Katie from WellnessMama.com shares how she grew her online community using content marketing, social media, SEO, and reader interaction. View her recommended resources at: http://wellnessmama.com/food-blogger-summit/
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Food Blogger Summit Presentation
1. Breaking All The Rules
Growing Your Blog Without Being Pushing or “Salesy”
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Copyright - 2013 - WellnessMama.com
2. Who Am I?
Wife & Mom of 5
Background in nutrition, real food crusader, health/wellness
blogger, amateur chef
Scuba diver, lover of books, coffee aficionado, kettlebell
junkie, doula and soon to be author
3. The Big WHY...
Define your mission for your blog
Decide who your primary audience is
?
Detail the ways that you want to connect with and help your
audience
Realize that blogging is about THEM, not YOU
You have to be passionate about your topic- The “Julia Child
Factor”
4. Define Your Mission:
The mission of WellnessMama.com is to promote healthy
eating and real-food nutrition by supporting moms and
families with education and practical resources. My vision is
to create a movement of readers and fellow bloggers to
encourage healthy, sustainable and natural options with
recipes, natural living ideas, fitness help and health
information geared toward families.
5. Your Avatar:
Figure out who you are writing to. Even if you are just
publishing recipes, figure out who is most likely to want your
specific recipes and write to that person.
Get as specific as possible so you can identify with that
person and think of them as you write.
Write like you’re having coffee with a friend.
6. Part One - Great Content
Start by outlining the core content you want to post.
Work on these posts first before you even start promoting.
During this time, make it a point to comment on other blogs,
contribute in forums and be helpful on social media without
promoting yourself.
Write like you are having coffee with your best friend. The
“Ree” Factor:
8. Part Two - Making Friends
Offer to guest post for bloggers in your niche.
Offer to let others guest post on your site.
Give more than you get in forums and on other blogs.
Start engaging with your audience on social media but make
it about them!
Give away a lot of free content.
10. Grow Organically
What worked for me:
No pop-up email boxes
No bribes, giveaways or contests
No ads, banners or distractions on my site: “The front-lawn
factor”
Be genuine, vulnerable and transparent.
Growth won’t be as fast, but you will have a stronger bond
with your readers.
11. Don’t buy your friends...
Think of your readers as friends, your blog as your house
and your social media platforms as your front yard.
Don’t pay for friends.
Take care of your friends before your advertisers.
Your house isn’t a billboard.
Your yard isn’t a sign.
12. Playing Nice with Google
Write for people but optimize for search engines
The goal: get Google to like you (G+ helps)
What I use: Scribe, Wordpress SEO plugin, G+
Find out what people are searching for and write about it!
Make sure titles are clear and searchable
13. Social Media
Send traffic to your site, not vise versa.
Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Instagram, Pinterest
Know your audience
Google + is important!
Share with at least a 4:1 ratio of theirs:yours
Create a two-way conversation
Social Metrics Pro plugin helps track stats
15. Know Yourself
As things start to grow, stay true to yourself and your goals.
If you wouldn’t do it for free, don’t do it for money.
Keep giving away insanely helpful content for free.
Pay it forward.
Keep it about helping others!
16. Make $ Without “Selling”
I’m not a sales person - The “Big-box store factor”
Treat them like you’d treat your sister
Build it and they will come
Give MUCH more than you get.
In-post affiliate links, information or digital products.
18. Building the friendship:
Get their “number”=email
Connect on social media
Share recipes or helpful info
If they ask, tell them where you got your resources
Occasionally, if you find (or create) a great resource, tell
them about it!
19. The Long Term Relationship
Keep providing quality free content all the time
Keep a low ratio of free products to sales products
Make sure any products you sell are also very valuable
21. For the Search Engines...
Scribe
Wordpress SEO plugin
Google+
Google Analytics
22. For Social Media
Use text on pictures to make them more appealing on social
media. This is especially important on Pinterest since your
image is your only window to your site.
23. Facebook:
Ask a question or make engagement about them, since
Facebook shows posts to more readers if it gets more
engagement:
24. Just Google It:
Everything you post should be on Google+ and you should
have Google Authorship markup connecting G+ and your site.
This helps you rank for search engine terms: