Eat Blog Talk | Megan Porta

In episode 578, Kathy Berget teaches us what to do when our blog images have been used without our permission and how to get compensated for them. Kathy is the author, photographer, recipe developer, and writer at Beyond the Chicken Coop where she creates delicious home-cooked recipes utilizing what they grow and raise. Kathy is a former elementary school principal and has three grown kids; twin boys and one girl. Kathy and her husband live in the country on their own little farm. In this episode, you’ll learn about copyright for images, ways in which you can respond and how to use image theft protection services like Pixsy to get compensated. Key points discussed: - Image theft is a common issue for food bloggers: Food blog images are often stolen or used without permission by various businesses, including restaurants, markets, and online retailers. - Copyright protection is automatic for blog images: Photographers automatically have copyright over their images, even without formal registration. - Services l

In this episode, we're going to talk about how to respond with confidence to 5 questions food bloggers get from friends and family that can upset us. People outside our industry may struggle to understand what we do as food bloggers. It is not as evident as being a doctor or a teacher and so we might get more questions that seem ‘stupid’ when we tell people what we do. Here are some common ones and how not to let these questions get to you, but instead learn how to respond with confidence and patience. Action Plan: 1 - "You're a what or what exactly do you do?" - Explain in simple terms what you do, so that a 13 year old can understand. 2 - “Do you make money? How do you make money? How much money do you make?" - If you’re comfortable with the question, answer again in an easy way to understand or gently change the subject. 3 - “How is your business doing?" - Respond positively and avoid getting angry over any underlying meaning. 4 - “How is your little blog doing?" - Nobody has the vision you have for your b

In episode 576, Megan chats to James Elliot about how to manage business obstacles, turning unexpected changes into opportunities for growth. James is a passionate and enthusiastic presenter who genuinely cares about people, and loves to speak, teach and deliver value. He's spoken at live events, as well as virtual ones, for people all over the world. He even has his own private training institution, where he trains people who want to make an impact on their organization, and do it in a fulfilling way. In this episode, you’ll learn why business obstacles are ideal opportunities for business growth, specifically how to use self-reflection to pivot tasks that are no longer lighting you up to something you truly want to do. Key points discussed: - Navigating tough transitions: You can navigate difficult industry changes and transitions by embracing them as opportunities for growth and pivoting your business. - Don’t be afraid to be you: Embracing one's authentic self and unique qualities can lead to greater succ

In episode 575, Natasha teaches us how to effectively delegate tasks to our team and empower them to run our business when we’re not there. Natasha Zo is a former journalist from Siberia today running her international PR and visibility agency. As a PR agent, she’s helped authors launch #1 bestselling books, booked national TV, and landed clients on the world’s top podcasts and magazine covers. Leading up to this she lived on 3 different continents, volunteered in Central America, managed a high-performing marketing team in Asia, and taught public speaking to refugee teenagers. She is on a mission to see less clickbait and more empowering knowledge in the media. In this episode, you’ll learn about what to look for when hiring employees, or outsourcing tasks, and how to prepare for extended periods off in your business (like maternity leave) by delegating tasks effectively. Key points discussed: - Delegating and streamlining are crucial for growth and freedom: Automating and delegating tasks allows entrepreneu

In this episode, we're going to talk about 5 things to let go of in our business, especially looking at how these things are holding us back and what we can do instead. Internally, we hold on to so much unnecessary baggage, and this can impact us very negatively if we're not careful. As entrepreneurs, we can get even more bogged down, because with this territory comes a lot of daunting situations and therefore a lot of opportunity to just hold really tightly onto some things. So, here are the 5 things I’ve learned to let go of in my business. Action Plan: 1 - Caring what others think: Stop worrying about what people will think or say about you and your business, and instead focus on operating with integrity and serving your audience. 2 - Fear of failure: Embrace failure as a necessary part of the entrepreneurial journey, as it provides opportunities for learning and growth. 3 - Lack of confidence: Replace feelings of self-doubt with courage, and take bold actions in your business despite any lack of confidenc

