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I can speak for the food blogging industry. This is my wife’s blog[1] A good food blogger focusing on the US/High GDP audience can get CPMs from $1-4[2]. Where

I can speak for the food blogging industry. This is my wife’s blog[1] A good food blogger focusing on the US/High GDP audience can get CPMs from $1-4[2]. Where it gets interesting are the RPM numbers. If you can manage multiple ad networks, execute 100% fill rates, bid between networks and become a preferred partner, you can rake up to $12-15in RPM [3]. Here’s more of multiple revenue sources for a successful blog [4] Caveat: Things take off once you cross around 700—800K US traffic. Until then it can be frustrating. [1]: https://alittlebitofspice.com/ https://alittlebitofspice.com/ [2]: http://d.pr/i/bIBobD http://d.pr/i/bIBobD [3]: http://d.pr/i/Qvk1M http://d.pr/i/Qvk1M [4]: http://d.pr/i/dEqpvA http://d.pr/i/dEqpvA

notadoc 9y ago
Wow I had no idea food blogging was a profitable thing. Congrats to your wife. > If you can manage multiple ad networks, execute 100% fill rates, bid between networks Isn't that impossible to get 100% filled? I recall reading a while back that getting even 40% was challenging which is why the ad quality online has gone down and they're more intrusive? Lots of interesting stuff on this thread, thanks for sharing.
- gallerdude 9y ago
  If the internet has taught me anything, it's you can make a lot of money at anything if you work hard enough.
  - wangarific 9y ago
    And long enough. It's a lot of survival until you learn enough to make money.
- Cherian 9y ago
  There are a lot of companies that help you do this. Examples: http://www.adthrive.com/ http://www.adthrive.com/, https://www.mediavine.com/ https://www.mediavine.com/ Edit: The money takes more than 6 years of hard work and a lot of content, social media management, brand building, sponsored writing, quality photography, now byte-size videos etc.
- joshvm 9y ago
  Food blogging is an enormous market. The best foodies don't get money from Adsense though, it's through sponsorship/affiliate deals, books if they hit it big. It's quite a stereotyped field though, and I would imagine it's a saturated market. Everyone wants to be like Deliciously Ella [1]. Don't even try unless you have a studio setup for the photography. Lots of food authors are pivoting towards more (usually female oriented) "lifestyle" blogs which happen to have recipes. A lot of food blogs target healthy eating, or niche diets like keto/paleo. There are also tons of specialist food blogs covering bread, cakes, etc. [1] https://deliciouslyella.com/ https://deliciouslyella.com/
  - Cherian 9y ago
    You are right. We have around $3000 worth of lighting equipment, lens, etc. But we acquired them along the way. Sponsored content is a good chunk of money (close to 30% every mom) but its nonscalable.
    - zombieprocess 9y ago
      Can you elaborate some more on this? What kind of equipment and resources for learning more about this?
      - wehere1 9y ago
        try googling 'photography equipment'
      - joshvm 9y ago
        Typically: DSLR, large aperture normal zoom lens, 2 or more external strobes, softboxes, reflectors, tripods, and flash triggers. Have a look at Strobist which is specifically aimed at flash photography. Otherwise just look in photo or recipe books, food blogs and shamelessly steal until you get the hang of layout.
- wangarific 9y ago
  There are a lot of blogging categories that are surprisingly profitable but in different ways. The internet is quite vast!
giarc 9y ago
There are no ads on her site though....
- Cherian 9y ago
  We are switching ad publishers.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  And you don't happen to run an adblocker?
  - icebraining 9y ago
    I disabled uBlock, still can't see any ads. Weird. Also, uBlock tells me it only blocked two analytics scripts, no ads.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      When they said that the next generation of advertising was going to be invisible I didn't quite know what to make of it, I guess this is it :) Good CPM and totally untraceable. I could get used to this.
      - ge96 9y ago
        Next thing you know you're buying things online in your sleep.
mysterypie 9y ago
> A good food blogger focusing on the US/High GDP audience can get CPMs from $1-4 You're taking a risk here. By mentioning this, a good fraction of the 300K Hacker News daily uniques will visit your site as I did, and some may be gourmands. Excellent uncluttered presentation and mouth-watering photography by the way. On the other hand, you tipped off the largest gathering of highly motivated, entrepreneurial web developers to a business idea that no one expected to be so profitable.
- owebmaster 9y ago
