Food Blog Income Report May 2022
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. This helps keep the content on this site free. Please read full disclosure (Disclaimer) for more information.
Our second down month in a row but we maintained very strong year over year growth in all metrics including google clicks!
Welcome to Cooking with Carbs’ monthly Food Blog Income Reports. Today’s post will be the Food Blog Income and Blog Traffic Report for May 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 find our previous income and traffic reports or start from the beginning of our journey in 2021, please find the links below:
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 out why we’re seeing month over month declines in our sessions and page views.
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 December Audience Overview, Traffic Source/Medium and Users sections.
For more information on where to find the relevant information in Google Analytics and definitions of relevant terms, refer to our First Food Blog Income Report.
The expected traffic is strongly tied to overall site content, and this site we had our lowest content month since the blog started as personal life is getting in the way! This month we had 3 new posts (though only 1 of these was a food post) and finished the month with a total of 118 blog posts. We once again failed to make any google web stories this month.
Users Overview for May 2022
The top channel breakdown for has further dropped from 87% two months ago down to 80.5% this month. By contrast direct traffic increased from 12% up to 17% of the total. We did experience another spike of traffic this month so the gain of Direct traffic could once agai be from bots.
The total number of users continued to decline for the second straight month, this time by 2% down under 5k. Direct users saw another increase but this was likely due to bot traffic, and this increase was offset by a big decline of referral at 66%.
Blog Traffic Report: Audience Overview for May 2022
This month we had a spike in bot traffic, much like last month, but this month the spike was about 755 users on May 6, up from the regular daily average of around 150 users. Since each month had a bot spike the other stats including sessions/user and bounce rate were pretty consistent at 1.10 and 86% respectively. Returning visitors were up though from 8% to 10% this month.
Our sessions status was similar to last month in that we declined in overall sessions despite seeing a surge in bot traffic. This month we had no gain in page views but a 1% decline in total sessions down to 5469. The total returning visitors and users increased from last month which could add some consistency from month to month going forward.
Food Blog Traffic Report: All Traffic Source/Medium for May 2022
With only one post in the month of May being a food related post our foodgawker traffic for the month took a big decline, down from 92 sessions in April to 25 in May. Consequently the top 5 sources of traffic also shifted from the month with Bing entering the top 5 despite only being 29 sessions.
As mentioned previously, foodgawker had a big decline of 76% and facebook also declined significantly from April down 47%. The gains from direct traffic are also misleading as the 37% gain is likely due to bot traffic.
Google Search Console Report: Search Query Analysis for May 2022
In this section we will explore the Google Search Console Search Results and Google Discover results for May 2022.
Google Search Console – Search Results
The above graph shows our Google Search results over the last 12 months. The rolling 12 month average of our CTR and average position continue to improve, with the CTR increasing from 2.8% to 2.9% and the average position decreasing from 17.5 to 17.1.
Unfortunately when we zoom in on the month of May our numbers have declined some, with total clicks down, average CTR down from 3.3% to 3.2% and average position up from 15 to 16.1.
Google Search Console – Google Discover Results
May was another slow month for food related posts and google web stories so the discover traffic was down significantly once more, from 149 clicks to 68.
Google Web Stories
In May we once again had no Google Web Story traffic which is consistent with the fact that we made no Google Web stories.
The chart below reliably shows the extent of decline we experienced across both Google Search traffic and Google Discover traffic. In may we had a 3% decline in google search clicks despite having a slight increase in impressions. Google discover clicks and impressions were down significantly at 55%.
Blog Social Media Report: Social Media Breakdown for May 2022
Our social media progress is quite consistent from month to month, with 1-2 new Pinterest followers per month and 9-12 decline in IG followers.
Year Over Year Results: May 2021 to May 2022
This is our second month being able to do year over year comparisons and hopefully once we’re further into the blog the metrics will carry more weight and we’ll see more monthly/seasonal trends.
In 2021 we were creating a lot more blog posts than in 2022, so the YoY blog post growth will continue to slow down. April to April was over 170% blog post growth but May to May is only 115%. The total sessions are 219% more this month than last year at this time and total google clicks are up significantly 4326 vs 169.
Food Blog Income Report for May 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 similar to last month down $64.15 (versus nearly $59 last month).
One-Time Expenses: $0
No one time expenses this month.
Recurring Expenses: $64.15
This month we had our usual monthly Masterclass ($15) and Jetpack Backup ($9.95), plus the annual WP Rocket ($39.20).
Revenue from April 2022
TOTAL REVENUES: $0
Unfortunately we had no Amazon revenue this month.
Food Blog Short Term and Long Term Goals
Short Term Goals
We continue to target 8 blog posts per month but unfortunately we keep falling short by a lot. Ultimately my wife and I both need to get into a rhythm and we should be able to maintain 8 posts per month.
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
It’s great that you have enough data to look at your YoY comparison. That is so helpful when your traffic is slightly down. How nice that your returning user count is growing. People know quality when they see it. Thank you for sharing your monthly income report. It’s always interesting to witness the growth of other blogs.
This is awesome. You have put a lot of work into this.
Keep going– You are doing great! I wish I kept up with my data like you are doing. This needs to be my goal.