061: Our Very First Community Podcast: Advice and Insight from the FBP Community

Raquel
by Raquel on Aug 23, 2016 in ,

Welcome to episode 61 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! We have a special episode today – our first ever community podcast! In this episode, we hear from members of the Food Blogger Pro community talk about what’s working for them right now.

Last week, Bjork talked about 8 food blog SEO tips that can help you get more traffic from search engines. To go back and listen that episode, click here.

Our very first community episode!

The only bummer about the FBP Podcast is that we just can’t interview everyone. There are so many bloggers out there who we would love to hear from, though!

So, the idea for a community podcast episode was born. Listeners from all over the globe called in to share their tips, tricks, and techniques that are working for them to grow their blog. Ranging from tips to help manage social media to techniques for staying on top of things, this episode has a little bit of everything. Enjoy!

In this episode, FBP listeners share tips on:

  • Finding your own voice
  • Being useful
  • Creating a business directory
  • Increasing engagement by being engaged
  • Running group giveaways
  • Being part of an accountability group
  • Building an editorial calendar
  • Using your blog to find clients
  • and so much more!

Listen to the Food Blogger Pro Podcast below or check it out on iTunes or Google Play Music:

Resources:

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to [email protected].

Be sure to review us on iTunes!

If you’d like to jump to the comments section, click here.

Transcript:

Bjork: Welcome to episode number 61 of the “Food Blogger Pro Podcast.” Hey there everybody. This is Bjork Ostrom, and you are listening to an episode that I am very excited to present to you. It is episode number 60 but it is the first time we’ve ever done a community podcast, which means that if you’ve been following along these past couple of episodes, you know this, the community podcast means we reached out to you, the community of listeners, as well as current Food Blogger Pro members, and we’ve asked them to submit their thought or idea or basically anything that’s been working for them lately, and we packaged all those up and we’re presenting them here to you, today.

We weren’t able to gather all of those, but we will say this. We’re going to be doing this, our hope is to be doing this occasionally, so if you have something that didn’t get in, or if you would like to contribute in the future, stay tuned because we’d like to do more of these as we continue on with the podcast, but it was a great way for us to reach out to the listeners, to you, to get some feedback on what’s been working for you lately, because obviously we can’t do an interview with everybody, but we know that there’s lots of people that listen to this, and each one of you has something that’s been working well, or something that you’ve been implemented that has really helped you along the way, whether it be with your blog, a mindset, or even something with your family in terms of how you organize your time, things like that.

I’m really excited to present this to you today. I would encourage you to check out the blogs or the websites of the people that are sharing to follow along with them, and I hope that you get something out of it. I know that I did as I listened to the feedback and insight that other people shared, so without further ado, let’s jump into this week’s podcast. It is with multiple different contributors, and I will let them explain who they are.

Mica: Hey everybody. My name is Mica. I am the photographer for Lets Taco Bout It Blog. I am part of a team of 3. We have Charlotte who is our recipe developer and writer, and Stephanie, who is a food stylist and also a chef. You can find us online at LetsTacoBoutItBlog.com. One of the biggest things that helped us was finding our own niche, finding our own voice. In the beginning, we were just shooting arrows in random directions and just hoped something would stick. I mean, we looked at all the popular blogs and we were like, “You know what? We’re going to do what they’re doing. We’re going to do that because it’s working for them, so it’ll work for us.”

By doing that, 2 things happened. 1, we became another blog just putting out another recipe that’s been done a bazillion times, and 2, it restricted us. We put shackles on our creativity, and 6 months in, we wanted to quit. We were like, “Nobody is reading our blog except for our moms. This sucks.” We had a big discussion and we made some big decisions and in that moment we had our big “Ah-huh.” What I call the big “Ah-huh” is when things just become clear, things just make sense. It just clicks. That’s what happened for us. We found our niche, we found our voice, and having that moment, having that “Ah-huh,” it helped us find a more focused and direction to take our blog in. It helped us find an engaging audience and more importantly, it helped us find an audience.

