How to Successfully Monetize Your Blog- Community Education Series

Hi, I'm Chef Dennis Littley, and tonight you're here with our community education series on how to successfully monetize your blog. And my guests tonight are Carolyn Ketchum, Joanna Ozog, Julie Delly, and Stephanie Manley, and they're gonna help you understand more about what you need to do to successfully start making some money off your blog and what realistic numbers are that you'll need to start making money. So we're going to turn it over and I'm going to start with Stephanie and we'll go across and they can talk a little bit and let you, give you an idea of what their blog is and what they do, and then we'll come back to some discussion and questions. So get your questions ready that you have for them and we'll ask them as we go. Stephanie?

Hi, so I'm Stephanie Manley. My website's called copykat.com. It's C-O-P-Y-K-A-T dot com. I've been blogging since 1995, and they weren't called blogs then. They were called websites. So I've been around for the dinosaur age for food blogging. So let's see, I monetize my blog in a few different ways. Just straight up advertising. I also do video right now that I get revenue from. I also have a book out and I have another one coming out in June, so I kind of try to do a variety of things to bring in monies from the blog. Next.

Okay, Julie.

Oh, well, I wrote a whole long thing, so I hope I'm not too long. So I'm Julie Diley and I blog at thelittlekitchen.net and I actually I develop recipes, I do sponsored posts, I do some photography, and then I also have ads on my blog. So talking about, you know, working with different brands and monetizing, I think attending conferences and meeting other bloggers and brands is very important. Networking with other bloggers, we all love social media and everything, but I think nothing beats meeting people face to face. So for the different ads on my site, I actually have different ad networks and they obviously all offer different CPMs. If someone doesn't know what a CPM is, it's an amount per 1,000 impressions. And I was talking with the group earlier, one of my friends actually told me last year the best starting point for numbers-wise is It's a good idea to start having ads once you have 100,000 page views. So once you hit that point, it might be worth it to do ads. She actually told me that it's not worth doing the ads because before that, only because you're not going to make that much money and you want to keep people on your site and drawn in. So maybe instead of having ads on your sidebar, maybe putting links to other posts on your site. Like I said, each network has different fill rates, meaning they won't show an ad 100% of the time. A visitor clicks through to your site. So I, what I do is I have a waterfall of networks. So the highest fill rate with the highest CPM is the first ad network that I have on my site. So that's the code that's going to go directly on my WordPress blog. And when they don't have an ad to fill, I give them code to say show this, this, the next ad network. And then I default, and then I default to the next one. So that's why they call it a waterfall of ads. So it starts at the top being the highest fill and the highest amount of money, and that goes down and goes, goes down to the lowest. And I, I don't know if anyone's gonna ask me how many ad networks I have. I have quite a few now. Some ad networks have you email the code to them, and some of them have you just go into the account and fill out the information. And then I also keep ordering of all the different ads spreadsheet because there's no way I can keep track of it because some ad networks have different ad sizes and some don't. And then I also think when it comes to monetizing your blog, like I talked about before, networking with other bloggers is very important. I think it's important to build your tribe, develop friendships and relationships with other bloggers that you trust so that you can actually talk about these things because I really, I really think that talking about hard numbers, hard, specific income per month and how much you make on a sponsored post. Talking it in a public space kind of makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable sometimes. It's kind of like asking your coworker, "How much money are you making?" Or, "How much money did you start making when you first started?" I think it's great to be able to find a mentor or someone that you trust that you can talk to about this. You can bounce ideas off of. And it's, you know, it's, you know, I mentioned coworkers earlier, but it's kind of like your coworkers. And honestly, when you have that group of friends, and they don't even have to be friends with each other, you know, you have the different people that you can talk to about it. I think it helps your business in the long run because you know what other people are making out there, different ad networks, and you know, what they're doing for sponsored posts and recipes, etc. So I hope I didn't go too long.

Okay, that's great, thanks. Alright, Joanne?

Hi, I'm Joanne, my food blog is fifteensbachelors.com and I'd have to say what I found to be the most successful way to monetize is to diversify, especially if you want to go full-time, ad stuff can be unpredictable at different times of the year. I personally do quite a few ad networks on my blog, I also do monetization with videos with a couple different providers, and then I also do some brand work, sponsored posts, brand ambassadorships, that sort of thing.

Okay, great. Carolyn?

Okay, well, I'm going to reiterate what both Joanne— well, what everybody's saying, diversifying the sources of income. I have ads on my network. Are on my blog. I have BlogHer as my main one, and then AdSense has been incredibly lucrative for me. It's actually much of the time more lucrative than BlogHer, but it's my backfill. So sometimes I cheer on BlogHer when it's not doing well because AdSense is better. I do some affiliate marketing, which means that I have some people on my blog, they pay me a percentage of each sale that comes through my blog or the link that I have on my blog, and this works well for me because I'm a niche market. I have As you've said, I'm all day I dream about food. It's low-carb and gluten-free, and because of that I'm sort of a niche market, so sometimes that works well for me because I can, with the affiliate marketing certainly, I, you know, people come to my blog looking for specific things and then see links to the products that I'm talking about, which works really well. I'm part of a cookbook series which has a bunch of other recipe developers on it, and those do quite well. I do sponsored posts depending on the product if it fits with my overall thing, and I do a lot of freelance writing, which I think of as my blog monetization because they all came through, I mean people found me through my blog. So yeah, that's how I monetize my blog, and I think that a bunch of different sources of income are the best way to go. And I also would reiterate what Julie has said about making connections with other bloggers and finding out what they do and getting advice. I mean, Julie herself has been incredibly insightful to me. Finding your community and growing through that. Don't just try and do it all on your own because you won't figure your way through it. Great.

We have a couple questions already. Kim Boltman wants to know, do you have to have a self-hosted blog to do this, or what's necessary to start doing your blog?

You do at WordPress, whichever the one that of the WordPress things that isn't self-hosted, you absolutely can't put ads on it. Blogger you can, but WordPress.com or whichever one is not self-hosted, you're not allowed to.

Yeah, it's WordPress.com that you can't. WordPress.org self-hosted you can.

But you know, there's plenty of other hosts out there that don't cost hardly anything at all. I think HostGator is probably under $10 a month to host with, and maybe even less. So I would definitely just get my own domain, stick it on my own host, and take care of it there. That way you have freedom to engage with whatever advertising network that you want. You have a lot more freedom when you're, when you self-host.

Agree.

Yeah, I totally agree. And, and you know, all the plugins that you have access to when you use WordPress, it's pretty powerful. So I always tell people, if you're asking me which platform you should start on, start on WordPress because a lot of people, You know, a lot of people do stay on Blogger, but a lot of times they do end up moving to WordPress anyways. And so it's less headache if you just start on WordPress.

Well, I wish you told me that before I started.

Oh, sorry.

But now I'm on WordPress.

