Food Blog Income Report: Q2 2022

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In this post, I share my second *QUARTERLY* food blog income report (Q2 2022) to give bloggers a peek into what it takes to run a food blog and a little sense of where blogging income comes from. Note that income is different than profit! I will break down both my food blog income, but also expenses related to blogging.

This post may contain affiliate links which means I may earn a small commission when you click on the links and make a purchase. I will never recommend products and services that I don’t support 100%. You can read my full disclosure here.

Food blog income report cover graphic.

Hello, Friends! This is my second QUARTERLY blog income report! If you want to read my first-ever income report, check it out here: December 2022 Income Report and my Q1 2022 quarterly income report is here.

I feel like this quarter, I made some huge breakthroughs with my blog–traffic-wise and income-wise.

I have gotten to the point where I have started to hire out and really invest in my business.

WHAT I FOCUSED ON THIS QUARTER

Content/Starting Holiday Content

I am proud to say that I have stuck with my guns of consistently producing new content and NOT being distracted by shiny objects. This quarter I published 33 brand new blog posts and updated a few, too! Here is the breakdown by type of post:

  • New Recipe Posts: 24
  • New Non-Recipe Posts: 9
  • Updates to Old Posts: 7

While the majority were new recipe posts, I also wrote a hefty amount of supporting content such as roundups and questions I found in Rank IQ that supports my existing content.

⭐️ WHAT IS “SUPPORTING CONTENT?”⭐️
Supporting content is simply non-recipe posts that support your existing content. For example, I wrote two new chicken salad recipe posts this quarter. I also write two supporting posts: “Can you freeze chicken salad” and “How long does chicken salad last in the fridge?”

As with last quarter, I run every single one of my posts through the RankIQ optimizer tool. I also find lots of my post ideas on Rank IQ, too.

I have been super happy with the rankings, too! Usually, within DAYS, my posts land in the top 20-30. Then after several more weeks, they slowly climb anywhere from the 4-20 spot. I even had one post rank #6 OVERNIGHT.

Higher rankings (1-3) take much longer.

I won’t stop singing the praises of RankIQ–it’s such a powerful tool when used correctly!

I also started holiday content! I have VERY little holiday content on my blog because last year I basically didn’t know what I was doing!

This year, I started planning, testing, and shooting holiday recipes in May and June! I think my husband will die if I make one more pie!!! HA!! At this point, I have made and TESTED 12++ pies!!

And for the record: only 2 will be making it to the blog!

⭐️ ORGANIC “GOOGLE” TRAFFIC⭐️
Because I spend so much time on keyword research and writing solid posts, my organic traffic has held steady at 70% for nearly the past year.

Hiring Out/Smart Investments

This quarter, I really started to see a solid, steady income from Mediavine. Although I always set aside 30-35% of my earnings into a savings account for taxes, I started to think about sorting everything out when it came to tax time….and I got stressed, FAST!

I am the furthest away from being a numbers person and the thought of trying to figure out numbers and deductions started giving me the sweats,

Although I never wanted to make the investment and we have ALWAYS done our own taxes, I finally bit the bullet and hired an accountant which has been fantastic!!! The peace of mind it’s given me is worth its weight in gold.

She set me up with Quickbooks, reviews it with me monthly, and tells me exactly when and how much I need to pay Uncle Sam quarterly. She will also do our taxes at the end of the year.

She also set up my LLC so I am now officially Get On My Plate, LLC! If things continue to go well income-wise, I’ll do an S-Corp filing next year, because the small business taxes are insane!

I really made it a point this quarter to get educated on the tax/business side of being self-employed. Mike Jesowshek’s podcast “Small Business Tax Savings” was super helpful!

The second “big” investment I made was hiring a Pinterest manager…and man, what a relief that was! I now do absolutely NOTHING on Pinterest and every single one of my analytics is up since I’ve outsourced it! I don’t know what they do, but they do it well!

They also create new static AND story pins for me so now I feel everything has a cohesive look and feel. SUCH a relief to have one social media outlet off my plate.

Social Media

While we’re on the subject of Pinterest and social media, I can tell you that aside from Pinterest, social media has NOT been a focus for me this quarter.

In fact, I pretty much dropped the majority of my Facebook posting and scaled-down my Instagram posting to 2x a week.

Guess what happened to my traffic?!

It keeps increasing 🙂 That is because when I stopped scrambling around posting in Facebook groups and on my (dead) Facebook page every day, I used that time to create Google-optimized posts. Which, in the long run, is a much better use of my time…for now.

That being said, if you are trying to make it to Mediavine, posting consistently (a lot) on social media may be necessary to get that initial momentum going. I would just not recommend prioritizing it over creating amazing, optimized content….even if it takes you longer to reach 50,000.

Google Web Stories

Although I have more or less relinquished Facebook and Instagram for now, I am still consistent with Google Web Stories! I pump those out for every blog post I write as part of my workflow and I get a decent amount of traffic from them.

The coolest thing is, I will get traffic to posts from Web Stories that I am not ranking highly for in traditional Google results! I feel like Web Stories are a great opportunity to showcase content that you LOVE, but that you may not ever be able to rank for.

I post 5 web stories every week.

