Essential Traffic Strategies for Food Bloggers

ByJillian Leslie

I’m Jillian Leslie, the host of The Blogger Genius Podcast and the founder of MiloTree. In my latest episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Madison Wetherill, a food blogger, web designer, and podcaster at Grace + Vine Studios.

Traffic Strategies for Food Bloggers

Today, we’re talking about the essential traffic strategies food bloggers (and other niche bloggers) need to know to compete in today’s market.

Show Notes:

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The Power of Niche Specialization and Personal Branding

One of the key takeaways from our discussion is the significance of finding your niche. Madison emphasizes that by niching down, food bloggers can establish themselves as experts and cultivate a dedicated audience. Personal branding goes hand in hand with this, as it’s crucial to connect with your audience on a personal level. By showcasing your human side and creating relatable content, you forge a stronger bond with your readers.

Adapting to Industry Changes and Optimizing for E-E-A-T

We delve into the concerns that come with shifts in ad networks, Google algorithms, and the advent of AI technology. Madison’s advice? Focus on building personal connections and optimize your website for E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). This not only helps in establishing credibility but also in gaining the trust of your audience.

The Art of Crafting an Engaging About Page

Your “About page” is more than just a biography; it’s a strategic tool to convey authority and trustworthiness. Madison highlights the importance of including a personal photo and linking to a well-crafted about page. This balance showcases your expertise while also addressing your audience’s needs and interests.

Monetization Strategies: Beyond Traditional Ads

The conversation also covers monetization strategies for food bloggers. We discuss the potential of diversifying income streams through digital products like paid meal plans, newsletters, and ebooks. The goal is to provide specific and valuable content that solves your audience’s problems, thereby building a community of loyal supporters.

Essential Tools for Food Bloggers

Madison shares her favorite tools, which include Ahrefs for SEO and keyword research, Airtable for project management, and the Kadence framework for website customization. I also chimed in with the mention of ChatGPT and Canva as indispensable tools for bloggers.

Building a Community and Offering Value

Our discussion highlights the shift from relying solely on ad revenue to creating valuable digital products and nurturing a strong community. The key is to connect with your audience, address their problems, and build trust through personalized and niche-specific content.

Remember, food blogging is now more than just recipes—it’s about the stories, the expertise, and the connections we make.

Other Related Blogger Genius Podcast episodes You’ll Enjoy:

MiloTreeCart, the Best Tool for Non-Techies to Sell Digital Products

I also want to introduce you to the MiloTreeCart, a tool designed for non-techies to sell digital products easily. It comes with features like fill-in-the-blank sales pages, check-out pages, a sales dashboard, upsells, and customer support. MiloTreeCart is currently available for a lifetime deal of $349 or three easy installments of $116.33.

Transcript: #326: Essential Traffic Strategies for Food Bloggers

Jillian Leslie (00:00:00) – Hi, I’m Jillian, welcome to a brand new episode of The Blogger Genius Podcast. This has been a very interesting time. Google has been rolling out updates and many bloggers, niche bloggers who monetize via ads and affiliates have gotten hit. I’ve been on calls this week with many of you and one blogger said, Jillian, you have been right. It is time that we have multiple income streams and I’m now ready to sell digital products. If this is you, get on a free 20 minute call with me where I will help you come up with your digital product strategy and share best practices on how others are finding success. To book your call, just go to milotree.com, our homepage. Scroll down and you’ll see a link to my calendar. And please remember, the one constant in building online businesses is change. So book your free call now! I’m excited to show you a whole new way to monetize.

Announcer (00:01:06) – Welcome to the Blogger Genius podcast, brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.

Jillian Leslie (00:01:13) – Welcome back to the show. I have a very timely episode for you today. I am interviewing Madison Wetherill. She is a food blogger. Her food blog is Joyfully Mad Kitchen, and she is also a web designer and podcaster at Grace and Vine Studios, focusing on food blogs. Now, this episode is relevant for any kind of niche blogger because we are talking about how to stand out and have success today, and a lot of this has to do with being very specific in your niche, diversifying your traffic sources, your income sources, and asking yourself, why does my content matter to somebody? So therefore, it’s really about setting yourself up as an authority or your e a t, which comes directly from Google. How do you show your experience, your expertise, your authority and your trust today? Because this is what Google is looking for. We get into all of these topics and more. I think you’re going to really like this episode. So without further delay, here is my interview with Madison Wetherill.

Jillian Leslie (00:02:35) – Madison. Welcome to the Blogger Genius podcast.

Madison Wetherill (00:02:39) – Thank you Gillian, I’m so excited to be here.

Jillian Leslie (00:02:41) – You are a food blogging. I’m going to say expert and you create food, the actual food blogs for people. In addition, you’re a food blogger. So will you share your entrepreneurial journey like how you got started and where you are today?

Madison Wetherill (00:03:03) – Absolutely. It is very interesting. I often get this strange look when I tell people what I do, not only because it’s in the entrepreneur like online space, which is very foreign to a lot of people, but they’re like, you design websites for food bloggers, like, and there’s just all these questions that come from it. But if I go back about nine years now, I was in a corporate career kind of in I studied graphic design in college, and when I got out, got a corporate career. I lived in a very like small town, and it was a basically like we designed boxes, like shipping boxes, but also like the little end caps that you see in like Walmart and stuff like that.

