Welcome to episode 209 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, we’re rewinding back to an episode from 2017 with Chelsea from Chelsea’s Messy Apron about how she made $40,000 in her first year of blogging.

Last week on the podcast, Bjork chatted with Suzy Karadsheh about growing a blog to a full-time job and selling physical products online. To go back and listen to that episode, click here.

How to Make $40K in the First Year of Blogging 

We’re so thrilled to share another FBP Rewind episode with you today, and this episode with Chelsea Lords from Chelsea’s Messy Apron was originally published allllll the way back in 2017. That said, the advice and tips that she shares are all just as prevalent as they were back then.

This is the story of how Chelsea made a whopping $40,000 in her first year of blogging. If you’re already monetizing your blog, or if you have a goal to start monetizing your blog sometime soon, you’ll love hearing about the decisions that Chelsea made in order to turn her blog into a profitable business.

As you’re listening, we encourage you to note where you can tighten up some of your money-making processes in the pursuit of maximizing your blog income.

In this episode, Chelsea shares:

• What her first step was to starting her blog as a business
• Why she underestimated the amount of money she would make in her first year
• Where her first year income came from
• The equation she used to calculate how much to charge for her first sponsored post
• How she balances family & work
• Why it takes her 15 hours to make a blog post
• How she decides what posts to make videos for
• What her Facebook strategy looks like
• What she would have done differently looking back

Listen to the Food Blogger Pro Podcast below or check it out on iTunes, Google Play Music, or Spotify:

Resources:

• Chelsea’s Messy Apron
• Adobe Premiere Pro
• Mixergy Podcast
• The sponsored post equation from Wooden Spoons Kitchen: (Time Spent x Hourly Rate) + ( (Page Views/1000) x Advertising rate)= $Price per Post

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for interviews, be sure to email them to [email protected].

If you’d like to jump to the comments section, click here.

Transcript:

Alexa Peduzzi: In this episode, we rewind back to one of our most popular episodes with Chelsea from Chelsea’s Messy Apron about how she made $40,000 in her first year of blogging.

Alexa Peduzzi: Hello, hello, hello, lovely listener. You are listening to The Food Blogger Pro Podcast. Thanks for making this episode a part of your day today. We are so thrilled to share another FBP rewind episode with you today, and that is a previously published episode of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast republished for you today. This episode with Chelsea Lords from Chelsea’s Messy Apron was published all the way back in 2017, but the advice and tips that she shares are just as prevalent today as they were back then.

Alexa Peduzzi: This is the story of how Chelsea made a whopping $40,000 in her first year of blogging. If you’re already monetizing your blog or if you have a goal to start monetizing your blog sometime soon, you’ll love hearing about the decisions that Chelsea made in order to turn her blog into a profitable business. As you’re listening, we encourage you to note where you can maybe tighten up some of your money-making processes in the pursuit of maximizing your blog income.

Alexa Peduzzi: Without any further ado, lets rewind.

Bjork Ostrom: Chelsea, welcome to the podcast.

Chelsea Lords: Hey, Bjork.

Bjork Ostrom: Hi. How are you?

Chelsea Lords: Good. How are you doing?

Bjork Ostrom: Good. Hey, super pumped to talk to you today. We have been connected over a couple of years. We’ve traded some emails back and forth. You’ve come to a Pinch of Yum workshop before, but never have we been able to connect, so I’m really excited to talk to you today. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Chelsea Lords: Well, thanks for having me. I’m super excited to be here.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about your blog, believe it or not. That’s kind of what we do on this podcast, and one of the things I always love to start with is to hear how people started. Your story’s a little bit different than some of the people that we interview on this podcast because, for some people, they get started as a hobby and they kind of enjoy doing it and then realize, oh, I’m getting some traffic and sponsors are reaching out. Maybe I can create something from this.

Bjork Ostrom: Your story’s a little bit different. When you started your blog, in some ways you knew that you wanted to build it into a business and create income from it. Is that right?

Chelsea Lords: Right, totally. From the start, I wanted to make sure if I’m investing all this time, while I wanted it to kind of be something fun for me, I wanted to make sure my time would pay off in some kind of income.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. One of the things I thought was so interesting as I was reading through, you had created an ebook and the ebook is called How I Made $40,000 My First Year of Blogging. I think that’s a great title and such a great number because for so many people, that’s a salary. Right? That’s what it looks like to have a normal job somewhere else, and you did that within your first year of blogging. I’d love to talk about that in a little bit, but one of the things you said in this ebook is that you created a business plan, and I thought that was such a cool thing and something that we’ve never done before and probably should, but I would love to hear what that was like and your reason for creating a business plan.

Chelsea Lords: Right. My husband is actually in, or he used to be in business consulting, and everything they do kind of starts with this overview of plans, what they want to do for a company, how they want to increase profits, or whatever the problem is. He said, “If you think you need to invest money in a blog and your time, you should write a business plan,” and he gave me some things to think about. I started writing it up, what I thought my blog would be about, kind of my mission statement, my theme, what I wanted my blog to look like, what I wanted to post on it, and even to what I thought the expenses would be, how I thought I could make an income from it, and how long I thought that might take. I kind of went in as in depth as possible to try and impress him and tell him like, “I can do this. I can make this work.”

Bjork Ostrom: When you created that, when you look back at that now, were some of those … You had said estimates, “I created these estimates in terms of what the total cost would be going into it potentially, what it would look like to create an income from it.” Were those accurate when you look back on that now?

Chelsea Lords: They are not accurate at all. I-

Bjork Ostrom: What wasn’t accurate and what was? I’m curious to hear a little bit more about the specifics.

Chelsea Lords: Yeah. I thought it would cost me more to get started than it did. I kind of went way over thinking for a blog domain and a designer and just props to get started. I way overestimated that and way underestimated what I’d actually make. My goal, my ultimate goal and what I wrote in my plan was to be able to make $1,000 in one month by the end of the year. So, by-

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. Go ahead.

Chelsea Lords: Sorry.

Bjork Ostrom: No. Go ahead.

Chelsea Lords: By the end of my 12th month of blogging, I’d made over 7,000. It was a huge difference from what I thought I could make.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. You include some graphs, and they’re really helpful, in that ebook where you outline exactly where that was coming from. You talk about advertising. You talk about freelance work, sponsored posts, free products, the amount that you’d get from that product exchange. When you look back at what you had projected and what actually happened in terms of the growth, where do you feel like was the thing that you underestimated what could be possible? Was it advertising? Was it doing some of that freelance work or sponsored posts? I’m curious to know where you feel like you … Or waS it traffic? What was that when you look back on it?

