Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience Podcasts

136: Optimizing for Search Results on Google and Pinterest with Raquel Smith

Alexa @ FBP
by Alexa @ FBP on Feb 6, 2018 in , ,

Welcome to episode 136 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Raquel Smith about how optimize search results on Google and Pinterest.

Structured data, optimization, and rich snippets are common things for bloggers to think about, but just because they’re common doesn’t mean they’re easy to understand.

If SEO talk is enough to make your head spin, you’re not alone, so Raquel is here to make recipe SEO much more approachable and understandable. She has managed the development of WP Tasty’s two WordPress plugins, Tasty Recipes and Tasty Pins, and you’ll learn how these plugins can have a major impact on your recipes.

Keep Reading

134: FBP Rewind: Creating Success with Sally McKenney

Alexa @ FBP
by Alexa @ FBP on Jan 23, 2018 in , ,

Welcome to episode 134 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This episode is a special FBP Rewind episode where we’re rewinding to one of our first and most popular episodes with Sally McKenney from Sally’s Baking Addiction.

If you haven’t been over to Sally’s Baking Addiction yet, you are certainly missing out. Sally creates baked goods to swoon over – from cheesecake to brownies to pies, and everything you can imagine with funfetti. She’s also a whiz when it comes to blog success. Sally took her blog from zero to hero (read: full time job) in just two years. She is now the author of three cookbooks, Sally’s Baking Addiction, Sally’s Candy Addiction, and Sally’s Cookie Addiction.

If you dream of taking your hobby blog to full-time status, this episode is not to be missed!

Keep Reading

132: Perfecting Your Story and Your Brand with Laurie Buckle

Alexa @ FBP
by Alexa @ FBP on Jan 9, 2018 in ,

Welcome to episode 132 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Laurie Buckle from CookIt Media about the importance of the story behind your brand.

Laurie has an acute understanding of the power of story. Your brand’s story is the reason why your brand exists, and it helps facilitate a connection with your readers that creates loyalty throughout your blogging career.

Over at CookIt Media, Laurie helps bloggers solidify their stories and brands. She believes that story is the best communication tool that you can use, and she’s here to speak about how you can discover and perfect your own brand’s story.

Keep Reading

129: Forging Your Own Path with David Lebovitz

Alexa @ FBP
by Alexa @ FBP on Dec 19, 2017 in , ,

Welcome to episode 129 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with David Lebovitz about how to develop the ability to stick with it, a lesson that helped him build his brand, and his a-typical approach to blogging analytics.

1999 was a big year for David; he left his job as a pastry chef to write his first cookbook, Room for Dessert and started a recipe blog. Little did he know that he was becoming one of the pioneers of the food blogging industry!

From there, David moved to Paris, wrote a few more cookbooks, and learned how to do what he loves while providing value to his readers. You’ll learn about his philosophy on email etiquette, his favorite social media platform, and why his blog is so important to his cookbook-writing process.

Keep Reading

122: Site Speed in a Mobile-First World with Lauren Gray

Alexa @ FBP
by Alexa @ FBP on Oct 31, 2017 in ,

Welcome to episode 122 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Lauren Gray from Once Coupled about mobile-first considerations, site speed recommendations, and theme frameworks.

Mobile-first, frameworks, photo size, https…you’ve probably heard these terms in the blogging space before. And the words alone are enough to make your head spin.

Developer and Food Blogger Pro Expert Lauren Gray is a pro at helping you make these tech decisions for your blog. And while they might seem like small decisions, they really will have a big impact on your site’s usability, search engine ranking, and workflow. This episode focuses on why you should start thinking about making these decisions for your business.

Keep Reading

117: How to Sustain a Successful Blog for 10+ Years with Maria Lichty

Alexa @ FBP
by Alexa @ FBP on Sep 26, 2017 in ,

Welcome to episode 117 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Maria Lichty from Two Peas and Their Pod about how blogging has changed in the past 10 years.

When Maria started blogging at Two Peas and Their Pod, the food blogging industry looked quite different.

Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest weren’t around, videos weren’t as popular, and the industry as a whole was much smaller.

But Maria has learned to adapt to this quick-changing world and to work to her strengths while growing her blog. She has hired a team to help her manage her social media and video work while she focuses on the work she loves like recipe testing, photography, and more.

Keep Reading

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.

Keep Reading

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.

Keep Reading

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!

Keep Reading

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.

Keep Reading