The Food Blogger Pro Podcast

How to build a self-promoting app, how to find a developer, and what to look for in an agency. ----- Welcome to episode 137 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Trey George about building, developing, and managing apps. One Million App Downloads in One Year Building an app can be an exciting addition to your online business, and Trey is a pro at managing apps at A Color Story. Trey has had a hand in building four apps for the A Beautiful Mess brand (the A Beautiful Mess app, Party Party, A Color Story, and A Design Kit), and he has quickly learned what works, what doesn't, and what's important to consider when building an app. If you've ever thought about building an app for your blog, this episode is for you! In this episode, Trey shares: How he got started managing the A Beautiful Mess app How to charge more for your work How the A Beautiful Mess app was self-promoting Why hashtags were important for growth What to look for in an agency How to find an app developer His experience with in-app purchases Resources: SEO Site Checkup Alt Test How to Write Great Pinterest Image Descriptions How to Craft Alt Text for Images 121: How to Overcome Your Failures and Find Success with Emma Chapman A Beautiful Mess App A Color Story If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com. Thanks to our Reviewer of the Week, Anushree from Simmer to Slimmer! If you'd like to be featured, leave a review for us on iTunes and include your name and blog name in the review.

How to run ads on a recipe print page, optimize images for search results, and set Pinterest descriptions with Raquel Smith. ----- Welcome to episode 136 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Raquel Smith about how optimize search results on Google and Pinterest. Optimizing for Search Results on Google and Pinterest Structured data, optimization, and rich snippets are common things for bloggers to think about, but just because they're common doesn't mean they're easy to understand. If SEO talk is enough to make your head spin, you're not alone, so Raquel is here to make recipe SEO much more approachable and understandable. She has managed the development of WP Tasty's two WordPress plugins, Tasty Recipes and Tasty Pins, and you'll learn how these plugins can have a major impact on your recipes. In this episode, Raquel shares: How she get started with Food Blogger Pro The difference between WP Tasty and Tasty Recipes What a recipe plugin is and why it's important What Googlebot is How to run ads on a recipe print page What rich snippets are and how they're different from rich cards How to optimize images for search results What Gutenberg is If you need to optimize for everything The problem that Tasty Pins is solving Why a blogger might hide an image from a post Resources: WP Tasty Pass the Plants Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less 133: Optimizing Your Food Blog's SEO with Casey Markee How to find out the last time Google crawled and indexed a website 011: Making the Leap to Full-Time Blogging with Beth Moncel from Budget Bytes Gutenberg 089: How to Build a Plane with Alexa, Jasmine & Raquel from Food Blogger Pro Tasty Recipes Tasty Pins Questions? Reach out to Raquel at hello@wptasty.com If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com. Thanks to our Reviewer of the Week, Lauren from Zestful Kitchen! If you'd like to be featured, leave a review for us on iTunes and include your name and blog name in the review.

How to launch a membership site, name a blog, and hire a team with Bjork Ostrom. ----- Welcome to episode 135 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, we're playing an episode from the Dishing with Delishes podcast. In this episode, Bjork chats with Elaine about starting Pinch of Yum and Food Blogger Pro, building a team, and developing plugins. You will also learn how Lindsay and Bjork met. Spoiler alert: they're high school sweethearts! Thanks to our Reviewer of the Week, Kate from Gift of Hospitality! If you'd like to be featured, leave a review for us on iTunes and include your name and blog name in the review. In this episode, Bjork discusses: What he and Lindsay did before food blogging How they met - How they decided on the Pinch of Yum name When they decided to hire a team The difference between contracted workers and employees How they launched Food Blogger Pro What's included in a Food Blogger Pro membership Why they decided to publish their income reports How WP Tasty started Resources: Get the resources for this episode here: https://www.dishingwithdelishes.com/014-bjork-ostrom-food-blogger-pro/

