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12:06 pm March 29, 2012
| Edward Antrobus
| | Fort Collins, CO | |
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| posts 1008 | ![Follow Me](https://yakezie.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/styles/icons/default/followme.png)
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On my food blog, I have three posts that are ranked 1-ish for their keyword. In fact about 20% of my traffic is to those three posts. Currently, all I'm getting out of it is about 100 ad impressions per month, i.e. ~ $.04
I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on what I could do/be doing differently to better capitalize on the popularity of those three posts. Either in terms of increased revenue or in terms of visitor retention/increased subscribers (which would lead to increased revenue!)
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I'm looking for editors, beta-readers, and some demographic research for my upcoming novel, Once Upon a Saturn Moon. If you like reading soft sci-fi thrillers, maybe with a touch of romance thrown in, you can find more information at http://seampublishing.com/once…..aturn-moon
If You Can Read, You Can Cook – http://www.ifyoucanread.com | Think you can't cook? If you can read this sentence, then you can.
SEAM Publishing – http://www.seampublishing.com | eBook formatting and publishing service
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12:05 pm March 30, 2012
| LaTisha @YoungFinances
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| posts 1715 | ![Follow Me](https://yakezie.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/styles/icons/default/followme.png)
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This is similar to the SEO service I provide.
Here is some free advice if you'd like to do it on your own.
Build internal links back to those posts to further strengthen their traffic. You should refer back to them often and maybe even list them on your blog sidebar. A good plugin to use that will do this automatically is 'Automatic SEO links'.
If you can work in an affiliate link then go for it, also make sure your Adsense/ad box is optimized for this post. You could also take the opportunity to grab the reader further in your blog. Instead of including ads on this post, link to other relevant posts.
Create a more posts with related topics that point back to these posts. If these posts are in good topics, it would make sense to snowball your traffic.
The more related keywords around one topic that search crawlers see, the more chance you have to get increased traffic.
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2:28 pm March 30, 2012
| Modest Money
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| Member | posts 256 | ![Follow Me](https://yakezie.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/styles/icons/default/followme.png)
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LaTisha gives some good advice. You can either work to make those pages even stronger or you can change them up a bit to lead people to click deeper into your site. I'd probably try to write more posts about very similar topics. Then you can interlink both posts to each other.
Try to get in the mind of your visitors. Look at what keywords they are using to find those pages. Does your post satisfy their needs? Is there something you could add or change to make it a better resource for those people? What else might they want to see or know? Maybe compare your page to other pages that come up for those search terms.
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7:43 am March 31, 2012
| Edward Antrobus
| | Fort Collins, CO | |
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| posts 1008 | ![Follow Me](https://yakezie.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/styles/icons/default/followme.png)
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I'll admit that it seems counter-intuitive that the key to getting more out of popular posts is making them more popular. But I'll trust the pros on this. :)
LaTisha, thanks for the advice. I'm sure I could come up with another burrito recipe for the George Foreman and another style of semi-homemade spaghetti sauce. Coming up with another post on rice, beans, & tuna may be a little tougher. :)
I'll try to find a good affiliate program selling the Geroge Foreman grill, which I probably should anyway since I use it almost as much as my stove. And I will definitely make sure I link to the posts more often.
Jeremy, One thing I've noticed is that other sites use a lot more photos than I do. I'll admit, this is something I struggle with. I'm always forgetting to take pictures. Plus, I've never personally got the point of posting half a dozen pictures of the same thing.
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I'm looking for editors, beta-readers, and some demographic research for my upcoming novel, Once Upon a Saturn Moon. If you like reading soft sci-fi thrillers, maybe with a touch of romance thrown in, you can find more information at http://seampublishing.com/once…..aturn-moon
If You Can Read, You Can Cook – http://www.ifyoucanread.com | Think you can't cook? If you can read this sentence, then you can.
SEAM Publishing – http://www.seampublishing.com | eBook formatting and publishing service
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9:03 am April 2, 2012
| Frugal Portland
| | Portland, OR | |
| Member | posts 126 | ![Follow Me](https://yakezie.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/styles/icons/default/followme.png)
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as an avid reader of blogs, particularly food blogs, i love love love pictures. just my two cents.
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3:06 pm April 2, 2012
| Modest Money
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| Member | posts 256 | ![Follow Me](https://yakezie.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/styles/icons/default/followme.png)
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The thing is, you could either use those popular posts to win over visitors and improve your user metrics, or you could use those posts just to make money. I'd personally go with the more long term route of trying to turn those visitors into regular readers. Done right, you could accomplish both goals.
Usually when you have a popular post there are ways you can milk even more traffic out of it. Unless you're #1 for all related keywords, there's room for improvement. So since you've seen signs of potential, why not try to realize even more of that potential?
And yes, more photos is definitely a good idea for a food blog. Better yet, you'd also do some videos.
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6:30 pm April 2, 2012
| Van Beek
| | Bangkok, Thailand | |
| Member | posts 227 | ![Follow Me](https://yakezie.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/styles/icons/default/followme.png)
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Check what the Google competition value and estimated CPC is for those keywords.
If that is low, I think you can forget about monetizing it with Adsense or advertisers.