Alright, we did have a question on— some people are a little unclear on what is an ad network and what is affiliate marketing. Affiliate links. So if someone can answer that for me. Anyone take that?

Well, ad networks are, I mean, a dime a dozen out there, but depending on which good ones. In terms of food blogging, you're looking at some of the major ones like Glam, Federated Media, BlogHer. I mean, there's plenty of them out there. There's lots of little ones too. Where you may or may not get a decent fill rate and/or CPM. But affiliates are— I mean, there's a lot of different things to do affiliates. I mean, people do Amazon.com shops, which are, I believe, affiliate marketing. I don't have any. Does anybody know? Is that considered affiliate marketing?

Mm-hmm. It is.

There's lots of companies that offer, you know, if you do links through their site. But you just have to find those specific things. And so those are actually— specific to a brand or specific to a company that do, you know, they, you link to them on your site and then you get a percentage of the profits that they make from people linking through to your site buying things.

Ad networks will basically go out and they'll find ads for you, but they'll take a cut. The other option would be to book your own ads directly and you'd get like 100% of the money, but obviously people choose to go with the ad networks most of the time because it's a lot of work to go out and get all your ads filled.

Okay. All right, we have a question here from Carolyn Hurley, and she wants to know how— if anyone has any experience with how long should you wait if you've been rejected by AdSense? Is there any set time for waiting to reapply to them? Has anyone done that with them or had any experience?

You know, why did they get rejected would be my— did they get any insight? Was the content maybe thin? Thin in terms of maybe they had 20 posts and maybe AdSense has now raised the bar a little bit?

Okay, so find out what the reason was and then—

Yeah, I would be curious as to that. I mean, I hear of people getting rejected from time to time, but You may want to take care of an issue or something. There could be issues there that they suspected.

There was one person on our Facebook group who had the word somewhere in her blog food porn, and that is the reason she got rejected by AdSense. And once she cleaned it up and removed it, and it was just the fact that the word porn was on there, even though it was in regards to food gawker and taste spotting, and she got rejected once she cleaned that up. And she applied 3 or 4 times within the same month. It was clear and ready to go. So I don't think there's a waiting period unless they specified it.

Okay, Susan Powers has a question. She wants to know, how do you deal with controlling ad content if you have readers that would be sensitive to certain things?

I think you just have to find ad networks that let you control it. Some do and some don't, so you just have to be a little bit choosy and find one that lets you pick categories for what's allowed and what's not.

Even AdSense now does too.

Yeah, they always have. But you know what, I'm sorry, but people are going to get upset all the time anyway.

Over anything, over anything, yeah.

I'm sorry, you just have to draw a line in the sand and just choose. As long as you're not advertising things that are sketchy like gambling or maybe adult-related ads.

Or that goes against what you believe in food-wise or political-wise or whatever, you get to decide that. I think it's your site. I mean, you're gonna offend somebody some way, somehow, somewhere. I offended someone on my Facebook page by saying OMG, so, and I got a message.

Okay, well, uh, Minerva Tai would like to know, do you solicit your own affiliate and sponsored posts, or do people come to you? And what's the best way to tackle that? I don't like having ads on my site just for visual aesthetics.

I got to admit, I could probably hustle more than I do. I definitely sit back and wait for them to come to me, but at this point, at this point, I've carved out my little piece of the internet world and it does happen quite frequently that people come out, but I have also presented to people, you know, I've sent in pitches, and I think, again, Julie, thank you, was very helpful in teaching me how to write a pitch and just kind of keep it to the basics, but also sound, you know, interesting and put myself out there. And I think writing pitches is something we all should get used to doing, because hustling and getting ourselves out there is actually a good thing. Although sometimes we hold back and think, oh, I don't want to put my neck out there, but you're not going to get anywhere if you don't. And when you do, it usually— even if they say no, thank you, right now, you've done it. So then you do it again. You get a little desensitized to the nos, and you get more of the yeses.

Yeah, I think people definitely do both, and both ways work. I mean, if you in particular are concerned about the way that the ads look with your blog, maybe you might be looking for a product or something that's really fitting with kind of the theme of your blog, so maybe it would be better to go and pitch specific companies because you might get some inquiries sent to you, but definitely it might not relate to your blog as well as if you go out for something that might be in mind and fitting with your blog.

Okay. Is there a better way to write a pitch, or how would you exactly go about doing that for the people out there that may not have a clue?

Like me.

Short and sweet.

I always like to write an introductory email first before I give them the whole pitch. Like, is this something that you'd even consider? Before I do a whole, like, hey, here's how many site views I get and get into the real numbers. You know, especially if I have any kind of connection with them already. And then, yeah, I'd say short and sweet. But also sound friendly and open and professional and well-written. Have a friend look at it. Always have a friend look at it beforehand.

Yeah, basically just like the permission to pitch is like what I'd call what Carolyn's talking about. Just have like, ask to pitch first. Like have a short little thing and then later you can go into the details, but it will probably be you know, better received if you ask first.

Okay, we have another question here. It's from Samantha Ferraro. She says she's not even close to 100,000 views a month. What can she do in the meantime to help her get that number up? I think that's a question a lot of people are going to have, you know.

I think you have to write content that your viewers are interested in. Probably what I would do is I would go into my own Google Analytics and see what keywords are driving my traffic because I already know I do well there. I would try to do more posts. For example, if I wrote posts about pizza and they were really, really popular, I'd write more posts about pizza and interlink within my own site and say, "If you like my pepperoni pizza, you'll love my sausage pizza." So just try to drive internal traffic is what I would try to do to get my page views up.

I would also throw in a building— and we've talked about this already a couple times— but building my community. Other bloggers read blogs. If they love your content, they link to your content. Their links help drive up your SEO. Their links help get their readers connected with you. I do some things where you invite people to guest post on your blog. And hope that you can build relationships where people invite you to get folks on their blog, because all of those things get you known to other people.

Jason Sandeman would like to know— I think Stephanie can answer this one. He wants to know about generating revenue with videos. I know you do a lot of them. You want to tackle that one? He wants to know how you do it.

Uh-oh, I think she's muted.

Are you muted?

Oh, sorry, the dog was making noises. So it's really not hard at all. So you sign up for AdSense and then you put your videos on YouTube and you start to monetize those. And YouTube actually has several levels of partner or creator status, and once you get to the highest level, the rev share is in your favor. I think it's at 61, 68%, I'm not sure which number it is, in your favor. So they're taking a smaller cut. So it's a great, great model, and you know YouTube's the second most searched site in the world, so I would definitely put myself out on YouTube.

I also make a good portion of my income from videos and YouTube. It's very easy. It's just built into the account to monetize it. But if you're going to do video, go beyond YouTube. There are other websites that also monetize content. There's one of the ones I do actually makes me more money than YouTube. So there are definitely several networks you can go to beyond YouTube, but that's kind of the obvious, probably the easiest one.

What are those other networks since we're talking about it?

