The Food Blogger Pro Podcast

We interview successful food bloggers and industry experts in an effort to surface strategies that can help you more efficiently grow and monetize your site. You'll learn about recipe SEO, food photography, plugins, monetization, traffic, and more. New episodes every Tuesday!

422: Why Success as a Food Blogger Isn’t Linear with Liz and Paul Madsen from Zardyplants

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on Aug 15, 2023 in ,

Welcome to episode 422 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Liz and Paul Madsen from Zardyplants.

Liz and Paul Madsen started Zardyplants in 2018 as a way to share their favorite plant-based comfort food recipes with readers. Over the last five years, they’ve worked together to grow the site (and Paul now works full-time for their business)!

Liz and Paul share more about the early days of Zardyplants, and how their processes and business have changed over the years. They have really practical advice about the importance of reinvesting in your business, being strategic around the types of recipes you create, and what to prioritize as a beginner blogger.

This is a particularly valuable episode for beginner bloggers but is also a great listen for any content creator trying to define what success looks like for you and your brand.

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421: Scaling Three Food Blogs and Tips for Hiring a Virtual Assistant with Cheryl Malik

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on Aug 8, 2023 in ,

Welcome to episode 421 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Cheryl Malik from 40Aprons.

Cheryl first started food blogging in 2009, and now runs three different food blogs, in addition to an agency that matches food bloggers with virtual assistants.

In this interview, Bjork and Cheryl chat about growing and diversifying her business over the years and how she manages her time efficiently while managing all of her different businesses.

She also shares recommendations for hiring team members, and how to effectively onboard new team members. It’s a really practical episode that will give you lots of advice for thinking strategically about growing your team and your business.

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420: ChatGPT, Substack, and the Changing Landscape of Food Writing with Dianne Jacob

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on Aug 1, 2023 in ,

Welcome to episode 420 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Dianne Jacob.

Dianne Jacob has been an expert in the food writing space for twenty years (she literally wrote the book on it!). We were happy to welcome her back to the podcast to chat about the changing landscape of food writing.

In this interview, Bjork and Dianne discuss how AI might alter the food blogging space, and how food bloggers can best position themselves to adapt to these changes. Dianne also shares more about her Substack newsletter, and why she prefers writing for her Substack newsletter to blogging.

Both Bjork and Dianne have been in the food writing space for decades now, and it’s fascinating to hear them discuss what they think the future of food blogging might look like. Don’t miss this episode!

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419: Balancing Life, SEO, and Income Streams Over 14 Years of Food Blogging with Anne Mauney

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on Jul 25, 2023 in ,

Welcome to episode 419 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Anne Mauney from fANNEtastic Food.

Anne Mauney has been running her blog for over 14 years now and, as you might imagine, her life has changed considerably during that time. Since starting her blog, Anne has become a Registered Dietitian with a Masters in Public Health, has gotten married, and had two children.

In addition to all of those big life changes, she has witnessed the rise of social media and SEO, and seen the huge changes in the food blogging landscape. In this candid conversation, Bjork and Anne chat about navigating life and blog changes and balancing parenthood with running a business.

Anne shares more about her changing income streams over the years, and why outsourcing certain tasks that don’t bring her joy has allowed her to continue blogging after all these years. It’s a super valuable episode no matter where you are in your blogging journey!

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418: Navigating the Changing Landscape of Technology in Food Blogging with Lauren Gray

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on Jul 18, 2023 in

Welcome to episode 418 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Lauren Gray from Once Coupled.

Lauren is the Founder and Director of Development at Once Coupled, a small development agency that works with food bloggers and other online publishers. She also happens to be the Web Development Expert here at Food Blogger Pro and is truly an expert on all things themes, plugins, and WordPress.

And that’s exactly what Bjork and Lauren are chatting about in today’s podcast episode! They cover a lot of ground, from Site Editor and Block Editor to custom themes and technical debt.

