Eat Blog Talk

In episode 459, Allison Ferraro teaches us the importance of not making excuses when it comes to reaching our goals, and other easy mindset hacks to grow our blogs while keeping a healthy work-life balance. Allison is the recipe developer and food photographer behind the baking blog, Always Eat Dessert. What began as a fun hobby back in 2014 while she pursued a career in advertising became a much-needed creative outlet when she left her job to be a stay at home mom and is now a full-fledged business sharing scratch baking recipes and baking tips. Allison lives in Philadelphia, PA with her husband, Alex, and their two children. In this episode, you'll learn how to cultivate the right mindset to build a successful blog while staying sane amidst various responsibilities, including goal-setting tips and focusing on a lucrative income stream before you diversify. - Stop making excuses. Don't wait for the perfect moment to make your dreams come true. - Prioritize your goals and focus on just one at a time. - Go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket - focus on one income stream at a time. - To make a real difference, avoid shiny object syndrome. - Know what to do and where to focus when your traffic goes down. - When you feel overwhelmed, go back to your WHY - Why do you want to be a food blogger? - Set lots of small goals that lead up to your larger goals, and then celebrate every time you achieve one of your goals. - What is your next area of focus? Connect with Allison Ferraro Website | Instagram

In this bonus episode, Megan chats to Melissa Erdelac about why advanced food bloggers are falling through the cracks and how to access the info we actually need. In particular, they explain how their new initiative, The Flavor Media Summit, can help. It is a two day workshop-style event taking place May, 2nd and 3rd of 2024 in Denver. Their goal is to ensure that attendees actually walk away with a TON of value information. Given that food blogging has made quite the transformation over the past decade, going from narrative, creative, fun hobby sites to a massive income-driven industry, it's easy to become overwhelmed, and sometimes stagnant, as you progress along your journey. While content creation can be a solo-preuneuer endeavor, conferences have been the catalyst for countless collaborative connections. Plus, attending an in-person event causes a major trajectory shift in mindset. Inspiration from others' success unleashes our own personal brands' potential! However, once Megan and Melissa's businesses were established and generating growing revenues, they found these events still sparked personal connections, but didn't offer revelatory content for monetized food bloggers. That's why they decided to create an intimate conference for advanced food bloggers to give everyone an opportunity to nurture long-term connections and receive highly valuable content, including business tactics they can implement immediately. In this episode, you'll learn more about how the Flavour Media Summit can help you grow your business even further. - Mastermind groups and retreats provide bloggers with a good return on their investment. - The Flavor Media Summit combine the benefits of mastermind groups and retreats at an affordable price. - Stay on top of Google updates, AI and other changes in the blogging industry. - The FM Summit will be in a smaller setting than a large conference to allow attendees to network easily. - Speakers will deliver information in a transparent and practical way so that it is easy to implement straightaway. - Be willing to share information with fellow bloggers and learn from them. About Flavor Media Summit Website | Instagram

In episode 458, Megan chats to Laura Scherb about how Substack can be used as a replacement for a blog to monetize our recipes or as an additional tool to drive traffic. Laura is a food photographer, stylist, and writer based in Chicago, IL. Since 2017, she's been taking pictures of food. Laura has created imagery for food blogs, restaurants, CPG brands, and cookbooks. Laura's photography and styling have been featured on The FeedFeed, The TODAY Show, Esquire, The Spruce Eats, Eater, and FoodGawker. Aside from food photography, she's passionate about travel, reading, writing, her cats, natural wine, and her nieces and nephew. Laura also runs a newsletter over on Substack where she enjoys talking about all of those things. In this episode, you'll learn how to get started on Substack, how much money can you expect to make and who will benefit most from using the platform. - What is the difference between an email list and a Substack? - Share recipes, stories and opinions with your audience without worrying about SEO and a blog. - Substack can used as a replacement for a blog or additional tool to drive traffic. - How can Substack help you make money from your recipes? - How long should your Substack content be? - Substack can benefit food bloggers even if they still have a traditional SEO-based blog. - The importance of making constant pivots in your business to create a new revenue streams. - Use Substack to grow your audience. Connect with Laura Scherb Website | Instagram

