Tech Articles

236: Themes – Performance-Focused Designs with Bill Erickson

Alexa
by Alexa on Jan 7, 2020 in ,
An image of a computer screen and the title of the 236th episode on the Food Blogger Pro Podcast, 'Themes.'

Welcome to episode 236 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Bill Erickson about the impact your design can have on your blog.

Bill is a WordPress developer, and he’s here today to chat about the impact your site’s design can have on performance and user experience.

Bill works with food blogs quite a bit (Pinch of Yum included), so you’ll really appreciate the advice he gives from a food blogging perspective. From figuring out what fonts to use to understanding how themes and design can impact site speed, this episode is packed with easy-to-understand tips and advice about design.

It’s a really cool interview, kind of different from our norm, but we hope you enjoy it and learn something if you’re pursuing a site redesign this year.

Keep Reading

231: A Better Experience – Building Engagement, Not Just Traffic with Kingston Duffie

Alexa
by Alexa on Dec 3, 2019 in ,
An image of a person using a laptop and the title of the 231st episode on the Food Blogger Pro Podcast, 'A Better Experience.'

Welcome to episode 231 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Kingston Duffie about increasing engagement on websites.

If you’ve been around the food blogging industry for the past few years, you’ve probably heard the word “engagement” more than any other metric. And that’s because brands, bloggers, and creators are putting a greater emphasis on engagement, even over other KPIs or metrics like pageviews or followers.

And that’s why Kingston is here today! His company, Slickstream, is aimed at increasing engagement on bloggers’ sites. And if you’ve visited our sister site, Pinch of Yum, lately, chances are you’ve seen Slickstream in action. Heck, you might have even used Slickstream without even knowing.

This is a really interesting interview focusing on ways that you can increase engagement on your own site–enjoy!

Keep Reading

219: Start – Blogging Misconceptions, How to Choose a Host, and Why WordPress

Alexa
by Alexa on Sep 10, 2019 in , ,
An image of a starting line for a race and the title of the 219 episode on the Food Blogger Pro Podcast, 'Start.'

Welcome to episode 219 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, we’re focusing on things you might believe when you first start your blog, how to choose a solid host, and why we recommend WordPress for food bloggers.

We’re going back to basics today and focusing on *starting*. 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, we’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, WP Tasty Lead, Raquel. She’s talking all about WordPress and why it’s the CMS we recommend for food bloggers.

We think you’ll have a lot of great takeaways from this episode, regardless of whether your blog is brand new or if you’ve been blogging for years. Enjoy!

Keep Reading

214: Optimize – Making Old Content Better, Building Authority, and Understanding the Impact of Your Optimizations

Alexa
by Alexa on Aug 6, 2019 in ,
An image of tech equipment and the title of the 214 episode on the Food Blogger Pro Podcast, 'Optimize.'

Welcome to episode 214 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, you’ll learn how to optimize old posts, connect your posts to one another, understand the impact of your optimizations, and more.

It’s time to talk optimization! And this episode will help equip you with the strategies and processes you need to optimize your posts, build authority, and

First, you’ll hear from our SEO Expert, Casey Markee, as he talks about optimizing and republishing old posts. He also talks about whether or not it’s okay to have a 404 page and when you should consider noindexing your posts.

Then you’ll hear from Jeff Coyle from MarketMuse, a content planning and optimization software, about connecting your posts to one another and the tools you can use to optimize your posts.

And then Bjork Ostrom, rounds out this episode by talking about how you can track and monitor your optimization efforts to make sure that they’re having the impact you hoped. It’s a simple way to keep tabs on whether or not you’re targeting the right posts with the right optimizations.

It’s a really helpful episode, and we hope you’ll be able to apply these tips to your own blogging efforts. Enjoy!

Keep Reading

213: Trends – The Latest in Site Speed, How to Find Timely Content, and Social Media Trends

Alexa
by Alexa on Jul 30, 2019 in ,
An image of podcasting equipment with a blue overlay and the title of the 213 episode on the Food Blogger Pro Podcast, 'Trends.'

Welcome to episode 213 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, you’ll learn about tips for optimizing your site speed, how Lindsay publishes trendy content, and how to share smarter on social media.

