Written on October 24th, 2009 at 01:10 am by Darren Rowse
How Would You Monetize this Food Blog
I recently received the email below from a reader asking me for advice on her blog. As I responded to them I realized that it might make an interesting discussion starter and that perhaps the ProBlogger community might together have some good advice to give – so lets do tackle it together.
What I’m going to do is to share the email below (the blogger has given me permission to do this) and share the link to the blog and then open things up to discussion for readers to share their advice.
First the blogger’s name is Veron and the blog is Sparklette – a Singaporean Food Blog.
I am from Singapore and I have been following your blogging tips for 2 years now. It was through your blog that I first learned the concept of SEO. Because of what I learned from Problogger, I managed to improve the web traffic of my food blog tremendously to the present 10,000 pageviews a day.
Early this year, I attempted monetising my blog. Through your recommendations I have tried Google Ads, Chitika and Amazon Associates, but only succeeded in making dozens of dollars a month from Google, and zilch from the others. I’m thinking it has something to do with the fact that food blogs are, by default, hard to monetise. I might be wrong though.
Still, I would like to try harder. I really hope that this blog can one day replace my present day job as my primary source of income.
Are there any tips which you can recommend to someone like me – a passionate blogger who is willing to work hard and already sees substantial web traffic but somehow isn’t able to properly monetise it?
I’m no food blogger so am unfamiliar with the niche and how it monetizes best – so while I did give a few words of advice I wondered if others with experience in that niche might have some advice to share with Veron.
Do keep in mind that Veron is asking for advice on monetization – so lets keep the focus upon that aspect of the blog and lets try to keep things constructive.
PS: the main advice I shared with Veron was pretty simple but revolved around the possibility of producing her own product to sell (perhaps an ebook/cookbook) and perhaps also to do some looking around at other blogs in that niche.
The other suggestion that I’d probably be doing is identifying advertisers to approach directly. Are there food stores, publishers of cookbooks or even restaurants in Singapore that might be willing to sponsor the blog.
OK – over to you – what advice would you give?
121 Responses to “How Would You Monetize this Food Blog” - Add Yours
Itamar Kestenbaum
October 24th, 2009 3:03 am
I think the best way for Vernon to monetize the site is probably through either sponsored conversation (controversial, I know) or, like you said – producing a product of Vernon’s own. The latter is probably the best idea because considering Vernon gets 300,000 hits a month, a book is definitely shoppable! Say 300k to a book publisher, and they’re likely to get curious.
Another way is to speak. Speaking engagements make a great gateway into monetization. Build credibility online AND off, and you’ve got yourself set.
Can’t think of anything else off the top of my head – but GaryVee’s new book might be perfect for Vernon. Crush It!
Jackie Lee
October 24th, 2009 3:03 am
I would definitely agree about approaching businesses directly to have a sponsored ad on the blog. If you are getting that much traffic it would probably be worth it to them.
She could also add some amazon books related to the type of cuisine the restaurant she’s talking about serves ~ I find cookbooks do pretty well on my food blogs.
The key is probably going to be to test things and see what works best. Make a list of possibilities and then test them a month at a time and see what works best. :) Keep what works, get rid of the rest.
Jackie
deeba
October 24th, 2009 3:04 am
Foodbuzz is a nice community to join if they’ll have you on as a Featured Publisher. Also try Lijjit for added revenue. My daily traffic is just around 2000 page views & I have a long way to go.
Mike
October 24th, 2009 3:05 am
The site seems to be more of a restaurant blog instead of a food blog. Maybe some kind of local coupon books or travel/lodging/location event affiliate type of thing.
The book idea would be good if it was a book reviewing all of the restaurants in a Singapore.
Chris Johnston
October 24th, 2009 3:05 am
Amazon links to specific food products, maybe become a FoodBuzz featured blogger, affiliate links to food products that you review, maybe do a food podcast and try to get sponsors from companies who would like to tap that audience. Since you have a very niche website with 10K views a day why don’t you find sponsors who want to reach that audience. Get them to advertise on your site and don’t be shy about charging a premium for access to your audience.
Jodith
October 24th, 2009 3:05 am
My first thought would be to have some affiliate links around food providers. Something like gourmet food, coffee, chocolate, fruits, things like that.
My 2nd thought was the same as yours. Either producing a cookbook, or even a guidebook to restaurants in a particular area, depending on where his readers come from.
I’m kind of in the same boat. I have a narrow niche, and figuring out monetization is a little hard, but I’m getting there a little at a time.
Bradford Shimp
October 24th, 2009 3:06 am
I agree that creating a product, like a cookbook, might be a good way to go. As far as going for direct advertisers, I would try to work out some deals with the local restaurants. Selling gift certificates could be a good business.
However, you would have to set up stringent guidelines so as not to appear to be providing biased reviews of any restaurants to try and sell more gift certificates.
A possible product to put together and sell would be a tour book of Singapore’s cuisine and restaurants.
Yasmine
October 24th, 2009 3:06 am
It’s a nice looking blog for sure. A few tips I have:
- Add an email signup box with some kind of incentive to sign up. You can use this to send them affiliate marketing offers whether you’re promoting a book, etc.
- Write more blog posts that are “advertising friendly.” These include book reviews adding in Amazon affiliate links or other reviews where you can do something similar. Evaluations work well also. How about “Gifts for Food Lovers” for Christmas? “Top 4 CookBooks for beginners, etc”?
- Join an affiliate network and add in affiliate links to Restaurant.com, grocery sites, etc. M&M even has an affiliate program.
Good luck!
@steveplunkett
October 24th, 2009 3:08 am
i’ve been to this blog before (or at least one that looks cool and has sparklette on it.)
it’s friday… i need more good karma points for today.
a. start testing foods you like.. give feedback to those companies on your blog, make sure and SEO for their keywords in your blog posts.
You will show up in search results for their products and they may contact you about sponsorship or give you the inside of their food products.
Be sure and post recipes exactly..
as in.. “here is the coolest recipe i have for ramen”
marinate chicken in lemon juice and honey mustard dressing for 30 mins in fridge, etc..
cook ramen using chicken spices and half of the chili spice ramen packet, cook noodles
get some honey roast cashews and some chunky pnut butter, mash it all up, add some honey and tabasco sauce, set aside..
grill chicken, cut up add to noodles and cover with sauce,
viola! chicken pad thai,.. w/ ramen..
b. add yelp widget and own your location by doing restaurant reviews and feeding them to your blog as well as linking from yelp to blog.
offer to do reviews for free meal.. but STRESS honest reviews, ONLY. meaning write disclaimer.
“if you ask me to do a review, you comp the meal, but if service is bad or food is bad i have to say so. however if food is good and service is good, i will write good review AND come back for another meal at my own expense and follow up with addition to blog post on second paid visit.”
there’s 2 ideas to start, good luck.
Christy
October 24th, 2009 3:13 am
Definitely join affiliate programs – link products from them into posts where appropriate. For example, I don’t know if she cooks at all, but if she does, she could try re-creating a restaurant recipe in her home, and link the ingredients to affiliates.
Sponsorship would probably be a good way to go, too. She would have to talk to local merchants probably. Or perhaps for the travel posts get advertising or sponsorships from travel-related companies.
And I would definitely write an ebook or two to sell through the site. She could also produce some sort of sponsored podcast or video series.
Christie @ Fig&Cherry
October 24th, 2009 3:14 am
Food blogs are hard to monetise! They are best used as a portfolio to get recipe creation / styling / writing freelance projects.
I notice she has a ‘Hire Me’ button for her web company, but not for her ‘foodie’ services such as those I mentioned above.