  If a lot of people copy him, probably he will make a lot more of money.
- tootie 9y ago
  I think it's been proven this fear is overstated. Startup ideas are rarely stolen.
  - soulchild37 9y ago
    Not startup ideas but my app ideas was stolen twice and my competitor (was friend, ex-friend now) got more resources and beaten me out of market. I don't share app idea with friend now.
- daveguy 9y ago
  In addition to what owebmaster said, and no offense, but if some random person takes it up they will probably do it shittier and get significantly fewer unique visitors. I expect OP enjoys and is knowledgeable about the subject. They are married (content and tech) so they get to pool results. If you paid someone who was passionate about it there will be turnover. If you do it on your own just for the money and you aren't passionate and knowledgeable the site will just suck. It's not that easy to get visitors and if they are paying out like that then there is probably plenty of room for additional actors.
- Cherian 9y ago
  If only people would work hard as my wife, be relentlessly passionate and marginally improve routinely...
tomerbd 9y ago
i don't get it how do all you guys get so much traffic you talk about 100k's and millions of people visiting your web sites how do you make that happen?!?
- Cherian 9y ago
  Keep on writing content where you can be good (it all starts with the passion). Healthy Desserts, Everyday 30-minute cooking, Asian cooking for Americans, etc. Learn from Google what the audience intent is, improve your content. Do this for four years; you’ll get 300K/month. Then there’s SEO, Pinterest optimization [1], better photography, Lightroom skills, video shooting & editing, etc. You’ll learn this along the way. After that, there’s a good chance traffic will compound. But you have to show up at 5 AM every day (I can’t find that Kobe Bryant quote) [1]: https://in.pinterest.com/janerosep/a-little-bit-of-spice-from-the-blog/ https://in.pinterest.com/janerosep/a-little-bit-of-spice-fro...
  - Mz 9y ago
    How often was it updated? Then there’s SEO, Pinterest optimization [1], etc. You’ll learn this along the way. Don't be so sure about that. People who are telling you "I can't imagine" are probably failing to get much traffic. I don't have that kind of traffic on anything and I boggle at the idea of getting it. So, a bit more detail and resource links would be appreciated. If a few blurbs were going to do it, then people wouldn't be asking you.
    - Cherian 9y ago
      Here’s Neil Patel doing for a different vertical [1]. That article and the commenters from there can take you a long way. FWIW, don’t jump on to these things without following the links and spending a month or more researching. Writing is hard. And you have to produce around 4-10 pieces of audience intended content every month. When we started, we didn’t care about the traffic. We did it because we loved it. Content updating happens every year or during vacations when we get bored or when we learn a new technique. For example, when we learned that good photographs increase the CTR by 10x, my wife started learning photography. When we learned that Pinterest optimized vertical images get 5x+ CTR [2], we implemented that a year back. There are many Facebook groups for these discussions. [1] https://www.quicksprout.com/2015/05/11/how-im-going-to-achieve-the-100k-a-month-challenge-without-using-my-name https://www.quicksprout.com/2015/05/11/how-im-going-to-achie... [2] https://in.pinterest.com/pin/527554543833038696/ https://in.pinterest.com/pin/527554543833038696/
iiiears 9y ago
If i want to make a dish that needs exotic ingredients why cant i find a link to say.. Amazon or somewhere else?
joshvm 9y ago
Very refreshing to see a food blog that's recipe oriented. I'll be trying some of those! When I see a picture of mouth watering food, I want the recipe, not paragraphs of fluff about what the author did that week.
- wangarific 9y ago
  FWIW, that fluff is what builds a relationship with readers and for a lot of food blogs that's what separates you from powerhouses like seriouseats. You can usually just jump down to the recipe card if you want to skip the fluff.
throw2bit 9y ago
Are you the owner of Cucumbertown ?
- Cherian 9y ago
  Was. Sold it [1]. [1]: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/japans-cookpad-acquires-cucumbertown-in-multi-million-dollar-deal/articleshow/47685652.cms http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/japan...
robtaylor 9y ago
Your top right logo is 2.3meg https://www.alittlebitofspice.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/albos_logo.jpg?x39220 https://www.alittlebitofspice.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03... It can be much smaller and still get the 'retina' effect, saving load time and bandwidth.
- Cherian 9y ago
  Thank you. Re-uploading.