Madison Wetherill (00:03:39) – And very quickly I realized that that was not the type of design work that I really wanted to do. And I actually found out I was pregnant with my oldest son, and then a week later lost that job. And so there was this moment of like, what am I going to do? I knew that I wanted to get out of corporate after just a few, like, I think it had been about two years that I was in that job, and I knew I wanted the flexibility to be able to stay home with my kids if I wanted to. And so I thought, well, I’m kind of being handed this opportunity to try my hand at entrepreneurship and see where it goes. And I had already started a blog at that point, and I had already started doing like logo designs and random things on Etsy. And so I said, okay, well, let’s just see what happens in the next nine months as I kind of prepare for this first baby, like, let’s see what I can do if I actually put my mind to creating a business.

Madison Wetherill (00:04:28) – And there’s been a lot of bumps in, you know, bruises along the way, but it’s I cannot imagine my life in any different way, and I can’t imagine doing anything different with my time. And the food blogging and web design thing kind of just happened because I stumbled into both of those things, and then all of a sudden had people in the food blogging space that I knew from my blog being like, oh, can you design this for me? Can you design this for me? And it kind of morphed from there.

Jillian Leslie (00:04:54) – What I think is super interesting, and this is talked about a lot in the blogger space, is finding your niche, finding your lane. And it’s so funny. When I interview food bloggers, I find the ones who are the most successful are the ones who have super niche down like I’m. I’ve never. I can’t say that. I’ve never. But for the most part, I find that more people could niche down rather than they’re too niche down. What’s funny about your story is that you create websites for people, but not just any kind of people, food bloggers.

Jillian Leslie (00:05:31) – So within that space you’ve niched down and what it sounds like is you found your people. People know who you are. They know what to expect from you. They you just have to be an expert in food blogging, website design, and you’ve got a business. So you’re not building websites for the mom and pop shop down the street. And then for some entrepreneur, do selling whatever. Like you just go, this is my expertise. This is my lane. And you’ve been able, as you know, to grow a successful business. So for anybody listening who’s like, I don’t know about this niching down thing, you are the perfect example.

Madison Wetherill (00:06:17) – Yeah. And it’s funny that you say that because this is a conversation that I have with clients all the time, because people are so afraid to niche down to the point of pushing out other potential opportunities. And what’s funny is every single time that somebody does that and they they take that risk, I don’t even think it’s a risk. But it feels like a risk, right? Like it feels scary and it feels like, well, what if I don’t? You know, what if it’s not successful enough? If I put myself in a box? But every single time people experience exactly what you just described, where they are more successful with that niche, because they push a people aside, because they were clear on who it was that they served and how they served them.

Madison Wetherill (00:06:59) – And I see this, you know, of course, in my own business. And I will say to something that you people just need to know about Niching down is you can always change it and you can always you can always say, well, I really want to do this little I want to do this one thing. I want to do sourdough. But if you want to do something outside of sourdough like, that’s okay too. It doesn’t have to be forever. It’s not like, you know, you never can talk about anything else or do anything else. But oftentimes when you’re trying to grow and see success, you have to be in that one lane. And like you said, you have to become the expert in that lane for other people to trust you. Because the the flip side of that is if you talk about everything, nobody’s going to remember you for anything specific and you’re just, you know, going to get forgotten.

Jillian Leslie (00:07:45) – In fact, I think about it this way. Is there a group of people out there? And remember, it doesn’t have to be like it can be a small niche because the world is really big.

Jillian Leslie (00:07:55) – But are there people who, when you tell them what you offer, are right there raising their hand, going, that’s for me, you’re talking to me. And I was on a call today with a woman who helps people with pain. And that’s a big topic. And as we were talking, I kept saying, well, who is it for? Who’s like, pain is like a, you know, everybody has pain. So but if you say, I am pain, I do pain management for athletes and I do, you know, pain management for college athletes or I whatever. All of a sudden now that college athlete who’s in pain is going to raise his or her hand and go, me, me, me versus just like pain. So that’s what I say is use that as a test. Is there a group of people who would be excited to raise their hand for you because of what you offer?

Madison Wetherill (00:08:50) – Absolutely. And I think people are just afraid to step into that because there’s so much unknown about, you know, what else there is out there.

Madison Wetherill (00:08:58) – But and I also think it partially is, you know, within your own circle of people, you know, there might be a really, really small pocket of those people like you just described, but you forget that those other those people know other people who are like them. And so all of a sudden you’ve taken your little small pocket of people and they will start to refer you to other people and tell people. I remember I had a client who specifically did Whole30 recipes, and I had a friend who was telling me, oh, I’m starting my first Whole30. Instantly I knew who to tell her to go check out because it was, like, so clear. But if it had just been like, oh, I’m trying this diet and I don’t really know. Like she wasn’t clear on what she wanted. I couldn’t have given her that, you know, that resource. So like you were saying, you have to get to the point where it’s like so easy for someone to say, oh, you’re interested or, oh, you’re struggling with pain and you’re a college athlete.

