From 0 to 100K Monthly Page Views in Nine Months

Blogger Christine Pittman has perfected a strategy for creating and growing food blogs quickly. She grew her first site from 250,000 page views a month to 1.2 million a month in about two years; grew a second site to 100,000 page views in just nine months and to above 500,000 a month in 1.5 years; and launched a third site that is on target to hit 10,000 monthly page views in six months — the same pace that each of the other sites met on their ways to success. Even better, Christine is an open book about her strategies and will provide a clear blueprint on how you can do the same.

Transcript

2. From 0 to 100K Monthly Page Views in Nine Months By Christine Pittman
4. Listen To: Your Site • How to plan the right content for your site • How much content to publish and why Your Self • Tips for publishing more easily • What do you absolutely *need* to do yourself • The 4 stages of hiring
5. My Websites’ Traffic and Money Shhhhhhh
6. COOKtheSTORY
7. TheCookful
8. Listening To My Sites • Once I started really looking at stats and interpreting them… BOOM! • For me now, content-planning is king. I spend the vast majority of my time planning content
9. Content-Planning Evolution COOKtheSTORY • Early days, lots of whims and trends • Started noticing patterns and focusing • Intense content-planning summer 2014 led to extreme growth
10. Content-Planning Evolution TheCookful • Launched 2015 based on the intense content-planning concept • The inspiration was noticing patterns in CtS top posts • Stuffed peppers • Fish • Soup • Topic-oriented with contributors so content-planning is and was required
11. Content-Planning Evolution • In General • Started with whims • Was publishing more and needed to plan • Then began looking at stats to decide what to do next and started really listening to what was doing well on my site • E.g., on TheCookful, the first topics were whatever sounded tasty and interesting to me. Now, we plan the topics a year ahead based on stats. • Chicken wings are the biggest thing on TC so we find every excuse to add wings to things. And since superbowl is our biggest day, as are game-days in general, we do a lot of game- day foods.
12. Content-Planning: A Case Study Pork (stats from Google Data Studio, a super-cool tool!)
13. Content-Planning: A Case Study Pork Anomaly?
14. Content-Planning: A Case Study Pork and Sauerkraut is BORN
15. Content-Planning: How To This is the bulk of what I do, and I do it INTENSELY. (Apologies in advance for the extreme details heading your way!) Step #1: Patterns Among Posts Step #2: Where and how is traffic coming in? Step #3: Generate new recipe ideas (keyword research) Step #4: Recipe development research
16. Content-Planning: How To Step #1: Patterns Among Posts Looking at analytics to see what types of posts are doing best: • Common ingredients • Types of dishes • Cooking methods • Time of the week or time of year (for recipe type, like weeknight versus celebratory)
17. Content-Planning: How To Step #2: Where and how is traffic coming in Google is top for me so Google Search Console to find out what people are searching for when they find my site.
18. Content-Planning: How To Step #2: Where and how is traffic coming in
19. Content-Planning: How To Step #2: Where and how is traffic coming in
20. Content-Planning: How To Step #2: Where and how is traffic coming in
21. Content-Planning: How To Step #2: Where and how is traffic coming in
22. Content-Planning: How To Step #2: Where and how is traffic coming in
23. Content-Planning: How To Step #2: Where and how is traffic coming in Most clicks to How to Roast Pork Perfectly from Google Search is for search = Pork Roast
24. Content-Planning: How To Step #2: Where and how is traffic coming in Most impressions of How to Roast Pork Perfectly on Google Search is for search = pork loin
25. Content-Planning: How To Step #2: Where and how is traffic coming in Which is totally ok because How to Roast Pork Loin exists on CtS and does much better there!
26. Content-Planning: How To Step #2: Where and how is traffic coming in Google search console tells us what is bringing people to our posts. We can use that to: • Generate new ideas for posts (like Pork Loin) • Help us refine and edit old posts (gravy à flour gravy)
27. Content-Planning: How To Step #2: Where and how is traffic coming in
28. Content-Planning: How To Step #3: Generate new recipe ideas (keyword research) Katy Widrick does most of this for me. She says… “I use Google Trends, the free Moz search, Ahrefs, SemRush and a few others but I also find that my Pinterest trick is very effective: https://katywidrick.com/pinterest-keyword-research/ I also try to search for articles and roundups from trusted magazines, websites, etc. as they predict trends, so I can use those as jumping-off points to do my own research.”
29. Content-Planning: How To Step #3: Generate new recipe ideas (keyword research)
30. Content-Planning: How To Step #3: Generate new recipe ideas (keyword research)
31. Content-Planning: How To Step #3: Generate new recipe ideas (keyword research) • Look through list and eliminate things we’ve already done or that I’m not interested in. • Then use Google Trends myself, 5 things at a time, to see what is doing best.
32. Content-Planning: How To Step #3: Generate new recipe ideas (keyword research)
33. Content-Planning: How To Step #3: Generate new recipe ideas (keyword research)
34. Content-Planning: How To Step #3: Generate new recipe ideas (keyword research) Incognito Search Window also for assessing the competition. If the top search results are: • Major sites that tend to have rich content, like Serious Eats or thekitchn, then I might not do a big informative post on that topic. • Major sites that tend to have thin content, like allrecipes.com, I will definitely do a big informative post on that topic. • Other bloggers or indie sites, I’ll look and see how thorough they are to make a decision whether to do a post or not.
