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Episode 306: The Power of Audio for Food Bloggers (Clubhouse recording) with Megan Porta, Taryn Solie and Jenna Urben

In episode 306, Megan chats with fellow food bloggers Taryn Solie, Jenna Urben and more on Clubhouse about their passion for taking food blogging to the next level by incorporating audio to reach current and new audiences.

We cover information about brand recognition and reaching those audience members who aren’t visiting the blog and how the people you network with as you become a podcaster will give you more networking opportunities and new audience to embrace.

Listen on the player below or on iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.

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Guest Details

Connect with Hot Pan Kitchen & Grill Like A Mother
Website

Bio Taryn is all about amazing gluten free food for families, whether that be on a grill, in an Instant Pot, or cooked on the stove. She tests her recipes over and over again to make sure they’re right. Taryn has taste testers who are gluten free and those who aren’t, because it’s important to her that her recipes taste good for EVERYONE. So on Hot Pan Kitchen, that’s what you’ll find. Gluten free recipes that taste great for EVERYONE.

Takeaways

  • There’s a lot to enjoy in podcasting
  • Podcasting is easier than starting a blog
  • There’s crossover between blogging and podcasting
  • Build your EAT (expertise, authority, trust) with your audience by starting a podcast.
  • There are different styles of podcasts – interviews, just a person talking. Not all of them are ongoing, some are seasonal or just a certain number of episodes.
  • When you begin a podcast, you get to talk to people that you otherwise normally wouldn’t get to talk to – broadens your network.
  • There’s not a lot of food bloggers in the podcasting world so it’s a great opportunity to be an early adopter and grow your audience.
  • Starting a podcast that’s food related is a great way to set yourself apart in a very saturated food blog market.
  • Most of the social platforms are pushing audio in some way which shows us how valuable it is.
  • Use your voice in voiceovers, in sending messages to people, in Reels and in video to draw close to your audience. You can also send messages through your email to your audience.
  • There’s power in the spoken word.
  • People relate to you more when they hear your voice. They understand what type of person someone truly is and what their intentions are. They’re going to know and trust you much faster.
  • Be clear with your podcast name. You can be clever and clear, but always be clear.

Resources Mentioned

Zencastr – record a podcast in studio quality.

GarageBand (free on Macs) – music creation studio

Libsyn – hosting for podcasts

Descript – transcription services

Zoom – video and audio recording

Skype

Podcasters Paradise (Entrepreneurs on Fire) – resources for podcasting success

Want To Know More About Podcasting?

Get the 5 Steps Now!

Check out Angie Trueblood in episode 245 to learn about guesting on a podcast for leveraging your blog.

Transcript

Click for full script.

306_CLUBHOUSE_AUDIO

Megan Porta: Hello, food bloggers. How are you today? I hope you are having a wonderful day. I just wanted to give this episode a little bit of an intro. We had a clubhouse conversation a few weeks ago now, and the focus of the conversation was audio. Because I am just so passionate about creating this movement where food bloggers are digging into podcasting and audio as a way to expand their brands, reach more people, and do all the good things for their businesses.

I gave a presentation at the Tastemaker conference this year about this topic. I was shocked at how many people afterward were like, oh my gosh, Megan. I wasn’t even considering starting a podcast, but now I am. So I’ve taken that and explored it a little bit, and it is something that really resonates with people.

So I thought that having a Clubhouse conversation that focused just on this topic would give me a better gauge. Yes, it definitely gave me a gauge. It told me that food bloggers are wanting to start podcasts, which is so exciting for me. This episode is actually the recording from that Clubhouse conversation, where I chat with a handful of my favorite food bloggers about this topic. Inside of the conversation, you will hear from Taryn from Hot Pan Kitchen, who also has a brand new podcast about cooking. Her podcast is called Grill Like A mother. It’s amazing. You should go check it out. Also in the conversation is Jenna Urben from the Urben Life. She is considering starting a new podcast. Also, you will hear from Susie from Mom’s Dinner, she is starting a podcast. Eric from Eat Like No One Else is also considering starting a podcast and is included in the conversation. Then you’ll also hear from David, from Cooking Chat and he is considering a podcast as well. So with all of that, I really hope you enjoy this conversation. It was super valuable and packed with really good nuggets. Everything you need to get the ball rolling. If this is of interest to you. 

