Eat Blog Talk | Megan Porta

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 how to successfully land brand deals and form long-term partnerships. She also grew an understanding of SEO. She is now leveraging AI to grow her business and streamline writing so that she can save time and create more content. In this episode, you’ll learn about different ways to use ChatGPT (and other AI tools) to your advantage and what to avoid when it comes to using AI. - AI can speed up processes like writing for your blog. - Can Google detect AI written content? - Understand what is meant by Google’s Helpful Con

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 responsibilities to health or mental challenges. She shares examples from her own life, how she achieves her blogging goals despite physical limitations and being comfortable with taking days off when she needs it. - Limitations stand in your way or slow you down when blogging. - Create an appropriate goal sheet that will help you manage life obstacles. - Be kind to yourself when you can’t get everything done. - Give yourself a day off when you need it. Zero guilt for self-care. - Be careful not to compare yourself to othe

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 accessible recipes using real and simple ingredients to help people create professional quality desserts in their own kitchens. In this episode, you’ll learn how to set an end-goal for your roadmap to success, how to create a realistic action plan that will help you get there and tips for tracking your progress. - Start by thinking what do you want your business to look like in 3, 5 or 10 years? - What your business looks like will determine what your life will look like. - It’s possible to dream big and achieve your goal.

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 a Wellness Blog. She is passionate about helping other dietitians grow profitable websites, sharing helpful blogging and social media tips. She also runs an online course teaching bloggers how to create content that ranks higher and drives more traffic. In this episode, you’ll learn which sources to trust when it comes to nutrition advice, how to check the accuracy of nutrition information you provide and understanding key dietary terms before you use them.  - Be careful with giving advice when it comes to nutrition. -

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 enthusiastic about this job and wants to share her love of blogging and productivity tips with others. In this episode, you’ll find out how to simplify your blogging workflow, using checklists for before you write a blog post, while publishing a post and the after publishing your recipe.  - Checklists are useful for beginner and seasoned bloggers. - Divide your checklists into pre-publishing, during publishing and post-publishing. - What are the most essential tasks you should do before you post? - Checklists help you remember al

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 different niche and do everything better from the start, getting a lot of organic traffic quickly. - How do you decide on a second niche? - What should you do differently in a second blog? - Approach SEO and keywords carefully before you launch. - How much do you post on social media for new food blogs? - Time management tips for managing multiple food blogs. - A new blog can add new inspiration to your blogging journey. - How much effort should you put into logos and branding? Connect with Taryn Scarfone Website | Instagr

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 came to represent lots of food photographers in connection with their contracts and business set ups. They all inspired Rob to create an online course about contracts specifically for food photographers. In this episode, you learn how to set up a contract, what kind of clauses you need to include, tips for copyright and licensing terms and why this can make a massive difference in your business. - Difficult legal terms put people off drawing up contracts. - It doesn’t seem important until there’s an issue. - It defines y

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 common reasons why we put off starting a blog, including perfectionism and doubts of whether we’ll succeed. Christina shares her blogging journey and how she overcame her fear of failure. - Perfectionism often stand in our way to start something new. - Perfectionists fear criticism. - Perfectionists feel like nothing is good enough. - Perfectionists tend to avoid risks. - Address your doubts, instead of ignoring them. - Dread leads to procrastination. - Use journaling as a way to navigate your feelings. - Listening to other

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. In this episode, Ruth explains why she wanted to outsource her blog tasks to women overseas with less opportunities using platforms like Fiverr and Upwork. She delves into the details of finding the right people, quality-control, mediating with sellers when things go wrong and the benefits of outsourcing. - Decide if you want to hire per job or per post. - How do you decide if someone is a good fit for the job? - Come up with a system of operation that makes it easy to work together. - What happens when you get poor qu

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 here to share her strategy with us. In this episode, you’ll learn her process for batch producing YouTube content, everything from finding a reasonably priced videographer to the most efficient way to film and edit videos and how to look your best on film. - Batch filming to get as many recipes done as possible in one session. - Prepare all utensils and ingredients before a filming day. - Batch record intros and outros and cooking processes. - Use YouTube analytics to find the ideal video length (normally around 5 minutes

