Eat Blog Talk | Megan Porta

In episode 416, Megan chats to Amanda Polick about how to write a cookbook and intentionally build your platform without getting overwhelmed. Amanda Polick is a cookbook and food memoir coach. Through their work together, clients have landed Big 5 publishing deals and secured media clips for publications including Food 52 and The Los Angeles Times. Her work has been featured by Cooking Light, Time, Southern Living, and Food & Wine, and she’s a proud member of the Cherry Bombe community. In this episode, you’ll find out more about the process of writing a cookbook, including how to write a book proposal, identifying why people would love your cookbook more than others and what happens once your book proposal gets accepted? - Tell stories beyond the recipes you include. - The book proposal is your cookbook’s business plan. - Why will people pick up your book rather than others? - How to get a publishing deal? - How can you stand out in a saturated market by owning your voice? - You can truly show your perso

In episode 415, Ryan Allen teaches us how to monetize our sites and get 100k page views in 30 days. Ryan has been a food blogger for just under a year. Ryan knew when he started blogging, he wanted to be able to monetize as quickly as possible. So he planned to leverage Facebook and Facebook groups to reach 100K page views in his first 30 days. In this episode, Ryan shares in detail how he used Facebook to gain traction for his blog. Find out how you can implement his Facebook marketing strategy to increase traffic and monetize your own blog. - Be able to look at your content objectively. - What is the quickest way to grow as a new blogger? - Use Facebook groups socially. - The more you help and interact with others, the more they’ll do the same for you. - The more consistent you are, the more success you’ll find. - What are the advantages of Facebook groups compared to your own pages? - How to get quality traffic from Facebook that won’t affect your RPM? - What types of recipe content performs best? Connect

In episode 414, Megan chats to Eric Samuelson about common mental health issues food bloggers struggle with and how they can keep on top of their blogs regardless of what they experience in their day to day life. Eric runs the blog, Eat Like No One Else - the place to learn how to enhance the way you eat through learning of specialty foods and ingredients and how to make the most amazing food at home. At Eat Like No One Else, they solidly believe in the philosophy "if you teach a man to fish..." . In 2022, Eric introduced a podcast, Eat Shop Waste Not, that teaches people how to source the most delicious groceries without wasting food or a single penny. In this episode, you’ll learn about common mental health issues bloggers experience, including feelings of isolation, anxiety, low self-esteem and depression. - Why is food blogging so mentally tasking? - Evaluate your work-life balance. - How does income affect your mental health? - Tips to deal with the anxiety of blog analytics. - Perfectionism increases yo

In episode 413, Aleka Shunk teaches us effective keyword research strategies, sharing tips about which search volumes to target, how to analyze competition and which mistakes to avoid. Aleka is the founder of Aleka's Get-Together, a food and entertaining blog, and Keywords With Aleka, a keyword research school for bloggers. She has a Master's Degree in Teaching, Learning and Curriculum and was a teacher for ten years. Aleka took her expertise as both a teacher and blogger to create courses to help others learn how to navigate and excel at a small, but important, piece of SEO: keyword research. In this episode, you’ll learn how to do keyword research to maximize traffic coming to your website no matter where you are in your blogging journey. - You can naturally rank for more than one variation of a keyword. - What do you do if the search volume is low for your particular keyword? - What should we do with keywords with high competition? - Track your higher ranking posts. - It’s really important to keep readers

In episode 412, Megan chats to Kristin Weeks about how to set healthy habits that help us push through hard times and grow our businesses in the long-run. Kristin started her blog 3 years ago with the passion to teach others how to cook more homemade meals, bake with sourdough, and how to start a backyard garden to grow fresh produce. Since then, Kristin’s journey has had a lot of ups and downs. A year ago she decided to take her blog and business seriously and that had a lot to do with habits, routines, and mindset. By working on herself first, she found she was able to focus. The hard work turned her hobby into a viable business, going from a few thousand sessions a month to qualifying for Mediavine within a year. In this episode, you’ll learn how to identify areas in your life you’d like to improve, setting positive, lasting habits that will help you achieve your goals. - Do you feel ready to put everything you have into your blog? - Which areas of your life would you like to improve? - Your strengths are

