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The Food Blogger Pro Podcast

We interview successful food bloggers and industry experts in an effort to surface strategies that can help you more efficiently grow and monetize your site. You'll learn about recipe SEO, food photography, plugins, monetization, traffic, and more. New episodes every Tuesday!

466: How to Respond to the Recent Google Updates with Ann Smarty

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on Jun 18, 2024 in

Welcome to episode 466 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Ann Smarty from Smarty Marketing.

Ann Smarty has been working in the SEO industry for over 20 years, and she has lots of expertise to share with us in this interview! Bjork and Ann chat about the current state of SEO, including a deep dive into the impact of the recent Google Helpful Content Updates.

They also discuss the history of backlinks with SEO and how to approach link-building as a content creator (and why it’s more about community than you might think).

Ann has a really great perspective on the importance of developing a holistic SEO strategy and why diversifying your income and traffic sources matters now, more than ever. Don’t miss this episode!

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465: Creating a Subscription Platform for Your Food Blog with Jen Matichuk

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on Jun 11, 2024 in

Welcome to episode 465 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Jen Matichuk.

Are you tired of brand partnerships or navigating the Google algorithm? Have you ever considered starting a membership for your community? Then you won’t want to miss this podcast episode with Jen Matichuk from Memberful.

And yes, Memberful is a podcast sponsor, but this episode isn’t sponsored by them! We were just really excited to have an honest conversation about what it looks like to create a membership as a food creator, and how you might go about doing it.

In this episode, Bjork and Jen chat about how to determine if a membership is the right option for your business, how to choose a subscription platform, how to predict if a subscription model will be successful for you, how to market content behind a paywall, and more!

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464: How Email and High-Quality Content Helped Jason Norris Reach Millions of Monthly Pageviews with Recipe Teacher

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on Jun 4, 2024 in

Welcome to episode 464 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Jason Norris from Recipe Teacher.

Jason Norris has gone on quite a journey with his site, Recipe Teacher. From trying to sell the site for $1000, to growing a site that reaches millions of monthly pageviews and is worth well over a million dollars.

In this interview, Jason shares more about the growth of his site, how he has built a team of recipe developers, his approach to SEO, and more. He also explains how he grew his email list from 1,000 to over 75,000 subscribers by working with our friend Allea at Duett and, in the process, learned that many of his readers are seniors!

Jason’s journey to success is a really fun one to hear about, and one that we know will inspire many of you to keep plugging along. Enjoy!

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463: How a Love of SEO and Entrepreneurship Helped Shaunda Necole Grow Three Successful Websites and Hit 1 Million Monthly Pageviews

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on May 28, 2024 in

Welcome to episode 463 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Shaunda Necole from The Soul Food Pot.

Shaunda Necole has a true passion for being an entrepreneur — from her first business owning a cheerleading product company to today, running three websites, a food tour of Las Vegas, writing books, and more.

In this interview, she shares more about her love of SEO and keyword research and how her SEO strategy has changed in light of Google’s recent Helpful Content Updates. She also explains how she divides her time between her three websites (a food blog, a travel website, and her personal site), in addition to her SEO consulting, Las Vegas food tours, and upcoming travel book.

In a time where SEO can feel really unpredictable, Shaunda’s perspective and approach to SEO is one we all need to hear (and she clearly knows what she’s doing — her food blog hits 1 million monthly pageviews during the holiday season)! We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did.

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462: Monetizing Three Blogs, Outsourcing Tasks, and Self-Publishing a Cookbook with Julie Evink from Julie’s Eats & Treats

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on May 21, 2024 in

Welcome to episode 462 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Julie Evink from Julie’s Eats & Treats.

Julie started her first blog, Julie’s Eats & Treats, back in 2010. Since that time she has taken her site full-time, started two other blogs, grown a team, and is self-publishing a cookbook!

In this interview, Julie shares more about growing her blog and how that experience changed her approach to her other two sites. She also chats about outsourcing tasks, how she hires team members, and what she thinks is working really well in her businesses currently.

Her cookbook is being released today (May 21!), so we also get to hear about the process of self-publishing a cookbook. It’s always fun to hear about the journey of someone who has been blogging for as long as Julie has (14+ years!) and we know you’ll enjoy this interview as much as we did.

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461: Building a Career as a Photographer and Storytelling Through Visuals with Alanna O’Neil

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on May 14, 2024 in

Welcome to episode 461 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Alanna O’Neil.

Alanna O’Neil has been a photographer for almost as long as she can remember. Despite starting her career in fashion, she took a risk and moved to Hawaii to start a career as a photographer and hasn’t looked back.

In this interview, Alanna shares more about building a career as a freelance photographer, developing your skills as a photographer, building a portfolio, and the importance of storytelling through visuals.

She has an incredibly calming and inspiring energy, and this interview will give you a lot to think about as an entrepreneur, creative, and photographer. Don’t miss it!

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460: How Yasmin Henley Recommitted to Her Blog and Grew to 85,000 Monthly Sessions

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on May 7, 2024 in

Welcome to episode 460 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Yasmin Henley from By the Forkful.

Yasmin started By the Forkful (her second blog) in 2019 and quickly qualified for Mediavine. But, as often happens, life got in the way when she had her daughter and went back to work full-time. After taking a step back and being removed from Mediavine, Yasmin has worked hard to bring her site back to life.

In the last year she has built the traffic on her site back up to 85,000 monthly sessions and is once again part of an ad network! In this interview she shares more about her process for growing site traffic, the role of social media in driving traffic to her site, and how she balances her full-time job, family, and blog.

We loved this interview with Yasmin — she’s an open book and her honesty is so refreshing and helpful for anyone building a business!

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459: How Lisa Bass from Farmhouse on Boone Diversified Her Business and Found Work-Life Balance

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on Apr 30, 2024 in ,

Welcome to episode 459 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Lisa Bass from Farmhouse on Boone.

Lisa Bass first started her site, Farmhouse on Boone, in 2016. Since then, she has diversified her brand to include a podcast, YouTube channel, courses, and more (all while raising 8 children)!

In this podcast interview, Bjork and Lisa talk about balancing her business with her family life, and how she has built a team to support her business over the years. Lisa also chats about how each arm of her business ranks in terms of income, and why she continues to prioritize YouTube.

Lisa has been one of our most-requested podcast guests and we’re so happy to have her join us! Hope you enjoy the episode.

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458: SEO Tips from a Food Blogger Who Works Full-time at an SEO Agency with Marley Braunlich

Emily @ FBP
by Emily @ FBP on Apr 23, 2024 in

Welcome to episode 458 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Marley Braunlich from Baked Abundance.

Marley Braunlich started working full-time at an SEO agency shortly after launching her food blog, Baked Abundance. In this interview, she shares more about balancing a full-time job and a side hustle (especially when they’re both in the same industry!) and how she manages burnout.

Marley also explains what tips and tricks she has learned from her full-time job and how she has worked to optimize her site for search engines and build domain authority.

If you want to increase your site traffic (who isn’t?!) without losing the aspects of food blogging that bring you joy, you won’t want to miss this interview!

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