 Hi everybody. Are we stuffed? It's a shame we came after lunch because now everybody is full and I'm going to be talking about food. But yeah, I'm from Zimbabwe Kitchen. It's a food blog. I don't know how many of us have been on Zimbabwe Kitchen or have heard about it. Tips on monetizing your passion. For me, cooking is a passion and so I had to find a platform where I could share that passion. I know many of us have got different passions. Some can be monetized depending on how you present it or where you are and some may need to move to something else in order to monetize if that's what you're after. One of the simplest and easiest ways to monetize your passion is through the use of technology such as having platforms like WordPress. Okay, so I'm just going to give you a brief history on house in the kitchen started. We began in 2012, so this is our sixth year. So we just started in our home kitchen just with what we had, you know, because just one day my husband and I were just talking about the Zimbabwe women and men. What would interest them and in line with what I like to do and how can we put it out there for everybody to appreciate it. We've got three daughters. So one of the things I was thinking about is I need some way where I can share my recipes with them in the event that I'm no longer there and they need to learn how to cook. They can always go online. Number two, we've got a lot of young people who don't know how to cook and grownups as well and not to just cook anything but also our Zimbabwean food. If you ask a 16 year old who should be able to cook by now, how do you make pumpkin leaves, moboda, for example? They won't know how to or how do you make mazuwondo cowhills? They'll struggle. So the website is a platform where they'll be able to go on there. When we started it was step by step tutorial, tutorial. So you could see it each and every stage. This is what it should look like now. This is what it should look like now and your final result. So we decided that we also needed, you know, we've got a lot of relatives and family and friends in the diaspora and they get, some are getting married there and so we've got in-laws that are not Zimbabwean that may want to know how do we prepare our dishes? How do we do our food and want to surprise their spouses or, you know, teach their children? And so Zimbabwean is also a platform where others that are in the international community can access and see what Zimbabwean food is about. We were featured on CNN African Startup, the webpage for showcasing Zimbabwean food. So it's something that people want to know what, you know, different cultures. If you go to Dubai, for example, you want to experience their food there. What do they eat? You know, you don't want to go and eat burgers and fries because that's common everywhere. So if people come to Zimbabwe, they want to know what do people eat here and try that and taste it. And if they want to go back and replicate it, they can also do it using the recipes we have on site. So we decided to choose a domain. The name, of course, Zimbabwean representing Zimbabwean kitchen. What happens in the Zimbabwean kitchen? So you find that we do have other recipes of things that are not traditionally Zimbabwean because we have the ingredients in the supermarkets and we have embraced the other cuisines as well. So you do have recipes on pasta, on rice and all that because it's things that we do eat as Zimbabweans and as well, hosting of the site. Then we had to choose the content management system. At this stage, I want to hand it over to Arthur and then he's going to take you through a bit how we then progressed. Okay, on the, sorry, good afternoon everyone. So on the content management system, it was quite natural for us to go with WordPress because even prior to launching Zimbabwe kitchen, I had been working with WordPress on other projects that I was doing. So it was a natural transition in terms of now applying it on Zimbabwe kitchen. So obviously, the next thing was once we decided on the CMS, the theme we're going to use. At that time, I wasn't really like a developer. So we had to go on theme forest. I think that's where we bought our first theme, which wasn't really even customized for Zimbabwe kitchen specifically. It was just a recipe theme as you know, it's got fields where you put your ingredients and whatnot concerning, you know, publishing recipes. So that's what we bought and we installed on the site. The focus was to really get going. So it wasn't so much about being held back about what content management system to use, what theme it must be, but wanted to get the word out as quickly as possible. So obviously WordPress being what it is, very easy to install and get started. It was a natural choice and then we got such a, also a simple theme that would go with that and we started publishing. Key things that he mentioned obviously as we started was the support. As you know, WordPress changes the new versions that come, themes change in response to new version updates. So there was need for constant support to the website. So great issues that we talked about in the morning. So some of these things are already new, but then, you know, I had to do a bit of more reading in order to be able to give support to the website. That also included the customization in certain areas that we needed to customize the website or the blog. But this of course happened gradually as time progressed. It didn't happen right at the beginning, 2012. Like I said, we just got a theme. We installed WordPress and started running. So as the years progressed, that's when we looked into issues of customization. Initially we had somebody whom we hired, a developer who was also a friend, but also paid for the work to do any support work, any serious support work that we needed to do. But as I trained myself reading online, I then began to learn also how to do manual backups, downloading files via FTP, baking up the database and things like that. Even though we're also using plugins, you know, to bake up the site, but we also had the manual process of baking up the site. Most important of all was monetization, which I must