Madison Wetherill (00:09:47) – Like, great, I know exactly who to send you to. Yeah. And that’s when you, you like, find your, you know, your lane and like the golden ticket.

Jillian Leslie (00:09:55) – And it could be that nobody like college athletes doesn’t work for her. Okay. Well, what other sliver of people could you find that you could speak to ADHD people like, who knows? Like what is it? Who else is in pain and where can and where have you? Where do you start to see traction? You know, it’s funny because for MiloTreeCart, food bloggers love MiloTreeCart, which is really funny because you’d think, oh no, food bloggers mostly make their money via traffic. And so but what we have found is food bloggers want to start selling stuff, and food bloggers talk to other food bloggers. So it just so happens because there are a lot of food bloggers in my audience, and I have guests on who talk about food blog. Like it all kind of starts to come together. Do I think that bro’s selling? Who knows what could benefit? Sure.

Jillian Leslie (00:10:45) – But it’s like, where are you getting traction? How do you lean into that? So let’s talk about food bloggers today, because as I said, a lot of my audience are food bloggers. And there’s from what I gather, there’s a level of nervousness I’m going to call it in this space because food blogging got very oh, what am I going to say, optimized. You knew how you okay so you niche down. You have a fast site which I’m sure Madison you designed for people that’s performative, like very optimized. you you say, hey here you, you know, you you use these tools, you, you you find the low competition keywords, you start cranking out blog posts. Here’s exactly how you structure your post, blah blah blah. And all of a sudden you could start ranking in Google. Now things are starting to shift third party cookies, which is how how advertisers track you around the internet are changing. Google is changing. So I feel like food blog. Well, during the pandemic, everyone was home, everyone was cooking.

Jillian Leslie (00:11:58) – Now people might not be and it’s hard. You know, everybody was doing sourdough starter. How like now I feel like things are a little less secure. I could be wrong. Tell me what you are seeing in terms of state, of the state of the world, in food blogging.

Madison Wetherill (00:12:19) – For sure. And you’re totally right. There is a little bit of like this panic, this uncertainty. But at the end of the day, before I kind of go into like what I’ve seen, I really think we have to remember that as entrepreneurs, as bloggers, we have to be resilient and we have to be adaptable. And if you can, you know, continue to focus on those two things, you’re going to be fine. However, with that being said, I think part of the reason there’s kind of this fear and panic is, is because there is so much uncertainty. And, you know, you described a couple of the things that are leading to us kind of not knowing what the future of blogging is going to look like, but something that I’ve.

Madison Wetherill (00:13:01) – Been telling people in conversations recently is, you know, these are ad networks, Google itself, like they are in the business of making money. So while it might look different in six months or a year or in ten years, like, it’s hard to even think that far ahead because it feels like blogging is so brand new. But blogging has already been around for ten, 20, 25 years. So going forward, you know, things might look different, but our livelihood and our ability to make money through food blogs is just as much is just as important to the ad networks and to Google as their own bottom line, because they’re all connected, right? Like they’re all working together. And so that’s that’s my first perspective is that, yes, things are changing. But at the end of the day, everybody wants to make money through advertising and through blog content. And so things are going to work out. You know, that that’s just a positive way to look at it. Right? Another huge shift that I’m seeing that comes a lot from both these these changes to potential, you know, the monetization stream of ad revenue, but also with the with AI being on the scene is I’m really seeing this shift back towards personal branding.

Madison Wetherill (00:14:10) – And, you know, I’ve had so many conversations with clients over the years who are kind of like behind the scenes. They didn’t want to be, you know, in front of their audience. They didn’t even want like a profile picture on their website. And now we’re seeing this really big push that you have to make sure it’s clear who you are and who’s behind the content. And I’m loving this shift, honestly, because it’s I think it’s a one way that you can really fool proof and, you know. Just make sure that you’re not going to lose everything overnight. The more that you can have connections with your audience that they can know who you are, they can know what your niche is. The more you know, no matter what happens, you’re still going to be able to rely on that group of people who are your biggest and truest fans. So that’s definitely a huge shift that I’m seeing. But I think it’s honestly, I think it’s for the better for the longer haul of, you know, what our industry does.

Madison Wetherill (00:15:04) – Does that make sense? Absolutely.

Jillian Leslie (00:15:06) – In fact, I agree with you completely that, you know, for us OG bloggers, it was literally like, wake up in the morning and be like, what do I want to write about? And what recipe and what did I make last night for dinner? And I’m going to go off into some tangent story about my kids and who knows what. And then it got to the place of like, whoa, this is a business, and people don’t really care about you and your kids, and you’re just kind of like randomly talking about stuff like, no, no, no, you need to get to the recipe. You need to say why this is useful. You need to have that recipe card. And now I agree with you. It becomes a little bit more of, well, who is this person who created this recipe? And the truth is, I still might not totally care about your kids. No offense, but I mean, I know, I’m sure they’re lovely, but now it could be, hey, I have a kid who’s got certain allergies, and this is his favorite mac and cheese recipe.