Chelsea Lords: It was actually freelance work and sponsored posts. I didn’t even know what a sponsored post was. I’d seen them pop up a little. I think they’re a lot more common now, but when I started about four years ago, they weren’t super common, so I didn’t even know. I didn’t even think I’d ever get a sponsored post back when I started. I didn’t really know what they were. It was mainly my estimate was on the ads, and I guess I maybe thought a little bit freelance, maybe I could do some articles, but I didn’t know too much about the freelance part back then.

Bjork Ostrom: Sure. Yep, yep. That makes sense, especially if it’s a category where you’re not even familiar with what it is. You wouldn’t be able to build that into the business plan, but then learning about sponsored posts and saying, “Oh, actually, there’s a decent amount that I could get from this if I get connected with some brands or PR agencies or things like that.”

Chelsea Lords: Right.

Bjork Ostrom: At what point did you have your first sponsored post and how did that come about?

Chelsea Lords: Oh, gosh, I’m trying to remember. I think it was about six months after I’d started blogging. Someone actually reached out to me just with an email and offered me a free product in exchange for a post. I remember thinking, “Oh, this is pretty cool, but I don’t think … I think they’re willing to pay.” I’d been reading, researching it up, and I was like, “I’m going to go back and ask for money for this post,” in addition to the product that they were going to send me. I was so nervous and I did it, and they came back and they were like, “Okay, great. We can pay you that,” and that, to me, was just huge. It kind of changed everything. I’m like, “Oh, my gosh.” That was a lot of money for me. I laugh at the rate now, but it was a lot when I was starting and wasn’t making a ton, and so I was so excited. I think I re-shot the post three times. I felt so nervous for it.

Chelsea Lords: That kind of changed everything. I recognized companies are willing to pay. They know that I have an influence that they’re willing to pay for, and that’s when I really started researching more and trying to learn more about sponsored posts and what I could charge. Yeah.

Bjork Ostrom: How did you formulate that at first and what did that look like? Because that’s a huge question that we get from people a lot of times is, when you’re working with a brand or when you’re working with PR agencies, how do you formulate exactly what you’ll ask for a sponsored post? What did that look like then and then how have you changed that as your blog has grown?

Chelsea Lords: Oh, that’s a great question. Then, I was still pretty naive. I remember just trying to research it, and that’s been pretty much the story of my blog. I spend a lot of time researching and learning what works for other people and adapting that for what works for me. I did run across an article. I’m trying to remember whose site it was on, but she breaks it down what you should be able to charge for a sponsored post based on your page views, and it was just like a formula I found, so I did that. Back then, I think I was getting like 200,000 page views, and so I did that based off … I think it was $100 per 100,000 or something like that was the … I charged $200 for that first sponsored post.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. And it looks like it was a Wooden Spoons Kitchen, so-

Chelsea Lords: That’s right. That’s right.

Bjork Ostrom: Melissa from Martha and then Erin at Naturally Ella.

Chelsea Lords: Right.

Bjork Ostrom: The equation that they had was … We can include this in the show notes for this. The actual post isn’t there anymore, but it was time spent times hourly rate plus … It’s hard to explain a math equation over a podcast, but I’ll do my best. Time spent times hourly rate plus page views divided by 1,000 times advertising rate. We can put that in the … You can see what that looks like in the show notes. If you go to foodbloggerpro.com/blog, there’ll be the show notes for this for those that are listening.

Bjork Ostrom: It’s nice to have some type of equation at least to start with, and so you can come back to people and feel relatively confident saying, “Well, I would love to do this, but here’s the reality. There’s time that’s involved with it and I have influence as well. All of those things add up to value for the brand,” feeling confident saying that and then giving them what your price would be.

Bjork Ostrom: How has that changed over time for you as you’ve continued to build your blog? Do you still use kind of an equation like that? You don’t have to share numbers specifically, but do you have a set price and you say, “Hey, I know supply and demand. I only want to do one sponsored post a week so I can ask this much”? How do you formulate that now?

Chelsea Lords: Yeah. You explained that equation a lot better, so thank you. It’s really changed over the years, and I have continually changed and really studied and thought about what I want to put on my blog and what I want to charge with that. I’d say lately it’s been a supply and demand. I don’t want every post to be sponsored. I have two kids. I want to write what I love. Not that I don’t love doing a sponsored post, but if feels like more of a job than writing a article just that I want to write.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah.

Chelsea Lords: I’ve really jacked up my prices and not to anything I don’t think is fair but to the point that only so many companies will align with that rate, so I’m not posting a ton of sponsored posts.

Bjork Ostrom: Right. We’ve heard from some other people that we’ve interviewed on the podcast that kind of take that same approach, where they say, “No, we don’t want to be doing a ton of this, so we’re going to be really intentional to say either a brand really, really aligns with what I’m doing and then I’ll be more flexible with that, or I can have this high price point where it helps to filter out so I’m not having to do that as much,” because, like you said, it is a lot of work and a lot goes into it.

Bjork Ostrom: One of the things you said that I’m curious to hear you talk about is you said you’ve been really intentional, think about what you do want to put on your blog and have been intentional about maybe, well, just the content that goes onto it. Does that tie back to the business plan? When you first created that business plan, one of the things that you said was you’re intentional to think about what the blog was going to be and what the theme was going to be with it. Has that stayed true from when you first started or has that evolved?

Chelsea Lords: It’s definitely evolved. I think when I started my blog, I wanted it to be a little bit more health food-oriented. I even thought adding a fitness section. I had just graduated from a exercise science, or gotten my degree in exercise science, so I was really excited about nutrition and fitness, and I still am. I love it, but my blog’s definitely evolved. I’ve definitely tried to make my recipes more family friendly. I have kids that just won’t eat some of the things that I enjoy, and not that I don’t give them the opportunity to, but I’ve tried to become and re-theme my blog to be more family focused, easy 30-minute meals, and still keep it having healthy aspects, but it’s not as health-and-fitness-oriented as I first set out my business plan to be.