It helped us stand out from other blogs, you know? We kicked it up a notch by finding our own voice, and standing out, and just taking those shackles off. Our blog was nominated for Best New Voice in Saveur Magazine’s 2016 Blog Awards. That’s it. That’s the big thing. I mean, you know. Thanks for listening. Have a good day. All righty. Bye.

Cassie: My name is Cassie Johnston, and I blog at Back To Her Roots. My biggest tip is to figure out how you can be supremely useful or helpful to your readers. I think gone are the days when people read blogs to figure out, see a picture of what’s going on in people’s lives or have that voyeuristic view. People want useful content. They want the most bang for their click from pinterest or Facebook, or whatever, and our readers are really smart, and they see through it when you short change them. For me personally, every single decision I make in my business is based on the answer to the question, “Is this supremely helpful to my readers?”

I ask myself that question when I’m doing a redesign, when I’m coming up with recipe ideas, when I’m deciding if I want to work for a brand. My readers are my customers, and I need to serve them. It’s really been successful for me. When I made that switch about a year ago is when my blog really took off, and when I really started to see better engagement, better shares. People want good, useful content. It’s fun to do, too, and you feel really good about putting it out there. Ask yourself, “How can this be supremely useful?”

Brett: Hi, my name Brett Lindenberg. My website is FoodTruckEmpire.com. It’s a blog and iTunes podcast all about starting and operating a profitable mobile food business. If you have ever wanted to start a food truck or maybe a hot dog stand, this is definitely the right website for you. One of the best things that has worked out for me with my site and that I really haven’t seen anyone else talk about, and it’s helped me both grow traffic to my site and also generate new business relationships through it, is to add a business specific directory to your blog, sort of like a mini Yelp.com.

I’ll use an example from my own website. I built a directory, just a simple directory of food truck manufacturers, because there wasn’t a whole lot of organized information about where you could find builders across America that could manufacturer a food truck for you, that sort of thing. I just went about listing the business names, locations, telephone numbers, and included some images of past builds from all the different manufacturers, and what I’ve discovered is that not only do new visitors help find my site that way, but also food truck manufacturers, the owners of those companies have discovered me as well this way, and sometimes they actually have come out and emailed me direct requests for advertising rates for the site which is obviously really, really great when that happens. Not that it’s going to happen everyday, but it definitely happens on a regular basis.

Overall, I think this strategy could work out really well for a tonne of different food bloggers in a lot of different verticals that you guys are working in, and as long as there are products or services that are being sold around the topic you blog on, I think this could work out really well for you.

Melissa: Hi everyone. I’m Melissa Stadler from ModernHoney.com. Now, I am pretty new in the blogging world. I’ve been blogging for about 8 months, so I’ve been slowly growing my social media following. Even though my numbers aren’t extraordinarily high right now, I think what is working for me is my engagement. I think the reason that I’m getting a good amount of likes and especially comments is a few things. I think number 1 is I’ve gotten my followers very organically. There’s no games or tricks or follow and unfollow, or little bots that do that. I think it’s all from a friend of a friend of a friend, and word of mouth, and also probably the power of hashtags that’s got me to where I am.

Then, maybe the second thing is that I try to get back to everyone and be engaged in their comments, whether it’s just thanking them for it, or being very appreciative. I think that’s really important, is to always appreciate your readers and be grateful that they are trying out your recipes, that they have questions. I love to hear from my readers. Even if it’s a problem with my recipe, or something that they don’t totally understand, I want to help them. I want to make sure that they’re being successful in the kitchen. For me, that’s something that brings me a lot of satisfaction on this crazy blogging journey.

