Monthly Income Report – May 2013

 

I’ve decided to start reporting our income in a different manner.  So, this Monthly Income Report – May 2013 only reports actual income paid to us.  What do I mean by “income paid to us”?  Well, in past monthly income reports, I’ve reported what we have “earned”, not what we have been “paid.”  Since “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”, I’ve decided that it is really makes better sense to report what we’ve been actually “paid”!  So, for the next few months, it will seem like we are going backwards, since last month I reported that we earned $98.79!

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” – Medieval Proverb

So, what have we been paid so far?  $24.50 from Amazon.  Actually, it was a complete surprise to see that we received these monies from Amazon, because I thought they wouldn’t pay us until our account hit $100.00!  Anyway, we are extremely pleased to see money, finally, roll into our account!  Even though this is just a piddling amount, it has great significance to us because it means we are on our way!!!

Affiliate Disclaimer:  How did we make money from Amazon, you may be wondering?  Well, if you enter our Shop Toot Sweet on the menu bar and then put something in your “cart”, you will be redirected to Amazon.  If you complete the transaction, we are paid a small commission.  On our sidebar, too, there are two ads for Amazon.  If you click on any of those ads, you will be redirected to Amazon’s site.  If you purchase anything from Amazon after being redirected from our site, we will receive a small commission.  This does not change the cost to you.  If you shop with Amazon through our site, we thank you because any money we receive from Amazon or any other affiliate advertiser goes right back into running this website (we are far, far, far from the “break even” point)!

Here’s a picture of one of the sidebar ads (note:  this one is not “clickable”):

 

What about the other affiliate advertising running on our sidebar?  If you click on the ads, we receive a small commission.  If you purchase from our affiliates, we receive a small commission.  Again, this does not increase the cost to you.  And, again, if you purchase anything from our affiliates, we thank you!  Here’s a picture of some of the advertising running on our sidebar (again, this picture is not “clickable”):

Advertising on our sidebar

 

 

We are a “baby” blog.  I don’t mean we focus and write about babies; I mean that we are a small blog.  I  don’t mean we are small in the physical size of our blog (we’ve written over 350+ posts!); I mean that we don’t, yet, receive high volume traffic (visits) to our blog.  So, the “small things” are important to me because I love our blog!  I really, really love our blog and I want us to succeed so that we can keep sharing content with our readership!  So, here are the “small things”  that make me break out in a big grin because I know in my heart, we are going to laugh at these numbers in a few years:

Visitors in May

 

The above is a snapshot from our Google Analytics page for the month of May (May 1st through the 31st).  Here’s what all of this means:

• 1,648 Visits – this means that 1,648 times in the month of May, people visited our site.
• 1,080 Unique Visitors – this means of the 1,648 times people visited our site, 1,080 were “unique” visitors and not repeat visitors (so, the difference of 568 visits were repeat visitors).
• 3,141 Pageviews – this means that the 1,648 times that people visited our site, they viewed 3,141 pages.
• 1.91 Pages/Visits – this is the average number of pages visited by the 1,648 visitors.
• 11:13 Avg Visit Duration – this is the average duration of our visitors staying on our blog.
• 71.84% Bounce Rate – this is the percentage of people who leave our site after arriving on our site (they don’t stick around).
• 60.86% New Visits – this is the percentage of new visitors we had to our site in May.

Average Visit Duration

OMG!!!  Our “Average Visit Duration” is phenomenal!  People who stay on our site (not the ones who bounce right off), stay for an average of 11 minutes and 13 seconds!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  This means that a high percentage of our visitors enjoy reading our content and stick around!  I can’t tell you what this means to us, means to me!  You guys are awesome!  How can we ever thank you for showing us such amazing support!  You rock!

Here’s another thing that tickles my fancy:

 

While our visitors are primarily from the United States, we have traffic visiting our site from far away places!  How exciting!