Also, I am starting a group coaching situation. This is brand spanking new. So bear with me as I get things going with it. I am going to host a few calls a month with people who join. I’m going to include an introductory rate. So I’m going to start off really low. So if you’re interested, join now to get that rate, because it probably will go up. I foresee this being really popular. If you are a part of the Eat Blog Talk mastermind group, you do not need to pay. You’ve already paid your dues for the year. If that is you, you can join at no cost. I don’t have a sales page up because it is that new. So if you’re interested in something like this, please send me an email. [email protected]. Just let me know that you’re interested in audio group coaching, or you could call it podcast group coaching. I’m thinking that inside the calls, I will answer all of your questions that you have. Provide as many resources as possible. I will also offer at an additional fee, to create your logo for you. Your podcast logo. I have a background in graphic design and I love creating logos. So I would be happy to offer that as a service as well. I’ll offer some other services. Send me the email and I will get more details sent back to you. So I can’t wait. This is going to be fun. I think that you will hear it within our cClubhouse chat here in this episode, how passionate I am about audio and seeing food bloggers dig into audio and podcasting. It’s so exciting. This is a really exciting time. I see so many parallels with the way this was unfolding for food bloggers, compared to the way that blogging was unfolding like 10 years ago. If this is at all of interest to you, get on the wave. You will not be sorry you did this. I really hope you enjoy this episode. It was such a fun conversation and so much value is inside. So enjoy it.

Megan Porta: Hello, Taryn, how are you today? 

Taryn Solie: Hi. Hi. Good. How are you? 

Megan Porta: Good. Are you getting good feedback about your podcast? 

Taryn Solie: Yeah, it’s funny though, because I’ve been telling everybody that I know about it. So a lot of the feedback has been really positive. But it’s also oh, these people are my friends. So I would hope they would say that or be nice about their feedback.

Megan Porta: But really, there, I’m being honest with you. There’s not much to say that is negative. I would have to search pretty hard. You seem like a complete natural.

Taryn Solie: Oh, thank you. I will take that. 

Megan Porta: Yes. We’ll have you talk about that in a little bit. Hi, Jenna. How are you today? 

Jenna Urben: Good morning. Hi, I’m good. I think y’all are just talking about Taryn’s new podcast. Congratulations. 

Taryn Solie: Thank you.

Megan Porta: Okay. So we’re going to talk about audio today because I guess I got the ball rolling on this conversation at Tastemaker or maybe it was when that started. I did not expect for it to be received so well, and people afterwards were like, oh my gosh, I’ve never thought of diving into audio as a food blogger, but you’ve maybe made a case for it. Then I see Eric in the audience, he had been thinking about doing a podcast too. So I know some people have been tossing around the idea. Now the ball started rolling. Now it’s rolling. Now the momentum is going, now we’re talking about it and actually doing it. Taryn is here and she’s going to share a little bit about her experience. Jenna. I know you have some ideas for starting a podcast and maybe are slightly motivated. If any of you in the audience have either questions about how to do it, how to go about getting into audio with a podcast or other, or if you just want to come up and share objections or questions, concerns, experience. Any thoughts that you have, even if you think that it’s a dumb thought, come share it with us. I would love to hear what you guys have to say, but my goal here is to just spread the word a little bit about audio and how I think that it can really help to supplement your business. Whatever your business looks like right now. Because it is such an untapped territory. There’s almost nobody doing this in the food space. So I believe if you get on this wave now, you’re going to be at the forefront of a huge movement because the space is supersaturated, as you guys all know. We have to do something right now to set ourselves apart. What we’re doing, isn’t really doing that. We all are doing pretty much the same things day to day. So this is an opportunity to really do something different and add layers to your business and just add so much value to your audience and your brand. Okay. That was my soapbox. So I would love it if you guys came up and in the meantime, Taryn, you just started a podcast, literally you just launched this week. So would you mind telling us just about why you did it and then I guess just a little bit about how it’s gone? If there have been any tips that you want to share, if somebody else’s thinking about doing the same. Yeah. Just any little tips or nuggets that you have about your experience so far. 