Jillian Leslie (00:16:01) – And so if you have a kid like my kid, like, if I can relate to you as a human and go, hey, I see you, and here’s why this is relevant for you, I think that’s a superpower. And I in fact, I just posted a real today about how do you compete against AI. And it’s all about show up, as I wrote, show up as a real person over and over, warts and all. And I think that is really powerful. If you’re the person with the no makeup on that that morning and you show up and are like, hey, I’m okay showing up like this or share again, you don’t want to share, like deep stuff. I, I would say, like especially anything like that you’re going through. But any way that people can relate to you, I think is where the super power comes from today.

Madison Wetherill (00:16:55) – Right. And I totally agree. And I think that is really what is going to people have been saying this too, right? Like what’s the one thing that I can’t do? It can’t be human.

Madison Wetherill (00:17:04) – So the more you add in that human factor, whether it’s, you know, I’m just a real person behind the camera or it’s the, you know, pictures, like the photos for your blog that have your hands in it. Like it’s such a simple thing, but that can make it feel so much more real. And what’s really interesting, you know, we live in kind of our own little bubble being in this space, because we are hyper aware of all of these changes and things that are happening in our industry. Most of our audience is not they are not fearful of AI. I mean, maybe they’ve heard about it. Maybe. But like most people haven’t used ChatGPT to write a recipe for them they don’t even know. Like there’s been a lot of comments talking about, you know, those people will see in a Facebook group an AI generated image that has food bloggers were like, that is so fake. But as you know, the regular people out there who are not food bloggers, they think it’s real.

Madison Wetherill (00:17:53) – So all that to say, like we are kind of living in a bubble where we find, you know, we think about these things all day long because they impact our business. But just know that your audience is still a little bit protected from that. And that’s a good thing, because I think we have a longer runway to protect our businesses, to get ahead of this trend before it’s like, you know, the train is kind of off the tracks. But I think that shift towards just being human again and finding this balance between, like, you know, the original blogging, where it was all about the story to now where it’s like nobody cares about the story, like find the balance that works for you and for your audience. And that’s really where you’re going to find success going forward, I think.

Jillian Leslie (00:18:35) – Absolutely. So given that you optimize food blogs, if you were to just give a top line assessment of, say, the 3 or 5 things you need to make sure your blog does like nuts and bolts, what would you say they are?

Madison Wetherill (00:18:51) – Yeah, it’s funny because when I think back we used to say like, make sure you have a good theme, make sure your site is fast and those things are really important.

Madison Wetherill (00:18:58) – But I think those are like, okay, yeah, we got that. We’re doing those things. So I think what people really want to know is like, what’s the next phase of like, how do I optimize my website? And I think one thing that we kind of just touched on is really optimizing your website for itI, which is, you know, a term that we’ve all heard, but basically e t is just can you be trusted as the person, but.

Jillian Leslie (00:19:20) – Can you share what it stands for?

Madison Wetherill (00:19:23) – Yes, I should have pulled this up so I would have it.

Jillian Leslie (00:19:25) – I know, that’s why I’m like, I punted that to you. It’s like experience.

Madison Wetherill (00:19:32) – Hopefully I’ll cut this part out.

Speaker 4 (00:19:34) – Well.

Madison Wetherill (00:19:36) – Actually, we have an entire blog post that I can share the link to if you want that will really go like super high, not high level, but really go in deep about what it what it is. But what it stands for is experience, expertise, authoritative ness, and trustworthiness.

Madison Wetherill (00:19:51) – So if you kind of boil that down, really, it’s like, can I trust that what I’m reading is from somebody who knows what they’re talking about, who has experience and can be trusted. And so when you think about optimizing your website for itI, the first thing really is making sure, like I said, you have a picture of you, like, who is this person behind the website? Because anyone or anything even like I can create a website, but not every person you know is going to put their face on there. So the moment you have a picture of yourself, it doesn’t have to be, you know, you don’t have to hire a professional photographer like iPhones take amazing photos these days, take a good quality lighting and professional looking photo and put it on your website. The second part of that is making sure that you’re linking to your about page. This is one of the like signals for Google of authoritative ness and trustworthiness. That about page should also be really well done and professional.

Madison Wetherill (00:20:48) – I used to joke that about pages used to be like somebody’s resume and it shouldn’t be that, but it also shouldn’t quite be all about the story either. But really, you’re about page should paint you as an expert in whatever niche you’ve decided. So if you are doing sourdough, like how long have you been doing sourdough? Did you just start this week, or have you been using your same sourdough starter for 25 years? You know, if you are sharing healthy recipes, is it because you had a chronic illness that you know cooking healthy helped you to overcome? There’s a lot of different ways to kind of tie your story into your expertise, and that’s where it becomes relevant. And yeah, so linking to that about page and making sure that it’s really well done. there’s three main places to link to the about page. One is your home page one is on, your sidebar. And then the third is within your recipe card. This is actually a really big one, because when that recipe card links directly to the about page, that’s just a huge ranking or not ranking signal linking signal for Google to understand kind of how everything fits together and again, why you are an authority.

