Monthly Income Report – May 2014

This Monthly Income Report – May 2014 is a good one!  Heck, anytime I make money on this blog it’s a good month!  Even though it’s neither my all-time record high in monthly income nor an all-time record in traffic to my blog, I’m announcing it a successful month because for the first time EVER, I derived income from three different sources! Here’s the breakdown:

$45.91 from the Amazon Affiliates Program

$56.00 from guest blogging opportunities on other sites

$135.77 from Google Adsense

Three separate revenue streams in the same month – AWESOME!

Here’s a brief explanation of each:

Amazon Affiliates Program

This blog is an Amazon Affiliate.  You will notice an Amazon advertisement running on the sidebar.  In addition to that, on our menu tab, we have SHOP TOOT SWEET.  If you, the reader, click on the ad running on our sidebar, you will be redirected to Amazon. While in Amazon, if you make a purchase, we are paid a small commission.  So, thank you sweet peeps, for purchasing items from Amazon through our site!

Also, if you go into the menu tab SHOP TOOT SWEET and place any of the items in your shopping cart, once you are ready to check out, visitors are redirected to Amazon. Same thing happens – if you complete the transaction, I am paid a small commission.   Every little bit helps and I grateful {happy face}!

Guest Blogging Opportunities

I have mentioned in several earlier monthly income reports that I write guest posts for Recipe Chatter and Creative Income Blog.  Both of these blogs plus many other sites are owned by a powerhouse web-based publishing company called Prime Publishing.  In May, I wrote a guest post for each of these blogs and you can check them out here:

• 5 Ways to Make Over Your Blog
• Confetti Macaroni Salad

Thanks to Emily and Julia, the two editors of these blogs, I make a little extra money for this endeavor.  In addition, these opportunities drive more traffic to my site, but more on that a little later…

Google Adsense

This is a big one for me!  Because this is the first time, since signing up with Google Adsense, that I have been paid!  Google requires that your account have a minimum balance of $100 before payment is made, so it has taken a long while to reach this point.  In fact, it has taken 16 months to make enough money from Google Adsense to be paid!  Yep, the first ad on our site happened in March of 2013.  At the time, I didn’t understand the need to run more than one Google ad on our site, so only one was installed on the sidebar until I went to the Women Get Social (WGS) Conference on February 28th of this year!

At the WGS Conference, one of the presentations was about how to maximize advertising revenue and when we got back from the conference, Tiffany installed 3 more Google ads on our site!  This has made a huge impact and we have jumped from under $5.00 a month in ad revenue to $35.00 a month in ad revenue!

Please note, though, that ad revenue is contingent on traffic, so in addition to these additional 3 ads bringing in more revenue, our blog has grown significantly over the past 16 months from a traffic perspective.

Here’s an overview of the month:

All of the spikes in the chart above are a direct result of my recipes on the Prime Publishing sites (Recipe Lion, All Free Casserole Recipes, The Best Dessert Recipes) and their promotions of my recipes either by highlighting them on their sites or including them in a newsletter.  Many thanks to Emily, Emily (there are two different Emily’s {grin}) and Danielle!

Not only did they send significant traffic my way on those days, but the subsequent days had residual peaks in traffic!  Want to know what recipes readers were interested in? Here’s the list with links:

• Crazy Chocolate Cake
• Denver Quiche
• Fresh Strawberry Pie
• Peach Pineapple Dump Cake

The above report is the Acquisition Report.  This report shows what drove traffic to my site.  As you will note, number one is Google Organic.  This means that visitors landed on my site through a keyword search more than any other way (I only included the top 6 this time because the drop-off under 1,000 is significant!  Only a couple hundred for the next 4).  I’m really astounded by this for two reasons:

(1)  I read a post on Categories and Tags written by another blogger, Delia at Blog Formatting, who gave me a clear understanding of their significance on a blog.  Her post, How to Set Up Categories and Tags for Your Blog, made something that had eluded me for a year and a half, crystal clear!  Thanks, Delia!  Anyway, after reading her post, I deleted all my tags and started over.  Here’s the thing:  I’m not even a quarter of the way through retagging my old posts and already I’ve noticed a significant change in Google Organic search engine results!

(2)  And, on top of that, Google released Panda 4.0 on May 20th, an updated change in their algorithm, which has wrecked havoc in the blogging world!  But, for me and my itty, bitty blog, the change hasn’t penalized me.  I’m a lucky girl! {grin}

But, and this is a big but, if you add the traffic numbers of Recipe Lion (2,021), All Free Casserole Recipes (1,976) and The Best Dessert Recipes (1,374) together, all Prime Publishing sites (5,319), it surpasses Google Organic!  Prime Publishing’s sites account for 41% of my traffic this month!  Thanks, again, Prime and especially Emily, Emily and Danielle!

This pie chart further supports my paragraph above!  Thanks, too, to the 1,179 readers who consciously typed in my URL – love you guys!

So what did people what to read?  Well, recipes of course!  Here are links to all mentioned in the Behavior Report above:

• Denver Quiche
• Crazy Chocolate Cake
• Fresh Strawberry Pie
• Coffee Banana Protein Smoothie
• Peach Pineapple Dump Cake
• Mexican Caesar Salad Dressing
• 20 Awesome Mexican Recipes for Cinco de Mayo
• A Box of Yellow Cake Mix:  5 Cookie Bar Recipes You’ll Love

Although I’ve slowed down on my posting schedule and social media activity of late, I love blogging and hope to continue to do it for a long, long time!

Tootles,

 

Related Posts:

(other monthly income reports)

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