Taryn Solie: Yeah. So I could talk the whole time about this. I’m just going to say, because there’s a lot that goes into it. I will preface it by saying it is not as difficult as starting a food blog. So it is easier. I do think having a food blog does make it a little easier because you’re familiar with SEO and you’re familiar with having to learn new technology because with the food blog, you have to be willing to pivot and learn all the time. I decided to start a podcast basically with the help of Megan. She talked me into it. But I am in the process of coming out with a cookbook. I’m in the development, develop recipes process right now. The cookbook is anticipated to come out in about a year. I was looking for ways to build my EAT – my expertise, authority and trustworthiness. Megan was like you should think about starting a podcast. I was like, that’s so silly, Megan, what are you talking about? But then I started exploring more into it and I was like, yeah, this really could be an option. So I’m doing it as a way to continue to build my audience. So my blog is Hot Pan Kitchen. I post gluten-free, paleo, whole food type recipes with a particular focus on grilling. My podcast is Grow Like A Mother. So they are very much complimentary. They’re not exactly the same. But the podcast is focused on grilling and that is going to be what the cookbook is focused on is going to be essentially paleo grilling recipes. So that’s a general overview Megan. I don’t know if there’s specific questions you want me to answer. 

Megan Porta: Yeah. That was a really good way to frame it and set it up. Why you started it, you really were looking for that EAT, which I think we can all relate to. Because it is such a saturated space. It’s so hard to differentiate ourselves and set ourselves apart, like I was saying earlier. So this was your way to do it. And I would love to hear just how much fun it has been for you, because I don’t think you quite expected that part. But I can tell just from listening to your handful of episodes that are up right now, that you’re having fun with it. You’ve been so creative, Taryn. Like the little sizzle on the grill, you added this very audio that I was like, holy crap. I would never have thought of that, but it’s so good. So maybe just talk about how much fun you’ve been having and how you’ve been able to tap into your creative side a little bit.

Taryn Solie: Yeah, sure. I really did not expect it to be that fun, which is silly. I am, for anybody who knows me, I met me in person. I am a talker. I talk with my hands. I talk with my mouth, I talk with my full body and like talking is my jam. I was a rush chair for my sorority in college. It’s just like my whole life. I don’t know why I thought talking in a podcast where I talk all the time would not be a good idea because it’s obviously a very good idea. Originally when I was, excuse me, when I was trying to start the podcast, I was thinking about what format I wanted for the podcast. Do I want to do just me where I’m trying to teach or do I want to do an interview style? I ended up doing both. First I should say I’m doing a seasonal podcast, which I think if you were just starting out and this is what has been true for me, is it’s a lot less intimidating to be like, I’m just going to do a podcast for a couple of months and just have it be one season. Then I can reevaluate at the end of that season and do it again if I want to. So for me, my podcast is going to be essentially six months on six months off. Which is prime, like grilling outdoor cooking seasons. So like roughly April to September. Then I can reevaluate at the end of September. So it’s not just like constantly having to book guests, edit audio and all that jazz. So that’s one thing that has been really helpful and helps take the pressure off. Honestly, I think it just makes it more fun and light. So I have guests, then that’ll be once a week. Then I also have what I’m calling, what we’re grilling episodes. That’s just me talking about what my family and I, or my friends and I have been grilling lately. I may have people on to talk about what they’ve been grilling as well. Just like friends of mine, food blogger friends of mine or maybe family too, depending on if I think my dad could be a good podcasting guest or not. So two types of episodes. I’m trying out things a little bit there. The fun part for me has been incorporating my kids. So Megan mentioned, I have some secondary audio. I had to learn this from my friend, Michelle from Cup of Zest. It’s called Wala, w a L a and it’s background noise. It’s actually in TV production and radio production, they called it wala. Because that’s what they had people saying in the background to mimic like chatter, is like Walla. I was like, oh, that’s really interesting. I would use secondary audio, like Megan was saying. I literally would stick my microphone above the grill and record the sizzle of the chicken wings. I was mentioning my kids, recording my kids eating the chicken wings and giving it like a thumbs up or two thumbs up or however they were scoring it. So that’s been really fun to do that little additional thing. I will say, I got that idea from listening to the Daily Podcasts from the New York Times, which is all, they always have that sort of thing. So that’s just in my head. Oh, I should probably do this because that seems really professional. Anyway, it was just a fun thing to do. Then the other thing that’s been really fun is and I actually was texting Megan about this, because she agreed with me, is getting to talk to people that I otherwise normally wouldn’t get to talk to. I’ve only done about three interviews so far. I have a bunch more scheduled for later in the month. But I’m talking to people who used to work for the UN world food program and who have written for Food 52 and own an award-winning distillery. I’m like, whoa, it’s so impressive. So cool to be making those connections. I was telling somebody this, I can’t remember who, but I have found the more connections you make in this business, the better and bigger your business grows. It might not be immediate, but it’s going to be eventual. I feel like those connections are just so important and I’m going to stop talking because I feel like I’m just rambling on. 