In episode 573, Megan chats to Emilie Pullar about how she monetized her food blog quickly by having a strong work ethic and writing blog posts for her reader instead of focusing just on SEO. The Burnt Butter Table is run by Emilie Pullar and is a pasta filled blog with recipes ranging from quick 10 minute pasta sauces to intricate filled pasta shapes made from scratch. Emilie's true passion for food shines through her recipes where she endeavors to explain and break down processes in an easy to understand way. In this episode, you’ll learn about the value of believing in yourself and following your passion as well as the need for mindset shifts to maintain a sustainable entrepreneurial journey. Key points discussed: - Passion and hard work are key to building a successful food blog: Are you passionate about your niche because you’re going to need it to motivate you to put in the work. - Detailed, user-focused content is more important than SEO: Create high-quality, detailed recipes that provide a great user

In episode 572, Dee Rotman teaches us how to create strong results for a new blog, getting high page views from the start by building an audience on social media first. Deeckla (Dee) Rotman founded Dee & Sweets in December 2022, sharing baking recipes and tips with time-sensitive home bakers on social media. Having created over a hundred dessert recipes, Dee launched her blog in April 2024 and is already seeing strong growth. Dee became an entrepreneur after having been a marketing leader in the corporate world for most of her career. In this episode, you’ll learn why Dee prioritized growing a following on Instagram before launching her blog, what she plans on prioritizing next and how she handles competition. Key points discussed: - Start building an audience on social media before launching a blog: This helps drive traffic to the new blog and establish an engaged following. - Hire help strategically: Bringing on freelancers and part-time assistants can alleviate burnout and allow you to focus on growth.

In this episode, we're going to talk about 5 steps to prepare for Q4, so that you can get the most out of it without risking burnout. Q4 is a big deal in our industry. People love food. And people especially love food from approximately October 1st through the end of the year, every year. How can we make the most of this time of year as a food blogger? Here, I share 5 steps I take to prepare for Q4 so that I can stay on top of my food blog, watching the increase in traffic and revenue that comes with Q4, while still being able to enjoy the holidays. These steps will also help you prevent burn out as you manage the busiest time of year for us food bloggers. Action Plan: 1 - Change your perspective: Approach Q4 with gratitude and excitement rather than fear or worry. 2 - Delegate, automate, and eliminate: Identify tasks you can delegate, automate, or eliminate to free up time and energy for Q4. 3 - Make self-care and mindset a priority: Proactively schedule time for physical exercise, meditation, and other self

In episode 570, Megan chats to Heather Farris about optimizing Pinterest to boost blog traffic, including how to use Pinterest Trends as part of your keyword strategy. Heather is an accountant and bookkeeper turned blogger and Pinterest marketer. Since 2016, she has helped hundreds of Pinterest creators grow their traffic and sales through both organic and paid ads. She regularly helps creators understand how to spend their time and money to grow their businesses on and off Pinterest. In this episode, you’ll learn how to interpret Pinterest trends, why Pinterest is an important search tool like Google and what types of pins you should be making to get traction on the platform. Key points discussed: - Pinterest is a powerful search engine for food bloggers: Pinterest users often use the platform as their primary search engine, making it a valuable tool for food bloggers to reach their audience. - Treat Pinterest as a "parking lot" for content: Think of it as a long-term time investment as, if you’re using the

In episode 569, Mika Kinney and Sarah Bond teach us the nitty gritty of growing an Instagram account as a way to drive traffic to our blogs and add new revenue streams instead of relying on Google. Guest Bio: Mika: Mika is a food-obsessed gal who has learned everything she knows from Food Network and cooking shows. She learned how to combine sweet and spicy from Bobby Flay and how to make a sponge cake from the Great British Baking Show. As the co-founder of Joy to the Food, her mission is simple: To prove that eating more protein is not complicated and can actually be a lot of fun! Sarah: Sarah Bond is the food blogger behind the vegetarian website, Live Eat Learn. With degrees in nutrition and food science, she started her food blog in 2015 as a creative outlet that combined her favorite things - photography, food, and writing. She now works full-time on her blog from Denver, Colorado. Along the way, she started her niche sites Brew Buch (pronounced "booch") for all things kombucha brewing, and Bone Appetre