35. Content-Planning: How To Step #3: Generate new recipe ideas (keyword research) Final list of recipes for TheCookful’s Instant Pot Beef series: 1. Instant Pot Pot Roast 2. Instant Pot Beef Stew 3. Instant Pot Chili 4. Instant Pot Beef Bourguignon 5. Instant Pot Short Ribs 6. Instant Pot Brisket 7. Instant Pot Corned Beef and Cabbage 8. Instant Pot Beef Bone Broth 9. Instant Pot Goulash 10. Instant Pot Beef and Broccoli
36. Content-Planning: How To But we’re not done yet! Step #4: Recipe development research I use Google Incognito Windows to figure out what the titles should be and what ingredients or info is critical to the post. Trying to figure out what people want when they search for a particular recipe based on what shows up in google search results.
37. Content-Planning: How To Step #4: Recipe development research • Skim through 5-10 top-ranked posts to find trends. What is it that people and/or Google want or expect to see in this recipe and this post? • For bone broth, kind of bones is irrelevant. Celery, carrots and onion were key. Chicken feet are mentioned often. Discussion about the broth gelling and the color of the broth is frequent.
38. Content-Planning: How To Step #4: Recipe development research Based on that research, I generate this assignment for a contributor: “The Best Instant Pot Beef Bone Broth: For this one, do some research on what makes a good bone broth. Explain what it is and what it’s used for. Explain why a pressure cooker is great for making it. It needs to gel when chilled so make sure your recipe does and explain the importance. Talk about the color of the broth. Preferred method: Sauté or roast the bones, then add water and other ingredients (onions, garlic, carrots, celery, peppercorns, salt, and possibly chicken feet or backs). Then pressure cook for a long time. Strain it all. Remove fat from liquid (recommend OXO gravy separator, we’ll do an affiliate link here). Explain how to store it and for how long and whether it can be frozen and how and for how long. Photograph in open jars in front of the instant pot with fresh ingredients like carrots and onions beside it.” Phew!
39. Content-Planning: How To Step #4: Recipe development research So…I plan my content! The point though, is that I plan it based on, first, what is doing well on my own sites already. And then after figuring that out, I plan it based on what my main traffic source is telling me.
40. Content-Planning: How To Step #4: Recipe development research And I use a lot of tools to make this happen. The new favorite in my group is Google Data Studio. It’s a data visualization tool. And it’s FREE!!! And here’s Marty to talk about it…
41. Content-Planning: How To Step #4: Recipe development research
42. Listening To Your SELF • Posting frequently is key!!! • More content means more odds of having successful posts. • One in six posts pays for itself. Need lots of sixes! • Google likes updated content and sites that update frequently. The more frequently the better
43. Listening To Your SELF • How to publish frequently but less painfully… • Bulk cooking/shooting • Speech to text • Taking pictures of work (recipe notebooks) • HIRING
44. Listening To Your SELF • In my experience, every time I hire out, my site grows
45. Listening To Your SELF • Hiring Madison taught me a lot. And TheCookful, and July 2018. • Think about what you can hire out. • The building blocks of a blog post… • Recipe • Pictures • Blog content • Right and bottom
46. Listening To Your SELF • What else can you hire out? • The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks • Know your zones • Zone of incompetence • Zone of competence • Zone of excellence • Zone of genius • Make a list of ALL your tasks. Assign them to zones. • Be STINGY with your zone of genius!!!
47. Listening To Your SELF • I have a team of 14-18 people • Lawyer • Book keeper • Agent • Business manager • Social media person • Web host/Wordpress specialist • Site editor • Stats guy • Business coach • 2 content managers • 7 content creators
48. Listening To Your SELF • In more personal life too!!! • Struggle with needing to do it all • House cleaning • yard maintenance • laundry • grocery shopping • child care
49. Listening To Your SELF • To me, there’s a constant struggle with perfectionism and with guilt • I feel like I *should* do it all myself. Or I *could* do it all myself. Or it would be better/more profitable if I did it myself. • A good woman does her family’s laundry • A good blogger does her own photography • A good business woman invests in people who can help her!
50. The Four Stages Of Hiring 1. Easy unskilled help ($10/hour), you train and monitor 2. Your outer team, everything but your zone of excellence and genius (lawyer, book keeper, agent, etc.) 3. Life help can be less expensive than skilled blog help (house cleaning, laundry, groceries, child care, yard work, etc.) 4. Cloning your amazingness (zone of excellence): cooking, photography, recipe development, etc.
51. Summary: Listen to your site, be good to yourself. • Content-planning is crucial. Do it lots. • Publishing is crucial. Do it lots. • Getting help from others is good. Do it lots. • Listen to your site. Do it lots. • Listen to your peaceful self. Always.
52. More Blogging Business Help Go to cookthestory.com/blog-business • One person will be chosen from IFBC for an all-inclusive blogging business retreat in Florida. • Two people chosen for one-on-one consultations with Marty. • Two people chosen for one-on-one business consultation with me. • Use promo code ILOVEALASKA to apply.