Food Blog Income Report June 2022
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Despite slow month over month growth we experienced strong referral traffic growth at nearly 800% and 963% growth in google clicks from this time last year!
Welcome to Cooking with Carbs’ monthly Food Blog Income Reports. Today’s post will be the Food Blog Income and Blog Traffic Report for June 2022. The food related posts on this site are entirely written by Cooking with Carbs chef/recipe creator Anneke Silva, but the posts in the blogging section are be written by her husband Isuru.
If you would like to follow the history of our traffic/income progress please start from the beginning of our journey in 2021, and find the links below:
Month 15: May 2022 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 5469 / Profit -$64.15
Month 14: Apr 2022 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 5519 / Profit -$58.95
Month 13: Mar 2022 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 5834 / Profit -$24.46
Month 12: Feb 2022 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 5279 / Profit -$24.95
Month 11: Jan 2022 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 5091 / Profit -$848.36
Month 10: Dec 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 3759 / Profit -$9.19
Month 9: Nov 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 2640 / Profit -$732.76
Month 8: Oct 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 2152 / Profit +$55.71
Month 7: Sept 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 1950 / Profit -$24.95
Month 6: August 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 1621 / Profit -$24.95
Month 5: July 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 2067 / Profit -$23.24
Month 4: June 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 2489 / Profit -$73.30
Month 3: May 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 1708 / Profit -$859
Month 2: April 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 1138 / Profit -$1,077
Month 1: March 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 474 / Profit -$2,236 (Q1)
Continue reading to find out why we had a sudden spike in referral growth (781%) and why this wasn’t necessarily a great thing!
Blog Traffic Report – Google Analytics Data Analysis
This section will be will contain a deep dive deeper into Google Analytics. In this post we will focus on the June Audience Overview, Traffic Source/Medium and Users sections.
We continue to track the total number of posts finishing each month as this is strongly tied to total traffic. This month we had 3 new posts and finished the month with a total of 121 blog posts.
Users Overview for June 2022
For several consecutive months we’ve had a bot spike in traffic but this one was less pronounced, and as a result the Top Channel breakdown has turned back in the expected direction with more Organic search (up to 81.9%) and much less direct traffic (down from 17% to 9.6%).
The total number of users increased slightly this month by 1% to 5037 and Referral traffic had very strong growth up 781%. Organic traffic also had solid growth for its size at 4%.
Blog Traffic Report: Audience Overview for June 2022
This month the bot spike was slightly less than last month, with last month’s spike coming with about 800 single day users and this month about 600. Our metrics for sessions per user have been pretty stable around 1.10-1.11 and page sessions somewhat stable as well.
Our average session duration fluctuated largely this month down from 54 seconds to 30 seconds. This may be due to non-bot leaving the page sooner.
Similar to our Total Users, the Total Sessions was also up 1% to 5567. Both New users and new visitors were down slightly this month and the bounce rate up slightly from 86 to 88%.
Food Blog Traffic Report: All Traffic Source/Medium for June 2022
One of the benefits of doing these monthly assessments of traffic is that it forces you to do a deeper dive. It’s easy to assume the top traffic sources from month to month are consistent, but looking at the top traffic sources I noticed a new and large source.
I had over 280 sessions from trafficland.club (referral). Upon google analysis of this traffic source it seems as though this source is a different form of bot traffic that shows up as referral traffic instead of direct. This also explains why in the graph earlier in the post our monthly referral traffic was up nearly 800%.
Aside from the bots boosting referral traffic, a couple of our other sources of referral traffic were also up a lot this month, with facebook traffic up 208% and foodgawker traffic up 152%.
Google Search Console Report: Search Query Analysis for June 2022
In this section we will explore the Google Search Console Search Results and Google Discover results for June 2022.
Google Search Console – Search Results
The above graph shows our Google Search results over the last 12 months. The 12 month average of our CTR and average position continue to move in the right direction, with the CTR increasing from from 2.9% to 3% and the average position decreasing from 17.1 to 16.8.
Looking closer at just the month of June our total clicks are up slightly from May, but the average CTR continues to decline from 3.2% to 3.1% and average position stable at 16.1.
