General Trick Blogger

So you’ve been blogging for a while. You’ve chosen a niche a topic that you’re passionate aboutand you’ve optimized your blog posts. You’ve become an authority bloggerwho generates organic traffic, and your visitors leave comments. But one questions still looms: how do you monetize your niche content?

If you’ve built your blog into the community of readers that a blog is supposed to be (and not vacuous content portal), then affiliate marketing might be your ticket to monetizing your content. Affiliate marketing offers bloggers an opportunity to promote products/services that are relevant to the community of readers they have built, and receive a commissions on any sales that they generate.

Simply put, affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing model. This means that publishers are rewarded for actual results. That is, publishers receive a commission for any sales or sign-ups that they refer to the advertiser.

Affiliate marketing aligns advertisers with the right publishers because there is no incentive for publishers to promote a product that their readers aren’t interested in. It’s a low-risk strategy for advertisers because their marketing budget isn’t consumed by invalid clicks or un-targeted impressions. It’s a great opportunity for bloggers because they can earn commissions by giving their readers the information that they’re looking for.

Unlike other webmasters, bloggers don’t just have visitors, they build communities. Blog readers come to you blog for niche content that they trust. When you blog about something, they know that you’re an independent third-party, and not a corporation with a loaded agenda.

This means that you have influence. You can use that influence to inform your readers about products/services that are relevant to them.

Making an online purchase is often daunting for consumers because there are so many alternatives. Between competing manufacturers and competing merchants, choosing what to buy and from where can be overwhelming.

As a blogger, you’re able to profit from helping in that purchasing decision. Simply:

Affiliate links often lead to pages where users can buy the product or similar one. By virtue of referring the user to site, you’ll make a commission on any purchase that that user subsequently makes.

Since you have a rapport of trust readers, endorsing a product will likely stimulate the reader’s interest in the product. That interest is much more likely to convert into a sale than simply placing a banner ad or button in your sidebar.

Also, blogs are so SEO friendly, so you’re also likely to pick up some organic traffic of visitors researching the product in question. Since those users are already looking into making a purchasing decisions, your endorsement can sway them one way or another, and you can subsequently make a commission off that sale.

The first thing to bear in mind as an “affiliate blogger” is that the affiliate marketing potential of a blog lies in trust. Consequently, if you explicitly endorse a product, you want to make sure that you’re comfortable putting your name behind it. After all, it can end up ruining your reputation

The second thing you need to remember is that you’re a blogger, not a salesman. Never allow product promotion to overrun your regular blogging mandate.

Your readers trust you because you’ve helped keep them informed. Once you stop doing that, they’ll stop coming. You must strike a balance, then, between product reviews and regular posts. You can, of course, always place affiliate banners and buttons in your sidebar, for example, under a heading such as “Products I Like” — just make sure you really like them.

Finally , affiliate marketing does not work with every blog topic. In fact, it works best with fast moving consumer goods.

A blog about travel could promote vacation packages or luggage, and a fashion blog could promote clothing. If you’re blogging about technology or blogging, however, it might be more challenging to products that your readers will be interested in buying while they’re on your site. You should always consider, then, what your readers are looking for when they’re on your blog and what moood they are in before you go out of your way to join affiliate programs and populate your blog with their links.

Chipotle Lime Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp Recipe

Yield: Makes 12 pieces.

Ingredients 12 large, raw, peeled and deveined shrimp 2 Tbsp olive oil Zest from 1 lime Juice from one lime (about 2 Tbsp) 1/4 teaspoon chipotle powder (or more to taste) 6 strips thin bacon, cut in half (12 pieces) Skewers (for grilling) or toothpicks (for oven)

Method

1 Mix together in a small bowl the lime zest, lime juice, olive oil, and chipotle powder. Put the shrimp in the lime chipotle mixture; make sure each piece is well coated.

2 Spread the bacon pieces out over several layers of paper towels on a microwave-safe plate. Cover with another layer of paper towel. Microwave on high until the bacon fat begins to melt but the bacon is still pliable, about 1 1/2 minutes.

