BITW 148: Nine Bloggers Share Their Top Takeaways from the Mediavine Conference

Dan Bagby from honeymoonalways.com

• Go back to your top posts on a regular basis and updated/add affiliate links to increase blog revenue.

Heather Boothman from abritandasoutherner.com

• The power of networking. She also said putting a face to a blog is a great plus for conferences.

Marcie Chung from www.marcieinmommyland.com 

•  Understanding accessibility when blogging and to underline hyperlinks because not everyone can see the color change for linked words. By adding the underline to all hyperlinks, it allows people with accessibility or vision impairments issues can easily tell where a link is.

Chef Dennis from www.askchefdennis.com

•  It’s never too late to start with affiliate marketing. For those starting out, he recommends starting with affiliate marketing as soon as possible, otherwise, you are leaving money on the table.

Amy Hartle from twodrifters.us 

• The importance of sending a campaign report after a trip or collaboration. It shows professionalism and puts you ahead of other bloggers when the next trip or collaboration is being scheduled.
• The importance of seeing powerful women as content creators and those who have built their own empires.

Lia Garcia from practicalwanderlust.com

•  How to maintain a mentality and boundaries to dream big and then dream bigger.  As well as how to say NO to anything that doesn’t help you get to your crazy, big dream.

Diana from www.adventurousway.com

• Be willing to try different things. What works for one blog might not work for another. Don’t get caught up in following what other bloggers are doing, because it might not be the right tactic for your website.

Tara Cannon from pintsizepilot.com

• Time management. Don’t take on projects that aren’t a good fit and don’t resonate with you and/or your audience. If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a hell no!

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Full Transcription of Introduction of Podcast

[0:00:00-0:00:50]

Hello and welcome to episode 148 of the break into travel writing podcast. Today’s episode is all about a Mediavine conference. I recently attended in Austin Mediavine. If you don’t know what it is we can find is an ad network. It is a way for travel bloggers actually any kind of blogger to make money on your website and they do this by placing ads. There are many different ad networks out there Mediavine seems to be one of the most popular at the moment, especially with food travel and lifestyle bloggers. They are great to work with I will be one of the first things that come to my mind when I think of Mediavine

[0:00:50-0:01:47]

For Mediavine to qualify, you need to fill out an application and really that the number one thing that they are looking for is how much traffic getting so to qualify for Mediavine you need to get at least 25,000 sessions a month to your website and they say that equates to about 30,000 page views and this would be based on Google analytics. So Mediavine also as well as being able to work with them in their ad network as a publisher. They also have conferences right now they do to a year and I went to the one as I said in Austin and this was a great way to not only meet some of the media by people in person but also learn

[0:01:57-0:02:48]

The conference itself is three days and it was held at the Fairmont in Austin and the first day they had some workshops and these were kind of the early bird workshops. Not everyone got to participate. I, unfortunately, did not sign up for that initial Workshop. So for the opening reception, which was a fun party at the hotel and then the next two days were really filled with speakers and sessions and you also have the vines so because I couldn’t make that initial Workshop actually one of the sessions I chose to sit down with a couple of them Mediavine Reps for them to do a little site audit for me on my website and give me some insight on how I can make more money with the media by Network as well as just an aesthetic.

[0:02:49-0:03:39]

Suggestions for the site. So the basic breakdown of the event you can get a little bit of an idea if it’s something that you’re thinking of going to in the future. It’s small. I think it’s about 125 people. They really limit the tickets, which is very nice. It’s good for networking and really allows you to connect with the speakers and other attendees. They did have some great speakers. They had Kate all from simple pin media my friend Dan Bagby who’s honeymoon always and he is a master SEO guy you’ve heard him on the podcast before hopefully and if not, it’s an episode. You should definitely bounce back to he has some great SEO strategies and that’s what he spoke about at the event Amanda Berlin.

