If you’re interested in running any kind of blog, you have to check out Pinch of Yum and Food Blogger Pro. Though the sites are very food-focused, the business/marketing/life-leveling-up lessons the sites share can apply well beyond people who like to Instagram (and write about) their lunch. (Guilty, as you all know.)

We’re still working on that whole “successful blog” thing, but these takeaways from Lindsay and Bjork Ostrom (the couple behind the sites) have helped us to start ramping things up:

1. Don’t get all your money from the same place. Or places.

Okay, that tip sounds a little strange at first, but let me back up a bit: The Ostroms post monthly income reports on Pinch of Yum, breaking down every penny they make and spend.

You can chart their progress, from the $21.97 they made in their first report, to the $32,971.75 they made in June 2015 alone. The first thing you’ll notice? Their income comes from several different sources, and it’s not all web ads and sponsored posts. They’ve worked with web hosts to create tutorials, they’ve published ebooks, they run affiliate links, and they speak at special events.

June’s income came from 17 different sources. If they relied on Amazon Affiliate links alone, for example, they would’ve only brought in $422 that month.

2. Carve out a specialty within your niche.

There are a couple million food blogs out there, and Pinch of Yum took note and decided to set themselves apart by also covering the business of blogging. It’s allowed them to become an authority in this niche (which clearly has a strong audience, given the number of people creating and working on food blogs each day). And, as they admit, it’s allowed them to launch new money-making endeavors by working with web hosts and web design products.

The trick here is to not go so niche that there isn’t a sustainable audience for your blog — a concern we initially had with Collegiate Cook (thankfully, there are plenty of students who like to eat out there after all!).

3. Understand the “1 percent infinity.”

It’s easy to start a blog, see next to zero traffic, and want to quit three months into things. I’ve been there a hundred times over. Many bloggers talk about how they’re branded an “overnight success” because the world just started hearing about them, and laugh that what people forget is the two, three, seven or twelve years it took to get to that point where anybody had heard of them.

Bjork and Lindsay call this gradual process the “1 percent infinity,” where you get a little better every day over a looong period of time. In the day-to-day grind, you don’t see these changes, but after a few years, that hustle adds up. Keep hustling.

It’s because of how easy it miss to overlook your progress that you must, must, MUST…

4. Regularly compare what’s working — and what could be working better for you.

As crucial as it is to set baseline goals to strive for (we’re shooting for 1,000 followers by December), it’s even better to set aside time every week — or even just once a month — to take a look at what you’re doing and see where you could tweak things for better results.

For example, Pinch of Yum learned that long, vertical images get more repins AND 54 percent clicks than horizontal ones on Pinterest, so it may be worth creating at least one vertical image per post, just to boost potential traffic to your site.

Other ways to optimize? Try looking at which types of posts get the most clicks and shares on Facebook — and if there’s an ideal time of day to post.

5. Don’t spam people’s eyeballs when you try to make a few bucks.

Just because the Ostroms use a variety of ways to make money doesn’t mean they have them all displayed on every page. They’re much more strategic, and that’s what keeps their sites from looking like banner ad/spam central.

Their rule of thumb is: If they’re selling a product on the page (say, the post plugs their ebook), they don’t show ads on that page. If it’s a general recipe post, they’ll put ads on the page.

The rationale? Ads make you want to leave and go to a different site. Why would you push people away from your site when you’re trying to convince them to dig deeper and buy an ebook/ecourse/etc? It’s like you’re seconds away from the sale, and then you offer to give them a ride to Walmart to buy something else.

 

This post is part of Life Between Weekends’ Tuesday Takeaway series. Every Tuesday, we’ll share the most compelling insight we’ve gleaned from a book, movie, tour, documentary or article to inspire you during the workday. 

 Photo: Luke Michael/Unsplash