In this episode, we're going to talk about five ways to find inspiration in your business and life when you feel depleted. As a creative individual and entrepreneur who has typically a stream of inspiring ideas running through my head, it feels really confusing when I feel uninspired. I always find it useful to pinpoint why I’m feeling uninspired first before I actively seek out inspiration. And yes, you can reignite your inspiration! You do not have to go about your day depleted. Here are 5 ways you can do it. Action Plan: 1 - Start a creative project: engage in a creative activity like art, crafting, writing, or design to stimulate your brain and boost inspiration. 2 - Research a vacation: research travel destinations, hotels, restaurants, and activities that you would like to experience, even if you don't have immediate plans to take the trip. 3 - Consume inspiring content: seek out podcasts, books, music, or other media that typically fills you with inspiration. 4 - Journal: write about the things that in

In episode 567, Shaunda Necole teaches us how to think of Pinterest as a search engine and effective keyword strategies which will help our pins rank and drive traffic to our blogs. Shaunda Necole is the go-to recipe creator for modern soul food cuisine. She's the founder of The Soul Food Pot, the #1 Southern soul food site on Google, the author of seven culinary guides, and the host of The Soul Food Pod, Apple's first show dedicated to the history and culture around iconic African American dishes. She believes in making life easier and more soulful, one recipe at a time! In this episode, you’ll learn how to word your keywords and stylize your pins for optimal impact, as well as how to use keywords in pin titles, descriptions, and board titles to help Pinterest understand the content's relevance. Key points discussed: - Pinterest is a visual search engine that delivers lifestyle photos: You should leverage Pinterest's visual nature to create appealing, relatable pins that showcase your recipes and content. -

In episode 566, Carrie Tyler teaches us how to establish a strong brand position and why this is essential to  understand and meet our target audience’s needs. Carrie Tyler is a brand positioning and brand marketing expert with over 20 years experience in Consumer Brand Management for large consumer goods companies. In 2018, Carrie launched her food blog, Talking Meals focusing on easy dinner recipes for busy families. In 2022, Carrie launched a second niche food blog and continues to run both blogs successfully today. Carrie has applied her brand positioning expertise to her own two food blogs and now helps other food bloggers to do the same. Through in-depth customer targeting and using a Food Blogger Brand House Model that she developed, Carrie helps food bloggers narrow in on their customers needs and how they uniquely solve those needs. In this episode, you’ll learn the benefits of brand positioning, such as increased email list growth, return traffic, and product sales and practical ways to create a mem

In this episode, we're going to talk about five ways to reduce blogging anxiety by setting boundaries online and finding a supportive blogging peer group. Even after 14 years of blogging, I still experience blogging anxiety. It's part of the job, isn't it? There's so much pressure inside and outside of the blogging industry. Every year there are new strategies to increase our traffic and grow our audience. Every year, we scramble to keep up with changes in our industry. While outside of the industry there's pressure to make our businesses successful, and sometimes loved ones with the best of intentions add the pressure of doing so. Above all, we probably want to prove to ourselves and others that we’ve got this. We can be successful entrepreneurs. And so the anxiety sets in... But there are ways in which we can minimize blogging anxiety! Action Plan: 1 - Hire someone to respond to your comments to shield you from negative feedback and criticism. 2 - Join a quality mastermind group to surround yourself with a

In episode 564, Megan chats to Anjali Shah about a unique affiliate marketing strategy bloggers can use to earn additional revenue by negotiating directly with brands they truly believe in. Anjali Shah is a food writer, best-selling author, board certified health coach, nutritionist, mom of two, and an advocate for healthy, clean eating for individuals and families. Her work has garnered nationwide attention as she has been featured on Oprah.com, Women’s Health, Cooking Light, Reader’s Digest, CNN, Food Network, and more. Anjali grew up a “whole wheat” girl, but married a “white bread” kind of guy. Hoping to prove that nutritious food could in fact be delicious and desirable, she taught herself how to cook and successfully transformed her husband’s eating habits from a diet of frozen pizzas and Taco Bell to her healthy, yet flavorful recipes made with simple, wholesome ingredients. After becoming a mom, Anjali expanded her work to include strategies and techniques to combat picky eating in kids of all ages. A

