The Learning Curve
September was a month of learning for this Dad. The learning curve for putting together a food blog if really steep vs anything else I have done this year. This is not a complaint in the least, I love looking back on periods like this and knowing my personal expertise on what I am trying to do just went up 10 fold.
Do you know what the best part is? I am excited about the prospect of coming up with things to write about. Cooking new things and figuring out what makes recipes different, easy, complicated, and what is essential for a recipe to taste good. I love learning like this.
Expenses
The great news is that there were no website expenses this month. I installed a few new plugins to manage a few things, but until this website gains traction and starts getting random search engine hits, these apps should cost anything.
- SumoMe: This plugin manages most of my social interactions, and helped add the floating social buttons to the interface.
- Yoast Duplicate Post: This was a game-changer and really streamlined my writing. I basically wrote a post, but instead of writing content, I wrote myself instructions on what to put in each section, both so I don’t forget anything and also to improve SEO without a lot of editing. I also added all of the elements I like in posts like photos, page breaks, etc. This ensures all of my posts look and flow the same, and it saves me a bunch of time only formatting it once.
Income
There was no income to report this month for September. I am going to throw a party when this happens, even a penny, but until then I am keeping my head down and producing the best content I can. There is a limited amount of programs to participate in when you are a low traffic site, but I am keeping an eye out.
- 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.
- Amazon affiliate: I am eyeing this program as I approach 1000 visitors per month. Right now I am using the smile.amazon links as placeholders for now. Looking forward to implementing this and see what comes of it.
- Advertising program: I am still searching for an ad company to partner with to get ads on the borders of my website and possibly generate some income. The biggest companies in website advertising require 10,000 pageviews a month, which is well outside of my reach for now.
Recipes
This month I was able to hit my goal of twice a week publishing, which is a great feeling. I have been getting great feedback from different sources, and look forward to cooking more food and writing about it. The cooking is more fun than the writing, but that’s the work part of the equation I guess.
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