Eat Blog Talk

Partners Corinne Schmitt and Christina Hitchcock are both six-figure influencers with multiple websites. Over the years, they've become organizational ninjas and workflow fanatics with a knack for providing actionable strategies to help influencers work smarter and scale faster. These two women have been in this space for over 10 years and learned a lot along the way (often the hard way!). They share their insights on working smarter on The Smart Influencer, a podcast and a private mentoring group where they help other influencers work smart and grow stronger. Inside Eat Blog Talk episode 312, Corrine and Christina talk about the gap in the conversation with influencers about being prepared in the case of an unfortunate event. So many influencers don't have a plan in place if something should happen to them and they can no longer run their business. Thinking about this topic is stressful enough but trying to figure it all out and make a plan on your own can be overwhelming. - Importance of contingency planning. - What to include in your plan. - Who to hand it off to in the first place. - How to put it all together. - How often to update the plan.

Mika and her husband, Dan, have been running Joy to the Food for nearly a year now! Both work full time jobs and do everything together for Joy to the Food in their off hours. Throughout the process of building this brand, together they have learned a lot about each other and the best way to work with your partner and to grow a blog. Dan does the numbers and styling and Mika creates the content and handles communication. Inside episode 311, Mika explains why every food blogger should create a blogging outline and how to get started. - Content optimizers and SEO best practice encourages having many keywords within your post naturally (2-3%). - Your post should be a one stop shop. - Have sections for equipment, methods, FAQ and instructions to maximize opportunities to include relevant keywords in a natural way. - Use descriptors, process terms and recipe name variations to cover all your bases. - Follow Mika's checklist found in the show notes or create your own checklist with or without the help of the Feast plugin.

Christine is the founder of COOKtheSTORY where her passion is to create recipes that take less time in the kitchen, giving you more time at the table. She founded COOKtheSTORY in 2010 and her other contributor-based site, TheCookful, in 2015. Christine has used her SEO strategies and cooking knowledge to get these sites in front of over 2 million readers per month. More recently, she has embraced her love of audio and is the host of two podcasts, one of which, Recipe of the Day, has been named one of the top ten cooking podcasts out there by Popsugar! Inside Eat Blog Talk episode 310, Christine gives tangible strategies for foodies to create a successful audio podcast. - Why a food blogger might want to consider podcasting. - The cost of producing a podcast and whether you should outsource or DIY. - How to choose the topic for your podcast and determining your audience. - If you love audio, then get started pronto! The time is now to explore this medium.

Eliza is a plant-based food blogger, photographer, and full-time Product Manager working in the travel technology space. She loves seeing how little tweaks can make a huge difference, and geeks out over Google Analytics, Search Console and any data she can get her hands on. With limited time, she uses data to focus on what's important to grow her blog and business. In episode 309, Eliza offer data-driven strategies food bloggers can employ in order to amplify growth in a powerful and effective way. - Give the 80/20 rule some thought and adjust your business accordingly. Create goals and continuously adjust focus to align with them. - Dive deep into the metrics on a specific post or web story. - Analyze and tweak before you begin work each week. - Readers and Google (and all the platforms) can feel our energy, so give proper attention to each bit of content you produce. - Consider what is working and DO MORE OF THAT.

Lauren Grow is the owner and founder of Talk About Town—a marketing agency focusing on clients in the blogging space. She has been hard at work connecting readers with recipes for over 5 years. Beginning as a social media writer for Fresh April Flours, Lauren has scaled her business and currently has 20 clients in the blogging world on any given day. An expert in email marketing, Lauren specializes in creating a consistent, approachable and profitable email plan for clients ranging from big to small. Lauren prides herself on owning the voice of her client and adapting to the needs of the reader. In her world, it's all about opens and clicks. Inside episode 308, Lauren provides tangible tactics for food bloggers to take away and begin implementing in their email marketing strategy immediately. - Choose the right email provider. - Get started in bite-sized ways. - Importance of subject line and preheader text. - How to structure your email. - How to get those click conversions!