Chelsea Lords: It’s definitely evolved. I share plenty of desserts and not-so-healthy meals, but I do still have a lot of healthy content on there. I am very, like you said, very intentional about the content. I spend a lot of time thinking what recipes that I want to share and how I think they’ll do well with my audience or why I want to share it. I spend so much time brainstorming what I want to share.

Bjork Ostrom: Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like? Some of the things you had said in your book was just how important research is. What does that look like for you?

Chelsea Lords: For me, I like my content to be a bit original. While I have recipes that are similar to other sites, I always like to add a twist. For example, I recently posted a entire Easter dinner on my blog, and it’s nothing like revolutional. It has ham and au gratin potatoes and some side dishes, but I kind of put a twist making it all on sheet pans, and you could bake two sheet pans of dinner at the same time, have it ready in under an hour. It was an idea for college kids or smaller families.

Chelsea Lords: To me, it wasn’t anything revolutional, but it was unique. I really try to have all my recipes have a little bit of a twist, but still common ingredients, things that people are familiar with, things that people like. I’m very intentional about trying to find things that I think people will like and things that I like and my family likes and then really thinking how can I change this? How can I make it worth people’s time to read this recipe or spend time on my site?

Bjork Ostrom: Is that research process that you’re doing, is that you literally just thinking through things, or do you have any type of formalized process where you’re writing stuff down and then, let’s say, crossing out half of that and dwindling it down to the stuff that you know that then you want to post? Or are you looking at Pinterest to see what’s popular? Or what does that look like in terms of the research phase, or is it mostly inspirational things that you’re thinking about and then filtering that through brand alignment for your site?

Chelsea Lords: Yes. I actually avoid Pinterest, but it’s-

Bjork Ostrom: Can you talk about why that is? Just as a quick …

Chelsea Lords: Yeah. I just respect all the content creators so much, and there are so many bloggers that have just become my best friends, and I just know if I’m on Pinterest a lot, I’m going to be influenced by other people’s recipes. Those are generally bloggers’ recipes. I just want to be sure I’m really careful to not copy other bloggers. Not that I’m not inspired by them, because I absolutely am, but I just try to avoid having things that are too similar. I’ve noticed if I’m on Pinterest a lot that a lot of my ideas are coming from other people’s recipes and I want to be a little bit careful about that.

Bjork Ostrom: Do you have somebody that manages your Pinterest account?

Chelsea Lords: I do. Yes.

Bjork Ostrom: Okay, got it. Is that a company or is that somebody that you know and have connected with through your site, or how did you find that person?

Chelsea Lords: It’s a VA, just like a virtual assistant. Lots of bloggers have them, and that’s how I found out about it. I just hired her from another friend’s site, and she does my Pinterest and some other social media for me, just kind of the back end stuff.

Bjork Ostrom: This is all rabbit trail stuff, but it’s all really interesting. About how much time does that equal for her every month? Or does it depend?

Chelsea Lords: It kind of depends. She spends about 10 hours a week, though, on doing social media for me.

Bjork Ostrom: Okay, great, Pinterest. Facebook as well?

Chelsea Lords: Yeah. She helps me schedule Facebook. I’m in some comment groups that she’ll take over comments. She does some updating on my old posts to try and make them more friendly for Google, just a bunch of little tasks. She’ll do whatever I send her way, which is so nice.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. The other thing that’s nice about that is then you can opt out of some of those areas that are important to be a part of, like Pinterest, for instance, without feeling like you’re losing out on the benefit of that, which would be, obviously, traffic and engagement and building up that following. That’s something that’s been super important for us, too, is knowing that there are these areas. Pinterest would be an example. For me, it’s Instagram, knowing that these are areas that are important to be a part of, but also feeling like personally I know that if I spend a ton of time on Instagram that my brain is going to be in an entirely different space, and it’s not going to be a good one for me. That’s what I’ve learned.

Chelsea Lords: Absolutely. Yeah.

Bjork Ostrom: Pinterest I know it’s true for some people, Facebook, whatever it would be. It’s a strategic, smart decision, I think, to bring people into the things that you know are important, but also that you don’t necessarily personally want to be behind.

Chelsea Lords: Right.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah.

Chelsea Lords: It really frees me up to do what I enjoy doing and what I think is the most important, which is creating new content. If I’m doing so much time on other things, my content’s going to suffer or how often I can post. I just don’t have as much time.

Bjork Ostrom: Can you talk about content specifically? What does that look like for you in terms of how often you’re posting? Has that been consistent for the duration of your blog? Have you tried to post a certain amount each week?

Chelsea Lords: Yes and no. When I first started on my business plan, I had a goal and I was really good about the first two years, but my kids come first. I do put them above my blog. As it’s gotten busier and I now have two little boys and they’re crazy, they’re so fun, my posting definitely has become less and less over the years just because they’re the most important thing to me and they come first. Now, I’m about one to two posts a week. I used to be three to four.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. Can you talk about what that looks like when you do a post? Especially, I think people would be interested in what it looks like when you’re balancing the reality of raising a family for your two boys that you have and knowing that you’re also doing one to two posts a week, which is really incredible. What does that look like in terms of finding the margins and the space for that?

Chelsea Lords: Yeah. Well, it’s hard. I tell a lot of people my blog is my business, but it’s also my hobby. I don’t really have time to do other things if I want to put my kids first and make sure that I can get one to two posts a week. That means a lot of late nights working and editing. I don’t do a lot of things for myself because I find the blogs for me … I’ve also made it become something I’m passionate about, so that’s okay with me. It’s a huge sacrifice. I really think you have to make sacrifices. How that looks on a day-to-day basis, it’s pretty different, but usually in the mornings is when we bake or cook, and luckily, my boys love doing it with me.

Bjork Ostrom: Oh, nice.

Chelsea Lords: Yeah. My toddler, he’s hilarious. He knows every kitchen tool. He has his own set of kitchen tools. He has a mini microwave, everything. He loves it. We have so much fun doing that together, and that’s when I’ll test my recipes or try out new things. I like to test everything at least twice before it goes on my blog. We do that in the mornings. Then, I get really good afternoon light, so I photograph in natural light in the afternoons, and that’s when they go down for naps. I lay them down, make whatever I’m going to be photographing that day, and take the pictures. I can usually edit them before they wake up. I’m pretty lucky, I’ve heard. They take really good naps, so they’re both out three hours.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. And it sounds like you’re relatively efficient with it, too, which is also a huge thing in order to be able to shoot and edit and get all of that stuff done within three hours. I’m guessing it helps to have a time restraint where you know you have to get through it, so you have a hard deadline. There’s no wasting of time along the way.

