Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience Archives

How Josh Gale Grew His Audience to 1.2M+ in Under a Year by Leading with Storytelling

by Ann @ Food Blogger Pro on Jul 7, 2026 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 578 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Josh Gale.

In this episode, Bjork interviews Josh Gale, a content creator who has rapidly grown his online presence in the food industry through his blog, The Chef Out West. Josh shares his journey from being a private chef and participating in food competitions to becoming a successful content creator within just a year. He discusses the initial challenges he faced, such as learning to film and edit, and how he overcame the fear of starting something new.

Josh emphasizes the importance of storytelling in content creation, explaining how his personal experiences and passion for food have helped him connect with his audience. He also highlights the role of social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook in his growth, sharing insights on how different types of content perform across platforms.

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Inside Pinch of Yum’s Strategy for Email Growth and Content Distribution with Jenna Arend

by Ann @ Food Blogger Pro on Jun 16, 2026 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 575 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Jenna Arend.

This week, Bjork sits down with Jenna Arend, General Manager of Pinch of Yum, as part of our ongoing GRO mini-series. In this episode, she shares how Pinch of Yum is navigating the biggest shifts in the digital landscape right now, from the decline of third-party cookies to the rise of AI, and why those changes have pushed the team to double down on email and Facebook as their most reliable channels.

Jenna also gets into the strategy behind keeping a long-running food blog relevant and thriving — from improving older content to creating targeted resources like meal plans and freezer meals. She shares how GRO has helped streamline the process of converting social media followers into loyal email subscribers, and why building that direct line of communication with your audience matters more than ever. If you’ve been thinking about how to future-proof your content strategy, this one is worth a listen!

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What’s Actually Working for Food Creators Right Now with Ben Jabbawy from GRO

by Emily @ FBP on Jun 2, 2026 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience, Monetizing an Online Food Business

Welcome to episode 573 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Ben Jabbawy from GRO (formerly known as Grocers List).

If you’ve been looking for a smarter way to turn your social media followers into website visitors, email subscribers, and paying members — this episode is for you. Ben Jabbawy and his team at GRO have sent over 100 million DMs across Instagram and Facebook on behalf of their food creator customers. That kind of scale gives Ben a uniquely data-driven lens into what’s actually working for food creators right now — and in this episode, he shares it with us!

Bjork and Ben chat about recent changes in the social media landscape, dig into the strategies of successful food creators, and discuss why Facebook is suddenly driving a major surge in traffic for food bloggers. They also get into the email side of things and how GRO’s new membership program lets food bloggers offer an ad-free experience or exclusive recipes directly on their site — no coding required.

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Leaving Your Day Job and Scaling a Food Blog with Pinterest with Sharlene Murrell

by Ann @ Food Blogger Pro on May 19, 2026 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 571 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Sharlene Murrell.

In this episode, Bjork Ostrom sits down with Sharlene to explore her journey of building a thriving food blog by mastering Pinterest. Sharlene shares how adopting a “ready, fire, aim” mindset and overcoming early struggles with keyword research helped her rapidly scale her traffic and income after leaving her day job.

The conversation also dives into actionable Pinterest strategies, including targeting broad keywords, creating multiple pins per post, and leveraging tools like Canva. They round out the conversation with practical advice on capitalizing on seasonal trends, maintaining consistency, and overcoming imposter syndrome. No matter where you are in your food blogging journey, this episode is packed with inspiration and tactics for creators ready to take action!

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How to Write Emails Your Readers Actually Want to Open with Liz Wilcox

by Emily @ FBP on May 5, 2026 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 569 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Liz Wilcox.

Early on in Liz’s career as a content creator, she noticed a pattern: the most successful creators all had one thing in common — a thriving email list. So she started hers from day one, and she never looked back.

In the following years, Liz sold her travel blog, went all in on teaching email marketing, built a membership with 4,000 members, and — plot twist — competed on Survivor while her business kept running, generating $1,000 a day in revenue while she was literally on an island with no phone.

In this episode, Liz and Bjork talk about what it actually takes to build an email list that drives real business results, how she transitioned from one-on-one client work to a scalable membership model, and why she believes the biggest thing holding most creators back from email success isn’t strategy — it’s that they’ve stopped sounding like themselves. She also shares the mindset shifts, boundary-setting practices, and growth tactics that have made her business not just profitable, but genuinely sustainable.