3 Prepare grill on high, direct heat (if grilling) or preheat the oven to 450°F.

4 Working one at a time, wrap a half piece of microwaved bacon around each piece of shrimp. If you are grilling, thread the shrimp onto long, flat skewers (flat skewers make turning the shrimp on the grill easier). If you don’t have flat skewers, I’ve used two thin bamboo skewers (soaked in water for 30 minutes beforehand) to the same effect. If you are using the oven, secure each the bacon onto the shrimp with toothpicks. Place the bacon-wrapped shrimp on a slotted baking pan (lined with foil inside for easy cleaning). Brush remaining lime chipotle mixture on the outside of the bacon-wrapped shrimp.

5 Grill uncovered for 5 to 7 minutes on each side, or bake in the oven for 10-14 minutes, until shrimp is pink and the bacon is crisp.

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Company of Heroes was a game for true armchair generals. There was no resource collecting, no tank rushes, none of the hallmarks of other games that look like they’re about a clash of armies but are really little but mouse-driven sprint races.

Built around the concepts of cover and directional fire, suppression and morale, you had to use actual battlefield strategies if you wanted to succeed, and seven years on (the game was released in 2006), the formula is so perfect that it remains unchallenged, even by developer Relic’s semi-related Dawn of War series.

Seven years is a long time between wars, though, and now that we have a sequel, people are expecting a lot from this game, the first time Company of Heroes has ditched Western Europe for the Eastern Front. So what’s new?

The weather, for one. The Eastern Front was a brutal theatre of war, and the weather in this game wants to make sure it has more than a cosmetic effect. Snowstorms will slow your infantry and even kill them if they’re out in the open too long, while frozen rivers can be blown open to block passage or sink enemy forces.

The fact the Soviets are now playable is the main addition here, though, and also the most disappointing.

CoH2’s campaign does not live up the standards set by the original game and its expansions. It begins too slowly and, even worse, is drenched from beginning to end in an awkward veneer of moralising, as Relic attempt to justify the fact you’re playing as an army “not as bad as the Germans because they’re on our side” by putting you in the shoes of a dissident aghast at the Soviet’s shocking brutality.

It doesn’t work.

The cutscenes, rendered using crude 3D models (see above), are hammy like a bad 70s war movie, their grim tone is at odds with the ragdoll action in the missions and it’s all dreadfully dull, making the campaign’s story as insufferable as (sorry) a cold Russian winter.

Another problem with the campaign is that it attempts to shoe-horn several new features into the game in the name of factional authenticity, like an endless supply of conscripts and NKVD officers who shoot retreating soldiers. These feel crudely implemented, as they do little but upset the balance of the game (the former, as you can brute force your way to victory) and simply add one more arbitrary meter to the screen you need to look out for (the latter).

The campaign doesn’t even make the most of the new weather conditions, with only a handful of missions making any significant use of frozen rivers and only a single one challenging you with troop-killing snow.

It’s only towards the end of the 14-mission campaign, when you get a fantastic small-scale partisan mission and a few good “proper” battles (where you’re free to build a whole army and take over the map) that it finds its feet.

Lucky, then, the campaign is a glorified tutorial that you’ll soon forget once you get into the real meat of the game.

That used to be CoH’s excellent multiplayer (where you can also play as the Germans), which was as enjoyable with/against friends as it was skirmishing against the AI. That remains the case with the sequel, only now it’s even better, the bad weather conditions so overlooked in the main game a blast in multiplayer, as the struggle to just keep your men alive, let alone fighting, turns many old strategies on their head.

The real draw here, though, is a new, third game mode that combines singleplayer and multiplayer into something fresh for the series, something that – wait for it – you’ll be familiar with if you’ve played Call of Duty recently.

It’s called Theater of War, and like CoD’s Spec Ops mode, it presents the player with a number of scenarios they can tackle either alone or co-op with a friend, ranging from battles with specific conditions to focused objectives like holding a small base against waves of enemy attacks.

Having ditched the narrative of the campaign and without the “blank canvas” of a multiplayer match it might sound like a middling stepchild, but in truth it’s a mode that brings out the very best in the game. Free of the campaigns blunt story and yet providing a little more focus to multiplayer (or skirmish, as Relic refreshingly make AI battles a prominent option), it’s easily the most fun I’ve had with a real-time strategy game in years.

