We have been telling you for a while about our monetization plans, our new features and generally what we are upto at Cucumbertown. So this month onwards we have decided to come out with a monthly update on what’s been happening and what are the things that our food bloggers can look forward to.
What Happened in November 2015
November was a power packed month for us. Everything was happening this month.
Platform Features Upgrades: Recipe Index, Affiliates and GIFs
Monetization going on in full swing: DFP for Ads, More Ad Networks, Affiliates
Marketing: Stories Going Viral, FB milestones and Twitter love
New Blogs In the Cucumbertown Family This Month : NoRecipes.com moves home to Cucumbertown
Now for each of these in detail:
New Features For CT Bloggers:
The first new feature and the one we are most excited about is the affiliate feature. We are the only platform to have integrated affiliates into the platform itself, which means all our bloggers can soon have affiliates on their blogs through different networks like Amazon, Host Gator etc without even having to sign up. This completely revolutionises food blog monetization and that’s why we are actually having a whole series dedicated to the affiliate feature and the updates to it.
The second feature, that we are equally thrilled about is our brand new Recipe Index. It’s something that we had been thinking about for a while, especially after request from bloggers like Nandita Iyer of Saffron Trail and Subhasmita Panigrahi of The Flavours of kitchen. Typically food bloggers manually curated their index periodically or through plugins which created the index based on the categories and tags the bloggers would manually insert into each post.
When we did our research on what the ideal Recipe Index should look like, one thing that was most frequently asked for was an alphabetized recipe index. So it became obvious that this was something that people were clearly looking for. Now with the traditional method that the bloggers were using, which was through a manually updated index or through the plugin, this alphabetical management was not exactly easy.
Another one that was pointed out to us was an ingredient based Recipe Index, which Nandita was keen on. But there were two issues with this. Firstly there would be far too many ingredients. And there may not be enough recipes for the some ingredients, making the index look too cluttered and sparse at the same time. So a selective ingredient based index is being worked on at the moment and should be ready by the end of next month.
In the meantime, an ingredient based search on the Recipe Index has been developed, so that if the reader wanted to search for something very specific, like say recipes with almond flour on a baking blog, they would be able to.
Finally we decided that a two part recipe index would work in the best way. A visual catalogue based on the categories created by the author, complete with thumbnails and a recipe property based search which would include things like the Course of Meal, the Cuisine, The Difficulty Level, the Time Taken, Dietary Specifications and so on. Here is a sneak peak of what this looks like.
For the visual catalogue and the property based index, the list is alphabetical. So that takes care of the other popular request from bloggers.
Now for the latter classification, there is no effort at all from the author. This Index is created based on the properties which are tagged into the recipe at the time of creation. The index is automatically created as a result of this.
And the best part about this is, that only actual recipes are indexed. This will help weed out any reviews or lists which do not include recipes which would otherwise be hard to keep track of. Of course, additional categories can be created separately for non recipe posts. But it would be a little odd to find a non recipe post in what is called a RECIPE index.
And the initial reactions to this change have been extremely positive!
And guess what? All the CT bloggers are getting this update in a matter of a few weeks!!
Monetization:
Besides the affiliate feature, we have a major update from Shrini, our head of monetisation about how we are managing ads.
Generally when there are ads on a blog from multiple ad networks, there are a few things for the blogger to configure and keep track of including CPMs, fill rates etc. It is quite difficult to manage each of these networks individually for bloggers. That’s where an ad server comes into place.
An ad server is a comprehensive ad management system that helps you manage different ad networks and optimise things like CPM’s and fill rates. This is where Shrini’s work on DFP becomes so significant. It is a great ad management solution and really helps to make the best use of all the available ad networks and their inventories. There are several ad networks like DFP (Double Click For Publishers) out there, but the reason we went with DFP was primarily because it was a Google product and the association with Ad Sense would ensure none of the ad impressions would get a zero fill rate.
What DFP does, is basically allow you to choose the way in which ads are placed on your blogs. Everything CPMs to locations to ad creative sizes can be defined. This ensures that the right priority is set for which ad networks’ ads to appear on the blog. So naturally the ones with a higher CPM will be given priority over networks with lower CPMs. This requires continuous effort that Shrini will be managing from the backend but the effort usually translates to 100–1000% increase in revenue for the blogger.
Besides the work on CPMs we also have started working with more ad networks, like Gourmet Ads, Sovrn, etc. Soon enough Yellow Hammer and in image ads too will be introduced.
And another HUUUUUUUGE news for us was the very first sale of an ebook from on InduGetsCooking.
Marketing:
Brand Cucumbertown has had a pretty good month in November. Our story in this very same magazine on Composition in Food Photography went a little viral, which of course was cause for validation and celebration!
And this is where the whole community aspect of food blogging truly comes to the forefront. All of the bloggers that we worked with on this were super, super helpful and more than co-operative. Another high point this month on the magazine: A guest post by Shivesh Bhatia, the 19 year old Instagram sensation. Shivesh was more than happy to share his secrets to Instagramming success.
And we had a few milestones on our Facebook Page too! 25,000 likes and counting! And the Twitter love keep coming. We can’t tell you the number of times Bhargavi and I have done a Whoppeeee when someone we stalk religiously has tweeted about us or mentioned us. Like this!
For those of you who aren’t already, don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. And we’ll soon be on Snapchat too, so stay tuned for some fun videos and updates on what’s happening at the CT office.
New Blogs:
Marc Matsumoto’s highly popular blog, NoRecipes.com now has a new home on Cucumbertown! And he has requested you guys to play tester and help him out with feedback. Check out his post on the move and let him know what you think!
The coming month is pretty hectic for Roli and Basil, the migration team at CT. We have on the pipeline some bloggers we adore, who will soon be part of the CT family. So you can look forward to seeing Aparna Balasubramanian at mydiversekitchen.com, Madhuri Aggarwal at madaboutkitchen.com, Rhea Mitra Dalal at euphorhea, Anitha at kelipaan.com, Aparna at TangReview, Tarika at tarikasingh.com and a lot of other great bloggers on the platform soon.
Now that’s about what happened last month. December is already looking promising for us with Cherian’s push of super fast CT powered food blogs becoming a reality.
This month we’ll be moving most of the blogs to CDN (Content Delivery Network), which will make them faster, more SEO friendly and generally more awesome. But of course any big change is bound to come up with a few hiccups. So don’t panic if something doesn’t look right. Just play reporter and let us know. We’ll get on it immediately. If you spot any loose ends let us know on chef@cucumbertown.com.