[0:03:40-0:04:39]

Marie Denee the curvy fashionista Betsy Eaves from java cupcake cake Featherstone from pitch of Nam and Leah Garcia from practical Wanderlust does some really great speakers and that was just a few there’s a whole other page and a half here. I wanted to just give you a sense of what the actual conference schedule was. Like what kind of learning is available and to be honest, I you know, I don’t think you have to be a Mediavine publisher to come to the event double-check me out on that, but I do not believe so but you probably going to get more out of the oven if you are just being honest as I said opening night, there was a reception Superfund great way to start mingling and networking and then the next day 8:30 was registration and breakfast.

[0:04:40-0:04:57]

A side note here. The food was phenomenal. They did a great job picking up a menu. That was really delicious and thank you for having gluten-free options. I know they also have vegan options. So they made it super easy for any of us with food issues are dietary choices.

[0:04:58-0:05:43]

The opening keynote was about the future of mediavine and that was followed by the keynote speaker. Who was Marie denee the curvy fashionista, and she really talked about scaling your business and when she talks about your business. She’s talking about your website and really treating it as a business after the keynote. We jumped into some more learning sessions and day one was one track. So we went into best practices for website safety. And that was with somebody from Google and the next session was with Betsy and Kay and that was how to work smarter not harder and this is a really interesting session.

[0:05:44-0:06:27]

They had different takes on how they approach their blogs. And what was the most interesting thing was Betsy one of the speakers. She actually is not ready new content for her sight. So she has a full-time job but a very successful blog and she is just on a regular basis going in and updating posted already exists on her side create a new Pinterest images and then republishing and pushing them out on social and that is what she’s doing to keep her blog current to update the recipes and and the article I thought that was really interesting the day also consisted of a talk on pitching traditional media.

[0:06:28-0:07:50]

This was with Amanda Berlin. She’s a publicity strategist and she taught us the keys to connecting with media creating those relationships with the decision-makers and really going beyond the everyday email.

We also had a talk from Jamie Lieberman about covering your assets, and this was really getting into.

Working with contracts understanding how to read them the fact that we should be open to negotiating that what were offered isn’t always the best choices for us whether it be the payment or some of the items in the contract to read the contract and feel that you can negotiate.

And then we had Tiffany Romero from this way group. This is an influencer Network and she talked about scaling your business. She was a wonderful speaker. She was very high-energy. She very much spoke about women empowerment and being comfortable in our own skin and and going after what we want things Tiffany mentioned that I loved was to let go of anything that is not fulfilling your passion.

[0:07:51-0:09:21]

Because pivoting is not a failure and I love that. You know, I think we get so caught up in doing what we’re doing on a regular basis and we don’t stop to think this is still something I love and is it still fulfilling me on?

A monetization level on a personal level on a travel level. Is this still what I want to be doing as well. I think that we can also get caught up in not wanting to disappoint. So if we stop logging or if I stop this podcast if we stop doing something am I going to be disappointing somebody so I left it that she said pivoting is not a failure and just let go of anything that is not fulfilling.

your passions great advice

What are the other takeaways I had from day one was from Marie Denny and her suggestion really went along with what Tiffany was talking about and this was doing a check in.

Monthly quarterly yearly and determining what’s working and what doesn’t work and being willing to Pivot and make those changes.

What is working continue to repeat what you been doing to get to that success? So I really loved that.

[0:09:22-0:10:00]

And then one of the things that Kay and Betsy spoke about was identifying Evergreen content they say that is the key or one of the keys to their success knowing the post that you should continue to promote even after the expiration date because I think it’s so easy to write a new post and then move on to the next but we don’t necessarily go back and make a little check mark next to all the post that really truly are Evergreen and then there’s the whole idea of what content is seasonal.

