successes. I know in my heart that THIS is where people really give up and even though I was about to, I can’t come this far to only come this far. 

Blog Income Report November 2018

Here are some noteworthy things that happened in November:

  • Everything dropped DRAMATICALLY:  After the Whole30 takeover, my traffic and engagement dropped dramatically.  This is to be expected after hosting accounts that totalled 1.5 million when you factor in FB and IG but man did it feel kind of bad! I was prepared for it but it was almost like a high that I had to come down from and watching all of my numbers go down was NOT EASY!  
  • I joined Mediavine: In January of 2018 I wrote down my business goals, and getting accepted into Mediavine was one of them.  Mediavine is an ad network that basically takes care of all ad placement and gives a much higher rate per 1000 impressions (RPM). To join you need to apply with proof of 25k sessions in 30 days and it takes about a month to get things sailing smoothly but I am so happy I did! They have been amazing to work with and I made more in 10 days than I would with Adsense or Gourmet ads.  I cancelled those both and I feel like I will be sticking with Mediavine for the long haul.  Side note: The takeover did help boost my traffic enough to get to 25k sessions (I ended up with 40k sessions that month) but I was teetering on the edge with 17k or 21k for SO LONG. It’s good to know I would have gotten there eventually and probably in January with the healthy living boost.
  • I continued to improve my photography:  I’m still nowhere near manual mode, but I am really figuring out how to edit my photos so they make people hungry. It makes me want to go back and erase ALL my old blog posts and start over! As I continue to work on my skills I do see more engagement on pinterest from them and more accepted submissions into foodgawker which honestly doesn’t affect my traffic much but to me it’s a sign im getting better. I also have reached out for help about photography and will be getting some real lessons in the future because books don’t cut it for me! 
  • I hired an assistant: One of my followers who lives in Charleston SC reached out to me about helping me with the blog. I thought about maybe having someone schedule and run my social media but I honestly don’t have enough content to cycle through yet because I don’t feel like my posts were actually worthy until about a month ago. I was also not regularly posting over the summer so I have inconsistencies in my content which will NOT HAPPEN IN 2019.  Anyway, although I would love her or someone to take over social at some point I thought about the things that take me the most time and that is formatting and uploading blog posts.  In a google doc I will write out my posts, tags, links I want and what photos should go where. She takes that document and creates a post and basically fills out everything for me with 2 posts a week.  It has been AWESOME because my writing flow is so much better in a google doc where as the wordpress dashboard gets me all kinds of distracted.  Keep in mind I technically don’t have a surplus of money to make this happen but I am investing in her help to save time and with the intention of needing help to grow! I will keep you posted! 
  • I focused on writing for search engines instead of social media: Keyword research has still been going strong for me and I feel like it’s been paying off. Honestly, most of my traffic comes from Pinterest, Google then social media.  Social media used to be in the #2 spot but since I really have been focusing on quality content and adding value it is helping things step up! I guess what I realized is that with algorithm changes, social media is a very unpredictable egg to put in your basket.  Even if you have 100k followers a post may never see a fraction of that if the algorithm decides that’s what it wants. In a podcast about pinterest I heard someone say that they wish more people just focused on creating good content instead of trying to “cheat the system” because overall that will never work long term.  Good content is long term and its best to focus on that always.
  • Started over: All in all I feel like this is the month that I “started over” I have a groove with content, an assistant to help me and really I just need to be PATIENT.  Watching a blog grow is literally like watching water boil. It truly does take time for these things to happen and hopefully I will be on my way to having this blog pay my mortgage by the summer of next year! 

A note on the metrics below: I switched ad networks 3/4 of the way through November so there is a lot of random amounts this month. Next month it will be coming from a lot less sources.  It’s also important to know that my Gourmet Ads income for November will never actually see my account because I didn’t make the $100 threshold before I quit. Sucks but it happens! 

When you factor in blog expenses and hours worked (40/wk on top of full time job and podcast) I am definitely in the red but that is what is SO important to see. I truly believe it will pay off! 

Blog Income Report November 2018 | Metrics

Blog posts that were created in November: 22

November Adsense Income: $56.12

November Amazon Affiliate Income: $79.61

November Mediavine Income: $79.69

Gourmet Ads: $21.65 (not counted in total)

Recipe Development Projects Paid Out: $130

Hours spent working on the blog: 40 Hours Each Week

Blog Income Report November 2018 Total: $345.42

November and December are tough months for health food blogs so I am trying to get a mix of health content and content that is purely cooking for FUN and the holidays. We will see how it goes! 

Valerie Skinner is a Whole30 approved personal chef & recipe developer that bridges the gap between healthy eating and busy lives by providing simple healthy meals and recipes for you and your family.Charleston Personal Chef Thyme and JOY

Lets Connect!

Check out my Podcast: Food Conversations

Email me: thymeandjoy@gmail.com

Follow me on Instagram

Join my community on Facebook

See what I’m pinning on Pinterest