Gourmet Station, Donna Lynes-Miller

posted: October 28, 2006 10:42 PM

1.1.8 Company: Gourmet Station

Blogger: Donna Lynes-Miller
Student Interviewer: Krystle Randall
Blog: www.gourmetstationblog.com

Donna Lynes-Miller is Founder and President of Gourmet Station, the premise of the website is that the company brings a fine dining experience to the customer.  Gourmet Station sells fine meals and accessories on its website.

Donna described how everything on the blog has to be consistent with the brand.  She moderates the comments and makes sure those comments are consistent with the brand.  No profanity or unrelated comments are allowed on the blog. Donna explained that “everything has got to be very buttoned up, we have a very buttoned up brand, and we have a very upscale brand, very upscale, well educated customers. So anything that goes out there has to be consistent with that.” The blog also allows the company to discuss their content in a laid back tone.  That content has produced higher rankings on search engines and helped to increase traffic to the blog by 10%.

Donna believes it to be important that the people who write on the blog are knowledgeable about food and wine.  The blog's readers are looking for ideas around food, drink, and entertainment.

The blog has helped Donna's company add content to their website on the topics and products the company is focused on providing.  Also, the blog has given Donna the ability to place content that they otherwise would not have been able to put on their website.  Donna said it was important that a company covers all of the topics they wish to cover in their blog posts, and to categorize those topics by keyword.

The Gourmet Station blog has achieved a number two ranking on the keyword "gourmet dinners" in Yahoo! The blog has played a big part in helping the company to achieve that ranking.  According to Donna, the blog has also helped establish the company's brand and provide more sales conversions by making a "passionate connection" with readers.

The topic that generates the most conversation and interaction from readers on the blog is romance.  Donna said that made sense, as the search volumes for romance and dinner have a great connection.

Donna selects the content of the posts by season.  Donna said the blog has 14 categories, and the company always has a recent post in each of the categories.  

Donna recommends a company have a strategy before starting to blogging.  Her company has two strategies: to fill their categories with content and to increase they’re ranking on search engines.

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» Appendix 1.0 Corporate Blogger Interview Summaries from Blogging Success Study
Each student interviewed two corporate bloggers in a recorded session.  Each student transcribed one interview for course credit; the remaining interviews were transcribed by Megan Dickinson of Backbone Media, Inc.   Rather than provide ... [Read More]

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