[0:10:01-0:11:01]

So make a note of your holiday content your Valentine’s content anything that is seasonal and making sure that you re Market at the right time for seasonal and that you continue to market the Evergreen content that is doing well. So making sure that you’re getting into your analytics. You’re really analyzing what’s happening there to one of the two key things that I do personally is looking at your analytics from the same month 1 year ago or even two years ago how long you’ve had your block you can go back many years. Look at the content that performed well in that specific month at that you’re leading up to and asking yourself are any of these blog posts worthy of pushing out on Pinterest or any of these worthy of an update are they Evergreen? Are they something that could regenerate some traffic if

[0:11:01-0:11:50]

Get it back out there in the world by marketing it so some great ones for me. That didn’t come from the event but I love doing that. So try it and you can also take a bigger view of your analytics. Look at the entire year and compared to the year before and see what those aren’t showing up this year or which post are showing up with as much traffic and determine is that because I stop marketing it do I need to throw it out on Pinterest again? I mean if an article is getting mostly from Pinterest and you stop hitting it or you’re not creating new pens that traffic is eventually going to drop off so really taking a look at your overall content and just making that decision

[0:11:51-0:12:51]

The other thing that Betsy and K spoke about was identifying spin-off content that you could create based on your current top post. So taking a look at what post are performing the best on your site based on Google search as well as Pinterest and any other sources that you get good traffic from and deciding what other articles could I write that would complement them and have a good search volume with a low competition rate and that’s something I do with key search. I have a whole article about using key search and it just a wonderful tool. It does cost a few dollars. I’ll put a link to it on my site. I am an affiliate for them touch with my affiliate code. You will get a discount. So it’s worth it Friday if they changed it up a little bit. We’re Thursday on our second day was one tree.

[0:12:51-0:13:24]

We were all in one room. We saw all the speakers together the next day. They offered two different choices for each of the speaker sessions. So some of the different sessions were had to stay passionate when your hobby becomes your job how to find your people on Pinterest how to use podcast to build client relationships monetizing grow your business how to create 700 recipes for 7 cookbooks and 24 months. How big brands do SEO and how to beat them.

[0:13:25-0:14:12]

Pitching sponsored travel there was a session on accessibility as well as creating brand reports and then our day was finished with a closing note with Brandy Riley who is with courage during a Mama Knows at all. And then we had a fabulous sponsored dinner from Perdue Farms. The conference itself was quick. It was basically two and a half day conference 3 days if you were able to sign up for the workshop and while we were there there were plenty of sponsors that we could chat with a when was there there an affiliate Network Nicole Barker who is a virtual assistant company.

[0:14:13-0:15:13]

Agathon prepare there were several. So there was a little section of sponsors. We could go by there booze and chat with them. Again. You had the meeting of our people they were able to answer any of your questions about using mediavine. And if you were willing to set up a little time or miss one of the sessions they would do that which was highly worth it in my opinion. And so what is left to do is a little different with this podcast a handful of people attended mediavine and I asked them their top take away. So these are really quick and hopefully actionable items that you can Implement into your site seven of them are specific to medium. I’m but a lot or not. So a lot of these tips and takeaways are are things that any blogger

[0:15:13-0:15:32]

Can Implement to take this next steps to build your website build your blog into a business if that is what you want to do? And I know for myself before we jump into this just a quick to any type of conference that you go to that you listen to.

[0:15:33-0:16:32]

Anything we were you are in a place where your learning when you’re done make sure to make a to-do list and do it within a day or two of the evanter the webinar or the learning event because it’s so easy to forget, you know, just simply forget all the things that you’ve learned all the things that pop into your head that you might want to implement once you got back to your desk. And so that’s one of the things I did after the Mediavine conference. I I came away with a list of 22 things that I need to follow up with after the conference and I have to admit I still haven’t gotten to all of them, but I’ve got it here and if I hadn’t made that list, I honestly don’t even remember to do some of them. So if you’re going to invest the time going to a conference going to an event

[0:16:33-0:17:12]

Make sure that you do all of your follow-up and you make that to-do list because on those days where you’re just not in it or you feel like there are three thousand things you can do, but you just don’t know where to start go back to that to-do list and at least get something productive done with your day. So I advise I want to jump in and I can’t wait for you guys to listen to some of these great pieces of advice from some of the speakers as well as some of the attendees from Mediavine in Austin. Here we go.

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