While the world was dealing with heatwaves, elections, debates and the onset of summer, we had a busy May at Cucumbertown with lots of testing, new ventures, a spanking new homepage, more migrations and lots more exciting news. So without further ado, here is a lowdown on the happenings at Cucumbertown in May this year!
Homepage Improvement
One of the biggest tasks in May was the revamp of our homepage. We had realised some time back, what the huge influx of interest that we would need to put more details on the homepage. Would you believe that we never had a Contact Us tab on our homepage? Or that we did not talk even little bit about any of our features where everyone could see it? So clearly a revamp was in order.
We decided to start small and give snippets of what makes Cucumbertown the place it is, and lead to pages where some of the more detailed information is available, like with the features page.
We also had a few of our bloggers pitch in with what they thought about Cucumbertown. And honestly every time we read what they have to say, it’s a rush!
If you haven’t seen what the page looks like yet, go on over to the Cucumbertown website and check it out. And let us know what you think. And logged in users, don’t forget to log out for just a bit and take a look at the website :).
Nutritional Label Testing on No Recipes
Of late the demand for nutritional information and nutritional labelling on food blogs has really escalated. We saw a lot of such conversations happening on blogging groups on Facebook in particular. That’s the reason why we built the nutritional labelling feature and we have spent a good part of May studying the results of this feature. The data presented is accurate and is auto generated, which means that bloggers need not spend too much time creating these labels using other fitness apps or websites.
Reply to Comments Straight from Mailbox
One more thing that makes Cucumbertown the most convenient food blogging platform, is the new comment feature which allows you to reply to comments on a food blog straight from the inbox. This is applicable for all commenters: readers and authors.
Sponsored Content Team Gets Going
Last month, we announced that a new sponsored content team was in place at Cucumbertown and that we are actively looking to engage our bloggers with brands. The team is now going full steam ahead with liaisons with several leading FMCG brands and you all will soon be seeing more such opportunities for the Cucumbertown bloggers. In a few months time, we should be having a full roster of great brands that are partnering with Cucumbertown. This is going to make Cucumbertown the no brainer option for anyone who wants to be a food blogger.
Direct Ads Make an Appearance on the Blogs
Since the monetization efforts began at Cucumbertown, we have been looking at what are the best ways to look at advertising revenues. Direct ads have always been on our list because of the control and flexibility it gives apart from the higher CPM we anticipated with such campaigns. And true to what we had expected, the pilot campaign for direct display ads had a CPM which was 50% higher. 36 blogs participated in the campaign. We will be closely monitoring these efforts and hopefully will be able to involve more such campaigns on our food blogs in the future.
While we are on the subject of monetization, we have a sheepish confession to make. We are still figuring out the best way to transfer funds to our bloggers, who we have to say, are being immensely patient with us. Thank you for your patience, and hopefully you will see some messages soon about the money coming in!
More Migrations!
It may be a stretch to call it the Cucumbertown family of bloggers now. We may have to go the Marvel route and call it the Cucumbertown Food Blogging Universe. With the migration code becoming more and more robust, we are now doing an average of one food blog migration per day which is lightyears ahead of our one food blog every month rate of migration. And quite a few blogs have joined us last month including Tadka Pasta, Flours and Frostings, Lady’s Phinger, Spoon Fork and Food, FoodieNFabulous and so on. If you have been thinking and thinking about migrating, drop us a line and become a part of the brood! The more the merrier….
Some Pinterest Love.. Finally!
We have had a pretty stellar month with Pinterest traffic more than doubling last month for the Cucumbertown food blogs. And there’s just one magic tip: keep pinning great content.
Also we have been using Tailwind now for a few months and it has really been game changing! So if you are looking to grow your Pinterest following and traffic, we think Tailwind is going to be great help! Look at the growth in our followers in just 7 days last month!
So, that was the month in a nutshell for you. Doesn’t that sound busy? But that’s not all. We are currently working on blogger payments, exclusive content, more brand partnerships and even a food blogging guide. So stay tuned to the magazine for all the updates. And wish you all a very happy June 2016!
