Review/comment on my new cooking blog

http://www.thedormchef.com

I'm new to blogspot and blogging in general so I'm not really sure how far I can go with the customization of the google ads, so any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

I'm also wondering where, if anywhere, could I go to try and promote my blog? I've got about 300+ hits in the blog's four day history, which is obviously nothing to brag about. I'm currently posting snippits of the recipes on two different forums and I link to a new recipe every day in my facebook status. Not sure what else to do to get my blog out there, so I would really appreciate some help with this.

If you have any opinions on the content, that would be great too.

Edit:

Also, I haven't done this in a while, but I think I remember there being some kind of html tag that you could use to make certain key words stick out which would help make the ads more relevant to the content on your site. Can someone post a link on how to do this?

 

no comments at all?

 

Hi, I don't see any Adsense text ads inside articles. Try adding some in the beginning and at the end of an article but don't use too many elements. Those are the best places according to my experience.

Haven't heard about that kind of keyword tag before!

 

Is there a way to do that with the blogger website, or do I just need to copy and paste the code inside of the article?

 

Put an ad unit IN the content. Also, don't psot the full article son your front page. Use summaries and force a click-through.

 

Man, I really don't know how to do any of that. I would look it up myself, but I don't even know what I would search for.

So how do I post half of the article and force a click through like you said? Is there an option on blogspot to do that, or what? Also, do I have to manually put an ad into every post I make, or is there a way to do it automatically?

 

Don't worry too much about adsense now. Try to first rank for various keywords and get some good inbound links.
Food bloggers are a passionate bunch and they will happily link to you if u post regularly and comment on their blogs.. But they are also put off by too much ad.

Start putting the ad after u have got all the links..

 

Sounds like a good idea to me.

So what is the proper etiquette when posting on other people's blogs so that they could link to yours?

For instance, which of the following is the best route?

1) Email the author of a blog and ask them to do a link exchange (ie: hello, I would like to review your site and link to it from my blog if you would be willing to do the same)

2) Comment on one of their blogs and ask them to check out my site as well (would this be seen as spamming?)

Or is there some other way to go about it? I think I'm just really hesitant about giving myself or my site a bad reputation. I really don't want to go around putting ads up all over the place or spamming my site on every food blog I find. I want to do this the right way this time because I feel like this blog could actually go somewhere if I keep it up.

Thanks for any and all help, I really do appreciate it.

 

Don't ask...
Not for link exchange, not visiting.

Visit and leave comments often enough and he.she will visit for sure. And not just him or her but other food blogger who LOVE to comment and read them..

They will visit you and and will link to you naturally. Trust me...
Just get yourslef known in the comment networks

 

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