The Food Blogger Pro Podcast

How to write with focus, read with purpose, and build your community with Gabriela Pereira. ----- 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. How to Write with Focus, Read with Purpose, and Build Your Community 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

How to trust your gut, why you need to build your own path, and why you should pursue the work (not the end) with Bjork Ostrom. ----- Welcome to episode 101 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks about the lessons he learned after five years of publishing Income Reports on Pinch of Yum. What I Learned After Five Years of Income Reports The Pinch of Yum Income Reports chronicle the experiment Bjork and Lindsay started as a way to find out if it was possible to create an income from a food blog. Spoiler alert: It is. After five years of publishing these income reports and sharing the process of turning Pinch of Yum into a business, Bjork has learned quite a few lessons. From learning to trust his gut to building their own path to learning how to learn, the 20 lessons Bjork discusses will help anyone in pursuit of starting their own business and becoming their own boss. In this episode, Bjork shares: How and why he started writing the Pinch of Yum Income Reports Why you need to l

Our listeners' favorite FBP podcast episodes, what they've learned, how how they've applied what they've learned to their blogs ----- Welcome to episode 100 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, we’re celebrating our 100th episode with a special community episode! How FBP Listeners Have Used the Podcast to Grow their Blogs and Businesses 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

How to price sponsored content, what type of business structure you should have for your blog, and what legal essentials your blog should have ----- Welcome to episode 99 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Danielle Liss from Hashtag Legal about how you can create solid sponsored content. Sponsored Content and Getting Paid What Your Work is Worth If you do sponsored content, you know how much work a campaign can be. From developing the recipe to aligning with the brand’s goals, many considerations go into creating solid sponsored content for a brand. From understanding FTC guidelines to knowing the legal disclaimers all blogs should have on their sites, Danielle and her business partner cover it all at their practice, Hashtag Legal. While most bloggers want to focus on the creative side of their businesses, it’s important to have a handle on the business and legal side of things as well. Danielle saw this as an opportunity to help get bloggers to the point where they’re

How recipe creation is like architecture, how to improve your food photography, and how to become a full-time freelance food photographer. ----- Welcome to episode 98 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks with Ashley McLaughlin from Edible Perspective about becoming a full-time freelance food photographer. An Architect’s Journey to Becoming a Full-Time Freelance Food Photographer Architecture and food…it doesn’t sound like there would be many similarities between the two, right? But there are, and Ashley’s background in architecture helped her understand experience, perspective, and design in a culinary setting. After staring her blog, Edible Perspective, as a way to stay creative, Ashley’s love of food transformed into a love of photography. After a long learning process, she went from a complete novice with a DSLR to understanding exposure meters, shooting in manual mode, and writing a food photography series on her blog. Now she’s a full-time freelance food photographer who

How to make money from blogging, why you should divide your income into eggs, and how to fill your egg carton with Bjork Ostrom. ----- Welcome to episode 97 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork talks about dividing income into multiple “eggs” in a carton of blogging income. How to Create a Full-Time Income from Blogging using The Egg Carton Method For a lot of us, “pro” blogging (i.e., making a full-time income from blogging) is the dream. In order to do that, however, income needs to be coming in from multiple channels. Bjork likes to think of these “channels” as eggs in an egg carton; you need to fill your egg carton with different revenue streams in order to create a sustainable income from your blog. It’s really difficult to create a full-time blogging income from only one “egg,” so diversifying your egg carton can help you get there even sooner. In this episode, Bjork shares: Two things that make an impact on making an income on your blog How to divide your income stream into

What recipe plugins are, why you should be using one, and how to create the perfect search result with Bjork Ostrom. ----- Welcome to episode 96 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork talks about recipe plugins and why you need one. How to Create the Perfect Recipe Post 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. In this episode, Bjork shares: What a recipe plugin is and why food blogger

How she started Catch My Party, what problem MiloTree solved for their business, and using popups on mobile. ----- Welcome to episode 95 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork interviews Jillian Tohber Leslie from Catch My Party and MiloTree about making successful career changes by embracing the mess. As with life, business isn’t always pretty. No matter how put-together someone’s business looks from the outside, you can bet your bottom dollar that they’ve had their own fair share of messy affairs to deal with in their business. Jillian Tohber Leslie learned early in her career that the key to moving forward was embracing this messiness and using it to help propel her career and her businesses forward. She and her husband started Catch My Party, the largest party ideas site on the web, and went on to found MiloTree, a social and email growth popup that’s perfect for bloggers. In this episode, Jillian shares: How she successfully changed careers a number of times Why messiness in life and bu