Comparison, how to juggle a blog and a full-time job, and cookbook deals with Sally McKenney. ----- Welcome to episode 134 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This episode is a special FBP Rewind episode where we're rewinding to one of our first and most popular episodes with Sally McKenney from Sally's Baking Addiction. Creating Success If you haven't been over to Sally's Baking Addiction yet, you are certainly missing out. Sally creates baked goods to swoon over - from cheesecake to brownies to pies, and everything you can imagine with funfetti. She's also a whiz when it comes to blog success. Sally took her blog from zero to hero (read: full time job) in just two years. She is now the author of three cookbooks, Sally's Baking Addiction, Sally's Candy Addiction, and Sally's Cookie Addiction. If you dream of taking your hobby blog to full-time status, this episode is not to be missed! In this episode, Sally shares: Why comparing your baby blog to the big guns is not a good strategy What she attributes to her rapid success (hint: it's not luck!) How she juggled her full-time job and growing her food blog How she got a cookbook deal - and kept up her blog while writing it Where her traffic comes from And the advice she would give herself back when she started her blog Resources: Sally's Baking Addiction Sally's Baking Addiction Sally's Candy Addiction Sally's Cookie Addiction Thanks to our Reviewer of the Week, Theodore Leaf from theodoreleaf.com! If you'd like to be featured, leave a review for us on iTunes and include your name and blog name in the review. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.

Voice searches, nofollow links, featured snippet mismatches, and on-page optimization with Casey Markee. ----- Welcome to episode 133 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Casey Markee about the changing landscape for online searches, recipe cards, and more. Optimizing Your Blog's SEO We're so excited to welcome FBP SEO Expert, Casey Markee, back to the podcast today! At his company Media Wyse, Casey handles site audits for algorithm and rank issues, spammy structured markup actions, and unnatural link issues for food blogs, and he is one of our go-to resources for all things recipe SEO. SEO can be confusing, but this episode will help you understand nofollow links, optimization (both on-page and off-page), the mobile-first index, and more. So grab a pencil and paper, and let's jump in! In this episode, Casey shares: How he got into food and recipe SEO Why SEO is important What on-page optimization means and why it's different from off-page optimization When you should use nofollow links What the mobile-first index is When long-form and short-form content is best What recipe cards and the mobile carousel is What JSON-LD is Resources: Alfred Wox Best practices for bloggers reviewing free products they receive from companies Introduction to Structured Data Casey's featured image presentation Evaluation of Speech for the Google Assistant Insights from Google's Voice Search Quality Rater Guidelines Cook with Google Assistant Check out Casey's website, Facebook page, or contact him about an audit If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com. Thanks to our Reviewer of the Week, Gaby from Veggie World Recipes! If you'd like to be featured, leave a review for us on iTunes and include your name and blog name in the review.

Why your story is important to your brand, how to figure out your brand position, and how to find information about your audience with Laurie Buckle. ----- Welcome to episode 132 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Laurie Buckle from CookIt Media about the importance of the story behind your brand. Perfecting Your Story and Your Brand Laurie has an acute understanding of the power of story. Your brand's story is the reason why your brand exists, and it helps facilitate a connection with your readers that creates loyalty throughout your blogging career. Over at CookIt Media, Laurie helps bloggers solidify their stories and brands. She believes that story is the best communication tool that you can use, and she's here to speak about how you can discover and perfect your own brand's story. In this episode, Laurie shares: Why stories are so important How she got started with CookIt Media What your brand position is How to find information about your audience How to determine your target audience Resources: Tasty Pins 118: How Discovering Your Brand Can Help You Grow with Gaby Dalkin Meredith 093: How Finding a Niche Transformed a Business with Meggan Hill from Culinary Hill CookIt Media Work with CookIt Media Enter the CookIt Consulting Intro Giveaway! Leave a comment on this episode's blog post or leave a review of our podcast on iTunes, screenshot your review, and send it to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com. The deadline is January 31, 2018. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.

