November report: can blogging be profitable?

by Gigi Griffis
Vicious Foodie

Welcome back to my blogging experiment.

As you may already know, in January, I started a brand new blog with the goal of seeing if I can make money through blogging within a year. Every month, I share some details as I work (in my spare time) to see if I can grow said blog to a point where it starts earning some money.

November’s in the rearview mirror, and it’s time to check in. 


(Psst, this post may contain affiliate links, which means if you purchase something through one of my links, I get a commission at no extra cost to you.)


What I’ve been up to

In November, I got into a prestigious mentorship program for my novel. Which is amazing! But it also means some serious neglect on the blog project. I dropped from two posts per week to one to keep my schedule manageable and I didn’t get a chance to do some of my usual cross-linking and editing. 

Which is why it’s no surprise that I had a small drop in traffic…

November blog traffic

For the first month since I began, the blog’s traffic dipped slightly. From 2,419 users and 3,722 page views in October to 2,138 and 3,008, respectively, in November. Given the time I’ve (not) put in this month, this is unsurprising. What is lovely is that with absolutely no effort put into the blog, the traffic still barely dipped. I literally cut my publishing schedule in half and I did not lose that much ground in page views or users.

November Google Analytics

Search traffic

As usual, Google is responsible for the large majority of my blog traffic, with over 1,800 of the above users finding me via search.

November spending

As usual, I spent $0 in my quest to grow the new blog. 

November blog earnings

I’ve agreed to do one sponsored post for a European foodie brand (to be revealed later), but it’s still a question mark when that payment will come through. I got the first draft of the post in November and asked for a re-write that was more appropriate to my site, and I’m hoping come early December I’ll see the re-write and watch that first payment hit my account.

At the end of the day, that would still put this new blog in the red, since I spent some money in month #1 getting things set up. But it would also answer the core question of whether the blog could make any money within a year.

We’ll see what happens. 


I want these reports to be as detailed, interesting, and helpful as possible, so let me know if there’s something else you’d like to know or something I can do to improve them!

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2 comments

Willow U Paule January 26, 2020 - 11:32 pm

Yes, you should be proud, Gigi! First, congrats on getting into the mentorship program. Second, it’s amazing that you only experienced a small dip in traffic. I’m enjoying these updates about your blog–thanks for sharing them!

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gigigriffis January 27, 2020 - 12:18 am

Thanks!

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