Eat Blog Talk

In episode 371, Megan chats to Vanessa Mota about how to niche down, finding the ideal topic for your blog, and why this can increase traffic and income. Vanessa Mota is an award-winning food photographer and nationally recognized content creator. Her love for food led her to create My Dominican Kitchen, a bilingual platform with traditional Dominican recipes and Latin-inspired meals for home cooks, as a way to preserve her family's recipes and share with the world the flavors of la comida criolla. In this episode, you'll learn about the benefits of having a specific niche for your food blog and what to focus on when deciding your niche. - Make everything clear for yourself and your readers. - Who is your reader and how do you help them? - Develop a content strategy that is SEO-focused. - Ask your audience what they're struggling with as the base for your content strategy. - Build trust with your reader. - What is your top content on your blog and social media? - Learn from your competition. - A specific niche helps you create specific products you can sell. Connect with Vanessa Mota Website | Instagram

In episode 370, Jenna Gibbons teaches us techniques to take care of our wellbeing, our family and improve our productivity while turning a passion project into a business. Jenna is a stay-at-home mom and founder of the Whole Mama business and non-profit, Hickory Hill Farm. In 2016, living on a small farm in Nashville, Jenna decided to devote her time to her boys and started the Whole Mama business after feeling frustrated with the dynamics of public education. The Whole Mama business and international podcast began in 2020 to help mamas break free from the chaos in education and bravely start homeschooling with the tools and confidence they need to raise happy, healthy, and well-rounded kiddos. In this episode, you'll learn how to turn a passion project into a business, especially when you're a full-time, homeschooling parent, including strategies to keep yourself motivated and productive. - How should you start off your day in order to feel energized? - Who you choose to hang out with makes a huge difference whether as a homeschool mom or business owner. - Have daily reminders to help keep you on track on hard and good days. - How do you fill your cup emotionally and spiritually? - Is hustling really the key to success? - Part of your journey is discovering your purpose. - Do one thing at a time and set yourself realistic goals. Connect with Jenna Gibbons Website | Instagram

In episode 369, Megan chats to IP specialist and attorney, Maria Spear Ollis, about protecting our recipes and images online. Maria Spear Ollis is an attorney bringing peace of mind to content creators when it comes to IP protection, contracts, and internet law. Her goal is to help her clients before "it" hits the fan so that if setbacks happen, they'll bounce back faster. When Maria isn't hammering away at a copyright issue or recording a YouTube video, you can catch her dancing to Motown hits with her two sons, cooking with her husband, learning about herbs and medicinal plants, or hollering at her dog to get down from the couch. In this episode, you'll learn more about how to protect your intellectual property (i.e. recipes and images), the essentials of Internet law and why it is important for your business. - How can you protect a recipe that several people make? - Which aspects make a recipe unique to you? - What is the history of your recipe? - The story behind the food is critical for IP protection. - Can you protect ingredient lists? - What should food bloggers know about the Trade Secrets Law and when is it applicable to them? - Can I reference someone or something famous in my recipe name? - How do I protect my blog images? Connect with Maria Spear Ollis Website | Instagram

In episode 368, Meredith Kruse teaches us 10 strategies for sustainable side-hustling and why we don't have to quit our full-time job to be successful food bloggers. Meredith is the photographer, recipe developer, and voice behind the blog, Our Love Language is Food. She also works full-time in the commercial construction industry in addition to her food and photography business. Many of her favorite memories were made around a big table sharing food that everyone helped to prepare in her tight-knit family. She started Our Love Language is Food to help aspiring cooks and bakers feel confident in the kitchen so they can bring these types of experiences into their home too. In 2022, Meredith turned her passion for food and photography into a thriving side hustle, booking client work equal to nearly half the value of her day-job salary by mid-year in 2022. In this episode, she shares what she does differently to achieve success in food blogging and photography while maintaining a healthy work-life balance with her full-time job. - Money from a side-hustle can be used for a variety of expenses. - Having a baseline of income removes the pressure of making money from your blog. - It gives you more time to grow an audience and invest in courses and gear. - Get rid of should's in your life in general and prioritize what's going to help you most. - What does it mean to set realistic goals? - What will you sacrifice when you start a side-hustle? - Should you take on free jobs or only select paid jobs? - Manage your work-life balance and success according to what makes you happy. - How can multitasking help you complete tasks for your side-hustle? - Mindset can put you in the right frame of mind to work towards success. - What does self-care really mean and how can it help you? Connect with Meredith Kruse Website | Instagram

In episode 367, Megan chats to Jessica Fisher about rising grocery prices and how to do food shopping for your blog in an economical way without sacrificing quality or taste. Jessica Fisher is a cookbook author and food writer at Good Cheap Eats. She enjoys helping people who want to save time and money so they can enjoy stress-free meals. In the last recession, she and her husband made a decision to live more economically and manage their finances more wisely in order to pay off a 60K debt and have more financial freedom, all while keeping their six kids fed and clothed. In this episode, she shares the Good Cheap Eats system as a way to deal with rising grocery prices, giving us tips to eat great and make enjoyable recipes without breaking the bank. - The Good Cheap Eats system has 7 steps to save money when buying groceries. - Use inventories for the contents in freezers and fridges. - How can you do your future self a favour? - If you want to prepare a frugal meal, don't make a trip to the grocery store, check what you already have. - As food bloggers, explain what ingredients are readily available and affordable. - Build your meal plans around what is affordable. - Scout out the most economical stores. - Should you shop from clearance sections? - How to avoid food waste. - Cook from scratch when it matters: do you want to save time or money? Connect with Jessica Fisher Website | Instagram