Outside the campaign is also where the Soviets are most enjoyable, as you’re able to use some of their monstrously massive equipment when and how you want, instead of at the whims of the campaign.

Before I wind this up, I want to point something out that you don’t normally get to do in a strategy game review: this game is explosive. The sound in this game is incredible, more like something you’d get in a Hollywood war movie than a top-down strategy game, and it really adds to a feeling of immediacy with the battlefield that’s already strong thanks to all the mud, dirt, bodies and debris that go flying around.

Company of Heroes 2 isn’t the revolution its predecessor was. Too much remains the same (down to the battle UI), and too much of the Soviet faction, particularly its employment in singleplayer, is a disappointment.

But you know what, that’s OK. There are many, myself included, who would argue the basic design underpinning the original was almost perfect, and it’s still there. Adding more stuff on top of that, some of it not so great, most of it (like Theater of War) excellent, is about what you’d expect from a video game sequel.

In the end, then, think of Company of Heroes 2 as the embodiment of the thing it’s trying to recreate, namely the Soviet’s advance into Germany. Blunt, and wasteful in parts, but in the end an overwhelming success.

Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters. Photograph: FilmMagic

Do they know it’s not 1999 any more? Post-shock Children In Need reformation, sprawling turn-of-the-millennium pop squadron S Club 7 will take to the road for a highly ambitious 11-date arena tour (7-21 May, tour starts LG Arena, Birmingham) …

Meanwhile, back in the present day, M&S ad soundtrackers and Band Aid 30 string section Clean Bandit have announced a small UK tour for the spring (8-13 Mar, tour starts Corn Exchange, Cambridge) …

More acts have been revealed for the Bugged Out Weekender , with Four Tet, B Traits and Optimo now all on board (16-18 Jan, Butlins Bognor Regis) …

Finally, Killer Mike and El-P – AKA rap duo Run The Jewels – have announced a lone London date (7 Jun, The Forum, NW5).

A new essay in the magazine First Things could mark a watershed retreat by conservative Christians

By Damon Linker   | November 21, 2014

Gay marriage could be pushing the religious right out of the public square. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

W hat a difference 10 years can make.

In the weeks following George W. Bush’s re-election to the presidency in November 2004, with exit polls saying that the election had been decided by voters who were moved primarily by “moral values,” the religious right felt giddy. Its push to get states to adopt referenda banning same-sex marriage had been wildly successfuland helped to mobilize conservatives. With the greatest political champion the movement had ever known assured of four more years in the White House, the religious right began to dream of passing an amendmentto the U.S. Constitution that would permanently define marriage in traditionalist terms.

Fast forward to November 2014.

The federal marriage amendment is dead. Many of the laws and state-level constitutional amendments passed in 2004 have been overturned by judges. Same-sex marriage is allowed in well over half the statesin the union. The religious right arguably has less power within the Republican Party than at any time since before Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign for president.

And now First Things , the intellectually formidable monthly magazine that played a decisively important rolein formulating the interdenominational and interreligious ideology that once galvanized the religious right, has decided to pick up its marbles and go home.

Maybe I’m overstating the significance of a brief articlepublished on the First Things website earlier this week, but I don’t think so. Authored by editor R.R. Reno, “A Time to Rend” appears to put the magazine’s moral and intellectual weight (which remains considerable on the religious right) behind a movementthat calls on churches to cease administering civil marriages.

That’s right, the magazine founded by the late Richard John Neuhaus to fight secularism and champion religiously grounded moral arguments in the public square now thinks that priests and ministers should refuse to participate in marrying parishioners by presiding at wedding ceremonies and signing state marriage licenses. I mean, sure, they would still perform private wedding ceremonies in churches. But those couples would then have to get married a second time at city hall to become married in the eyes of their home state and (via the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution) the rest of the nation.

The reason Reno has taken this draconian position is, of course, the widespread acceptance of same-sex marriage. Up until the past few years, conservative priests and ministers have presumed that what the state means by the term “marriage” is roughly equivalent to what the church means by it: a one-flesh union between two people of different genders ultimately oriented toward the generation of children (even if this proves impossible for a given couple stricken by infertility or another obstacle to childrearing).