Melissa Erdelac is the recipe developer, photographer and cookbook author behind the popular food blog MamaGourmand. Besides authoring her first cookbook, Frugal Gluten-Free Cooking, her work has been published in Better Homes and Gardens, MSN, Taste of Home, Parade, and Prevention. Inside this episode, Melissa shares about the value of attending and hosting an in-person blogging retreat. Join us inside and be inspired! - Conferences vs retreats. - Do not get hung up on experience levels of other attendees. Everyone has value to offer! - Logistics for the retreat. - The only thing you really need to prepare for beforehand is your mindset. Open yourself up to learning, growing and investing in yourself and others. - The opportunities, boost in confidence, blog growth and friendships/connections that follow the retreat are the best part!

In 2022, the podcast industry is expected to grow at an exponential rate. The use of audio in the food blogging space to speak your message and connect with your audience is underrated, underutilized and overlooked. Now is the time to get on board with audio! Listen in on this Clubhouse recording where a handful of food bloggers discuss using audio to speak their messages in a profound way. - Brand recognition - Reach people "beyond the blog" to expand brand awareness. - People - The people you will meet in your journey with audio will allow for so much opportunity. - The unexpected - People connect with the human voice more than with written voice. When you put your actual voice out into the world, you never know who is connecting with you. Unexpected favor and opportunities will come your way. - There is currently very little competition in the food and recipe niche for podcasts. This is such a great way to separate yourself from your competition!

Yvette Marquez is the Latina and founder behind the Mexican food site, MuyBuenoCookbook.com. She is an Emmy-winning producer and writer, food blogger, and author of Muy Bueno, Latin Twist, and a third cookbook due out in 2023. Yvette grew up in the kitchen with her mother and grandmother and has treasured family recipes that were never written down. She had no formal background in cooking before deciding to start a food blog and document her family's recipes, develop new recipes and partner with brands. Food has been the core of her family and business and in this episode she shares about how she has transformed passion into purpose. Over the last 10+ years, her site has grown from a small source of additional income to a full-time, thriving six-figure business. - Whether you are launched into being a full-time blogger or decide to take the leap on your own, Yvette has encouragement about how to treat your blog like a business. - Tips about how to monetize your blogging business while you wait to get into an ad network. - How and why you should chase your dreams both personally and professionally. - How to know if a cookbook is a good next move for your business.

Mary Barnett, also known as "Mobile Mary" in the industry, is a text marketing and social media expert. Her company Another Brilliant Idea, Inc. helps business owners and restaurants use social media to grow a database that they actually own. This allows them to reach their best customers offline, giving them what they want instantly and on-demand to increase sales and brand loyalty! Inside this episode, Mary shares her best secrets about how to increase engagement and connection with your audience by using social media and text marketing. - Start seeing social media platforms as "borrowed territory" and proceed with this concept in mind. You don't own your social media accounts. - Start building your own list, including phone numbers and email addresses THAT YOU OWN. - Strategize and nurture your list. - Learn how to build a trusted list organically. - Include audio messages as a way to build trust even more quickly. - We all want those clamoring fans, so tune in and learn how to accelerate the path to getting there!

David has been blogging at Cooking Chat for over 10 years alongside a full-time job running a local nonprofit organization he founded. Cooking Chat focuses primarily on healthy, seasonal recipes, along with wine pairing recommendations. After reaching a point several years ago where things seemed to be going in the wrong direction with blogging, in 2019 David recommitted to it with a number of new investments in strategies. Since then, year over year traffic has been up well over 50%, and ad revenue is now generating a solid additional income stream for his family. In this episode, David delivers seven effective strategies for seasoned food bloggers to achieve growth. - Update old content. - Internal linking. - Plan new content strategically. - Build a strong infrastructure. - Set some good boundaries for your business. - Join us inside the episode for more great strategies!