In episode 411, Sabrina Currie teaches us how to up our writing game by focusing on clear, concise blog writing that shows our personalities while providing accurate information about our recipes. Sabrina started her career in food right after high school by attending cooking school. After doing a few different jobs in the food industry, she went into the healthcare field. She eventually found herself needing a creative outlet so she picked up a DSLR and started photographing food and nature. After taking a Wordpress blogging course, Sabrina decided to start a food blog and after a while wanted to make it more than a hobby. She has steadily increased her web traffic by scheduling an audit by Casey Markee and using tools like RankIQ and Keysearch. Her days are spent working half time in a hospital and half time blogging and writing while enjoying being a wife and mom. In this episode, you’ll learn about small tweaks you can make to your writing to make it more accessible and appealing to your readers. - Answer

In episode 410, Megan chats to Jenna Urben about what we need to do now in our businesses to be able to take a significant amount of time off later on. Jenna is the content creator of The Urben Life, a food and lifestyle blog where she shares allergy-friendly recipes and travel guides. Jenna started blogging about 5 years ago and was immediately drawn to the community aspect. Over the years, she realized there was a need for more transparency in the creator space. So she went on to create Bloggerbytes to provide bloggers and influencers with resources and tools they can use to thrive. In this episode, you’ll learn how to prepare blog posts, social media and email marketing in advance so that you can take time off when you want. - Have checklists ready to check what you can do ahead of time. - Post your content now so that it works for you when you’re taking time off. - Do’s and don’ts for scheduling out social media. - Why is a Canva subscription life-changing? - Save money by curtailing subscriptions you don

In episode 409, Laura Tobin teaches us how to treat our blogs like actual businesses, getting into the right mindset and talking about our business with confidence. In 2018, Laura’s husband suddenly passed away, and she became a single mom with two teenage sons and no income. In 2019, Laura decided to focus on a food blog that she’d started previously as a hobby and turn it into a viable business. Applying her technical and business skills, Laura was successful in joining Mediavine one year later. The last 4 years, Laura has worked as a single mom of two sons, while growing a business with limited time and resources. In this episode, you’ll learn how to think about your blog to develop it into a business, including being able to confidently discuss your work with other people and break down food blogger stereotypes. - How do you answer when someone asks you what you do? - Why are food bloggers underrated? - Develop an entrepreneurial mindset. - What are the 5 stages of developing a startup? - Stay true to you

In episode 408, Megan chats to Miriam Schulman about why embracing our inner uniqueness can take us from being a starving artist to a well-paid and well-known one. Miriam Schulman is an artist and founder of The Inspiration Place podcast, where she helps other artists learn how to profit from their passion or become better artists. She’s helped thousands of artists around the world develop their skill sets and create more time and freedom to do what they love. Her art and story have been featured in major publications including Forbes, The New York Times and the Art of Man. The Inspiration Place podcast is in the top 1% of all podcasts and is listened to in over 100 countries. In this episode, you’ll learn why you should embrace your weirdness and how it can help you become a successful artist. Miriam shares various tips from her new book with HarperCollins Leadership Arpreneur.  - How can we stand out? - Let go of people-pleasing tendencies to make yourself more marketable. - Idiosyncrasies make you more rel

In episode 407, Jazzmine Woodard teaches us about DEI (diversity, equality and inclusion) and how to create inclusive content in our niche to make as many people as possible feel included and valued. Jazzmine has balanced growing her food and travel blog, Dash of Jazz, with a corporate career in DEI for the last 8 years. In this time, Jazzmine has learned how to be inclusive in her content approach without alienating her niche audience. She has also cultivated an audience that engages with both food and travel content. In this episode, learn about DEI and how to avoid alienating your readers. Jazzmine discusses how we can position ourselves as teachers while respecting our readers' different tastes and making our content as accessible as possible.  - Respect your readers’ differences (i.e. in opinion and taste). - Using captions on social media videos and alt text. - Does each person have equal opportunity to enjoy your content? - People who do feel included, really feel included by the extra measures we take