In episode 457, Andrea Mut explains why she sold her bakery to become a food blogger and how to deal with being overwhelmed as we manage Google updates and other unexpected factors that affect our blog's traffic. Andrea's culinary journey began at age 14 when she worked in her grandparents' three restaurants. She later received formal Chef's training, and later specialized in Baking & Pastry Arts. Throughout her career, Andrea gained experience in various restaurants and bakeries, as well as teaching cooking and baking classes at both recreational and college level. Her most significant achievement was owning a successful bakery in Toronto, which she sold in 2018. In 2019, she launched her blog, My Pocket Kitchen. A few months later Andrea's blog shifted its focus when she embarked on a one-year weight loss journey. Today, Andrea shares her culinary expertise and commitment to a healthier lifestyle, offering easy-to-make, nutritious recipes with a touch of restaurant quality. In this episode, you'll learn about how to deal with blogging overwhelm and ways to keep yourself motivated and not give up, even when your blog traffic slows down. - Embrace the ups and downs of your blogging journey. - Don't skimp on your blog when you get started, invest in guidance. - What to get right from the start and what can wait? - No matter what you think, SEO and keyword research are important for blog traffic. - What to do when your traffic suddenly drops. - Tap into blogging services to help alleviate the feeling of overwhelm (e.g. audit with Casey Markee). - Start with manageable steps to improve your posts' ranking. - Mindset can make or break you in the food blogging industry. - Give yourself a break when needed. - Don't underestimate the power of organization. Connect with Andrea Mut Website | Instagram

In episode 456, Megan chats to Nick Minnick about how Chicory's seamless, contextual shopping experience can help new and veteran bloggers monetize their blogs. As the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Chicory, the leading contextual commerce advertising platform, Nick Minnick strategically builds, fosters, and oversees relationships with key recipe publishers, grocery retailers, and retail media networks. His purview spans 5,200+ recipe sites, including the Food Network, Delish, and Food52, as well as *70+ leading retailers, such as Kroger, Walmart, and Ahold Delhaize. Minnick is hyper-focused on developing partnerships that fuel synergies between Chicory's audiences and enhance the impact of Chicory's contextual commerce advertising solutions for retailers and CPG brands. Minnick brings over 20 years of sales and marketing experience in the retail, CPG, shopper marketing and digital advertising sectors to his role at Chicory. Prior to joining Chicory, Nick advised retailers on their digital couponing and retail media platform development strategies while at Quotient. In addition to product development, marketing and sales roles, he led the retail in-store advertising sales and marketing teams at Valassis. In this episode, you'll learn how the contextual commerce advertising platform, Chicory, works, including why it improves food bloggers' site engagement and helps them make money through their blogs. - Monetize your blog using contextual commerce. - Contextual commerce advertising solutions use recipe category and ingredient data to target consumers with relevant, shoppable ads. - Benefits to shoppers include privacy and better browsing experience. - Bloggers benefit from ads that align with values and content of their blogs. - Increase site engagement by using ads relevant to your users. - Increased site engagement leads to more revenue. - Create a simple shopping experience for users. - Why does a positive shopping experience make a difference? - Gain access to consumer trends through Chicory - gain insights into your top-performing content. *Since we recorded this podcast, Chicory's retailer partnerships have grown from 60+ to 70+. Connect with Chicory Website | Instagram

In episode 455, Megan chats to Alessandra Macaluso about following our intuition and why she chose her niche of seasonal eating and the impact it has had on her blog and life. Alessandra Macaluso is the author of What a Good Eater!, Lucy the Bee and the Healing Honey, and The Real-Deal Bridal Bible. She's also a Qigong and Tai Chi instructor, and overall wellness advocate. Her work has been featured in several anthologies which can all be found on her Amazon author page, and she has contributed to The Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, TODAY Parents, and many other online publications. Alessandra is a northerner-turned-southerner, enjoying the south with her children, Penelope and Ciro, and her husband, Greg. In this episode, you'll learn more about Alessandra's niche of seasonal eating and its positive effects on her blog and life as well as tips for finding your own direction, following your intuition and the importance of niching down into yourself. - Find a direction you'd like to take in food blogging (i.e. niche). - A direction can help you drill down when it comes to content creation. - Why is the idea of "Niching down into yourself" important? - Let other sides of yourself come out to bring a unique flair to your blog - YOU are the niche. - How can you incorporate healthy eating and caring for one's body into your blog? - Eating based on the seasons is one way to find natural inspiration for blogging. - Eating certain foods in season can lead to improved health and have a higher nutritional impact. - Seasonal recipes allows you to support local farmers. - It furthers the "eat local" movement and helps you build relationships in your area. - Relax on keyword searches and numbers; let your humanity shine through in your content. Connect with Alessandra Macaluso Website | Instagram

