Best Practices for Hobbies & Interests Sites

Have you added Grow to your site, customized your appearance settings, and set up Co-Branded Sign Up, but don't know what to do next? If your site is in the hobbies and interests niche, we'll cover the best practices to make sure you're getting the most out of Grow!

• Not a hobbies and interests site? Check out our other Best Practice guides! 

Subscribe

Swap out all existing subscribe forms with Grow Subscribe forms to make sure you're obtaining reader consent to collect first-party data. There are several Subscribe form types to fit your desired set up:

• Spotlight Subscribe
• Pop Up Subscribe (It's Google-friendly; read more here!)
• Subscribe Manual Placement
• Click to Subscribe

Make sure your Subscribe forms are as specific as possible. Use the description to let subscribers know what kind of content to expect and how often they will receive it, and establish a personal connection with your readers.

If you have a free resource library, use your Subscribe forms to offer readers access in exchange for subscribing. Once they're subscribed, you can email them their access credentials for your library.

• Pro tip: Automate this by integrating Grow with your Email Service Provider!

Enable Subscribe Action Pack. These are additional opportunities for readers to subscribe appear when readers interact with Grow's widgets (like when they bookmark your posts for later) and can help you build your superfan audience more quickly.

If your site covers different hobbies or interests, such as knitting and crochet or birding and gardening, create category specific Subscribe forms then add them easily to the category's posts using Category Targeting.

• Pro tip: Set up multiple newsletters and deliver your readers the content they're most interested in. You can use your Email Service Provider Integration to tell Grow which newsletter to send for each individual Subscribe form!

Recommended Content

Enable What's Next on Mobile. Since most of your readers are on mobile devices, this increases the chances of them clicking through to a second or third post!

Inline Recommended Content and Sidebar Recommended Content will serve you best for desktop readers. If you have over 15% desktop traffic, you should enable at least one of these widgets.

DIY Card Save Button

If you're using Create, Tasty, or WordPress Recipe Maker cards for your crafting instructions, enable the Recipe Card Save Button feature — especially if you have a Jump to Card button.

This feature combined with Subscribe Action Pack can supercharge your subscription rate because readers who save the instructions will be prompted to subscribe!

• Pro Tip: If you're using any kind of Jump to Card feature, create and enable a Pop Up Subscribe form to ensure readers who skip your content are still asked to Subscribe!

Exclusive Content

Exclusive Content should be used for supplemental materials, like your patterns, favorite tool lists, seasonal guides, etc.

Place Exclusive Content widgets directly below your post's Most Valuable Content. Making sure you place Exclusive Content where the most readers can see it should lead to the best conversion rate.

Exclusive Content is a great way to offer free versions of your paid craft instructions to readers who don't opt into the purchase links placed in your content. They'll subscribe and consent to being served personalized ads to access the pattern after scrolling all the way through your post and your display ads.

You can read more about how to best use Exclusive Content on your site here!

Search

Grow's Search Experience can use your readers' Grow accounts to personalize their results and serve them the posts they're most likely to click. Provide your readers with the best experience possible and enable Search and set up Site Search Integration!