How to Make Money with a Food Blog: Lessons from Pinch of Yum!

Pinch of Yum is not your average recipe website. In 2010, when Lindsay Ostrom realized her Facebook feed was cluttered with her dinner photos, she created a website to share all of her food-related thoughts and recipes in one place. 

The story of how a 4th grade teacher ended up building her own profitable food site is one worth telling. 

She started Pinch of Yum, an online food website with delicious recipes that are paired perfectly by stunning photos, and monetized through ads and affiliate programs. Her husband also runs their membership site – which makes them even more profitable!

What began as a hobby has turned into a full-time culinary empire – all from food blogging! Let's look at how Pinch of Yum has become the go-to recipe site, attracting an impressive 1.5 million visits every month.

HOW PINCH OF YUM GETS ITS TRAFFIC

Ahrefs shows the website appears to be attracting around 1.5 million monthly views. 

According to SimilarWeb, (which estimates the traffic somewhat higher at 1.9 million monthly visits) over 55% of its traffic comes from organic search, with the majority of the rest being direct.

Social media accounts for around 10% of their traffic. It should come as no surprise that Pinch of Yum's most popular social media account is on Pinterest, where they boast 1.1 million followers!

WHAT TYPES OF KEYWORDS DOES PINCH OF YUM TARGET?

The site focuses on recipes, so most of the keywords they rank for relate to food. That includes terms like “pasta salad recipe” and “shrimp tacos.” But they also rank for some more general keywords, like “dinner ideas.”

HOW THEIR ‘MONEY PAGES' LOOK

The recipes on this website are a visual feast. They're photographed beautifully, with evocative descriptions that make them come alive on the page. You could almost taste these meals from the screen!

And they make money from them in a few different ways.

There are ads throughout each recipe post, with a banner ad under the header, and video ad pop ups too.

There's also a list of equipment required for each recipe. Each product has its own image and an affiliate link to where you can buy it.

Pinch of Yum has obviously put a lot of thought into how they design their recipe pages to maximize both their ad revenue and affiliate income.

WHAT'S THEIR LINK PROFILE LIKE?

Pinch of Yum is doing really very well, attracting links from high authority websites such as Huffington Post, CNBC, Good Housekeeping and Today.com.

Many of the backlinks are due to inclusion in recipe roundup articles. It's clear that the site has been extremely successful in generating links – whether through natural means or through active outreach.

WHAT DOES THE SITE DO WELL?

They have a very interesting-looking website with great design elements. The recipe pages are a visual feast with amazing photography and vivid descriptions. The website is simple to navigate and the recipes are organized into logical categories that make them easy to find!

Scrolling through each article, there are helpful video demonstrations of each step of the recipe.

The sign up to the lead magnet is on the homepage, as well as being in the footer and in the sidebar. The email capture form is short and to the point, with a strong CTA that promises “Get a Free eCookbook with our top 25 recipes.”

They're using ConvertKit for their email sign up, which is one of the most respected email marketing platforms on earth, so you can trust that your information will be in excellent hands with them!

HOW DOES PINCH OF YUM MAKE ITS MONEY?

In addition to ads, sponsored posts and affiliate income, Pinch of Yum also sells Lindsay's e-book, Tasty Food Photography. The site also plays a role in the funnel for their food blogging membership site.

SO HOW MUCH MONEY DOES PINCH OF YUM MAKE?

In the early days of the website, Lindsay's husband Bjork used to produce monthly income and traffic reports. The last one was published in November 2016, when the income was a shade over $95k.

At that time the site was getting close to a million monthly visitors (according to Ahrefs). Since then the traffic has mostly grown so it's safe to say it's still generating over a million a year. And when you consider the multiple revenue streams added over the years it's very likely it's generating millions every year! 

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM PINCH OF YUM WEBSITE?

Pinch of Yum is a beautifully designed website that's packed with delicious recipes and stunning food photography.

The site has been successful in monetizing its traffic through ads, sponsored posts, affiliate income and sales of e-books.

Pinch of Yum is a great example of how to build a profitable food blog!

If you're thinking of starting a food blog, then take some inspiration from Pinch of Yum.

Focus on creating beautiful recipes with stunning photography, and make sure to monetize your traffic through ads, sponsored posts, affiliate income and sales of e-books.

With hard work and dedication, you can achieve similar results!