Megan Porta: No, you weren’t rambling. This was all really good, first of all. But I’m so glad you mentioned the connections, because that has been my favorite part of having my own podcast and the most valuable part. I can’t even speak to that more highly than I can. There’s just so much value in making connections. Like you said, they might not pay off immediately. I think you said this, but down the road, you never know what those connections are going to turn into. I can look back on all of the guests I’ve had on my podcast. So many times I’ve made a connection just by having them on as a guest. Then later, we’ve done a project together or they’ve come to mind about something or I’ve come to mind for them about something. So it’s so valuable establishing those connections, even if you are just doing a seasonal podcast, like Taryn is doing, that’s a really good way to get your foot in the door.

Jenna, I want you to have time too. Do you have any comments, questions for Taryn or just overall comments about what we’re talking about?

Jenna Urben: I am just soaking it all in. I feel I definitely have questions because it’s been something on my mind for the past, basically like Tastemaker and then after we did our podcast recording and then especially after that episode came out and we did the Clubhouse. Was that last week? It’s been consuming my thoughts and everything, and it’s super exciting. Then Taryn, you released your podcast a couple episodes and I was like, oh my gosh, she is having so much fun with it. I could hear it too. Yeah, all this stuff. I was like, okay, this is really cool. I would love obviously just pick y’all’s brains and I’m just here just to soak up anything y’all want to talk about. Definitely have just more, like questions, but more like nitty-gritty type things. Where y’all host and how y’all figure out the duration. You mentioned SEO, so like how that comes into play. I have questions if you want to go that route, for sure. 

Megan Porta: Yeah, we can get into the nitty gritty. I would love to invite people up if they have specific questions too, or just comments to share. But in the meantime, Jenna, I would love to hear your thoughts on just the overall scope of audio as a trend. I don’t know if I should use that word maybe, but as an avenue to explore, because you are, you’re the trend spotter that I go to. You’re my go-to trend spotter. So what do you think of this avenue for food bloggers as a new thing to explore for their businesses? 

Jenna Urben: I definitely think, like you said, there’s so much opportunity right now. I know in your Tastemaker presentation, you showed us when you searched for food bloggers, whatever the keywords were. There’s not that many people in space right now. So that’s what makes being an early adopter of these new things so exciting because you really get to get in it at the beginning and figure it out and have that audience and build up the audience. So I think for food bloggers, like how cool is that? So my mind goes, okay it’s not just a podcast on all the different podcasts, like Apple and Spotify. I don’t even know all the different things. I’m such a novice. It’s not even funny. But I see on social media, the audio push. On Twitter, here on Clubhouse right here. Facebook pages now have the opportunity to go do something similar, just like clubhouse. But also I know Megan, you’ve been uploading your podcast to Facebook as well. Cause I think they also integrated that just a few months ago. So I think when you look at the landscape, you can see that audio is on the rise and I dunno, I think it’s just such a big opportunity. So for food bloggers, I think Taryn, what you’re doing is so cool. I feel like we can all look at what you are doing and you are leading by example almost for food bloggers. This is how exactly we could get into it. I love how many, like actionable steps you’re given, if you just want to dip your toes in and do a season. It’s stuff like that. I’m interested in it from more of a resource side, sharing early adopter tips and like what I’m seeing. It’s keeping the pulse on the trends. But I definitely also think that there’s an opportunity. So I’m in the allergy friendly food space. 100% I think that there could also be an opportunity for a dairy free podcast or gluten-free, whatever your dietary restrictions are. You can say, you just went dairy free. What kind of milk are we using? What do you have your pantry stocked with? I just think that there’s so many opportunities. If we have blog posts with recipes and tips, I think it can just be a really nice content cycle that we’re going through. And if you have certain blog posts that do really well, in my mind, I’d be like, okay let’s start there for the podcast episode so you’re not just okay, where do I start? There’s nothing, at least you can draw from something. So those are my, just like overall Jenna brain dump. There you go. 