Beth: Hi. My name is Beth Jacques Chen. You can find me at FoodFashionAndFun.com. The one thing that has really worked for my blog is group giveaways. I’ve hosted a bunch of giveaways and they’ve always been really successful in gaining new readers and social media followers. The last giveaway I had almost 100,000 entries. Additionally, hosting group giveaways is also a great way to get in touch with fellow bloggers, beyond the Food Blogger Pro community. I’m still friendly with a lot of bloggers that I worked with. It’s so nice to have that community of people that you can connect with on a more personal level and additionally, some of the people that I’ve worked with in those giveaways have actually tried to go on and host giveaways of their own, and they’ve asked me for advice and how to make it as successful as possible.

That’s really complimentary, makes me feel good. Makes me feel like I’m doing something right. In fact, Raquel has actually been involved in a few of my giveaways, and she’s been fantastic. I really appreciate her joining in and being part of the group. Well, let me know if you have any questions, and I hope to talk to you soon.

Char: Hey this is Char with Walk & Skillet. You can find me at WalkandSkillet.com. We moved from the United States to Malaysia a year ago, and it was a much, much bigger adjustment than we had anticipated, so I had to put the blog on the back burner for a while. The current schedule is super crazy. My husband and I work full time on helping with the family business so when I was ready to get things going with my blog again, just a couple of months ago, I didn’t want to overwhelm myself and burn myself out even more than I already was, so I asked myself realistically, “What can I do to grow my blog?”

I decided that I could post once a week. I figured that once a week or even once a month was better than zero, and I knew I needed help to stay accountable, so I looked for an accountability group. I couldn’t find one so with the help of another blogger friend, we decided to start one. We check in once a week, but als throughout the week, there’s usually somebody in the group to push us all along by checking in. They ask, “How’s your week going so far?” There’s also a mastermind aspect to the group where everybody has been so incredibly generous with their knowledge and so, so helpful.

Every Friday we check in with our goals for the week, and we report on the previous weeks progress, and also specify what our one thing for this upcoming week is going to be, the one thing being that if all else fails, what must you absolutely get done this week? Then, on Wednesdays we talk about what’s working, so anybody can share their success stories, tips, and so forth. That’s the mastermind aspect of the group, and we’ve purposely kept the group really small. We’ve kept it at 15 people so we can really focus on everybody in the group and nobody gets lost in the shuffle. Having this group has been so, so helpful for me. It’s really helped me stay on track with my goals. Of course, there have been a couple of missed goals, but I usually get them soon after and I’ve found that I’ve just been so much more productive in general. Hope that helps.

Deanna: Hi. I am Deanna Segrave-Daly and I blog at TeaspoonOfSpice.com with my business partner, Serena. We are 2 dietitians who love food as much as you do and the one thing that’s been working well for us, which is I’m very nice to think about because there’s so many things I feel like we need to be doing, but one thing we’ve been doing is utilizing Facebook live over the last 3 or 4 months. We find it’s a really easy way to create video without having to do a lot of editing and prepping and uploading it to YouTube and all of that. We love that aspect about it, because it’s so easy, and two, that we really find we are reaching our audience more so than ever, because our audience mainly are parents, or any people who want to cook more healthfully for their families, but want to do it in a more simple way, but always in a delicious way.

We find we have friends and family who’ve known we’ve had a blog for a really long time, now they’re discovering us because they’re also on Facebook and they are seeing our Facebook live content. Again, I encourage anyone who hasn’t tried it yet, you can practice on your personal page and put it in the “Only Me” viewing mode if you want to practice, but just get out there and play a little bit and you will have some instant video, because it stays up live, which is why I like it so much more than Periscope, because it doesn’t go away. It’s a great, easy way to generate some video. Thank you for the opportunity. I look forward to hearing everyone else’s things that are working well.