Jillian Leslie (00:21:57) – I want to take a short break to say that if you are looking to create your first digital product, I personally recommend you start with an e-book and I have everything you need to create this. I have 13 ChatGPT AI prompts to use to create an e-book in under three hours. To grab this freebie, go to Milotree.com/ebookprompts. That’s Milotree.com/ebookprompts. Oh, okay. Prompts, prompts. Snag it today. What are you waiting for? And now back to the show. There’s a theme here to our conversation, and that really is who are you and why and how should I trust you? And I. I would add that thing too, of being human, but also recognize for your audience the what’s in it for me piece, which is again, what are they getting out of what you are creating?

Madison Wetherill (00:23:08) – Exactly. And that’s why I said that the about page, like it used to be kind of this like it’s all about your resume and your experience. And there was no mention of like, your audience.

Madison Wetherill (00:23:17) – And then now I think it really has to be a balance of those two things because. Ironically, when someone goes to an about page, they actually aren’t. They don’t really care about you. They’re not learning, wanting to learn about you as the creator. What they’re really asking is like, how do I fit into this story? Is this website for me? And that’s what the about page should answer. It should answer that question, and it should give them something to relate to, whether that is as simple as like I used to be X and now I am Y, and they can relate to that. Or it’s just like the real life. I’m a mom with three kids. I know how stressful dinnertime is, so I make sure my recipes on my website are easy for you to get on the table in ten minutes, whatever it is. But really capitalizing on that interest and that that person has like a piqued interest when they go to your about page. So how can you connect those dots for them.

Madison Wetherill (00:24:06) – And that doing that is going to also benefit your site from an E.T. perspective.

Jillian Leslie (00:24:12) – That’s great in terms of the ways that food bloggers are monetizing right now, I’m assuming a lot of it again, is ad revenue putting ads on your site, being with rap dev or Mediavine, and that’s always the goal. I see people who, let’s say, just get into Mediavine and they go, yeah, okay, I’m into Mediavine, but then guess what? They can’t necessarily buy that second house being in Mediavine. So they come to me and they go, okay, now I’m ready to start opening up, tapping into new income streams of digital products. What can I offer? Because I recognize now I’ve reached this goal, but it’s not the end of the game. It’s just kind of another step in my journey. So where else are you seeing food bloggers monetize?

Madison Wetherill (00:25:01) – I love that you described it that way, because I think that it’s it’s this weird thing where you have this goal to reach, you know, monetization, and you get there and you’re like, I can’t pay my bills with this.

Madison Wetherill (00:25:11) – I can barely afford groceries with this, you know? And so I think, like you said, people are really shifting. And and it also is really beneficial for people who are not monetized through ads to start building these income streams. Some of the ones that I’m seeing people kind of flock to, so whether they’re trendy or they’re just seeing success with is, I’ve seen a lot of people doing paid meal plans and there’s different apps that you can use for it, but it also is as simple as just kind of something that you’re creating for people who like, almost like a Patreon type newsletter. Where do it in a newsletter?

Jillian Leslie (00:25:42) – Absolutely.

Madison Wetherill (00:25:43) – Yeah. So meal plans seem to be really popular again. but just in a, in a paid format and, you know, in a really intentional and curated format. And by the way, you can set.

Jillian Leslie (00:25:52) – That up easily in MiloTreeCart. I’ve got a bunch of food bloggers who do that. So yeah. Keep going. Yeah, yeah.

Madison Wetherill (00:25:58) – I think another thing you kind of alluded to is like paid newsletters.

Madison Wetherill (00:26:02) – So Substack has become really popular. and even within other newsletter platforms, there’s ways to monetize certain content. So if you want to have like kind of that locked content that someone has to pay to see, that’s another thing. and then I think the last one, it’s it’s definitely not new at all, but I’ve just seen kind of a trend towards it is paid ebooks. So not just like the freebie like here, my five best recipes, but it’s really like a curated list of, you know, 30, 40 recipes in a digital format. It doesn’t have to be a printed cookbook, but I’m seeing a lot of people kind of flock to that as well. and those, you know, none of those are like anything out of the norm of what you’re already doing. When you create content, it’s just packaging it up in a unique way and in an accessible way. Because honestly, our audience does not love ads. So anytime you can give them our content without ads, I think people are really interested in that.

Jillian Leslie (00:26:57) – And the question that I get all the time is why would anybody buy this if the content is already on my blog for free? And I say what they’re buying is the ease because they don’t know your blog like you do. They’re not going into this search bar and searching for your how would they know what your top recipes are? Or like your foolproof desserts? You need to package that up as the foolproof desserts that I always joke will impress your mother in law and like, sell that so that you. Because I’m willing to pay 15 bucks for desserts that are going to knock it out of the park. Like that’s what like so therefore, if I trust you because I’ve seen your your content and maybe I’ve seen you showing up in stories on Instagram and, and I go, okay, you will lead me on the right path. Then you’re selling your 15 best desserts that I can’t screw up. Okay. Like that’s it. I go, I get what’s in it for me. I get why trusting you is so important.

Jillian Leslie (00:28:06) – And ultimately then I look good. So for $15, I’m. It’s like an insurance policy. I am willing to spend that. And that is what I have to keep telling food bloggers over and over again is you. You have such a different perspective of your blog and your content than any of your visitors, people in your community. They’re not paying attention like that.

