Gardens and Kids Everywhere!
Summer is here, and with that we have gardens and kids at home. This is my first time having gardens of my own to care for, so that is an adventure all its own. To summarize it, I am attempting to grow high yield annuals, and start some perennial plants which should yield plenty over multiple years. So, in the front yard I converted a struggling flower garden into an herb garden (thyme, rosemary, parsley, basil, lavender, and mint) and it has almost already paid for itself in fresh herbs. I also planted 6 heads of lettuce, but 3 of them went to seed and are now inedible.
In the back yard, I have 4 tomato plants of different sizes, a whole bunch of carrots, two pepper plants, and some cabbage. I don’t think the cabbage will be edible, but everything else looks to be thriving. I also purchased two blackberry bushes in hopes they would start to grow this year. One is struggling since it is being overgrown by my biggest tomato bush, and the other has yet to leaf. Either way, the blackberry bushes should pay for themselves easily each year since they are perennials and berries have gotten really expensive.
Finally, Jo is home for the summer, alternating YMCA camps and hanging out with me. It is taking significant time to shuttle her back and forth to camps and keep her from just watching TV on the weeks she’s with me, so the blog has slowed down. I have a plethora of things I want to write about, I just need to find the time to sit and knock it out.
Blog Traffic
Last month Dad Feeds The Fam received 376 page views, which is back up above the number of visitors from 6 months ago. Back then I decided to stop relying on FB and Instagram to get my visitors and started shooting for SEO visitors instead, they are more of an investment up front but it is basically self-driving after it is written. Traffic from social media drops days after posting, so it is a constant engagement thing that I find exhausting. I’d rather be cooking…
SEO for the site improved a bit, with 196 visitors for the month of June, along with 5350 impressions. Impressions are way up and I’m excited to keep it going. The top pages are Elote, Quiche, and my Budget Crab Roll recipes, so I’m glad to see other recipes step up and gain traction as well.
Expenses
No expenses for the website in June 2021. I have a few upgrades I am looking at for the 2nd half of 2022, namely upgrade to the pro version of WPRM and get the tasty plugin for improved site speed and looks. I am also looking forward to running a giveaway for our anniversary. I hope to drive users to give reviews in exchange for an entry for a book giveaway. I would happily give away a $20 book for a handful of reviews on my top recipes. If it is successful it may become a regular thing to drive reviews and engagement on the site. We shall see!
Income
June 2021 was the first full month of Google Adsense running. Income looks to be $0.45 for adsense for the month, tripling our total income, month over month. Add that with the $0.14 reported from Chicory, and we are quickly approaching the $1/month goal. After a few months of ads running, I will add a chart for tracking progress.
- Bluehost: As my hosting website, they are doing a great job. I totally recommend them if you are starting a website. Their customer service has really helped me solve some issues this month.
- Name Cheap: This is where I purchased this sweet domain name, and I have nothing but good things to say about this website registrar.
- Amazon affiliate: I have started using amazon affiliate links in all of my posts, and I will go back and add them to previous posts. It is quite easy to do, so I recommend it to anyone who is starting a blog.
- Google Adsense: Place sparse ads on the site for a modest income production. I finally got this up and running. It took some doing, but it seems to be working nicely.
- Chicory Plugin: The chicory plugin is an ad placement service that puts ads on the recipe card. They only place a single ad, so the revenue is measured in cents, but all of it is right now anyway. This seems to scale nicely with traffic, so I like having it there.
Use the below links to save money on the different sites by using my referral code. Using my links gives us a small referral fee and supports our efforts here, so thank you!
- AppSumo: Discussed above, Appsumo is a great resource for finding deals on the tech needed for building and managing great websites. Their lifetime deals on subscriptions can really cut down the recurring costs if you can find the right deal. Check it out and see if it can help you save. AppSumo Tech Discounts.
- Frase.io: Frase is a fascinating new tool that really simplifies optimizing SEO. It can help research a topic or take an article and compare it to others across the web, so you can see how to compete and gain rank. It has really helped with optimizing my articles this month, so check it out. Frase.io
Month’s Recipes
This month was lite on recipes but heavy on quality. The poppy seed dressing I am quite proud of, and would recommend for any spring or summer salad.
Supporting DFTF:
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