Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience Podcasts

113: How to Gain 90K Instagram Followers in 2 Years with Ashley Walterhouse

Alexa @ FBP
by Alexa @ FBP on Aug 29, 2017 in ,

Welcome to episode 113 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Ashley Walterhouse about working with brands, building her following, and growing her Instagram account to over 90K followers in two years.

Yep, that says 90K. In two years!

If you’re anything like me, you randomly post to Instagram whenever you remember to in hopes of gaining followers and getting some click-throughs to your website.

But Ashley’s social media success is proof that it’s helpful to have a strategy when growing your social media presence. Posting at the right times every day, engaging with comments, and sharing the right recipes all play into growing your Instagram account.

Ashley has cracked the code on Instagram growth and engagement, and she’s sharing how she managed to grow her two-year-old blog, Fit Mitten Kitchen, into a full-time job.

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102: Write More, Write Better, and Write Smarter with Gabriela Pereira

Alexa @ FBP
by Alexa @ FBP on Jun 13, 2017 in ,

Welcome to episode 102 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks to Gabriela Pereira about becoming a better writer and building a community around your writing.

Gabriela got her MFA in 2010, and after she graduated, she realized that a lot of people don’t actually need a formal education process in order to write. If you give yourself permission to own your creativity and writing, and if you learn a few key skills along the way, you can be a writer.

She started DIY MFA to teach others how they can do exactly that.

By focusing on the work at hand, Gabriela has been able to practice, evaluate, and fine-tune her craft and teach others how to do the same. Gabriela’s strategies about finding the right writing system, tracking productivity, staying inspired, and understanding strengths and weaknesses all play into finding one’s voice and writing style.

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100: How FBP Listeners Have Used the Podcast to Grow Their Blogs and Businesses

Alexa @ FBP
by Alexa @ FBP on May 30, 2017 in , , ,

Welcome to episode 100 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, we’re celebrating our 100th episode with a special community episode!

There have been 99 Food Blogger Pro Podcast episodes before this one, and we’ve heard from a lot of amazing people. From full-time bloggers to SEO experts to social media pros, this podcast has seen no shortage of inspirational interviewees!

We’re really excited about this episode because we’re hearing from you. We asked our listeners what their favorite Food Blogger Pro Podcast episode was, and we’re so excited about the response. It’s so exciting to hear which episodes came to you at a specific point in your blogging career and how the podcast helped you overcome obstacles, become more confident, and grow your business.

We hope that this episode will help you find an episode you might have missed or remind you of an episode that you’d like to go back and listen to again. Thanks so much for a great 100 episodes!

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096: How to Create the Perfect Recipe Post with Bjork Ostrom

Alexa @ FBP
by Alexa @ FBP on May 2, 2017 in ,

Welcome to episode 96 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork talks about recipe plugins and why you need them.

Regardless of where you are in your blogging journey (just starting out to full-time), chances are you’ve heard the words recipe plugin before. These plugins are incredibly important for food bloggers to be aware of because they not only make your recipes look beautiful, but they also help your blog communicate with search engines like Google and Pinterest.

There are so many elements to consider when choosing a recipe plugin for your blog, and it’s important to choose one that checks off “all of the SEO boxes.” So when Bjork noticed the recipe plugin Pinch of Yum was using wasn’t quite keeping up with the times, he decided it was time to build one in-house.

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093: How Finding a Niche Transformed a Business with Meggan Hill from Culinary Hill

Raquel
by Raquel on Apr 11, 2017 in ,

Welcome to episode 93 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork chats with Meggan Hill from Culinary Hill about how finding a niche transformed her business.

As an internet entrepreneur, it can be tempting to try to appeal to everyone. You don’t want to send potential traffic away from your website, right?

However, successful bloggers have said time and again that a big contributor to success is finding a specific audience and sharing only content that fits that audience perfectly. In other words, finding a niche.

