Amy Bloodworth ran a profitable bakery together with her mother and father for 11 years, however after the pandemic, they determined to shut it down. Regardless that that enterprise got here to an finish, she did not hand over on her dream of sharing her recipes with others.

She determined to begin a weblog, Amycakes Bakes, in Could of 2021 and certified for Mediavine lower than a yr later. 

Though she had no expertise with search engine optimization or running a blog, Amy figured it out fairly rapidly. At this time her recipe weblog earns $5k+ per 30 days, and she or he additionally launched two further area of interest web sites.

Preserve studying to seek out out:

• Why she created her web site
• What sparked her curiosity for incomes cash on-line
• What different area of interest websites she created
• The place her revenue comes from
• How a lot site visitors she’s getting
• What advert firms she works with
• Her advertising methods
• Her recommendation on getting sponsored posts
• Her ideas on search engine optimization
• Her strategy to key phrase analysis and hyperlink constructing
• How she creates content material
• Her favourite sources and instruments
• Her major problem
• Her greatest mistake
• Her best accomplishment
• Her recommendation for different entrepreneurs

Meet Amy Bloodworth

My title is Amy and I stay in Missouri with my husband and our two sons. I spent most of my working life working a bakery for over 11 years. 

Transitioning to full-time running a blog has given me a versatile schedule and extra high quality time with my household, and we take pleasure in outside adventures, tenting, and crafting collectively.

Why She Created Her Website

Earlier than my running a blog journey, my mother and father and I opened Amycakes Bakery in 2009 after I was 22. We specialised in extra-moist truffles and made-from-scratch desserts. 

That chapter taught me lots about baking effectively and constantly, in addition to concerning the dessert flavors and cake designs that clients take pleasure in.

Nonetheless, after the pandemic in early 2021, we made the tough resolution to shut the bakery, and my mother and father retired. We offered the bakery home and gear, however I made a decision to carry on to all of the recipes I had been perfecting over the previous decade.

A few months after we closed, I launched the Amycakes Bakes weblog and commenced sharing my former bakery’s recipes. 

I knew nothing about running a blog or search engine optimization, however I did have over 5 years of hands-on expertise creating and managing the bakery’s on-line store on Shopify. Throughout that point, on-line cake gross sales grew to 75% of our gross sales.

That have with the bakery’s on-line store sparked my curiosity about being profitable on-line, and I made a decision to go all-in on running a blog. 

I began the weblog with a small following of former native clients who have been focused on my recipes, and it has steadily grown from there.

My husband has a full-time job, however he and I launched Video games and Gatherings and Truthfully ADHD as aspect initiatives to diversify our revenue. These blogs are nonetheless within the early levels, however we have not too long ago begun monetizing Truthfully ADHD via Raptive.

We picked these niches as a result of they’re near our hearts. Video games and Gatherings is the place we share our love of throwing events and dreaming up homicide thriller video games. 

We each have ADHD, so we use Truthfully ADHD as an area to share easy-to-understand ADHD data and free printables which were useful for us.

How A lot She’s Incomes

In 2023, my common month-to-month earnings from Amycakes Bakes have been $5,190, with the next income breakdown:

• Advert Income: 76% (Mediavine)
• Affiliate Gross sales (primarily from Amazon): 17%
• Sponsored Social Media Posts: 7%

It’s been gradual however regular development. 

I began the weblog in Could of 2021, was accepted into Mediavine in April of 2022, and this previous This autumn of 2023 marked my highest earnings interval up to now. 

The weblog’s efficiency is considerably seasonal, with greater earnings in months with holidays on account of vacation baking recipes.

I switched to Raptive from Mediavine firstly of 2024 in order that I may monetize Truthfully ADHD at a decrease site visitors threshold. 

It was a tricky resolution as a result of I beloved working with Mediavine, however I used to be excited to see that January’s advert income from Amycakes Bakes doubled in comparison with January of final yr.

Raptive lets second websites be part of with simply 30,000 month-to-month pageviews, so I used to be in a position to get each blogs arrange on the similar time after I made the swap.

I believe my RPMs elevated on Raptive due to how they deal with movies, which appears significantly fitted to meals blogs. 

Their sticky video participant is extra outstanding on cellular gadgets, and it performs my recipe movies between the advertisements. On Mediavine the sticky video participant was smaller and solely performed advertisements. 

This distinction actually upped my video advert income. 

As for site visitors, my recipe web site receives between 90,000 – 100,000 classes per 30 days, or 150,000-160,000 web page views.