Otherwise, targeted affiliate programs like Tastebook or paid product reviews. Beware not to look too sale-sy though or readers will run a mile. There’s too many food blogs out there to choose from that don’t try and make money.
Lori @ Freely Educate
October 24th, 2009 3:19 am
With 10,000 pageviews a day, I’m assuming the blogger’s RSS subscriptions are pretty high, right?
Veron would definitely be able to get the Google $ amount up by:
1.Offering RSS subscriptions through Feedburner
2. Clicking on “Monetize” in Feedburner to set up Google Adsense on the feeds,
3.Offering only a summary of the posts through the RSS,
This makes the readers click through to see the entire post. Often they will click the ad on the feed (by mistake?), and will come to the site, giving the bloger more pageviews, value, and revenue.
At just 1,000 pageview a day and 1,000 subscribers, I always get at least $100 from Google each month doing this.
Hope that helps! I look forward to reading the other suggestions. ~ Lori Seaborg
Andrea_R
October 24th, 2009 3:27 am
She may also want to apply to BlogHer advertising. They have a Food blogger section, where the ad strips also show posts from other food bloggers – hers included.
So, she can pull in ad dollars AND increase exposure at the same time.
Kosmo @ The Casual Observer
October 24th, 2009 3:29 am
A cookebook is a great idea.
Maybe use Google Analytics to determine if certain types of content are doing better?
JamesHealth
October 24th, 2009 3:35 am
I would really just talk about what to buy during the recession, since we are all suffering from it. How to live healthy during the recession. In fact, I read a post about what to buy during the recession to stay healthy and frugal here – http://www.blogtoilet.com/2009/10/23/the-recession-is-good-for-one-thing-forced-dieting/
Shane Mac
October 24th, 2009 3:39 am
I not an expert at monetizing blogs but I think in this case your blog is your audience so making a tangible item (like someone already stated) is the way to go. Everyone always gets overwhelmed when people say write a book, ebook, etc. Remember that it does not have to be “New” content to go into a book. You can bring the “best of” articles together from your blog over the years and then you have a tangible item to sell and can promote through your blog. Just a thought
Michelle {Brown Eyed Baker}
October 24th, 2009 3:50 am
I would look into becoming a Featured Publisher with Foodbuzz and running their ad on your site. You could also look into other advertising networks.
Nik
October 24th, 2009 3:58 am
If I were in Veron’s shoes, I’d definitely draw generous doses of inspiration from Gary Vaynerchuk and they way he built his wine-based social media empire.
A Cowboy's Wife
October 24th, 2009 4:10 am
Since I have a food blog, I can put in my 2 cents. I do use affiliate links but I also have an amazon store that only has cooking/food related items. It works well.
I have coupons.com embed into my site as well so people can print coupons. You can also implement something with Coupons.com like Kontera where anytime a certain ingredient has a coupon attached to it, if you hover over the link, it will give you the option print it.
Ebooks/cookbooks are a great way to generate money. I do VERY well with my recipe ebooks of different subjects, like Mountain cooking, 101 ways to use chocolate, etc.
I’m currently building a community of my own not set to launch for a while but it will be a membership site with a special private area for paid members.
I agree with the others that Foodbuzz rocks.
Ishan@ILoveFreeSoftware
October 24th, 2009 4:18 am
Veron,
This will be quite a long comment :)
1) You mentioned that you have Google ads on your blog. But I did not see any. Did you take those off? I was wondering if you tried different placement of Google ads to see if that made a difference. It might seem trivial, but I have seen my CTR increase by 300% by just changing the location.
2) You have lot of images in your posts. In that case, you can try to put one Google ad (preferably 468*60, only text) right below the first image. There is a Wordpress plugin available for that (”Adsense under Image”). I am using this on my site, and it contributes almost 8-10% of my income. This is because pictures catch interest of readers, and ads right below those catch their attention too.
3) You have 125*125 ad blocks on your side. These are one of the best method for monetization for blogs that get good traffic (like yours). However, your rate seems to be a bit high ($200). I would recommend to lower the rate, and increase the ad spots. See the rate that works, and then increase gradually.
4) Try BuySellAds.com. They offer good monetization for such 125*125 ad blocks.
5) Did you try affiliate networks, such as CommisionJunction. Being a food and restaurant website, you can try to put some affiliate links from travel sites from CJ.
6) Last thing I would advise is to try Text-Link-Ads.com. They do not take lot of real estate on your blog, but can give good money sometime.
I think I have already written a lot :) If these work for you, I would love to hear about that. Give me a shout via my contact info here:
http://www.ilovefreesoftware.com/contact-us
You have a Beautiful Website. All the Best!
HomeBiss
October 24th, 2009 4:26 am
Darren,
My suggestions are very much the same with yours. She should start writing, perhaps books or eBooks on her niche. If I’m not mistaken, Singapore has varieties of good food and she should go to the field and collect those interesting recipes. She can use her blog to highlight her adventures and also as a marketing tool for her future books/eBooks.
Martin
October 24th, 2009 4:48 am
These are all very good ideas. I would add:
- Doing some research about your readers and sell targeted ad space on your site.
- Get restaurants to pay for advertising whenever you review them. They are not paying for the reviews. You would simply treat it like an editorial calendar. Let them know when they will be reviewed and give them an option to place a promotional coupon, for instance, on your site. That way if it’s a good review, the reader also has an added incentive from the restaurant to visit.
- A little better layout to segregate your blog from your web site development business. It’s buried on the long list on the ride column. Once I go to that section, I get a blank white screen with some text. Not very compelling for a web designer. You might want to jazz up that landing page. And I would pare down the number of examples. Rather than a long list of jpgs, perhaps make them more like a few case studies. Before/after photos, challenges the client faced and how you solved them in record time, things like that. It looks like your sites are very artistic – that might be a niche you would want to promote.
Udaysree
October 24th, 2009 4:57 am
i used to have a link to Darren’s 31DBBB on my food blog – and made a sale. so i am thinking even general blog related affiliate links could work – because we are all bloggers and often looking for resources…
but perhaps best a restaurant guide book for this particular food blog.
Vulu's Recipe
October 24th, 2009 5:24 am
Mike is right, the blog is more of a restaurant blog then of a food blog. You can write about different community living in Singapore, their food habit, recipes, cuisine etc.
Veron you have 10k pageviews everyday, try to sell it to local food business like restaurants, food manufacturers/importer/exporters in the form of advertisements or others. You can write books and sell it, you can put others recipe in your book to advertise them and earn some extra bucks.
Veron, your site looks nice, but flashy – I think a white background could do better, have you visited BBC Good Food website?
Anita Nelson
October 24th, 2009 5:32 am
That is exactly what I would suggest, Darren, is to sell her own products. She could do anything from food products, books, utensils, her own brand name merchandise such as T-shirts, mugs, calendars, pens – the list is endless! Think Martha Stewart. That is how I have monetized my blog with eBay & Etsy links to my own stores.
CONGRATULATIONS on 10,000 page views per DAY – that’s just incredible! I can’t imagine how busy I would be with the stores if I had that!
x0x
Anita @ModelSupplies
Deanna
October 24th, 2009 5:35 am
I can relate to this blogger’s question and have been working on answers as well.
I, personally, download far too many ebooks from online and I’m not sure that I would pay to download another one. That’s just me though.
I agree that ads seem to be a great place to start. I love foodbuzz and also write for a national website about food & local restaurants as it fits with my foodie blog and our B&B too.
Another avenue that I have in the “sketching out” phase is videos which will (hopefully) be sold eventually.
