In this episode:

If you want to be successful as a food blogger you cannot afford to blend in. Personal branding is the way that you can stand out as a food blogger and it's incredibly important that you focus on that more than ever. In this episode you'll hear why personal branding is an essential part of risk proofing your food blog.

Key Points:

• The importance of establishing a unique niche beyond just "food blogging"
• Crafting and sharing your personal story to build authority and trust
• Choosing authentic ways to connect with your audience across various platforms

Actionable Tips:

• Define your specific niche using a three-layer approach
• Showcase your expertise and experience on your About page and homepage
• Incorporate your brand message into CTAs and recipe card blocks
• Update your social media bios and create pinned content highlighting your story
• Consider starting a podcast or email sequence to share your brand's origin

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Personal Brand Checklist

 

Connect With Madison

Instagram | Website | Show Notes

Work with Grace + Vine in 2024:

1. Design Services for Food Bloggers

2. Our newest way to redesign your website! Learn more here.

In this episode:

If you feel like this year has flown by at record pace, you are not alone. This year feels especially chaotic with everything going on in both our industry and the world. After the mid-point in the year, checking in and adjusting your goals is a great way to get back on track and make the most of the remainder of the year. Whether you set goals back in January and need to review and adjust them or you need a process for setting some goals for the rest of the year, tune into this episode!

 

In this episode, we'll discuss:

Finding and reviewing your goals

• Whether you have them digitally in a task management tool like Asana or you wrote them down on a piece of paper, gather them so you can analyze them.

Analyzing your goals

• What status are your goals? For the goals that are not completed, analyze why.

Deleting or Resetting

• Now that you know what your previous goals were, you can choose to let them go (or delete) them or to reset them to be more realistic and achievable. 

Adding new goals

• If you set goals during another quarter or month, they may not be relevant for the upcoming season. Add in any new, relevant goals that you need for this season.

 

Related Episodes:

• Setting SMART Goals for Your Blog
•  
• Setting Quarterly and Monthly Goals
•  
• Setting Weekly Goals
•  
• Summer & Beyond: Prioritizing and Surviving

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

30 Different Things You Can Do To Prepare Your Blog For Q4!

 

Connect With Madison

Instagram | Website | Show Notes

Work with Grace + Vine in 2024:

1. Design Services for Food Bloggers

2. Our newest way to redesign your website! Learn more here.

In this episode:

Do you feel like you're just treading water keeping up with your business over the summer? There can be multiple times throughout the year where it just all feels like too much. When those seasons come up, there are a few ways you can prioritize, set boundaries and ultimately feel on top of your workload despite the chaos of the season. Listen in for how you can prioritize and get the most important things done in a crazy season!

In this episode, I'll share about:

Setting aside intentional work time

• I'll share from my own experience of setting aside protected work days as a working mom to insure that I spend designated time on my business each week

Reviewing and resetting goals

• I'm going to be sharing a whole process on the next episode, but for now, I'll say that it's incredibly important to revisit your goals often but especially at mid-year or before each quarter. Try setting goals for one season at a time to help you stay on top of your tasks and priorities!

Setting better boundaries

• The nature of our businesses being online means we have about a million things to distract us at all times. When we have less time to work in the summer, it's incredibly important to be diligent with your boundaries!

"Taking care of the crying baby"

• When you are prioritizing what to do, you take care of the baby that is crying first. When you have limited time, you have to prioritize and triage your tasks for what is the most important. 

Planning ahead

• By taking a step back to analyze and categorize content on your site, you will be able to laser focus on the direction of your blog, and therefore the type of content you need to start creating, to further fill out those categories.

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Subscribe to my Blogger Playbook today!

Connect With Madison

Instagram | Website | Show Notes

Work with Grace + Vine in 2024:

1. Design Services for Food Bloggers

2. Our newest way to redesign your website! Learn more here.

In this episode:

Let's talk about categories! One of the conversations I always seem to have with my clients is around how to properly use categories to organize their blog. Listen along as we discuss the importance of categories, how many you should have, and what to do if you've never considered your categories before.

In this episode:

Categories VS Tags

• I'll hash out the difference between a category and a tag, and how to properly utilize both of them

How to organize your categories

• Start with thinking about your niche, make sure you have this nailed down and stick with it! With your niche in mind, you can start to choose which categories make the most sense for your blog. The next step is to look at how your website is organized. Thinking about your user experience can really help you to start to wrap your head around what categories you might need. 