Chelsea Lords: Yeah.

Bjork Ostrom: I want to go back to that first year. When was the first month that you did your blog, that you officially launched?

Chelsea Lords: It was November 2013.

Bjork Ostrom: 2013, okay. Going back to that month, you share this in the ebook, and you say you started out 30,000 page views and then by that last month, which would be October 2014, had just under 600,000 page views. That’s a huge jump and a really quick build in terms of traffic and engagement to your blog. What do you attribute … If you had to do only three things in that first year, what would it be that you would do in order to get from that starting point to just under 600,000 page views within a year?

Chelsea Lords: Okay. I’d say top three things, first is content. I feel like I worked really hard at the start and I’ve only worked harder on my content, trying to make it … Every time I would publish a post or before, I’d say, “Is this helpful? Is it worth someone’s time? Would I want to read this blog post or would I want to have this recipe?” It’s always been that focus, and I’d say that’s the number-one thing is content. That goes from the actual recipe to the photographs to how it’s written, everything. I feel like I’m so embarrassed at my first post, but it’s a huge evolution. Back then, to me, that was the best content I could create. I really tried my hardest. I would even re-shoot things at the beginning, and that’s embarrassing looking at my photos now, but that was my whole mindset, this post has to be worth it.

Chelsea Lords: There’s so many posts online, there’s so many recipes, why is this worth it? It’s funny, the most common question I get is, “How did you get 30,000 page views your first month?” I get that question so much. Anyone that’s read my book, I get the email. For me, I didn’t know that this was uncommon, but I’ve figured it is and I’ve really looked into that and tried to figure it out to give a good answer. One of the posts that I published my second week, it’s still one of my most popular posts. I did get a little lucky and hit a really good post that just, for some reason, hit a vibe with people, so got immediate traffic. It was in November, which is a busy month anyways. It’s Thanksgiving and it was a Thanksgiving-related recipe, so-

Bjork Ostrom: Was that traffic through Pinterest or … When it got popular, you say, was it organic? What did that look like?

Chelsea Lords: It was Pinterest and organic. It actually ranked high in SEO. I have no idea how. Everything i know about SEO now, I think it was total luck there. It did well. It was top of … Not top, but on the first page of Google search and then did really well on Pinterest. Going along with that, my second thing after content is really engaging with other bloggers. From the start, I was commenting on so many blogs. I was trying to get to know bloggers, trying to get to learn from bloggers because I thought that’s super important, and I found the more people I commented on their blog, they interacted with me or they would share my things. I say in the first month, I commented on a certain blog that’s very well-known, very big, and she actually shared one of my new recipes on Facebook, and I got 5,000 page views in one day, which is crazy for your first month of blogging.

Bjork Ostrom: Can you talk more about that? Because I know that’s something that people are really interested in doing is connecting with other bloggers, but it’s kind of a hard thing to do and it’s kind of scary. What worked well for you in terms of connecting with other bloggers commenting? Were there other things that you did?

Chelsea Lords: Yeah. I think commenting is not as big now, but it was really … I think it was really important when I started. That was just kind of a way to say, “Hey, I’m blogging, too. I’m supporting you. Maybe you could come see my blog and give me some support.” Because I think the food blogging community is just, it’s amazing. People are so supportive and they want to see you succeed and so helpful. To me, that was commenting and trying to talk to as many bloggers through their blogs as I could and to try and develop friendships, comment on their social pages. It was a lot of work, a lot of networking, but I think it was so important.

Chelsea Lords: Now, to me, that looks like Facebook groups. I have close friends or just even blogging acquaintances, people I’ve not met but met through their blogs, and a bunch of Facebook groups, and we can give each other advice, vent, talk about things, just anything, and it’s so helpful. These have become some of my really, really good friends, even my best friends. I think I owe so much of my success to that networking.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. We’ve thought about that, too. So much of what we’ve done and what we’ve seen other people do has to do with the people that you know and that you’re connected with.

Chelsea Lords: Absolutely.

Bjork Ostrom: The common question, then, is, well, how do you get to know people and connect with them? What I hear you saying is like, “Well, you have to be intentional about being a friend to those people first.” It just makes so much sense when you think about it, but so often I think people want a quick and easy answer, which is never the best way to formulate friendships or connections. It takes time. It takes energy. It takes intentional effort, so it makes a lot of sense to hear you say it wasn’t easy. It takes time, takes energy, but the benefit of that is that you both have friends that you’re connected with in real life, and also if they are in the same niche or industry, then there can be some support that goes along with that, which is awesome and I think important for people to hear.

Bjork Ostrom: Work harder on your content, engage with other bloggers, and then what would number three be?

Chelsea Lords: Number three is, let’s just say it’s luck.

Bjork Ostrom: Sure.

Chelsea Lords: I say this in my blog. I actually don’t really believe in luck, but I think it’s when your hard work meets opportunity. I think while I look back, I still do think I’ve had a lot of lucky breaks, but I also feel like they’re because I was working hard and trying my best and trying to learn as much as I could that I was able to meet an opportunity that gave me good luck. I think it’s when someone big shares something of yours or when you can make a breakthrough on social media and figure out something that’s working for you. To me, those are things that I can’t take credit for, but I also feel like because I was working hard, I was able to find the opportunity or figure it out, if that makes sense. I’m not trying to give myself credit, but I do think-

Bjork Ostrom: No, for sure.

Chelsea Lords: … luck comes with hard work.

Bjork Ostrom: It’s both and, and the harder you work, the luckier you are. I think part of that ties into it, too, where working really hard and being intentional to show up every day in whatever way that looks for you results in more potential for lucky situations to happen.

Chelsea Lords: Yes.

Bjork Ostrom: One of the-

Chelsea Lords: You said that so much better.

Bjork Ostrom: No, and it’s because I totally understand it and believe the same thing. It’s interesting to hear you talk about the post that you had that did really well and was really popular because one of the things that we talk about and really believe is this idea that there’s that 20 to 30% of the traffic and engagement that you see from a website, whether it’s a food blog or another blog, any other blog, comes back to … Well, yes, 70 to 80% of the traffic and engagement comes back to 20 to 30% of the content. I like to compare that to musicians, and a musician will have 100, 200, 300, 400 songs that they’ve written over their life, of which 12 to 15 will actually make it onto an album that they produce, of which, if they’re lucky, one will become a hit and kind of drive their career.