A disjunct between ecclesiastical and civil marriage opened up in the 1960s and ’70s with the liberalization of divorce law, but not enough to lead the churches to rethink the sacred-civic alliance. Roman Catholics were always free, for example, to add additional ecclesiastical notions of marriage on top of those presumed by the state. A Catholic could file for a civil divorce, but the church was free not to recognize it as valid and to proclaim that the partners could go their separate ways, remarry, and remain in good standing with the church only if they received a Vatican-approved annulment.

The controversies currently roilingthe Catholic Church involve Pope Francis’ seeming desire to smooth over these post-’60s tensions between civil and ecclesiastical notions of marriage by bringing the church into closer conformity with secular-civic norms of when and how marriages can be dissolved.

First Things is proposing a radical move in the opposite direction. The use of the word “rend” in the title of the essay is theologically significant. In addition to the violence of the image itself, which involves tearing or ripping of fabric, there is its meaning in the Jewish tradition, which calls on Jews to rend a garment as a demonstration of grief at the death of a loved one. This gesture can also be used as an expression of disgust at a family member or other member of the community who has committed a grave offense. When a garment is rent in such cases, the offending party is henceforth treated as if he were dead.

Reno would seem to be saying that conservative Christians need to tear themselves away from secular-civil notions of marriage, mourn the death of genuine marriage in American public life — and perhaps even utter a curse against what remains of it.

It’s also important to grasp what Reno isn’t saying. He isn’t declaring, “No matter how many states permit same-sex marriage, churches should never be forced by the government to perform them.” That would be a position that all liberals, religious and secular, should be able to affirm, since it would permit churches and clerics who are pro–same-sex marriage to preside over such marriages while also allowing those who reject their validity to remain true to their beliefs.

Reno seems to believe that the institution of civil marriage has been so compromised and defiled that churches will get their hands dirty by participating in it at all, even when the wedding involves a traditional marriage between a man and a woman, and even if the husband and wife pledge to live their lives and raise their children in full conformity with church teaching.

This is an astonishing proposal that would signal an unprecedented retreat of theologically conservative churches from engagement in American public life. That it is being put forward by a magazine dedicated, until now, to halting and reversing that retreat is extraordinary — and a particularly striking sign of the religious right’s rapid collapse into a defensive, sectarian subculture.

It’s also an indication that if the religious right is to have any future at all, it lies in the direction of the largely apolitical ” Benedict Option” championed by The American Conservative ‘s Rod Dreher. Inspired by Catholic philosopher Alasdair McIntyre, this vision suggests that conservative Christians should give up the ambition to remake and redeem the morally polluted common life of the country in favor of a drive to preserve and protect Christian virtues and families from the corruption of an increasingly aggressive secular culture and state, much as St. Benedict founded Western monasticism in the early sixth century to preserve Christian civilization amidst the ruins of the crumbling Roman Empire.

In some ways, this sounds like a return to the early decades of the 20th century, when fundamentalist Protestants lost an earlier round in the culture war with theological modernists, and responded by withdrawing almost entirely into the shadows, which is where they remained until the late 1970s.

Yet there is at least one important difference between then and now: this time conservative evangelicals may be joined, or even led, in their retreat by millions of Catholics. That would be a monumental change.

And it may well have begun this week.

Heavenly Strawberry Layer Cake, Sugaree’s Bakery – New Albany, MS

The first annual Atlanta Food and Wine Festival has now wrapped, and the inaugural weekend for food and wine lovers was delicious and fun down to the last slice…

61 Culinary All Stars from 13 states descended on Atlanta over the weekend to celebrate authentic, Southern food and drink from every decadent, tantalizing angle.

Housemade Sodas — Miller Union, credit: David Naugle

Unique Eats power-contributor siblings, Ted and Matt Lee, took time away from eating to share Southern tips and tricks at their cooking demo before serving up a major Southern Supper at Miller Union with Exec Chef, Steven Satterfield (formerly at Watershed).