Cara: Hi. My name is Cara Kretz. I’m with HomemadeItalianCooking.com. One of the things that helped me the most is to utilize a lot of the software tools that are available. I use WordPress and its plugins to manage my content, I use Co Schedule to automate and schedule all of my social media, and I use Lightroom to edit my photos. The combination of those things have made it a lot easier for me and has made me look a lot more professional, I think. It also frees up time to work on recipe development and writing. One of the things I also have found most valuable is the support in experience and knowledge I find at Food Blogger Pro. Can’t thank Bjork and Lindsay enough for all of their effort to get this information out, and all of you in the community and forums that have helped me with so many little sticky problems that I couldn’t figure out on my own. Thanks, and I look forward to helping and working with all of you in the future.

Jennifer S.: Hi. My name is Jennifer Shreckengost. I’m with the blog site called Wanderlust and Wellness. You can find me on the web at WanderlustAndWellness.com. I’m a fairly new food blogger. Under a year, so I’m really hustling hard, learning as much as I can. This community has been absolutely phenomenal but one thing I feel like I’m doing well now that I’ve got in a groove is really editorial planning. I feel like I’m really paying attention to my recipes, planning out ahead, fixing recipes ahead of schedule, so I’m not always panicking and frazzled about what am I going to post, so anyway, I feel like that’s one thing that’s going really well for me is editorial planning.

Arek: Hi Food Blogger Pro. My name is Arek. I’m from Czech Republic, in Prague. You can find me actually always at WorkWeekFoodie.com where I try to inspire people to eat healthy, but always tasty food. Come and check it out if you don’t have any idea what to cook for your next lunch, drop by at WorkWeekFoodie.com, and I’m the biggest fan of Food Blogger Pro. Most of the stuff really, including photographic tips, but I mostly use and I love the service Nutrifox, which for me, was sent from heaven solution to how to really provide in an easy way, nutrition information to all my calorie conscious users and subscribers. Keep doing the good stuff. Big cheers from Prague in Czech Republic, and hopefully sometime in the future we can have a nice chat about how to eat healthy, but always tasty food. Take care, bye.

Margaret: Hi I’m Margaret Helthaler. I launched VeggiePrimer.com in January 2015 and 6 months later, I was averaging about 4000 page views a month, when I made a concerted effort to understand how to use Pinterest effectively. 2 months later, my traffic jumped to over 21,000 page views. Pinterest went from driving about 14% of my traffic to over 45% and it continues to drive between 50 and 60% of my traffic a year later. When I first started blogging, I avoided Pinterest because I found it overwhelming. I’m so glad I worked through it and took the time to learn the platform because as the numbers show, it’s made a huge difference for my blog.

Alexa: My name is Alexa Peduzzi, and I run the food blog Fooduzzi.com, and you can also find me on Food Blogger Pro. I’m the community and events specialist here, but I wanted to let everybody know that I found some pretty cool tips about Facebook engagement and I help manage another blogger’s Facebook page, and we found a few things that have helped her page’s reach. Whenever I share a post from her blog, I take the image that I want to share, and then I crop it into a square, usually 600 pixels by 600 pixels. It helps fill out the space much better on the desktop news feed, so people are more engaged and they can see it better. I also share about 8 to 10 posts per day, around the same time per day. We feel like consistency is key here.

You have to let Facebook know that you’re committed to it and ready to give it the time it needs to grow. Then, number 3, I share other people’s posts from the pages to follow section, under the Facebook Insights. There’s a thread on Food Blogger Pro on where I explain how to do that, and I can help leave the link below. Yeah, yay, thanks. Bye.

Kylie: Hi. I’m Kylie, and I’m from the blog Almond To Zest. You can find us on Facebook, Pinterest, or at AlmondToZest.com. The tip that I want to share with you guys today is about keeping your content seasonal to wherever you are in the world. Living in New Zealand means that we have opposite seasons to most of our fellow bloggers, but instead of trying to make ice cream in the depth of our winter, or soup in the heat of our summer, we have found that the only way to keep our content fresh and exciting is to keep true to our seasons, by using locally sourced produce. I’m sure there are lots of other bloggers out there who aren’t necessarily based in the Northern Hemisphere, and I really hope that this tip can help them out. Thanks Bjork for making this possible. See ya.