In episode 563, June Dick teaches us how to make the process of self-publishing a cookbook easy and efficient and how to avoid the mistakes she made. June is the recipe developer and photographer for her food blog, Practically Homemade. Here you will find simple recipes for everyday families inspired by years of being a restaurant owner, high school culinary teacher and mom of 4. Now as an empty nester, June is still looking for shortcut ingredients and kitchen hacks to save time in the kitchen. Her life mission is to share them with you so that you can have time back in your life to enjoy the little things. In this episode, you’ll learn about what June thinks went really well during her self-publishing process, what she would do differently and how to get help from your audience to put a cookbook together. Key points discussed: - Plan ahead for a cookbook project: Think about the end product and work backwards to plan the steps, rather than jumping right into creating recipes. - Establish a consistent recipe

In this episode, we're going to talk about five steps for dealing with failure when you start something new. I love this topic because failure is a given for entrepreneurs, and starting new things is essential for our success. If we cannot handle failure properly and if we don't start new things, entrepreneurship will be unsuccessful. I've been an entrepreneur for 14 years, and I can say that most of the reason I've found success is because I've picked myself up again and again after many failures over the years. I'll share two of my biggest failures with you, so you never feel bad or stupid or worthless after failing. Failure is proof that you're trying, doing your best, and taking action. We don't learn anything when we succeed; we learn and grow when we fail. Action Plan: 1 - Face the fear of failing: Sit with your fears and understand that failure is a growth tool. 2 - Go down the outcome rabbit hole: Explore the worst-case and best-case scenarios of failure to put it in perspective. 3 - Evaluate past fai

In episode 561, Megan chats to Sophie Sadler about the strategy she implemented to rapidly grow her IG followers based on what she learned from Meta (Facebook) during multiple calls. Sophie has been baking and cooking from as early as she can remember. From helping as a child in her Oma's kitchen in Germany to starting her own cupcake catering business and working in a handful of restaurants and bakeries while attending college in the USA. 8 years ago she found her calling with her authentic German food blog dirndl kitchen. Sophie has launched two online courses this year on German baking and will publish her first German cookbook in 2025. In this episode, you’ll learn about Sophie ‘reel’ strategy including how to keep up with posting daily, overcoming creative blocks and focusing on serving your audience by being real and raw instead of wasting time perfecting content. Key points discussed: - Consistent daily posting on Instagram is key to rapid growth: You can rapidly increase your following if you post con

In episode 560, Melissa Mitri teaches us how to improve our productivity and become more successful bloggers by paying attention to our diet, exercise, sleep and stress management. Melissa Mitri is a Registered Dietitian-Nutritionist, Weight Loss Specialist, and Expert Health Writer with over 15 years of experience in the health and wellness industry. Melissa Mitri, MS, RD, is a weight loss expert, blogger, and freelance writer for health professionals and brands. Melissa blogs regularly at melissamitri.com where she shares helpful content, tips, and recipes for those looking to lose weight in a sustainable way. In this episode, you’ll learn about specific foods, beverages and habits that can improve your cognitive function and mental focus, including how to incorporate physical activity and self-care practices seamlessly into your daily life. Key points discussed: - Build healthy habits consistently: Incorporating healthy habits like diet, exercise, and self-care into your daily routine is more effective tha

We all know the feeling of waking up and dreading the day. When you feel negativity early in the morning it can ruin your productivity and sometimes human interactions. That’s why I want to share a simple morning ritual I started using by saying 5 powerful words - gratitude, wisdom, abundance, inspiration, and love. After recently feeling low and depleted, I started intentionally changing the language I use immediately after I wake up. Focusing on concepts like gratitude, love and inspiration before even getting out of bed, has helped me reframe negative thoughts and rekindle my motivation for work. If nothing else it has helped me be in a better mood the rest of the day. Try this and let me know how it turns your day around! Action Plan: When you wake up… 1 - Say the word "Gratitude" and think about the first handful of things you are immensely grateful for. 2 - Say the word "Wisdom" and envision yourself making wise decisions throughout your day. 3 - Say the word "Abundance" and think of the abundant blessi