Bjork Ostrom: I think that’s often true for building a content-based business, like a food and recipe website where you have all of this content that you’re producing, a handful of that will be really successful and then you’ll have one, two, three, four of these really standout pieces of content, but you can’t get to those unless you continually produce that other content and refine your craft. What’s interesting with your story is, if you compare it to the musician, you had that hit relatively early on, and it’s like you can’t predict that and you don’t know if that will happen. Like you said, there’s a little bit of luck involved with it, but also there’s your really intentional effort in trying to produce really good content. I think that makes total sense, what you said, and I’m right there with you.

Bjork Ostrom: I want to go back to that number-one thing that you said, where you said work harder on content, that would be your number-one recommendation. What does working harder look like and how has your content improved from when you started to where it is right now? What are the very tangible ways that you’ve changed it and improved it?

Chelsea Lords: That’s a great question. I’d say with my first content, I was maybe spending two hours on it to get it up and everything.

Bjork Ostrom: From start to finish for a post.

Chelsea Lords: Yeah. I really did think I was trying my hardest, and it was my hardest then, but now I’d say it’s at least 15 hours for each blog post that comes up on my site, maybe 20. If I add a video, definitely more. What’s changed is I’ve done a whole lot of brainstorming to even come up with the recipe concepts and then testing, and I really try and test my recipes, make sure they work, make sure they make sense. Does this have a good prep time? Are they good ingredients? Does it make sense? Or is it just trying to get page views? Really, a lot more both in the brainstorming and testing it and then, honestly, I photograph things and I will re-photograph things.

Chelsea Lords: I think you eat with your eyes first, and so that’s been a huge focus. I re-photograph all the time. I know some people think that’s not efficient and probably the first photographs were fine and no one would notice, but to me, it’s about trying and pushing myself and just having a little bit better content. Then I spend a lot more time writing. My recipe I read over and over and make sure it really makes sense. I’ll have someone else read it over for me and then video. Video will be my last step. After I’ve got it all, then I’ll remake it based off my recipe and just filming a video and then editing it, that takes me so long now.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. Can you talk about that? Because I know a lot of people are interested in video and what that looks like. What is your process for video?

Chelsea Lords: Like I said, I’ll have my recipe done and the photos done, and then I will print off that recipe that’s in my draft box or whatever, print it off, and then make it like I’m making it, as if I was just cooking it in my kitchen, because it really helps me to see the recipe from a different eye, but also it’s a good opportunity to also make a video. I’ll have this recipe that I have tested and made and photographed, and then I’ll make a video of it. I finally moved over to artificial light for video. I used to do natural.

Bjork Ostrom: What is your reason for switching over?

Chelsea Lords: Natural is just so hard to work with. It’s-

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah, because it changes.

Chelsea Lords: The sun’s coming in and out. Yeah, it’s moving over you and especially with winter, my time was so limited with natural light that it was just getting exhausting. Also, I shoot photos up in my bedroom, doing videos up there. I was carrying trays up and down stairs all day, and I’m like, “I can’t do this.” I got an artificial lighting set up, and that was amazing. I’ll usually shoot my videos either in the morning or at nap time. Naptime works best. Or even late at night I’ll just shoot it. Start to finish takes me usually about an hour to shoot, maybe two hours.

Bjork Ostrom: Are you using a DSLR or a phone for …

Chelsea Lords: Yeah.

Bjork Ostrom: Okay.

Chelsea Lords: Two DSLRs, and so I just have the overhead angle and then a side angle and two artificial lights. I’ll just shoot it, and then it’s editing that takes me the longest. I know a lot of people hire that out, but I really want to learn it and i want to get faster, so for right now, I’m doing my own and that’s-

Bjork Ostrom: What program do you use for that?

Chelsea Lords: I’m doing Premiere Pro.

Bjork Ostrom: Okay, great. How long did it take you to learn Premiere Pro?

Chelsea Lords: I’m still learning it. I bought an e-course, and it was like a 20-hour e-course or something. It was on Udemy. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah, yeah.

Chelsea Lords: I took that course and it was awesome but not super helpful because food videos are different than film or other videos. Editing, you can edit it a little bit.

Bjork Ostrom: Stylistically and the cuts and everything, yeah.

Chelsea Lords: Right. Just kind of different, but it was super helpful. That was the only thing I did. I tried to teach myself. Then, now when I’m doing it, if I have a question or I want to do something … Last week, I’m like, “I want to learn masking,” so I just Googled it and researched it, found a video on YouTube.

Bjork Ostrom: For those that aren’t familiar, can you talk about what masking is?

Chelsea Lords: Yes. A lot of my videos now in the text, it’ll appear when I move the bowl or disappear when I put the bowl over it, and that’s just like hiding the text with an object or showing the text when an object’s moved.

Bjork Ostrom: Got it. Yeah. For those that are familiar with Photoshop, it’s kind of like a video layer that you create this layer that can go on top of text and it creates kind of more of a dynamic video, which is cool.

Chelsea Lords: Yeah, it’s fun.

Bjork Ostrom: Nice. Is that something that you’re trying to do for every post? How do you decide if a piece of content will have video in it or not?

Chelsea Lords: Yeah. That was my goal, to have a video for each post, but it was not attainable for me.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah, it’s so much work.

Chelsea Lords: Not right now.

Bjork Ostrom: Yep. Yep.

Chelsea Lords: I was doing it for all new content, and I’ve kind of shifted. What’s doing the best on social media is my old, tried and true posts that I know will do well, so I’ve shifted and started doing more videos for older posts that always perform well for me. That’s just done better on Facebook and Instagram for me if I do videos that are proven, whereas sometimes you do a new content and a new video and it’s just almost a flop. It doesn’t do well anywhere, and so I feel like I’ve spent all this time making a video that no one really saw.

Bjork Ostrom: Do you have an example of what that would look like when you look for what’s performed well in the past in order to decide what you do for video?