Am I naming names? Yeah, sure. Yeah, iFood TV is the one that I was referring to specifically, but there's also, I think, M Network, or maybe it's Her Channel. It's the same company. One was the previous name, one's the new name. BlogHer TV, they're starting to do some TV stuff and video as well. Those are the ones that come to mind, but I'm sure there are more.

OK. Thank you. Claudia Lamascolo wanted to know, and I don't know if anyone wants to field this or not, but what can you expect to make from an AdSense ad if your numbers are around 100,000 hits a month? Just a ballpark figure.

AdSense ad?

I think you can make a buck per CPM on AdSense ad, and if you place the 3 placements on there, that's $3 per CPM, so that's $100,000 divided by 1,000 times 3. What's that, $300?

If they have 100% fill, right?

Well, no, AdSense isn't based upon fill necessarily. AdSense is more—

Oh, per click.

PPC.

They do do some CPMs. So I would think with 100,000 page views with just using AdSense, it would be around $300 with 3 ad placements.

Would having other ad networks— you don't have to name names on this— but would other ad networks provide more of an income than AdSense?

I'm going to say it depends on the blog because I see a higher CPM because I'm so niche-specific that people are searching things. You know, it tracks cookies, so people are searching things before they come to my blog, and then they see, "Oh, almond flour," you know, click. So I tend to see a higher— and that's just the advantage of— I think it really depends on the blog. If I'm one of 18 billion baking blogs, and I'm not knocking baking blogs because I love them and I read them all over, you have so much more— people are coming from such general things when they come to your site that the clicks aren't— maybe the ads that the reader is served aren't so specific. So I think it's going to depend a little on the blog, but I think I think that she had it right that about, I would say, $300. Yeah, that sounds about average to me.

Yeah, I think you can fall out of bed and make a buck per CPM on AdSense. And that's without doing any keyword researching to figure out which keywords would drive a higher revenue.

What Carolyn and Stephanie are talking about, which I didn't know before I started blogging, was that some when you go to a blog or if you go by keyword or depends on what you looked at before.

Right.

So you have cookies on your browser and if you looked at almond flour before and you go on there, you might see an almond flour on Carolyn's site and she'll get more revenue that way because there's more target-specific ads that are showing up on her site.

If I had to guess a number, I'd say much higher than 300 but I guess It really depends on how many ads you have and the ad networks that you choose. Definitely some pay really poor, poor CPMs and some pay really good CPMs. So you have to find the best ones, test them out, and decide how many ads to put up. Because if you put one ad, that's going to be much different than if you have 4 ads on your site.

Good to know. Vicky Bensinger wanted to know if you could give an example of what kind of an ad would pay 100%.

We're still looking for that one.

If you sold the ad yourself.

Yes, that's what she was talking about. If you sold the ad yourself, what kind of— I mean, where would you find something like that?

Some people do it direct, but if you don't know the person or the company, I'd make them put some money cash up front before you sell to them. I wouldn't necessarily do that, unless if you wanted to sell a 125 by 125 square on the side of your blog and just say, hey, that's $50. If you want to be there for a month, then you could do it like that too. You can sell space.

So it's really up to you, I mean, to go out and look for it. I know I get a ton of emails all the time about, "We'd like to buy ad space," and most of the ones that are asking are usually not people that you want to put on your blog.

Yeah, right.

They just kind of go— they get deleted right away. But I mean, so pretty much, I know I had a friend that did a lot of local stuff for a while while she was getting set up and really— while she was developing and getting more followers.. And she had quite a few local ads on her blog all the time. I think she made a decent revenue from those, and it was steady income, so that's a good thing about it until you get to the point where you can put some major ads on your site and make more.

I think that there are some conglomerates that do some— this is just from talking to other people, but I've never even tried it— but there are some places where you can kind of like put your name Julie, help me if I'm wrong.

Yeah, there's one called Passion Fruit Ads, I think, and there's a couple other ones where you basically kind of set up a profile and then if a company comes and sees, oh look, Carolyn's gluten-free, I want to buy an ad on her site kind of thing. So there are some ad networks that are not really— I mean, they basically like go through portfolio blogs or sites and see what ads they want, sites they want to buy ads on.

Kelly Wilson would like to know, who do you recommend, GFP versus ShareASale versus Google Affiliate? Any thoughts on that?

I don't know if I— I haven't worked with all of them, but I have several affiliate accounts at different companies. Amazon, Commission Junction, Google Affiliate. So if I mention a product or something and XYZ retailer carries that product and they're only on Google Affiliate, then I'll go in there and grab the link from them. So it really just depends on how much, how much you want to do. ShareASale, there's like tons of companies that sell through ShareASale. So it really, it just really depends on what you want to do. If you want to promote ebooks or e-cookbooks for someone, then you'd have to create an account with them. But I mean, I list a lot of, you know, cooking gadgets that I use or that I love. I end up linking to Amazon a lot. I don't know if that helps you or even answers the question.

Okay, that's good. Let's move on. Shea Goldstein wanted to know, how important is a media kit and how detailed should it be?

I'm so not the person to ask about that because I have not done a media kit.

I don't know, as far as how long, I think one page is what I'd say, but I've heard of people having like a short version and a long version. They'll have like a one-pager and then they'll have like a 5-6 pager. I've heard people say all sorts of stuff though. I don't know what is actually optimal, but I keep mine at 1 page just because I think it's good to be concise. I think people joke a lot about how they make media kits and they don't hardly ever send them out. So I mean, I always keep one because I do send them out occasionally, but I don't know, it depends.

I didn't create one until someone asked me for it, you know, and then I stayed up all night putting it all together.

What should be on your media kit?

Different traffic stuff like unique visitors, average page, monthly page views, and I put all my social media stats on it. And then I just do a little introduction about myself, about why I started blogging and about the site and different companies that I've worked with, the different brands. And then I also mention the different press mentions that I've had. And it's like what Joanne said, it's just a 1-page thing like a resume. Like you really don't want— I really don't know if I'd ever read a 5, 6-page resume. So you know, you have to think about what the other person is going to want to read. If you don't want to read 5, 6 pages, then I wouldn't put together 5, 6 pages.

I don't have what I consider a media kit, but I guess in a way I do because I have a page on my blog called Work With Me. And it's a little intro into what I do and how I think I'm going to grow, and then it's got my numbers on it, which I need to update, and all the different things I do—writing, photography, you know, with links to brands that I've worked with, with links to articles I've written, you know, that kind of stuff. So I guess in essence I do have a media kit, if that's what a media kit is. Maybe I've been, like many people, intimidated by the —media kit.

Yeah, while we're on this topic, I'll say that some people, I know they'll put rates on their media kit. However, I know for me at least, like, rates, like, differ depending on, like, who, who the brand is that I'm working with and what the project is. So I personally don't put rates for mine and would probably advise not to for other people as well. But another personal decision, I guess.

