Traffic and Income Report (Q1 2023)

This year I've decided to add some transparency to my blog by sharing my traffic, income, and expenses every quarter! I'm hoping that doing this will help other food bloggers and/or those considering blogging as a career while keeping me on top of my finances.

A Few Notes

• The traffic reports are pulled from Google Analytics.
• The income and expenses are cash values, not accrual. This means the numbers shown are what actually entered/exited my accounts each month.
  • For example, Mediavine pays publishers on a Net65 basis, so my reported income in January 2023 is reflecting what I made from Mediavine in October 2022.
• I added an SCorp election to my LLC for 2023.
• I have a few contractors helping me with blog writing, Pinterest, and photo editing.
• 2023 is my second year of blogging full-time!

January 2023

Blog Traffic

In January, brokenovenbaking.com had 63,170 sessions and the majority of traffic came from Google search results.

February 2023

Blog Traffic

In February, brokenovenbaking.com had 59,246 sessions and the majority of traffic came from Google search results, once again. Traffic dipped a bit from January.

March 2023

Traffic

In March, brokenovenbaking.com had 62,217 sessions and the majority of traffic came from Google search results. This is up from February, but still less than what we saw in January.

Quarter 1, 2023

2023 vs 2022 Traffic

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my traffic from this quarter! Sessions increased by 150% compared to Q1 2022, which is great! I was expecting to see a big dip in traffic after the holidays, but it only dropped by about 18% from Q4 2022.

Net Income

• Q1 Income: $23217.40
• Q1 Expenses: $11815.82
• Q1 Net Income: $11401.58

Looking to Quarter 2

Quarter 1 is typically the slowest one for me, so I'm expecting traffic and income to increase in Quarter 2. That being said, Chris and I are moving into a larger apartment in April where I'll have an office/studio space! I'm super excited to have my own room, but there will definitely be an increase in expenses with the purchase of office furniture and rent. Also, I didn't pay my quarterly taxes in 2022, so I owed quite a bit of money to the IRS and Illinois 😅.

After I get settled into the new space, I'd like to focus more energy on coaching calls and optimizing old content. I launched my coaching calls in January and have really been enjoying helping other bloggers with their goals! I also started a brand new weekly email newsletter, sharing tips and resources for food bloggers.

Something I'm proud of in Quarter 1 is that I stayed on top of my blog posts, sharing at least 2 new/updated recipes every week! I even got ahead and started scheduling them out a week in advance. As I mentioned, I'd like to move my efforts towards optimizing old content vs creating new recipes in Quarter 2, but I still want to keep up with at least 2 posts per week. I also need to progressively get ahead because we have a lot of traveling expected in Quarters 3 and 4!