In episode 406, Megan chats to Liam Smith about how food bloggers can launch their own memberships to create a new revenue stream from existing recipe content. Liam has 10+ years experience in tech, working Fortune 500 companies and growing start ups. Through a series of fortunate events, Liam was able to combine his passion for tech and desire to help people eat better to create MealPro App - a platform helping food bloggers to launch their own memberships with their existing recipe content. In this episode, you’ll find out why Liam started the app, how you can set it up, why this kind of membership is beneficial for your readers and how it can earn you additional income. - Use the app to develop a new stream of income. - Repurpose the existing recipe catalog on your blog. - How easy is the app to use? - Integrate it into your existing blog domain. - Who is the end-user of the meal-prep plan? - Take back control of your content. - It’s important to decide how you want to package your membership. - What is th

In episode 405, Natasha Levai teaches us how to stay motivated as we wait for our food blogs to grow. Natasha is a half-Russian, half-Ukrainian living in Eastern Hungary with her family. Her food blog, Natasha’s Home, focuses on gluten-free cooking and baking, including gluten-free sourdough recipes. Natasha is up front about being a beginner, with her blog live for a little over a year. She is in the process of learning and growing toward making this business into a full-time job. Natasha’s first job was at McDonald's and, more importantly, doing much-needed work at orphanages around the world for most of her adult life. In this episode, you’ll find out how to accept that you’ll make mistakes, effectively explore new platforms and how to plan for blog growth when you’re just starting out. - Narrow down your niche to get off to a good start. - Don’t forget SEO and keyword research - are there any topics no one’s written on? - Develop a system that will allow you to post ahead of schedule. - Make the most of f

In episode 404, Megan chats to Clara Cheng about achieving fitness goals and how applying  a fitness mentality to your blogging business can help you grow. Clara is a content creator for the last 2 years at Fitsian Food Life, which shares macro-friendly healthy recipes that are still delicious. Fitness is a very integral part of her life and is also the key reason why she started the blog. Clara likes to stay active by training Muay Thai and powerlifting. In order to make sure she has enough energy to train well, it’s essential for her to replenish her body with adequate nutrition. At the same time, Clara loves good food and she started creating recipes of her favorite dishes, tweaked to be healthy and nutritious. Throughout the past year, Clara has invested in the right tooling and education to see meaningful traction in traffic growth for her blog. In this episode, you’ll find out what is meant by "fitness mentality", understanding that change and success don’t happen overnight and how to adopt the same det

In episode 403, Megan chats to Jillian Leslie about which types of digital products are good for food bloggers to add to their businesses and which ones are most effective to start with. Jillian Leslie loves building businesses on the internet with her husband, David. In 2009, they started Catch My Party, one of the largest party ideas sites on the web. In 2016, Jillian and David built MiloTree, a smart pop-up app to help bloggers and creators grow their social media followers and email lists. And in 2021, they built MiloTreeCart, the easiest tool for bloggers and creators to sell digital products. It's built for non-techies. For the past 4 years, Jillian has been hosting her weekly podcast called The Blogger Genius Podcast. She interviews successful bloggers, entrepreneurs, and industry experts to break down what's working now in online business. In this episode, you’ll learn about which digital products you should avoid at the beginning, understanding the psychology behind a digital product that your client

In episode 402, Megan chats to Maren Epstein about how she reached 85k page views from 5k page views in 7 months after 7 years of failing. Maren Epstein is a health supportive chef with a degree from the Natural Gourmet Institute which is a part of the Institute of Culinary Education and a bachelor’s Degree from Drew University. She specializes in developing diets and recipes for gut health that are Gluten Free, which is the focus of her blog, Eating Works. She has published food pieces in The New York Daily News and The Independent along with many recipes for Mashed, Healthline, Tasting Table and more. In this episode, you’ll find out that it’s normal not to be an expert from the start and how to stay resilient and search for the right strategy to help you succeed in your blogging journey long-term. - Slow success is normal for bloggers. - It’s natural that bloggers learn more about website hosts and SEO with time. - Do you feel frustrated at not knowing whether a strategy you’re using is effective? - Consid