This week on the podcast, we’re focusing on trends, and you’ll hear tips from three experts on site speed, blogging, and social media.

First, Andrew from NerdPress will talk about trends in site speed, and he’ll share his photo size recommendations, his favorite plugins, information about caching, and more.

Then Lindsay from Pinch of Yum talks about how she publishes relevant content for her readers and how she stays on top of food trends.

And last, Abby, Food Blogger Pro and Pinch of Yum’s Social Media Manager will talk about some of the trends we’re seeing on social media, namely hashtags on Pinterest and then Instagram pattern grids.

It’s a great episode, and we can’t wait for you to dive in. Enjoy!

Keep Reading

190: Push Notifications for Bloggers with Josh Wetzel

Alexa
by Alexa on Feb 19, 2019 in ,

Welcome to episode 190 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Josh Wetzel from OneSignal about using push notifications on your blog.

Chances are that you’ve seen a prompt on a blog that says something like, “Do you want to opt-in to browser notifications?” Pinch of Yum might be one of them!

Those are called push notifications, and OneSignal is a company that helps you create those push notifications to increase user engagement on your site.

Josh Wetzel, OneSignal’s Chief Revenue Officer, is here today to talk about the benefits of using push notifications on your blog and the results that you may see after enabling them for your website.

Keep Reading

188: Optimizing Your Website’s Images with Simon Duduica

Alexa
by Alexa on Feb 5, 2019 in

Welcome to episode 188 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Simon Duduica about optimizing images on your website.

We know that optimization is important when it comes to building a website, so today’s interview focuses on optimizing images.

Optimizing images on food blogs is especially important. Food blogs are typically heavy-handed with their use of images, and for good reason: people eat with their eyes. That said, it’s just as important that your images look good as it is to optimize them for site performance and speed.

That’s where ShortPixel comes in. They help you optimize your images in a way that doesn’t compromise quality or that “drool-worthiness” we all want to see in our images.

ShortPixel’s Head of Technology, Simon, is here to chat through what optimizing your images means and how you can make sure the images on your site are optimized.

Keep Reading

180: Establishing Your Expertise with Jeff Coyle

Alexa
by Alexa on Dec 11, 2018 in , ,

Welcome to episode 180 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Jeff Coyle from MarketMuse about becoming an expert on your blog.

Jeff helps run MarketMuse, an AI planning and optimizing software, and they focus on optimizing your content to improve your search engine ranking potential.

This episode focuses around becoming a subject matter expert on your blog; choosing a topic to go all-in on and really become “the” expert of that topic.

You’ll learn a lot about why subject matter expertise is valuable as a content creator, what a quality piece of content actually looks like, how you can prove you’re an expert, and so much more.

Let’s dive in!

Keep Reading

163: What WordPress’ Gutenberg Update Means for You with Raquel Smith

Alexa
by Alexa on Aug 14, 2018 in

Welcome to episode 163 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork chats with Raquel Smith from WP Tasty about WordPress’ new Gutenberg update.

If you’re running your blog on WordPress, chances are you’ve heard of Gutenberg. Gutenberg is WordPress’ new WYSIWYG post editor, and it’ll be a part of WordPress core before we know it.

But will this new way of editing impact you and your posts? You betcha. And Raquel is here to talk all about what you can expect once Gutenberg is live on your site.

Between setting up a staging site to test your plugins to understanding what blocks are, this episode will get you prepared for the Gutenberg release later this year!

Keep Reading

142: How to Fix 5 Common Blogging Tech Mistakes with Andrew Wilder

Alexa
by Alexa on Mar 20, 2018 in

Welcome to episode 142 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Andrew Wilder about the top five tech mistakes he sees on food blogs.

The first time our Site Speed Expert, Andrew, was on the podcast, he chatted all about best practices for securing your website.

Now he’s back to talk about five of the most common tech mistakes he sees on blogs.

Between choosing the right hosting to optimizing images, there are a lot of tech decisions to make about your blog. Andrew’s advice will make you a lot more confident to make those decisions. Enjoy!

Keep Reading