The Food Blogger Pro Podcast

Maximizing your Q4 revenue, how to keep the Q4 momentum, and republishing content with Bjork Ostrom and Jenna Arend. ----- Welcome to episode 274 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, we’re re-sharing a Q&A we held for our Food Blogger Pro members where Bjork and Pinch of Yum’s General Manager, Jenna, answer questions about preparing for Q4. Last week on the podcast, Bjork chatted with Danielle Liss from Businessese and LISS Legal about the ways that bloggers can protect their content. To go back and listen to that episode, click here. How Food Bloggers Can Make the Most Out of Q4  Q4 is made up of the last three months of the year (October, November, and December), and it’s a big deal for food bloggers. Why? Because people are hungry for recipes! They want recipes for Halloween, Thanksgiving, the holidays. And when we’re not experiencing a pandemic, they want crowd-pleasing recipes and recipes they can make for their holiday parties and get-togethers. Not only that, but advertising

How to create and maintain Terms of Service, Privacy Policies, disclaimers, and more to protect your content with Danielle Liss. ----- Welcome to episode 273 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Danielle Liss from Businessese and LISS Legal about the ways that bloggers can protect their content. Last week on the podcast, Bjork chatted with Les Alfred from Balanced Black Girl about building a brand that allows you to share your message. To go back and listen to that episode, click here. Protecting Your Content   You spend a lot of time creating content; how can you make sure that your content is actually protected? That’s where things can get kind of…confusing. What can be copyrighted? What are DMCA takedown notices? Do you need a disclaimer? How often should you update your Terms of Service and Privacy Policy? Danielle is here on the podcast to discuss it all! You work hard to produce the content for your blog and brand – in today’s episode, you’ll learn how to make sur

Tips for dealing with Imposter Syndrome, managing a podcast, and starting a new brand with Les Alfred. ----- Welcome to episode 272 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Les Alfred from Balanced Black Girl about building a brand that allows you to share your message. Create Your Own Room  Have you ever worked on a project and just felt that something about it was…off? It’s as though it just doesn’t fit with your vision, your wants, or your passions? That’s exactly where Les found herself two years ago when she was a food and fitness blogger at The Balanced Berry. She took a step back, leaned into the discomfort she was feeling, and ultimately started a new brand, podcast, and website all under the Balanced Black Girl name. It’s under this brand that Les is able to relay the message she feels called to share to her audience and have meaningful conversations with others who help her spread her mission. In this conversation, Les shares advice for bloggers who feel like they

How consumers use subscriptions, how to stay competitive as a subscription-based business, and how to get paid for your work with Melissa Lanz. ----- Welcome to episode 271 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Melissa Lanz from The Fresh 20 about running subscription businesses in 2020. Serving Your Subscribers  Do you have a subscription-based business? If not, this episode may convince you to add one to your monetization strategy! Melissa runs the subscription-based business, The Fresh 20, and she’s back here on the podcast this week to talk about how you can help your readers with a useful subscription service. She’ll help you understand the best way to find and serve “your people,” identify your audience’s problems, and offer solutions with the content you produce. Subscription businesses can be a great way to create a sustainable income as an entrepreneur AND serve your audience along the way. You’ll learn how in this episode! In this episode, you’ll learn: How her

How to remind yourself of personal and business tasks, protect your stuff from theft, and keep a tidy computer with Bjork Ostrom. ----- Welcome to episode 270 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks about his must-have apps for a productive business and personal life. Get It Done  Apps are great to help you become more productive, track your progress, and optimize your day. But which are our absolute favorites? The ones we rely on day after day, week after week to help us get it all done? That’s what Bjork is focusing on in this episode. You’ll hear about the apps and tools he uses to fly through email, stay on top of business and personal tasks, record quick videos, and stay hydrated with a color-changing water bottle. Yes, seriously. We’re excited to share some of our favorite apps with you today! And if you have any must-have apps, leave them in the comments at foodbloggerpro.com/270 –– we’d love to hear your suggestions! In this episode, you’ll learn: How Screen Time/Downti

How to manage a team as a blogger, republish content, and identify high-quality content with Sally McKenney. ----- Welcome to episode 269 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Sally McKenney about how she creates the very best recipe content for her readers. How To Create The Best Recipes for Your Readers  We’re so excited to welcome Sally from Sally’s Baking Addiction back to the podcast after five years. Fun fact: she was the first true interviewee on The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This episode is loaded with valuable information for any blogger at any part of the blogging journey. Sally talks about what it’s like to run a blog and balance being a parent, how she delegates tasks, the work she’ll always do for her blog, and the kind of work that has been most beneficial to her blog’s growth. Then she’ll talk about the importance of creating awesome content for your readers. What does it look like? How do you update your older content to be even better? She answers all of