Madison Wetherill (00:28:35) – Yeah, absolutely. And something else that you kind of you mentioned that made me think of this is goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning about your niche. Like if you are trying to package up 15 yummy recipes, like probably nobody’s going to buy that. But if it’s 15 foolproof desserts you can serve to your mother in law, like, absolutely sign me up. Or if it’s 15 snacks for after school for picky kids like yes, please give that to me, I had another I saw a recent book that was like 15 sourdough discard cookie recipes and I’m like, yes, I want that because I can’t develop that myself, you know? So the more specific you get and if you can solve a specific problem for your audience.

Madison Wetherill (00:29:13) – I know you talk about this all the time. That’s where you’re going to see success. And, you know, I think something we didn’t mentioned when I was talking about, you know, this trend is I think people are trying this method of having different income streams as another way of protecting their business as a whole, because it’s not likely. I mean, you can correct me if you’re if I’m wrong because I think you obviously have a lot more experience with this, but it’s not like overnight you’re going to switch and have 80% of your revenue coming from these income streams of digital products. However, if you do lose a big revenue stream like your ad revenue, all of a sudden now you still have something and you’re not climbing up from nothing when that happens. And I also think then you’re building that like true community of your your closest audience members who are going to buy whatever it is that you sell, like they’re just gonna be like, here’s my credit card. I’ll take it.

Jillian Leslie (00:30:05) – I said this, I shared this in a recent podcast, and this is nothing new.

Jillian Leslie (00:30:08) – This has been around for a long time. But if you think about it, if you have a thousand true fans and each one spends $100 a year buying your products, you’ve just made $100,000. So this idea of one to many, which is very much like the ad model, I need thousands, millions of visitors in order to make money via ads. It’s different when it comes to selling products and services, because you’re selling access in a weird way to your expertise, to you, but really your expertise and that is valuable. I think. We don’t know how to charge for that. It feels uncomfortable. It feels easier to just put out free content and go, you know, let the ad gods, you know, give me money for this. I think it’s harder to say, hey, this dessert is really going to impress your mother in law. Like I promise you, or I’ll give you your money back. And then you tap into your own insecurities of, like, your mother in law and like, that’s so relatable.

Jillian Leslie (00:31:09) – Like, you immediately know the story just by me saying that. And by the way, I have like a really lovely mother in law, but like, I still want to impress her. I still want her to think I’m like a good daughter in law and like a good mother, you know what I mean? So it’s like, that’s so like you’re smiling because you totally get it. And so all of a sudden it becomes a story and it becomes a connection. So thinking about how do I find these thousand true fans? It’s by honestly one by one loving on people. It’s by saying, I’m a human and you’re human and the world’s weird right now with AI, but let’s connect and let’s do what we’ve done for hundreds of thousands of years, which is need each other and rely on each other and be kind to each other so that I feel we all crave. And if you can tap into that with vulnerability, not again with authenticity. Let’s use that. I think that is your superpower.

Jillian Leslie (00:32:05) – So with with digital products, usually what you’re looking for is you’re looking for some traction. So maybe it becomes your book of recipes and then it could be who knows. Like maybe you have some skill with sourdough and you go, hey, I’m going to do coaching for people who love sourdough and somehow can’t get their starter working. Hey, get on a call with me. Or maybe you create a community of people who love sourdough recipes, and you show up live once a month and bake something cool. And maybe you, you bake something together and you create community. And that’s where the money is. The money? Well, yes, book sales are great, and you can make them while you’re sleeping. The money really is bringing people together. So just be put, I would say put that in the back of your mind. It shifts the way you think about your food blog or your any kind of blog. Because again, as you were saying, it’s like I’m hiding behind my blog. You don’t really have to know me.

Jillian Leslie (00:33:06) – And now it’s like, oh no, let’s talk. Let’s, let’s, you know, connect. So that’s just the thing that that I continue to see that I think is as a person who likes people, it makes me happy when like, I love my podcast because I get to connect with you. And so I just think that when I can help somebody create a community or solve problems for other people, like, what else are we here for? That’s just my. Personal perspective.

Madison Wetherill (00:33:36) – I agree, and I think that’s something that food bloggers in particular struggle with or have struggled with in the past is recognizing that what you’re creating and what you’re providing is not just a recipe, that there’s some reason that that recipe matters. And it’s not your story necessarily. It’s not because it’s your grandmother’s recipe, but it’s because it’s the recipe you make when you have friends coming over for the first time and you’re nervous and you want a recipe that’s trusted, or when you have soccer practice and you want your kids to have a healthy dinner before they’re on the go, it’s it’s those struggles that you are not the only person who has those struggles.

Madison Wetherill (00:34:10) – There’s hundreds, if not thousands of people in your audience who also have that struggle. And it just becomes about being clear with people when they come to your site for the very first time. You know, this is something I talk about a lot, where, you know, someone comes to your website for a random post and it’s from Google. They don’t know you or it’s from Pinterest, they don’t know you. How are you connecting those dots for them? How are you making it really clear what that struggle is that you solve and making it like just so easy for them to be like raising their hand, saying like, absolutely, I want to be a part of what you’re doing because I relate to that and I struggle with that too. And so it’s so interesting how like, that’s the same thing for digital products. It’s the same thing for like when you, you know, niche down and you create a brand on your website, it’s the same thing I’m seeing popular on Instagram. Like you have all of these like Instagram accounts.