No, I would agree with that because You never want to price yourself out of the business, especially if it's a brand you really want to work with. And they, you know, sometimes the brands I really want to work with are not big and don't have big budgets, but I'd rather work with them and have the connections with them. And I've made some amazing connections that have in the end turned out to be quite lucrative for me by me working for less pay at the beginning.

Okay. All right, Joanne, we have a question for you from Vicky Bensinger, and it's pretty much on the same topic. She wants to know if you pitch a particular product to a specific company that you want to advertise on your blog, do you also suggest fees or do you leave that up to them?

You'll hear people say in the Facebook groups to never speak your number first, to let someone else, you know, say, "What's your budget?" or that sort of thing. I don't know, I guess you should have something in mind, but it just depends. I don't know, am I answering this question?

It's really pretty much up to the person and also who they're dealing with, but I think like you said, it's— I guess the best question to ask them is, what's your budget? Mm-hmm. And that puts them in the spot first.

Yeah. Yeah.

Lauren King would like to know, how many posts a week should you post to increase traffic?

This is interesting because— sorry, go ahead.

I don't think it's the number of posts, I think it's the quality of the posts.

There you go.

I mean, I aim for 3 a week. Sometimes I hit that, sometimes I don't. Less than that, I think you I do see my traffic go down more than that, and I don't see my traffic go up. So what's the point in killing myself to put up more?

Yeah, this is just my experience, but I, when I started, I was posting Monday through Friday daily because I thought that would help with traffic. And I got to a point where I burned out, and then I decided to go down to 2 days, and my traffic went up, and my quality of posts also went up. And I'm just, I was nervous to go down, but it was one of the best things I ever did, and I wish I did it sooner. I don't think that Like other people said, it's not a quantity thing, it's a quality thing.

Like you said, it also depends on the person because, you know, 2 posts can burn somebody else out too. So it really needs to be what you want to do. And I keep saying that over and over again. It's your blog, you get to do whatever you want with it.

Yeah, super popular blog, it's not a food blog, Social Triggers. Posts like, I don't know, twice a month or something. He's got tons of email subscribers and tons of traffic, but everything he posts is just awesome and full of useful stuff.

So I mean, for him it works. I think it might be a little different for food bloggers because we also, you know, I was at a conference this weekend which wasn't specific to food bloggers, and I found my frustration was a little like, I got a great recipe. Today I don't have all that much to say about it, but it's still a great recipe, so I can— it's good content because the fact is it's a good recipe and the readers are going to love it. So the idea of always having so much to say and writing a perfect post, sometimes I've realized good enough is good enough on the actual written part, and as long as the pictures and the recipe are solid, I know I've got a good post, so— and I'm still putting out good content. So I think food blogging can be a little different at times because We are almost in a way providing a service to our readers in the recipes themselves.

Okay. All right, Avwa Shawd, if I'm pronouncing that right, wants to know what are good ways to have your blog discovered. I'm thinking he means by people that want to put ads on your site or networks.

You know, I think that people, people will begin to pay attention to your traffic without you even knowing it. There's something that they call ComScore, which is like the Nielsen of blogging, but it's ranking you against other similar traffic. And once you get to be on there, people are going to come after you and they're going to ask ask you to advertise with them, or I'm sorry, so they can place ads on your website. But you really just need to get your traffic up. People are watching numbers on a variety of sites all the time and they're seeking out audiences. So they are looking for you. You just have to get up to where they can see you in terms of traffic.

I don't know, to be blunt about it, I think, Wanting to be discovered is just getting more and more difficult because there's so many bloggers, there's so much content out there. I think people— you can spend time writing up content, but you should also be spending a lot of time promoting your own stuff and trying to get your stuff out there and get in touch with the right people. You have to be really big to get discovered for a lot of things. I find that you need to spend a lot of time making people discover you, if that makes any sense.

I would say also, again, building the community because I've read this several times and it makes so much sense to me. Promoting other people's content about 80% of the time and promoting your own only 20% of the time. You're still promoting yours and then other people are going to promote yours too because you promoted theirs and they start saying stuff about you. You on Twitter and Facebook, and then companies who are following them start paying attention. Oh, who's this that they— this sounds like a great recipe that they link to. So it's also promoting your own includes— promoting other people's is promoting your own. You're building your community, and they will start promoting you by you promoting them. So don't ever say, oh, I'm— don't be the person who just only promote their own stuff because that will get you nowhere.

Those are good words, especially on Google+. More and more here, I always tell people good content is good content that if you share, whether it's your own or someone else's, it's still going to get you noticed and it's going to have people looking to you for the content you share. We had a question here. Terry Hinkles asked, what type of statistics are businesses looking for when you pitch? Are there numbers or anything, cutoffs that they might be looking for?

I really think it depends on the brand and the company that you're working with. If they're looking for a targeted audience like Carolyn's or Stephanie's or Dennis Littley's or Joanne's, you know, they're just going to want to work with them because of the target audience. So it could be a small blog or a big blog. I can't pretend to know how, what every brand is going to, you know, what they are going to perceive to be as big or big enough. That's a hard answer. Yeah, you know— Hard question.

But I think there are certain things that you do need to be open about when they ask. There's your page views, your unique views, which I haven't quite figured out why they care more about that than the page views. And your social media. I mean, I get asked about my social media numbers all the time, how many followers I have on the major sites like Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

It's funny because I don't get asked a lot. I don't get asked my traffic numbers all the time. I think it really just depends. Honestly, I mean, if, you know, I mean, sometimes when a company pitches you, they've already seen what you post and what you're posting on social media, and they kind of figure that you're their target audience. I'm sorry that we're being so cagey to this person that asked this question.

That's all right. I think you have to take a lot of things into consideration, and that's what you have to know is there's no set formula for a lot of these things, but your opinions on these is what counts. That's what they want to hear. There's a question here from Kelly Wilson. There are lots of bloggers using Passionfruit. She set up the account there, but it's pretty much been a bust. She didn't get much from the ads posted on other blogs. And the blogs on hers just didn't get much either. Is posting ads on other blogs for your blog just a waste of time? Has anyone seen that at all?

I've never bought an ad on another blog, so I don't know.

I've never paid for advertising either.

No, I've never paid for advertising, and I think the best form of advertising is building your relationships and other people linking to you, not a little square on company sidebar.

Yeah, I recently saw that for the first time last week. A blogger was selling ads on her site for other blogs, and when she gave her stats, I'm looking at her stats going, hmm, that's not really very much to be selling ads on. So I think if you are buying ads on someone's site, you really need to be very specific about what you're doing. I don't think—

and is it worth the price of a backlink? I mean, if it's a a good domain, unique IP, unique seed block, it may not be such a bad thing.

I would go a step further and say maybe befriend that blogger if you really want to get in front of that blogger and maybe partner up with them. I wouldn't just email them and say, hey, let's do a giveaway together or something, but maybe do some kind of— I just finished a giveaway with a blogger and basically we pitched the brand together and said, "Hey, we'd like to both run a giveaway on both of our sites and we're both going to do different recipes using the product but in two different ways." They really liked that and it was two different audiences and so I was introducing myself to her audience and she was introducing herself to my audience. I think those are more effective than buying an ad.

