Happy new Year!
The blog has been going for 15 months now and I'm pleased with how far it has come. I can't devote my full-time attention to it and I haven't monetized it, so I am pretty happy with what I have managed to do in the last 12 months.
If I am not monetizing it, why am I doing it you might be wondering? Well, it was originally born from wanting to get back into cooking and expanding my recipe repetoire and it still serves that purpose for me. There also does seem to be a market for easy-to-follow recipes and my page visitors are increasing, so, if people are interested in reading, then it's worth carrying on. That's not to say that I have ruled out monetizing it at some point...
As 2016 is over, I thought I would do a round up of how things have gone for The Improving Cook Blog- social media followers, popular recipes etc.
2. The Ultimate Cheat's Banoffee Pie came in second. I had a good feeling when I posted this recipe, because who can be bothered with all the fancy pants methods when you need a quick dessert for guests? Cheating is much quicker and easier and just as delicious!
3. For number 3, we're back to the slow cooker with Slow Cooker Beef Curry. Perfect for cheap cuts of meat and packed full of flavour.
The blog has been going for 15 months now and I'm pleased with how far it has come. I can't devote my full-time attention to it and I haven't monetized it, so I am pretty happy with what I have managed to do in the last 12 months.
If I am not monetizing it, why am I doing it you might be wondering? Well, it was originally born from wanting to get back into cooking and expanding my recipe repetoire and it still serves that purpose for me. There also does seem to be a market for easy-to-follow recipes and my page visitors are increasing, so, if people are interested in reading, then it's worth carrying on. That's not to say that I have ruled out monetizing it at some point...
As 2016 is over, I thought I would do a round up of how things have gone for The Improving Cook Blog- social media followers, popular recipes etc.
2016 Social media
When I first started the blog, I really had no clue how to get people to see it. I did a little bit on Twitter, but it took me a while set up a Facebook Page, even longer to set up a Pinterest for Business account instead of using my personal one, and a lot longer to set up Instagram. Once they were set up, it took me a good while to work out how to use them, and I'm still learning!
So, how have things changed in a year?
Twitter + 483 Follow the Improving Cook on Twitter
Facebook + 40 Like The Improving Cook on Facebook
Pinterest + 802 Follow The Improving Cook on Pinterest
Instagram + 90 Follow The Improving Cook on Instagram
Pretty good, but you can see I have been spending all my time focusing on Pinterest and Twitter, I definitely need to make 2017 the year of Instagram and Facebook, especially as I get far more page visitors from there than I do from Twitter. Twitter's great for chatting to other bloggers etc, but only a handful of visitors come from there.
2016 Blog stats
Visitors- 14, 735
Page views- 23, 668
Bounce rate- 83.44%
Still work to do on the bounce rate, but it's dropped from 96%.
With all those visitors, what were they looking at?
Give it a try today!
Page views- 23, 668
Bounce rate- 83.44%
Still work to do on the bounce rate, but it's dropped from 96%.
2016 Popular recipes
With all those visitors, what were they looking at?
Most viewed overall
Well, the most popular recipe on the blog, by a long way, was Slow Cooker Leek and Potato Soup from 2015. It also wins the title of most repins. It has consistently been repinned daily, now on over 1,700 repins, and has had 4,438 page views.Give it a try today!
Most viewed 2016 recipes
1. The most viewed recipe posted this year was Slow Cooker Beef Bourguignon. It has just under 3,000 page views and 1,100 repins and is Slimming World Friendly and calorie controlled diet friendly; part of its popularity I think.
3. For number 3, we're back to the slow cooker with Slow Cooker Beef Curry. Perfect for cheap cuts of meat and packed full of flavour.
Most 'Yummed' recipe
My most yummed recipe went viral overnight whenYummly featured it on their front page. It was also the 4th most poular recipe on the blog for this year. Hearty Slow Cooker Beef and Bean Stew is one of my own favourite recipes of the year and the leftovers are one of my favourite lunches too. If you're not on Yummly, I highly recommend it. It's a great way to store recipes and all the big food bloggers are on there too.
What next in 2017?
Well, as I said, I'm going to try and pay more attention to Instagram and Facebook now and keep working on different recipes. I'd like to do some more bread recipes this year.
Here's to another good year in the blogging, foodie world!
Sounds like you've had a great year, wishing you all the best for 2017 too!
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