Google Search Console – Google Discover Results
Google discover traffic remained low this month but this is expected with minimal posts and not many google web stories. This month we had 78 total Discover clicks.
Google Web Stories
As stated above in June we once again had no Google Web stories. We’re having a hard time finding time to make new posts let alone supplemental efforts like web stories.
The chart below shows some interesting trends this month. First is that we’re experiencing more growth in impressions than clicks which suggests that if we improve our click through rate on the new posts gaining impressions then our clicks should go up.
We’re also experiencing more growth in our total queries, as we’re seeing almost 20% growth in all queries of at least 50 impressions. This is consistent with more impressions, as we’re starting to rank for more search keywords and thus getting more impressions.
Blog Social Media Report: Social Media Breakdown for June 2022
This month’s social media performance was the worst in some time. None of our platforms gained followers and Instagram went down by 18 followers.
Year Over Year Results: June 2021 to June 2022
As we move into our third month of having year over year data it’s becoming a little disappointing. We’re hovering around the 100% growth in many areas but it’s frustrating to think of how long it will take to achieve 50k sessions if we simply continue 100% growth YoY.
As of June 2022 our total number of blog posts has gone up 81%, our total users up 100% and our total sessions up 95% from where we were in June 2021. It’s clear that we’ll never duplicate the blog post rate we had in our first year so we will need to shift our focus likely towards improving existing content.
Food Blog Income Report for June 2022 – Expenses and Revenues
This post contains affiliate links and which means we’ll receive a commission if you purchase through our links, at no extra cost to you. This helps keep the content free on this site.
Profit results were down a fair bit this month, at -$255.50.
One-Time Expenses: $0
No one time expenses this month.
Recurring Expenses: $259.2
This month we had our usual monthly Masterclass ($15) and Jetpack Backup ($9.95), but we also had a larger unexpected annual expense. This was our first time paying for an accountant to handle the blog portion of our taxes and that cost nearly $100 USD.
On top of that we had a final UPS PO Box fee before canceling the box. The main purpose of the PO box was to have an address that wasn’t a personal address for our email list. Unfortunately we haven’t been sending out many emails due to the low number of subscribers so we’re canceling that expense.
Revenue from June 2022
TOTAL REVENUES: $3.70
After a few months with no Amazon revenue, we did have $3.70 revenue this month.
Food Blog Short Term and Long Term Goals
Short Term Goals
We still aim to get to 8 new posts per month but we may need to shift our focus from improving posts rather than writing new posts.
Long Term Goals:
No new goals here.
Month 1: March 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 474 / Profit -$2,236 (Q1)
Month 2: April 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 1138 / Profit -$1,077
Month 3: May 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 1708 / Profit -$859
Month 4: June 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 2489 / Profit -$73.30
Month 5: July 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 2067 / Profit -$23.24
Month 6: August 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 1621 / Profit -$24.95
Month 7: September 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 1950 / Profit -$24.95
Month 8: October 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 2152 / Profit +$55.71
Month 9: November 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 2640 / Profit -$732.76
Month 10: December 2021 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 3759 / Profit -$9.19
Month 11: January 2022 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 5091 / Profit -$848.36
Month 12: February 2022 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 5279 / Profit -$24.95
Month 13: March 2022 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 5834 / Profit -$24.46
Month 14: April 2022 Food Blog Income Report and Traffic Report – Sessions 5519 / Profit -$58.95
I am facing a time crunch as well, and improving existing posts has been a worthwhile strategy for me. It has been effective in improving Google rankings as well as revenue. I still haven’t tried web stories because of the time factor. Do you ever make idea pins? I think they are responsible for a lot of the direct traffic I get. If you and your wife have time to take short video clips while cooking, that might give your Pinterest account a boost. Here’s my latest, nothing fancy, and it really doesn’t take much time to put together. https://pin.it/7j3GzOM Maybe it will jumpstart your list of Pinterest followers. You do an amazing job of analyzing your data!
Thank you for the feedback and for the pin, looks like a great idea pin! I was doing some idea pins when they first came out. I should check back into them!
Blogging is tough. If you enjoy it, keep going! This is the beginning of year 5 for me.