Heads up: some of the links in this post are affiliate links and services I use for OMG FOOD.

$Title image with text that reads \"traffic and income report, August 2015.\"$

Hey, hey! This is the 2nd traffic and income report where I share info about blogging behind the scenes: things that went right, things that went wrong, blog traffic, income, and expenses. Yay, numbers and stuff! My goal is to someday make a living off my blog. Lots of bloggers out there have proved it's possible and I want to join in on the adventure. Every month, I'll share my experience as I go in a post just like this one!

You won't find a recipe here today, but if the technical side of blogging intrigues you, read on!

Numbers

Traffic Overview

Total traffic for the month of August, including the amount of users, page views, and sessions.

August was a pretty great month for the blog! See that huge spike near August 15th? That day was record-breaking as far as page views went. And it was all thanks to homemade marshmallow sauce! That recipe took off on StumbleUpon, which brought in a lot of traffic for that day and it lingered on a bit over the next few days. I can't even tell you how ecstatic I was to see such an increase in page views. That's about a 55% increase from last month (I think I did that math right).

Alas, what goes up must come down. Traffic resumed to normal after a few days, but hot damn what a ride that was.

Top Ten Traffic Sources

Because StumbleUpon was the star for August, that put Yummly in 2nd place and dropped Pinterest down to 8th, though there was a tiny bit more engagement on Pinterest this month, with an increase of 5% on traffic from there. Every little bit helps, amirite?

Mobile vs. Desktop vs. Tablet

A hell of a lot more users on mobile this month! Last month, there was a difference of 80 people between desktop and mobile, give or take.

Income

Sovrn - $8.18
Gourmet Ads - $7.34
Switch Ads - $6.38
Amazon Associates - $1.00

Total Income: $22.90

Expenses

Food Blogger Pro - $25
VaultPress - $5
Google Apps - $5
*Food - $12

Total Expenses: $47

Profit: $0

*Expensing all my food doesn’t make sense because I’m going to cook and eat anyway! But this is the cost of food specifically made for the blog this month.

Takeaways

People love sugar. I've noticed that sweeter recipes seem to do better traffic-wise than the healthier ones in general and the marshmallow sauce recipe only proved that some more. Does that mean I'll share more recipes that have lots of sugar in them? Nope! I love sweet things and all, but my blog isn't about everything sugar. I'm sure I'll go through phases where I post a few sweet recipes close to one another, but I don't want to rely solely on sugar to reach my goal.

Social media is work. I love social media. I do. But once I slip on promoting my own content and others, I really slip. There are scheduling apps I use to help with this. Tailwind for Pinterest and Hootsuite for other networks, but scheduling takes a little time too! It wouldn't be a problem if I didn't have a job where I work 40+ hours a week. That said, these apps are life-savers and help me to work smarter instead of harder by a long shot, but I need to be better about sticking with it. I sometimes take a couple days off from saying anything on Twitter and such and really, that's not doing me any good. Not if I expect this blog to succeed.

And that's all for this month's edition of the traffic and income report! Did you find this post informative? If you're a blogger, did it seem useful to you? How has your traffic been this past summer? Let me know in the comments!