My work hours could be a bit far and wide as a result of I’ve two younger children. 

At present, I dedicate about 20 to 25 hours every week to Amycakes Bakes, however it varies relying on my children’ college schedule or if I’ve childcare assist obtainable. 

I’m lucky to have supportive grandparents on the town who watch the children after I have to work!

Amy’s Most important Advertising Methods

I did not begin with a concrete advertising plan, however I imagine what propelled my enterprise ahead was sharing the lesser-known baking merchandise and strategies that I picked up within the skilled bakery setting. 

Inside my posts, I speak lots about distinctive baking components and time-saving strategies which might be new to many residence bakers.

Prompt Clearjel is one in all my favourite bakery “secret” components that I embody in a variety of my recipes.

From the start, I’ve included a video with virtually each recipe and tutorial. The movies have helped make the weblog extra participating and so they increase my revenue from video advertisements.

search engine optimization has been my main focus to make sure folks can discover my weblog, however I additionally keep an everyday presence on social media.

I’m most energetic on Instagram and Fb, however I take pleasure in Pinterest essentially the most, and Pinterest delivers the very best ROI for me. I often publish on TikTok, however it hardly ever drives site visitors to my weblog.

In terms of sponsored posts and affiliate hyperlinks, I’m very selective. I solely promote merchandise that I actively use, which I imagine builds belief with my readers.

I consider sponsored posts as a bonus revenue, so I’ve waited for firms to strategy me as an alternative of in search of them out. Most of those relationships began after I joined the sponsor’s associates program or tagged them on Instagram when utilizing their components. 

Having a media package ready for this has been useful. Even when a sponsor initially proposes simply to ship free merchandise in alternate for a video, sharing my media package generally results in a paid collaboration.

Her Ideas on search engine optimization

search engine optimization is my high precedence. I realized fairly rapidly that it didn’t matter how good my recipes have been if nobody may discover them! My technique contains:

• Specializing in low-competition key phrases
• Creating content material that individuals are trying to find
• Often updating outdated content material to maintain it recent and related

I take advantage of KeySearch and RankIQ to select my key phrases based mostly on their competitors and to see how many individuals are trying to find the subject. 

I take advantage of RankIQ’s optimizer when writing posts and its rating audit to see which posts are dropping site visitors over time and must be up to date. Then I take advantage of the Rank Logic plugin inside WordPress to observe my publish edits and see how the updates have an effect on my posts.

Key phrase Analysis

Just a few months after beginning my weblog, I had a lightbulb second after I realized about low-competition key phrases. That turned my major focus for the primary yr of my weblog, and I solely focused very low-competition key phrases, most of which had solely a pair hundred searches a month.

Now that my weblog is extra established, I begin with the recipe I wish to make.

Then I’ll search each KeySearch and RankIQ to see what comparable key phrases readers are trying to find, concentrating on something I imagine I can rank for on the primary web page of Google.

Lastly, I run the optimizer in RankIQ in order that I can goal the proper subjects inside every article.

Hyperlink Constructing

Hyperlink constructing hasn’t been on the high of my listing. Sometimes, I am going to submit my posts for consideration in Fb running a blog roundup teams. 

I linked my former bakery’s area to Amycakes Bakes after I began the weblog, which gave me a little bit of a head begin with some high quality backlinks. 

Plus, after I transitioned to running a blog, a number of native information retailers that have been acquainted with my bakery have been variety sufficient to characteristic and hyperlink to my weblog.

Amy’s Content material Creation Course of

I at the moment have 87 posts stay on my web site. 

For baking recipes, it begins with recipe growth, which may take a number of days and many trial and error. Once I’m pleased with the recipe, I’ll shoot it for video and pictures.

Once I began out, I used to be utilizing simply my iPhone or iPad to seize the whole lot, so many of the pictures on my web site have been taken with my iPhone. 

Then I employed a photographer who baked my recipes at her residence and shot them. This saved a variety of time, and she or he was fabulous, however it made me really feel a little bit disconnected from my work, and I needed to provide extra intricate baked items and cake designs. 

So, on the finish of final yr, I invested in a digital camera and have been slowly studying to shoot pictures and movies with greater high quality.

After publishing, I hold observe of how my content material performs based mostly on Google Analytics and reader suggestions. 

Finishing a brand new recipe publish with a video from begin to end can take wherever from a number of days to a few weeks. My vanilla almond cake is the second recipe I posted on my web site and one in all my hottest. 

