The Food Blogger Pro Podcast

Treating your content archive as an asset, diversifying your platforms, and building content around your lived experience with Yvette Marquez.

-----

Welcome to episode 590 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Yvette Marquez.

This week, we are welcoming back Yvette Marquez to the podcast to share how she's built a sustainable creator business around family recipes, storytelling, cookbooks, and brand partnerships. She walks through what her work looks like today, from updating older blog posts and developing her next cookbook to resharing classic recipes in new formats. She and Bjork dig into why your archive can be a long-term business asset, which means you don't have to keep coming up with brand-new ideas all the time — a game-changer!

Yvette will also share how Facebook, Substack, virtual assistants, business managers, and behind-the-scenes recipe development all contribute to her business. Her advice for new creators: choose authenticity over perfection, invest in the skills and people who support your strengths, and build a business on genuine stories and audience trust!

• Treat your archive as a long-term business asset: Updating older posts and resharing classic recipes in new formats can keep your business growing without having to worry about coming up with a constant stream of brand-new ideas.
• Diversify your platforms and income: With AI overviews and declining search traffic, relying on a single platform or revenue source is a gamble. Yvette shares how Facebook, Substack, and other channels each play a role in her business.
• Build around your lived experience: Prioritize genuine stories and audience trust over perfection, and invest in the skills and people (like virtual assistants and business managers) that support what you do best.

Resources:

• Muy Bueno
• Muy Bueno — Yvette's cookbook!
• Hippocrene Books
• The Diary of a CEO — YouTube
• MKBHD
• GRO
• Meta One
• Cocina to Career — Yvette's Substack!
• Google Isn't Sending You to Recipe Blogs Anymore… Here's What That Means — Substack
• Spoiler Alert: My Cookbooks Don't Pay the Bills — Substack
• Show Me the Money: How I Actually Make a Living Online — Substack
• What My Analytics Told Me About Food Blogging in 2026 — Substack
• From My Grandma's Stove to the Age of AI — Substack
• Episode 420 of The Food Blogger Pro podcast: ChatGPT, Substack, and the Changing Landscape of Food Writing with Dianne Jacob
• Episode 566 of The Food Blogger Pro podcast: What Food Bloggers Need to Know About AI Search and the Fight for Fair Traffic with Adam Gallagher from Inspired Taste
• Stacked Red Enchiladas — Muy Bueno
• Follow Yvette on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube
• Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group

This episode is sponsored by Clariti and Raptive. Learn more about our sponsors at foodbloggerpro.com/sponsors.

Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here.

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

Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership.

Self-publishing a cookbook and driving 13,000 pre-sales, growing to over 3 million followers on social media, and prioritizing learning as a creator with Justin Ellen from Everything Just Baked.

-----

Welcome to episode 589 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Justin Ellen from Everything Just Baked.

Justin Ellen started decorating and selling cakes in high school, with the dream of one day opening his own bakery. At the encouragement of his sister, he hesitantly started posting photos of his cakes on Instagram, but didn't like being in front of the camera. He slowly but surely overcame his fear of being on camera, and now has 1.4 million followers on both Facebook and TikTok, and over 800,000 followers on Instagram.

In this interview, Justin shares how he transitioned from selling cakes to building a business as a content creator, what his first few brand deals looked like, why he decided to launch his website last year (and how he has already grown to 400,000 monthly pageviews!), and dives into the process of self-publishing his first cookbook (out this month!). This is a really fun and inspiring interview for food creators at any level — we hope you'll enjoy it as much as we did!

• How to approach every social media post as a data point — Justin explains how he has shifted his mindset around social media so that everything he posts is something he can learn and iterate from. He also shares how he remixes his short-form videos to stretch out his content and see what performs best, and why he views re-posting content like television re-runs.
• The process of self-publishing a cookbook — Despite having the option to go the traditional publishing route, Justin chose to self-publish his cookbook to maintain creative control. He walks listeners through the process, including how he hired his team and made decisions about printing and promoting his cookbook, and how Facebook was the main driver for 13,000+ book pre-sales.
• Why you need to always be open to learning — Justin is candid about his learning process as a creator — how he observes successful creators, notes what they have in common, adds his creative twist, and iterates until he finds something that works for him.

Resources:

• Everything Just Baked
• Jessica Secrest
• The Diary of a CEO Interview with Seth Godin
• Mediavine
• Better Than Grandma's Cookbook
• Follow Justin on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook
• Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group

This episode is sponsored by Clariti and Raptive.

Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here.

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

Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership.

Making sustainable choices, building genuine trust through branding, and the power of community.

-----

Welcome to episode 588 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Yoli Ouiya from Food + Wellness Equity Collective.

In this week's episode, Bjork is sitting down to chat with the "Queen of Green herself, Yoli Ouiya! Yoli breaks down what green living really means (hint: it's about how the products we use affect both our bodies and the planet) and shares practical tips for making smarter choices around food, home, and personal care. From there, the conversation shifts into the natural consumer-products space, where Yoli goes into validating a product idea, building trust through great branding, and the realities of bootstrapping versus chasing funding.

You'll also hear Yoli open up about the Food and Wellness Equity Collective, the community she co-founded to give creators, especially those who often feel overlooked or isolated in this industry, a real sense of connection and support. If you're looking to build a brand and a community with real staying power, this episode will be right up your alley!

• Green living starts with intention: Yoli breaks down what it really means to evaluate the impact of the products we use (both on our bodies and on the planet) and offers practical ways to make more thoughtful choices around food, home, and personal care.
• Trust and branding matter as much as the product itself: In the natural consumer-products space, Yoli shares how new founders can validate their ideas, build genuine trust through strong branding, and navigate the trade-offs between bootstrapping and outside funding.
• Community can be the missing piece: Through the Food and Wellness Equity Collective, Yoli is creating retreats, workshops, and scholarships that give creators, especially those who often feel isolated, a real connection, support, and opportunity.

Resources:

• Food + Wellness Equity Collective
• Food + Wellness Equity Collective Retreat
• Yoli's Green Living
• Airthings
• Think Dirty
• EWG
• Newman's Own
• Primal Kitchen
• A Couple Cooks — Sonja and Alex Overhiser's blog!
• UGMONK
• Nom Nom Paleo
• Follow Food + Wellness Equity on Instagram
• Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group

This episode is sponsored by Clariti and Raptive. Learn more about our sponsors at foodbloggerpro.com/sponsors.

Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here.

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

Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership.

Rethinking how you work and implementing guardrails for AI with Andrew Wilder and Miranda Wicker of NerdPress.

-----

Welcome to episode 587 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Andrew Wilder and Miranda Wicker of NerdPress.

This week on the podcast, Bjork sits down with Andrew Wilder of NerdPress and Miranda Wicker for a conversation on AI, content creation, and what it means to stay human in an increasingly automated world. They dig into a question every creator is facing right now: Are you reacting to the AI shift, or are you using it to rethink how you work?

They'll walk through real examples of AI integrations, memory, skills, scheduled tasks, and MCP connections, including NerdPress's very own guided agent connector, built with guardrails and approval steps for safer site management. If you've been wondering how to use AI to work smarter without losing what makes your content yours, this episode is a great place to start!

• Rethink instead of reacting: Rethink instead of reacting: Andrew and Miranda discuss how creator businesses have weathered the changes to search over the last few years. Their key takeaway: it's time to rethink how you work, not just brace for what's next.
• Use AI as a tool, not a ghostwriter: AI shines at research and repetitive work, but if you allow it to write for you, be prepared for writing that's just average. Let AI support your process, but allow your own passion and expertise to shine through in your own writing!
• Implement guardrails to make AI safer to use: Memory, skills, scheduled tasks, and MCP connections — Andrew and Miranda share how they're putting these to work, including NerdPress's guided agent connector, which includes approval steps for safer site management. AI can help you do more, but with just enough oversight to keep it from going rogue.

Resources:

• NerdPress
• Imagine I handed you 10,000 brilliant employees tonight. What would you do with them tomorrow morning? — @PeterDiamandis on X
• Slack
• Claude
• ChatGPT
• Granola
• Littlebird
• Episode 584 of The Food Blogger Pro podcast: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Claude as a Food Blogger with Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju
• OpenClaw
• Caffeine and Cabernet
• Clariti
• Raptive
• Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group

This episode is sponsored by Yoast and Clariti. Learn more about our sponsors at foodbloggerpro.com/sponsors.

Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here.

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

Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership.

Standing out with your story, treating your blog like an ecosystem, and reinventing yourself as a creator with Timothy Pakron from Mississippi Vegan.

-----

Welcome to episode 586 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Timothy Pakron from Mississippi Vegan.

