Food Blogger Pro Blog - Learn How to Start, Grow, and Monetize your Food Blog

How to Show Conversions by Source in Google Analytics

by Raquel on Sep 24, 2015 in Quick Tips

If you’re thinking about getting serious with your food blog, then you should probably have some goals. As with everything else in life, goals help keep your blog on track and keep you moving forward. However, just having a goal often isn’t good enough. In order to make sure you meet your goals, you need to be able to track them.

Once you have your goals set up, you can look at all sorts of stats about them in your Analytics dashboard. From the total number of completions to the conversion rate (i.e. the percentage of people who completed the goal on your website), there is no shortage of information.

However, one thing that’s not super easy to visualize on a daily basis is what your conversion rate looks like from different sources. In this blog post, I’ll show you how to set up a GA dashboard to view your goal conversion rate by source.

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New Course: Blog Monetization 101

by Raquel on Sep 17, 2015 in New Courses

The course so many of you have been desperately waiting for is finally here! Well, it was here last week, but let’s just ignore that. SO EXCITED ALL OVER AGAIN!

But really. This is exciting.

One of the most common struggles we hear from our members is that they have difficulties figuring out how to monetize their blogs. We had some monetization videos up since the beginning of FBP, but they were in dire need of a refresh.

Fortunately, Bjork came to the rescue! And in this course, you actually get to see him face-to-face the whole time as he talks you through the concepts of blog monetization.

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How to Eliminate Google Analytics Spam

by Raquel on Jun 25, 2015 in Quick Tips

There has been quite a bit of chatter on the Food Blogger Pro Forum lately regarding Google Analytics and traffic spam. In fact, if I search "spam" in FBP I see 9 posts just in the month of May regarding spam referrals in Google Analytics. That’s a ton!

Because of the general concern regarding spam traffic in Google Analytics, I thought it would be helpful to do some digging and find out more about this spam traffic, what it means for your blog, and what you can do about it.

So what is spam in Google Analytics? Read on to find out!

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Announcing: The Food Blogger Pro Deals and Discounts Page!

by Emily @ FBP on Jun 24, 2015 in Business of Blogging, Food Blogger Pro News

We all love a good deal, right? But even better than getting a good deal is when you can see the value of that deal.

What’s the difference? A deal without a lot of value might be a sale on an item you will never use. “But it’s on sale! I must buy it!” And then it sits on the shelf never to be touched again until it’s inevitably tossed out. Not such a good value. A deal on something that you use every day? Now THAT’S a good value! So without further ado…

We’re announcing… the Food Blogger Pro Deals and Discounts page!

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New Course: Natural Lighting for Food Photography

by Lindsay on Jun 18, 2015 in Business of Blogging, New Courses

Oh, sweet – it’s a NEW COURSE DAY.

Because I’m happeeeeeee….

 Today we are superexcited to be releasing a new course on natural light for food photography which includes 9 lessons about how to use natural light to make the most of your food photos.

We’re calling this course Natural Lighting for Food Photography and you can find it in the Food Photography module.

This course was really fun to record because I did some things that I’ve never officially done before to test the quality of our natural light in our house.

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4 Ways Twitter Can Help You Grow Your Blog

by Raquel on Jun 9, 2015 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience, Social Media for Food Creators

We all love social media. We love it! I know there are some of you out there who are saying "Ugh, how can she say that?? I hate social media!" But deep down, under all that prickly disdain, you know that social media is one of the keys to blog success. And isn’t it?

While we all love social media, we all probably have a fondness for one, maybe two, platforms that really pull our heartstrings. For me, it’s Facebook. I can surf Facebook for minutes to hours every single day given half a chance.

But Twitter? Nah. Not me. Twitter was "after my time" – meaning only that Facebook was the thing right after MySpace took a dive, and it stole my heart. Twitter was late to the party, and who wants to truncate all the wonderful, descriptive things that you have to say? Let’s just say Twitter is not my cup of tea, er, coffee.

That is, Twitter was not my cup of coffee until I learned about Twitter. No, it’s not just a way for teenagers to send mass messages about their daily activities. Used properly, Twitter can be a really powerful tool. Let’s explore how some Twitter nuances can really help you grow your blog, all in 140 characters or less.

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New Course: Props for Food Photography

by Lindsay on May 21, 2015 in New Courses

Start the chant with me?

NEW-COURSE, NEW-COURSE, NEW-COURSE!

 Today we are releasing a new course on props for food photography which includes 16 lessons on all kinds of food photography props – from backgrounds to essential dishes to those extra pieces that can give your photos a distinct look and feel.

This course is called Props for Food Photography and you can find it in the Food Photography module.

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Choosing the right props for your photograph can be an overwhelming process.

It’s hard to know what will make your food stand out, what won’t break the bank, and what will fit your distinct food photography style.

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The Food Blogger Pro Affiliate Program and Welcome Jasmine

by Bjork on May 14, 2015 in Creating an Income, Food Blogger Pro News, News

From a business perspective, one of the things that Lindsay and I have really come to believe in is the power of passive income.

Passive income, specifically passive income through affiliate marketing, has really helped us take our monetization game to the next level. For example, with Pinch of Yum, when we recommend products that we love and link to those products as an affiliate, we are able to earn passive income from the referral sales.

This monetization strategy is different than advertising and sponsorships, which can fluctuate from quarter to quarter, month to month, and even week to week. The passive income we earn as affiliates for our favorite products and services can be more consistent and predictable.

One of the things we love about Food Blogger Pro is the fact that we’re able to offer the benefits of passive income to our members through the FBP affiliate program (more on that in a bit!), but we noticed that oftentimes affiliates would sign up for the program and not really know the most effective way to promote FBP to their readers.

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New Course: Composition for Food Photography

by Lindsay on May 7, 2015 in New Courses

Exciting news! Today we are releasing a new course in the Food Photography module that includes 12 lessons on composition. It’s called Composition for Food Photography.

Why composition? What’s the big deal?

Does anyone really care about the arrangement of props and food items in a photo?

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When I first started taking pictures of my food for Pinch of Yum, the concept of composition was such a mystery to me.

I thought that the arrangement of food and props in food photography was a completely artistic process that was only for the super creative food photographers of the world. I didn’t think that it was possible for me (a self-perceived non-artsy person) to learn composition in simple steps, like a skill.

Maybe even more importantly, I didn’t understand that this one simple thing – composition, or the arrangement and layout of my photograph – was an element of photography that could make my food photos go from blah to eye-poppingly yummy.

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What’s the Best Way to Make Money from a Food Blog: Ads or Products?

by Bjork on Apr 20, 2015 in Creating an Income

Have you ever wondered how food bloggers make money? Well, you’re not alone!

We are going to breakdown the best monetization strategy to focus on for creating an income from your food blog.

Both ads and products are useful when you’re trying to create an income from your food blog, but you need to make sure that you’re not using both at the same time.

That last part is important: make sure that you’re not using both at the same time.

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