Chelsea Lords: Right. Yeah. I call them my virals. They’re not really viral, but it’s like if I share a photo of a recipe that does really well on Facebook, and for me and my page, that’s if it gets 100 shares, to me, I call that a Facebook viral from my Facebook page. That, to me, is a post that will perform well, then, in video. For instance, last month I shared a photo and it got 200 shares, and for my page, that’s really good for just a photo. I switched that into video, and then it got two million views on that video, whereas a post that was just brand new that I thought would do well on Facebook, I created a video for it and it just tanked. Didn’t do well at all, because I never tested it. I kind of shifted my, what I’m doing for video.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. It makes sense to look at the performance of previous content, even if it’s a different medium. It could be a post that’s done really well in search or maybe it’s your example of social media, which is maybe the best place to start and say, “Oh, this photo got a lot of shares on Facebook.” It’s probably worth, then, looking at this a little bit deeper and saying, “Okay, maybe I can create a different version of this that in this case, a video, that I can also then share on social media because there’s obviously something here that’s resonating with people.”

Chelsea Lords: Right. Exactly.

Bjork Ostrom: It doesn’t have to be deep data where you’re looking at analytics within Facebook or engagement or total watch time or anything like that. Even just a simple metric like shares can help guide you in terms of what works and what doesn’t work.

Chelsea Lords: Yep, absolutely. I have found it’s kind of different for each social media channel. Sometimes something will do really well on Instagram but not on Facebook. It is kind of looking at an individual platform and what your goal is. To me, right now I have a huge goal to grow my Facebook and to really get content that’s going there, so I really am focusing mostly on Facebook, and so-

Bjork Ostrom: That was one of the things I noticed when I was reading through the ebook. When you published this and it was 2014, that was the year that you were reviewing, you had talked about your Facebook following and there was at the time, you had 11,000 or 15,000, depending on when it was that you’re looking at it, followers. Now, you have a huge Facebook following, and that’s a relatively short amount of time to grow that. What’s been most effective for you as you’ve grown Facebook?

Chelsea Lords: Part of it is about networking and really picked brains in people that have done really well on Facebook and learned from them. I cannot give myself credit. I’ve really learned from some of the best on Facebook, and I feel really grateful for that. Then it’s just been a lot of trial and error. I’ve changed posting schedules. I’ve changed how I share a picture, when I share it. The biggest growth reason I would say is video. Video’s been super hot, and if you can get a good video, you can get quite a few likes from that. Last Christmas, I posted a video and it got 15 million views, and that boosted my Facebook page 50,000 likes from one video.

Bjork Ostrom: That’s a video that you created that you posted to your Facebook page, and then essentially that video went viral?

Chelsea Lords: Right.

Bjork Ostrom: Yep. One of the things that I see that you’re doing is sharing a lot of other people’s content. Is that something that is a strategy that’s working well?

Chelsea Lords: Yes. I try-

Bjork Ostrom: And sharing a lot of video as well that other people are creating.

Chelsea Lords: Right. I’m trying to share mostly video right now, and then I do 70/30. I try to share 70% of other people’s content and 30% of mine, because I’m really looking for virals on Facebook, what is doing well for people and how can it help my page, too.

Bjork Ostrom: Video that’s doing really well that then you share to your page.

Chelsea Lords: Right.

Bjork Ostrom: Yep. That makes sense. Interesting. Facebook is so interesting to follow along with, and it changes so quickly, too.

Chelsea Lords: Well, and everyone has a different strategy, too. Some people are like, “If I share that much of other people’s content, my page suffers.” It’s a lot of trial and error and what works for you.

Bjork Ostrom: Well, and it’s fun to hear from people that have done it and done it well, like you, for instance, because obviously there’s something there. There’s something to look at and to understand. When you are building that page, are you viewing it as then potential sponsorships where they’d say, “Oh, if you create a video for me and post it on Facebook, it has a lot of potential for exposure”? Or is it traffic back to your site? What is the primary value? Obviously, there’s likes. What does that translate into for you?

Chelsea Lords: My primary goal is traffic. I want to grow my Facebook page so that I grow my traffic, and I think sponsorships are a bonus, but it’s not what I’m focusing on. I’m very intentional about how I’m growing my Facebook page because I want it to eventually bring me good traffic. I think sometimes you can grow your Facebook page, but then when you post something of yours, you have a bad reach on it. I’m trying to find my group that my stuff will do well with and similar content to mine so that it can pay back to me and bring me more traffic.

Bjork Ostrom: Is Facebook one of your primary traffic sources?

Chelsea Lords: It’s actually not. Pinterest is my primary.

Bjork Ostrom: Okay. Pinterest and then organic search and then Facebook?

Chelsea Lords: Yeah. That’s right.

Bjork Ostrom: Okay, got it. One of the things that I hear from people is there’s all of these Facebook conspiracy theories. If you include a link within the description, then it’s not going to be as popular or there’s this ability now to include shop products within a Facebook post so you can integrate in things that you can sell and people sharing that doesn’t do as well if you do that. Have you noticed any of those to be true for you as you do a side-by-side comparison? You share a Facebook video without a link to encourage people to leave and go to your site versus one with a link? Do you have any gut reactions to that or feelings about it?

Chelsea Lords: Well, here’s my theory. Facebook loves Facebook, and they just love themselves so much that if you can keep them on Facebook, they’ll be happy with you. I know a lot of people will post links to their YouTube channel and Facebook hates that. They’re trying to compete with YouTube, so they’re going to kill that post or even having, here’s a pin it link. I avoid any links to alternate sources. I also have a theory they don’t like shortened links. They just keep them on Facebook.

Chelsea Lords: Obviously, I’m not going to get traffic, so I do add my links and I’ve played around a lot with posting a video and then adding my link later or in the comments. I haven’t actually noticed a huge difference. Right now, I just put my recipe link in the description. I won’t share posts that have tons of other links. If someone puts a post in the share group, I’ll take out their short links and find the real one. I’m just careful with links and Facebook.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. It’s really interesting, too, because you don’t … With any that you don’t really know, the only thing that you can do is go off of your own experience and your bet on it, and the people that know the most are the people that are consistently posting, and you’re one of those people. I’m always interested to hear what people have to say.

Chelsea Lords: Yes, I post a lot on Facebook.

Bjork Ostrom: In your ebook, you talk about my first year and kind of do a little breakdown here, so 42,000, just a little bit over 42,000 that you were able to make from your blog in the first year. The breakdown is 15,000 from ads, 11,000 from freelance, 14,000 from sponsored, and then 2,500 for product comparables or comparable cost for that. If you get a $500 knife set, then that’s what it would be worth. What does that percentage breakdown look like for you now? You don’t have to share numbers, but has that stayed relatively consistent? Are there parts that you’ve cut back on or areas that you’ve doubled down on and have really invested more in?