Is the blogging niche too saturated, how to find a good host for your website, and the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. ----- Welcome to episode 268 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, we’re resharing an episode in which we offer advice to new food bloggers. Blogging Misconceptions, How to Choose a Host, and Why WordPress We’re going back to basics today and resharing an episode from 2019 about starting a blog. If you have an idea for a blog, business, series, post, or product, we hope this episode will help give you a bit of a push to actually start. First, you’ll hear from Bjork. He covers three of the most common blogging misconceptions we hear from new bloggers and how you can switch your thought processes around them. Next up: Andrew, our Site Speed Expert here at Food Blogger Pro. In his section, he’s talking all about hosting. For instance, did you know he recommends changing hosts every few years?! Last, our old WP Tasty Lead, Raquel. She’s talking all about W

Creating a freelance photography business, shooting in manual mode, understanding a DSLR, and tips for improving your food photography skills with Ashley McLaughlin. ----- Welcome to episode 267 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, we’re rewinding back to our episode about freelance food photography with Ashley McLaughlin. Freelance Food Photography…with a side of Architecture We’re revisiting one of our past episodes about food photography this week! We interviewed Ashley McLaughlin back in 2017 about her freelance food photography business, and we’re resharing that episode with you today. Architecture and food…it doesn’t sound like there would be many similarities between the two, right? But there are, and Ashley’s background in architecture helped her understand experience, perspective, and design in a culinary setting. After staring her blog, Edible Perspective, as a way to stay creative, Ashley’s love of food transformed into a love of photography. After a long learning process, she

Learn how to write with focus, read with purpose, and build your community in this special FBP Rewind episode with Gabriela Pereira from DIY MFA. Welcome to episode 266 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, we’re rewinding back to one of our most popular episodes about writing with Gabriela Pereira from DIY MFA. Write More, Write Better, and Write Smarter  Writing –– do you love it or hate it? It seems to be one of those topics that really divide people; either you love the creative process of putting words onto paper or…you don’t. Today’s FBP Rewind episode will help you get those creative juices flowing and fine-tune your writing processes. A bit about our interviewee: Gabriela got her MFA in 2010, and after she graduated, she realized that a lot of people don’t actually need a formal education process in order to write. If you give yourself permission to own your creativity and writing, and if you learn a few key skills along the way, you can be a writer. She started her business, DIY

Delegating work, how to solve your readers' problems, and dedicating time to learn with Beth Moncel. ----- Welcome to episode 265 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Beth Moncel about adapting and growing her blog over the past five years. Adapting and Adjusting  We’re so excited to welcome Beth Moncel from Budget Bytes back to the podcast today! She was our 11th guest on the podcast, so we’re excited to catch-up with her in this episode. While we do talk about the things that successfully help her run her blog in this episode, we also talk about where she has struggled these past few years. Between hiring, listening to her readers, and adapting to drops in traffic, Beth has learned and grown, and we hope that this episode will teach you how you can adjust to changes in your own blogging journey. In this episode, you’ll learn: How her blog has changed in the past five years Why she includes step-by-step photos in her blog posts Why her blog is a combination of her love

Creating reader-first content, how to effectively work with brands, and creating a seven-figure income with Chelsea Lords. ----- Welcome to episode 264 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Chelsea Lords about growing her website traffic and building her seven-figure blogging business. Persistence  It’s time to welcome Chelsea Lords from Chelsea’s Messy Apron back to the podcast! Her original episode on the FBP Podcast is one of our all-time most-downloaded episodes, and we’re so excited we had the chance to welcome her back to the show and catch up on how her blog has grown and evolved since we last talked to her. You’ll hear how her social media and traffic strategies have shifted, how and why she strives to create the most helpful content she can for her readers, and how she managed to grow Chelsea’s Messy Apron into a seven-figure revenue business. In this episode, you’ll learn: How she adjusts to the changing blogging landscape How Facebook traffic changed How she d

How to advocate for your brand, the importance of content, and growing an Instagram following to 1.7 million with Tieghan Gerard. ----- Welcome to episode 263 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Tieghan Gerard about running her brand, growing her blog, and working with her family. Creating with Confidence  Today we’re welcoming Tieghan Gerard back to the podcast after four whole years! Tieghan has been pretty busy these past few years; she learned how to delegate work to her team, grow her personal brand, and set boundaries when they’re needed. She also realized that awesome, high-quality content needs to be at the core of everything she does because it helps her build a following and branch out to do other exciting projects that helps her grow her business. We loved catching up with Tieghan in this episode, and we know you’ll love getting a peek behind-the-scenes of how she runs Half Baked Harvest! In this episode, you’ll learn: How she manages work and projects as a

How to understand your blog data, why blogging was more profitable than freelancing, and how to write a cookbook with Mary Cressler and Sean Martin. ----- Welcome to episode 262 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Mary Cressler and Sean Martin from Vindulge about the journey to how they run their food blog today. The Journey of Food Bloggers  Mary Cressler and Sean Martin have done it all: they freelanced, they worked with ad companies, they worked with influencer marketing companies, they catered, they wrote a cookbook –– all in the pursuit of finding what it is that they like to do. This conversation with the Vindulge team will inspire you to think about your own journey and dig deep to figure out the way you want to run your blog. There’s not a “right” way or a “wrong” way to run your blog; this episode will give you some ideas to help make your blogging journey the best it can be for you. In this episode, you’ll learn: How Mary and Sean started to work together How

