Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience Archives

From 1K to 250K: The Instagram Growth Strategy That Transformed Joy to the Food

by Emily @ FBP on Feb 4, 2025 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 504 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Mika Kinney from Joy to the Food.

Mika and her husband Dan launched their food blog, Joy to the Food, in 2021 with the goal of building a successful brand and business. Just a few years later, Mika has left her full-time job as a civil engineer, they’ve qualified for Raptive, and their Instagram following has soared to over 250,000.

In this interview, Mika reveals the exact strategies that fueled her rapid growth—from 1,000 to 250,000 followers on Instagram in just one year. She also shares how they’ve weathered the recent Helpful Content Updates and come out stronger, plus how she leverages analytics to drive key decisions.

This conversation is a must-listen for anyone eager to supercharge their social media strategy in 2025 or seeking affirmation that they, too, can transform their food blog into a full-time career with the right approach.

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Leveraging 3 Million TikTok Followers to Launch a Product with Dana Hasson

by Emily @ FBP on Jan 14, 2025 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 499 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Dana Hasson, an entrepreneur, content creator, self-taught baker, and founder of Homemade Ish.

Dana Hasson has spent the last decade building her business — reaching over 3 million followers on TikTok and launching her first physical product, Homemade Ish Cookie Starter Kits.

In this interview, Dana explains how (and why) she transitioned from beauty and fashion content to food content and how she balanced networking and creating in the early days of building her brand. Bjork and Dana also discuss the process of launching a physical product, including how she is pairing the brand with her existing content and leveraging her huge social media following.

The interview wraps up with a (very timely!) discussion of how the potential TikTok ban will impact content creators, as well as Dana’s plans for diversifying her business and leaning into Instagram and YouTube in this season of uncertainty.

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FBP Rewind: How to Increase Your Organic Traffic with Keyword Research with Aleka Shunk

by Emily @ FBP on Dec 24, 2024 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 495 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, we’re rewinding back to one of our favorite episodes with Aleka Shunk from Cooking With Keywords!

Since launching her course, Cooking With Keywords, Aleka has taught countless students about the ins and outs of keyword research, and in this week’s podcast episode, she’s sharing her best tips to develop a strong keyword research strategy.

You’ll learn what keywords and modifiers are, how to get started with keyword research, what tools you should use, and more. Whether you’re just diving into keyword research for the first time or you’re a seasoned pro, we know you’ll have so many takeaways from this conversation. Enjoy!

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Actionable Steps to Shape a Successful Brand with Katie Trant

by Emily @ FBP on Oct 29, 2024 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience, Running an Online Business

Welcome to episode 487 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Katie Trant from Foodie Brand Lab and Hey Nutrition Lady.

There has been a lot of buzz around the importance of building a strong brand as a food creator. Amidst the volatility of search algorithms and the rise of AI, food bloggers are looking for a way to stand out and build a loyal following.

Enter, Katie Trant! She has a Masters in Nutrition and started her own food site, Hey Nutrition Lady, back in 2010. She also works full-time at brand and business consultancies helping big companies define their brand. So you might say she was well-positioned to start Foodie Brand Lab to help food bloggers (like you!) refine their brand strategy.

In this interview, Bjork and Katie discuss everything you need to know about brand: what it is, why it matters, how to define your brand, and how it can influence your business strategy. Katie also provides actionable steps to start building a stronger brand to help you stand out in the crowded space of food blogging.

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Maximizing the Impact of Your Email List with Nathan Barry from Kit

by Emily @ FBP on Sep 24, 2024 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 481 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Nathan Barry from ConvertKit, soon-to-be Kit.

Nathan Barry started ConvertKit back in 2013 and has grown his company into a multi-million dollar business with over 30,000 creators that use the platform. We are happy to welcome Nathan back to the podcast to chat about how he has grown his business, email marketing strategy, and the transition from ConvertKit to Kit.

As algorithms change and search traffic becomes increasingly unpredictable, it’s a great time to double down on your email list. Capturing your audience from both site traffic and your social accounts and building an ongoing relationship with that audience is a great way to diversify your income streams and protect the future of your business. This podcast episode dives into the importance of optimizing your emails for the reader, consistency, and driving revenue with your emails.

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Leveraging Reddit as a Traffic Source

by Ann @ Food Blogger Pro on Sep 3, 2024 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 477 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Ewen Finser from Venture 4th Media.

In this episode, Bjork sits down with Ewen Finser to discuss the evolving landscape of digital content creation. With algorithm changes impacting traffic, Ewen emphasizes the importance of diversifying your audience reach beyond Google. He shares insights on building a strong presence on Reddit, while also highlighting the power of community-building as a cornerstone for long-term success.

Ewen also delves into the art of platform-specific content creation. He explains how understanding and catering to the unique preferences of each platform is essential for maximizing your impact. Get ready to gain valuable insights into expanding your online reach and building a sustainable digital business!

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Grow Your Email List and Connect with Your Audience with Allea Grummert

by Ann @ Food Blogger Pro on Aug 20, 2024 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 475 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Allea Grummert from Duett.

Email marketing expert Allea Grummert founded her agency, Duett, in 2018 with the goal of helping content creators improve their email marketing. She’s been an invaluable resource for the Food Blogger Pro and Pinch of Yum teams and is also an industry expert in the Food Blogger Pro community, so you may have seen her around the forum!

In this episode, Allea spills the tea on growing your email list and building deeper connections with your audience. She’ll also talk about why email is a must-have for content creators and how to turn it into a profitable asset. From crafting irresistible welcome sequences to landing brand sponsorships, Allea shares her proven strategies for email success. Get ready to level up your email game!

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Future-Proofing Your Content with Andrew Wilder and Colin Devroe

by Ann @ Food Blogger Pro on Aug 6, 2024 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 473 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Andrew Wilder and Colin Devroe from NerdPress.

We were so thrilled to have Bjork sit down with Andrew Wilder and Colin Devroe for this episode! Andrew is the CEO of NerdPress and one of our Food Blogger Pro experts, so you may have seen him around the forum breaking down all things WordPress for our members! Colin Devroe is also on the NerdPress team—he’s a Senior Product Manager currently working on SaveThis and Hubbub, NerdPress’s very own social sharing plugin (previously Grow Social Pro and Social Pug before that).

This episode has been an affirmation for us all that to keep your content flourishing, you’ll want to dig deep to build a community and form lasting relationships with your readers. We hope you enjoy the episode as much as we did!

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467: Pinterest Strategy in 2024 Q&A with Kate Ahl

by Emily @ FBP on Jun 25, 2024 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

Welcome to episode 467 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Kate Ahl from Simple Pin Media.

This is a super special episode of the podcast, as it kicks off what we are calling our Summer Membership Spotlight. Over the next three months (June, July, and August) we will be sharing a piece of content that is normally exclusive to Food Blogger Pro members here on the podcast.

We are starting with a replay of our Pinterest Live Q&A with Kate Ahl! This Q&A originally aired in April. Food Blogger Pro members submitted lots of great questions all about Pinterest strategy — branding, pinning strategy, types of pins, you name it.

We’re so excited to share this Q&A with you (it’s a really informative one!) and hope you’ll tune in for our other membership spotlight episodes throughout the summer.

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

by Emily @ FBP on Jun 4, 2024 in Building Traffic and Growing Your Audience

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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