One last thought is taking the fact that she is writing about restaurants and asking them to share a recipe either as stated eariler in a cookbook or having a sister blog that shows the recipes which may capture a different kind of traffic that with ads will make it a double header,
Again, these are just a few thoughts as I am asking the same question about my blog. :)
Jennifer
October 24th, 2009 5:42 am
I actually transitioned my efforts into a different niche because I felt it was so difficult to monetize a food blog without feeling like I was selling out.
That was over a year ago and now I see several options that are good for people who don’t blog about specific food products or cookware.
- cookbook/e-book/guide that is useful to your readers
- direct ad sales w/ other blogs in your locality or specific niche
I will respectfully disagree with Udaysree. I don’t think most food blog readers are bloggers themselves. While may are, I think its a risk.
The important thing is to be authentic and feel good about each decision you make in monetization.
Ronblogger
October 24th, 2009 5:48 am
The best method really is to create your own informative product like cookbook and just add a unique personal touch on it
Susan
October 24th, 2009 5:56 am
I’m not sure how she’s linking to Amazon, but if she’s doing relevant, contextual mentions of specific products or cooking tools, I would think that it would convert pretty well. The best way to monetize is to recommend things only when they’re extremely relevant to what your reader is most engrossed in at that moment.
For example, even if it’s a review of a restaurant dish, you can have a “create this at home” type of language that leads to specific things on Amazon.
Antti Kokkonen
October 24th, 2009 6:14 am
Hi Veron (and Darren) — Looking at Sparklette, I see at least couple of options for monetising. Direct advertising, paid reviews and putting together a Singapore Food recipe eBook or even a “restaurant guide” or such.
For direct advertising, I see you’re selling advertising already but you can also contact restaurants you have reviewed or otherwise presented on the blog and ask if they’d be interested in advertising on your blog. With your traffic rates you can can even charge a decent amount, and you can also consider adding more advertising areas, perhaps in the posts.
And it looks like you’re already doing paid reviews, which you can easily charge more (at least it doesn’t hurt to try). Perhaps contact the restaurants while looking for advertisers that you offer this option too. And if there’s data for results your reviews have accomplished, even better. I’d also like to see “best restaurants” or “recommended this week” list there… you could then charge more for advertising on those pages :)
And the last point, eBook or other information product. Restaurant guide could be a great idea, or combining that with a cook / recipe book. To prepare for launching that, you could start a mailing list or newsletter (which you could also sell advertising to, or weekly recommendations etc.).
Hopefully those will help you and I suggest you just continue testing different methods out. Anyway, good luck with the blog Veron, you’ve done great with traffic and I’m sure you find a way to make good money of it too!
Kevin
October 24th, 2009 6:30 am
I love this Asian food blog and the site seems to be doing all the right things to monetize it.
http://rasamalaysia.com
Ms. Freeman
October 24th, 2009 6:34 am
Amazon links and email marketing….
Gary Arndt
October 24th, 2009 6:40 am
I’d like to see more articles like this. Practical, not fluffy.
HydrogenCarRevolution
October 24th, 2009 6:49 am
Since there seems to be a big focus on restaurants, I would recommend trying to make money from them.
Here is a possible way:
You could have events once or twice a month at restaurants that are featured that month on your blog. This would be a great way to connect with your readers.
And for those who can’t attend the event on that particular day, they could go to the restaurants at another time during the month.
All of your readers could provide comments about their experiences at the restaurants.
I imagine the restaurants would be glad to pay you for all of the customers that you would bring to them. This might work really well with new restaurants who have a good concept but need those initial customers to get the word-of-mouth buzz going.
I read a year or so ago about a music blogger in New York City who made money by organizing concerts. This is basically the same concept.
Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that for most bloggers it is best to try to monetize blogs offline through things like speaking, consulting, organizing events, etc.
Greg Blencoe
Lindsey
October 24th, 2009 6:52 am
Take a look at Orangette (http://orangette.blogspot.com/)–go all the way to the bottom of her sidebar. She has an amazon store of stuff she likes related to cooking. Not sure how that works, but I’m guessing she gets something for it.
Dave
October 24th, 2009 6:55 am
I will only talk for myself, but I do run a food blog (recipe blog to be exact) in french, and I can make hundreds and hundreds of dollars with it each month.
I’m running Adsense, which is paying the most, and I’m also trying with a company that shows ads with by CPM, which almost pays as much as google.
I’m almost sure you can do it with your food blog. Just find the right emplacement for the ads. If I can manage to make a lot of money with a food blog in french, I’m sure there is a market for food blog in english!
Good luck!
Jenny
October 24th, 2009 8:15 am
I run a food blog that gets only about 15% of the pageviews she does, but manage to make a fair amount from it. I use Foodbuzz which provides CPM ads though she could use blogher or some other ad network. Moreover, I have a page that lists suppliers of hard-to-find ingredients and that also generates income. If she can’t find direct advertisers, or doesn’t want to put energy into doing so she can always sign up as an affiliate with online food markets provided she uses good disclosure practice.
Like other people have mentioned, she could sell e-books or premium content. This last month I started offering recipe content books to readers. While I offer the e-books for free, many readers have donated or purchased print versions as well. I made more money giving people the option to pay than I expected to make by charging them outright.
I don’t use google adwords at this time because I feel they visually detract from a blog in many instances, and the visual is an extremely important aspect of a food blog.
Tim
October 24th, 2009 9:08 am
My small blog has almost nothing to do with food but the only pages that actually make any income have been my restaurant reviews while traveling and all of that is through Amazon sales.
I have amazon ads in the sidebar on every page, but when I noticed some unexpected big spikes in traffic coming from a couple of FoodNetwork shows featuring those restaurants I also put in some Amazon links to some cookbooks written by the FoodNetwork show star.
So people are watching the food show on TV and they go online for more information and find my (motorcycle) blog where they then find links to cook books from the tv show. Thats how I’ve monetized one of my food posts, and I think I’ll do the same with my food reviews.
I would try linking to similar cuisine cookbooks, restaurant review guides and other food related Amazon products. Visitors to the site are already interested in food so food related ads is what I would try.
BrianJUY
October 24th, 2009 9:35 am
We are from the US but have a website, blog and forum about Uruguay, we just moved here 5 months ago. Our blog, website and forum are all brand new, but we are getting a lot of traffic and everything is monetizing very well. We were just featured in an online and print magazine here this week.
We have a food section along with a Recipe of the Week. We sell a cookbook that we created that teaches how to make food from scratch that you can’t get here in Uruguay, like Sour Cream…
I would recommend making a cookbook with some of your favorite recipes from some of your favorite restaurants. Make a cookbook/ restaurant guide.
Promote your cookbook on your blog and have an affiliate program to go along with it.
A huge market to capitalize on are English speaking expats… Promote yourself on expat and tourist websites…
Your blog is very “pretty”, something you will definitely remember after visiting… That being said, the right side of your blog feels very cluttered, I would look at cleaning that up… maybe making 3 columns instead of 2.
I would put your adsense above the fold… maybe at the top of each post. Having adsense above the fold is very important to convert with it.
I would make sure to capitalize the 1st letter of each sentence.
Put a “Most Recent Post” or “Best of Post” on the right side as well.
And I really like HydrogenCarRevolution’s idea too… That may be something we try out down the road here in the near future…
Best of luck to you.
DK
October 24th, 2009 9:55 am
I have a food blog too – and hence can understand her point exactly. Agreed it is little hard to monetize as compared to other blogs – but its not a total lost cause. Get sponsored ads from leading ad publishers like BlogHer and FoodBuzz! The more traffic you get, better it is for you!