How finding the right path for you can help you keep going with your blog.  ----- Welcome to episode 94 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks about how to keep going when you're not sure you can continue.   Whether you’ve been blogging for a few months or a few years, you’ve no doubt had the thought at some point or another: How do I keep going? Blogging can be tough. You might be fitting it in after your regular full-time job hours. You might be running your blog as a business with not enough hours in the day. You might be juggling it on the side while trying to raise a family. Whatever your situation, you’ve likely found out that blogging isn’t easy, and on some days it’s tough to imagine how you’ll keep it up. Today, Bjork talks about some techniques that he and Lindsay have used in their businesses to help them get up in the morning and do The Work. In this episode, Bjork discusses: Why someone else’s path might not be the one for you How to find your own path Why time is a key in

How finding a niche can be freeing and how proper branding skyrocketed her traffic with Meggan Hill from Culinary Hill. ----- 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

The thing she did when starting her blog, where her first year income came from, and what she would do differently now. ----- Welcome to episode 92 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork talks with Chelsea Lords from Chelsea’s Messy Apron about making $40,000 in her first year of blogging. Most bloggers start out with the long-term plan in mind: they probably won’t make much money in the first year or two, but it’ll pay off in the end. And while this path works for a lot of people (Bjork and Lindsay included!), other bloggers decide to do it a bit differently. Chelsea Lords from Chelsea’s Messy Apron hit the ground running with her blog and ended up making $40,000 in just the first year. Today, she talks about the first steps she took on her path to success, how today is different from that first year, and what she would have done differently looking back. In this episode, Chelsea shares: What her first step was to stating her blog as a business Why she underestimated the amount of money she would

Should you delete old content, SEO in other languages, structured data for recipes, and repurposing old content with Joost de Valk from Yoast SEO. ----- Welcome to episode 91 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork interviews Joost de Valk, the founder of Yoast SEO, about optimizing SEO for your food blog. SEO is something we bloggers hear a LOT about. It’s so important! But it can also be really confusing, even with the abundance of information out there. Fortunately, there are tools such as the Yoast SEO plugin to help us navigate this often confusing landscape. Yoast SEO was founded by Joost de Valk and is one of the most popular WordPress plugins in use today. That’s… kind of a big deal. Joost met with Bjork for this interview to discuss a wide range of SEO topics, including why SEO matters for your recipes and how you can optimize it. In this episode, Joost shares: How you actually pronounce his name How SEO changes with languages other than English How to structure your site for usability Whe

Making money outside of your blog, quitting your job, and finding a service in demand with Brita Britnell. ----- Welcome to episode 90 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork chats with Brita Britnell about how she stepped off the beaten blogging path and found a new way to work for herself. Most bloggers start on their blogging journey hoping to eventually work full-time for themselves on their blog. While this is definitely an admirable and achievable goal, some bloggers have found that this is not the only way. Brita started making videos for her blog about a year ago and unexpectedly found that she absolutely loved it. She knew there was demand for bloggers to create video, but she also knew that most bloggers just didn’t have the time to learn a new skill. So, she started making videos for other bloggers and found the demand so great that she had to start a waitlist for clients. In just a few months she was able to leave her job and work for herself doing something that she loved. Today, she’s

Our best advice for new (or experienced) bloggers, how to manage an affiliate program, and where you can find what to blog about in the coming month. ----- Welcome to episode 89 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork interviews FBP team members Alexa, Jasmine, and Raquel about what goes on behind the scenes, and what they’ve learned about blogging during their time as FBP employees. -----  Alright, alright. This episode is not really about building a plane. Not a real one, at least! But “building a plane” is an analogy we use nearing the end of the episode when we talk about the most important advice we would give to new (or experienced) bloggers. This advice is so important, in my humble opinion, that I’m wiling to give you a free pass and tell you to skip right to the end if you only have 5 minutes to listen. If you’ve got more than 5 minutes, settle on in for a listen about how we run Food Blogger Pro behind the scenes, and how you can use the same tools, processes, and techniques as we do to ta

How Pinch of Yum employs full-time workers, communicating on a remote team, finding what works with video, and tips for working remotely. ----- Welcome to episode 88 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork interviews two key Pinch of Yum employees, Alana Woolley and Jenna Arend, about what goes on behind the scenes of Pinch of Yum. If you’re not a food blogger, it might seem like it’s a job that would be easy to do in your free time. If you are a food blogger, you know that there’s way more time that goes into it than that! Many people are surprised to hear that Pinch of Yum employs a team of people, 3 of whom work full-time, to keep the blog up and running. Alana and Jenna are two of those people - Alana is the Pinch of Yum Video Specialist, and Jenna is the Pinch of Yum Office Manager. Today, they’re here to break it down for us and talk about how it all works. In this episode, Alana and Jenna share: What they do on a day-to-day basis How they communicate on a remote team What Jenna’s “lifeline”

What it means to take permission, the ugly truth about online marketing, and how to genuinely connect with influencers with Andy Traub. ----- Welcome to episode 87 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork chats with Andy Traub, a business coach who specializes in helping you take permission in your career.   The phrase “take permission” might settle a bit weird in your brain. Don’t you ask for permission? That’s exactly what Andy’s all about. He feels that for your business to really thrive, you have to be comfortable with simply taking permission. Take permission to start. Take permission to invest. Take permission to learn. This mindset is crucial to not only finding success as an entrepreneur, but also finding out what your best, most useful skills and roles are in your business. With this mindset, you can really see your business grow. In this episode, Andy shares: What inspired him to work for himself How he got started with his business What it means to take permission The hard, ugly truth abo

Reinvent your Mondays, transition to a new career, and start Do Overs in all areas of life with Jon Acuff. ----- Welcome to episode 86 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork chats with Jon Acuff, a New York Times bestselling author who helps you work a job you love.   While many entrepreneur-motivators will promote the strategy of quitting your job first, then figuring your new career out later, Jon Acuff takes a different stance. In his most recent book, Do Over, Jon talks about preparing yourself for a new career well before you ever need to actually start one. Jon’s books have helped thousands of people reinvent their Mondays, transition to a new career, and start Do Overs in all areas of life. In this episode, Jon shares: What a Do Over is and how you can track their effects Why you shouldn’t quit your day job How to utilize your time without sacrificing your family What you need to have in place to be prepared for a Do Over Why hustle is a key component, even if you have everything else What

Working with contributors, monetizing from day 1, and finding your support person with Leslie Means from Her View From Home ----- 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. In this episode, Leslie shares: How Her View from Home started, and where it is today How she monetized her website from the beginning Why writing a business plan was instrumental for her success Why her hu

Gratitude, constant growth, and keeping overwhelm at bay. ----- Welcome to episode 84 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork talks about gratitude, constant growth, and keeping blog overwhelm at bay. In this episode, Bjork discusses: How your past is relevant to your future Examples of using past skills to grow your business How you can contrast negative thoughts with grateful thoughts to stay balanced How you can simultaneously be content, yet still aiming to learn and grow What the difference is between blogs that thrive and those that get stuck Why just creating consistent content is not enough How you can apply 1%∞ today How 1%∞ can keep things from becoming overwhelming Resources: foodbloggerpro.com/afton Pinch of Yum Workshops Lynda.com If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodbloggerpro.com. Be sure to review us on iTunes!

How Lindsay organizes her day, how to apply 1% infinity to your daily life, and where Bjork got his name. ----- Welcome to episode 83 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, we’re playing an episode from the Chopped Podcast with Marly McMillen. In this episode, Marly covers a lot of ground with Bjork and Lindsay. They talk about how Lindsay organizes her days, what it means to practice 1% infinity every day, and, my personal favorite, she asks them some random questions that were really fun to hear their answers to, like where Bjork’s name came from. In this episode, Bjork and Lindsay share: How they came up with the name Pinch of Yum Why Lindsay incorporates teaching into her blog How they organize their days What 1% infinity is and how they apply it every day How Bjork got his name What Lindsay’s favorite phone app is   Resources: Day Designer Passion Planner Chopped Conference Namely Marly If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to podcast@foodblogg