Chelsea Lords: That’s very different now. I do pretty much no freelance. I just found the money’s not worth the time for me. I feel like I can make more creating my own posts on my own site, and so I do pretty much no freelance anymore.

Bjork Ostrom: When did that change? When did you-

Chelsea Lords: Probably about two years ago. I was getting enough traffic and I felt like I was getting enough sponsor requests and just enough sponsored posts that were paying more than a freelance job, that I was like, “Well, I’d rather do this sponsored post for X amount than this freelance for a third of that amount.” Just slowly, I stopped doing it, stopped doing it, and now I charge the same as a sponsored post for a freelance, and so no one really can afford that. It doesn’t make sense for a company to buy that.

Bjork Ostrom: Got it. In terms of right now, is it the focus would be advertising and sponsor content? Is it 50/50 or …

Chelsea Lords: I make more from ads most months. I’d say maybe like 60/40 and the other is sponsored. I guess there is one I do a little bit of freelance still, but it’s just video content and that still makes it worth it, what people will pay, so I guess I do still do a little bit of freelance, but it’s maybe like one video a month.

Bjork Ostrom: This would be a brand or another blogger that partners with you to have you help create a video?

Chelsea Lords: Yes. Usually brands.

Bjork Ostrom: Got it.

Chelsea Lords: But not on my site.

Bjork Ostrom: You wouldn’t post to your site that they would be this-

Chelsea Lords: Right.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. Got it. Okay. Then do you do affiliate? Is that part of the …

Chelsea Lords: I’m not awesome at affiliate. That’s one of my goals. I make pretty little from affiliate. I did add a shop to my blog, which I’ve noticed brings in an income. Nothing to write home about, but it’s good. I get to buy what I want on Amazon, so I guess that’s-

Bjork Ostrom: For sure.

Chelsea Lords: That’s a nice little perk, but nothing crazy. I do make more from my ebook sales than my Amazon affiliate. That’s my third bracket of income.

Bjork Ostrom: Cool. It’s interesting to hear about that, and one of the things that I love is that you took that first year where you were really intentional about building these things out and then said, “How can I create …” It’s almost like an inception piece because you’re writing about these different ways that you’re intentional about building this in your business and then add to your business revenue streams by doing this analysis of what you did in the first year.

Bjork Ostrom: I think that’s a great way for people to … In some ways, we’ve thought about that with Pinch of Yum. What are the other branches that exist? We have the food, we have the recipes, and that’s usually the first place that people think, but then there’s also these other things. Lindsay does workshops and she’s been really excited about doing those and intentional to say, “How can I use my skills as a teacher to apply that to the niche that we’re in, which is food and recipe, but also maybe an untapped area within that.”

Bjork Ostrom: For anybody that’s listening, I would encourage you to think about what are the different ways that you can create, branch off and not just think about the primary ways, whether that be ads or sponsored content, but what are the other things that you can do. I think freelance is a great example. It’s a great way to take that step into working for yourself or working with somebody that you’re really excited about in the niche that you’re excited about and being intentional to look at it from multiple different angles, which I think you did, which is fun to see.

Bjork Ostrom: If you were to go back, let’s say you were to go back to November 2013 and you were to start over again, you did a lot of things right and had a lot of success early on, but I’m guessing there are some things that you’d look at and you’d say, “Hey, I would love to be able to do this a little bit different or to start doing things earlier that I know work really well now,” What would that be?

Chelsea Lords: There’s so many. First, I would have taken Lindsay’s workshop.

Bjork Ostrom: Oh, thanks. Yeah. Appreciate that.

Chelsea Lords: No, seriously, it was my favorite thing I did last year, so I talk about it.

Bjork Ostrom: Can you talk about it not in the sense of what you liked about it, but what you took away from it, what the experience, whether it was a mindset change or a technical skill or ability that you picked up, what was it that was significant or helpful?

Chelsea Lords: I think it was a huge mindset change. It was just amazing to watch Lindsay and just to get her perspective and how she thinks about the photography. To me, that was just huge. I still, every shoot now, I think about it. She said something that really resonated, “Look at the food to how to make it …” I’m slaughtering this, but she said basically take your ingredients, look at your ingredients and say where are they the prettiest? Where are they going to show the best? You’ve got an ingredient shot, a process shot, the final shot, and a bowl and a casserole dish.

Chelsea Lords: To me, that was just a huge mindset change, where does food look its best? It’s a little thing, but it’s really changed my photography. There was just few little tidbits of wealth she gave that have just changed my mindset, made me more excited about photography. I don’t feel like I was a horrible photographer when I went to her, but it just changed so much, and I just wish I had had that earlier and even just to see a demonstration earlier. I read books when I was starting, but it’s just I’m very much a visual learner, and so it was always hard for me to try and figure out photography. When I was starting, I had so many questions. I didn’t know really what I was doing, and I was basing it off of books I’d read, and so …

Bjork Ostrom: There’s something to be said about being in the same place with people learning something and just observing. I think it sounds so obvious, but it’s such a natural way to learn, and it’s-

Chelsea Lords: So important.

Bjork Ostrom: It’s so uncommon because what is common now is learning from reading, which isn’t … This isn’t bad by any means, but reading or even podcasts, it’s like there’s only so much you can do versus sitting down and seeing somebody even how do they change the settings on a camera as they’re going through it. You kind of absorb some of that stuff versus just reading it or learning it on your own, which makes a lot of sense. I think I’m similar in that way, but it’s hard to commit to something where you say, “I’m going to block out the weekend or a couple days and travel,” and it’s not very efficient, but it can have a big impact. I’ll pass that along to Lindsay and let her know that you said that.

Chelsea Lords: Oh, she knows I’m a huge fan girl.

Bjork Ostrom: I don’t know.

Chelsea Lords: I love her photography.

Bjork Ostrom: That means a lot.

Chelsea Lords: I would do it again. I really would.

Bjork Ostrom: Okay. The takeaway for those that are listening would be as soon as possible to start thinking about where the areas where I can invest some time and energy into learning and investing back into the things that I want to grow as opposed to repeating and doing the same things, saying, “How can I fine tune my craft and my skill a little bit?”