On another site.

Yeah, I would think so too because then you're showing them actually something that you can do rather than just a static ad. I mean, there's really no reason for someone to click on that, especially if they know that—

Don't say that to the people that are buying ads on ad networks. No, no, ad networks are different.

I'm saying just from another blogger. Yeah, definitely. Ad networks are wonderful.

Okay. We love the ad networks.

We love ad networks. We love ad networks. Everyone's laughing at us right now.

Denise Woodward wants to know, has anyone used OpenX, which is an open source ad network?

I tried it. I couldn't figure it out.

I just hired someone to set up Google DFP, which I assume is comparable to OpenX. It's just a— But it's free. —ad server. Right.

Mm-hmm.

But— Is DFP not free?

DFP is free. OpenX— oh, I'm thinking of another thing. Never mind. I thought OpenX charged for delivery.

Oh. I don't know.

I'm not familiar with OpenX. I guess we don't know anything about OpenX then, that much. All right, we're going to move on then. Samantha Ferrero. Wants to know, she says she's evidently been living under a rock, and where can she find an ad network other than Google AdSense? I know someone mentioned a few of them earlier, if you want to go over them again, or how to, what the best way to contact them is.

You can Google them, you know.

There's Glam, there's Federated, there's some smaller ones. I don't know, Full Plate, I don't know if they're still in business. Oh, Placful?

Yeah, Placful.

There's Technorati, there's Martha Circle, BlogHer, and there's one more that I'm drawing a blank on that I got.

Yeah, just Google, Google them out and check it out.

Oh, Fame Media, that's what I was thinking of.

Oh yeah, Fame Media is another one.

Yeah, Fame Media.

Yeah, and you can usually, when you When you find them, you can usually then apply through their site. But there's also a lot of bloggers know— ask blogger friends too. I mean, if you've been living under a rock, you need to find some blogger friends. And ask them who they use and how to contact those people, because most of us are in contact with someone from these sites and can probably give you a name or something. Check in with that person.

Yeah, I set friends all the time, and, and, you know, if you want to try to figure out who you should start talking to, talk to the other bloggers that are commenting on your blog or the blogs that you like to go to, you know, similar blogs that you're always visiting, you know, strike up a conversation.

Okay, good advice there. Vicky Bensinger wants to know if there's any best practices you can offer to increase visitor traffic to your site other than writing good content.

We all are looking for the answer too.

Yeah. I'm going to make a little plug for WordPress. Switching from Blogger to WordPress increased my traffic in the beginning at least 40% and now it's way above that. I know that that's in itself a whole can of worms but at the same time it really makes a difference.

I think there are so many different ways to build traffic, and something— hopefully it's okay to talk about Chef Dennis Littley— I'll be talking about next week is once you get the traffic, not throwing it away and converting those visitors into email subscribers and kind of build from there. And then it's kind of more sustainable because getting traffic, there's definitely a lot of work built into getting that traffic and you want to get as much out of it as possible. But I mean, people do all sorts of things. The most obvious things that come to mind are submitting yourself to like those, like Food Porn Daily or Taste Spotter or whatever. Then there's places like Huffington Post that do articles where they link to different themed posts, I guess. But I feel like this is like a whole nother thing about how to build traffic.

Yeah, I think if you're just starting out, I'd say that putting yourself into all of those things, the PeepGawkers and the Peaspawns and even the smaller sites, just getting people to start noticing you, because once it happens, you know, keep building on it and building on it. And those things are sort of aggregate sites, so once you're on Foodgawker, that picture stays there forever even though it might not be on the front page anymore. So somebody searching for something in particular may find you, you know, and then it just kind of keeps building and building, but it does take a long time, so don't expect instantaneous results by anything.

The other thing is to try to keep the keep the visitor on your site. I try to put a lot of links to popular posts or posts that— I have a family favorites thing in my sidebar. It happens to be popular posts but also stuff that my family loves, like, "Can we make that again? Can we make that again?" kind of thing. If it's really popular in your family and you see in your Google Analytics it's really popular, then someone coming to the first post or any other posts randomly, they might click on it. So to encourage them to stay on your site so that you don't have that high bounce rate, which means they come into your site and then they click right out to something else. If you have too many ads or too many external links to all different things on your sidebar and your footer and all over your site, then they're less likely to stay if they don't have anything to keep them there. So I like to feature older popular posts on my site.

I think that's a very good point you bring up because everyone, especially new bloggers, seem to be in a rush to load up their sidebar with all these links to other places. All you're doing is driving traffic away from you instead of keeping it there. That's a real eye-opener, I think. It should be an aha moment for a lot of people. Kelly Wilson has a question about working with brands. She said she was recently contacted by a small brand and they want her to pitch some ideas to them of what she can do. She says she's got that deer-in-the-headlights kind of look on her and she really doesn't know where to take it. Any thoughts we can help her with on what to pitch or how to pitch it?

Is it recipes? I mean, I'm assuming it's recipes and I've come up with like maybe 3 at least different recipes. Maybe something healthy, maybe something family-oriented. I don't know what the brand is, so I can't really say here, but, you know, 3 very different ideas with a recipe and how you link in the idea of, like, a family-friendly recipe, or, you know, those would be my— but I don't know exactly what the brand is or what they're looking for, so hard to say.

Just to go with, like, 3 different styles and hit them with something that that they don't like one, they're not all similar, so they don't think that's all you do. You want to show them your versatility. Good point. Laura Lee Goyer says, "Which ad placement position do you find to be more effective, the left sidebar or the right sidebar? I see so many blogs using the right sidebar, but that seems to contradict the Google Golden Triangle." That was a lot to say.

I don't even know what the Google Golden Triangle is.

I don't either. I don't know either. But Stephanie, isn't it like for SEO, you want your ads on the right or you want your sidebar on the right and your content first? I would—

I think it depends on your site design. I mean, it depends. Are you left bar navigation-driven? Are you right bar? I think it really depends upon your site's own navigation. But the thing, but one key thing is that most advertisers or advertising networks want to be in the top portion. That's where the premium spots are. They don't want anything below the fold. And below the fold means if you have to scroll down, that's below the fold. So typically, I don't think, I think using good design, you may be able to get 3 in the top fold. At the premium price. Anything else you're going to have to price, you're going to get a lower revenue from because it's below the fold. So I often just put AdSense below the fold. And again, you know, it's a buck, buck per CPM at the bottom. You know, in January, that's what they pay. Because we know you don't earn as much in January as you do in December. It's feast and famine.

I would be willing to bet that a lot of people don't know that ad rates do vary.

They're like, whoops. Sometimes January is depressing for some people, you know.

In other words, save some of your December money, don't blow it all on your Christmas presents.