Fan-fave Cheftestant and Executive Chef of the Woodfire Grill, Kevin Gillespie , curated a deep porcine dive in his Whole Pig Tent.

Kevin & Pig Tatt in our Grilling Videos here…

Kevin led the charge with eight chefs to serve up creative and delicious cuts of the pig from snout to trotter.  If the pig’s feet pancakes ( pictured below ) didn’t speak to you, there was plenty of pork belly for all.

Delicate Corn Cakes Topped with Pig’s Feet — The Whole Pig Tent

Miss Kevin after his Quickfire days? Catch his new, exclusive Secrets of How to Grill series here .

Otherwise, it was an unforgettable weekend of Southern Decadence :

Pimento Cheese Toasts — The Hungry Peach

Road Trip’ing with Local Fave Sweetwater Brewery

This little Airstream Land Yacht HAS to be on the next season of our new series, Eat St .

Tiny, Tasty Alabama Tea Cakes — To Die For

Sad to see the Airstream roll but we can’t wait for the 2nd Annual ATL Food & Wine Fest next year:

Thanks, Atlanta! The 1st Annual Food & Wine Fest was a hit.

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Remember those retro fish molds? I have two of them, both of which I have used to make this salmon mousse over the years. But try as I may, it’s almost impossible to make salmon mousse in a fish mold look good. These days I take the easy way and just pour the mousse mixture into serving bowls, chill until set, and serve. This doesn’t mean the fish molds are retired, I just have to be up for a decorating challenge if I use them again. In any case, this is an easy-to-make, delicious salmon mousse, not too rich, and quite flavorful. The recipe comes from my friend Tina Seelig’s book The Epicurean Laboratory, now long out of print (but a great book if you can get a hold of a used copy.) This mousse was presented to a flock of teenagers who hungrily ate it up with loud exclamations of “This is GREAT!”

Salmon Mousse Recipe

Prep time: 6 hours, 25 minutes Yield: Serves 12 as an appetizer.

You can either pour the salmon mousse mixture into a mold, and then chill it and un-mold it when set, or you can pour the salmon mousse mixture into crocks, tureens, or attractive bowls and serve it as is.

Ingredients 1 lb freshly cooked or canned boneless salmon 1/2 cup diced celery 1/2 cup diced green pepper 1/4 cup finely chopped onion 3 Tbsp chopped fresh dill 1/2 cup mayonnaise 1/2 cup plain yogurt 1 8 oz package of cream cheese 1 can concentrated tomato soup or 8 ounces of puréed tomato sauce Tabasco sauce 3 Tbsp lemon juice 3/4 cup cold water 4 teaspoons (2 envelopes) unflavored, unsweetened gelatin One greased or stick-free 6 cup mold, or a few serving bowls.

Method

1 In a bowl, mix salmon, celery, green pepper, onion, dill, mayonnaise, yogurt, lemon juice.

2 In a saucespan, melt the cream cheese. Add the tomato soup or tomato sauce and continue cooking over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Add several dashes of Tabasco sauce. Pour the cream cheese and tomato soup mixture into the salmon mixture and mix thoroughly.

3 Pour the cold water into a small pot and stir in the gelatin. Be sure to use cold water. Gelatin needs this to disperse properly. Slowly heat the water and gelatin just until the gelatin dissoves. Do not boil the gelatin or it will not gel properly. Add the dissolved gelatin to the salmon mixture and mix well. Pour the mixture into a decorative mold or into serving bowls and refrigerate for 6 hours, or until firm.

4 If using a decorative mold, unmold the salmon mousse by placing the bottom of the mold in hot water for a few seconds and turn the mold over onto a large serving dish to release the mousse. The surface of the mousse may appear a bit ragged. If you cover with plastic wrap and re-chill in the refrigerator, it should become more smooth.

Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Serve salmon mousse with sliced avocados, celery sticks, lettuce leaves, tomatoes, olives, slices of baguette, and/or crackers.

Hello! All photos and content are copyright protected. Please do not use our photos without prior written permission. If you wish to republish this recipe, please rewrite the recipe in your own unique words and link back to the source recipe here on Simply Recipes. Thank you!

Recipe adapted from The Epicurean Laboratory.

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