Jessica S.: Hey there. My name is Jessica Scully. My site is PaleoScaleo.com. That’s P-a-l-e-o-S-c-a-l-e-o.com. You can read more on the site about why I chose that name. Recently I’ve been working with Google Analytics. I watch the Food Blogger Pro session on Google Analytics and got all of that set up, and then in looking at my data, I was super frustrated because most of my traffic was showing as coming from Russia. I wasn’t sure why that was, and then looking at the sites it was coming from, they all looked a bit questionable, so I did some additional research online, I figured out how to setup filters and I determined that those sites were actually spam bots that were skewing my Google Analytics numbers. I setup a filter in my Google Analytics called “Bot Free” which filters out all of those other sites hitting my site, and gave me actual data for my site.

In looking at that, it really changed my outlook on my site. My time on site went up, my bounce rate went down, so it really just encouraged me to keep going and keep doing what I’m doing with my site, despite not having a whole lot of traffic at the moment. Might be something worth looking into if you haven’t yet.

Bet: Hey. I’m Bet, and I blog at BetOnDinner.com, and I’ve been using a new to me app called “Over” to do my pins for Pinterest. I don’t have any photo editing software, so I have been using some free online things to make those and add text to images, but I really liked this because it just feels more intuitive, it’s easy to use, and I can just do it right on my phone which is especially nice right now since I have a newborn and she’s been a little bit high maintenance in the evenings, and I can literally be wearing in the carrier, and doing laps around my downstairs and still be working on my phone and make my Pinterest pin and it’s that easy to do. She’s currently in the carrier, we’re wandering around the living room, but I just wanted to share that, in case there’s anyone else who doesn’t have a system down for adding text to your images and might want to try that app, “Over.”

Mary Ann: Hi. My name is Mary Ann Rollano. My blog is called Life Is Better With Tea. I just started about 6 months ago so I really don’t have a big history on what’s working and what’s not, but I’ve started a blog as an adjunct to a tea business that I already started called “MaryAnna’s Tea” about 6 years ago, and it’s a ready to drink bottled ice tea, so the focus is completely different. I wanted to get more information out about tea that I couldn’t do through the tea business, so I’ve used the email list that I have from MaryAnna’s Tea and that has helped tremendously in getting the word out, but I also use social media a lot because that’s the easiest way for me, without spending a lot of, or any money, to get the word out about my new Life Is Better With Tea blog. Some of the Facebook groups I belong to, food blogs, and also tea blogs, have helped a lot. Thanks. Bye.

Susan: Hi. I’m nutrition expert Dr. Susan Mitchell. Where can you find me? 2 sites online. That would be FoodFitFabulous.com and BreakingDownNutrition.com. One thing that’s working really well for me, we provide a number of services besides our podcast, which includes consulting and other things, so it seemed like our days were being used in so many areas that we just weren’t really focused, so we made decisions to change our calendar and now we block out periods of time where one day it might just be writing, producing, working on podcasts. One day it might be working on a presentation that’s coming up, but we try to use our time more effectively by blocking it into periods of time. Hope that helps, bye.

Debjani: Hello. I am Debjani. I’m a food blogger by passion, and freelance analyst by profession. I write at Kitchen of Debjani and my blog URL is www.KitchenOfDebjani.com and I can be found at, with the name of Food Of Debjani in Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I love to interact with my readers at different possible ways which includes interacting with them on Facebook, Twitter, and as well as on Instagram. My readers sometimes give me several ideas to improve my blog. I often interact with them. I go to different food works with the readers, and I love to visit different street food corners over the places in Kolkata, the city where I reside.

