Eat Blog Talk | Megan Porta

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

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

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 getti

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!

Chris is a product photographer at Pieta Productions and teaches creative business on YouTube. He helps other creative get clients, start their businesses and scale down the road. While he’s not a food blogger, Chris has helped other food bloggers seek out clients and has an understanding of the business of food blogging. Join us in the episode to learn how to get clients for a stream of revenue while you wait for other opportunities to pop up. - This is a great strategy to implement if you’re currently in the “ad network wait.” - The road to monetization can seem arduous and long, so use client work as a way to earn fast money but also build on and accelerate blogging skills. - Clients aren’t going to come to you in droves. You need to go find them! - How to find the right clients in the first place.

Chelsea has been blogging at Mae’s Menu for 3 years. After a year of posting aimlessly and with no regards to SEO, Chelsea took an SEO course and grew her blog traffic over 2000% in the following year and qualified for the Mediavine ad network within 6 months. Chelsea publishes 4-8 recipes per month and believes in working smarter, not harder. In this episode, Chelsea makes a great case for prioritizing SEO over photography, as improving photos is something you can easily learn as you go. Join us in the episode to hear her best tips for learning SEO and accelerating the growth of your blog.  - Take a course, absorb webinars and do whatever you can to learn about effective keyword research strategies and tools. Investing in good SEO information is worthwhile. - Find the content that has SEO potential and put your focus there in order to work smarter. - Add or improve ingredient shots and process shots to give your content an immediate boost in traction. - It is ALL about the user, so always aim to make your co

Brandon Gaille is an entrepreneur who founded multiple 7 figure businesses in his 20s before becoming disabled by a rare disorder for nearly a decade. He eventually regained his health and started a blog. He grew his blog to over 1 million visitors in just 18 months after his first blog post. Today, he gets 5 million monthly visitors from over 100,000 first-page Google rankings. Brandon has taught his SEO growth hacks to over 20,000 bloggers through his podcast, The Blogging Millionaire. This past year he launched RankIQ, an AI-powered SEO toolset tailored for bloggers and small businesses that have a blog. This year RankIQ was ranked #1 out of all 333 SEO tools by G2 for customer satisfaction and ease of use. In this episode, Brandon shares his incredible story that laid the foundation for his wild success as an entrepreneur. He tackles two SEO-themed topics within the episode, covering the importance of keyword research as well as backlinks. - Why all food bloggers should be doing keyword research. - The bi

Kristi is the blogger behind Carrots and Cookies, as well as a Registered Dietitian and busy working mom of three kids, ages seven to fourteen. Her passion for helping parents understand what it means to feed their kids well has grown as she raises her own. Without going crazy, Kristi found a way of developing easy and practical nutrient-dense recipes that she was proud of and kids love but so do parents too! In this episode, Kristi talks through her experience with receiving an SEO audit with under 100 published recipes. Learn from her experience to determine if an early audit is a good fit for your blogging business. - Learn why she decided to receive an audit so early and how this has positively impacted her business. - Kristi shares 5 main takeaways that she carried away from her audit: accessibility, mobile friendliness, general SEO tactics, backlinks and keyword research. - What to expect post-audit.

Dan has been running Joy to the Food for nearly a year now along with his wife Mika. Both have full time jobs and do everything together for the blog 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 together. Dan does the numbers, research and styling and Mika creates the content and handles communication. In this episode, Dan shares his strategy for doing keyword research, involving the use of two powerhouse tools: RankIQ and Keysearch. Using the two in tandem has produced positive results for Joy to the Food. Join us inside the episode to learn the ins and outs of each tool, as well as his overall strategy. - Game-changing parts of Keysearch to pay attention to (that will save you a ton of time). - A thorough deep dive into each tool and when to use which. - Deep dive into the robust RankIQ optimizer and how to best utilize it. - Differences between the tools.