Madison Wetherill (00:35:00) – Some on the other day told me about one that was meal planning for shift workers like nurses, doctors like that type of thing like that is so specific. But it’s so it’s so relevant to those people who it fits right. Like it doesn’t apply to me at all. So I’m not going to go follow that account. But that’s what we’re trying to do. And we create these niches and these brands is make it so easy for someone to say yes or no. And that puts, like you said, that puts us into a vulnerable position because we just want everyone to be able to love our recipes. And I’m sure all of your recipes are lovely and they’re delicious and amazing, but they’re not for everybody. And the faster you can get to being okay with that and being just really clear about that, I think the faster you’re going to see success in all of these different areas that are, you know, a part of your food blog business.

Jillian Leslie (00:35:44) – I couldn’t agree more. So to wrap up, what are tools, let’s say your five favorite tools for you for other food bloggers, bloggers that you know.

Jillian Leslie (00:35:55) – What are people using?

Madison Wetherill (00:35:58) – It’s a really good question because honestly, there are just so many tools out there. I when it comes to like what I use for my own food blog, I really when it comes to SEO, I really love Ahrefs. That is kind of my preferred keyword research tool. I’ve used SEMrush before, but Ahrefs just works for my brain and my team. Over there. We use a combination of Ahrefs and Rank IQ for our SEO and keyword research. I really also love Airtable, which if people haven’t used Airtable, it’s kind of like a project management tool and like Google Sheets or Excel, like got together and made it pretty. That’s kind of the way that it works. It’s a database tool, but it just gives you tons of different options and ways to customize your the way you look at information. So that’s been really helpful when I do things like a content audit on my site or even when I’m working on like reorganizing my categories for a website redesign, like it’s just a way to visualize data.

Madison Wetherill (00:36:59) – those are three. Let me see. I’ll give a little shout out to kind of the way that we work with clients right now. So our like, signature package that we’re doing with clients is our crafted website, which is kind of like a semi-custom way of working with clients. And we are utilizing the cadence framework. so that’s a tool that I am loving for, not just us, but also for our clients, because it gives food bloggers a really great way to customize their blog content. So it uses a bunch of different blocks that you can, you know, customize and design differently for mobile versus desktop and add colors and things like that. And so I think when we talk about standing out, that’s one way that you can literally have your content visually stand out and have people get people to pay attention and wait.

Jillian Leslie (00:37:45) – I just want to pause for a second. For people that don’t know, you can have a traditional theme for your WordPress site, but cadence are literal blocks that you can then almost put together, like Legos on your WordPress blog to create custom features.

Jillian Leslie (00:38:04) – Like there might be a block for testimonials or a block for I don’t know, like you would know better than me, but like, here’s where I want my photos to be, or here’s where I want this to be, and you’re kind of just that way. You’re right. It’s not like every food blog is going to look the same, because there are certain themes that lots of food bloggers like, but then you end up with a lot of sites that look very similar. That could be a positive or a negative. I can see it through both. Sides of that argument. But if you’re right, if you want some customization, cadence is a good way to go because it doesn’t slow your site down. And it’s like optimized for WordPress. So think of it as Legos.

Madison Wetherill (00:38:45) – Yeah, exactly. Cadence is a couple of different things. It is a theme itself or it’s a framework technically. So like Genesis was kind of the framework that everybody used the last ten years. Cadence is kind of newer and has a lot of features built into it.

Madison Wetherill (00:38:57) – But Cadence Blocks is actually like a plugin you could get with the feast theme or with another theme more than likely, and you’d be able to use some of those features. so it’s kind of it’s both a theme and it’s blocks, but it just it provides so many customization options and without having to know, like a lot of coding, because most food bloggers don’t have time to learn coding, nor should they. so yeah, that’s another like huge tool that we use constantly. And in my business, in my food blog and in Grace and vine. and then a fifth tool. I’m trying to think of one.

Jillian Leslie (00:39:34) – Wait, I have two ready that everybody should be using ChatGPT and Canva.

Madison Wetherill (00:39:40) – Yes, both of those are things that we use, and I’ll actually share from a ChatGPT perspective. something that I have learned to use it for because I know that it’s kind of a controversial thing. Like, do you use it to create recipes or do you use it for whatever? I really like to use it for tedious things, like projects that would take a lot of brainpower for me.

Madison Wetherill (00:39:58) – For example, if I like, wrote down all of my recipe ingredients for something, but I didn’t write down the actual step by step how to do it, I’ll throw it into ChatGPT and say, please write me a recipe for banana muffins using these recipes, these these ingredients. Usually I have to go back and forth a little bit with it because it’ll put like a bunch of headings and a bunch of adjectives and I’m like, no, please make it just simple for me. But that’s like a really simple way that saves me time. Or sometimes it’s things like converting fractions. So if I’m using, you know, in my recipe card, like one fourth cup, I actually want the one fourth symbol, but I might have like ten ingredients that need that. And so you can copy and paste that and ask it to do that. and then the third would be like, if I have something that’s in all caps and I want it to write it in regular sentence case, I can have it do that for me.

