If you’re considering starting a food blog you could very well be setting yourself up for substantial monthly revenue (we’re talking as much as $90,000!)
Of course, this income isn’t without its hard work and effort. Through SEO, affiliate sales and otherwise, you can set up your website for profit from day one.
Below we’ll discuss how these four food bloggers are making their income and what you can take away from their successes.
Starting of the list…
About the Creators: What started out as an after school hobby for 4th grade teacher Lindsay of Saint Paul, MN quickly turned into a full fledged business alongside her husband, Bjork.
What is Pinch of Yum?
Pinch of Yum is a food blog dedicated to sharing fresh and (mostly) health recipes that Lindsay and her husband genuinely love to make.
Owner and creator, Lindsay, has this to say about her growing business:
In addition to creating delicious food recipes, Pinch of Yum also serves as a hub for other niches including travel, motherhood, home and dogs.
How does Pinch of Yum make money?
The following is a list of affiliates/services that contribute to the overall income Pinch of Yum brings in monthly, in order from their most to least profitable:
- AdThrive – $52,313.13
- Sponsored Content – $22,400.00
- Bluehost – $5,175 (This income comes from a page where they show people how to start a food blog in three steps.)
- Amazon Associates – $4,753.49
- Swoop – $3,153.66
- AdThrive Video – $2,966.49
- Tasty Food Photography – $2,296.80
- Gourmet Ads – $1,280.31
- sovrn – $369.43
- How to Monetize Your Food Blog eBook – $160.00
- Genesis Theme – $139.85
- Elegant Themes – $124.00
- ActiveCampaign – $50.78
- AWeber – $14.40
Ad Thrive was by far their most profitable, raking in over half of their total monthly income.
In 2013 Ad Thrive came together with Cafe Media, a company that helps connects authentic publishers, engaged audiences and leading brands to make the internet a better place.
Taking Food to the Next Step
When Lindsay and Bjork started to see considerable monthly income from Pinch of Yum, they decided it was time to share their success with others.
In 2013 Food Blogger Pro was created, spearheaded by Bjork. What started off as an experiment turned into a place for hopeful food bloggers to learn and grow.
Food Blogger Pro is a hub for industry tips and tricks and a place where you can learn to to start, grow, and monetize your food blog.
“It contains over 350 easy-to-understand videos, an active community forum, a panel of industry experts, live monthly events where you can submit your blogging questions, and discounts on tools and services made specifically for food bloggers.” – Lindsay
Access to Food Blogger Pro requires enrollment, which is only open a few times a year. You can check the current enrollment status here.
Lindsay and Bjork note that Pinch of Yum wasn’t an overnight success but thrived instead (and continues to thrive) on slow-and-steady growth.
“It’s taken lots of work, lots of time, lots of patience, and a little bit of luck (it’s always a factor),” Bjork says.
He then adds, “…but don’t get confused and think that slow and steady means not taking action or not boldly moving forward. Daily action is critical.”
It’s clear that ‘daily action’ is paying off for Bjork and Lindsay!
Root + Revel
About the Creator: Kate Kordsmeier, founder of Root + Revel, currently lives in Atlanta with her husband and baby boy, Jackson.
In October of 2015, after being diagnosed with IBS, PCOS and hypothyroidism, Kate sought to heal her body naturally and Root + Revel was born.
“After my diagnosis, I was blown away by the rapid transformation I saw in my own body from simple, natural and holistic lifestyle changes.” – Kate
What is Root and Revel?
Root and Revel is a food and wellness site delivering inspiration to help people live a more balanced life.
It is a site that promotes real, whole foods that stray from artificial and chemical ingredients.
We’re taking it back to basics and infusing beauty, flavor and celebration into everyday moments with fresh content (expect original recipes, expert interviews, reviews, guides and personalized advice) covering everything from the life-changing anti-inflammatory diet and clean recipes to safe, non-toxic and effective beauty, personal care and home products (including DIY recipes!), and natural health and holistic wellness tips and tricks!” – Root + Rrevel
How does Root and Revel make money?
The following is a list of affiliates/services that contribute to the overall income Root + Revel brings in monthly, in order from their most to least profitable. These numbers are based on their March 2019 Income Report
- Affiliate Commissions, $11,328.67
- Butcher Box $4,720.00
- AdThrive Ad Network, $3,942.00
- Beautycounter, $1,523.04
- Amazon $1,026.70
- Thrive Market, $990.00
- US Wellness Meats $332.34
- Sunbasket $280.00
- True Botanicals, $262.86
- Dry Farm Wines $277.76
- Air Doctor Pro $219.00
- Vital Choice, $206.23
Other Affiliate Earnings: $1,573.90 - Sponsored Content, $750.00
- Business Coaching, $150.00
- eBooks (13 Pitches That Worked eBook and Superfood Green Smoothies), $125.47
Affiliate commissions play a major role in the success of Root + Revel. Affiliate links, or commissions, are arrangements in which an online merchant Website pays affiliate Websites a commission to send them traffic.
How much an affiliate makes depends on the prearranged agreement as well as the total overall number of people they send to the merchants site through a link or otherwise.
One of the fastest growing affiliate programs on the market is Amazon Associates.
Amazon Associates is free to use after approval.
