What better way to track my progress than with how much money my site is making? Not as though it’s all about money- I love what I do, it’s my passion. But it never hurts to make a little money doing what you love… right? And by sharing my changes and numbers with you, it will help any bloggers out there learn from my experience!
Since this is my first report, I am going to start with all the “back” income I received start with my first gain.
Back in October 2012 I signed up with Google Adsense and started placing their ads on my blog. They are a pay by click program which means you make however much money the rate is per each click. I had three of their ads on my site- most important of all was the 250by300 pixel ad at the upper most right hand corner of my blog. This ad is placed “above the fold” meaning that it is in pageview when the page is first loaded, before you start scrolling down. It is one of the most optimal places for ad placement, that is why publisher programs always require you to place at least one ad “above the fold”. When I joined the Foodie Blogroll Publisher Program in the Spring of 2012 I had to move my “above the fold” ad for Adsense in order to place a Foodie Blogroll one there. I also got ride of the rest of my Adsense ads, bring me down to just the one. At that point I had 3 ads from Foodie Blogroll placed around my site and 1 Adsense ad. In the middle of this last month, May 2013, I decided to get rid of Foodie Blogroll altogether and see how Adsense would preform on its’ own now that I was getting better traffic.
As you can see from the graph below, there was a definite increase in earnings for Adsense. Particularly so this last month when I moved the ad to the “above the fold” position and added two other ads, another 250×300 pixel ad lower on the sidebar and a banner at the bottom of my posts.
Adsense:
October 2011- $1.07
November 2011- $4.36
December 2011- $13.98
January 2012- $.31
February 2012- $30.60
March 2012- $7.82
April 2012- $14.31
May 2012- $34.12
June 2012- $22.37
July 2012- $23.23
August 2012- $39.17
September 2012- $33.07
October 2012- $26.29
November 2012- $49.49
December 2012- $77.74
January 2013- $34.49
February 2013- $33.19
March 2013- $50.20
April 2013- $46.47
May 2013- $165.20
Foodie Blogroll:
(The income from the months of April 2012 to November 2012 are missing on my account. To give you an idea though, I started out with about $17 the first month, the moved up to $20 or so, etc.)
December 2012- $136.44
January 2013- $121.49
February 2013- $106.84
March 2013- $115.31
April 2013- $94.58
May 1- 13 , 2013- $52.97
Affiliated Links:
Amazon (May 2012- May 2013)- $54.27
TOTAL: $1,389.38
The graph above shows how my numbers are increasing in terms of visitors. It goes back until last May, so about a full year and it looks like I have improved my numbers ever so slightly. I started at what looks like around 1,000 or so visitors and nowadays I get around 5,000. Eh, not bad for one year. My goal is to be upwards to 10,000 by next year.
As you can see, these numbers are pretty weak. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take them… but I’ve read of food blogs making upwards to $6,000+ a month. My goal is to be making $500 a month by this time next year (I like to set small goals to avoid disappointment haha). Wish me luck and stay tuned to the first of the months’ post to see how I am doing!
This recipe has already been read 17 times!