Clarifying your why, finding gratitude in all things, and knowing it's possible with Bjork Ostrom. ----- Welcome to episode 131 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks about setting goals for the new year. Three Ways to Set Smarter Goals in the New Year Have you ever set a goal for the new year and not followed through? We've all been there. Bjork is here to help you with three mental frameworks that will help you make smarter goals and keep you motivated in the new year. Between understanding why you're setting a specific goal to why it's important to practice gratitude, this episode will help you strategically and intentionally create goals to help you and your business grow. In this episode, Bjork shares: What SMART goals are Why it's important to understand why you're setting a specific goal Why gratitude is so important Resources: Hygge If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.

Creating an avatar, securing brand sponsorships, and why you should follow-up with brands after a campaign with Jenny Melrose. ----- Welcome to episode 130 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Jenny Melrose about making the transition to being an entrepreneur, connecting with brands online, and using a website that helps you price your sponsored content. Creating a Full-Time Income from Sponsored Content Sponsored content is a popular way for bloggers to monetize their businesses. You partner with a brand, create posts promoting their products, and then you're paid based on a rate you negotiate. If it seems like a lot of work, it is. But on top of that work, how do you make sure that you're producing content that's of value to the brands you're working with? That's where Jenny's expertise comes in. She has cracked the code on creating awesome sponsored content that is both on-brand and useful to the companies you're working with. Her tips on creating an avatar, staying true to your voice, and pitching the right people can all help you earn an income from sponsored content work. In this episode, Jenny shares: Why she started The Melrose Family How she created an avatar Why it's important to pay attention to your reader demographics How to find the right contact for the brands you want to work with When to pitch a brand How she secures brand sponsorships The difference between PR agencies and working with a brand directly Why you should follow-up with brands after a campaign What tool she uses to keep track of her campaigns What tool you can use as a guideline for your sponsored content rates Resources: The Melrose Family Google Docs Social Bluebook Jenny Melrose Influencer Entrepreneur with Jenny Melrose If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.

How to blog while writing a cookbook, the importance of user experience, and how to approach your brand and business with David Lebovitz. ----- Welcome to episode 129 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with David Lebovitz about how to develop the ability to stick with it, a lesson that helped him build his brand, and his a-typical approach to blogging analytics. Forging Your Own Path 1999 was a big year for David; he left his job as a pastry chef to write his first cookbook, Room for Dessert and started a recipe blog. Little did he know that he was becoming one of the pioneers of the food blogging industry! From there, David moved to Paris, wrote a few more cookbooks, and learned how to do what he loves while providing value to his readers. You'll learn about his philosophy on email etiquette, his favorite social media platform, and why his blog is so important to his cookbook-writing process. In this episode, David shares: Why recipe development is an ongoing process How to pronounce "L'appart" and why he chose it as a book title What it was like to be one of the first food bloggers How he approaches his brand and business The important word he learned when he moved to Paris Why he doesn't look at his Google Analytics What his favorite social media platform is Why it's important to think about user experience Resources: L'Appart: The Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home 101 Cookbooks Simply Recipes The Amateur Gourmet Movable Type 016: How Elise Bauer Built Simply Recipes and Recovered from a 70% Drop in Traffic David's blog If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.

Important Google tools, switching to https, and how to perform effective keyword research with Katy Widrick. ----- Welcome to episode 128 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Katy Widrick from Make Media Over about marketing strategies, search engine optimization, and Google tools that can help you refine your blog. Maximizing Your Blog's Potential Katy got her start in television news, but she realized that her love was actually behind-the-scenes. Content creation, writing an email newsletter, consulting, and helping others start their blogs - that's where Katy thrives. She started her business, Make Media Over, a managed services and consulting business, to help start-ups and developed brands with online and influencer marketing. She helps her clients understand and use marketing funnels, SEO tools, and social media platforms to grow their following and increase engagement. Learn some of her tips and tricks in this interview! In this episode, Katy shares: Why switching to https is important What "mixed content" means How she started her business Why you should be using Google Search Console How you can help nudge people to click through to your post How to use Pinterest for SEO Resources: Katy Widrick Make Media Over Designing Your Life Google Search Console Google Analytics Google Keyword Planner Moz Ahrefs Mailchimp ConvertKit ActiveCampaign Infusionsoft Mad Mimi Make Media Over services If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com.