“Whether you are a large network, content site or blogger, we have simple linking tools to meet your advertising needs and help you monetize your website.” – Amazon Associates
One of the biggest benefits to using Amazon Associates is that you can still earn advertising fees on qualifying purchases, not just the specific products you advertise.
To learn more, click here.
The Takeaway:
“One of the things I hope people will take away from these reports is just how much work, energy, thought and heart goes into running a blog,” Kate says.
“It’s not just as simple as slapping up a few words and an iPhone photo and pressing publish.”
40 Aprons
About the Creator: Cheryl Malik, mother of two and creator of 40 Aprons, has been interested in clean and healthy from a very young age. She became a vegetarian at the age of 10 and was on and off vegan diets for the majority of her life.
However, it wasn’t until she was dealing with postpartum issues like poor sleep, jaw pain and stubborn weight that she turned to a Whole30 based diet.
“I was shocked to find that all of the issues resolved within a couple weeks on this whole-food-focused elimination diet, and we were convinced for good!” – Cheryl
What is 40 Aprons?
40 Aprons is a food website offering healthy recipes to promote clean-eating. The majority of these recipes are Paleo-based or Whole 30 compliant.
“I pack my recipes with as much flavor as possible, so you never feel like you’re eating “healthy” – just delicious food!” – Cheryl
In addition to being healthy, the majority of the recipes on 40 Aprons are also quick and family-friendly.
How does 40 Aprons make money?
The following is a list of affiliates/services that contribute to the overall income 40 Aprons brings in monthly, in order from their most to least profitable:
- Ad revenue with Adthrive: $26,732.74.
- Thrive Market: $3840.
- Food Blog & Photography Coaching: $1800.
- Amazon Affiliate sales: $1324.29
- Sponsored posts: $1125.
- Sales: $897. (This includes all the items Cheryl has for sale on hersite, like her digital cookbook The Paleo Instant Pot, her food photography presets, and her ebook Improve Your Food Photography Almost Instantly.
- ButcherBox: $420.
- Food blog retainer clients: $400
- Beautycounter affiliate income: $86.38.
The Takeaway:
In addition to the affiliates and services listed above, Cheryl credits much of her recent success and her increased income to the SEO she implemented last year.
SEO or search engine optimization, is It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines.
“This meant learning efficient keyword research, as well as writing posts differently and updating old posts,” Cheryl says.
Cheryl starting implementing SEO by creating a spreadsheet of her top posts and began adding photos, video, copy and instructions on each one.
“The way I saw it was… if I put in this time and effort now, I’ll have a stronger platform,” she says.
And it worked. Perfecting the SEO on 40 Aprons allowed Cheryl to see a significant increase in her pageviews and overall traffic.
“My traffic from organic search results more than doubled… a 136% increase!”
For bloggers just starting out, Implementing SEO from the beginning of your blogging journey can allow your blog to garner more pageviews and traffic than it might have seen otherwise.
“It contains over 350 easy-to-understand videos, an active community forum, a panel of industry experts, live monthly events where you can submit your blogging questions, and discounts on tools and services made specifically for food bloggers.” – Lindsay
Kitchen Sanctuary
About the Creators: Nicky, a wife and mom of two living in the UK, is the owner and creator of Kitchen Sanctuary.
“I’m a firm believer in sitting the family down at the table as often as possible for a nice home cooked meal and a catch-up on the day.” – Nicky
What is Kitchen Sanctuary?
How does Kitchen Sanctuary make money?
The following is a list of affiliates/services that contribute to the overall income Kitchen Sanctuary brings in monthly, in order from their most to least profitable.
- Sponsored posts and Freelance writing/photography/video: $7542.26
- AdThrive: $1,1268.00
- Amazon Affiliate sales: $266.07
- FoodBloggerPro affiliate sales $0
- Tailwind Affiliate: $0
- “How I earned $40k in my first year of blogging” affiliate sales: $0
- Tasty Food Photography: $0
- The Food Photography book affiliate sales: $0
- SiteGround Hosting Affiliate sales: $0
Like Pinch of Yum, much of Kitchen Sanctuary’s monthly income came from AdThrive.
AdThrive’s services include:
- Ad Management
- Mobile Ad Optimization
- Video Monetization
- Exclusive Premium Campaigns
- Publisher Dashboard
- Learning Tools
- Opportunities to Grow Your Traffic
- Expert support and guidance from our team of pros
In addition, Nicky credits their focus on SEO for a lot of their success. After an audit with an SEO specialist last year, they’ve been putting his advice and expertise into practice.
“We’ve done a lot, but have mostly focused on updating old posts and adding information that google likes to see in our recipe cards. The results have been amazing – with an increase in google traffic of 252% compared to the same time period last year.” – Nicky
The Takeaway:
Nicky explains in her How to Start a Food Blog post that it’s important to know your blogs purpose.
What are your goals for the blog and how do you hope it will help your future readers?
She explains that starting a food blog purely for income purposes is possible but difficult.
“First and foremost, food blogging should be about food, and love of food. Any income should be a secondary consideration,” she advises.
Therefore if you put time and energy into something you love, the income should and will come more organically.
This includes optimizing SEO, creating consistent blog posts rich with information and photos and working out affiliate contacts and sponsorships.
“Get the basics right, then aim to make a small improvement every day. Focus on the improvement for that day, give it your full attention and you will see your blog develop and grow into something fantastic.” – Nicky