I’ve got news. I made money with my food blog! A whopping 8 dollars and 99 cents!
Yay!
When I first started this blog almost a year ago (that’s right: The Tough Cookie has a big birthday coming up!), I already knew a thing or two about food blogs and money. Well, I thought I did, anyway…
I thought food blogs were magical places on the web where home cooks with super powers who never set their own oven mitts on fire and who never misplace cheesecakes post about amazing food. It turned out that, yes, food blogs are magical places on the web and yes, they are about amazing food, but no, they are usually not run by home cooks with super powers. I should know. I have a food blog. I am a food blogger. And I have been known to set my oven mitts on fire and I have once ruined a perfectly good (and may I add: delicious) cheesecake because I planted my foot in it stepping out onto the balcony, where I left it to cool.
Some of life’s lessons are best learned the hard way…
Anyway, on with the money. I don’t know a lot about money. I never had any real money. Did I mention that I’m a student? And not one of those smart students who study computer engineering or economics. You know, those kids who – fresh out of college – start making truckloads of money. I kind of chose to do the complete opposite: I study English. English Literature.
So yes, I do know Jonathan Safran Foer, Shakespeare, Margaret Atwood, even Machiavelli! But I don’t know anything about money.
Except that this month I made $8.99!
I’m so proud!
So why did I want to start making money from my food blog?
Honestly? Because – apparently – it can be done! Besides, I love my blog and I love blogging, but it turns out that blogging can be quite pricy. Not only do you need to pay for webhosting if you want your own url (which I really wanted), but you also need to buy the ingredients for your recipes. If I can get my blog to a point that it pays for itself, that would be totally awesome!
Like free-cake kind of awesome!
What’s up with this whole ‘income report’?
Cute, right? I got the idea from my favorite food blog: Pinch of Yum. The Pinch of Yum team – Lindsay and Bjork – do these kinds of income reports to provide their readers with a little insight into the inner workings of their blog and to explain what steps and services they use to monetize it. I think their reports are really interesting for bloggers secretly dreaming of monetizing their blogs, so I thought I’d do the same. Not only is it a great way to keep track of things myself, but I think it can also be really helpful for others!
Plus, I’ve never been so proud of $8.99! I wanted to share it with the world!
So how did I make $8.99?
As my trusty readers may have noticed, for the past two weeks or so I have been displaying ads on my blog. You can look for them right now in the sidebar; there should be three of them.
So, what’s next?
There are a number of different types of ads and a lot of different ad networks that you can use to implement ads on your blog. One of the most important types of ads are CPM-based ads. CPM-based ads are pay-per-view ads, which means that whenever someone visits your site, these ads will earn you money. I haven’t implemented ads like these on my blog yet, but it would be a great next step!
Here’s why:
I use Google Analytics to gain insight in my blog’s traffic. Once you sign up, it provides you with detailed statistics, including cute little graphs and pie charts.As it turns out, it was a pretty good month for me! Thanks to all my trusty readers who keep coming back to my humble little blog! And special thanks to that very popular person who liked me on Facebook! Almost 5000 views in one day! Wow!!
If I had already implemented CPM-ads, I could have made another $25 last month! So that’s what I’ll be focusing on next.
But first…
What to do with that $8.99?
I’m not sure yet. I’m pretty sure it won’t buy the Rocking Rebel and me a new TV. Until I know what to do with it, I think I will just keep it in a sock or a glass jar somewhere, so that every time I step on a cheesecake or burn one of my oven mitts or a tea towel or something I can look at it and feel proud of myself!
Back on Tuesday with an actual recipe!
Update: the content of this post has been updated because I was afraid that a certain ad network would ban me for providing my readers with information about their services.
New favorite food quote:
Adwords is a great program to actually generate some decent revenue, I’ve had alright success monetizing my site with it. I’ve recently tried monetizing my site with sponsored posts with reputable platforms like linkworth and teliad. You do make a bit more money from it if your blog has a stable visits and rankings, however, you do have the issue of “do I really want my blog to be there only for revenue purposes”.
Hi Brad, nice to meet you! I understand where you’re coming from. Food blogging is so much more than cooking and baking and posting pictures online… Especially if you’re trying to make a little money, it really requires planning and strategic thinking. ‘Do I want to be associated with this?’ ‘Would this be a step forward?’ etc…
For example, right now I’m trying to figure out whether I want to use Feedblitz or Mailchimp for e-mail subscriptions!
Hi Nila! We love reading your food blog, there are so much delicious recipes on here. Have you tried applying for Gourmet Ads? They are really great, and it’ll earn you a CPM income 🙂 Looking forward to hear from you!
Hey fellow Dutchies! Thanks for stopping by my blog 🙂 I haven’t tried applying for Gourmet Ads, actually… I’ll definitely look into it! I have been accepted by Blogher a few months ago, but a little more money is always appreciated 😉
Thanks for your helpful guide to monetizing a blog. I am relatively new to blogging, but hope to start making things pay soon and found your blog really useful. Thank you
Hi Sue, I’m glad you thought my posts were useful. I’m going to start a new series about monetizing a blog soon, called ‘Blogging for a Living’, in which I will discuss other methods of monetizing. You might like that, too 😉 Good luck with your blog!