Timothy came to food blogging by way of studio art and his passion for fresh produce, not the blog itself. He started sharing his photography and vegan recipes on Instagram first, built an audience there, and landed a cookbook deal before he ever put much focus into a blog. In this conversation, Bjork and Timothy talk through what it looks like to build a body of work around a strong personal point of view, and why story and connection have carried his career from Instagram to a second cookbook (Garden Variety), and a thriving blog.

They also chat about the practical side of running a content business today: how Timothy uses AI tools as a strategy partner for auditing and refining old posts, how he's adjusting to a search and social media landscape that keep shifting under everyone's feet, and how he thinks about his blog less as a static archive and more as an ecosystem that needs constant tending. If you're trying to figure out how to stand out with your story or navigate a creative career that has real ups and downs, this episode is for you.

• Treat your blog like an ecosystem — Timothy doesn't think of his site as a place where posts go once and stay finished. He walks through why constant refinement, from updated photos to reworked copy, keeps older content fresh and performing well, and how he uses AI to help spot which posts need attention and to sharpen his strategy around them.
• Your story is your differentiator — With a background in studio art, Timothy has always leaned into what makes his perspective his own. He talks about his passion for the creative process, being intentional with how he shares his story and connects with his audience, and why that connection matters more as content gets easier to produce at scale.
• Watch the industry without falling into comparison — Timothy shares how he stays aware of what other creators are doing without letting it eat into his time or his creative confidence. He talks about drawing inspiration from other people's success instead of measuring himself against it, and why he sees his creative expression as something no one else can replicate.

Resources:

• Mississippi Vegan
• Garden Variety Cookbook
• Pinch of Yum
• Keysearch
• Mississippi Vegan Gumbo
• Jeremy Finds AI
• Raptive
• Mediavine
• Pinch of Yum Income Reports
• Ugmonk
• Follow Timothy on Instagram
• Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group

This episode is sponsored by Clariti and Raptive.

Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here.

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

Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership.

Transparency around your AI workflow and protecting your creative voice with Jeremy Carrasco from Jeremy Finds AI.

-----

Welcome to episode 585 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Jeremy Carrasco, the creator behind Jeremy Finds AI and founder of Riddance.

Pop quiz! Can you actually spot AI-generated content if you saw it? Jeremy's background in live streaming, encoding, and video production gave him an early edge in identifying synthetic content, but as AI videos get more realistic, he explains why that edge is disappearing fast, and why the old advice to simply "train your eye" isn't enough anymore. In this episode, Jeremy makes the case that the real question isn't "can you spot AI?" but "do you trust the source?"

He and Bjork get into the difference between acceptable and deceptive AI use, why disclosing your AI workflow might actually build more trust with your audience, and what "human-forward" creation looks like in an increasingly synthetic feed. Jeremy also shares candidly how he uses AI in his own work, and why he refuses to let it touch his creative edge. If you create content in any capacity, this conversation gives you a clear-eyed look at where trust is headed next and what it'll take to hold onto yours.

• Spotting AI is basically a coin flip now: The days of "train your eye to catch AI" are over — content's gotten too realistic, and platform algorithms make it even trickier to know what's real. Trust in the source matters way more than trying to detect fakes.
• There's a real difference between using AI and hiding AI: Being upfront about your AI workflow can actually build more trust with your audience, not less. It's not about ditching the tools — it's about being honest when you use them.
• The smartest move right now is doubling down on being human: As AI gets faster and cheaper, the creators who protect their creative voice and stay unmistakably them are the ones who'll stand out in an increasingly synthetic feed.

Resources:

• Jeremy Finds AI
• Riddance
• Lion's Den
• YouTube channel: RocketJump
• Zach King's YouTube channel
• YouTube star Hank Green apologizes for ChatGPT overuse after fans accuse him of including a prompt by mistake — Fortune
• Patreon
• Substack
• YouTube short from Jeremy Finds AI: This political influencer isn't real
• Why Nobody Can Stop AI Art Scams — Jeremy Finds AI on YouTube
• Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group

This episode is sponsored by Yoast and Clariti. Learn more about our sponsors at foodbloggerpro.com/sponsors.

Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here.

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

Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership.

Using AI to run a smarter food blog, understanding the different Claude tools, and moving beyond using AI as a chatbot with Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju from Urban Farmie.

-----

Welcome to episode 584 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju from Urban Farmie.

Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju recently made the leap from a successful career in management consulting to become a full-time content creator with Urban Farmie. Her background in business strategy didn't disappear when she made the switch, and it has become one the most valuable tools in her toolbox, especially when it comes to how she uses AI in her business.

In this episode, Shruthi shares how she's moved well beyond using Claude as a chatbot and has started treating it as a genuine business partner — delegating tasks, building custom skills, and creating systems that let her spend more time on the work only she can do. If you've been curious about AI but aren't sure how to actually integrate it into your workflow in a meaningful way, this episode is a great place to start.

• There are different stages to incorporating AI into your workflow — and most people stop too early — Using Claude to answer a question or draft a caption is just the beginning. Shruthi walks through what it looks like to move from using AI as a chatbot to using it as a true assistant: one that handles mundane, repeatable tasks on your behalf so you can focus on the work that brings you joy.
• Custom skills are one of the most powerful AI features for food bloggers — Shruthi has built a library of Claude skills tailored to her business — including one that creates a virtual board of advisors to help her think through decisions. She breaks down what a skill actually is, what makes a good first skill to build, how to workshop and iterate on a skill until it does exactly what you want, and how she uses skills to write and refine standard operating procedures for her team.
• Understanding your AI tools makes all the difference — Knowing when to use Claude Chat vs. CoWork vs. Design vs. Code can save you a lot of frustration. Shruthi explains the differences between the tools, walks through how connectors like QuickBooks work, and shares why auditing your AI workflows on a monthly basis is key to getting the most out of the tools available to you.

Resources:

• Urban Farmie
• TED: The unsung heroes fighting malnutrition
• Mise en Claude
• TextExpander
• Inside Crowded Kitchen's Strategy for Growing to 2.4 Million Followers on Facebook
• How Mika Kinney Turned Her 480,000 Instagram Followers into Site Traffic and Revenue
• WisprFlow
• Airtable
• Shruthi's AI Challenge for Food Bloggers — use code "FBP" for $45 off
• Follow Shruthi on Instagram
• Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group

This episode is sponsored by Clariti and Raptive. Learn more about our sponsors at foodbloggerpro.com/sponsors.

Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here.

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

Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership.

Building a thriving food blog by putting YouTube first, growing to 2 million subscribers on YouTube, and using social media to drive blog traffic with Jeanelle Castro from Jeanelleats.

-----

Welcome to episode 583 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Jeanelle Castro from JeanellEats.

Jeanelle started Jeanelleats ten years ago while still working a 9-to–5 — but she knew she had always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and she always loved making videos. In 2016 she started posting on YouTube, got serious about tracking her metrics and posting consistently, and within a few months her channel started taking off. Today she has nearly 2 million subscribers on YouTube!

In this episode, Jeanelle shares how she built a content system where YouTube is the engine that drives everything else — including her blog traffic, her Google rankings, and her brand deals. She explains how she uses YouTube Shorts to drive traffic to her site (her CTA is simple: "head to Jeanelleats for the recipe!"), and why she believes that the success of a social post and the performance of a blog post are more correlated than most creators realize.

• Promoting YouTube videos of your recipes can improve your Google ranking — Jeanelle has noticed a real correlation between pushing a YouTube video of a recipe and that recipe's performance in Google search. Since YouTube is owned by Google, there's a connection between video engagement and search visibility that food bloggers with a YouTube presence can take advantage of. Combined with the branded search that grows when your social content performs well, this is another reason to prioritize video even if SEO has felt out of reach.
• What a YouTube first posting strategy looks like — Jeanelle publishes to YouTube first, then reposts to Instagram and TikTok. She explains her posting cadence, why YouTube is her #1 platform from both an audience and revenue perspective, and how she thinks about Instagram differently — it's less important for direct revenue, but it still matters for brand partnerships.
• Why Jeanelle is leaning into her blog and how it fits into her overall revenue — While brand deals remain her number one income source, her blog revenue has recently surpassed her YouTube AdSense revenue. The blog has become her priority precisely because it's the most stable and predictable of the three — and she's noticed a direct link between promoting YouTube videos of her recipes and improved Google rankings for those same posts (a win win)!

Resources:

• Jeanelleats
• LinkDM
• Raptive
• Clariti
• GRO
• Manychat
• Follow Jeanelle on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok
• Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group

This episode is sponsored by Yoast and Clariti.

Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here.

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

Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership.