Contact them soon to get kickstarted! :) Hope this helps
Domain Superstar
October 24th, 2009 10:20 am
The cookbook ebook is a good idea. I would also add to set up some kind of “recipe of the week” weekly newsletter as well.
Mary Corbet
October 24th, 2009 10:46 am
I’d go with pretty much all the same advice: cookbook reviews for recipes you’ve tried with affiliate links to the cookbooks, write your own e-cookbook (but I think you’d have to make it really spectacular or unique, if you’re planning to sell it), review cookware products, etc.
I’m a little confused about the Google ad situation – I don’t see any on there. Consider better placement of Google ads, perhaps. For Google ads, placement is Really Important. Darren has good posts on “hot spots” for ads and they definitely are worth taking into consideration, even if you think the ads mar the look of the site if they’re in the “hot spots.” If you’re hitting 10K page views a day, you should be making more than a couple dozen dollars a month w/ Google, if your ads are placed well and formatted well for your website.
Not to sound cliche-ish, but I understand how you feel. I’m in the throes of figuring out how to branch out, rather than solely relying on Google income, but it’s hard to take a bold step when things are working “ok.”
Best of luck!
Nick
October 24th, 2009 11:29 am
Having been to Singapore and loved the food, I would definitely do a travel-related restaurant ebook. I would focus on a simple theme like “5 days, 15 restaurants” and take the reader on a mix of places from hawker stalls up to “nicer” places. Explain that she’s going for a mix that shows the tourist as much of the variety of Singapore’s neighborhoods as possible while keeping the prices reasonable. Price it at GBP4.99.
(Oh, and review Zam Zam in the Islamic neighborhood, their murtabak is outstanding!)
DJ
October 24th, 2009 11:42 am
I think coming up with her own product such as an eBook might do well. I too think approaching some of the businesses directly could help her. Maybe she could go to the restaurant and show them how much traffic she brings to her blog, then tell them she can bring them exposure through her blog.
Dana@Online Knowledge
October 24th, 2009 12:27 pm
The blog can monetize by create product. Book and magazine come to my mine for this food blog.
Jeff
October 24th, 2009 1:37 pm
Do more paid reviews.
Googles Ads.. but within the text, a 200×200 or 300x 250 ad unit and a leaderboard (728×90) on the top of the blog. But don’t over do it.
More direct advertising..sidebars, leaderboard, footer and within text article.
Every little bit of revenue adds up.
Another thing, look at magazine publishers business model,, do they only have one magazine in their stable? No! They have many different magazines, on all sorts of topics.
One magazine by itself won’t earn enough money.. so the analogy is the same, the fact is you can only squeeze so much money out of one blog. Multiple blogs is the way to go to earn reasonable money.
Ramkarthik
October 24th, 2009 1:51 pm
Food niche is not that hard to monetize and that’s the reason why there are many food bloggers in the recent days.
The hardest part is building traffic. But since you already have built traffic (overcome the hardest part), it gets easier to monetize.
Here are my ideas (apart from what Darren said):
1. Build a list of subscribers. Not the one using Feedburner but using autoresponders like aweber, get response etc.
How to get people to subscribe: Write a small 7-10 page report with few tips or if you don’t have time, create a report using some of your best posts. Offer it for free to those people who subscribe to your email list.
2. Affiliate Marketing.
Go to Clickbank.Com or any other site that has a marketplace with products related to the food niche. Sign up as an affiliate and promote it in your blog.
The products in the clickbank marketplace offer mostly 50% or higher commissions. So you shouldn’t be having a problem even if the product you promote converts low.
3. JV
JV is short for Joint Venture. Once you build a list with x,xxx subscribers, go to an internet marketer who has a list of same size and tell them that you can promote his/her free report to your list if they are willing to promote your free report to their list. It is a win win situation.
You can also ask the person if (s)he has a product which you can promote to your list for higher commissions.
These are some of the basic ways to monetize the food niche.
Hope this helps
Derrick
October 24th, 2009 2:19 pm
Yeah, I think she needs to find a way to capitalize on her exposure in other ways. Perhaps if she keeps gaining more and more exposure, those other ways will find her.
JoshuaElliot
October 24th, 2009 2:23 pm
Well an ebook will do fine, but from what I know of Singaporeans (I am one too) are that they do not have the habit to purchase online. And cookbooks are available all over Singapore (Singapore is a very small country)
Since Veron have the traffic, she should consider using coupons to advertise for the restaurants. Let the readers print out the coupons, with their names and mobile to enjoy the discount.
For her, she will have to negotiate with the restaurants owners that whatever she bring the customers to the restaurants to eat, she will earn 10% of the food the total sales.
How to track the sales, we ready can’t track the sales, but she can track the no of people who have the coupons, as long as they opt in to the list she can find out how many have have printed out the coupons.
Hope this helps.
Mike Skel
October 24th, 2009 4:32 pm
She has so articles on restaurant! May be she can write featured articles for restaurants! With 300k visitors a month, some restaurants may like to be featured on her blog by paying!
Also how about starting a restaurant directory with food availability with user ratings on food ?
San Jose Carpet Cleaning
October 24th, 2009 6:08 pm
Wow 10,000 people a day and only dozens of dollars per month.
That hurts, good luck bringing the revenue up.
Rick
Deano
October 24th, 2009 6:32 pm
I think that maybe you should be a little more aggressive with your advertising if you want to make money from your blog.
As you have quality content most people will read (or at least scan) to the bottom of each post, so put a large rectangle there.
Now you need to decide if you are more interested in getting new subscribers or money (maybe different days you can do different things). Simply put a large ad block right below the title.
For the ads make sure the text/url link is either red (people are attracted to red) or blue (traditional link colour), black text.
With adverts in these positions i’d expect about 5% CTR.
Deano
kumo
October 24th, 2009 6:36 pm
I think the best way is to approach restaurants and hotels in Singapore for sponsors. It might be difficult in the beginning but it’s a good way to actually introduce the blog to the advertisers. Many hotels and Restaurants are still unaware of the power and potential of internet to bring new customers. Newspapers, television and radio might just be their top choice if they are going to advertise. You just have to introduce to these advertisers what the blog can do. Of cause the first thing that Veron has to do is having a low advertising fees. The low fees is to buy your way into the eyes of advertisers in Singapore. All it takes is just one successful attempt on bringing more customers to one restaurant that advertise on Veron’s blog.
Another important thing that needs to take note is that Veron has to take in consideration of his blog readers, local Singaporean and foreign travelers. As this is more like targeting offline advertisers, getting the blog widely known offline in Singapore might be important.
Mummy to Baby V
October 24th, 2009 7:05 pm
Here’s a contribution from a Singaporean:
- Restaurant Guide: Singaporeans are obsessed with eating out since there is a limited variety of outdoor activities. Have an annual guide featuring the best eateries. Can have separate guides for food centres and premium places to target different segments
- Restaurant Guide for tourists: with F1 events and 2 new resorts, there will be many more eateries and tourists looking for the best dining places. Tap on the new opportunities.
- Dining events: contact the restaurant about your plan & get them to give you & your readers an exclusive discount on the event & pay you a fee for organising it.
- Magazine articles: offer your best posts to magzines in exchange for a fee.
Mummy to Baby V
October 24th, 2009 7:12 pm
I have friends in the F&B industry. If you contact me, I can try to link you up. Good luck!
Tip: be proactive – the more restaurant owners you know, the better. Get the most successful people around you to introduce you PERSONALLY to restaurant owners. Join the local SME circle to widen your network.
Veron
October 24th, 2009 7:43 pm
Thank you, Darren, for posting my query for discussion. I see many outstanding tips and suggestions here.
I will try the food ad networks that many of you have suggested, and definitely a few other tips, too.
