Monthly Income Report – August 2014

Okay, let’s get the Monthly Income Report – August 2014 out of the way straight out of the gate!  I made $2.15 for the month of August 2014.  Yep, that’s right sweet peeps – $2.15 {grin}!

What the heck happened, I’m sure you are asking?

I went on vacation.

First time in 7 years, so long overdue!

The reason you didn’t miss me while I was on vacation is because I worked very hard ahead of time to finish posts and get them lined up in the “queue” to automatically post while I was gone having fun!

That’s the beauty of working a blog – if you do some advance planning, no one will miss you if you take off for awhile.

On the down side of me working hard ahead of time plus taking the actual vacation, I didn’t make much money.  If you’ve read any of my other monthly income reports, you will note that I make more money by working for others (guest blogging, recipe development and sponsored posts) than I make from passive income on this blog.

What I mean when I use the term “passive income” are the things that are running automatically on my blog, in which I do nothing to promote.  Those include:

Advertising running on the blog

Currently, I use Google AdSense only on this blog.  While I’m constantly making money on the ads running on this blog, Google only pays out once you’ve reached a minimum threshold of $100.00.  At this point, I don’t have enough traffic coming to my blog on a monthly basis to reach that threshold monthly.  Currently, I’m paid quarterly by Google. As my traffic increases, opportunity for payment on a more regular basis will increase.

Amazon Affiliates

If you click  on the Amazon advertisement running on the sidebar of my blog, you will be redirected to Amazon.  If you place an order, I receive a small commission.  This does not increase the price of the product to you, the buyer, so if you do this, thank you very much!  Also if you access Amazon through “Shop Toot Sweet” on my menu bar, I will receive a small commission.  Same thing – no additional charge to the buyer – just a different way of accessing Amazon from my site.  Like Google, you have to reach a certain dollar threshold before they pay commissions earned.

Other Affiliate Advertising

There are two other affiliate advertising opportunities running on my sidebar:

1. Tasty Food Photography – an eBook written by Lindsay at Pinch of Yum
2. Mom Blog to Money Blog – an eCourse created by Laurie at Tip Junkie

I have a confession to make:  in the time I’ve had these affiliates on my sidebar (over a year – don’t remember exactly), I’ve never made any money from them.  If you wonder why I keep them running on the sidebar when making no money from them, it is because I believe in both products.

Lindsay’s book is the first book I ever read on food photography and I learned so much by just reading the book!  It is a well-organized, thoughtful book providing step-by-step examples of the basics to get you started.

The same can be said about Laurie’s course.  Her course is quite extensive, but covers everything you need to do to get your blog to the next level.  Although called “Mom Blog to Money Blog”, her course is easily translatable to all bloggers.

Anyway, I also believe that the majority of my visitors are not bloggers, so neither of these two products are of interest my current readership.  BUT, if you are thinking about becoming a blogger, food or otherwise, I highly recommend both of their products! Plus, if you purchase them by accessing them through my blog, I’ll make a small commission.  So, thanks in advance!

The $2.15 I did make was actually through “passive income”.  I made this money from the site, My Recipe Magic.  If you add your recipes to their site, they will pay you every time someone clicks on your recipe!  So, once you’ve added that recipe to their site, you have an opportunity to create “passive income” in that you don’t have to do anything else!  Once-and-done!

Here’s a peak at the actual Google Analytics reports for this month:

Above is Google’s Audience Report.  Compared to last month, traffic grew.  While not my all-time monthly traffic high (that was in January), traffic is up 27% over last month and 21% over June!  That’s encouraging to me, especially since I have done virtually nothing to promote my blog on social media sites.

Yes, that’s right; I’ve done nothing this month to promote my site on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or Instagram.  And, I’ve done very little to promote it on Pinterest.

Carole, why, oh why aren’t you promoting your blog on all the social media outlets, you ask? Because when time is at a premium, you have to “pick your battles”.  And, I wanted to continue to have fresh content posted on my blog 5 days a week while on vacation, so focused on that instead.

The surge in traffic on August 7th was from Recipe Lion.  I’ve written about Recipe Lion and it’s parent company, Prime Publishing many, many times on other monthly income reports, so if you want to learn more about them, just read my other monthly income reports!  If you are a food blogger or want to be, it is worth knowing about how you can work with them to build your blog!!!

And, a shout-out to my editor, Emily, at Recipe Lion for her continued support!

Google’s Acquisition Report (above) tells a website where their traffic came from.  As you can see by the above report of the top 10 traffic sources, Google Organic searches were neck-and-neck with referrals from Recipe Lion.

Pinterest came in third, even though I did virtually nothing on Pinterest in the month of August.  In a way, Pinterest is “passive” (though not income) because once you have pinned photos from your posts onto Pinterest boards, they are the gift that just keeps giving, driving traffic to your site!  The more traffic to your site, the more “passive income” you’ll make!

Note that Pinterest is neck-in-neck with The Best Dessert Recipes; and, All Free Casserole Recipes and Fave Healthy Recipes have good representation.  If you add all four recipe sites together (all owned by parent company, Prime Publishing), they brought 5,819 visitors to my site in August, exceeding Google Organic searches and visitors that came directly by more than 1,500 visitors!

A shout-out to the 1,012 visitors that came directly to my blog – love, love, love you! Thanks so much for your loyalty!

Google’s Behavior Report (above) shows websites what their visitors viewed.  As you can see, all but two of the top ten posts were recipes.  Mom’s Old Fashioned Coffee Cake was featured in a newsletter sent to Recipe Lion’s email subscribers and I reaped the rewards!

Of note is that all the other 8 posts listed above are “old” posts.  Even Mom’s Old Fashioned Coffee Cake isn’t a recent post, but posted in May in honor of Mother’s Day. That’s encouraging to me because it shows me that older content is still “valued” content and still drives traffic.

Here are links to the other posts listed above, just in case you are interested in checking them out (yes, please check them out!):

1. Peach Pineapple Dump Cake
2. Coffee Banana Protein Smoothie
3. Mexican Caesar Salad Dressing
4. Crunchy Tuna Salad
5. Gail’s Potato Chip Cookies
6. A Box of Yellow Cake Mix:  5 Cookie Bar Recipes You’ll Love
7. 42 Must Have Kitchen Utensils
8. Cake Batter Cream Cheese Bars

Here’s a new report I’d like to share with all of you:

This is Pinterest’s revised (new and improved) analytics report!  Love what Pinterest has done to show bloggers and content creators what pins are really shared across their platform!  So fun!  A shout-out to Pinterest on a job well-done!

That’s it – report over!  Off to make my next $2.15!

Tootles,

 

Related Posts:

(other monthly income reports)

• Monthly Income Report – February 2013
• Monthly Income Report – March 2013
• Monthly Income Report – April 2013
• Monthly Income Report – May 2013
• Monthly Income Report – June 2013
• Monthly Income Report – July 2013
• Monthly Income Report – August and September 2013
• Monthly Income Report – October 2013
• Monthly Income Report – November 2013
• Monthly Income Report – December 2013
• Monthly Income Report – January 2014
• Monthly Income Report – February 2014
• Monthly Income Report – March 2014
• Monthly Income Report – April 2014
• Monthly Income Report – May 2014
• Monthly Income Report – June 2014
• Monthly Income Report – July 2014