In episode 396, Megan chats to Marley Braunlich about different ways to use AI tools like ChatGPT to streamline writing for our blogs, helping us become more efficient bloggers. Marley has been a food blogger for a little over 1 year. She started working in SEO shortly after starting her blog. During this time, she grew her Instagram audience to 13k followers and started working with brands to earn a side income while the blog matured and she continued to pour into the blog. Marley has learned h...
Mar 27, 2023•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 395, Megan chats to Cynthia Christensen about ways to deal with and overcome our limitations while growing our food blogs. Cynthia is a professional baker and cook who has transitioned to running a breakfast and brunch focused blog. She also does freelance recipe development for larger online magazines, runs private chef events, and does occasional food photography. In this episode, Cynthia motivates us to find ways around our limitations which can be anything from work or family resp...
Mar 23, 2023•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 394, Jules Grasekamp teaches us how to create a roadmap for success, based on lessons she learned during 10 years of building her own baking business. Jules, a dessert blogger from Scotland, started her own bakery at age 16 and she ran that for 10 years before selling up and moving to Canada. After a few years of working as a business coach, Jules realized she missed working with food, so she purchased a camera to share her recipes on her blog - Bonni Bakery. Now, Jules shares accessi...
Mar 20, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 393, Megan chats to Chrissy Carroll about nutrition considerations for bloggers, especially within the wellness niche, and how to provide the best healthy recipes. Chrissy Carroll is a Registered Dietitian and the creator behind Snacking in Sneakers, where she shares food and fitness tips for active women – especially runners and triathletes. After growing her main site to more than 100,000 page views a month, Chrissy has gone on to launch several other successful websites like Build ...
Mar 16, 2023•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 392, Jen Talley teaches us how to use checklists effectively to optimize our workflows for blogging. Jen grew up eating dinner with her whole family every night. In 2006, Jen moved across the country for college and she found a love for cooking and experimenting with new recipes. When Jen graduated, she had 3 kids and became a stay at home mom. Many years later, Jen finally got the courage to start a food blog and she now loves following her passion for food. Jen is really enthusiasti...
Mar 13, 2023•36 min•Ep 392•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 391, Megan chats to Taryn Scarfone about the advantages of starting a second food blog. Taryn is a happily married, busy mom of 6. She began her blogging journey as a hobby in 2015 and it took off pretty quickly. Joy Filled Eats concentrates on low carb and keto recipes that are easy to make and suitable for the whole family. Since starting her blog, Taryn has launched two more food websites. In this episode, Taryn talks about how her second food blog allowed her to expand into a diff...
Mar 09, 2023•26 min•Ep 391•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 390, Megan chats to Rob Finkelstein about why it’s important for food bloggers and photographers to have contracts and understanding important legal terms. Rob is a lawyer, practicing for over 20 years in NYC. In 2017, Rob decided to pursue his passion of baking and went to culinary school for pastry arts. After graduating, not wanting to leave the law, Rob got started blogging at Cinnamon Shtick, which was also his entry into food photography. He worked with a number of brands and ca...
Mar 06, 2023•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 389, Megan chats to Christina Jolam about why Christina was held back from blogging and how she overcame doubt, perfectionism and other obstacles that stood in her way. Christina Jolam is a communications consultant turned food writer and founder of the blog Weekday Pescatarian. She creates easy and impressive fish-forward recipes and shares tips for incorporating more seafood into your diet, all from her tiny sea-side flat in Portugal. In this episode, you’ll be able to explore commo...
Mar 02, 2023•44 min•Ep 389•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 388, Ruth Grindeland teaches us how to find international resources for effective and cost-efficient outsourcing. Ruth started Sinful Kitchen in 2020, during the Covid pandemic. After binge watching 9 seasons of The Great British Baking show, Ruth knew she needed to find a better way to connect with the world. Hence, Sinful Kitchen was created. It’s a vegan and vegetarian blog that shares recipes from all around the world, while occasionally trying to recreate Baking Show challenges. ...
Feb 27, 2023•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 387, Olena Osipov teaches us how to batch produce YouTube content for increased growth and efficiency. Olena of iFoodReal has been blogging for 11 years. While blogging, she tried to grow her YouTube channel, however she stopped a few times as she did not have the right strategy amongst other reasons. In 2021, Olena needed a break because she recognized that she was burnt out. She came back in 2022 with a new strategy to produce video content more efficiently for YouTube and she’s her...
Feb 23, 2023•55 min•Ep 387•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 386, Megan chats to Erin Gierhart about getting clarity on what is essential in order to grow your blog and how to let go of everything else so that you can get more done by doing less. Erin founded her blog, State of Dinner, in 2020, after almost 20 years in the food and beverage industry. She enjoys developing mostly from scratch recipes that bring comfort to her family, without spending all day in the kitchen. She quadrupled her blog traffic year over year by getting clear on what ...
Feb 20, 2023•47 min•Ep 386•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 385, Megan chats to Katalin Nagy about extra revenue streams for our blogs, specifically how to monetize online baking classes and other skills. Katalin started her food blog, Spatula Desserts, in spring 2020 during the lockdown. She loved baking and teaching people how to bake, but at the start, she didn’t know anything about SEO, search consoles, or the importance of keywords. She quickly picked up an avid desire to learn more about the industry in 2021. She began to monetize her bl...
Feb 16, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 384, Caro Jensen teaches us four easy steps to build a strong food brand, stand out from the crowd and offer maximum value to our readers. Caro is a seasoned marketing professional who has worked in the food and wine space for over a decade. As a Brand and PR Manager in the wine industry she’s worked with bloggers directly and via agencies. She’s also connected bloggers and brands as a marketing consultant and works as a food and wine content creator to build her own brand and channel...
