Growing visitors to your blog doesn’t happen over night. It requires time, hard work, media knowledge, and bit of good luck to increase traffic to your site.
Beginning of Blog
As I mentioned earlier, the readers and supporters of Just One Cookbook for the first 2-3 months were all our friends. Nami started sharing her recipes on Just One Cookbook and didn’t know what else to do besides posting recipes to the site. Then she joined Foodbuzz and instantly met many bloggers through there, and some of them became her close blogger friends.
Social Networking
If you wish your site to have more readers, promoting your site is inevitable at this stage especially no one knows your site yet. The fast and easiest way to get immediate connection is to join the food bloggers community.
G+ Food Bloggers Community organized by Chef Dennis Littley is a wonderful network and resource especially for food bloggers. You get to learn tremendous amount of tips on food blogging, SEO, Social Media, Photography & Styling, and more from fellow blogger members and you can also put any question you may have on the discussion board. You will meet a lot of knowledgeable bloggers there.
Besides joining the community, Nami started to visit some food blogs that she finds interesting and leave a comment about their post. Some bloggers may respond to your comment and you may start talking to each other through commenting on each other’s post (blog hopping). In a way, blog hopping is more personal approach than talking in the Food Community Board, and you might feel easier to ask questions to your new blogger friends. Nami started to learn a lot about blogging from her fellow blogger friends. When some blogger comes to your site and leave a comment, it’s a nice gesture for you to do the same for him/her. If a commenter is a non-blogger, be sure to respond to their feedback, especially if you want to grow your readership.
In earlier days when Nami received a guest post request by her fellow bloggers, she never turned down and took the opportunity for her site to be exposed to a new crowd. She doesn’t guest post any longer due to two children needing more of her time, but she still appreciates her initial guest post opportunities on blogger friends’ sites.
At this early point, most of the readers were our friends and food bloggers and our site had very few readers from Google and other sites.
Keep on Improving Blog Skills
While you continue promoting your site, it’s important to constantly improve your site so that readers can easily navigate your site and find what they are looking for. If they enjoy your recipe and content, they will more likely come back to your site or even subscribe to your blog. Here are some of the elements that we are constantly working on.
- Food photography and styling
- Writing skills
- Unique and resourceful content
- Layout and functionality of the site
- SEO
- Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and Instagram)
- Recipe development
- Learning Japanese cooking culture and knowledge
As your photography gradually improves, start sharing your food photos on Foodgawker and Tastespotting. It’s a good way to raise awareness for your recipes and website to the general public on the Internet.
At the same time, make sure you understand the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Google for your site, as well as the power of Pinterest. Here is a good article on importance of SEO.
Currently, most of the readers of Just One Cookbook comes from Google search result.
*****
Our hobby has turned into hours and hours of hard work. Nami typically works on the blog at least 40-50 hours a week. She cooks, photographs, writes posts and replies to all the readers’ questions and emails she receives everyday. We are really glad that we started Just One Cookbook and get to share Japanese recipes with readers like you.
Thank you for all your support and we hope we learn more things this year to share with you.
– Shen
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You and Nami are nothing short of amazing. The photography, the food, the approachability – all five stars in my book.
Maureen, thank you for your kind comment. We really wanted to do the similar post for this year (3rd anniversary, this one was written last year around the same time), since we learned a lot during last year. But we haven’t had the time to write a lengthy post… You and John are one of the great blogger teams I know. Unfortunately my husband is not techie enough that we need to hire some people… There are so much to do that we always feel 2 people is not enough (not to mention my husband has a day job… lol). Thank you so much for your kind words – it means a lot to us. 🙂
Thankyou so much for such inspireing information… You have a excellent blog with great pictures..Hope to see more tips and tricks soon..Naz
Thank you so much for sharing all these tips, they are very helpful and much appreciated!
Thank you, for sharing the tips 🙂
You are very welcome Arie! 🙂
I want to thank you for your honesty with growing a blog. I have found many bloggers don’t want to share their ‘tips’ with those of us who are interested in the same thing. It shows your confidence as a blogger as well as your wanting the same success for us. Thanks again!
Shen & Nami, You have a great site and thanks for the sharing of japanese recipes and tips. I found your site through Google Search as well.
I’ve been blogging for several years, but just recently re-started my chocolate blog. Thanks very much for the links here to Foodbuzz and the image blogs. And I think the commenters here and you make a good point – that it’s the friendliness and generosity of exchanging comments, etc, that makes blogging great.
And PS , hope you enjoy most of those hours on the blog. 🙂
Shen and Nami,
I’m a frequent visitor of Namis blog since I started blogging myself about 1/2 year ago.
It’s a brilliant blog and I appreciate all and each one of her posts and beautiful shots.
This is the first time I’m reading your blogging tips and I want to thank you both for sharing with such generosity your knowledge and experience in the blogging world!
All your advise and know how is highly appreciated.
Thanks for all these helpful tips, Nami and Shen! You’ve been generously sharing recipes, ideas, family stories and now SEO info. How kind of you. Nami has been a great blogger friend and I appreciate all her support. Best regards and more power !
Thanks so much for your sharing.
I just started my blog last year and still very new in photographing and blogging.
Honestly not many people would like to share their blogging experience or even how to take nice pic for the blog.
Really appreciate your heart to share.
GOD bless your family
Thank you for your kind comment. Best wishes to your blog!
Thank you very much for writing and sharing these blogging tips! I’ve had my share of hosting issues with the hosting company I use, which I’ve shared with Nami over emails in the past. =) Thank you also for sharing the useful photography equipments. That was a very useful article for me and I know I will be referring to it many times in the future. Congratulations on being featured in the food magazine in Singapore! Your hard work and commitment to the blog shows and it must be so rewarding to see where the blog has gone two years later! Keep up the excellent work Nami and Shen!
Thank you Nami for these great tips; very useful indeed. Good job on your site. Great recipes and beautiful photos. I’ll definitely come back 🙂
I love tour blog! What an inspiration you are to your wife. Thank you for sharing these helpful tips and good luck to you guys in the coming year! You guys are one of the best!
Thank you, Shen and Nami, for all you shared here and all you do to create Just One Cookbook! xx
You are blogging do required a lot of behind scene hardwork and time. But i am sure all these pay off from your blog success now. With all your wonderful recipes and friends that you meet/have a long the way of blogging I am sure you gain many true friends too 🙂 Keep the good work up! Nami.