Chelsea Lords: Right. You can do the same thing over and over and over and think like, “I’m doing it. Why isn’t something happening?” but you might be doing it wrong. I think learning from someone that’s having success … To me, learning how Lindsay thinks about her photography and her whole work flow, that was a huge game changer for me. That was really important.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. I was listening to a podcast today, and it was … It’s a business podcast called Mixergy, and the guy that does it, his name’s Andrew, and he interviews primarily tech and online interviews or online business owners, but he was interviewing the guy that started, it’s called Sumo and his name is Noah Kagan. It’s like a social sharing and email list-building application. He was talking about how he’s really intentional about finding people … I think it was in this podcast, but intentional about finding people that he appreciates or sees as successful and then looking at the path that they took and saying what does that look like.

Bjork Ostrom: Maybe I’ve said this on the podcast before, but the idea that success leaves breadcrumbs, you can kind of follow and see, and one of the best ways to do that is to get as close as possible, whether that’s doing, like you said, a workshop or reaching out and finding somebody online like you did. I know that you’re really intentional about doing that. Even just connecting with people via email or social media, it sounds so easy, but it’s such an important part of the process, and it sounds like you did that, which makes a lot of sense for why it would be helpful.

Chelsea Lords: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Bjork Ostrom: Okay, so workshop, that would be an important thing or something similar to that where you really take time to invest in your passion or interest or skill. What are some of the other things that you would do differently if you were to go back?

Chelsea Lords: Yeah. While I’m thinking of this question, I keep coming back to something my husband always says, and he’s a big business guy, but he says, “You have to spend money to make money.” I think as a blogger, I’m always … I really had a mindset shift, but when I first started, I’m like, “Well, I can’t spend this yet. I’m not making enough money to rationalize this. I can’t buy this new prop. I can’t pay for this book. I can’t do this.” But totally shifted, and now I’m like, “I need to invest and make my business better if I want to continue to see an income.”

Chelsea Lords: I hired an SEO guy a few months back and just had him walk me through things, teach me how to set up a post to be more Google friendly and to me, that was a big expense, but I wish I had done it, honestly, at the start, because now I have hundreds of posts to go through and fix, and it’s like, yeah, it’s an investment, but I think my Google and search traffic would be better if I had done that earlier. I think-

Bjork Ostrom: What was one of the biggest takeaways that you had or changes you made?

Chelsea Lords: With the SEO?

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah.

Chelsea Lords: This is embarrassing, but I’ve never really used Yoast, and that’s a plug-in. Didn’t really use it very much, and if you can walk me through it, I am so big on SEO but you’re going to walk me through it and I’ve been adding that to all my posts, being very intentional about adding keywords and a post description at the top that has my keywords, watching my slugs, and just all those little stuff that are probably so obvious to most people, to me-

Bjork Ostrom: But it’s the little things that are hard to do, right?

Chelsea Lords: Yeah.

Bjork Ostrom: Whether it’s being healthy, it’s like, well, it’s really obvious that you eat healthy and then work out. But it’s the same thing with something like SEO where it’s not necessarily some complicated voodoo science thing. It’s like, well, it’s pretty simple, but the hard part is actually doing it, so it’s getting in actually, making it happen. Okay. Anything-

Chelsea Lords: Just little changes. Sorry.

Bjork Ostrom: Anything else that you’d add to the list? Maybe one more thing that you would say, “Hey, if I were to go back, start again, this is something I would do a little bit different.”

Chelsea Lords: Yeah. This last one is I just think care less about what other people think. I think a lot of times in blogging, there’s, “Oh, don’t do that,” like it’s not … I don’t know how to explain this really, but just owning my business and being proud of what I do, even though I make different business decisions than a different blogger and than most bloggers, being intentional and just not caring what other people think. You blog for your audience, not for other bloggers. I think a lot of times, I’m scared or timid about some things. Even to put out my ebook, I was so proud of it, but also a little timid, what are people going to think about this? What are bloggers going to think about this? I just think getting past that and just you own your own business. You can’t care what other bloggers or other people think and you do what’s best for your business.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. It seems like a combination of self-awareness and then business awareness, so who am I and then who am I within my business and who is my business? Being intentional to be aware of that and know that and not be impacted by the thousands of things that are coming in from, whether it be social media or conversations or what you see somebody else doing, I feel like we can all relate to that little ping that we feel when there’s like outside influence in whatever way, shape, or form that comes and feeling like, “Oh, maybe I should change this or not do this or maybe this isn’t good enough or maybe I need to start doing this thing.” There’s so many of those things that exist and can be totally overwhelming. I think that’s really a good note to end on, because I think that’s really important.

Bjork Ostrom: Before we wrap up, Chelsea, I’m curious to know where can people find you and follow along with what you’re doing and check out all the different resources that you have.

Chelsea Lords: My blog is chelseasmessyapron.com. I have my ebook, just at the top there’s a tab that says Ebook. I know we reference that a lot. And that’s pretty much my biggest resource for bloggers.

Bjork Ostrom: Cool.Great. We’ll link to that in the show notes as well, and it was really fun for me to read through that. It’s always interesting to see kind of what the inside scoop looks like for other people, and for those, especially those that are in the beginning stages, getting up and running with their blog, iot would be a super incredible resource, but also even if you’ve been doing it for a few years, I love going back and reviewing, hey, what are the strategies that other people are using that I’m not aware of. That was helpful for me to look through, so we’ll be sure to link to that. Chelsea, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. I’ll tell Lindsay that you said hi, because I know that she would be excited to hear from you.

Chelsea Lords: And Sage.

Bjork Ostrom: And we’ll give Sage a scratch on the ear. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Really appreciate-

Chelsea Lords: Thanks for having me.

Bjork Ostrom: Yeah. Thanks, Chelsea.

Chelsea Lords: Thank you.

Alexa Peduzzi: Such a good episode, right? We hope you loved this FBP rewind episode with Chelsea from Chelsea’s Messy Apron. As for what’s coming up on the podcast in these next few weeks, well, we are hard at work behind the scenes on a brand new free and virtual event for you. We are opening enrollment very, very soon for Food Blogger Pro, and we have a brand new podcast series that we are just so incredibly excited to share with you. More on all of that very, very soon. July is going to be such a fun month for us, and we so appreciate you being here alongside us.

Alexa Peduzzi: We’ll see you next Tuesday with a brand new episode of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast, but until then, make it a great week.