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 was essential and letting go of everything else. In this episode, you’ll learn how to decide on tasks that will help increase your traffic most, which tasks are less important and using discipline and time management techniques to stay on track. - Are you getting the right things done to move the needle in your business? - Decide which skills you need to develop most to increase your traffic. - Make a list of things that you will NOT do. - Can you use outsourcing to help free up your time? - Have discipline to stay on

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 blog in October 2021 via Mediavine. From there, Katalin found joy in creating live and pre-recorded baking classes in 2022 to further showcase her passion for baking with her audience and create a new revenue stream, all while working full-time for a corporate company. In this episode, you’ll learn more about how we can monetize our skills by teaching them to others, for example through online baking classes, and why this is good for our blogging careers. - Gain more traffic through online baking courses. - What are the

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 channels. In this episode, you’ll find out what branding is, why it is important for business growth and how to build a strong, identifiable and likable brand. - Branding is not just your logo. - With SEO being popular, individuality is more important than ever. - Find your brand mission and create a vision board. - How do you want to serve your reader? - Why did you start your blog? - A tag line helps others to understand quickly what you do. - Create a mood board for your brand. - Formalize your brand feel in a style guide.

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 year and has so far made 15x more than she made in 2021. Sarah only has a following of 2200 on Instagram so she’s showing it can be done. In this episode, you will learn how Sarah selects brands she wants to collaborate with, how she pitches them and tips for pricing yourself that will make you feel valued as a freelancer. - Find a brand’s gaps when planning your pitch. - Decide on the brand’s individual needs before working out pricing. - What are red flags when it comes to pricing and when should you walk away? - Should

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 wasn’t until 2020 that it became clear that food blogging was her true passion. She fell in love with recipe development and food photography and dove into that. Bobbie shares her blogging journey, exploring some of the key mistakes she made at the start and how she invested in herself and her business to turn her blog into a money-making business. - What game-changing improvements can you make in your blogging kit (e.g. photography equipment, photography courses)? - How can you create a second source of income? - Is the

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 food photography and recipe development, and really found she loves developing relationships with brands and clients to help them tell their stories. In this episode, you’ll learn about time management, keeping motivated, social media management and applying other skills you might have learned in the past to improve your blog today. - Break down your tasks into digestible chunks throughout the day. - Be flexible when your schedule doesn’t go according to plan. - Take a step back from social media and avoid comparing yours

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 teaching them tips and techniques that help them become more consistent and confident in the kitchen. In this episode, find out how you can make more of an impact by teaching people the skills you’ve learned while growing your blog, specifically from a place of love and with an authentic desire to help others. You’ll also learn about the logistics of organizing baking or cooking classes online. - Approach a business idea from a place of love and service. - Balance writing about what you love with the things that’ll make y

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 focusing on what she didn't have, she honed in on the time and talents she DID have and began to monetize her business in other creative ways, even while raising her 6 month old son by herself for a time. She has since self-published two cookbooks, landed 5-figure brand deals, and hired her first employee. In this episode, you’ll learn about additional sources of income for your blog, from easy ways to earn money through affiliate marketing and more intense methods like brand work and online courses. - Focus on the qualitati

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 episode, you’ll learn more about Zhen’s top five lessons from business school, including what helps you succeed in one field won’t necessarily help you get to the next level, invest in your blog like a real business, the importance of diversification, lean into what is uncomfortable and think about the consumer. - Set different goals to adapt to your blogging journey and the next step of success. - Should you focus on RPMs more than keywords? - What you don’t pay for in money, you pay for in time. - Invest in courses that

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 turn them into a full-time business in less time. If you’re feeling frustrated with Instagram right now (or another social media network), this episode will show you how to make progress without the need to rely on that platform. Jamie shares why she stopped posting regularly on Instagram, what she does instead and how this impacts her business and wellbeing positively.  - The attraction and trap of Instagram is chasing likes, shares and views.  - For the time spent, how much ROI do you get from posting reels? - Instea