And I think that goes back to what everyone has said is diversify, diversify, you know. I know someone said that they don't want to do any ads at all, but sometimes the brands are knocking every month or every couple of weeks, you know, so that's why it's good to diversify.

You know, but eventually your costs go up. I mean, so once I started getting like a million hits a month, guess what? I had to start paying for dedicated hosting. It got expensive. And then you need to put a content delivery network on it. And you know what, if you want to pay that out of your own pocket because you don't want to host banner ads, well great, more power to you. I don't want to donate that much money to people each and every month, so I employ advertising. But eventually it's very scalable. The revenue will go up, so will the expenses, and so will your time. So I feel that we should get compensated for what we do. We spend a lot of time and care in the technical side, curating the content. You know, we've all probably— everyone down here has invested in nicer computers, really nice cameras. I can see you have props back there, Julie. I'm guessing those are custom props.

Yeah, it's an obsession, sorry.

No, I mean, you know, we invest a lot into this and I don't think that people realize that, yeah, you know, eventually your traffic will go up, but so does everything else. The pressure goes up to keep it up.

You know, I don't want to get off that. Amen, Stephanie, you said it well, very well.

I know, I love everything you just said and it's so true. And something that people don't realize is food blogs in general do not have as many ads as like most other websites, and I think people in general, they're used to seeing ads. I, they personally, like at first when I was putting them on, I'm like, oh, that's just too many, but I really, when you put yourself in the shoes of the average website visitor, it's not ridiculous or unreasonable, I think.

When setting up your site for ads, I mean, and I know this was something that was new to me that when I just discovered it was mobile advertising is completely a different thing. Does anybody want to talk about that or does anyone do any— because so many people get their content delivered on their phone or their iPad and it's a different type of advertising too. Can you talk about that a little?

So I have responsive site design so I do incorporate mobile ads as well as regular ads. But I chose to create a site that was responsive design. And that's a theme you can get in WordPress. And what it does is it, it will size the page to the device that the user is on. Like my site on the phone looks radically different than my site on a computer. So with that, there's different— it's a different theme, so it has different advertising within that theme.

Stephanie, do you use an ad server to kind of direct mobile versus regular computer, or do you just use ad networks that can—

You know, I'm probably in a unique situation because I have a relationship with a smaller advertising network that I've received great revenue from for years. I've had really good fill rate and I have a great relationship with them. So I don't employ multiple advertising networks, I stick with the one that I've worked with now for 7 or 8 years now. Oh wow. So I'm very lucky in that part. But some of the other stuff like at the bottom below the fold, that's when I just use Google AdSense because it's so easy and you know, who else pays you in less than 30 days. I can't tell you any other network that pays you within 30, because you don't realize it, it may be a net 45 to net 90 days. So after the month is over, it may take 90 days before you get paid. So yeah, so I love Google AdSense for other reasons.

So the other company that you work with Does the response— they have—

No, no, no. I had my site designed. I have the way my site is designed, the theme will know what device you're on and it will choose to put up a different stylesheet based on the device that you connect with. So that's really, it's something that a lot of people should be doing because it's expensive to get a good quality app to developed, I'm going to guess it's between $2,000 to $8,000 and I priced that out. I just thought that was ridiculous when I could work with a WordPress designer who could do it for much, much less. So is it— are you able to—

because I'm like one of those weirdos that likes to see a full site on my iPhone, so your responsive design and I'm sorry I'm asking questions, but can I click a button at the bottom to show the full site? Does your responsive design let you do that? I'm gonna have to check it out and see. Probably. Okay, because there's a couple like weather sites and a couple of news sites that I love, but I just go, "Ugh!" when I go to there on my phone and I can't, you know, I can't click the full site. So I'm gonna have to try that out tonight, Stephanie. Yeah, I think it does.

So Watch me be lying now.

That option is definitely available because I know at least Simply Recipes just did their responsive design and there is, looking at it, there is something you can click on at the bottom that said take me to the full site.

Okay. Susan Powers had a question about why do Alexa or Compete.com numbers differ so drastically dramatically from Google Analytics numbers.

They differ so dramatically because they don't have code and they're not in your site. You know, we, we install the Google Analytics code in our site, and every single time someone visits our site, it counts that, whereas there's no way Compete or Alexa could know. And I've told Carolyn this— Alexa only counts if the person has an Alexa toolbar installed on their browser. So I always tell my friends, all the food bloggers out there, you should install the Alexa toolbar in your browser so that when you visit another food blog or any other site, they get a count for Alexa. So anytime I go and leave a comment on another site, they kind of get a little Alexa boost from me too.

Can I just say something? Mm-hmm. You can pay for Alexa Rank. Google it. You can pay for it?

Ugh. Wow. Yeah, I did it.

I was just like curious, like what's $60 going to buy me? Yeah, my AlexaRank went up significantly. I did it a couple years back. I don't currently do it. I was just curious if it worked. I was curious if it was going to help out with SEO because I thought that was a very small investment to make. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you can buy AlexaRank. So if anybody asks me that, just Google it, okay? I'm not gonna— Yeah. Buy AlexaRank.

How do we do these things? It's rather depressing.

I think that you can be in the top 100,000. Of course, it depends where your traffic currently is for maybe $250 for 3 months. It's not even that expensive.

That's why I don't really like these numbers. I mean, we shouldn't all be defined by numbers, right? I mean, I think it should be the whole conglomeration of your, you know, your whole body of work. And I think we as bloggers sometimes get stuck on these numbers, and it's, you know, you can really get stuck in them, and you get— you can really get down in the dumps on them. I think that's why if you're spending too much time on Facebook in a group or talking about certain things, go back into the kitchen. I mean, it all goes back to— going back to the— I'm obviously obsessed with food, so when I get down about something, it goes back into talking with my friends about the different recipes that I love and trying to go back to where it starts.

You can triangulate those numbers.

You know what your blog traffic is. You can look at what you do at Compete. If your blogging network is willing to share with you if you have The ComScore, you can learn that as well. I mean, there's, there's ways to triangulate it.

Well, I think that a lot of PR reps, they, they, they look at it as a guide. I mean, it's not an end-all be-all, right?

No, right? Because we know that 40% of people on Twitter are bots. Mm-hmm. You know that. Yeah, so you have to be aware of, yeah, like, I have 48,000 I have 100,000 Twitter followers. Well, probably 20,000 of them are bots.

They're not even real people. I would say this is why I went— before I didn't want to have my stats on my site. I thought it was ghosts or something. I don't know what I thought. And then finally I got so fed up with some people basically saying that my unique views were going down as they were going up on everything else that I just decided, you know what? PR companies want to know what my numbers are, I'll give them my numbers. And these are numbers that I cross-check on StatCounter and Google Analytics and Jetpack, I think, just so that I can make sure that they're good approximations of what's actually happening on my blog.