Madison Wetherill (00:40:46) – So I like to use ChatGPT for those things rather than necessarily like creating content. For me, it’s just like taking the admin like brainless kind of things out of my workflow, and it’s just so much faster than me having to, you know, sit there and type a couple paragraphs that are in all caps or something like that.

Jillian Leslie (00:41:03) – Absolutely. And in fact, you’re not the first food blogger. You’re actually the third food blogger who has shared that they put in the ingredients and they say, right, the right, the recipe steps. So that’s interesting that you’re using it for that. I, I have talked to some food bloggers who have said, hey, ChatGPT, create a banana muffin for me, and then went to then cook the banana muffin recipe. Like create this recipe for banana muffins. And then they will go cook it and see or bake it and see if it’s good. And I think that’s kind of an interesting use of ChatGPT as well to say, like, how good is it? And then you can report back on, hey, is this worth doing? I just think that’s like a way to kind of own it and put your spin on chat.

Jillian Leslie (00:41:51) – Like you could have a whole block of like, is our ChatGPT recipes good? Any good. And you create the recipe in ChatGPT and then go bake it or go cook it and see what happens. So like you can be creative with it. And I know there are those people who feel like they need to be like that. They could eat. Or here’s one. You could create a blog, you know, a blog that says, I don’t use ChatGPT for these recipes, you know, or I only or disclosing. Here’s where I use ChatGPT. I use ChatGPT to write the steps, but otherwise there is no ChatGPT in this recipe. I don’t know, I think there are ways they’ll be interesting ways to use it as a food blogger instead of this like on off perspective of like no, no, no, I can’t use it in my recipe development or all I’m doing is creating fake recipes with ChatGPT and pretending that I’ve made the recipe and then my fake photos. And so it’ll be really interesting to see how this shakes out.

Madison Wetherill (00:42:54) – Yeah. And I think people should just not necessarily be afraid of using it for anything. But yeah, like you were saying, if you’re gonna ask it to read a recipe, make sure you test it like I’ve done that before. And it took me 3 or 4 times of tweaking things and testing it to get it right, which sometimes is worth it. Like sometimes it might have taken me ten tries on my own, but, you know, using it for like some of those tedious things that just speed up your workflow. Or sometimes it’s like, you know, putting in everybody’s schedule and saying, find a common time that we can meet. Like there’s a lot of ways to use, like the computer aspect of it without feeling like you’re, you know, selling your soul to AI because you’re using it to, like, write content for your whole blog and that type of thing.

Jillian Leslie (00:43:33) – Absolutely. Okay. Madison, this has been so enlightening. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation. If people want to reach out to you to see what you do to find your food blog, where should they go?

Madison Wetherill (00:43:48) – For sure.

Madison Wetherill (00:43:48) – Yeah, I would love to continue this conversation with anyone who, you know, is really like thinking about how do I step out and, you know, stand out in this sea of food bloggers in this AI world? Like, how do I kind of carve that niche for myself? that’s definitely something that we help our clients with when we work on branding with them. But, you can always come chat with me over on Instagram at Grace and vine. I also have my podcast, which Jillian’s going to be a guest on. That’s called the Vine Podcast. So I talk about things like this and things like that, and designing your website to stand out and things like that over on that show. but yeah, if you’re interested in just kind of learning about how we work with clients or how we might be able to support you, you can head over to our website, Grace and Vine studios.com, and just look at the different ways that we work with clients and support food bloggers in general.

Jillian Leslie (00:44:34) – Awesome.

Jillian Leslie (00:44:34) – Well, I just have to say, Madison, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Madison Wetherill (00:44:39) – Absolutely.

Jillian Leslie (00:44:39) – Thank you. I hope you guys like this episode. For me, my biggest takeaway is to think about how your visitor or customer fits into the story of your content. It’s no longer about just I find low competition keywords. I write blog posts that feature all of these keywords. I put it out for Google, I rank for it, I get traffic, I get money. Now it’s about you and your vibe and your expertise and your connection to your audience. This is also about finding new ways to monetize. If you are a food blogger and you are not selling your best recipes in an e-book to your audience, you should start not just because it’s a way to turn on a new income stream. It’s also a way to start testing what your audience wants from you. This is how you find gold. If you want to get on a free 20 minute call with me to talk about this, just go to Milotree.com and you’ll see my calendar to sign up for a time.

Jillian Leslie (00:45:47) – If you’re ready to start. Remember, with MiloTreeCart, you can be selling your e-book, any kind of digital product in under five minutes. We offer a 30 day, no questions asked money back guarantee. We are selling it right now for a lifetime deal of $349. We also have a three month payment plan. Most people make this all back after their first product, and you buy it once and you own it for ever. So go check that out Milotree.com. Hey, if you’re liking these episodes, please share them with a friend. This is how I get great guests, and I will see you again next week with another great guest.