So far, I have found the most success with direct ad sales. I have joined some ad networks that help bloggers sell adspace. Even so, most advertisers still approach me directly to buy adspace. Some of them do this for the purpose of getting backlinks from my PR5 blog.
Like what commenter Jackie says, Keep what works, get rid of the rest. I have stopped using Chitika because the revenue I’m getting from there is way less than my Google Adsense payouts. Same goes for Amazon Associates. Joshua said it right. People in Singapore do not have a habit of purchasing online. Moreover, the shipping fees that Amazon charges for sending cookbooks and other products to Singapore are enough to make sure everyone here buys from brick and mortar stores instead.
As for Google Ads, I have them displayed only to the visitors that come in from search engines. I am assuming that the regulars who visit my blog directly from bookmarks or RSS do not usually click on ads. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Thank you everyone! I’m sure many food and niche bloggers would find these pointers of much use.
Anna
October 24th, 2009 7:59 pm
I calculate that the blog could make $120 a day from Adsense and Amazon if the ads were properly placed and featured. The problem is, the beautiful design makes it harder to monetize. At least, one of my sites (also in a hard to monetize niche) makes about $12 per 1000 page views, between Adsense and Amazon. But the ads are placed in the hot spots!
There are ways to incorporate Adsense into a design without it looking bad, but the design she has has all of the imagery in the top “hot-spots” which would normally get the most click through. Mike Cheney’s Adsense videos have more info on this, and there is probably more info on Problogger about it as well.
That is the main thing I see – besides the fact that she should get her own product to sell, and be building a list and using an newsletter which occasionally sells products as well.
I would suggest an eBook of recipes, the first section offered to her list as a free download, the full book available for purchase, and a hardcopy cookbook for sale in Lulu or Amazon. But she should also look at her search traffic, what keywords people come in on, which pages they navigate to, etc, to get a better idea of their needs and wants.
Anna
October 24th, 2009 8:04 pm
P.S. – There is a lot of empty space on the right that could be utilized! The problem is that the gorgeous design would be encroached on, but it does need to make money!
Infonote
October 24th, 2009 8:51 pm
I would create and sell an own product. Try adding merchandise for your site like mugs etc.
Home Jobs
October 24th, 2009 9:00 pm
Darren, I feel Google Adsense should work well if placements are done in the right way and taking care of the Ad blending. She should be able to write great E-books and can be sold on her blog
keyboard
October 24th, 2009 9:15 pm
This is the most informative food blog source I’ve come across and I want to thank you for taking the time to lay it out and share your knowledge. The veil over the mystery of advertising is lifting, but the heavy one over the computer programming and customisation aspect remains. Any suggestions on where to go for enlightenment on that subject?
storesonline795
October 24th, 2009 10:21 pm
Congrats, it takes a lot of patience to continue writing in a blog every week and keep coming up with new material. Keep blogging.
work at home
October 24th, 2009 11:22 pm
I really surprised that his earning is not so high after getting so much traffic. Well may be his niche “food” is not good for monetizing his blog. May be it will better for him for choose another niche.
Swayze
October 24th, 2009 11:40 pm
Yes, creating digital products is definitely the way to go (i.e. recipe books are great for this). I own a raw food and fitness website that teaches people how to get started on a raw food diet and I am just about to launch my very own e-book program. Wish me luck! :D
Ed
October 24th, 2009 11:40 pm
I provide an SEO strategy using Case Studies for my clients on my blog. It works well. I have 20 clients. My top client has picked up over 40 projects off optimized Case Studies I optimized in his local market. His average sale is $3,000 so about $120,000 gross income. The same strategy will work for restaurants. Read Tribes by Seth Godin, then you can leverage off your restaurant clients by teaching them a local social network strategy. For example a restaurant client could refer you the local wine store whose wine is sold at the restaurant.
If I had 10,000 daily views I’d easily have 100 clients paying me $3,000 per year. I have the strategy, I need traffic. Hoping my new Compendium platform will help.
Celeng Lewat
October 24th, 2009 11:43 pm
I would definitely agree about approaching businesses directly to have a sponsored ad on the blog. If you are getting that much traffic it would probably be worth it to them.
She could also add some amazon books related to the type of cuisine the restaurant she’s talking about serves ~ I find cookbooks do pretty well on my food blogs.
The key is probably going to be to test things and see what works best. Make a list of possibilities and then test them a month at a time and see what works best. :) Keep what works, get rid of the rest.
Jackie
Avil Beckford
October 24th, 2009 11:58 pm
Just to add to what Darren said, a few months ago @remakablogger suggested that every blog should have a cornerstone product and that has stuck in my head. This cornerstone product would be an electronic product. Darren’s suggestion is on target. To take it one step further, @remarkablogger suggests that if you have your cornerstone product you’ll never be stumped about what to blog about because there would be endless ideas to take from your cornerstone product. You would sell your cornerstone product on your blog.
Think about your most popular blog posts, how might you package them into an ebook? What makes your food blog different from others? Are there chefs you could interview and package their responses? Are there celebrities who might be willing to share their favourite recipes? Or can you tap into your networks to gather their favourite recipes, especially ones that have been handed down?
These are some of the ideas that are percolating in my mind. Avil Beckford http://www.twitter.com/avilbeckford
Carole
October 25th, 2009 12:00 am
I have a food related site that offers a wide range of recipes. I don’t have the same amount of page impressions as Veron, and I too have found the site quite difficult to monetize.
I have AdSense on mine, which generates a small amount of income, but I would like to thank Veron for bringing up this subject and the commenters for their excellent ideas. I am going to look into Foodbuzz and some of the other sites mentioned.
kaspersky key
October 25th, 2009 12:02 am
10000 pages preview per day is a very good amount of traffic. If they will follow all the techniques provided by Problogger they can easily monetize here blog.
Experiment is the only thing to get good result. Just try every thing and note your success.
There will be some thing unique waiting for you.Just try and try
Paul Saunders
October 25th, 2009 12:13 am
Hi Veron , Darren.
Did a double take when I saw Darrens e mail come through as I am on Verons’ RSS email list :)
I’ll leave the monitization aspects to those more qualified but hope my comments give you feedback from a real subscriber and give you an indication of what might lead me to ‘click’ or ‘buy’.
1. I subscribed when I was in China on business recently as it was Moon cake season, and had googled Moon cakes. I was immediately drawn to your site because of the visual impact of your photographs. Having a ‘creative’ mindset this is what drew me instantly – the ‘quality’ of your photos which complement your friendly, and most definite passion for food.
2. With my little recent exposure to your blog I feel that publishing your own mini food book ( hardcover, not e version) would appeal to me .. for the photos, and lets face it, it seems that there is is constant flow of new food cook book being published so why not get amongst it .. you have all the material. Even if it were an on line drag and drop book you order, drop shipping style, it is not going to take much effort to put it together. You have a great camera, great spontaneous food shooting skills … so use them.
3. Why not directly copy Darrens obvious techinique .. an on line Top 10 survey .. directly linked to amazon on food books .. Top 10 feeds to twitter will draw huge RT’s .. and with the huge No of housewives using Twitter you’ll motor your traffic in that subject area.
4. Video – give it a go and find a way to monetize it. It follows that if you have the creative photography skills, then trying video reviews of food somehow would make sense. I have a ‘private’ e book I put together on this, and will send it to you. hope it helps.
5. Do NOT give up =)
6. You write good copy, and it exudes your passion for your niche. Use these readers ideas to experiment to the next level. You WILL succeed. Believe in yourself.
7. GIVE AWAY YOUR BEST CONTENT FOR FREE – PERIOD.
Good luck from a non foodie who loves your blog.