Her Electronic mail Record

I take advantage of Flodesk for my electronic mail listing and appeal to subscribers via a sign-up type that seems on each publish on my weblog. It’s at the moment at 6,900 subscribers. 

I uncared for my electronic mail listing for over a yr, however a number of months in the past I began prioritizing weekly emails. 

I want I had began that sooner, because it’s been a good way to attach with my viewers and hold them up to date!

Her Favourite Sources

I am a giant fan of podcasts and I really feel like there’s at all times extra to be taught within the running a blog world. 

• I recurrently take heed to the Area of interest Pursuits podcast and search engine optimization for Bloggers by High Hat Rank to remain up-to-date with the newest running a blog traits and updates.
• I take pleasure in studying from different meals creators on the Meals Blogger Professional Podcast.
• The guide Revenue First by Mike Michalowicz had a big effect on how I deal with cash in my enterprise.
• For anybody battling time administration, I like to recommend the LinkedIn course “Time Administration Fundamentals” by Dave Crenshaw. It actually helped me after I transitioned to working from residence with out strict deadlines.

Her Go-To Instruments

Buying the Feast Plugin in early 2022 supplied the steering and construction I wanted when formatting my weblog. Their common updates make me really feel like I’m in good fingers and following the business’s greatest practices.

SmarterQueue has helped me keep constant when posting on Instagram and Fb. I nonetheless spend time as soon as every week scheduling my social media posts, however it saves me a variety of time to have all my pictures and caption concepts saved and rotated in a queue.

In 2023, I upgraded from a small laptop computer to a twin monitor desk setup, which actually boosted my productiveness. It’s probably the greatest issues I’ve executed for myself and my enterprise.

Her Largest Problem

The largest problem I’ve confronted whereas rising my enterprise is juggling the calls for of content material creation. 

I am fairly sluggish relating to running a blog—I take my time with writing, video enhancing, and pictures, that are expertise I’ve needed to be taught as I’m going. 

Recipe testing is a meticulous course of that may take days, particularly since I am a little bit of a perfectionist. I will not share a recipe till I am 100% pleased with it, which suggests I’ve a backlog of recipes ready to be re-tested and refined. 

Plus, adapting my baking strategies from industrial to residential ovens has been time-consuming, as I wish to be certain that the whole lot is beginner-friendly.

As a substitute of dashing myself, I’ve realized to prioritize high quality over amount in my weblog posts.

Her Biggest Accomplishment

My most vital accomplishment as an entrepreneur must be constructing my weblog to its present state and sustaining the drive and motivation to proceed studying and rising day by day.

It has been fairly a journey, particularly since there have been occasions after I felt a bit remoted as a result of not many individuals in my offline circles perceive how one can make a residing from running a blog.

When speaking about my job, I’ve discovered it useful to elaborate a bit extra for folks unfamiliar with running a blog. For example, if somebody asks me what I do, I am going to say “I run a recipe weblog that earns revenue via advertisements and sponsored components.”

What She Needs She Knew When She Began

Trying again, I want I had identified extra about on-page search engine optimization. 

Once I began, the construction of my weblog was disorganized, and my posts have been far and wide. Now I am steadily revisiting and updating older posts that want enchancment.

I realized about on-page search engine optimization via the month-to-month search engine optimization for Bloggers webinars by High Hat Rank, and likewise via the Feast Plugin by following their suggestions and utilizing their recipe publish template as a information.

The Hyperlink Whisper plugin was an enormous time-saver after I had to return and insert inner hyperlinks into my older posts, and now I apply it to all new posts.

Her Most important Mistake

One of many greatest errors I made was spreading myself too skinny and burning myself out.

In the course of the first yr, I used to be always engaged on the weblog or fascinated by it. I’d really feel responsible if I didn’t keep a constant posting schedule or meet my very own expectations.

Even after getting accepted into Mediavine, I discovered myself evaluating my weblog to extra profitable blogs and getting overwhelmed. 

At one level, I used to be so burnt out that I used to be able to promote my weblog. I took a number of months off from creating new content material and shifted my focus to different initiatives. 

Surprisingly, throughout this break, I observed that my weblog was nonetheless rising. Type emails from readers throughout this time jogged my memory that my baking suggestions have been serving to different bakers.

This jogged my memory why I began the weblog within the first place and reignited my ardour and motivation.

Her Recommendation for Different Entrepreneurs

My recommendation is to keep in mind that the massive image takes time, so construct in direction of it steadily. 

As a substitute of solely catering to what search engines like google like Google need, form what you are promoting into one thing you are genuinely obsessed with.