What is the name of your Blog?Renaissance Culinaire
What is your name?
Amber *
Where are you from? (include country, state and/or city)
Oregon, USA
What is your current age or age range?
28
Please describe your blog
The description of my blog is :"A pastry student, blogging my way to Pastry Chefdom. My commentary on the mundane to the exceptional --all through my eyes, or camera lens."
The blog was created in December 2004 when I first started attending culinary school, working toward a degree in professional pastry arts management. I was really new to the blogosphere. But looking back 2005 was my golden year for ,a href="http://abstract2collective.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2005-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2006-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=50">posts and getting to know readers.
I use my blog to post baking theory notes - on a range of subjects from ingredients used in baking , to the chemistry and science of baking itself - but in a reader oriented manner. And info on pastry or bread makeup techniques. Of course there are recipes, too. Both home recipes and commercial production formulas. I usually include my pictures that I took while attending classes - we had a full scale working bakery at school. I also post foodie pictures themselves.
I will also occasionally throw in some of my poetry or non-culinary pictures for good measure.
Describe the main purpose of your blogging, what are you trying to accomplish?
I am using blogging as a medium to promote my love of all things culinary. I am hoping to connect with others out there who share my passion for baking.
I think there is allot of selfishness and consumerism in society today and it is reflected in alot of blogs. I try to get past that and write about what I am honestly feeling.
Hopefully artisan baking will continue to thrive in the world, because as it seems right now, things like tech. gadgets and image are being favored over those that are handmade and human interaction becomes more and more about text messages.
What blogging platform do you do and why?
I use blogspot. I like google, and blogspot seems to be evolving constantly into a more blogger friendly platform, with increasingly good tools. The tech team is really into listening to the bloggers who use their platform, and they implement allot of suggested features to the platform. Once you understand the template code - it is easy to customize your template into something nice. And the price is right (free).
I think that the old standby of "You aren't a real blogger until you get your blog hosted on Wordpress" is starting to change. People are being noticed for their content and not what services they attach themselves to.
What do you blog the most about?
Thoughts on baking. What is going through my foodie head.
What kind of blogs make you angry?
SPAM ! The search engines get saturated with these spamloggers and it is hard not to click on them becuase they look legitimate in search results.
Give five of your best blogging tips.
1.) Write what you know - stick with a subject that appeals to you and that allows your posts to come freely and easily. 2.) Write posts several times a week. It will make you a better blogger and keep you conected with your readers. 3.) Respond and network with your readers. Get to know them and listen to what they offer in regards to feedback. 4.) Write content that is passionate - don't write to fill up space or post counts. 5.) Write because you want to. Don't write to inflate statistics or rankings.
What are some things you would NEVER blog about?
fashion - unless it pertains to chef whites. Politics - I try to stay away from that. Politics are very volital.
Did you start blogging for the purpose of making money and if so, are you making enough money?
No I didn't start out to make money. I had taken a long break from blogging but I noticed I still was receiving traffic, so I decided to start writing again. Recently I am now part of a publishing network and I do make a little something, every month. Funny thing is it actually helps to encourage me to write better content, and more frequently.
How long have you been blogging?
Since 2004.
About how many hours per day do you spend blogging?
I spend a couple of hours everyday doing a variety of things : researching content promoting etc / reading other blogs / checking my emails from readers or commets / adjusting my site template.
Do you track RSS feeds and if so, how many do you usually track daily?
YES. RSS is very key. I have a good 200+ I have in my feedreader.
My blog averages 100 new subscribers a day, which is nice. It is staedily increasing. That also is a great motivator for me to write more frequently.
What promotional techniques work best for you and why?
Writing frequently. This encourages comments which generate links.
Being apart of food communities or food blog listings. People explore my blog and if they like it they usually link to me or subscribe to my feed, then if I post something interesting that gets a link too. Readers get excited about a blog and want to share that excitement.
What mistakes have you made that you could warn others about?
Taking a long break from blogging.
I let my blog sit idle for about 9 months between posts. I had a google page rank of 7. I had a lot of incoming links. When I stopped posting, my page rank went slowly down hill and my traffic declined significantly. When I went back my page rank was a 2 and I had alot of catching up todo.
When you take a break from blogging, your site becomes pushed aside in your genre and other blogs in that genre become better noticed and are discovered more often. Their presence in the blogosphere is felt more. While you kind of disappear.
What is the url of your blog?
Renaissance Culinaire
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