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Whether you're brand new to food blogging or a seasoned pro, we're here to help you with proven tips and strategies for growing your blog. Here on the Food Blogger Pro blog, you'll learn about building traffic, food blog SEO, social media tips, and more. Keep an eye out for a new post every week!

3 Quick Tips for using Final Cut Pro to Edit YouTube Videos

Bjork
by Bjork on Oct 16, 2014 in ,

I'm not a YouTube or video expert, but I'm a big believer in expert enough and want to live out that belief on this blog. Hence the reason for blog posts like this one (or five things I learned in my first month using YouTube or the gear we use for recipe videos) where we share "real-time" tips and tricks.

Today I'm sharing three simple tips I use to improve our YouTube videos using Final Cut Pro X. The easiest way to learn the tips is by watching the video below, but I'll also provide some basic screenshots after the video as well. You can choose your own adventure. 🙂

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5 Ways We Plan to Use Amazon Affiliate Links

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by Bjork on Oct 1, 2014 in

Have you heard the phrase you don’t know how much you miss it until it’s gone?

That’s how I felt about Amazon’s affiliate program, Amazon Associates.

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Up until June of 2013 we had been using Amazon affiliate links in different places throughout Pinch of Yum and earning a consistent (but never significant) amount of money from it.

Then, on June 18th 2013, we received an email from Amazon that said this:

We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to notify you that your Associates account will be closed and your Amazon Services LLC Associates Program Operating Agreement will be terminated effective June 30, 2013. This is a direct result of the unconstitutional Minnesota state tax collection legislation passed by the state legislature and signed by Governor Dayton on May 23, 2013, with an effective date of July 1, 2013. As a result, we will no longer pay any advertising fees for customers referred to an Amazon Site after June 30 nor will we accept new applications for the Associates Program from Minnesota residents.

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Zen Accounting for Bloggers

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by Bjork on Sep 9, 2014 in ,
Graphic of man meditating that reads 'Zen Accounting for Bloggers'

There aren’t many things I’d rather be doing than accounting.

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Okay, well… actually…

…now that I think of it there are quite a few things I’d rather be doing than accounting.

Things like:

  1. Juggling porcupines
  2. Taste testing cardboard
  3. Listening to Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini on repeat.

Are you with me or are you with me?

Here’s the deal though: if you’re working to build your blog into a business then you need to treat it like one. That means doing a good job with your accounting.

While I don’t like spending time in Excel or QuickBooks, I do like knowing that our books are in order and that we’re keeping track of our income and expenses.

So how do anti-spreadsheet people like Lindsay and I manage to keep our books in order?

We do it by using a system I call Zen Accounting for Bloggers.

It's a simple system that we developed over the past few years. This system allows us to keep really clean books while spending less than 30 minutes a week on taxes/accounting/bookkeeping.

And today I’d like to share that simple system with you.

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Email with Purpose: How your inbox can help you grow your blog

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by Bjork on Sep 3, 2014 in

If you don’t get a lot of email right now, you will someday.

That might sound negative, but I'm predicting your future success. 🙂

Here's how it'll work: Your blog will continue to grow, and as your blog continues to grow so will the number of people you impact, and the more people you impact the more people will email you.

It’s a good problem to have, but it’s a problem nonetheless.

But it's possible for emails to be a pleasure, not a pain, and to be helpful, not hurtful. You just need to make sure that you approach email with a purpose, and that purpose should be to help you grow your blog. 

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There are two general types of emails:

  1. I want to say hi.
  2. I need some help.

The first type of email gives you a chance to connect with one of your readers. If you can, you should try and respond to these emails. Showing someone you heard what they said (and that you genuinely care) can go a long way.

The second type of email comes from someone that has a problem. The primary goal for this emailer is to solve their problem, not necessarily to connect or say hi.

These emails, the “I need some help emails,” are the type of emails I’d like to talk about in this post.

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The Definitive List of Takedown Notice Forms

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by Bjork on Aug 20, 2014 in

Are you looking for a certain company's takedown notice form?

You’ve come to the right place.

Does my word not convince you? I bet this ninja karate chopping a computer will.

Convinced now?

Good.

🙂

Before we look through the list I want to talk about what a takedown notice is and when I think you should use them.

Quick tip: Want to watch a video instead of read the post? You can scroll to the bottom of this post to check out the "video recap" from our YouTube channel.

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7 awesome apps we’re using to build Pinch of Yum and Food Blogger Pro

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by Bjork on Jul 16, 2014 in

Trying to build a blog without good applications is like trying to build a house without good tools. You can do it, but it will take a lot longer.

Have you ever searched for a password you wrote down on a piece of paper and put “somewhere safe” (but you’re not quite sure where that is)? Have you ever tried to communicate a design concept over email using written text? Have you ever written the same sentence over and over in different emails to different people?

All of those things are examples of ways that we try and build our virtual house (i.e. blog) using crummy tools.

If you’re looking to build an awesome blog then you need awesome applications for your virtual toolbelt. The following seven apps are the first "tools" that I'd suggest you purchase (or download for free).

Note: Some of these apps are specific to Mac OS. If there’s an alternative option for Windows then I include it at the end of the description.

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How we improved our landing page conversion rate by 138%

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by Bjork on Jul 9, 2014 in ,

Three months ago I wrote a post called How to Increase Your Conversion Rates with A/B Testing. In the post I promised to put together quarterly updates to let everyone know how the A/B testing is going.

My hope with these quarterly updates is to:

  • Encourage you to do A/B testing if you have the time and energy.
  • If you don’t have the time and energy then I want to show you the changes we made to help increase conversion rates.

You can take the things we’ve learned about increasing conversions and apply them to your sales pages without having to do any A/B testing on your own (but I still think you should do A/B testing if you have the time).

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Introducing The Nutrition Label Generator

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by Bjork on Jun 26, 2014 in , ,

Today is a big day at Food Blogger Pro Headquarters (otherwise known as the Ostrom’s basement).

Food Blogger Pro is launching our first tool for food bloggers. We couldn’t be more excited!

We’re calling it the Nutrition Label Generator.

Any guesses as to what it does?

Yep! You got it. It generates nutrition facts labels.

We have three goals with the Nutrition Label Generator.

We want this to be a tool that is:

  1. Easy to use
  2. Accurate
  3. Value adding

Before I explain the three goals I want to quickly show you how to use the tool, explain why we're developing software tools, and discuss our software philosophy at FBP.

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