Megan Porta: Okay. There’s so much I want to reply to you guys might have to reign me in. Sorry. Let’s see, where do I say this? So you were saying like, yeah, all the platforms are showing up with audio options right now. I feel like it’s a really good way to read between the lines and see where the trend is going there. It’s not an accident that Facebook now has an audio option. Twitter’s like increasing their exposure for their audio option, which I didn’t even know was in existence, but apparently it’s been there for a while. But they’re trying to pump it up right now. It’s just like showing up everywhere. One of the things I love about you, Jenna, aside from I just love you as a person, is that you do stay on top of those trends. I love hearing that you believe that audio is on the rise as well. If you look at Google, you don’t have to go very far to figure out it’s really the place to be. Yeah, just to become an early adopter of this new, not new, but this way of communicating with your people. Okay. Let’s see. Which direction do we want to go? Do we want to talk about nitty gritty stuff or do we want to just keep having this discussion? Jenna, you had a few questions for Taryn and I, or whatever, just to throw out there. So let me know what those are and then maybe people can get brave enough to come up and talk to themselves. Let us know what you’ve got. 

Jenna Urben: Yes. Okay. Also, I just want to say too, you really encouraged me during your presentation just to start using my voice and for all of us to start using our voice. So I have been getting brave and I’m doing more voiceovers. So for anyone else, who’s I don’t know, like in the same place that I’m at. I don’t know how to use my voice and go down this journey. I feel like doing voiceovers for reels or taking talks or whatever. That really helped. Just even doing Instagram stories, like a grocery haul, just talking. I’m not even in front of the camera, but just like talking. Just like hearing my voice back. I’m like, I don’t know. It’s like exposure therapy, just hearing my voice. So that’s also been really good. So I’m glad. I think I got encouragement from you, Megan. Thank you for that. 

Megan Porta: No, I’m glad you brought that up because if we all just give that a little bit of thought, there’s so much power there and we take that for granted because we hear ourselves talk throughout the day. We don’t realize how powerful our spoken words are. I think I said this in my presentation, something like if you were to read a blog post that I wrote you or an email, it would not be the same as if I spoke those words to you, which is why I tried to do audio recordings and texts. The audio text messages and direct messages whenever I can. Because it’s so much more powerful. Every single time I do that to somebody they reply with, oh my gosh, thank you so much for recording your voice, because they can hear my inflection. They can hear my emotion and what my true meaning is. They can hear kindness and worms and you can’t hear any of that when you’re writing, when you’re typing. Even if you put emojis or smileys into your texts. But I think there’s so much power there that we take for granted that we need to remember. So doing things like what Jenna said, and just simply putting your voice on Instagram. Another idea I had that I shared at Tastemaker was to record a 30 second like MP3 of audio for your email list. Embed it in your next email and to see how it’s received. Say something like, I don’t know if you have a recipe that you really need to describe the details about or you just want to reintroduce yourself and say, Hey, it’s me. I would love to connect with you guys. Tell me what you want for spring and summer. Then just in the email, just say something like I recorded a 30 second audio clip for you. Will you please take the 30 seconds to listen to it? Let me know what you think. That is a really easy way to get your voice to thousands of people on your list or more to get your voice out there. So those are some really great nuggets. Go ahead, Taryn. 

Taryn Solie: Yeah, I was just going to say that would be a really great thing to do for a welcome series or welcome sequence, which was on my mind recently. Because I’m thinking about redoing mine, because people sign up and they get to hear your voice right away. So their first introduction is your inflection and your tone and you’re welcome to them. Which I think is awesome, I totally forgot you mentioned that, again. Then the other thing I was going to say is to your point about reading blog posts, someone reading the words that you wrote versus you reading your own words. That is why I try to do memoirs. I try to do audible, audio book memoirs, because reading Michelle Obama’s book is going to be a lot different than listening to Michelle Obama read her own book. It’s so much better when someone is reading their own words. I think you just get that much more connection, which is really what we’re all after.

Megan Porta: Exactly. Connection. Engagement. People relate to you more when they hear your voice and they understand, you can understand what type of person someone truly is and what their intentions are just through their voice. When you can get your audience to understand you better that way, they’re going to know and trust you much faster than if they read a hundred of your emails back to back. Wow. This is going fast. I love talking about this topic so much. Eric. I know that you are thinking about starting your own podcast. Do you have any comments, questions? What do you have going on? 