If it is high, select the most popular adsense sizes for the most attractive positions on those pages.
If it is low, get in some strongly related affiliate links.
Another idea is to search for related keywords that have a high competion/CPC value.
Write posts for those keywords and link from your popular pages with clear call to actions to those new posts.
In that way you drive traffic to posts that have more value for advertisers.
Also make sure that on your popular posts you have a good conversion to sign up for your email newsletter.
In the long run, the money is in the list.
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6:59 pm April 2, 2012
| MoneyInfant
| | Bangkok | |
| Member | posts 72 | ![Follow Me](https://yakezie.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/styles/icons/default/followme.png)
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In my experience Adsense is pretty low paying for most food related keywords. Have you tried foodieblogroll.com? They have a CPM model for advertising that has paid us about double what we get from Adsense on my wife's food blog.
And as far as pictures go…you gotta have them. There are huge sites built around food porn.
http://www.foodgawker.com
http://www.tastespotting.com
http://photograzing.seriouseats.com/
and of course the latest popular http://www.pinterest.com
My guess is that you could drive WAYYY more traffic from these sites than you will ever get from the SE's.
Probably the best way to monetize these pages though would be to write a cookbook and sell it on the site.
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6:09 am April 3, 2012
| LaTisha @YoungFinances
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The cookbook is a great idea!
Think of variations also, not just another burrito recipe for the George Forman grill but what about GF grill recipes? Or wacky ways to make burritos. Any variations that include the reason people are coming to your site and sticking in the first place.
It's all about giving people more of what they want so they stay longer and eventually bookmark.
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12:15 pm April 6, 2012
| Finance Yoga
| | Kentucky | |
| Member | posts 86 | ![Follow Me](https://yakezie.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/styles/icons/default/followme.png)
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Wow, that is all some great advice. I would have to agree with them about pictures, they're a must. However, you don't have to take all the pictures yourself. I usually go to flickr.com to get my pics. If you do this, be sure to link back to the photographer and MAKE SURE you have permission to use the pic. I go to advance search options and scroll down to the "Only show photos with creative commons license", that way you won't get one that doesn't give you permission by mistake.
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12:50 pm April 6, 2012
| retireby40
| | USA | |
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One of my most popular post is – How to cheat on Zynga poker.
It has nothing to do with the rest of the site and I have no idea how to capitalize this post.
I put up a poker chip advertising banner from CJ, but haven't made a dime yet.
Oh well…
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6:38 pm April 6, 2012
| Edward Antrobus
| | Fort Collins, CO | |
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| posts 1008 | ![Follow Me](https://yakezie.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/styles/icons/default/followme.png)
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Thanks everyone.
I will try to be more dilligent about taking photos in the future. I am hoping that my next kitchen will have better lighting than the place we were renting. I'm also thinking about buying another camera to keep in the kitchen so it is on hand. But obviously, that is a purchase for down the road.
On affiliate links, I have a question. The George Foreman Grill (GFG) is obviously a physical product. From whom would you typically buy such a thing online, if you would at all? Amazon? Target? Walmart?
Jeremy, I do want to take the long-view and build traffic instead of just making a quick buck off of new visitors. My bounce rate is pretty good (~30% historically), but my returning visitor rate is atrocious (~10%).
I have done two videos to date, but I typically don't have anyone in the kitchen with me to actually hold the camera. Plus, I don't exactly have stage presence. :)
Van, I will look into that. I have been procrastinating on starting the newsletter, because I really haven't come up with what I want to do with it. I'm also trying to find a newsletter solution that meets my needs. I'm not really in a position to pay for Aweber at this time.
Money Infant, I do have FBR advertising. I've done alright with them in the past, but lately the results have been disappointing. Probably because they tend to serve AdSense ads on my pages.
I actually started the blog as a way to promote the cookbook I was working on at the time. It's now finished although I've yet to sell any copies. I've also created a quick ebook of the recipes I posted in the first year. Two of the three aforementioned posts are recipes and they are in that short cookbook. I will add links to the cookbook in those posts. I just have to come up with a non-spammy way of doing that.
LaTisha, The GFG post is actually about uncommon uses for the grill, and doesn't contain any recipes itself. So my thought was to post more recipes that incorporate it. I said burrito before because they are my go-to food. :) I do already have a few recipes posted where I mention the grill. Now that I have that Automatic SEO links plugin, I should be doing a better job of linking to that post.
Joe, good to know I'm not the only one with that problem. :)
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I'm looking for editors, beta-readers, and some demographic research for my upcoming novel, Once Upon a Saturn Moon. If you like reading soft sci-fi thrillers, maybe with a touch of romance thrown in, you can find more information at http://seampublishing.com/once…..aturn-moon
If You Can Read, You Can Cook – http://www.ifyoucanread.com | Think you can't cook? If you can read this sentence, then you can.
SEAM Publishing – http://www.seampublishing.com | eBook formatting and publishing service
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5:56 am April 7, 2012
| Matt76Allen
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| Member | posts 78 | ![Follow Me](https://yakezie.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/styles/icons/default/followme.png)
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Great question! I am glad you asked it, as I was curious on what I could do with my more popular posts that still get a lot of traffic. Wonderful suggestions and advice here by everybody!
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