How many categories do you need?

• First look at how many blog posts you have in the first place. Feast Design Co has a guideline of a 1:10 ratio of categories to posts as a guideline. So that means if you have 200 posts, it would be okay to have upwards of 20 categories. Ultimately, it's about drilling down specifics as many levels down as possible, so that it is easier for visitors to find what they are looking for.

Fully fill out your category pages

• It's a good idea to have an outlook on the number and types of categories you think you will want to fill out eventually. You want your categories to be as filled out as possible and you don't want to have categories with one or two posts unless you plan to be building those posts out in the next few months. 

How to fix old categories

• By taking a step back to analyze and categorize content on your site, you will be able to laser focus on the direction of your blog, and therefore the type of content you need to start creating, to further fill out those categories.

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

EP 18: Figuring Out Your Niche as a Food Blogger

EP 27: What Should Be On the Homepage of Your Food Blog

EP 30: How to Customize Your Recipe Index

Connect With Madison

Instagram | Website | Show Notes

Work with Grace + Vine in 2024:

1. Design Services for Food Bloggers

2. Our newest way to redesign your website! Learn more here.

In this episode:

If you have been blogging for a handful of years it's likely you have hundreds or thousands of blog posts in your archives. If you have ever wondered if you should delete old content or revise and update them, this process of deciding and taking action will help!

In this episode:

1. Review the traffic
2. Research keywords
3. Think about your audience
4. Choose what to do

Connect With Madison

Instagram | Website | Show Notes

Work with Grace + Vine in 2024:

1. Design Services for Food Bloggers

2. Our newest way to redesign your website! Learn more here.

In this episode:

Most creators have heard of E-E-A-T, but have you thought about how it could benefit your blog? Use these 3 tips to start using E-E-A-T to set you apart!

In this episode:

1. E-E-A-T prime real estate: your About Page
2. Prove you are a real person
3. Share your expertise and authority

Connect With Madison

Instagram | Website | Show Notes

Work with Grace + Vine in 2024:

1. Design Services for Food Bloggers

2. Our newest way to redesign your website! Learn more here.

In this episode:

In the very crowded sea that is Google results, it's so important to have a strategy to make your blog posts stand out. Today I cover five ways in which you can do this! 

In this episode:

1. Styled Gutenberg blocks
2. Recipe at a glance
3. Design your recipe card to stand out

Connect With Madison

Instagram | Website | Show Notes

Work with Grace + Vine in 2024:

1. Design Services for Food Bloggers

2. Our newest way to redesign your website! Learn more here.

In this episode:

No matter how long you have been running your blog, you're bound to have a lot of old content you want to improve. Performing a content audit on your blog posts can help you deep dive into all the content you have ever produced. 

Listen along to learn how gathering this crucial SEO data can give a better idea of where you want to take your blog and what actions you need to take to boost your SEO and make a better experience for your readers.

In this episode:

1. What is a content audit
2. What you can learn from a content audit
3. How to perform a content audit

Connect With Madison

Instagram | Website | Show Notes

Work with Grace + Vine in 2024:

1. Design Services for Food Bloggers

2. Our newest way to redesign your website! Learn more here.

In this episode:

As a food blogger, you want to continue to grow to reach more people with your blog. But have you ever considered if your blog is ready for growth? 

Listen in to hear the things you might not have considered that you can prepare for before your blog's growth feels out of control. 

In this episode:

1. Being ready for comments & email increase
2. Being proactive about site speed & hosting
3. Making your website easy to navigate
4. Having an easy-to-find email opt-in

Connect With Madison

Instagram | Website | Show Notes

Work with Grace + Vine in 2024:

1. Design Services for Food Bloggers

2. Our newest way to redesign your website! Learn more here.

In this episode:

1. Getting past the fear of selling
2. The best digital product ideas for bloggers
3. The mentality you need to adopt for success in digital products

Connect With Madison

Instagram | Website | Show Notes

Connect With Jillian

Instagram | Website | MiloTree Cart

Work with Grace + Vine in 2024:

1. Design Services for Food Bloggers

2. Our newest way to redesign your website! Learn more and get a quote here.