Paul – Australia.
Nikhil
October 25th, 2009 12:33 am
My suggestion would be to go for a partnership with various restaurants in the area. You can start displaying their menus on the blog and the customers can order online from your blog itself. You get a part of the order as commission.
Kristin
October 25th, 2009 12:39 am
Hello Veron, Hello Darren and friends,
Lovely blog! Here is my *best* tip, something that works, no fail, for me:
Regarding Amazon (where you CAN make a veritable salary!) :
=> Suggest three to five products in *every* blog post that you write!
Because yours is a food blog, you can have a lot of fun with the specific theme: suggest not only books, but food related films (Babette’s Feast, Like Water for Chocolate…), suggest utensils (blenders, etc), suggest food items (tea…)
=> Here is how I vary my shopping section: by including one item from *each* category … in each and *every* email (blog post):
* one item from books
* one item from films
* one item from home/garden
* one item from beauty
* one item from music
It really works!Try it and be consistent in creating your “Shopping” section!
You might also remind your readers to please use the Amazon links on your page — as it is no extra cost to them — but makes all the difference to you and the furthering of your educational blog.
One more tip!: you can use the same Amazon code (see short version, below). Just replace the ISBN (or ASIN) number and your Associates number. Then link to your hotlink the item in your post. Good luck!
Cheers,
Kristin Espinasse
author of “Words in a French Life”
http://www.amazon.com/o/asin/0743287290/mdj-20
Making Money on the Web
October 25th, 2009 12:42 am
If I had a food blog I would sell the cooking books. I think it would work well. Also it is possible to promote the health food programs.
Carleen
October 25th, 2009 1:32 am
I suggest looking at CPM ads with a company that targets that category. I think Glam Media has a category it would fit in and they run a great CPM program. I have been happy with them anyway. The question with them though would be if they are accepting new sites. They might not be.
Also, as others have suggested, an email newsletter might be easier to monetize.
Yaro
October 25th, 2009 1:33 am
Well Said u Guys :D
But i kinda encourage him to sell his own products online..like ebooks…
Bybye :)
The Hype Is Real
October 25th, 2009 1:38 am
The cookbook ebook is a good idea. I would also add to set up some kind of “recipe of the week” weekly newsletter as well.
Anyways…Catch my website guys :D I Got Some Huge Freebies !!!
Thanxx !!
Felix
October 25th, 2009 2:12 am
First, I would continue to optimize my AdSense earnings. It might not be much at the moment but Rome wasn’t build in a day.
Second, speak the chefs in the restaurant you feature. Tell them that you mission is to open up the world for Singaporean food and that you would like to feature them together with their recipes for a 3 course dinner. Publish a portrait of the chef along with a small interview and let people opt in to get the recipes.
Third, this should help you to build a nice email list fast. Feed the list with new recipes on a regular basis. Then edit you own product (cookbook, membership site …) out of the gathered material and start selling in on you blog and to the list.
Chris Johnston
October 25th, 2009 2:23 am
One of the local restaurant reviewers here in New Orleans, a great food town, has an idea you might want to try. He has something called an “Eat Club”. A group of people that love food get together once a month and have a 5 – 7 course meal at a local restaurant. In many cases, the chef makes them something special. It is limited to set number depending on the restaurant but usually around 10-12 and it is usually around $40-60/person depending on the venue. He also has a paid newsletter and he only ask people to pay what they think it is worth. It used to be $10/year but after hurricane Katrina he went to the new payment model. Remember, this is not his sole source of income. He is a journalist and writes for the local paper, has a radio show, and published New Orleans restaurant guide that is in its 2nd printing (I think).
I have learned so much from this and I don’t even have a food blog.
Jessica Nunemaker
October 25th, 2009 2:43 am
I personally love the idea of a cookbook.
I, myself, am a cookbook addict and would totally buy from someone with recipes that I trusted and know that I like — and would use — already.
Just a thought.
Health and Fitness
October 25th, 2009 2:50 am
I have a health blog and I monetize it using Adsense, and clickbank. One possibility is to add your own product as Darren already mentioned. Another good option is to provide online consulting. Online consulting is a flourishing market and I believe that she could do well in those areas if she has expertise on it.
Fakhrul Alam
October 25th, 2009 2:59 am
This seems to be restaurant website blog and visitors are awesome..
I think what she/he should do is that look for an merchant who is giving affiliate…this way he can monetize her/his blog properly.
I hope this help…
Thanks
Alam
Zack
October 25th, 2009 3:07 am
The site seems to be more of a restaurant blog instead of a food blog. Maybe some kind of local coupon books or travel/lodging/location event affiliate type of thing.
The book idea would be good if it was a book reviewing all of the restaurants in a Singapore.
Veronica
October 25th, 2009 3:12 am
(Wonder if Veron is really Veronica, like me?!) Anyway, I assume that she has tried posting comments on other food-related blogs. Then, of course, the idea of publishing something is right on. I also wonder if she has tried guest posts from foodie VIPs of interviews with them. I would also recommend that she provide a service that food purveyors or restauranterus might take notice: reviews. By reviewing items and forwarding to the subject in question, she might get new attention and in fact, eventually, their ads.
Hope this helps – keep up the good work
–Closet Foodie myself–
Hannah @ Cooking Manager
October 25th, 2009 3:30 am
I think that cookbooks are the only niche doing really well in American publishing houses.
I am wondering what Darren and others think about Lori’s suggestions to allow partial feeds? Won’t that backfire by leading people to unsubscribe?
I blog about cooking techniques so this has been extremely useful.
Edward
October 25th, 2009 3:36 am
It depends on what type of traffic she is getting:
- If the traffic comes from search engine, try implementing pay per click ads
- If the traffic comes from direct visitors, try using CPM ads.
- As for the geographic location, should most of the visitors reside in South East Asia, give Admaxasia a try (Advertising network catered for South East Asia traffic)
Direct Selling Method:
- Offer direct sponsorship
- Create a cookbook and sell it as e-book
- Ask any nearby restaurants if they are willing to pay some money to be reviewed on your blog
Hope it helps
Laurie
October 25th, 2009 5:06 am
I like the idea of building ‘community’ on blogs. Cross promotion of blog stories and articles demands participants think of the greater whole ahead of their own business, which increases the integrity factor with users who increasingly depend on peer reviews and value businesses who are participating online for ‘more than the money’.
The consumer wants: peer reviewed information, insiders information, relevant business information
The restaurant wants: bums in seats, a VIP feel to what they do online to create a long term customer relationship
The sponsor wants: to trigger an indirect purchase in a peer review setting.
70+% of readers trust peer reviews; only 14% trust ads.
So, you get an unrelated business – say, a travel agency – to sponsor a restaurant review on the site. Their sponsorship includes a one or two sentence business bio and link and ’special’ if they have one (5 restaurants, 3 days Singapore package, for example). They pay premium for it, like $200 an article. They promote it on their web site, the restaurant promotes the travel package on theirs and you blast it out to everyone on your list.
Include a ‘reserve my table’ and ‘reserve my foodie package’ link that’s trackable, and take a small cut – 2% from the restaurant and the travel operator.
Write less often, but more researched articles with the something special people are looking for – specialty ingredient lists, chef’s favorite places to eat etc. (maybe even do a Vanity Fair-ish Proust questionnaire for chefs or restaurant owners). Spend time promoting them on other blogs and guest post to other blogs.
If you’re going to sell books, use them one at a time as peer sponsors for individual posts and make them a true fit. Example: under a post, this review sponsored by ‘Name of Book’ with one line written description of why it’s a fit, link to store.
