Can you believe quarter 4 is just a few weeks away? Whether you’ve been thinking about Q4 plans already or you haven’t started, this episode will walk you through a few things you should be doing right away to prep your food blog for Q4. 

If you are so ready to have the best Q4, read on for a list of things to tackle and prepare for ahead of time!

Plan your content

• Make sure you’ve started working on new content you’ll be sharing. Make a plan for when you’ll do recipe testing, photography and work on blog posts. 
• Review your top 10 posts from last year and make sure they are looking good. Make sure you have relevant related posts linked in your top content as well as a freebie highlighted in these posts. 

Optimize your website for audience conversion

• You’ll be getting a lot of new users to your website. Make sure your brand messaging is CLEAR and will capture your new audience. 
• Turn on a pop up – make sure it’s delayed and not obnoxious.
• Turn on Grow Spotlight to capture subscribers easily. 
• Set up an enticing freebie that is relevant to your niche. Set up a short email series to come after the freebie with more holiday related content. Treat this as a warm up to your brand. 
• Use Gutenberg blocks to help content stand out – especially your best tips for the reader. Add a note in your recipe card to check the blog post for those tips (tell the reader what color box to look for!)
• Turn on your jump to recipe button. 
• Choose a strategic call to action to place above your recipe card in your top posts. 

Check your website for major issues

• Open your website on your phone in a private browsing window. Does it load quickly? Do you have multiple pop ups happening at once? 
• Is your navigation bar working? 
• Does your search bar work? 
• Does the print function on your recipe card work?

Maximize your RPM

Some of these are things to do all year round, but 

• Increase your ad density for Q4 – this is totally a personal preference but can be a strategic way to increase your ad revenue a little. Some people don’t do this because it can be annoying, but I think users in general think ANY ads are annoying, so increasing the density won’t make them any more mad than they already choose to be over your ads. 
• On your top posts, make sure you have followed best practices:
  • Long form content (at least 500 words, ideally closer to 750-1000)
  • Short paragraphs (1-2 sentences)
  • Lots of vertical images throughout the content
  • Make sure your recipe card is at the end of the post!
  • Turn on recipe card ads

Schedule website work to be done

This is something that always gets put off, but can easily be remedied by reaching out sooner rather than later! 

Reach out to learn more about our full website redesigns and openings for the fall and winter!

If you already know it is on your list to get some work done on your website before the end of the year, stop what you are doing right now and email us about it (or whoever else you are working with). 

If you’ve been going through the Sizzling Summer Camp challenge, you likely found some things that need fixing during the website audit part of the challenge. If you aren’t doing that challenge, you can still download the free website audit checklist to find any issues on your site and then decide whether you can DIY them or need to hire some support to help fix them. 

One way we partner with food bloggers to help with this is through our Designer for a Day package. It’s a 5 hour package where we can tackle your list of website updates, from things that are broken to customizing your theme. This is a great way to get a customized look on a quick timeline and smaller budget! 

If you are looking to do a more full site redesign, then I’d encourage you to reach out now to schedule a call for when I return from maternity leave in the next few weeks. We have just a few openings left to start this year and will be opening up our January 2023 start dates shortly after I return!

Schedule your time off

• Make sure you decide and set aside the time you want to take off completely from working. This is usually the last few weeks of the year but you may decide to ease into that and take more time off in the weeks leading up to the holidays. 
• By deciding and scheduling that time now, you can start preparing for it! 

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