Meggan Hill started her blog, Culinary Hill, with an aim of pleasing everyone. And… it didn’t work out so well. Her blog did okay, but she ended up feeling discouraged and gave it up for a while. A couple years ago, though, she decided it was time to make some changes and make this blogging thing work for her. With the help of a branding agency, she was able to find a niche, free up her creativity by sticking to that niche, and nearly triple her traffic in just one year. Today, she’s here to tell us all about it.

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085: 9 million visitors & 450 contributors: the Story of Her View From Home with Leslie Means

Raquel
by Raquel on Feb 14, 2017 in , , ,

Welcome to episode 85 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork chats with Leslie Means, cofounder of Her View From Home, about scaling her website to over 450 contributors and 9 million visitors per month.

Leslie Means started her website just like many of us did – with a passion and a dream. However, instead of the typical create-publish-promote-repeat agenda, she took a bit of a different path: she wanted to publish articles from contributors and pay those authors based on article performance.

Today, Her View From Home has over 9 million monthly visitors and pulls from a pool of 450 contributors. The business is thriving, and Leslie is here to tell us all about it.

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076: Using Analytics to Build Your Blog with Jeff Sauer from Jeffalytics

Raquel
by Raquel on Dec 6, 2016 in , ,

Welcome to episode 76 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork chats with Jeff Saur from Jeffalytics.com about how you can use Analytics to increase your chances for blog success.

Oftentimes, when new bloggers start blogging, the only stat they really care about is whether or not their content is being seen by someone.It’s satisfying to see the first day we get 50 pageviews, or 100, or even 1,000. We check our analytics to make sure our content is getting seen.

However, Analytics can be much more powerful than this. Used correctly, they can help you generate ideas for content, show you what’s really working, and help you guide your business overall. In short, proper use of Analytics can really help you accelerate your blog and business.

Jeff Sauer has made his career out of helping people use Google Analytics. Today, he’s here to give us some of his best tips.

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073: How to Publish Consistent and Quality Content with Jessica Merchant from How Sweet It Is

Raquel
by Raquel on Nov 15, 2016 in ,

Welcome to episode 73 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork chats with Jessica Merchant from the blog How Sweet It Is about consistently creating great content.

In blogging, content is huge. It’s not the only important thing, but it’s the foundation of your business. Creating great content is really important.

Just as important is creating content often. A blog needs fresh, exciting ideas to thrive. new content is what your existing readers want to see.

However, doing both those things – creating really great content on a consistent basis – can be really tough. It definitely involves dedication and skill to do right. Jessica Merchant from How Sweet It Is definitely has that dedication and skill, and today she’s here to tell us just how she manages to make consistent and quality content every single week.

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072: FBP Member Spotlight: Sam Turnbull from It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken

Alexa @ FBP
by Alexa @ FBP on Nov 8, 2016 in , ,

Welcome to episode 72 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork is talking with Sam Turnbull from It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken in our first ever Member Spotlight episode!

Many FBP members dream of leaving their full-time jobs in order to put all of their time and effort into their blog; Sam was able to do that very thing.

Since leaving her job last year, Sam has experienced some great successes with her blog – including landing a book deal. In order to get there, however, Sam had to learn how to relate to her readers and publish content they love.

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071: Finding your Raving Fans through Facebook Live with Amanda Rettke from I Am Baker

Raquel
by Raquel on Nov 1, 2016 in , ,

Welcome to episode 71 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork interviews Amanda Rettke from I Am Baker about her success with Facebook Live and how it has helped connect her with her audience.

They say you only need 1,000 raving fans to create a successful business. Just 1,000! However, raving fans can be hard to come by. Where do you get them? How do you know they love you and the work you are doing?

Amanda struggled with this a bit for the first few years she was in business. She knew she had great fans, but she didn’t feel like she really connected with them. And then she decided to try Facebook Live. Her raving fans loved being able to see and interact with her live, and she loved being able to connect with them. Facebook Live has been the experience Amanda needed to feel connected with her readers, and today she is here to tell us how she did it.

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