Jennifer R.: Hi my name is Jennifer Reedy. My blog is FromentFree.com. It’s F-r-o-m, as in Mary, e-n-t Free.com. I guess I just wanted to tell you the biggest thing that I’ve been doing since I launched the blog and since studying about blogging a few months before that is I think you just have to do your very own best. I think sometimes I don’t know if other bloggers do this, but I get really trapped in at times comparing myself to others or just I don’t know, honing in on something and studying or working on something, and then I find 4 hours later that I’ve wasted 4 hours of time that I could have been really doing something else more efficiently. I think you just have to do your best and just really go from there. I mean, usually when I remember that I get back on track so whatever you decide to do, just really give it your all and don’t quit. Thanks so much.

Felicia: Hi guys. My name is Felicia, and my blog name is DishByDish.net. I’m so excited to be on this podcast today, and I just wanted to say that one of the things that has been working very well for me is using my blog as a portfolio for potential clients to find me. Basically, what I do is I freelance as a writer and as a recipe developer, and a food photographer. Most of my clients today found me through my blog and I think that that’s a great way for any food blogger to treat your blog as a portfolio and as a resume. Thanks for letting me on the podcast, and bye.

Carrie: Hi. This is Carrie Forrest, and I’m online blogging and social media, @CarrieOnLiving. What’s working for me is that I finally started a weekly newsletter and I’ve been blogging for, gosh, almost 8 years now, and I never really saw the value of doing a newsletter, but I was finally convinced and it’s working for me. It’s a really great way to showcase old recipes and give a preview of what’s coming up on the blog. It’s working for me. Thanks for the opportunity to share.

Elaine: Hi. This is Elaine Benoit, and I am the owner of Dishes Delish, and that’s where you can find me online. It’s a food blog with easy and mostly healthy recipes. The thing that’s been working out for me is how much I’ve improved in my photography in just a year. I’ve had the blog for just a little bit over a year. I think Monday was my anniversary, and the more photos I take, the better I’ve been. I’ve been constantly getting into foodgawker now, which at first I didn’t get in foodgawker and it took me a little bit. I actually gave up submitting to foodgawker until about 2 months ago, 2 or 3 months ago, and then I got accepted and then I realized what they wanted, and I consistently get accepted now.

That’s the thing that actually has worked out for me. Also, to be consistent. That also is a big thing. I started out I think doing it 2 times a week, posting recipes 2 times a week, and then I amped up to 3 times a week by having Friday cocktail series, and every single Friday, I blog about a cocktail and I post it on the site and that has actually had my site take off. It seems like more people are interested in my cocktail recipes than they’re interested in my food recipes, which is a good thing. It’s okay, because I love cocktails. I love making them, and I love drinking them. Thank you. Bye bye.

Madalaine: Hi guys. My name is Madalaine McDaniel. My blog is called LakesideTable.com and aside from Lindsay’s Tasty Food Photo Workshop, which was super helpful, that was great, and really has helped me out with my photography, the other thing that really has helped probably falls under the category of organization. When I first started out, I was having a really hard time with all the photos and the posts and the writing and the recipes, and trying to put that all together because sometimes I felt really creative about writing, and so I’d write a bunch of stuff and then I would lose it and then other times I would take photos of something completely different and then would have a hard time keeping track of that.

I created an Excel spreadsheet that I just simply call “My Post Overview.” What that is is basically columns where I can capture and do brainstorming of different ideas, so when I need inspiration for writing, I can go down and I can pick out something that jogs my memory and then it also has columns in it that allows me to check off or put an X in when I’ve got the post written, when I’ve got the recipe written, when I’ve got the pictures taken, and then I can see at a glance, “Oh, yeah, that crème brûlée post and recipe, yeah, that’s all done, and hey, I’m going to be on vacation next week, and I don’t have time to do anything else,” so I know I can go ahead and just throw that in.

It allows me to have a whole repertoire of stuff I can go ahead and pull in as needed, and when life gets hectic and out of the way, and then also, if I’m looking for inspiration, I can go to my post overview and say, “Okay, I need inspiration. I need to get something together for next week or the week after,” and then that allows just a constant pool of inspiration that I can pull from. Those were my 2 things that have been super helpful, so thanks guys.