If you’re curious about making changes to your website, updating your theme, or looking to add specific functionalities to your site, this is an interview you won’t want to miss!

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417: Why Ann Baum Built a Recipe-Sharing App to Drive Traffic to Food Blogs

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on Jul 11, 2023 in

Welcome to episode 417 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Ann Baum from Spillt.

Food creators are no strangers to recipe-sharing sites and social media apps; many of us have love-hate relationships with some of them! Sisters Ann and Maddie Baum knew that there was a better way to save and share online recipes — so they built it!

Over the past several years, Ann and Maddie created Spillt, an app and WordPress plugin that allows users to save online recipes and share them with friends on the app, all while driving traffic and star ratings back to the food bloggers themselves!

Bjork and Ann talk about Ann’s career journey from working at Facebook to building the app, and take a peak behind-the-scenes at the creation of Spillt. Ann shares more about working with food bloggers to create the app, and why they wanted to prioritize food bloggers in the functionality of the app. It’s a really informative episode and one you won’t want to miss!

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416: Preserving Family Recipes with a Food Blog with Sarah and Kaitlin Leung from The Woks of Life

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on Jul 5, 2023 in ,

Welcome to episode 416 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Sarah and Kaitlin Leung from The Woks of Life.

For Sarah and Kaitlin Leung, their food blog, The Woks of Life, is a family affair. They have run the blog with their parents, Judy and Bill, for over ten years, and now they all work together full-time!

Bjork chats with Sarah and Kaitlin about the early days of The Woks of Life, including why they started documenting their family’s Chinese recipes, and how they grew their site while working full-time.

Sarah and Kaitlin share more about the division of labor when running a food blog as a family, and what they’ve learned over the last ten years of blogging. They have a really unique perspective on food blogging, and it’s a can’t-miss episode.

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415: How and Why To Self-Publish a Cookbook with Matt Briel from Lulu

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on Jun 27, 2023 in ,

Welcome to episode 415 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Matt Briel from Lulu.

Have you ever dreamed of writing a cookbook? Are you intimidated by the process of finding a publisher? Or are you just curious why a food blogger might want to write a cookbook? If you answered yes to any of those questions, this podcast episode is for you!

Matt Briel is an entrepreneur and the Vice President of Marketing & Communications at Lulu.com, a print-on-demand, self-publishing, and distribution platform.

Bjork and Matt chat about the differences between traditional publishing and self-publishing, why you might want to consider self-publishing a cookbook, and how to be successful when self-publishing content. It’s a super informative episode that will give you a lot to think about when it comes to cookbooks!

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414: How Kyleigh Sage Combines Brand Work and Ad Revenue to Make $10,000-$15,000 a Month

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on Jun 20, 2023 in

Welcome to episode 414 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Kyleigh Sage from Barley & Sage.

There are lots of different opportunities for food content creators to make money. And one of the most common ways is by partnering with brands!

In this interview, Bjork and Kyleigh chat about partnering with brands on sponsored content and freelance work (even when you don’t have a large social media following), including how to effectively pitch to brands and negotiate your contracts.

Kyleigh is honest and transparent about her strategies for working with brands and how she navigates pricing her work. It’s clear that she is passionate about helping other food bloggers find success, and you won’t want to miss this interview!

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413: Lessons in Burnout, Persistence, and Creativity after Ten Years of Food Blogging with Maggie Zhu

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on Jun 13, 2023 in

Welcome to episode 413 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Maggie Zhu from Omnivore’s Cookbook.

Maggie Zhu has been running Omnivore’s Cookbook, a food blog all about modern Chinese cooking, for over ten years. That’s a very long time in internet years! She’s had incredible success growing her site during this time and just recently wrote her first cookbook.

But this success didn’t come without some struggle. Maggie has navigated intense periods of burnout over the last ten years and has learned that outsourcing and prioritizing her creativity are key to helping her overcome these phases.

This interview is honest, raw, and thought-provoking, and we really hope it resonates with you as much as it did with us!

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