Facebook and Pinterest

And, here’s another thing that makes me smile:

 

 

 

While we are incredibly grateful to our Facebook followers (180 visitors in May), Pinterest has now eclipsed them!  Between Pinterest and Pinterest Mobile, the visitors total 267!  This is hugely exciting for me because (1) Pinterest is a very visual medium and that means we are taking better pictures, which means that Pinterest readers are interested in following the pins back to the source and (2) everything I’ve read over the last year says that Pinterest is a major driver of traffic to blogs!  So, what did Pinterest readers want is see?  Here’s a list (and links):

• Charlie’s Layered Mexican Casserole – 130 visits
• A Box of Yellow Cake Mix:  5 Cookie Bar Recipes You’ll Love – 55 visits
• Peach Pineapple Dump Cake – 54 visits
• Hot Mexican Corn Dip – 38 visits
• Easy Cream of Mushroom Pork Chops – 36 visits

I know the above numbers don’t equal 267 (they equal 313), so some of those visits came to our site through organic search engine results rather than Pinterest.  But, I don’t know how to refine the results further on Google Analytics, so I decided not to “split hairs” on this {grin}.

Charlie’s recipe is a rising star!  And, he takes full credit for our Pinterest rise in numbers {grin}!

Interestingly, none of the pictures for any of these recipe posts that are now driving traffic to our site were taken with my fancy, dancy Nikon DSLR 3200!  They were all taken by an iPhone camera, either mine or Tiffany’s!

BTW – we have 3 Pinterest accounts and you can link to them here (we’d love for you to follow us; we’ll follow you back!):

• Toot Sweet 4 Two on Pinterest
• Carole on Pinterest
• Tiffany on Pinterest

Tumblr

Here’s another thing that makes me giggle:

 

People are starting to visit our site from Tumblr!  Yes, we have a Tumblr blog.  You can visit it here:  Toot Sweet 4 Two on Tumblr.

Commenting on other blogs

And, finally, this is the last thing that really makes me happy:

 

Do you know who Matt Mullenweg is?  Well, he’s the co-founder of WordPress and he’s a whopping 29-years-old.   Without him and the WordPress team, the blogging world would be significantly different.  WordPress celebrated its 10th anniversary on May 27th (so that means that Matt founded it when he was 19 – genius!) and Matt and other members of the WordPress team wrote blog posts that day.  I subscribe to Matt’s blog, so I thanked him in the comments section of his post.  That simple “thank you” drove 4 visits to our site.  I don’t know if one was Matt, but even if it wasn’t, it just goes to show you that commenting on other blogs directs traffic back to your site!  How cool!  In case you are interested in checking him out, here’s a link to his blog:  Ma.tt.

So, what other posts had the most traffic in May?  Here’s a rundown:

• Really? Seriously? Are You Frickin’ Kidding Me? – 65
• MommyJuice Wine {Sponsored Post} – 46
• Monthly Income Report – April 2013 – 41
• Mommy Diary Monday:  Taking Care of Me {Sponsored Post}– 37
• White Cloud Diapers {Sponsored Post} – 36
• Mommy Diary Monday: They Missed Me! – 33
• The Dailey Method:  An Unexpected Love Affair {Sponsored Post} – 31
• She Did – 30
• The Best Nests in the West – 24

The above list of non-recipe “most read posts”, really surprised me.  Why did it surprise me?  Here’s why:

1. Readers love provocation titles:  Really? Seriously? Are You Frickin’ Kidding Me caught your eye and you read it!
2. Readers love Mommy Diary Monday, Tiffany’s series.
3. Readers love “Sponsored Posts”.  What is a “Sponsored Post”?  It’s one we are paid (eventually) to write.  So, readers are interested in products and product reviews.
4. Readers are interested in the Monthly Income Reports; people want to know how blogs make money.

Again, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all of your amazing support as we continue this blog journey!  You are the best and we send hugs your way!!!

Tootles,

Related Posts:

(other Monthly Income Reports)

• Monthly Income Report – April 2013
• Monthly Income Report – March 2013
• Monthly Income Report – February 2013