emphasize, we didn't think about that at the beginning. What was important was to get the message out, to communicate the content, and then get people interested in what we're doing, and then we began to think about monetization. So obviously the way we would approach it, it was talked about in the morning is that we had a consistent pattern of publishing our content. Sort of like we trained our audience to expect content every day when we started we're publishing every day. So the strategy that we took was that whatever we're eating that day, we converted into a recipe for the blog. So that way we generated a lot of content over a very short period of time, and people began to expect something every day from us. So that way we quickly begin to build an audience. We went on First Book, the social media to support that effort. Social media, Facebook in particular, being what it is, people are on banners and things like that. It was much easier for them to connect with the recipes than coming to the site itself. So those are the strategies that we use. So monetization then came in naturally. I think we began to get calls from brands who recognized the work that we were doing. I don't know the earlier ones. I think we did a very big gig with National Foods. You may know there's a product that they released called Chimodo. It's a mix. Chimodo is like a band. I don't know the younger ones. That used to be very popular. So National Foods were trying to reach out to appeal to this population with that remix. So they called us in. We started to do specific gigs for them to develop the recipe, which they then eventually converted into a product for the shop. We did quite a number of things with them. So basically the point being the blog itself is what made these corporate organizations recognize the work that we're doing. So that's when the monetization aspect kicked in. I know some other bloggers do monetize using Google Adsense, but frankly Google Adsense did not pay much or even now it doesn't pay much. Simply because of the region that we are in, the ads that appear there, they end very later, even when you convert. So it has never been our main line of monetization. What we have done is apart from the corporates that require our services, we have also focused on developing our own products. If you've come across some of the books, the digital books that we do, now we have got subscription-based services on WhatsApp. All those are spin-offs from the blog itself. So the blog is more like the central place where you find Zimbo Kitchen, and we have used that to build credibility, trust, and following, which we then have converted into money, if you want to put it straight, bluntly. SEO search engine organization was also critical, and I think that's one great thing about WordPress. I think from the start it was just built to be search engine friendly. So even before you start doing your own SEO on it, it's already optimized for search engines. So when we installed, when we continued to use WordPress as CMS, I think at the beginning we did put some plug-ins, but there are basic things that you can do. I think one of the presenters in the morning, she spoke about the paymer links. Those are basic things of optimization. So much that even if you don't do much just by getting the paymer links correct, you can get your blog properly ranked. And that is important, especially for us as well, because now, even right now in this room, if you go on Google, if you want to go on Google and search how to make sardza, and you see what comes up is number one result. So Zimbo Kitchen, go on Google.com, search how to make sardza. I think there's a video that comes up for you and the blog post itself. And it's been there on the first position for years. And in the search engine optimization industry, it's well known that it's tough to maintain number one position because of the competition out there, but because of the content and the relevance to our audience, it's been there for a long time. Social media also played a very important role. I mentioned earlier, Facebook is where we have a major presence. We've been on and off Twitter, mainly because of the audience there. I think at this point in time, Facebook seems to be the one that delivers quite well on our strategy. So that's what it's been in as far as the tech side of it. So in a nutshell, my role as Zimbo Kitchen is to give Rumbi the tech support that she needs. The story is that I then developed myself to become a developer, WordPress developer and also other development languages that I use. I'll end over to Rumbi. Thank you. Okay. So I'm just going to give a few tips on how you can improve on your blog or and eventually monetize it. First thing is to identify a niche area. Like I mentioned, when we started Zimbo Kitchen in 2012, if you tried to search for any Zimbabwe dish, you wouldn't find anything. If you tried to search for Maguro, how do I cook Maguro? For example, you would be, Google will just grab a Japanese guy because, you know, Japanese and Shona somehow, they're kind of the same. So you get profiles of Japanese folks and that's not what you want. But now if you search for how to cook Maguro, you get what you want. So find your niche area. What is it that's low hanging fruit that you can jump on and start working on? I was speaking to somebody yesterday and he was saying, maybe I should start blogging too. And I was like, what do you enjoy doing? And he said, I like traveling, but I have to improve or increase my profile on traveling. I have to go around some more before I start. And I was like, no, you can start with Zim and then increase on the different countries that you visit as you go because he was saying, if you go online now and you try to find out about different areas in Zim for tourism, there isn't much information. So find a niche area. What's missing? What's your target market? Who do you want to communicate to and go for it? Then build an audience. As Arthur was saying, that when we started then we were posting every day because people want to know that your blog or site is reliable. So build an audience, post as often as you can, and something that