Feb 13, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 383, Sarah Holt teaches us how to make a full-time income creating recipes, making videos and doing photography for food brands while blogging. Sarah has been a food blogger for almost 3 years at Real Food with Sarah. After years of struggling with keyword research and SEO, she is excited to be close to reaching her goal of qualifying for Mediavine in the next few months. While Sarah’s blog is growing, she was successful in focusing a lot on freelance and sponsored brand work this yea...
Feb 09, 2023•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 382, Megan chats to Bobbie Blue about why investing in ourselves and our business from the beginning will help us reach our goals quicker and with less stress. Bobbie Blue lives in Florida with her husband and step-daughter. She started the blog, Blue's Best Life in 2018, however it had no focus and she wrote about everything from fitness, being a step-mom to healthy recipes. Bobbie’s ears perked up and she finally took the advice from the blogging community and niched down. But it wa...
Feb 06, 2023•29 min•Ep 382•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 381, Megan chats to Erica Hopper about ways in which you can apply your previous work experience to improve your blogging skills. Erica, the creator behind the sugar + salt co., uses nearly 2 decades of professional culinary experience to create mostly gluten free, veggie forward recipes that anyone can make and the whole family will love. Erica has worked in all areas of the "food biz", and for the last couple of years has enjoyed developing her own blog, diving into the world of foo...
Feb 02, 2023•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 380, Megan chats to Shani Whisonant about how she turned her blog into a lucrative baking academy and bootcamp. Shani is the creator behind Begin with Butter, a baking education platform. It started as a baking blog in 2021, and she’s now grown it to include the Begin with Butter Home Baking Academy. She uses this platform to host live and pre-recorded baking classes to help home bakers and cottage bakers reach their baking potential. Shani enjoys demystifying baking for people by tea...
Jan 30, 2023•40 min•Ep 380•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 379, Brooke Harmer teaches us how to monetize our blogs before hitting 50,000 pageviews. Explore 7 strategies ranked in order of difficulty and time required. Brooke launched her food blog in March 2020, because she knew she could work from home and still be a full time mom. However, after her son was born, she struggled to keep up with the demands of the job and constantly felt discouraged that despite her best efforts, she still hadn't hit 50,000 monthly pageviews. Instead of focusi...
Jan 26, 2023•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 378, Megan chats to Zhen Zhou about how her experience in business school translated into her blogging career and how that has helped her succeed. Zhen blogs about cooking up flavorful South East Asian recipes for her audience because she can't stand bland food. She also occasionally shares about the life of a food blogger. She shares her story of going from doing an MBA in London to starting a food blog as a way to reach more people with her creative work on the Internet. In this epi...
Jan 23, 2023•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 377, Jamie Silva teaches us strategies that we can use to grow our blog business without relying on Instagram. Jamie quit a safe and secure full-time job in 2016 and started A Sassy Spoon, her food blog. Two years later, Jamie began making a full-time income (from $0 to $85k in 2 years). Today, she’s making over six figures from various income streams (close to $100k from ad revenue alone). Jamie focuses on coaching food bloggers on how to grow and manage their food blogs so they can ...
Jan 19, 2023•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 376, Megan chats to Nadalie Bardo about why we are losing potential traffic opportunities by not exploring Pinterest more and which Pinterest strategies work the best for growth. Nadalie is a Pinterest coach dedicated to helping blogs, brands, and businesses like yours achieve their goals of more traffic, more subscribers, and more sales. Achieving 1M views on Pinterest since her very first month for her personal development blog, It’s All You Boo, she’s grown her email list to 14K su...
Jan 16, 2023•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 375, Megan chats to Tim Schmoyer about expert strategies to optimize our YouTube channels for easy discovery and growth in 2023. Since 2011, Tim Schmoyer has been one of the leading YouTube strategists in the online video industry. His company, Video Creators, has been featured by FOX, Forbes, BBC even YouTube themselves as his team trains creators and brands to master YouTube and use it as a place to spread messages that change lives. Their clients have organically grown by over 20 b...
Jan 12, 2023•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 374, Andrea Liebross teaches us effective strategies for long-term planning, making it less daunting, doable and fun. Learn how two become clear on what you want to achieve and how you’re going to make it happen in 2023. Andrea is a coach, speaker, podcast host, and soon to be published author who is known for helping bold, ambitious women make clear, confident decisions, so that they get exactly what they want, every time, and not just add another thing to their to-do list. Andrea’s ...
Jan 09, 2023•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 373, Megan chats to Chandice Probst about the importance of networking to grow your business and how your business community can help you succeed. Chandice Probst is the business partner and sponsor director of Tastemaker Conference, which is the premier food blogger conference and community for food content creators. It is a place where food bloggers and content creators make contact with incredible brands and foodies. Based on Chandice’s experience of Tastemaker Conference, and maki...
Jan 05, 2023•40 min•Ep 373•Transcript available on Metacast In episode 372, Casey Markee gives us his best SEO predictions for 2023, describing the bigger picture and what we should be thinking about as we create our content in the new year. Speaker, writer, and trainer, Casey Markee, is the founder of digital consultancy company Media Wyse. He is a well-known SEO professional with 20+ years of experience. Casey has trained SEO teams on five different continents, he has spoken at over 100 conferences, and he has worked with thousands of bloggers in the F...
Jan 02, 2023•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 criol...
Dec 29, 2022•29 min•Ep 371•Transcript available on Metacast 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 interna...
Dec 26, 2022•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Dec 22, 2022•25 min•Ep 369•Transcript available on Metacast 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-...
Dec 19, 2022•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Dec 15, 2022•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast