Eat Blog Talk | Megan Porta

In episode 426, Alexandria Drzazgowski teaches us how to keep track of our blog content and it repurpose easily using AirTable. Alexandria Drzazgowski is the food blogger behind The Foreign Fork, a project where she is cooking a meal from every country in the world. After backpacking to 15 countries in Europe and taking cooking classes in each one, Alexandria decided to take her project of cooking-around-the-world home with her. She started her blog in 2018, and to date has cooked over 400 recipes from over 85 countries. The Foreign Fork has been featured in Buzzfeed, The Detroit News, and Elite Daily and is the recipient of the Saveur Blog Award for Most Groundbreaking Voice. Most importantly, Alexandria is proud to have helped over 5 millions readers across the world Put Some Culture in their Kitchen. In this episode, you’ll learn about repurposing content and efficient ways of organizing and keeping track of your blog content using AirTable.  - Why should you repurpose content? - How to develop a system to

In episode 425, Megan chats to Ally Kepley about how to maintain a healthy relationship with Instagram and our mobiles devices. Ally is a home baker who grew up baking with both of her grandmothers since she was little. Ally started creating her own recipes at age 11 or 12 and was on a roll through becoming a stay at home mom. She decided to create a recipe website a little over a year ago out of a desire to bake full time and have more freedom and time with her son. Ally’s blog is catered towards those who want to make elevated recipes that are approachable to anyone. In this episode, Ally reveals how she improved her relationship with Instagram while growing her blog, including setting boundaries regarding how much time she spends on the app, when and how she posts and responds to comments. She also shares personal growth techniques to help keep you on track with your goals. - Why is Instagram like a “toxic boyfriend”? - It is hard to keep up with Instagram’s algorithm changes in a sustainable way. - How to

In episode 424, Matt Briel teaches us several ways to use a book as a growth tool for our business and how to go from idea to published author. Commonly described as equal parts loud music, Disney culture, tattoos, and book nerd, Matt Briel is an entrepreneur and the Vice President of Marketing & Communications at Lulu.com. After more than 15 years leading Sales and Marketing teams in the Media & Publishing spaces, he’s developed a unique passion for helping creators become more successful by leveraging books as a catalyst for opportunities and sustainable revenue. In this episode, you’ll learn more about the benefits of publishing a book or cookbook, including how it can help build your brand and provide you with more business opportunities. - Publishing a book is the best way to build credibility and increase visibility. - What are the advantages of being a published author? - A book is an alternative way of monetizing your content. - Create a physical touch point for your digital community. - Is se

In episode 423, Megan chats to Nicole Liloia about being burned out as an entrepreneur, how we can avoid it, including tips for building multiple income streams efficiently. New Jersey-based Nicole Liloia is a small business coach and strategist. Over the course of her 9 years in this business, she has helped over 500 service providers build their businesses and diversify their income streams through her signature Bigger Business Bootcamp and Grow Your Income Mastermind. Her Facebook group supports over 10,000 entrepreneurs by giving them real, unmatched support and resources to get to that next level in their business. In this episode, you’ll find out what causes burn out, how to be more productive without exhaustion and why multiple income streams can help us avoid burnout. Nicole further shares tips for how to decide which income streams are right for you. - We thrive on being busy. - Even if you love your work, working all the time leads to burn out. - How can entrepreneurs alleviate burnout? - Why do ent

In episode 422, Lauren Sawant teaches us how to think like an editor and incorporate editing techniques into our blog and cookbook writing. Lauren Sawant is a freelance editor specializing in cookbooks, recipes, and food writing. She has worked in and adjacent to the food and beverage industry for over 15 years, including three years as a pastry cook. She has been a freelance editor since 2021. In this episode, you’ll learn more about different editing techniques, when you should hire an editor, in depth guidelines for editing content yourself and what writing mistakes to look out for. - What does a cookbook and recipe editor do? - Benefits of incorporating editing techniques into your brand. - Tips for editing social media and website copy. - Become familiar with common missteps in recipe writing. - How to “work like an editor”. - What is a style sheet and what are the benefits of creating one? - What should you know about hiring an editor? - Red flags to look out for when you’re looking for an editor to wor

In episode 421, Megan chats to Caitlin Ritchie about how to establish a blog’s identity through strong branding and photography. Caitlin is a brand strategist/professional photographer turned blogger. While continuing to work as a branding and photography consultant, she is growing her blog The Rooted Farmhouse, a gardening, food and slow living blog. In this episode, you’ll learn how to stay true to your voice and niche as you establish your brand identity. Caitlin also shares tips on how to strengthen your brand through using photography. - A strong brand is essential to help you grow a bigger audience. - What is branding? - Can you have a strong brand with a limited budget? - Why should you stay cohesive with your branding on social media? - Tools to help you stay on brand and consistent - How templates increase your productivity and help you stay on brand. - Create an identity in your photography. - What are presets and how can you use them to save time with your editing workflow? Connect with Caitlin Rit

In episode 420, Megan chats to Marley Braunlich about how to stand out to brands and establish long-term partnerships with the brands you love. Marley has been food blogging for a little over 1 year. She started working full-time for an SEO agency one month later. During this time, she grew her Instagram audience to 13k followers and started working with brands to earn a side income while the blog matured and she continued to pour into the blog. Marley has learned how to successfully land brand deals and form long-term partnerships and shares her tips in this episode. You'll learn how to land your first brand partnership, what to include in your pitch email and ways in which you can set yourself apart so that brands want to continue working with you. - DM brands on Instagram, show genuine interest and knowledge of the brand. - Create your pitch email early on and revise as you gain experience. - Have a portfolio you feel proud of (doesn’t have to be perfect right away). - Should you include examples of past c

In episode 419, Rob Finkelstein teaches us how to protect our business and brand name by forming a business entity. Rob is a lawyer, practicing for over 20 years in NYC. In 2017, Rob decided to pursue his passion of baking and went to culinary school for pastry arts. After graduating, not wanting to leave the law, Rob got started blogging at, http://www.cinnamonshtick.com, which was also his entry into food photography. He worked with a number of brands and came to represent lots of food photographers in connection with their contracts and business set ups. They all inspired Rob to create an online course about contracts specifically for food photographers. In this episode, you’ll learn more about the details of forming a business entity, including liability protection, finances and the differences between various entities. - Why form a business entity? - The importance of having a separate business bank account. - How to choose a name for your business/brand. - Why searching your brand name on the USPTO webs

In episode 417, Vinessa Knabbe teaches us how to be confident food bloggers, talking about our jobs without hesitation, regardless of where we’re at in our blogging journey. Vinessa and her family live in Long Beach, New York, a barrier Island on Long Island. Vinessa loves the beach and everything that goes along with it, heat, tan skin, sand on her feet and being outside as much as possible. She loves the heat in the kitchen also as she comes from an Italian family full of cooks. Inspired by her love of cooking, she shares family recipes on her blog, Vinessa Rae. Her skills come mainly from her grandmother, Annette, who is no longer with us but she feels close to her every time she’s in the kitchen, and her mom who still amazes her with things she makes and comes up with. In this episode, she shares how she went from feeling uncomfortable talking about her job as a food blogger to being able to promote her blog without fear. Learn more about being a confident blogger and treating your blog as a business from

In episode 416, Megan chats to Amanda Polick about how to write a cookbook and intentionally build your platform without getting overwhelmed. Amanda Polick is a cookbook and food memoir coach. Through their work together, clients have landed Big 5 publishing deals and secured media clips for publications including Food 52 and The Los Angeles Times. Her work has been featured by Cooking Light, Time, Southern Living, and Food & Wine, and she’s a proud member of the Cherry Bombe community. In this episode, you’ll find out more about the process of writing a cookbook, including how to write a book proposal, identifying why people would love your cookbook more than others and what happens once your book proposal gets accepted? - Tell stories beyond the recipes you include. - The book proposal is your cookbook’s business plan. - Why will people pick up your book rather than others? - How to get a publishing deal? - How can you stand out in a saturated market by owning your voice? - You can truly show your perso

In episode 415, Ryan Allen teaches us how to monetize our sites and get 100k page views in 30 days. Ryan has been a food blogger for just under a year. Ryan knew when he started blogging, he wanted to be able to monetize as quickly as possible. So he planned to leverage Facebook and Facebook groups to reach 100K page views in his first 30 days. In this episode, Ryan shares in detail how he used Facebook to gain traction for his blog. Find out how you can implement his Facebook marketing strategy to increase traffic and monetize your own blog. - Be able to look at your content objectively. - What is the quickest way to grow as a new blogger? - Use Facebook groups socially. - The more you help and interact with others, the more they’ll do the same for you. - The more consistent you are, the more success you’ll find. - What are the advantages of Facebook groups compared to your own pages? - How to get quality traffic from Facebook that won’t affect your RPM? - What types of recipe content performs best? Connect

In episode 414, Megan chats to Eric Samuelson about common mental health issues food bloggers struggle with and how they can keep on top of their blogs regardless of what they experience in their day to day life. Eric runs the blog, Eat Like No One Else - the place to learn how to enhance the way you eat through learning of specialty foods and ingredients and how to make the most amazing food at home. At Eat Like No One Else, they solidly believe in the philosophy "if you teach a man to fish..." . In 2022, Eric introduced a podcast, Eat Shop Waste Not, that teaches people how to source the most delicious groceries without wasting food or a single penny. In this episode, you’ll learn about common mental health issues bloggers experience, including feelings of isolation, anxiety, low self-esteem and depression. - Why is food blogging so mentally tasking? - Evaluate your work-life balance. - How does income affect your mental health? - Tips to deal with the anxiety of blog analytics. - Perfectionism increases yo

In episode 413, Aleka Shunk teaches us effective keyword research strategies, sharing tips about which search volumes to target, how to analyze competition and which mistakes to avoid. Aleka is the founder of Aleka's Get-Together, a food and entertaining blog, and Keywords With Aleka, a keyword research school for bloggers. She has a Master's Degree in Teaching, Learning and Curriculum and was a teacher for ten years. Aleka took her expertise as both a teacher and blogger to create courses to help others learn how to navigate and excel at a small, but important, piece of SEO: keyword research. In this episode, you’ll learn how to do keyword research to maximize traffic coming to your website no matter where you are in your blogging journey. - You can naturally rank for more than one variation of a keyword. - What do you do if the search volume is low for your particular keyword? - What should we do with keywords with high competition? - Track your higher ranking posts. - It’s really important to keep readers

In episode 412, Megan chats to Kristin Weeks about how to set healthy habits that help us push through hard times and grow our businesses in the long-run. Kristin started her blog 3 years ago with the passion to teach others how to cook more homemade meals, bake with sourdough, and how to start a backyard garden to grow fresh produce. Since then, Kristin’s journey has had a lot of ups and downs. A year ago she decided to take her blog and business seriously and that had a lot to do with habits, routines, and mindset. By working on herself first, she found she was able to focus. The hard work turned her hobby into a viable business, going from a few thousand sessions a month to qualifying for Mediavine within a year. In this episode, you’ll learn how to identify areas in your life you’d like to improve, setting positive, lasting habits that will help you achieve your goals. - Do you feel ready to put everything you have into your blog? - Which areas of your life would you like to improve? - Your strengths are

In episode 411, Sabrina Currie teaches us how to up our writing game by focusing on clear, concise blog writing that shows our personalities while providing accurate information about our recipes. Sabrina started her career in food right after high school by attending cooking school. After doing a few different jobs in the food industry, she went into the healthcare field. She eventually found herself needing a creative outlet so she picked up a DSLR and started photographing food and nature. After taking a Wordpress blogging course, Sabrina decided to start a food blog and after a while wanted to make it more than a hobby. She has steadily increased her web traffic by scheduling an audit by Casey Markee and using tools like RankIQ and Keysearch. Her days are spent working half time in a hospital and half time blogging and writing while enjoying being a wife and mom. In this episode, you’ll learn about small tweaks you can make to your writing to make it more accessible and appealing to your readers. - Answer

In episode 410, Megan chats to Jenna Urben about what we need to do now in our businesses to be able to take a significant amount of time off later on. Jenna is the content creator of The Urben Life, a food and lifestyle blog where she shares allergy-friendly recipes and travel guides. Jenna started blogging about 5 years ago and was immediately drawn to the community aspect. Over the years, she realized there was a need for more transparency in the creator space. So she went on to create Bloggerbytes to provide bloggers and influencers with resources and tools they can use to thrive. In this episode, you’ll learn how to prepare blog posts, social media and email marketing in advance so that you can take time off when you want. - Have checklists ready to check what you can do ahead of time. - Post your content now so that it works for you when you’re taking time off. - Do’s and don’ts for scheduling out social media. - Why is a Canva subscription life-changing? - Save money by curtailing subscriptions you don

In episode 409, Laura Tobin teaches us how to treat our blogs like actual businesses, getting into the right mindset and talking about our business with confidence. In 2018, Laura’s husband suddenly passed away, and she became a single mom with two teenage sons and no income. In 2019, Laura decided to focus on a food blog that she’d started previously as a hobby and turn it into a viable business. Applying her technical and business skills, Laura was successful in joining Mediavine one year later. The last 4 years, Laura has worked as a single mom of two sons, while growing a business with limited time and resources. In this episode, you’ll learn how to think about your blog to develop it into a business, including being able to confidently discuss your work with other people and break down food blogger stereotypes. - How do you answer when someone asks you what you do? - Why are food bloggers underrated? - Develop an entrepreneurial mindset. - What are the 5 stages of developing a startup? - Stay true to you

In episode 408, Megan chats to Miriam Schulman about why embracing our inner uniqueness can take us from being a starving artist to a well-paid and well-known one. Miriam Schulman is an artist and founder of The Inspiration Place podcast, where she helps other artists learn how to profit from their passion or become better artists. She’s helped thousands of artists around the world develop their skill sets and create more time and freedom to do what they love. Her art and story have been featured in major publications including Forbes, The New York Times and the Art of Man. The Inspiration Place podcast is in the top 1% of all podcasts and is listened to in over 100 countries. In this episode, you’ll learn why you should embrace your weirdness and how it can help you become a successful artist. Miriam shares various tips from her new book with HarperCollins Leadership Arpreneur.  - How can we stand out? - Let go of people-pleasing tendencies to make yourself more marketable. - Idiosyncrasies make you more rel

In episode 407, Jazzmine Woodard teaches us about DEI (diversity, equality and inclusion) and how to create inclusive content in our niche to make as many people as possible feel included and valued. Jazzmine has balanced growing her food and travel blog, Dash of Jazz, with a corporate career in DEI for the last 8 years. In this time, Jazzmine has learned how to be inclusive in her content approach without alienating her niche audience. She has also cultivated an audience that engages with both food and travel content. In this episode, learn about DEI and how to avoid alienating your readers. Jazzmine discusses how we can position ourselves as teachers while respecting our readers' different tastes and making our content as accessible as possible.  - Respect your readers’ differences (i.e. in opinion and taste). - Using captions on social media videos and alt text. - Does each person have equal opportunity to enjoy your content? - People who do feel included, really feel included by the extra measures we take