Building and positioning your brand through earned media and PR with Lydia Bagarozza from Visibility on Purpose.

-----

Welcome to episode 582 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Lydia Bagarozza.

Have you ever wondered how food creators and brands land coverage in respected publications, and whether that kind of press is even worth chasing? In this episode, Bjork sits down with PR expert Lydia Bagarozza to demystify proactive PR, showing that it's less about crisis control and more about shaping brand perception and earning credibility through the media. Lydia breaks down how to pitch timely, newsworthy stories to the right editors and producers, and why clear positioning and specific expertise can turn a pitch into a yes.

The conversation also makes the case for PR as a long-term investment. Lydia explains how appearing in respected publications and local news builds social proof, backlinks, and brand signals that feed into SEO, AI visibility, and trust, and she shares go-to tools like Qwoted, Connectively, and Help a Reporter Out for finding real media opportunities. If you've been curious about earning press for your brand, this episode is a great place to start!

• PR is about long-term brand building, not just crisis management: Proactive PR helps shape how your brand is perceived, builds awareness, and earns credibility through the media well before you ever need it for damage control.
• Positioning and specificity make pitches easier to say yes to: Editors and producers are more likely to cover you when your pitch is timely, newsworthy, and grounded in clear, specific expertise rather than a generic pitch about your brand.
• Earned media pays off beyond just visibility: Appearing in respected publications and local news builds social proof and backlinks that can strengthen SEO, AI visibility, and overall trust — and there are accessible tools like Qwoted, Connectively, and Help a Reporter Out to help you find real opportunities, whether you go the DIY or agency route.

Resources:

• Visibility on Purpose
• GRAZA
• The Minnesota Star Tribune
• Food & Wine
• Bon Appetit
• The New York Times
• The Atlantic
• Good Morning America
• Claude
• Martha Stewart
• VegNews
• The Pioneer Woman
• ChatGPT
• Entrepeneur
• Inc.
• Forbes
• Qwoted (affiliate link!)
• WisprFlow
• Featured
• Connectively
• Help A Reporter Out
• Follow Visibility on Purpose on Instagram
• Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group

This episode is sponsored by Clariti and Raptive. Learn more about our sponsors at foodbloggerpro.com/sponsors.

Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here.

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

Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership.

Mitigating risk in search marketing, cleaning up link spam on your site, and getting your technical SEO foundation right with Liane Walker from Foodie Digital.

-----

Welcome to episode 581 of The Food Blogger Pro Podcast! This week on the podcast, Bjork interviews Liane Walker from Foodie Digital.

Liane Walker has seen just about every SEO mistake a food creator can make. In this episode, she's sharing her expertise about the two things that matter most right now for food blogs — getting your technical SEO foundation right and creating content that's structured to reach the right reader.

One of the biggest issues Liane has noticed time and time again with food bloggers is link spam — something that might seem harmless but can quietly become an SEO success killer. She breaks down exactly what Google considers as spam, when to mark a link as nofollow, and how this is all a part of mitigating risk in search marketing.

• Technical SEO comes first (and link spam is a bigger deal than most food bloggers realize) — Liane sees link spam issues often in her SEO audits, and she's clear that it's a really common barrier to search success. She explains what link spam usually looks like for food bloggers, why Google's spam algorithm targets it, and the practical steps you can take to identify and clean it up on your site — including when to mark a link as nofollow.
• Once your technical foundation is solid, content strategy becomes the priority — Liane explains that the real work is in your content strategy: organizing content in a way that signals meaning to search engines and structuring posts to serve both readers and algorithms.
• Reader-first and robot-first don't have to be in conflict — One of the most practical takeaways from this episode is Liane's framework for balancing SEO best practices with genuinely useful, readable content. She walks through her tips for writing and formatting posts in a way that serves both audiences — and explains why, in a world of semantic search, these two goals are more aligned than ever.

Resources:

• Foodie Digital
• Why Search Intent Matters for Food Bloggers with Liane Walker from Foodie Digital
• Siftr
• Google Search Central Link Spam Policies
• A Couple Cooks
• Pinch of Yum
• Lily Ray's Algorythmic
• Follow Liane on Instagram
• Join the Food Blogger Pro Podcast Facebook Group

This episode is sponsored by Yoast.

Interested in working with us too? Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities and how to get started here.

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

Learn more about joining the Food Blogger Pro community at foodbloggerpro.com/membership.