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If you are a homesteading content creator, you need a blog for canning recipes. I see this ALL the time: a content creator starts gaining traction on social media, they grow a large following, they get monetized on the various platforms, but they have NO WEBSITE OR EMAIL LIST! Ahhhhhhhhh! *cries in online business manager*
This is exactly what happened to my friend, Ruby at Red Feather Farm Ohio. She started sharing more of her rebel canning recipes on Facebook and Instagram around the fall of 2023 and grew a large enough following to be monetized on both platforms (100k on FB and 25k on IG).
Getting a check from the ole book of faces is pretty fun! Until they then shadowban you because your content does TOO well and they don’t want to pay up. Ruby would have a reel go viral to the tune of a few million views, and then absolutely crickets for the next week. She was rightfully getting very frustrated with the inconsistency of the income, and she asked me about starting a website to share her recipes instead of relying on social media.
How Do I Build A Blog For Canning Recipes Instead?
I gave her the low down on everything she needed to do, how to build a self hosted WordPress website on Siteground with a Restored 316 Designs theme (she uses Homestead and it’s a perfect fit for her branding), how to set up Flodesk for email (so she can talk to her audience OFF of social media!), how to write and edit her blog posts with Keysearch and RankMath for SEO, and how to start using Pinterest to drive traffic to this new website.
She built the website in December 2024, and started using Pinterest in January 2025 once she had a few blog posts written. And by “a few” I mean she already had about 10 because Ruby LOVES WRITING and she can blast out MULTIPLE blog posts in the time it takes me to write ONE!
One Step Back For A Big Leap Forward
Ruby had started a subscription on both platforms for exclusive printable recipes. She was charging not even ONE DOLLHAIR for this subscription, $.99 per month. Even at such a low price point, with a couple hundred subscribers this was a nice little chunk of change and subscribers loved getting the printable recipes sent straight to them, but it was a lot of work to create those files and the delivery between platforms wasn’t ideal.
Ruby said “Facebook would let you directly post in a post for the link but Instagram wasn’t as kind and I had to post the link to stories and then save them to a highlight that would only hold so many before they started deleting the older ones. That wasn’t cool and I wasn’t over thrilled with that and felt like it wasn’t worth $0.99 to have to dig through my stories for an exclusive recipe, reel, or content.”
I told her that her best bet was to close down the subscriptions and take the hit on the lost income for a few months until the ad revenue on the website with the recipes posted for free in blog posts replaced what she had been making through the subscriptions. *spoiler alert: it only took a couple months for Ruby to replace the subscription income with ad revenue!*
Ad Revenue
After a few weeks of adding new canning recipes to the website as blog posts, we reviewed website stats and decided it was time to apply for Mediavine Journey. There are a few different ad agencies you can work with, and even just adding Google AdSense to your website can start bringing in ad revenue. Mediavine is popular with food bloggers so that’s what we went with. Ruby’s website was was approved for Mediavine Journey in just TWO WEEKS! That is largely due to her excellent blog post content, and so much of her audience from social media visiting the website to quickly grow her website views.
Everyone knows that one of the biggest complaints about social media is not seeing content from the accounts you follow! You’ll see suggested posts from literally anyone else, but the people you opted in to follow are buried down the feed. This only gets worse the larger your account grows.
What’s WAY WORSE is you have NO WAY to contact ANY of your audience if your account gets shut down! Facebook and Instagram both love to randomly shut down accounts, you can get hacked and locked out, or an entire app gets banned all together like TikTok (and then back again and banned again, it’s so unreliable). You NEED an email list to contact your audience! Your email list is the only form of communication you actually OWN.
I use Flodesk and recommend it to all my clients. You can start collecting emails for free and then the pricing tiers are according to how many subscribers you have. Having an email list is even more important than having a website IMO, and with Flodesk you can not only collect email addresses and send beautiful email communications to your audience, you can also sell products with their Checkouts. Use my affiliate link to sign up for a 14 day free trial of Flodesk and get 25% off your first year.
After a year of growing her email list, Ruby now has over 3600 subscribers! She sends an email twice a month with a roundup of the latest blog posts and recipes. For reference, email subscribers are worth an average of $1/subscriber per month. This is based on ad revenue from those subscribers visiting your website, commissions from affiliate links they may click, and sales of actual products and services you offer. If you are creating sponsored posts for brands, having an email list also increases the rates you can charge for sponsored content because you can include email marketing in your packages. Having an email list is a big deal!
Now this is where it gets really fun! My WHOLE THING is about creating a high-tech online business that supports you living a low-tech life! The KEY to that is having marketing systems that run on auto-pilot for you and make money around the clock without relying on you being actively present working.
Having a website with blog content is step one. Having an email list so you can communicate with your audience directly and off of social media is another key component.
The real sweet sauce though is PINTEREST! You can batch creating pins when you have the time and creative juices flowing, and schedule these to auto-publish for you! It *looks* like you’re being consistent online which keeps the views and the algorithms churning, while you’re out there living your best life OFFLINE.
What’s even better? Pinterest pins live for YEARS! Social media posts are kaput in less than 24hrs. All that work to create content just POOF gone to the algorithm graveyard. But Pinterest pins? Make these once with solid imagery and keywords, and these babies keep bringing you traffic FOR YEARS.
Pinterest is very seasonal so pins you make this year will come back around again next year for those same topics. Instead of your content creation time disappearing into the void, Pinterest content keeps building, like planting perennials that keep getting better every year vs annuals that poop out after one season. This is working smarter not harder!
I Want To Do This. Where Do I Start?
First of all, YAY!!! I’m so excited you want to take the next steps in your online business! Here is how to work with me if you want support on your campaign to an automated marketing system so you can have a high-tech online business that supports your low-tech offline lifestyle.Â
Hire me for 1:1 services
If you want the fast track so you can hit the ground running with a new website, email marketing, and Pinterest account, hire me to build it for you. We start off with a free clarity call to talk about your current online presence, how you make money online now, your design aesthetics, what your long term goals are, and if you want ongoing monthly support to run your online business.
I will create a custom proposal quote for you based on everything we discuss, and we can usually have your new website up and running in a few weeks. My signature service Forge website package starts at $3000 for a self hosted WordPress website and theme installation customized to your brand, and connected to your email marketing and Pinterest.
After your Forge website build, you have two options for ongoing support. You either get a key to the Feed Room with weekly coaching calls and support tickets to help you maintain your website, publish blog posts, and send newsletters yourself with my guidance. Or, you move to the Foundry where I do all that for you so you can focus on the front facing parts of your business you do best. Click here if you are interested in booking a clarity call to discuss 1:1 services.
Book a One Hour Strategy Session
This is best for when you really just need my eyeballs on your business to do what I do best as a Projector and see things from a different perspective. We can analyze your current marketing strategies and income streams and create a growth plan for you to move forward. You also get 1 week of implementation support via email to make sure you DO the things we plan for you. Click here to book a 1:1 strategy session.
Don’t Just Take It From Me
If you want to read more about this from Ruby’s POV, click here to read the blog post she wrote about starting her website, email, and Pinterest!
