Rachel Tiemeyer and Polly Conner had been simply two mothers, residing in Missouri, every engaged on their very own blogs. As destiny would have it, they finally crossed paths after they labored collectively at their native church.
As they turned mates, they realized that they shared not solely an entrepreneurial spirit, but in addition a ardour for running a blog.
In 2011, they determined to hitch forces and create a weblog collectively, Thriving Home, the place they may assist different mother and father and likewise earn an earnings.
Collectively they’ve turned Thriving Residence right into a thriving enterprise, incomes over $10k per 30 days, publishing two cookbooks, showing on TV and in main publications, and serving to numerous mother and father by means of their content material.
Hold studying to search out out:
- Why they determined to create a weblog collectively
- What content material was extra common to start with
- How their ebook deal advanced
- The place their earnings comes from
- Their foremost advertising and marketing methods
- Their ideas on Search engine optimisation
- How they method key phrase analysis
- How they create content material
- How they’ve grown their e mail listing
- Their ideas on their partnership
- The assets and instruments that they use
- The principle problem they’ve confronted
- Their most necessary accomplishment
- Their largest mistake
- Their recommendation for different entrepreneurs
Meet Rachel and Polly
Thriving Residence was created in 2012 by me, Rachel Tiemeyer, and my good friend Polly Conner.
I grew up in Jackson, MO, and attended the College of Missouri to change into an English trainer. I met my future husband, Nathan, there and took a job proper out of faculty in a kids’s and scholar ministry for a neighborhood church.
I labored there for practically 20 years in some capability. In 2008, with a love of writing and a want to virtually assist households, I started sharing recipes and residential and parenting tips about my private weblog. I stay with my husband and three kids (ages 13,15, and 17) in Columbia, MO.
Polly grew up in Camdenton, MO, and attended the College of Missouri to change into a college counselor. As a substitute, she received employed to take my job at their church once I determined to remain dwelling part-time with my first little one in 2007.
Polly met her future partner, Austin, received married, and commenced to share dwelling DIY initiatives and finally parenting tales on her first weblog in 2008. Polly lives along with her husband and three kids (ages 7, 9, and 12) in Columbia, MO.
After every gaining a small on-line following individually, we determined to staff as much as create Thriving Residence. Our intent from the very starting was to create a web based enterprise. We by no means dreamed it will change into our full-time job someday!
Why They Created Their Website
After assembly by means of our first job expertise and changing into mates, we rapidly realized we shared an entrepreneurial intuition and curiosity in running a blog and loved creatively sharing what we had been studying with others.
We started to listen to tales about bloggers, like Crystal Paine from Cash Saving Mother, who made an earnings from their blogs by means of advert placements, model sponsorships, and affiliate earnings.
Within the fall of 2011, we determined to mix our running a blog content material and abilities right into a mom blog that may set us as much as earn earnings whereas additionally serving to different mother and father.
Thriving Residence was the identify we settled on as a result of it was broad sufficient to incorporate all types of home-related matters but additionally mirrored the specified end result we wished for our personal households and readers.
We every pitched in $90 of our personal cash to get began with a web site host–which was an enormous deal on the time as stay-at-home mothers on a good price range!
We started the arduous activity of designing and organising a website on WordPress, migrating content material over from our outdated private blogs, and organising social media accounts. We additionally arrange a authorized settlement to be 50/50 companions and created an LLC for the enterprise.
Selling Thriving Residence to our present audiences from our private blogs and social media helped us achieve readership proper out of the gate.
On the finish of 1 ½ years, we earned our first fee from Google AdSense adverts on our website. It was so thrilling!
Inside about 3 years, our website was constantly netting 1 to 2k per 30 days from the adverts and Amazon affiliate earnings, and it steadily grew from there.
Though we printed content material that ranged from recipes to sensible dwelling tricks to parenting articles, we seen that our freezer cooking content material and recipes received essentially the most web page views within the first 5 years.
On the time, each of us had been in freezer golf equipment with mates—bulk cooking month-to-month for one another’s households and writing about it. We might additionally throw freezer events for teams to assist inventory one another’s freezers. It was actually enjoyable and we discovered loads!
Our readers cherished the idea and wished to study extra.
In 2016, a number of publishers reached out to us about writing a cookbook about freezer cooking.
Via the recommendation of a blogger good friend and cookbook creator, we related with a literary agent who coached us by means of writing a ebook proposal. The agent then pitched the ebook proposal to a number of publishers.
That very same yr, 4 publishers received right into a bidding struggle over it, and we landed a ebook deal that we’d have by no means dreamed of!