In episode 366, Kate Ahl teaches us strategies to use Pinterest effectively and grow our reach as food bloggers. Kate Ahl is the founder of Simple Pin Media. She has been helping businesses discover, learn and master Pinterest marketing for over 7 years. She combines the data learned from working with clients, education from Pinterest, and her knowledge of the platform to help people expand the reach of their business using Pinterest. Her mantra is to keep it simple, be authentic, and Pin with purpose. She also hosts her own show, Simple Pin podcast. In this episode, you'll find out how to adapt to Pinterest's updates as we wrap up Q4. Kate dives into getting maximum exposure for your content, repurposing and incorporating video on Pinterest and effective ways to use new features like Idea Pins. - Q4 is the time to get max exposure for your content depending on your niche. - Look at your traffic patterns to predict what content will do well when. - Select strategies based on your expectations of Pinterest. - Experiment with changes to determine what is the best strategy for you. - When repurposing content, make sure you adapt it to the platform. - Remember the pinner is in a 'delight and surprise me' mindset. - An Idea Pin is a hybrid of an Instagram Story and a Reel. - What are effective ways to use Idea Pins and how to use Pinterest trends? - Is it worthwhile to put videos on Pinterest? Connect with Kate Ahl Website | Instagram

In episode 365, Megan chats to Kristen Bousquet about how food bloggers can successfully work with brands, negotiate win-win contracts and build long-term relationships with their dream company. Kristen Bousquet is social media expert, a Charlotte-based content creator and influencer coach at Your Soulcialmate with a goal of educating entrepreneurial creators on how to turn their online influence into a profitable, self-sustaining business through her podcast, community FB group, and coaching programs. She wants creators to learn how to be successful digital business owners while keeping the "soul" in "soulcial media". In this episode, she shares invaluable information about how to approach brands for sponsored work, the importance of building an organic relationship and what to look out for when negotiating contracts. - Essential steps to take before you consider approaching a brand. - Warm up the brand by engaging with them on social media. - Pick the time to pitch a brand wisely: are you at a peak with your social media engagement? - Write your bio with brand work in mind - explain what you do in 10 words or less. - Why cold-pitching is ineffective. - Use the anti-pitch method. - Building an authentic relationship is the best way to open up the possibility of collaboration. - Make yourself part of the team and other tips to continue building a sustainable relationship. Connect with Kristen Bousquet Website | Instagram

In episode 364, Megan chats to Claire Woodhouse about how to self-publish a cookbook, including all the logistical details of printing and selling books online all by yourself. Claire is a stay-at-home mom of 2 who loves creating nourishing, delicious, and simple recipes that don't break the bank when it comes to healthy baking. She started the healthy baking blog, Secretly Healthy Home, 2.5 years ago and also runs an intuitive eating membership called, The Smart Sweet Tooth, in which she teaches ladies how to find balance and peace with food. Claire also sells online courses and resources that have helped her achieve a solid passive income for her family. In this episode, Claire breaks down the logistics of self-publishing a cookbook into achievable steps, sharing tips that you won't find easily anywhere else. - How to choose a marketable topic and how many recipes do you need? - Pros and cons of using Canva to design your cookbook. - What size font is best? - Amazon is not the only platform to self-publish your book. - Cost-effective ways to print your cookbook. - How to make sure that there is profit when printing and shipping your cookbook. - Giving people an incentive to review the book. - Free strategies to market your cookbook. Connect with Claire Woodhouse Website | Instagram

In episode 363, Andrea Hundley shares six ways to think outside of the box when it comes to blogging. These are unique strategies that can potentially help you grow and keep you motivated. Andrea is the creator behind Design Morsels. She has been writing about decorating and design for the last 4 years. Andrea successfully joined Mediavine after two years by focusing on low-competition keywords and SEO and has seen her traffic greatly increase since embracing Rank IQ. Since then, Andrea trained a VA to update old content inside the tool to keep the momentum going. In this episode, using her insight from blogging in a different niche, she explains six unusual strategies to grow our blogs, encouraging us to approach blogging from a new perspective in general. - Can you rank for topics outside of your niche, especially non-recipe content? - What are good options for non-recipe content? - Delegate more, even when you believe you can do the tasks better. - Should we always listen to everything experts say in our field? - Invest your time wisely - focus on what you're good at and what you enjoy. - Find communities and experts to learn from outside of your niche. - How can spending time on personal development impact our blogs and businesses? - Focus on passive income strategies instead of followers. Connect with Andrea Hundley Website | Instagram

In episode 362, Bree Pair teaches us about batching and how time-management tools like this can be game-changers for food bloggers. Bree Pair is a coach for bloggers and entrepreneurs. Her company, Thrive, educates and empowers bloggers and influencers to build their brands so that they have financial freedom and the flexibility to live their lives to the fullest. She's passionate about helping female entrepreneurs live out their dreams and helping them with the strategy to do so. In this episode, you'll find out what batching is, how to adapt it to your life to save time and get more done and what other time-management techniques are useful to implement for a greater work-life balance. - What are the different batching techniques? - Once you've started a task, you can keep your flow going through batching. - Why does batching allow us to save more time? - Think of ways to motivate you to batch, because in the long run it will save you time. - Tips on how you can break down tasks to make batching work for you. - Do your timelines make you feel rushed or stressed out? - What boundaries do you need to set around your work to live the life you want? Connect with Bree Pair Website | Instagram