notadoc 9y ago

Wow I had no idea food blogging was a profitable thing. Congrats to your wife. > If you can manage multiple ad networks, execute 100% fill rates, bid between networks Isn't that impossible to get 100% filled? I recall reading a while back that getting even 40% was challenging which is why the ad quality online has gone down and they're more intrusive? Lots of interesting stuff on this thread, thanks for sharing.

gallerdude 9y ago
If the internet has taught me anything, it's you can make a lot of money at anything if you work hard enough.
- wangarific 9y ago
  And long enough. It's a lot of survival until you learn enough to make money.
Cherian 9y ago
There are a lot of companies that help you do this. Examples: http://www.adthrive.com/ http://www.adthrive.com/, https://www.mediavine.com/ https://www.mediavine.com/ Edit: The money takes more than 6 years of hard work and a lot of content, social media management, brand building, sponsored writing, quality photography, now byte-size videos etc.
joshvm 9y ago
Food blogging is an enormous market. The best foodies don't get money from Adsense though, it's through sponsorship/affiliate deals, books if they hit it big. It's quite a stereotyped field though, and I would imagine it's a saturated market. Everyone wants to be like Deliciously Ella [1]. Don't even try unless you have a studio setup for the photography. Lots of food authors are pivoting towards more (usually female oriented) "lifestyle" blogs which happen to have recipes. A lot of food blogs target healthy eating, or niche diets like keto/paleo. There are also tons of specialist food blogs covering bread, cakes, etc. [1] https://deliciouslyella.com/ https://deliciouslyella.com/
- Cherian 9y ago
  You are right. We have around $3000 worth of lighting equipment, lens, etc. But we acquired them along the way. Sponsored content is a good chunk of money (close to 30% every mom) but its nonscalable.
  - zombieprocess 9y ago
    Can you elaborate some more on this? What kind of equipment and resources for learning more about this?
    - wehere1 9y ago
      try googling 'photography equipment'
    - joshvm 9y ago
      Typically: DSLR, large aperture normal zoom lens, 2 or more external strobes, softboxes, reflectors, tripods, and flash triggers. Have a look at Strobist which is specifically aimed at flash photography. Otherwise just look in photo or recipe books, food blogs and shamelessly steal until you get the hang of layout.
wangarific 9y ago
There are a lot of blogging categories that are surprisingly profitable but in different ways. The internet is quite vast!

giarc 9y ago

There are no ads on her site though....

Cherian 9y ago
We are switching ad publishers.
jacquesm 9y ago
And you don't happen to run an adblocker?
- icebraining 9y ago
  I disabled uBlock, still can't see any ads. Weird. Also, uBlock tells me it only blocked two analytics scripts, no ads.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    When they said that the next generation of advertising was going to be invisible I didn't quite know what to make of it, I guess this is it :) Good CPM and totally untraceable. I could get used to this.
    - ge96 9y ago
      Next thing you know you're buying things online in your sleep.

mysterypie 9y ago

> A good food blogger focusing on the US/High GDP audience can get CPMs from $1-4 You're taking a risk here. By mentioning this, a good fraction of the 300K Hacker News daily uniques will visit your site as I did, and some may be gourmands. Excellent uncluttered presentation and mouth-watering photography by the way. On the other hand, you tipped off the largest gathering of highly motivated, entrepreneurial web developers to a business idea that no one expected to be so profitable.

