Mom’s Cafe- Garden Gnome

Our kitchen truly is the heart of our home! One of life’s greatest pleasures is sitting at the kitchen table enjoying a hot cup of tea with a good friend. Tea is brewing and warm cookies are fresh from the oven. There’s always something good cooking in our kitchen. Please enjoy your stay!

I’m currently a Domestic Engineer by choice. Blogging is a mainly hobby for me but it is also a source of entertainment. It is also a way of me documenting my adventures in the kitchen as well as anything else food related.

The main reason I started blogging about food is I am a foodie. I love everything about foodI started blogging about cooking mainly as a way of being able to share what I know. I really wanted to share how you can put good food on the table economically. People who visit our home are always amazed at my large walk-in pantry filled with home canned foods. Yet when talking to them and others even online there is such a mystery as to why you would can foods. So Mom’s Cafe Home Cooking strives to take some of the mystery out of not only home cooking but also home food preservation.

The first post “Welcome to My Kitchen Cooking: was published on Mom’s Cafe Home Cooking on April 29, 2006. There have been regular posts since that time, most of them with one or more pictures. The design of the blog has changed from it’s original generic pink Blogger template a few times and continues to be tweaked. The pink has been toned down but will remain as a trademark of Mom’s Cafe Home Cooking.

Mom’s Cafe Home Cooking is currently averaging 570 visitors per day.

Mom’s Cafe Home Cooking does have an income through advertising. I have used variety of types of advertising – targeted ads, publishers programs, affiliate programs, paid to review, banner exchange and direct purchase ads. I continually monitor the advertising performance and get reader feedback. It was clear right off the paid to review posts of which there were only a couple just didn’t mesh with the feel of my blog. I’d rather have someone give me a honest review or critique of my posts without them being paid to do so. I am also very particular about what ads are presented to my readers so while I tried 3 banner exchanges 2 were removed because of inappropriate content for a family focused blog. I think what works is the advertising is targeted to the blog topic. It’s there but it isn’t an “in your face” type of advertising and it is advertising that my readers are interested in since it is mainly food or kitchen related. I keep the advertising out of the main content of the blog. I am quite please with overall results so I would say my efforts have been quite successful.

Mom’s Cafe Home Cooking was designed to be of interest to any age group from the young, just learning to cook to the much more experienced than myself. It is not gender specific and I keep it family oriented. Anyone interested in frugal, home style cooking would be interested in Mom’s Cafe Home Cooking. My blog would also appeal to anyone interested in home food preservation (canning, freezing, drying, curing). In these hard economic times, anyone interested in saving money in the kitchen would be very interested in my blog because not only do I show you how I do the math behind it so you can see the economics behind the savings. In fact I author a special feature each Monday called “Frugal Kitchens 101″ that really is like a mini home economics class. This has been a popular addition to my blog geared to those interested in good food without the high costs.

I author 5 established blogs and have just started a 6th that may or may not continue. Estimating how much time I spend daily on blogging is difficult because blogging involve much more than writing. It involves taking pictures then editing them, making original graphics, making backgrounds and headers, tweaking ads, checking links, sometimes a bit of research, tweaking the overall design and so much more. I have spent several hours over several days doing these types of behind the scenes activities during a major update. With respect to actual blog articles

Subscribing to Mom’s Cafe Home Cooking gives you the opportunity to enjoy the latest blog entry within minutes of it being posted. That way you can keep up to date as to what’s cooking in our kitchen or the latest frugal kitchen tip and anything else food related.

A successful blog is one in which the author and the readers are happy.
First and foremost blogging should be fun. Anything that you put on your blog is a reflection of you the author so make that a good reflection. If your blog seems like work or you have writer’s blog or you’ve lost interest in the topic do not blog. Your readers will pick up on this negativity with the end result being less traffic. If you feel the need to rant, ponder that feeling because seriously most readers are not interested in rants. If you still feel the need to rant, do so in a humorous manner that gets your point across but in a nicer way.

I don’t consider myself an expert blogger by any stretch of the imagination. I try things and if they work great, if they I change them. You can have the best designed blog but if you don’t have content readers will quickly lose interest. Good quality content is key! Keep the content relevant to your blog’s topic. Readers do not want to click on a cooking blog to read all about cars or your divorce problems. Keep the content profanity free! Just as in real life using “strong words is a sign of a week mind”. We all know the swear words but a good author can get their point across without the use of profanity. Readers in general also do not want to read off colour jokes and racist remarks, nor do they want to see these types of graphics including nudity. Spell and grammar check your posts before publishing. Use colour, italics and bold in your posts sparingly for effect.

Network, network, network! Reply to comments left on your blog and make comments on other blogs. Develop a rapport with your readers and other bloggers. Make your readers feel you are talking directly to them. Network on forums and groups. If you have more than one blog always network amongst them. This helps create the all important backlinks.

Advertising is always an interest. I would advise keeping advertising off a new blog if you are a new author. This gives the blogosphere a chance to get to know you as an author. Established authors can add advertising to a new blog sooner. Once the blog gets a PR rating and a readership then start small with advertising. Avoid paid links within postsDon’t expect to quit your day job from advertising on your blog so just have fun with it.

This blog can be visited at http://momskitchencooking.blogspot.com