Welcome once again to our monthly income and traffic report!

We decided to do this to give you a glimpse into what is going on ‘behind the posts’ at Foxy Folksy and for us to keep track of the developments on our attempt in making Foxy Folksy an income-generating blog.  Hopefully, sharing this will also help others who are interested in creating their own blog or those who are also trying to find their way in making money from their existing blog by learning from our mistakes and successes.

Foxy Folksy has been up and running since January 2014 but only as a hobby blog. This means I was just posting articles whenever I was in the mood, like twice in a month or so. We only really started thinking that maybe we could make some earnings from it in early months of 2016. You can see how Foxy Folksy was doing in the months from my first income report.

Another thing worth mentioning, I guess, is that we are not in the United States. We are currently based in Germany but most of our traffic are coming from the US and then second from the Philippines. Why do I have to mention this? Simply because I am starting to learn that the opportunities for US-based bloggers are different for bloggers in my situation. I am also following some food bloggers who publish their monthly income reports but all I was able to find so far are US-based bloggers. It is a good way to get ideas where they get their income, sure, but some of their sources or advice are not applicable to me, a Non-US-based blogger. So I am trying to share the things that are working for me and those that did not.

Below are the numbers for the month of April:

Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links and all of the products listed below are products and services I have personally used or still using.

INCOME:

• Adsense - $124.69
• Youtube - $35.57
• Gourmet Ads - $16.16
• Monumetric  - $513.92
• Sovrn - $48.03
• Swoop - $3.47
• Amazon Associates- $17.93
• Hostgator - $50 -->  this is from affiliate links on the page: How to create a blog

Total Income: $809.77

EXPENSES:

• Hostgator - $11.84
• Boardbooster - $20.00
• Monthly Giveaway - $38.95
• Food Blogger Pro - $23.25
• Facebook Ads - $53.00
• Youtube Ads - $5.00
• Mailchimp - $20.00

Total Expenses: $172.04

NET INCOME: $637.73

TRAFFIC:

These are actual screenshots from Google Analytics:

TRAFFIC SOURCES:

RPM FOR THE MONTH:

 $5.10

What is RPM you say? Well simply put, it is how much you earn per 1000 Pageviews and you calculate with this formula:

(revenue / pageviews) x 1000

Why is it important? Well, it is a simple way of tracking how the blog is performing from month to month when it comes to generating income. With this, you are also able to compare your own performance to other bloggers who are also publishing their income reports. The goal is, of course, to get this number to increase or in the least stable. A decrease in RPM means some improvement in your income strategy is needed.

RPM FOR THE PAST 12 MONTHS:

FACEBOOK : 2,001(up by 376) 

INSTAGRAM : 5,100 (up by 1,932)

PINTEREST : 4,532 (up by 106)

TWITTER : 2,360 (up by 591)

YOUTUBE : 1,061 (up by 292)

EMAIL : 1,348 (up by 243)

• This month's page views are up by 4.58% from 151,922 last April to 158,877 this month. Not really so much but already grateful for the slight increase. We are actually feeling like we were a bit stuck the last two months after the big jump in March. We did a bit of digging and we noticed that our traffic from Pinterest was declining the last 2 months. It is not so obvious in the graph below but it is from 17,246 in March to 14,772 in May. This is somewhat unusual because we normally have a steady upward movement in the past. In May, we also suddenly lost a bulk of followers in a day, like 200+.   
• We had a total of 11 posts for May! Still on the right track. Target is 10-12 per month.
• Income for the month has gone up by 40% with an RPM of $5.10! Hurray! Not bad at all. Again, we would also like to note that at the moment Ads are mainly our source of income. Sponsorship is hard to get by, in our case at least, because we are not in the US but most of our audience are.
• Youtube Earnings is still growing as we add more video on our Youtube channel. Youtube videos can also be a source of income thru Ads from Adsense. Here are our latest videos:

• We would like to inform those who are also interested in joining FOOD BLOGGER PRO that they will be opening their summer enrollment from June 20th-27th! Slots are limited.  This is a membership site for food bloggers (and others) created by Bjork and Lindsay from Pinch of Yum. This is where they share their secret to their successful website. It is great for those who are just starting to blog or thinking of having one. They have video tutorials on how to create your own blog/website, driving traffic to it, SEO, food photography and everything in between!  They also have a great team who are very friendly and helpful and the community is just great! So even for those who have been already blogging for awhile, you can still learn a lot and be up-to-date with what's new in the world of blogging and get answers to your questions from the tips and advice of the experts in the community forum. They also have this monthly live Q& A where you can ask Bjork and Lindsay questions and get your answers live. Read here to know more about Food Blogger Pro!

• What's new! We recently changed our email subscription strategy. It was a decision that Armin and I took after watching some videos on how to grow your email list shared by a member of Food Blogger Pro in a forum. One of the changes we did was to have a single opt-in instead of the double opt-in that requires a new subscriber to confirm his/her subscription by clicking a button in an email that will be sent to the given email address after he/she already clicked the sign-up button from our site. With the single opt-in, the process is shortened by removing the email confirmation part. There are pros and cons for both options but what made us go for the single opt-in is the ease for our readers to sign-up especially if they are on mobile. Another tip we got was on how to have a more catchy subscription form by choosing the right words to prompt readers to take action. Below is the comparison of our old versus new subscription form.    With this changes, we more than doubled our monthly new subscribers.

• What is next! No new theme yet, ugh! We're still looking though.  For now, I am trying to work double time in making articles to post in preparation for our vacation. My parents are coming to visit us mid-July and we will be making some tours around for a month. So I am planning to schedule posts so that you will not miss me during this time.

That's it for now! Until the next reporting!

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Thinking of starting your own blog, you may want to visit my blog post on How To Start A Blog with a checklist of the things you should know before actually creating one and How to create a Blog for the step-by-step procedures on building your blog. You may also want to check out my Resource Page for the tools you need for your blog.