owebmaster 9y ago
If a lot of people copy him, probably he will make a lot more of money.
tootie 9y ago
I think it's been proven this fear is overstated. Startup ideas are rarely stolen.
- soulchild37 9y ago
  Not startup ideas but my app ideas was stolen twice and my competitor (was friend, ex-friend now) got more resources and beaten me out of market. I don't share app idea with friend now.
daveguy 9y ago
In addition to what owebmaster said, and no offense, but if some random person takes it up they will probably do it shittier and get significantly fewer unique visitors. I expect OP enjoys and is knowledgeable about the subject. They are married (content and tech) so they get to pool results. If you paid someone who was passionate about it there will be turnover. If you do it on your own just for the money and you aren't passionate and knowledgeable the site will just suck. It's not that easy to get visitors and if they are paying out like that then there is probably plenty of room for additional actors.
Cherian 9y ago
If only people would work hard as my wife, be relentlessly passionate and marginally improve routinely...

tomerbd 9y ago

i don't get it how do all you guys get so much traffic you talk about 100k's and millions of people visiting your web sites how do you make that happen?!?

Cherian 9y ago
Keep on writing content where you can be good (it all starts with the passion). Healthy Desserts, Everyday 30-minute cooking, Asian cooking for Americans, etc. Learn from Google what the audience intent is, improve your content. Do this for four years; you’ll get 300K/month. Then there’s SEO, Pinterest optimization [1], better photography, Lightroom skills, video shooting & editing, etc. You’ll learn this along the way. After that, there’s a good chance traffic will compound. But you have to show up at 5 AM every day (I can’t find that Kobe Bryant quote) [1]: https://in.pinterest.com/janerosep/a-little-bit-of-spice-from-the-blog/ https://in.pinterest.com/janerosep/a-little-bit-of-spice-fro...
- Mz 9y ago
  How often was it updated? Then there’s SEO, Pinterest optimization [1], etc. You’ll learn this along the way. Don't be so sure about that. People who are telling you "I can't imagine" are probably failing to get much traffic. I don't have that kind of traffic on anything and I boggle at the idea of getting it. So, a bit more detail and resource links would be appreciated. If a few blurbs were going to do it, then people wouldn't be asking you.
  - Cherian 9y ago
    Here’s Neil Patel doing for a different vertical [1]. That article and the commenters from there can take you a long way. FWIW, don’t jump on to these things without following the links and spending a month or more researching. Writing is hard. And you have to produce around 4-10 pieces of audience intended content every month. When we started, we didn’t care about the traffic. We did it because we loved it. Content updating happens every year or during vacations when we get bored or when we learn a new technique. For example, when we learned that good photographs increase the CTR by 10x, my wife started learning photography. When we learned that Pinterest optimized vertical images get 5x+ CTR [2], we implemented that a year back. There are many Facebook groups for these discussions. [1] https://www.quicksprout.com/2015/05/11/how-im-going-to-achieve-the-100k-a-month-challenge-without-using-my-name https://www.quicksprout.com/2015/05/11/how-im-going-to-achie... [2] https://in.pinterest.com/pin/527554543833038696/ https://in.pinterest.com/pin/527554543833038696/

iiiears 9y ago

If i want to make a dish that needs exotic ingredients why cant i find a link to say.. Amazon or somewhere else?

joshvm 9y ago

Very refreshing to see a food blog that's recipe oriented. I'll be trying some of those! When I see a picture of mouth watering food, I want the recipe, not paragraphs of fluff about what the author did that week.

wangarific 9y ago
FWIW, that fluff is what builds a relationship with readers and for a lot of food blogs that's what separates you from powerhouses like seriouseats. You can usually just jump down to the recipe card if you want to skip the fluff.

throw2bit 9y ago

Are you the owner of Cucumbertown ?

Cherian 9y ago
Was. Sold it [1]. [1]: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/japans-cookpad-acquires-cucumbertown-in-multi-million-dollar-deal/articleshow/47685652.cms http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/japan...

robtaylor 9y ago

Your top right logo is 2.3meg https://www.alittlebitofspice.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/albos_logo.jpg?x39220 https://www.alittlebitofspice.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03... It can be much smaller and still get the 'retina' effect, saving load time and bandwidth.

Cherian 9y ago
Thank you. Re-uploading.