Q2 2022 TRAFFIC SUMMARY

April

Pageviews: 189,610

Sessions: 166,553

May

Pageviews: 209,063

Sessions: 181,944

June

Pageviews: 235,222

Sessions: 204,302

Traffic Sources

Organic: 70%

Social: 11% (Breakdown: Pinterest 80%, Facebook 18%)

Direct: 14%

Other: 5%

Q2 2022 GROSS INCOME TOTAL : $23,225.75

Mediavine Ads: $17,242.08

Affiliate Income (Amazon Associates, Cooking With Keywords and Rank IQ): $383.67

Sponsored Posts: $1,950

Pinterest Creators Program: $3,650

TOTAL: $23,225.75

INCOME BREAKDOWN

Ads: No surprise that most of my income comes from Mediavine ads (I was accepted in December of 2021. You can read the full post on how I got to Mediavine in one year here).

RPMs were as high as ever in June which I wasn’t expecting (everyone always complains about the “summer slump”).

⭐️ What is RPM?⭐️
Find out in this article from Mediavine: What is RPM?

Affiliate Income:

As I mentioned in my last quarterly income report, I do not prioritize affiliate income at this point.

If there is a product or service I LOVE LOVE LOVE and they happen to have an affiliate program (for example RankIQ , Cooking with Keywords or the Pretty Focused Photography course), I will share those. But I really have to love the product or service!

One thing I did do this quarter is create an Amazon storefront with my favorite tried and true products. You can see my storefront here.

I have been linking my storefront, along with the necessary tools for the recipe in a colored text box right before my recipe card. We’ll see if that helps my Amazon affiliate income at all–currently, I only make between $50-60/month from Amazon.

Sponsored Posts:

Q1 was totally dry with regard to sponsored posts for me, which I expected. Advertisers pretty much blow their budgets in Q4.

Q2 was slow too but a few opportunities popped up which I jumped on. Since I don’t have the time right now to reach out directly to brands, I find most of my sponsored opportunities through Sway or Quotient. I also had a local brand reach out to me via Instagram this quarter as well.

Pinterest Creators Program:

I mentioned this in my last quarterly report and had great success with it in Q2!! The payouts for creating video idea pins were fantastic!

I have chosen NOT to prioritize video right now. However, given the excellent $$$ for creating some simple videos for the Creators program, it was worth it this past quarter!

That being said, the Pinterest Creators program is a total and utter train wreck at the time of this writing (July 2022). It is still in Beta, which I understand, but the way this program has been implemented, you would think a middle schooler was running it.

When looking at the new goals and “tasks” they have set for this month, I have decided not to participate. I am ALWAYS looking for a return on investment and the time invested into making videos and Idea Pins for the Creators program just doesn’t make sense for me right now.

Q2 2022 TOTAL EXPENSES: $2,383

Monthly Reoccurring Expenses

Adobe Lightroom (monthly): $10

Blog Hosting (WPOpt, monthly): $25 (increased this quarter because of higher traffic numbers)

Keysearch (monthly): $17

Canva (monthly): $12

Rank IQ (monthly): $29 or $49 depending on how many reports I run

Pretty Focused Course (monthly until December): $199

Pinterest VA (monthly): $250

Accountant (monthly): $139

Other Expenses

Purchased Content (roundups, recipes): $250

LLC Filing: $90

Q2 2022 NET PROFIT: $20,842.75

Note that this “profit” does NOT include taxes, I currently set aside 30-35% of my net profit for taxes.

WHAT’S NEXT

This upcoming quarter is pretty much all going to be devoted to creating new holiday and fall content to prep for Q4. I am sure my husband and kids will enjoy testing stuffing and sweet potatoes for 3 months! HA!

Last, one of my goals for a while has been to release a cookbook (electronic, for now). I have chosen a template and most of the recipes for the book, but am having a hard time finding TIME to work on it! Story of my life!

My goal is to have it ready by Black Friday, but I am really going to have to prioritize working on it between now and then. Stay tuned and pray for me!!! 🙂

I hope you enjoyed this food blog income report! I plan to continue to post these reports quarterly. In the meantime, if you have questions, feel free to drop me a line at: [email protected].

I’m cheering for you!

XO ~ Casey

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5 Comments

  1. Yes!! It is so encouraging to read that it truly is possible with hard work and determination.
    Just a quick question, other than the tutorial video on Rank IQ, were there other sources where you learned how to use the tool? I’m not finding it as valuable as so many bloggers have shared. Any tips?
    Thanks!

    1. Hi Deb!
      Instead of using to the tool to FIND keywords, I use it more for the optimizer tool. You can run a report on ANY keyword you want on the homepage. So if you’re writing a post with the keyword you have already researched for example, “Steak with Mushrooms,” you can run the report on that keyword through the Optimizer to help you write your post. That is how I use it a lot. Also, if i have a broad idea/keyword in mind…say, “Pasta,” I will search for that word in Rank IQ in the Keyword Library and just see what comes up. Sometimes that triggers lots of ideas! Hope that helps! XO ~ Casey

      1. Aahhh, yes, I pretty much do it that way also. It’s finding the keywords that I’m struggling with a bit. Seems harder than it should be actually. Ok, thanks for your reply, back to work. HA!

  2. As a new food blogger (under a year) the way you document and post your earnings and breakdowns of where they come from along with expenses is SO helpful, inspiring, and encouraging! Not to mention, you have wonderful and tasty recipes as well! I have your website bookmarked for when I am ever feeling defeated which as you know in this industry can be frequent. Thank you and keep up the great work!