Food Blog Income Report: Q3 2022

Holiday Content

I said this in my last quarterly report and I will say it again: I am proud that I have stuck with my guns of consistently producing new content and NOT being distracted by shiny objects!!!

I put my head down, baked a ton of pumpkin pie, and drove my family nuts with cranberry sauce and brussels sprouts! But now that Q4 is HERE, I am SOOOOOO happy I planned ahead and spent the summer cooking up holiday recipes! Now I feel like a have a hot second to breathe and (hopefully) reep the Google juice!

This quarter I published 32 brand new blog posts and updated a few, too! Here is the breakdown by type of post:

• New Recipe Posts: 26
• New Non-Recipe Posts: 6
• Updates to Old Posts: 5

While the majority were new (holiday!) 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, many focused on holiday food.

I continue to sing the praises of RankIQ and continue to find keywords there. For the topics I don’t find in RankIQ, I still also run all of those keywords through the RankIQ optimizer tool.

Of the approximately 40 keywords I have been tracking on my Q3 posts, 26 are already ranking on page 1 (Top 10). Many of them that aren’t ranking on page 1, I published just last month (September), so they need a bit more time.

Hiring Out/Smart Investments

This quarter, I continued to make what I think, are smart investments. I hired a VA who helps me with posting in roundup groups (for backlinks), among other small tasks that I HATED doing! I can’t tell you what a relief it is to have those small tasks off my plate so I can try to focus more on the “big picture”‘ and content creation.

I also began purchasing a few recipes here and there. I have been pretty picky about purchasing and I make sure anything I purchase:

• The recipe is easy and either a comfort food or dessert
• Photos fit the look and feel of my blog
• Has to be something I have researched and think I can rank for

When I find these recipes, it takes an enormous amount of stress away! This summer was CRAZY with vacations, kids being home, and don’t forget I have 2 kiddos in year-round ultra-competitive sports! So having photos and recipes done and not having to shoot some weeks was a Godsend.

I also hate doing desserts, so adding to my dessert recipes without having to get flour on my hands was amazing! 🙂

I will continue to invest in recipes and also have a photographer reshoot some ugly old photos, too! I have set a (rough) budget to do this each month.

Social Media

Social media continues to be pretty much a non-factor for me. In the graph above you can see a big spike in late September–that is from *someone* sharing one of my recipes and it went INSANELY viral. No one tagged me or anything so I have no idea where it came from except all the traffic came from Instagram to one specific post.

But you know what? RPM’s from Instagram traffic are TINYYYY compared to organic traffic (Click here to read about RPMs). It was laughable! So that is one thing to keep in mind when you start monetizing through Mediavine or AdThrive: Organic traffic will almost also make you more money!

⭐️Organic traffic will almost always make you more money! ⭐️

Organic: 68%

Social: 12% (Breakdown: Pinterest 61%, Instagram 22% **Facebook 10%)

Direct: 12%

Other: 8%

**This was a total anomaly from a shared post going viral. My traffic from Instagram is usually nothing! HA!

Mediavine Ads: $21,618

Affiliate Income (Amazon Associates, Cooking With Keywords and Rank IQ): $517.02

Sponsored Post/Misc: $600

Pinterest Creators Program: $2,050

TOTAL: $24,785.02

Adobe Lightroom (monthly): $10

Bank Account Fee (monthly): $15

Blog Hosting (WPOpt, monthly): $25

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

VA (monthly): $225

Other Expenses

Purchased Content (roundups, recipes, photos): $826

Mailerlite Upgrade (yearly): $126

Q3 Estimated Taxes: $2,586

That expense number is big right?! That is because this quarter I had to pay my estimated quarterly taxes. Which was no big deal for me because I plan for that.

Every time I get paid, whether it’s from Mediavine or Amazon or whoever, I set aside 30-35% for taxes. The second the money hits my account, I transfer that percentage straight over to a savings account, so I never really “see” it.

The money sits until I need to pay Uncle Sam!

Q3 2022 NET PROFIT: $18,464

This number does not include the estimated quarterly taxes I paid, so it’s more of a true “take-home pay” number.