As an academic that has studied innovation for 25 years, the one key thing that I have observed is that not all good ideas become successful products. A multitude of things can happen from the planning table to the marketplace. Given the high rate of failure in innovation, it is a particularly good feeling to have launched a blog that has improved and grown to become one of the most successful blogs in the agriculture and sustainability space. SAIFood is ranked as #2 on the list of sustainable agricultural blogs and websites for 2025.
Launching SAIFood
Ten years ago, my research assistant, Savannah Gleim and I, launched into the unknown as we published the very first SAIFood blog. We had spent time researching existing blogs in the space we intended to publish in and found there was a limited number that were focused on the core areas of sustainability, agriculture, innovation, and food. This gave us optimism that there was space and a need for our contributions.
After having developed strong academic communication skills, it was a challenge to write the blogs for most of the first year. We found a software program that would assess our blog and help us understand the readability level of it. Our first few blogs were written at a second-year level of a graduate degree, which was consistent with academic writing. When our goal was to be perhaps shorter and easier to read. Slowly and with help, we were able to write at a first and second year of an undergraduate degree level and now we consistently write at a high school level, which is what our target was. We want anyone to read our blogs and not finding it taxing.
Measuring success
When it comes to measuring our success, it has been hard, as how do you know if your message is really getting to the audience? One way we gauge this is, it through our Google Analytics. In the first half of SAIFood’s existence, viewers of SAIFood lander there based on a nice mix of organic search engine searches (28%), social media links (34%), direct traffic (user types in URFL or clicks a bookmark) which was a surprising 21% and then referral links and emails made up 9% and 5%.
In the latter 5 years, we have seen a large shift. We think we have been successful in reaching readers, as 51% of our traffic came from organic searches, which means our content is being searched and clearly, we are writing things people are searching. For example, last week with the increase consumer search for Canadian goods, former student Kinga Nolan’s blog on Canada Made and Product of Canada labeling saw great organic search numbers, despite being 3 years old. Another example of success is that 31% of traffic is now coming directly from typing in the URL and bookmarks. Social media and referral links make up another 11% and 6%. Over the course of the 10 years, we have had over 96,000 users and over 204,000 views. These are stats we are content with, given that we are not publishing everyday (1-2 times a week), and take hiatus during the summer and winter breaks.
Student blogs
We have now published over 500 blogs, of which many have been written by students. Students in one of my classes write blogs as an assignment, with the top ones being eligible for publication. It is always a joy to be able to share the publication link with the student authors. These students always thank me for publishing their blog. I am quite sure that most university students are not thanking other professors for making them do class assignments.
Top blogs
In the past decade, we have had a number of successful blogs. Below is a list of some of our top blogs, when they were published and authors:
There is a whole list of blogs we would love to draw attention to, but if we did so, it might end up being our whole catalogue. For the remainder of the month we will be sharing some of our top blogs, along with our favourites, and those that we just think deserve that second read.
Thanks to our readers!
I just want to say thank you to our readers, new and old, it is your time and interest in our blog articles which allows us to keep going. It also has given me and my staff the opportunity to expand our writing skills and more important our knowledge on a wider range of topics. Writing about such a variety of topics across sustainability, agriculture, innovation, and food has expanded my knowledge and awareness of important issues and topics. This benefits my students as I am able to draw on this when teaching and provide relevant examples for students. It has been a pleasure producing these blogs and making them publicly available. Helping to provide evidence and facts to issues that can often have a great deal of false information, is a crucial part of currently being an academic. Hopefully, the next decade of blogs is even more successful than the first.