And I would always, always check what your server logs, your referrer logs are on your server because Google Analytics doesn't catch it if it— that the page doesn't load down far enough. Google Analytics only captures it once the page is loaded so far. So if somebody starts to load your page and it doesn't go down far enough, that page view is never counted or captured with Google Analytics. So if you really want to know what you're doing, check your own server and check where you are relatively. You'll, you'll probably learn that there may be a delta or a fluctuation of 15%, between what your server logs are telling you and what Google Analytics is telling you. You just need to know what that delta is to know what your real page views might be.

Okay. Right, Kim Bolton had a question about getting paid for your ad revenue and what is the most typical way that you get paid? Is it through PayPal or the direct deposit? Deposit or do they send out income tax statements for you?

Oh yeah, they send out 1099s for you. You gotta report those numbers. That's right.

You better have a separate checking account. Most of my stuff comes from direct deposit.

I do a couple. I've got one on PayPal because it was easier. I've got Google AdSense just does direct deposit. I think it just depends. A lot of them give you the option.

Yeah, I get checks, direct deposit, and PayPal, so all sorts of different stuff.

All three for me too.

Okay.

Oh, I think you're muted. You're muted, Dennis Littley. Thank you.

Minerva Tai has a question. I find that a lot of my readers are silent, just like I was, as they don't engage on social media or through comments. It's in person when they mention the blog to me and how much they like it. How do I make my traffic more apparent to advertisers?

They can check your traffic from an outside source. I would guess any reputable advertising network is not going to ask you for the number. You could share, you could share that with them in Google Analytics if it came down to it, but they already have outside sources that they're looking at. That would be Compete, it could be Alexa, it could be ComScore. I'm sure there's a variety of other measures that they use.

But I think if you're trying to get people to comments on the blog, asking, sometimes just downright asking them a question on your blog, ending with a, "What's your favorite comfort meal?" kind of thing. "This is one of mine." If you are trying to get people to engage, and I think that you probably do have a lot of readers that are on social media, and making your social media not just, "Hey, this is what's new on the blog," but, "Look, I found a huge increase in engagement on my Facebook page by just randomly posting thoughts and little tidbits that don't have a link to them, asking people what they are making when it's cold out, what's your favorite kind of soup? And I just have a huge— and then when I do post a link, I get a lot more engagement on that link by just sometimes not posting a link and just talking to my readers.

Do you find that companies really care how many comments you get on a post though? I mean, is that something that they really look at? I mean, because I think the question was that she's not getting a lot of comments on it because people are silent. Would a company that's going to advertise with you really look at that, or are they just going to look at your numbers?

I think some companies do care about engagement, and you know, sometimes there's a really, really popular post that has tens of thousands of hits on it every month doesn't have that many comments to back it up, you know.

I would agree with that.

I would also think that maybe they would care about how long somebody lingers on a page. Yeah. I've heard one good measure of stickiness is like if, if perhaps they stay over 45 seconds on a page, that means the readers actually engaged, but I look at my audience. My audience is probably not the most tech-savvy audience. It's an older demographic that this commenting and writing, writing on a blog could be daunting for them. They may not feel comfortable, but you can always be like welcoming, but you know, think about your audience. Are they going to always be full of lots of comments?

Remember, as bloggers, we are willing to comment, but for everyday people that are just looking for what to make for dinner aren't going to have time. Sometimes I have some sweet readers that do come back and say, "I made it last night. It was awesome." But that's not always the case. Don't think that no one is reading just because no one is commenting.

I think you're going to get two types of comments. "I loved it," or, "This was the worst thing I ever had. You ruined my evening." I don't ever want that.

What's that last one?

Wait around long enough. Somebody will tell you you ruined their evening or their holiday or something, that your dish caused mayhem.

Since you guys brought up the WordPress, going to WordPress thing, Ron Atkins wants to know, can you transfer Blogger and all its contents "WordPress, well I guess you can. Is there a lot of info out there on how to do it?" She hasn't experienced it herself. Any thoughts on that for those that have made the transition?

I've never made the transition but I think you should hire somebody, right Carolyn? Yeah. I've heard people losing so much, losing so much.

She managed to transfer all my posts, all my pictures and comments and everything so I didn't have to worry about it. It all and it was worth it. I found somebody who was relatively inexpensive. It's going to be a couple hundred bucks out of your pocket but it made all the difference. She designed the site and everything. I would never have done that on my own. You can look it up and read it and it goes straight over your head.

Yeah, I would definitely recommend using someone too for that unless you're really, really tech savvy and even then. Carolyn Hurley also wants to know, do you all use web designers for the ad placement or do you do that yourself?

I can do that myself. I do that myself.

I hired someone to set up Google DFP, but before when I wasn't using that, I just did it myself. But Google, I think when you start getting into ad servers, it does get complicated.

You're really complicated. Google DFP is complicated.

Okay. I keep being on the fence about looking it up and everyone keeps asking about it, but— Ask me in like a month.

Yeah, let us know next month how it goes.

Give us a thumbs up. We'll do another Hangout. Absolutely.

Alright, uh, Char—— I'm sorry, I'm going to mess up this name, but Charu Jani. "How much does your location matter for getting sponsored posts?" She lives in Canada and she's received some very good sponsored post offers from FoodBuzz, may they rest in peace, but they were only available to US bloggers. "Do you think this could have a large impact on how much I earn in the future?" I know we don't have any Canadian bloggers with us in here, but I know they do face some challenges.

Any thoughts on where you live affecting? Yeah, I mean, I'm from Canada originally, and I know all of our stuff is more limited there, not because we're not a great country, but because the market just isn't as big. So that's why they're looking for American writers. I mean, sometimes I think maybe they'll make the crossover at some point because a lot of the Canadian bloggers The majority of their readers are still Americans, so why not put the ad and the sponsored post through there? But there are also a lot of legal ramifications, I think, sponsoring through Canada, so it's just easier to keep it to the US. So yeah, I think it will, personally, probably limit things, but you need to go out there and find the people who are willing to do it in Canada. Okay, Jeff, there with you.

Yeah, maybe if there are legal problems you can't do anything about that, but You could follow up and be like, oh, you know, Google Analytics says that 90% of my readers are in the US, and maybe, you know, that would help.

Yeah, maybe you want to talk to some other really well-known Canadian bloggers and see what they're doing. I know, what's it, Kevin from— Closet Cooking? Closet Cooking. Yeah, brilliant guy. I would maybe try to reach out to him. See what his thoughts on that are. Very nice guy.

There's actually a Canadian bloggers alliance, like Food Bloggers of Canada. If you go to their website, you may be able to get some good information from them. It's a great group. I know a lot of people on that.

You should do a Hangout with Canadian bloggers, Dennis. Yeah, eh? Eh? Don't you know?

Sorry, I said that as well as I could.

We do not say that. Don't you know? Wait, that's—

that's— that's Minnesota. Is that Minnesota? I just think of Bobby's World when I hear that. I'm sorry. We're going to offend somebody on here, you guys. I'm sorry.

We don't mean to offend anyone.