Add a chef’s guide to ‘make this at home’ – something that will last around the Internet, get shared, is not something the chef needs to protect, and have it linked to your blog AND the restaurant, and add a trailer that says something like – never mind slaving in the kitchen for an easy Singaporean meal, make your reservation NOW and let us spoil you or something similar = reservation process and 2%.
It’s more likely to generate a book deal (you can pre-sell the book through your site before it is published) and be linked to.
cheryl
October 25th, 2009 5:18 am
The website is very well done – and the pictures of the dining experience looks great. Set up an advertising rate for a basic banner (125×125) and another for a larger ad piece. To give the advertiser more for their money maybe Include for the higher priced ad a “Featured” blog posting of the restaurant with a picture of one of their best meals, the restaurant, or a small video.
How about a weekly Blog Talk Radio show where you feature one of your top advertisers and place the radio widget will be on your website for others to review. Or you could place a link to the BTR radio program from your blog post.
It looks like there is a large audience that advertisers would appreciate. How about getting readers involved by having a “Ning community” site connected and get your audience involved?
Just some thoughts. Good luck!!
Cheryl
Karen Chaffee
October 25th, 2009 6:02 am
Hello Darren. Rather than giving my personal opinions, I am posting a few links to show how other successful food blogs have “monetized:”
http://www.pinkofperfection.com/ (notice especially her top rotating ads) This woman’s blog is part of the Martha Stewart Circle…which has clout
This link is one of the above blogs advertizers and is also found on the Martha Stewart blog
http://www.brightideas.com/bright_idea.aspx?ID=128
And the link below is to the Martha Stewart blog
http://www.marthastewart.com/blogs
I don’t know if these companies would work for a Singapore food blog, but I think they are worth your e-mailer checking out.
Karen
mike
October 25th, 2009 12:10 pm
I have a food blog also. Food blogs don’t get a lot of hits really. Maybe try linking to other blogs in the area to get more traffic.
Parka
October 25th, 2009 1:21 pm
First you have to understand what resources you have specifically.
10000 pageviews per day? Who are these people, where are they from? If you know specifically your target market, then you can source out advertisers easier.
Ayan
October 25th, 2009 5:06 pm
Nice article on monetization. You have shown a really nice way to do it.
Oliver Berlin
October 25th, 2009 5:43 pm
Well, food blogs do have a difficult metier, it’s not one of the first things that people are searching in the net i guess. But beeing in such a niche coult be a great chance – so try hard and keep on it.
ZK @ Web Marketing Blog
October 25th, 2009 7:21 pm
Here is my opinions
_________________
Ready Made Spices –
Instead of cook book I think creating own brand spices are more vital. Just like beauty products you can also made ready made spices which you can use it easily
Listing of local restaurants -
She can also go for listing local restaurants and their special menus. But before listing she should try herself and give place to only those restaurants which deserve this.
Listing of marriage contractors -
This can be also nice move if she can list top contractors who take marriage food orders.
tim
October 26th, 2009 3:39 am
I haven’t read all the replies posted here, but a simple and easy thing that you could implement is affiliation with large restaurant rating and reviews websites, or local businesses websites, that might have an affiliate programme in which you could join in easily
That would avoid you to have to go directly meet the advertisers, which can truely be a hassle…
good luck
Tim
Uncle ray
October 26th, 2009 5:17 am
I personally think that Amazon’s “Astore” program is a great fit for any food or cooking site. Great looking widgets and the type of customer you will have usually loves books!
Free Sample Man
October 26th, 2009 5:58 am
I just checked Sparklette’s traffic
its about 15-16K a month.
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/sparklette.net/
You can try to increase traffic with twitter, plurk… Ads on CL.
monetizing can be tried with Community JUnction
Wish u success
Emily @ Under$1000PerMonth
October 26th, 2009 7:17 am
I would try for blogher, where they pay for traffic, not clicks.
Nigel Coates
October 26th, 2009 10:06 am
Something I think that gets overlooked is the opinion of those who visit your blog.
What would suit them best…?
Ask Them!
Getting visitors to interact is a key to success – so ask them if they want products / specials / books / etc and work from there.
Auto Insurance Missoula
October 26th, 2009 12:43 pm
What about drop shipping some specialty foods or specialized cooking appliances. I am not familiar with the industry, but with that kind of traffic I’m sure some big name companies would be willing to listen.
Joi
October 26th, 2009 2:27 pm
As someone who has had a food blog for years, I can tell you that a food blog can most definitely bring in a nice income! The following are some of the things that I’ve had success with:
1. Google adsense – Some blogs are successful with google while others are flat out miserable. For some reason, food blog visitors click – plain and simple. And profitable.
2. All Posters.com – I’ve had super success with posters on my food blog. If you’re posting about a certain food group, you can easily find a poster to compliment the post. And no worries about copyrights.
3. Amazon store and Amazon links – The Amazon store I set up for my food blog has been a very pleasant surprise. I also review a lot of cookbooks and use affiliate links for these. Also, I’ve been pleasantly surprised.
4. Commission Junction – If you’re talking about a panini press, for example – you can use an affiliate link to a panini press on Cooking.com or any number of other sites. Linkshare is also fantastic.
5. A cookbook is a great idea as well. I sold the dickens out of an ice cream e-book one summer that I didn’t even write! It was a part of a re-sell rights package that also included an Amish Recipes e-book. They both sold very well. However, be careful – a lot of people don’t “get” the premise of e-books. I actually heard from quite a few people who were still watching their mailboxes. (A few still may be! – But I didn’t just say that…)
6. Text Link Ads – I just jumped on this particular bandwagon but, so far, I’m loving the ride!
7. I had Chitika up for a while but took them down to promote more Amazon products. The jury’s still out on whether I’m coming out ahead or not.
I absolutely LOVE this approach, Darren: Putting a blog up for others to give advice and share their thoughts. I’d love to see this become a regular thing.
Veron
October 26th, 2009 2:42 pm
Just a quick note on the Compete.com statistics that someone provided: The figures are shockingly inaccurate! I have 2 traffic trackers (Google Analytics) installed on the same website and both give me figures that are approximately ten times that of Compete. It makes more sense if Compete tracks just those visits to the homepage and not the rest of the pages within the website.
Alison Moore Smith
October 26th, 2009 4:24 pm
I love this article. Very practical for all of us and maybe will help to look more objectively at our own sites.
Veron may not be making much yet, but she’s obviously figure out how to get traffic. My best site now gets about 30,000 hits per month. What I’d do with 300k!
Marc
October 26th, 2009 5:01 pm
Regardless of what you do, do these first, then read the rest of my advice……(improving usability will only contribute to your new bottom line, whatever that may be)
1. You site takes too long to load. Im in Seattle on a 16mb line.
2. Your site is a little busy on the homepage, those posts have so many links/buttons its confusing.
3. Make your site wider, this will help with the business and you can take advantage of more white space.
4. The cursive headers down the right are not readable and are too small. Make those bigger and more legible.
5. Put your web dev/design add in the footer, your users want food info not that.
6. Do something more with your homepage. Notice on probloggers homepage the “Popular at Blogger” box. You could really increase pageviews with something like that front and center.
100. Once you have done all that deploy premium membership! Maybe a video series of some sort where some of the vids are only available to premium members. Or some other content package (photos,video, articles etc) available to premium members only. And keep giving it to them, maybe $3/month or something.
Or maybe offer exclusive nights out as well for your members. I think some bands do this. $50 for a dinner party at a resturant, $100 for a dinner party in their home, $500 for a dinner party in your home, $2000 for a dinner party and a writeup about it in your blog, and a video. You see where im going with this.