Why metrics are so important to brands, how to increase the probability of working with your favorite brand, and how content ownership works with Bruno Bornsztein. ----- Welcome to episode 261 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Bruno Bornsztein from InfluenceKit on how to understand the value of your sponsored content work. How to Work With Brands  It's Part 2 of our Managing Sponsored Content series here on the Food Blogger Pro Podcast! Bruno from InfluenceKit is rounding out this mini series in a conversation with Bjork about how to create awesome sponsored content. Creating sponsored content is like creating your regular content. You already publish an awesome recipe with great pictures on your blog or on social media. Sponsored content just allows you to continue to make the content that you love to make…and then get paid for it. There are parts of the sponsored content process, however, that are different. You need to build relationships, negotiate for your rate,

How to communicate with brands, work with brands goals in mind, and manage sponsored content work with Pinch of Yum's Jenna Arend. ----- Welcome to episode 260 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Jenna Arend from the Pinch of Yum team about some of the systems they use to manage their sponsored content work. Managing Sponsored Content  Sponsored content is a great way to diversify your income as a blogger, and for the next two weeks on the podcast, we’re going to be talking about how you can manage your sponsored content work. Today, we’re starting the sponsored content conversation with an interview with the Communications Manager of Pinch of Yum, Jenna. She’ll give you a behind-the-scenes tour of how the Pinch of Yum team uses processes to handle their sponsored content work. Between establishing a system for initial conversations with brands to contract review, we’re hoping that you’re able to take some of the systems that the Pinch of Yum team relies on and use them

Why watch time is important on YouTube, how to produce video content without a crew, and the types of videos that perform best on YouTube with Beth Le Manach. ----- Welcome to episode 259 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Beth Le Manach about effectively creating and sharing content on YouTube. Keep Showing Up  Do you know how to create engaging content on YouTube? Or how to make money from YouTube videos? If not, you’re in luck! This week on the podcast, we’re talking to the talented Beth Le Manach from Entertaining with Beth about creating YouTube content and getting more views. If you want to start creating YouTube videos, or maybe you already post on YouTube and want to level-up your channel, we think you’ll learn a lot from this episode. But even if you’re not interested in YouTube, her advice about remembering the purpose of your content is a great reminder for everyone. Enjoy! In this episode, you’ll learn: How podcasts were influential to Beth Where Beth crea

How to start having conversations about race, how wine and race intersect, and how to support black and people of color in the wine industry. ----- Welcome to episode 258 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Julia Coney about wine, race, and Netflix’s “Uncorked." Uncorked  If you’ve listened to The Food Blogger Pro Podcast for a while, you’ll know that we love talking with creators and people who want to make an impact. We’re having another one of those conversations today with wine writer, Julia Coney. When it comes to understanding racial injustice, it’s important to invest the time in educating yourself and forever be in pursuit of making a difference. Julia’s insights and experiences are one way we can educate ourselves and lean into having these tough but valuable conversations. Today, you’ll hear Julia’s stories about race issues in the wine industry, advice for having important conversations about racial injustice, and thoughts about why the movie, “Uncorked,” is

Our favorite resources to help support black-owned businesses and learn more about being actively anti-racist with Bjork and Lindsay Ostrom. ----- Welcome to episode 257 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork and Lindsay talk about the resources they’re using to learn about racism and some ways that we can support black-owned businesses. Where Do We Go From Here  After a two-week hiatus from the podcast, we’re back with an incredibly important episode from our fearless leaders, Bjork and Lindsay Ostrom. These past few weeks have been complicated, sad, frustrating, difficult, and unjust. Also in these past few weeks, we’ve listened to powerful conversations, participated in important discussions with our team, and are holding ourselves accountable to being actively anti-racist, challenging injustice, and using our platform to amplify messages of hope and change. In this episode, Bjork and Lindsay share some resources for supporting black-owned businesses and learning more about anti-r

We're taking a break from our normal podcast schedule this week to reflect and offer help and support to those who need it. Here are the links to the resources and organizations Bjork mentioned in this episode: The Where Do We Go From Here post on Pinch of Yum Lake Street Council NAACP The beauty of anti-racism is that you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it’s the only way forward. - Ijeoma Oluo

Why connection is important, how to make the most out of growth opportunities, and how to build a career that you love with Wendy Braitman. ----- Welcome to episode 256 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews career coach, Wendy Braitman about the importance of breaking big goals into small, actionable steps. Career Transitioning Do you have a specific career goal in mind? Maybe it’s a certain number of pageviews or working with a specific brand or making a full-time income from blogging. They’re all huge goals, and when goals are this big, it’s sometimes tough to figure out how you can get there. A lot needs to happen between now and the point where we achieve those goals, and that’s what Wendy is here to discuss today. This episode is all about the importance of accountability, setting up systems, and breaking those big goals into small, actionable, achievable steps. In this episode, you’ll learn: How Wendy changed careers How coaching works Why accountability is importa