Our first cookbook, From Freezer to Table, was launched in 2017. Earlier than that ebook was launched, our literary agent secured a deal for our second cookbook, From Freezer to Cooker, which was launched in January 2020.
Almost 40,000 cookbooks have offered since then and their releases led to us being featured on Hallmark Channel, in Folks journal, and in lots of different information shops.
The discharge of our cookbooks and subsequent PR, rising our email list by means of the usage of freebies, and beginning to study Search engine optimisation finest practices in 2019, helped our website develop from 4.2M annual readers in 2017 to 7.8M in 2022.
We had 8,266,037 web page views prior to now 12 months (Oct 2022 – Sept 2023), which is the best it’s ever been.
How A lot They’re Incomes
It varies from yr to yr, however Thriving Residence’s common internet earnings over the previous three years has been about $130,000 per yr. (We do give away over 10% of that to charities, like Compassion and native nonprofits that assist the homeless and foster households.)
Right here’s the proportion breakdown of our earnings streams:
It’s been a gradual and regular race for us, with some ups and downs alongside the way in which.
To get to a full-time earnings stage (whereas working solely 20-25 hours every, which is the way in which we wish it) for each of us, has taken about 10 years. We love that this quantity of labor hours permits loads of time to be out there for our households!
We even have one worker, who works about 15 hours per week, and we work with a contracted photographer who shoots 2-3 recipes per 30 days, a social media administration firm who runs our social media, and an accountant who helps with payroll.
Their Prime Advertising and marketing Methods
Whereas we’ve got experimented with Fb/Instagram adverts and Google adverts over time, our e mail listing has at all times been our foremost advertising and marketing technique.
Our emails construct belief and a relationship with readers, ship visitors to our website, and embrace both sponsored content material or gross sales pitches.
Our second most profitable advertising and marketing technique has been our cookbooks and word-of-mouth.
Whereas writing cookbooks took years of our time and did pull our consideration away from rising our web site content material for some time, in addition they established our authority within the freezer cooking house, generated fairly a little bit of free press on the time of their launch, and now proceed to drive word-of-mouth suggestions.
Their Ideas on Search engine optimisation
Search engine optimisation is totally integral to our enterprise technique and requires fixed studying and vigilance to remain on high of one of the best practices.
Actually, within the subsequent yr, we’ve got a purpose to return by means of over 500 outdated posts and ensure every one is absolutely optimized.
Search visitors makes up about 60% of our visitors, so that is important to our enterprise.
Key phrase Analysis
At the moment, as a result of we’ve got over 600 weblog posts on our website, Casey Markee from Prime Rank Hat suggested us to undergo every bit of content material to verify it’s absolutely optimized, every recipe is the “better of one of the best,” and the images and writing are top-notch.
It’s a bit like going by means of your whole “home” and purging, organizing, repainting, and updating your complete place! After we end this huge mission, we are going to return to creating new content material.
Our Search engine optimisation course of for that features brainstorming recipe/article concepts that we’re enthusiastic about and that can assist our readers utilizing a instrument referred to as Semrush to analysis key phrases which have a excessive search quantity and low competitors, after which growing a recipe and/or writing an article centered round one of the best key phrase(s).
Whereas writing with Search engine optimisation in thoughts, we wish to at all times contemplate our readers first…so person expertise is #1.
We would like our content material to be extremely useful, interesting to the attention, and user-friendly.
Hyperlink Constructing
That is an space we wish to develop in. Proper now all link building is totally natural. Fortunately, as a result of we’ve got been round so lengthy and since we did a lot PR for our cookbooks, we’ve got a pretty big backlink community.
We do plan to pursue extra podcast interviews and PR alternatives sooner or later to assist with this purpose, nevertheless.
Their Content material Creation Course of
We now have over 600 articles and recipes on our website.
As I discussed, we’re presently updating and republishing each article to verify every part on Thriving House is Search engine optimisation-optimized and top-quality content material.
Nevertheless, after we return to creating and publishing new content material, that is our course of:
- Brainstorm: Polly or Rachel gathers concepts we’re personally enthusiastic about, that fill a gap in our content material, and/or can be useful to our readers.
- Search engine optimisation Analysis: Polly or Rachel does keyword research utilizing Semrush and Google to see if there are any key phrases or phrases which have a excessive quantity of search and low competitors. Generally we begin with this step and create content material based mostly on our findings.
- Growth: Polly or Rachel develops and researches recipes/content material. Assessments recipe a number of occasions and writes an in depth recipe.
- Images/Movies: We resolve if Polly will {photograph} the recipe or whether or not to delegate it to our contracted photographer, who additionally does video content material.
- Weblog Put up Draft: Our staff member, Carla, begins the construction of a weblog submit, inserting all images, movies, the recipe, and including the primary Search engine optimisation elements.