Im not too sure how well a cookbook will do. Your users obviously like what you are doing so far.
Donna | The Healthy Eating Site
October 26th, 2009 5:01 pm
I love you Veron has incorporated Google maps for the locations of the restaurants! I’m in the food blog niche too, and I’m just starting to monetize my blog, which is more recipe oriented, but here are just some ideas that come to mind…
As has already been mentioned it’s really more of a restaurant review blog, and I noticed other Singaporeans commenting that eating out is big in Singapore, plus anyone traveling to the country is going to be looking for good recommendations on where to eat. So I’m thinking something along the lines of a Lonely Planet guidebook, but focusing on restaurants and eating out.
I know I’ve seen plenty of ‘Eating Out’ guide books and it seems like there would be a huge market for this in Singapore. It might be a bit ambitious, but what about a mobile version – a mobile phone app for looking up restaurants based on location and/or cuisine? This could be combined with the previous suggestions for getting coupons from restaurants and sponsored links (think about how Google search results have sponsored links, but everyone still trusts Google’s results).
How would a monthly or weekly magazine on restaurants go down there? A lot of food magazines I see do a feature article on a restaurant or chef. The chef could provide one of their favorite recipes (because by the sounds of it most people would still visit the restaurant rather than cooking themselves), you could monetize it just like a normal magazine – with ads from other restaurants or services (even things like dating services, because where do you take your date? A restaurant!). You’d have to experiment to see if an ebook magazine would work well enough, or if you’d have to make it a print magazine (are there local print-on-demand shops that are affordable?).
Lucy
October 26th, 2009 9:47 pm
I think Veron’s site is fantastic but maybe shld be better organised into Singapore food and travel food sections?
Also, a list of restaurants in S’pore tt have closed down, since these are opening like flowers after the rain and then dying like flies not long after.
Joan Nova
October 27th, 2009 12:57 am
I hope some of this helps Vernon because reading the comments sure helped me. I’m a food blogger as well and, after a year, I know I have to/want to get serious with monetizing my efforts. I, too, sing the praises of FoodBuzz. It’s a great community for food bloggers and with the stats Vernon has there is money to be made.
Debbie
October 27th, 2009 3:16 am
Wow, I’m blown away by all the great tips posted here!
My foodblog is also a year old and I started monetizing a few months ago, but no significant results so far. I know that’s due to (lack of) traffic but I’m working on it. Needless to say that Darren’s post drew my attention and I will surely give some of these tips a try. Thanks all!
Adsense and Amazon generate some revenue for me, especially after listing some tools that are not frequently used. Currently developing an Amazon Store, but if this doesn’t work for Veron maybe she can work with an Asian or local version of Amazon or Ebay.
I think she’ll have a good shot at selling affiliate products too and the best idea I think is her own ebook. Veron can hire a someone (virtual assistant) to put it together if she doesn’t have time. This would be a one-time investment. Set up your own affiliate program and have others sell the book for you. Since I have a multicultural blog, I would gladly sell it!
Instructional videos for a membership is also a great idea but might take more time and training to set up.
Great site Veron, but even with a T1 connection it takes a while to download. Imagine what would happen to your pageviews if you could shorten that download time!
Good luck with monetizing, I hope you will follow up on the ebook idea :)
Maria
October 27th, 2009 7:09 am
I’m taking lots of notes. I suggest working something out with a few restaurants and posting daily lunch or dinner specials separately from your regular posts and possibly attaching some sort of coupon. That way you can easily update your blog content daily. Alternatively, you can send the menus to paid subscribers who would appreciate the service.
On another note, maybe you can be a guest writer on Problogger sometime soon and tell us how to increase our traffic to 10,000+ a day!
Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship
October 27th, 2009 2:35 pm
I would also recommend Foodbuzz ads – they pay by the click ($2 per 1000) so that would be an easy $20 a day.
Best of luck!
Katie
Josh
October 27th, 2009 3:22 pm
Veron – instead of trying to monetize your site directly, why not try adding a service?
For example – offer a review service to restaurants where they feed you and you offer a private or public review (much like Men With Pens website review drivebys)
Be careful with this – don’t undervalue your time & services. 300k visitors is a lot of exposure they would be buying.
Good luck!
my business
October 27th, 2009 7:50 pm
I have the same experience making money from amazon more difficult, google ads & chitika is more easy but too little. I think the key is traffic stream….. selling ebook is goods alternative
hospitalera - Blogging
October 28th, 2009 5:23 am
OK, first thing that jumped at me was “What the heck is doing the Bavarian castle Neuschwanstein on a Singaporean food blog”, ok, that might be not the answer you are looking for, but if you want to monetize a food blog then it should also look like a food blog, not like a Bavarian travel blog. Second, where is the traffic coming from? Each monetization of each blog, never mind the niche the blog is in, depends on the kind of traffic the blog receives. Social traffic is notoriously difficult to monetize, search engine traffic is far easier to monetize. No reason to offer apples if your visitors are looking for pears! So, first I would do a lot of research into what kind of traffic this blog receives, which keywords brought the most traffic and which sites refer the most visitors. Try to find out what your visitors are willing to buy ;-) One idea that came immediately to my mind is https://www.projectwonderful.com , not big bucks, but with a high traffic site it could work out. Next would be to create something around the theme “Singapore + Food”, restaurant reviews, shopping tips, an ebook, cooking courses, the possibilities are endless, others have already elaborated on that, so I will not repeat this. Look what is on sale in your niche and what you are comfortable with to promote. Last point, don’t forget that it is important where you place your ads / products, the higher, the better, nobody scrolls down to find a product to buy, an ad to click on, just my 2 cents, SY
r4 firmware
October 28th, 2009 9:43 pm
Hi Guy’s,
According to me you can use Google Analytics to determine if certain types of content are doing better?
wii games
October 28th, 2009 11:05 pm
This is the most informative food blog source I’ve come across and I want to thank you for taking the time to lay it out and share your knowledge. The veil over the mystery of advertising is lifting, but the heavy one over the computer programming and customization aspect remains. Any suggestions on where to go for enlightenment on that subject?
Lee Ka Hoong
October 29th, 2009 12:45 am
I do have a food blog as well. Try Foodbuzz network, they pay cost per impression ($1-3 per 1000 impression). Since Veron has about 10,000 impression a day, I believe that she will earn quite well with Foodbuzz.
Thanks,
Lee
hokya
October 31st, 2009 11:32 am
how about direct sponsored advertisement from Singapore Restaurants themselves ?
Restaurant Copycat Recipes
November 2nd, 2009 2:24 pm
I have found that Adsense along with other affiliate products on your blog is the best way to earn. Just be sure you don’t make your blog solely an advertising/banner laden mess, but a real blog with information people want to read about and then make sure your Affiliate products are related to your content.
Lee
November 3rd, 2009 8:31 am
I would stick to well placed affiliate links and an email marketing campaign that you can separate from your blog so it doesn’t look like you are ’selling out’
alois
November 4th, 2009 12:48 pm
I just started my food blog and as you can see i didn’t include apost yet. however I found an article that includes 100 ways to monetize your blog that may be can help you.
Go to: http://www.insidecrm.com/features/101-ways-monetize-blog122007/
Good Luck and let me know if it worked for you.
Crude Oil Trader
November 12th, 2009 7:23 am
With this kind of traffic she should be getting a decent Adsense check, but she will have to give in and give it some presence above the fold. That is the most valuable spot.
Savory Tv
November 16th, 2009 2:41 pm
With your traffic, I would absolutely go with a cpm model. Platefull is a great option, as well as Gourmet Ads and Foodbuzz.
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