Well hello there.
Bjork here (Lindsay’s husband). I’m checking in for my monthly cameo on Pinch of Yum.
I was really excited to write this post this morning.
Then the electricity went out.
Which means that the internet went out.
Which means I’m drafting this post in good ole’ Microsoft Word. Writing in Microsoft word makes me feel like I need to be using MLA formatting. I’ll resist the urge.
Here’s the deal with this post. Every month I put together a recap of the previous month outlining the income we earned from Pinch of Yum, the type of traffic the blog is receiving, and any tips or tricks we’ve learned that might be helpful. Our hope is that these posts can help you with your blog in some way or another.
We started putting these posts together just less than one year ago. You can see that first post here.
Here’s the breakdown of July’s income from Pinch of Yum:
The Breakdown:
Tasty Food Photography eBook – $1,474.16
Bluehost – $780
Google Adsense – $631.42
BlogHer – $598.69
VigLink – $489.36
The Thesis Theme – $140.25
Elegant Themes – $136.50
Amazon Affiliate Program – $21.01
Grand Total: $4,271.39
If you’re interested in learning more about some of the ways that you can monetize a food blog, we encourage you to download this free ebook, “16 Ways to Monetize Your Food Blog,” from our sister site, Food Blogger Pro!
Affiliate Totals
The top income source last month was Lindsay’s eBook, Tasty Food Photography. One of the reasons the book did so well was because of the incredible affiliates that are promoting the book on their sites.
Last month, affiliates earned a total of $548.86.
It’s fun to know that the book is helping others to create an income from their blogs or websites.
Thanks to all of you that are currently promoting the book on your site!
If you’re interested you can click here to learn how to sign up for the Tasty Food Photography affiliate program.
Traffic
Here are some screenshots of the traffic to Pinch of Yum in July. Click on the image to see a bigger version with more details.
Tips and Takeaways
Security
Call me a nerd, but I’m becoming more and more fascinated with internet security.
**Bjork scrunches his nose and pushes up his thick rimmed glasses**
I was curious if people ever try to “hack” Pinch of Yum, so I installed a security plugin for WordPress called Limit Login Attempts. The plugin blocks people after they try and login to your account a certain number of times with the wrong password. Twenty minutes after I had installed the plugin, we had our first confirmed hacking attempt. What?! And another one thirty minutes later. And another one twenty minutes later.
Lesson learned: there are bad guys out there that want to access your stuff.
Here’s a screenshot of the most recent login attempts and the username(s) that they tried to use. Someone even tried using Lindsay’s name.
Note: If I met these people in person I would give them a wet-willy, then a wedgie, and wrap things up by tripping them on their way out the door. That being said, I thought it would be in everyone’s best interest if I blurred out their IP addresses.
Needless to say, it’s a good reminder to make sure you are using really solid passwords – numbers, letters, and maybe even some symbols.
If you’re a fellow food blogger, you might know that Google oftentimes shows a recipe post differently than a normal post. I talked about tips for how to format it correctly in last month’s post. If you’re using WordPress, the easiest way is to use a plugin like Easy Recipe. Update: We’ve since launched our own recipe plugin called Tasty Recipes. 🎉
If formatted correctly, a recipe will appear something like this in Google:
So what do you do if you want to know if a post is formatted correctly, but the post is so new that it doesn’t show up in Google yet?
Google’s Rich Result Tool to the rescue!
Google has an awesome tool called the Rich Result Tool that allows you to put your blog post’s URL in to see what it will look like when it shows up on Google’s search results page.
Kinda cool, if you ask me.
Questions Answered
There are lots of people that come to Pinch of Yum each month after searching something very specific on Google. I have come to the realization that not all of these people may find the answer they’re looking for. I would like to attempt to give an official response here.
Dear angry international croissant Googler: Totally understandable. Something that I’m sure many of us can relate to.
Dear extremely picky eater Googler: Although we don’t have a good solution for this, I would suggest starting with closing your eyes while eating.
Dear slightly confused blog researching Googler: Could you restate the question?
Dear desperate cake needing Googler: Fear not, we all feel this need at times. Check out Jenna’s recipe for triple layer chocolate birthday cake.
Thanks
My hope is that these posts provide some actionable tips that will help you grow your blog or website. As always, thanks for your time and interest in checking them out.
Until next time, cheers!