In this post, I sit down with NFT Photographer and artist @ChipRiggs as he interviews me about the best blogging practices! We talk about SEO Practices, Affiliate Marketing, Email Marketing, Selling Prints and even NFTs!

Just to emphasize, I’m still learning myself, like every day! I’ve only been seriously engaged with this blog for a little over a year even though I started it back in January 2020. But, I do have previous blog experience dating back to 2009.

The thing about blogging, about anything really, including NFTs, is that you need to be consistent. You need to show up and do the work when nobody is there listening, when nobody cares and nobody is patting you on the back.

It’s not always easy, I’ll be the first to admit, being consistent is hard. I struggle but in my struggles, I always do my best to learn, find the upside and deliver to you, the reader, the hard-earned truth!

Chip asks….

What are the SEO practices you use on your own website?

Currently most of my SEO practices come in the form of onsite SEO. I don’t go out searching for backlinks or paying for backlinks, etc. I just try to create great content and hopefully someone finds it helpful and wants to share it or reference it somehow. I’m just after natural organic incoming links.

I mentioned onsite SEO and I tend to focus my efforts there so what does that mean? That means I keep my focus on the things I can control when creating my website, content, etc. I follow best blogging practices.

This involves using the right keywords while writing your content, making sure your theme is mobile ready and fast loading, optimizing my images so they aren’t huge files of data, etc.

To achieve these benchmarks I use the Avada premium WordPress theme and a couple well thought out plugins.

The first plugin I use is Rank Math. It has a ton of great features to help you optimize your content and write SEO friendly articles.

The next plugin to consider is WP Rocket. I’m a big fan in using it as your caching plugin to optimize the speed and delivery performance of your WordPress website. I use it and it has a ton of features. Speed is important for SEO!

You can read more about me fumbling around with the WP Rocket settings to achieve optimal performance here: How to make your WordPress Website Load Faster

The final plugin you will want to consider is something to take care of your images,… well maybe. Note: I don’t use a plugin but many people do. You will have to decide for you, your workflow, and what works best.

I have messed around with plugins like ShortPixel, Imagify, etc and at the end of the day; I prefer to do it myself using Photoshop or Lightroom to export at an image file size/quality I’m comfortable with. Here is an in depth article covering this topic: How to Optimize Images in WordPress

Do you see much organic traffic brought in by the blog on your site?

No, lol, and it’s mostly my fault. Blogging isn’t easy although I do get some traffic each month I would not categorize it as a lot. It’s usually in the 25-50 visitors a day range which is horrible.

All of it is organic, mostly through Google and little bit from social media as I don’t pay for traffic or anything like that.

Do you see much traffic to your NFT content on the site?

Yeah, in fact, my top article bringing organic traffic to the website has been: How to create and NFT on OpenSea

Now, would this translate into sales for me if I was to share my NFTs on my site more? Probably not because my articles are attracting people who want to make NFTs, not buy them.

In order to reach this audience I would need to shift the focus of my content to reach the potential collector.

Do you feel you affiliate market on your site is worth having it?

I’ve used affiliate marketing before on other websites and it definitely can be lucrative when done right and at the right time. It has not been particularly helpful to me on this blog at this point however.

I more or less started to implement it so I didn’t have to go back later and add it to each post. I like to be really specific in my affiliate marketing efforts, targeted links, etc.

So normally, as I’m writing a post I might think of some specific links and affiliate relationships that would benefit my reader and is relevant to the content I’m writing.

Have you done any target media buys for your site (social media, Google)?

No, at this point I have not done any targeted advertising, paid advertising, etc. Could be something I looking into but really I’m just content writing when the mood strikes. Where that leads is not as important as the therapy it delivers haha

Do you get many sign-ups for your newsletter?

More than I think I should to be honest. I used to send emails to all my subscribers, like personal emails, how you doing, etc until I realized that is not feasible. I don’t get many but even a dozen a month is a lot when you have so much other stuff on your plate.

I remember when I first met @VirginiaLori through one of these emails she said, How do you find the time to email all your subscribers? Haha, so yeah, I don’t do that anymore but I do still send an occasional mass email to all subscribers just to say Hey, what’s up, share a story or whatever.

I don’t use email marketing to really market anything but myself I guess up to this point. However, I think it’s important to start building a email list from day 1. Even if you don’t know what your exact plans are for that list. So yeah, start building your email list and treat these people like the gold friendships they are!

Did you previously sell prints off your site? If so, why did you stop?

No, I have never sold prints directly from this website but it was something I was considering setting up when NFTs came along and stole my world.

Prints are something I want to get back to though. I love NFTs, I love the idea of digital collectibles, and the concept of selling a digital edition of a particular photograph.

However, nothing beats seeing your work printed. Holding the physical print is a whole different experience and I like that some photographers are gifting that experience to their NFT collectors.

It’s an experience some collectors probably don’t realize they need to have or even think about. But, I’m sure when they see the physical representation of the NFT they collected, and they are holding it in their hands, they feel what we do,……excitement!