Travel Blog Income Report June 2024 – $4,185

June 2024 Travel Blog Traffic Report

Our traffic on Living the Dream for the month of June was roughly 8,745 page views. This was a decrease of 22% on a per day basis from May and a decrease of 75% from June 2023.

Google's nonsense continues through June, pushing this site to some of the lowest traffic figures we have had since starting to publish this income report almost 10 years ago.

On one hand, I have now completely written off Google as a potential source of traffic since they've decided they do not want to be a search engine anymore. On the other hand, that one is still rough to see- building out new traffic sources is going to take time.

Still, one recommendation I always tell those who want to get into blogging and content creation holds true here- “would you do this if you weren't getting traffic or money?” and my answer is, of course, a definitive yes. So we continue on.

On the Discover the Burgh front, our traffic in June was approximately 99,900 page views. This was an increase of 1% on a per day basis from May and a decrease of 49% from June 2023.

What, an increase? Wow. Seeing our traffic go up on a daily basis, even nominally, is actually quite surprising with all that is going on. It isn't until you look at the YOY that it becomes a bit of a gut punch, but we'll take every win we can get right now.

While our local blog has obviously had a decent drop in traffic from search, our work in building audiences in other locations (Facebook page, group, and mailing list in particular) are helping average out the traffic.

Still, it doesn't feel super inspiring for things moving forward to know that a year ago our traffic was double. But where one door closes three others open, so we're pivoting as best as possible in ways that we'll discuss shortly.

June 2024 Travel Blog Income Report

Our booked income for June was approximately $4,185- down approximately 20% on a per-day basis from May and an decrease of 63% from June 2023. This income was approximately 90% from our local blog and 10% from our travel blog.

The breakdown includes the approximate following:

*CPM Ads: $3,000
*Affiliates: $970
*Facebook Bonus: $215

This was a fairly lean month because we did not bring in any sponsored campaigns or other more active work style projects like we had in previous months. Part of this was by choice- we were just far too busy.

But I also would be remiss if I didn't say that sponsored campaigns are not what I like to do in general, and despite the drop in income I still plan on accepting limited partnerships and only the best fits.

Still, to have January-level income in June is mildly concerning, so we're shifting our work to account for that.

It is also worth noting for outside observers that I have income streams outside of these two sites but within my LLC. It is worth re-iterating that in cases like this because this snapshot only looks at how our two travel sites are doing and not our business as a whole.

While not great as many sites are impacted by recent changes online, that does help a great deal and may not be visible here.

June 2024 Expenses

Our dedicated blog expenses* for the month of June were roughly $325 with the following breakdown:

*Advertising: $15
*Programs: $235
*Certification Course: $75

We're more or less decreasing our spending down to the bare bone requirements at this point until the dust settles. This means pushing my social advertising close to zero and only making purchases that are absolutely necessary outside of niche specific buys to create content.

As such, we're pushing to a new baseline of about $250/month before some annual renewals hit here or there, and we expect to keep our spending like this for the near future.

*We do not share our travel/local expenses in this report. This can be anywhere from $100-$3,000+ per month extra, but your mileage may vary as the costs to generate content can vary wildly from blog to blog. We strive to only share true blog operating expenses here.

July 2024 Goals

Our goals for July are to… not panic. Just kidding, but not really.

The truth of the matter is things are moving in the background hard, and July is the month where we finally execute on some of the things we've been talking about for so long.

First up, I've been taking a real estate certification to engage in partnerships on my destination blog. It is much easier to have working relationships here when licensed, so I've been doing work on that end in the background for quite some time now.

I got word that my course was expiring at the beginning of July (despite paying for access monthly- make that make sense) so it kicked me into gear to take my exams. Hopefully by July 2nd I will be officially finished, licensed, and able to start building out partnerships there- but more on that later.

Second, I've been making good progress in our city guidebook. Part of why some of our traffic is down is I simply am not publishing as much new content right now as the dust settles. This has allowed me more time to work on a product that I can hopefully sell and cover some of the income that we're losing elsewhere.

Of course, the final reason June was crazy simply was because I was traveling and doing other non-travel blog related work. But we'll be at home for the entirety of July, August, and most of September, so it is time to really start pushing.

So my goals for the month are simple: 1) finish my certification tests, 2) find a partner to get started on that end, 3) finish a draft of the guidebook to get to formatting, and 4) send out more inquiries for more active sponsorships locally.

But, at the end of the day, if I can get through the first three I'll consider that a win because it will free up a ton of time to do other things, and that's honestly all that I really need right now. And maybe, just maybe, we'll open up a few new lucrative income streams along the way.

Looking For Past Reports?

Unlike other websites that host an article series on this topic, we only have one article for our travel blog income and traffic reports.

We do this for a number of reasons, but it is mostly because we do not want dozens upon dozens of posts on our site on this one specific topic. Over time, the monthly details become irrelevant and trends are the only thing that matters.

To compensate for this, we update this article every month based on our current data and publish a graphical summary of previous months as well. If you have any questions about data from a specific month we are happy to share more details via email if you contact us.