Lauren has been a food blogger at Maritime Glutton for a year and a half and a photographer for about 6 months. When she began her food blogging journey, she was partially through earning a business degree. Lauren landed a marketing job for the government because of her  "unofficial" skillset built while food blogging (photography, SEO, marketing, content planning). Building a skillset to support her blog allowed her to monetize from multiple income streams, while becoming an "expert" in these fields. In this episode, Lauren sheds a ton of light on this long game known as food blogging and how to take advantage of the “marathon” by building on unique skills along the ride. - Mindset matters. Work on this first and foremost. - Place a focus on learning the right things (for you). - Do a lot of trial and error! Researching and experimenting is good. - Tap into the massive amount of free resources available to you. - Create boundaries. Schedule time for yourself to do nothing. (Don’t discount this!) - Find speci

Danielle is host of the Entrepreneur Money Stories podcast, a reformed corporate CFO, and co-owner of Kickstart Accounting, Inc. She helps female entrepreneurs increase their profitability and take-home pay. She’s passionate about helping business owners to not think about accounting as the evil tool needed to file taxes but the best tool in your tool belt to help you build the business of your dreams. In this episode, Danielle teaches food bloggers how to build a profitable business. Come learn her secrets! - Dig into your expenses, first and foremost. Your expenses will tell you what your revenue needs to be. - Focus on staying profitable. Know your numbers! Don’t allow them to intimidate you. - Consider outsourcing certain services and tasks vs. wasting your time and money learning about them.  - Rate your feelings and emotions as you move through your work week. - What gets measured gets managed.

Eden Westbrook is a wife, mom, and entrepreneur. Creator of the food blog Sweet Tea + Thyme in 2016, she has built it from an idea to a six-figure business. Eden’s  blog focuses on multicultural family-friendly dishes and date night ideas for the millennial family. You’ll also find her teaching other food bloggers how to build profitable and successful food blogs through her mastermind course The Food Blogging Mastermind. In this episode, Eden shares how important it is to create that perfect one person who all of your content gets created for. You absolutely must know who you are talking to in order grow your blogging business in the way you desire. - Start with what you love. What do you love to create? What are you passionate about? What does the world need? What makes you money? - Think of your blog like it is a store in a mall. What causes people to come into your store? What would make them stay there and buy your products? - Do not be afraid to be exclusive! This is uncomfortable, but so important. - C

Gregory is the recipe creator, cook, photographer and writer behind the food blog Craving The Yum. In 2016, Gregory was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, achieved 4 years of remission, and today he is working on healing a recent cancer development called Nodular Lymphocyte-Predominant Hodgkin Lymphoma.  Inside this episode, Gregory shares how he was able to take his experience with cancer combined with a global pandemic to dive into blogging and explore new creativity, skills and tastes. - Learn how to take life’s lemons and turn them into productive, creative and fulfilling ventures. - Sometimes it is better to be authentic than to stick with the path you initially set out on. - Keep chiseling away. This is a long game. - Come ready to be inspired!

Jenna is the content creator behind The Urben Life, a food and lifestyle blog where she shares allergy-friendly recipes and travel guides. She is an early adopter within the blogging space, staying on top of tools, platforms and trends that are unique to food content creators. Inside the episode, she shares about trends food bloggers should pay attention to in Q2 of 2022 and provides updates on Q1 trends discussed in Eat Blog Talk episode 266. - Where web stories are at, along with a few little new details. - New updates and features are being added to Facebook reels, which is a sure sign that they aren’t going anywhere. - The opportunity and potential that lies within the marriage of TikTok and Whisk. - Don’t toss Pinterest out the window! - Fill in those question gaps by using Google Question Hub. - What’s in store for audio. - Different ways to use Airtable, outside of content management.

Chef Dennis is the food blogger behind Ask Chef Dennis, as well as a chef, social media enthusiast and travel blogger. He has a passion for sharing restaurant-style recipes and he enjoys figuring out how to get the most out of his new and existing blog content. Inside this episode, Dennis shares his favorite secrets and tips that shed light on SEO, help you prioritize your time and ultimately accelerate your growth. - Get on podcasts. The world needs your voice and this is also a great way to get backlinks. - Learn the ins and outs of optimizing your recipe posts and create a template that you can use on repeat. - Dennis’ most coveted secret weapon is Reconalist, a course that will help you automate your traffic strategy in an individualized fashion. - Remember that you have to invest money in order to make money. - Comb through your email list and don’t worry about vanity metrics. You don’t want people on the list who aren’t list-worthy.