Meggan: Hi Bjork. My name is Meggan Hill, and I’m from the food blog Culinary Hill. One thing that is working well for me is doing a content audit on my blog. I first learned about content audits from Casey Markee, the SEO expert you interviewed on episode on 28. I also heard a similar strategy on the Smart Passive Income Podcast, episode 200, how deleting a 3rd of your content can triple your traffic. For me, I have been either eliminating or republishing posts that are poorly written, have bad photos, or off brand, and then I’m left with a few hundred strong posts that are on brand and already performing well. Thanks for listening, and I always enjoy your podcast. Take care.

Patrick: Hello. This is Patrick at Explorers.kitchen. My tip for you today is to, when you’re checking your Google Analytics, look for trends on what’s popular, and those popular items are what’s in demand by your readers, and so it’s worth your while to take advantage of those trends and make future blog posts based on what has worked well in the past for you. Thank you and have a great day.

Beth: Hi this is Beth from Eat Within Your Means, and former Food Blogger Pro community happiness specialist. My message to you is to be kind to yourself. That means if you are needing to take a break because you’re just feeling overwhelmed by everything that you have to do or feel like you have to do, take a break, come back stronger, come back more invigorated, come back with a plan and just be nice to yourself. This is not life or death. Food blogging is not going to be the thing that makes you or breaks you, and if you don’t love it, then it will come through in what you share. Just be nice to yourself, and be nice to your readers by being nice to yourself. That is my message to you. Okay, bye.

Sally: Hi my name is Sally Kuzemchak. I have a blog called Real Mom Nutrition and I wanted to share something that works for me. It’s like a bullet journal, but it’s a bullet journal in reverse. I was feeling like I was working all day long, like a crazy person, and never getting anything done. At the end of the day, I would think, “What have I accomplished?” It just made me feel really bad and put me in a shame spiral, so what I decided to do is I have a little notebook on my desk and every day I write down the 2 or 3 projects that I worked on that day in a significant way, and this does a couple of things.

First of all, it just allows me to see on paper what I have done which makes me feel a sense of accomplishment, and also, it strangely motivates me because I think, “Well, if I work on this post for a while, then I can put it in my journal.” It’s really satisfying. That’s my tip, and hopefully other people can use it, too.

Jessica G.: Hi there. I’m Jessica Gavin, and you can find me at my food blog, JessicaGavin.com. It’s where I share approachable, family friendly recipes, and culinary science tips to really help my readers build confidence in the kitchen. One of the things that has worked for me this year to help my blog grow is I increased my posting frequency from 2 to 3 times a week. Doing this has doubled my page views since January, and it’s allowed me to practice my writing and find my voice. It’s helped me to develop my photography and food styling skills, and improve in that challenging area.

I really want to continue to improve the quality of my articles and by committing to a consistent schedule, it really helps me do so. You know, it’s not easy working full time and having a really busy and active 2 year old son, but you know what really helps is I create a blog calendar and it keeps me on track and motivated. You know, we all only have 24 hours in a day, so I try to make the best of the moments that I have to keep learning and growing my food blog, and even if that means waking up at 5am to work on it, it’s something that I am absolutely willing to do. It’s a creative outlet that challenges me constantly, and it allows me to share my love of food and science with others.

Bjork: That’s a wrap for episode number 61. Wasn’t that incredible? That was so fun. If you submitted voice mail or a message, I just want to say thank you for doing that. I know that it takes a lot of courage, number 1, to do that, and it is not an easy thing to do, and number 2, it takes a little bit of time, as well. Thanks for jumping in and sharing your ideas and your feedback, and I know that the people that listen to this got a lot out of it, so that is a wrap for this week’s podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in and listening. We really appreciate you guys and we will be back here next week, same time, same place. Until then, make it a great week. Thanks guys.

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