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Food Blogging News Roundtable: AI Buttons, Instagram Links, and Google Rewriting Your Titles

by Emily @ FBP on Apr 28, 2026 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience, Tech Tips for Food Bloggers

Welcome to episode 568 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork is sitting down to chat with Emily Walker from the Food Blogger Pro team!

In this roundtable episode, Bjork and Emily break down the biggest stories impacting food creators so you can stay informed and make smart decisions for your business.

From a new HubSpot marketing report that has some encouraging news for creators who lead with their personality, to a quiet Google experiment that could have big implications for every recipe title you’ve ever carefully crafted — there’s a lot to cover! Bjork and Emily also dig into the AI button debate (should you install one on your site?), what Instagram’s new caption link test means for food bloggers, and how Pinch of Yum approaches testing site changes before rolling them out broadly.

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The Road to 1 Million Pageviews with Rachel Kirk from Laughing Spatula

by Emily @ FBP on Mar 17, 2026 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 562 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Rachel Kirk from Laughing Spatula.

Rachel’s mom, Kathi, started Laughing Spatula 20 years ago, and it has now grown into a full-time business for both women. In this interview, Bjork and Rachel talk through the changing search landscape, the challenges of the last few years as food creators, and what is keeping them going.

Rachel is working towards a goal of 1 million monthly pageviews (they’re currently around 300,000 – 500,000 pageviews a month) and Bjork provides his advice on what changes he would recommend to move the needle. If you’re looking to increase your pageviews or revenue this year (hello, who isn’t?) and want to join Rachel in her challenge, don’t miss this episode!

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How Food Dolls Turned Facebook Into Their Top Traffic Source

by Emily @ FBP on Mar 10, 2026 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 561 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Alia and Radwa Elkaffas from Food Dolls.

Alia and Radwa, the sisters behind Food Dolls, join us on the podcast to discuss how they built a thriving food business with a Facebook-first strategy.

With over 5 million followers on Facebook, Food Dolls has become a case study in adapting to platforms, navigating algorithm changes, and continuously evolving content formats. In this episode, Alia and Radwa share how they got started, how they divide responsibilities today, and how they think about analytics, monetization, recipe development, and platform-specific strategies in 2026.

Whether you’re just beginning on Facebook or looking to rethink your traffic mix, this episode is filled with actionable insights and tips to get you started on the right foot.

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Infusing Your Culture into Your Brand and Launching a Digital Zine with Krista Linares

by Ann @ Food Blogger Pro on Feb 10, 2026 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 557 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Krista Linares of Nutrition Con Sabor.

In this episode, Bjork is sitting down with Krista Linares, a dietitian who made the bold choice to transition back to a full-time job to reclaim her mental bandwidth (and yes, solve the health insurance nightmare). It’s a refreshing look at why stability might actually be the secret ingredient to better creative work.

She didn’t just change her job, though! She completely overhauled how she shows up online. With the nutrition space getting flooded by generic AI content, Krista realized standard blogging wasn’t cutting it anymore. She opens up about her pivot to a “digital zine” — a mix of recipes, hot takes, and cultural deep dives — and why leaning into your specific, un-copyable voice is the only way to make it in today’s digital landscape.

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The Reality of Career Pivots and Building an Authentic Brand with Tanya Harris

by Ann @ Food Blogger Pro on Feb 3, 2026 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 556 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Tanya Harris of My Forking Life.

Have you ever wondered what it takes to walk away from a “prestigious” career to chase a creative dream? In this episode, former attorney turned food blogger Tanya Harris gets real about the guilt, identity shifts, and mental hurdles of trading in the courtroom for the kitchen. She opens up about the challenge of redefining success on her own terms and why aligning your work with your personal values is the secret to longevity.

Tanya also touches on the business side of full-time blogging — from the dynamics of working with her spouse to using AI tools to avoid burnout, she shares practical strategies for building a sustainable brand. We think you’ll find this episode really insightful as you think about how you can be your authentic self online and grow your blog.

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