- Writing and Enhancing: Rachel or Polly fills in the remainder of the article and sends it to a different staff member to edit.
- Publish and Promote: We publish the article on the high of our weblog, hyperlink the brand new article to different locations round our website, put it on our social media calendar, and embrace it in a future e mail.
Their Electronic mail Listing
We now have about 40,000 subscribers.
To construct our e mail listing, we provide e mail opt-ins by means of our web site and on social media, comparable to printable freebies like our 7 Hen Marinades cheat sheet or a useful e mail collection like Prime 5 Crock Pot Recipes.
We attempt to match the opt-in to the content material the reader is on or to the season we’re presently in (i.e. again to high school), making it as engaging and useful as attainable.
We clear up our e mail listing about 3x/yr, ensuring to take away inactive customers so we don’t pay for them and to enhance the deliverability of our emails.
Working as a Workforce
One of many issues that we expect is actually distinctive about our enterprise is that we’ve remained 50/50 companions for 12 years now.
We’ve seen many co-owned blogs and small companies come and go throughout this time and realized early on that we’ve got a novel enterprise partnership.
Fortunately, we’ve efficiently navigated the challenges of sharing a enterprise collectively, which requires making monetary and enterprise choices collectively whereas additionally understanding private variations.
We’ve come to actually admire each other’s strengths and lean into these, whereas every making up for one another’s weaknesses. We share an analogous work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit however have totally different items on the subject of how we work.
We joke that “Polly will get crap executed whereas Rachel cleans it up.” The important thing to this relationship has been open communication, believing one of the best in each other, not taking issues too personally, and caring for each other greater than the enterprise.
Their Prime Assets and Instruments
We now have discovered essentially the most from the Meals Blogger Professional podcast over time. We’ve additionally discovered lots of assist by means of non-public Fb teams that embrace meals bloggers.
As for the instruments we use, I’d spotlight:
- Semrush, for Search engine optimisation analysis
- Clariti, which helps us to prepare initiatives associated to our website’s content material and monitor the way it’s doing after we make enhancements, and
- Trello, which is what we use to prepare our editorial calendar and initiatives for our staff
Their Greatest Problem
The net content material house is at all times altering, which could be discouraging and overwhelming at occasions. Being a blogger means continuously maintaining with algorithm adjustments and know-how adjustments (or hiring individuals who can assist you with this).
We’ve additionally discovered to be affected person and preserve transferring ahead throughout downturns in visitors and advert income, which wax and wane throughout totally different seasons and years.
Additionally, since our website has been round since 2012, we’re continuously having to determine what to do with underperforming/outdated content material.
It’s solely prior to now few years that we’ve actually prioritized Search engine optimisation. Whereas this has helped, there may be lots of “baggage” that retains us from rating excessive for some search phrases.
Their Most Necessary Accomplishment
First could be lasting this lengthy within the meals content material area of interest by means of many ups and downs and making meals running a blog a full-time earnings for each of us.
Second is publishing two cookbooks that we’re very happy with!
We’re additionally actually happy with the truth that we did a nationwide TV phase on Hallmark Residence & Household and had been featured in Folks Journal.
What They Want They Knew When They Began
Running a blog has modified a lot since we started 12 years in the past. It initially was extra like a web based journal.
Most of our content material was based mostly round what we had been doing, studying, having fun with, and cooking. Nearly all of it held no Search engine optimisation worth.
If we may return, we’d have been way more selective within the form of content material/recipes we selected to publish so we wouldn’t have to return by means of every part and replace it now.
We additionally would have narrowed in on a distinct segment (i.e. freezer cooking) a lot sooner.
Their Primary Mistake
Though this was simply a part of our journey of studying what readers actually wished, we expect it was a mistake to make the content material on our website so broad.
It will have been a lot better to narrow in on a specific topic area to be consultants in a lot sooner. However, we didn’t actually know what that was to start with!
We additionally want we’d have related with extra bloggers and gone to conferences to study from others. It will have been superb to have a small group of bloggers to be on this journey with.
Their Recommendation for Different Entrepreneurs
No matter content material or product you create, make it the “better of one of the best.”
Ask your self and others, “Is that this tremendous useful to my readers or clients? Does it clear up an issue for them? Is it simple to make use of? Does it look interesting?”
Producing content material/merchandise like this can actually assist folks (which is so fulfilling and what it’s actually all about) and concurrently trigger clients/readers to belief and suggest you to others.
Proceed to work on your corporation a bit of every single day.
Take the lengthy view, not the brief and quick view. Constructing Thriving Residence has been a marathon, not a dash.