I've heard a lot of that.

We had a question here from Pint-Sized Baker, and I think this is something that a lot of bloggers need to think about too. She's been blogging for 18 months and has been offered a lot of freebies. She loves the cookies, but I'm having a hard time standing my ground and no longer want to work for cookies, but she's afraid of burning a bridge and not being asked to do more. I feel the PR companies have a golden carrot and they know what I want, but only if I do a free post for them. How do I break into more lucrative posts? And she's looking Looking forward to meeting you, Julie, at Disney World.

Oh, yay!

To start saying no to stuff. It's sometimes really hard. I know there's a lot of women food bloggers, and in my life, it's really hard to say no to my family members and people around me. We just need to start getting used to saying no sometimes, or saying, you know what, that doesn't fit my blog, or I'm too busy. It's not a good fit right now. And I think that when you say that and you're upfront with PR people, when you're upfront with other people, they, they really appreciate that. And leave the door open to say, hey, maybe if there's something else later on, feel free to come back to me. Um, I think sometimes when we do a lot of free work with certain PR firms or certain PR reps, they get used to that and they're just not, um, willing to pay after a while when you've been willing to do it for free. To be honest.

Yeah. Can I say something? You need to think about the lifetime monetization value of a post. There are a couple of recipes I've had online for 16 or 17 years, and if I told you how much money I made off of one of those posts years ago, it would be crazy insane. Do you really want to give up that much money to work with a brand? I mean, I sometimes look and see what I monetize. I break my monetization down per post and I look at my top posts. Do you really want to give that away to someone? Mm-hmm. I think— I don't want to. You know, I mean, like, let's say hypothetically I have a post that's worth $500 to me a year in revenue. Do I want to give that up? To get a free box of cookies? Probably not.

I think too regarding the burning bridges comment, you know, you might feel like you're burning bridges with some future, I don't know, monetization opportunity with a brand, but some of these brands, they're never going to pay. They're never going to pay for work that you do, so I think You have to be careful not to think, okay, I'll do like one free post for them and then in the future they'll pay me because often that isn't true. And I think a good argument is, you know, when you reject some of these proposals, it's just to say that, you know, you have a limited amount of time and only certain— only a certain number of sponsored posts that you can do in order to not diminish your own brand and also the brands that you might be talking about when you do a sponsored post. So just, I don't know, stand your ground. I think it's perfectly reasonable and brands are, are kind of turning around and starting to realize as more and more of us say, you know, no, that, you know, we need to be compensated for, for our audiences, for our time., and you know, the exposure.

I would say also that unless you're actually being paid, it's not a sponsored post, it's a review. And if it's a review, and a lot of people are coming up with policies, and I really like this policy, it really suited me, is saying to the rep, you know, you're free to send your product to me, I may or may not review it if it's free. You know, if it's this free thing, I may or may not review it, I may not give it a positive review, you know, just being very honest and saying, sure, I think, you know, if you want to send it to me, I can't guarantee it will make it onto my blog, but if I really like it, maybe it will, and see what happens. Whereas a sponsored post is straight up when you're getting paid, and those are different. Don't think of somebody sending you a box of cookies as a sponsored post because it's not.

The thing is, set the expectations and be very upfront about it. Right. There's Yeah, definitely be upfront. And the other thing is, it's okay sometimes if you do want that box of cookies or whatever. There's a couple of companies I work with and it's not paid, and I don't think it'll ever be paid, and that's fine because I love working with them. It's just honest to goodness, I love the product and I love the brand. I believe in it. So, you know, I don't run around with the flag saying always get paid, always get paid, but ultimately you get to decide decide if you want to do it, if it's worth it to you.

It always depends on the value of the product you're getting too. You know, if it is just a box of cookies or we're talking about a KitchenAid stand mixer, you know, it's not apples to apples. You know, if you're getting a good value of a product for what you're doing, then it might be worth your time. Or like Julie said, you know, if you really like the people, you know, and it comes down to relationships. That's what we're all about. You know, and some of us just really connect with people and really like them and We may never ask them for money because we know they can't pay you. For someone soliciting you, I think it's a good thing to say, "I can send you my rates." When they ask you if you'll do it for a box of cookies, say, "I can send you my rates." The only thing writing free posts will ever get you is more offers for free posts. You can believe that those PR companies that are sending you those requests to write free posts are not working for the cookies. Okay? What they're doing is they're keeping a bigger chunk of that change for themselves by not having to pay a food blogger to actually write the post. So they're making their company more money, which I'm sure they're seeing a part of. So that's a lot of it. But again, every situation is going to be different, and every time you get something, you have to evaluate each situation and decide what you're going to take.

The other thing is if you maybe do want the box of cookies but you want to make it worth your while, maybe ask for 5 boxes of cookies. There you go.

They have to be pretty good cookies, right?

Okay, how about 50 boxes?

You can work something out. I'm not saying don't do it, but I really encourage people to sit down and think about how much are you worth an hour? Mm-hmm. And to value yourself, have some value around that, because if you're known as the the food blogger that gives everything away for free, it's going to be really hard to monetize that eventually. And I'm not all about the dollar, but value yourself and your time and the effort you put into it. I mean, I get up goodness knows many mornings and I'm working on my blog at 5 o'clock in the morning until late at night. I've spent up to 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning trying to make sure things are running properly, and our time is worth something.

Okay. All right. Well, you know, I think we had a lot of great questions tonight. Ladies, you were wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on. I hope everyone got something out of this, and if not, go back and watch it again. I'm sure there's a lot of material that you missed. You know, we talk a lot, we cover a lot of things, and we got to most of the questions and we didn't get to yours, it might be because we answered it already. So watch it from the beginning and see what you missed. And I think a lot of the questions were answered. So thanks for stopping by. And ladies, would you like to say anything before you leave? Anybody want to make any last parting comments on monetization?

We're good?

OK. Well, thank— go ahead.

I would just say, if you have questions, ask us. I mean, all of us here, I'm sure, are really chat with you one-on-one and talk about this. We may be more candid one-on-one than what we are in a Hangout. We don't want to burn any bridges. But just ask us. Reach out to other bloggers and feel them out and ask them what's working for them and employ some of those techniques. We're here to help you guys. Ask a question. Let us know.

Good advice. Thank you so much, Stephanie Manley, Julie Daly, Joanne Ozog, and Carolyn Ketchum for coming tonight. Thanks, everyone that watched it. It's the G+ Food Bloggers Community Educational Series. We're going to have another one for you next week. Come by and watch Joanne and Julie talk about how important email is, and Stephanie, too. We'll grab you. Okay, but really, they told me and just blew me away with the information. I'm still not recovered from it, so you don't want to miss next week.

No, you don't. Go in.

Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be a good hangout. I'm actually— I'm only joining so that I can ask questions personally live. That's why.

All right, so thanks a lot. Have a great night. We'll see you next week. Thank you, Dennis Littley.

Good night, everyone.