In episode 454, Brooke Burks teaches us tangible strategies to manage a full-time job while growing a successful blog. Brooke Burks is the owner and head dishwasher at TheButteredHome.com. She started her blog in 2018 at the urging of a friend. In the last 5 years, she has juggled this HUGE learning curve all while working full time, being a mother to two girls and now a grandmother to a new grandson. She is an expert in consistency and planning for steady growth all while managing another career. In this episode, you'll learn the most important strategies for growing a blog while managing a full-time job, including how to stay consistent, plan content effectively and schedule time off. - When you just start blogging, Google looks for consistency. - Commit to a posting schedule that fits in with your full-time job. - Content planning can help you publish consistently. - A plan only works if you stick to it. - Take time off to avoid burn out. - Be ALL IN. If you decide to commit to this, be patient and ask for help to find the best schedule for you. - What is the best planning strategy for someone who blogs and have a full-time job? - Have an honest conversation with yourself about what you can commit to. - Be realistic in your goal of monetization. - Don't compare yourself to others who monetize their blogs quickly. Connect with Brooke Burks Website | Instagram

In episode 453, Megan chats to Danielle Wolter about how to recognize and deal with burnout by learning how to manage your time and priorities. Danielle has been a food blogger for almost 7 years at Went Here 8 This. She spent the first 2.5 years struggling not knowing anything about blogging. Then Danielle dove into learning about keyword research and grew her blog to about 175K visitors/month (currently) while starting and growing 2 other businesses and working full-time. The blog focuses on creating internationally inspired recipes as well as a strong focus on sous vide cooking as a niche. In this episode, Danielle shares how she manages her priorities and time, including the importance of quality business coaching and hiring out, so that she can take care of herself and avoid burnout. - Stop scrambling to try and do everything yourself to "save" money. - Working non-stop with no freedom can lead to burnout. - Learn to prioritize what is working and cut out unnecessary tasks. - Hire out some areas so you can better focus on what you love. - Niche down to see more additional growth. - Time block and batch tasks to improve your productivity. - What other streams of income can you invest time in? - Self care can make you a better business owner. - The benefits of keeping a journal, meditating and gratitude lists. - If you do feel burnout, talk to someone about it. Connect with Danielle Wolter Website | Instagram

In episode 452, Megan Johnson teaches us about the importance of mindset in the growth and success of our blogs and businesses. Megan took a big leap in 2021 and quit her job to become a full-time food blogger. Megan was super optimistic and excited, but then, in her first year, she failed... hard. Megan realized she had the wrong strategy. On top of that, when she didn't see success, she took that very personally. Megan has made it a priority in 2023 to fix her mindset and start pushing the limits for success with her food blog. In this episode, you'll learn why business success is not only dependent on your SEO strategy, how you drive traffic to your website or your email marketing campaigns, but also on your outlook on life and business mindset. - Make a list of everything you want to change and how you can make it happen. - Books and podcasts can teach you how to think positively. - When things don't go according to plan, give yourself grace. - Be grateful for what you have. - Acknowledge your accomplishments frequently. - Set goals, not deadlines. - Look at how far you've come, not where you're not. - Look after yourself through exercise and healthy eating - it can have a big impact on your work life. - What can you do to have a better outlook on your blogging journey? Connect with Megan Johnson Website | Instagram

In episode 451, Megan chats to Wan Na Chun about how we can develop more nutrient dense recipes, giving our readers healthier options without specific diet talk. Wan Na Chun is a registered dietitian and personal trainer. Her blog, One Pot Wellness, is focused on prioritizing self-care through nutrition, physical health, and mental health for the busy working professional. In this episode, you'll learn more about adding nutrient dense ingredients to your recipes as well as other important aspects to consider when developing healthier meals for your blog. - Why is it important to create more nutrient forward recipes? - What to consider when using words such as 'healthy' and 'unhealthy'. - Make recipes more nutrient-dense by using easy swaps, for example coconut sugar or dried fruits for a natural sweetener or oat flour instead of refined flour. - Add cultural recipes (e.g. Mediterranean, Indian, Japanese) that focus on nutrient density such as fiber, olive oil, omega 3s. - Should you claim cultural recipes are 'authentic' and how can you rephrase it? - Add valuable nutrient information in your blog posts by cross-referencing scientific articles. - Fact-check with a qualified health professional, such as a registered dietitian, if you make any qualified claims (e.g. low-carb, vegan, gluten-free). - Do it scared - if you're comfortable in what you're doing, you're not growing. Connect with Wan Na Chun Website | Instagram