is of relevance that people would want to hear, which also touches on consistency in content. And then become an authority in your chosen niche area. Research, do more research on whatever it is that you're writing about. Build yourself and become the authority. Be the go-to person in that niche that you've chosen. And then of course, use of multimedia, you know, a lot of visuals are good for people when they want to learn or checking out something. So photography, videos, now we've gifts. Yeah, all of that is good on your blog. Also, email, embed email, mailing list with your blog. Get the details of the people that come to your site and then create a relationship with them. Because on my mailing list, I communicate with the people that are there. And then when you have a product that you want to promote and you send it to them, they are confident to get it because you communicate with them. I would have people, if you wanted to sell a book on Facebook, for example, some people would then say, how do we know you're not going to sell our money? Because they were not on the mailing list. They didn't know what simple kitchen is about. So create a mailing list, have a relationship with your, with the people on your list, and you can monetize as you go. And then of course, use WordPress because it's simple. It's a plug and play kind of thing. And you'll be on your way, sit. So that is basically it. That is invocation for you. I'll be ready to take any questions. If you don't mind, I just want to add something concerning mailing list. I think there's a tip just to emphasize what we'll be saying. If you're blogging, make sure you, from day one, start collecting email addresses. Okay. Develop a package into fitness, I think, Fitness Bear. I'm not sure I've been on your blog briefly. I mean, for you, I see what you're doing. You can put together a giveaway, for example, just a simple giveaway, maybe three exercises or 10 exercises, okay, in a PDF nicely designed with the graphics, package it and use that to collect email addresses. For example, you can say if you sign up, then I'll give you this free package, which gives you maybe a seven day exercise program, something like that. Over time you collect that, you find that you have a loyal audience at your building over time. Even when you don't have an idea of what product you want to have. When you have that product, that mailing list is going to be a gold mine for you. Okay. You can take it as I've said, a gold mine for you. I'll give you an example. When we did our first PDF book, the idea was to send an email and then say we have released a book. This book, I think at that time it was real US dollars, five dollars or something, $4.99. It was $9 actually when we started. This was real dollars, okay. And then we had to shoot an email to say we have got the book that is ready. So that day we just took it as a casual day in the morning. We shot the email. I tell you we're not able to eat or to bath until 5 p.m. Because of the purchases that were happening. It was a manual purchase when someone was sending eco cash, then you have to go onto the platform. We're using eJunkie and then send a download link for someone to download their ebook. So throughout the day, I think that day we made a thousand dollars by the end of the day because of the sales that we're just coming in. So a mailing list is critical if you are thinking about monetizing your blog in the future. It doesn't have to be today when you start selling. But people, trust me, people remain on your mailing list as long as you are providing valuable content for years to come. We have people that have been on our mailing list since the beginning. Now it's about six years. And these are loyal customers that we sell to. We are not just selling because we want to sell or get money out of them, but we are exchanging dollars for value. Okay. Questions? Any questions? Thank you. Thank you very much. So on that one, if you want to compare, when we started, that's another thing. I just want to quickly comment and say, don't let anything stop you to get started. I think if you go to the archives and dig way back, 2012, you'll see the images that we have there are quite different from what we have today. So it's because when you started, we had a point and shoot camera. So we just started to get started. It's been a project on the cards. We are doing it slowly to go back and update the old images. But the point is we wanted to get started with not allow equipment to stop us. So from the money that we made over time, we invested in camera equipment and all that we need to continue investing in the business. If you want to talk about what's up, if you will. Okay. Just quickly, the WhatsApp platform. It's another spin off. It's a subscription based platform where I send recipe ideas. So it's it would be a picture and a recipe. And you're free to ask questions on the recipe as well as pace three lessons. Also, it's a different package. I've got different packages. So I've got the recipe ideas. I've got pace three lessons. And those ones are step by step pictorial. And then I've got fundamentals of cooking classes. So the very basics. Well, you would be surprised. It includes things like knife skills and spices and herbs and all that to, yeah, just get somebody off when they're cooking to know what they're doing in the kitchen. You know, what we've realized is that with the platform and the audience that it has created and the opportunities that we are seeing, the sky is the limit. There's an opportunity to branch into all kinds of things. It's all about when we are ready to do that. That includes TV. That includes publications, physical copies of books. I think the culinary industry is quite huge. And, you know, it's just big. Yeah. So for the future, we do have, you know, we want to be in future. So we do have sort of a roadmap of where we want to get to. But what I can say right now is that once you build credibility, that, you know, we are happy with the feedback. I think you can take it anyway. And also, as I said earlier, is shown by the brands themselves that sell the great ingredients that the consumers consume.