In episode 401, Marta Rivera Diaz teaches us how to be an authentic ally as a content creator, helping under-served individuals in thoughtful and genuine ways. Marta Rivera Diaz is a formally trained chef with more than 25 years of cooking and baking experience and is the chef and author behind Sense & Edibility®, her “online culinary school.” Marta created Sense & Edibility® to encourage advanced and novice cooks alike, to explore- and succeed at executing culinary fundamentals, techniques, and cuisines never before explained or introduced to them. As a bi-racial woman, who grew up and married into the military, and one who lives with a disability, Marta is a staunch advocate for under-served communities, especially in the food space. In this episode, you’ll learn more about how to stand up for equality, diversity and inclusion in your field of expertise. - When you want to be inclusive and consider diversity, look beyond yourself. - How can you be a better, considered person online? - Don’t limit cr

Megan gets interviewed in episode 400! Eat Blog Talk’s community manager, Taryn, asks Megan a list of personal, mindset, entrepreneurial and food blogging questions sent in by her listeners in this AMA episode. Megan started her food blog Pip and Ebby in 2010 and food blogging has been her full-time career since 2012. Her passion for blogging has grown into an intense desire to support fellow food bloggers so they have access to the information, insight and community that accelerates their paths to achieving desired freedoms. In this episode, you’ll learn more about Megan’s experience as a seasoned food blogger. She’ll share what is she most excited about for the future, what hasn’t changed in blogging throughout the years, the impact of AI, life-changing resources for entrepreneurs, scary long-term goals and keeping a healthy balance between working hard and taking time off. - Why is getting into podcasting a huge opportunity for bloggers? - What is unique about Pinterest in the blogging space? - The benefit

In episode 399, Megan chats to June Albertson-Dick about the blogging lessons she learned the hard way and how new bloggers can avoid her mistakes. June started Practically Homemade in late 2017 as a way to share her love of making simple recipes spectacular. For years June had owned and operated a cake decorating business and deli in her hometown before becoming a high school culinary teacher. It wasn’t until June of 2021 that she stepped away from 8 years of teaching young adults to cook to make Practically Homemade a full time job. June truly believes that we don’t have to spend hours in the kitchen to make amazing food that everyone will go crazy for. In this episode, you will find out how to create a great brand from the start, the importance of consistency and SEO and social media strategies for Pinterest. - Pick the right name for your blog. - Consistency sets you apart from other bloggers. - Make your pins for Pinterest distinctive. - SEO is essential if you want to make enough money to go full-time.

In episode 398, Megan chats to Lee McGuire about how she grew her Instagram account to over a 100k followers in one year using mostly reels. Lee is the creator, photographer, recipe developer and writer of the gluten free food blog, Lane & Grey Fare. There, you will find gluten free and allergy-friendly food that is as decadent, savory and as rich as other food, while still being simple enough to make in your own home. As a mother of two children with celiac disease and multiple food in a way that’s entertaining and helpful. One of the ways she does this is by making beautiful and tantalizing reels on Instagram. In this episode, you’ll find out how she grew her account from 19k followers to 144k in one year. She also shares how her strategy has impacted traffic going to her blog. - Should I post every single day? (including weekends) - Spend time to engage with people who engage with your content. - Engage with our followers’ accounts. - Is there a correlation between the amount of IG followers and my web

In episode 397, Megan Gonzalez teaches us how to use PDFs and video to quickly grow our email list. Megan Gonzalez is the knitter behind Nurture Knitwear, and she strives to create a chic casual style for modern women. At Nurture Knitwear, they are focused on empowering women to carve out a little creative space for themselves to learn, to find peace and satisfaction, and to refill so that they can keep pouring out into the lives of those we love. In this episode, Megan shares her journey in becoming a knitting blogger and how she used PDFs to double her email list by offering knitting patterns. She also explains how she uses video tutorials to get more email subscribers and boost her page views. - Use PDF printouts of recipes as an opt-in for new email subscribers. - PDFs can generate interest on other platforms too, like social media. - How to use video tutorials as an opt-in to build your email list. - Videos give a more personal touch point and therefore a deeper connection. - Where do you embed the video