Eric Samuelson: Sure. Thanks, Megan. First I want to say, I love that email idea. That is awesome. I am now totally considering adding audio clips to my emails, especially the intro on. So thank you for that idea, that’s someone. So for me, I’ve been trying to expand my business and move things forward. I had someone that was recommending it, in the Facebook group I was in, but he’s been doing well with video and stuff here. I’m thinking that video is not something I’m excited about. I was like, people wanted the video here in the south end and it was nothing I was super pumped about. Plus, those that don’t know me, me and my family travel the country in our camper right now. So doing that full time. So doing video in the camper is very challenging to have just the physical space to do video. But then when I started hearing about pockets, like Megan recommended it to me, Jason from Makin’ Bacon recommended it to me. So that resonated more with me. So that’s something I can do. That’s something I can easily do. I don’t have to worry about the video aspect of it. Because video is video and audio. You’re still doing both, but to just do one seems like a really good way to go. I’ve done a couple of live events. Done like a Facebook live and a Zoom thing that totally flopped, but those types of things, all of a sudden, like I could totally do. So for me, that was like the motivation to want to do it. Right now I’m in the planning phases. Biggest thing for me is trying to figure out how to make it work in my current schedule and get into the habits to make the process work. So I’m still planning. Plus I haven’t come up with a name yet. I’m still trying to figure out the name. So what I’m thinking of doing is a podcast that’s going to be like two podcasts. So one would be a seasonal type thing where I’d be interviewing farmers and brand people talking about the behind the scenes type of what goes into bringing those projects forward. I love talking about that kind of stuff. That gets me excited. The other thing I would do, that would be more like a regular thing, would be, my wife found this, like people just doing short little clips. Short little three, three to five minutes, six minutes or so probably three days a week. It would be just expounding on my blog posts. So going through my more popular type posts with a focus on grocery store shopping. I’m really big on groceries. I love grocery shopping here and when we traveled the country, so I have a good familiarity of what products are where, so I have that great knowledge. So I bring that forth to help people with their shopping. So take that aspect of it that my most popular posts talk about that way. So that’s just rattling around in my head now. So merely this right now I need to nail down a name for that podcast, because I’m still debating and then just working into my schedule, how to get that into a habit.

Megan Porta: Eric, thank you for sharing all that. I’m so excited for you. I think that’s such a great idea about the grocery list, the grocery shopping. Because we all have to go grocery shopping, right? So you’re going to be speaking to so many people and you are such an expert in that area. I can totally relate to your video thing as well, because I don’t love doing video. I will do it fine. But it’s so much easier just to get in front of my microphone and talk. I don’t have to get dressed. I do have to get dressed, but I don’t have to look nice and decent all the time. I think that can be a hangup and just being self-conscious on video. I think that takes so long to get over that. Probably many of us here can relate to that. I’d love to help you brainstorm your name either here, outside of this conversation. But I was also going to tell you guys about a success story. You may have heard me talk about this if you were at Tastemaker, but I was sharing with people literally like five to six bloggers, food bloggers that I know who have podcasts. I believe only four of those are active, maybe even three. But one of the stories was so cool. So Christine Pitman, she’s from the food blog, Cook the Story. She saw that audio was an emerging trend and she really wanted to hop on it.

So she did last November. She started this really short format podcast that supplemented her blog posts. So she’s got a huge database of recipe posts on her blog. So what she did was, she would take a recipe and she would just pull out the information that you needed to know about the recipe. She’d quickly state it. What you would see in maybe your recipe note section. Then she would tell you why you should make it. She would then send you to her blog. So in her show notes, she would provide a link, a great backlink to her blog. It was literally like all of her episodes are around five minutes long. She did this every day. I’m sure she probably batched. So she didn’t literally do it every day, but she published an episode every day, since I believe it was like November 1st, 2021. As of the time of Tastemaker, when I was delivering this, she already had twenty-five thousand downloads or something like that, which is insane. It’s insane. Then also she got named as one of the top recipe podcasts for a really big online magazine. So really cool things happened very quickly for her. So I just wanted to point that out, Eric, you stirred my memory on that, but if you guys want to go check out her podcast to be inspired, it’s called Recipe of the Day with Christine. It’s so good. I just love her really short format snippets. Susie. I would love to let you time into, because I know you are considering diving into audio as well. So what’s on your mind?

Susie Weinrich: Thank you so much. I’m super excited about this because I was definitely not a person who was interested in podcasts at all. That was not on my radar at all. But I love listening to them. And through just talking with you, Megan and listening to your podcast here and listening to you, Jenna. I think now I want to do a podcast. So I’m actually on the Cook the Story website right now. She has an enormous catalog and actually what she’s doing is what I’m interested in. But maybe a little bit longer format with actually making the recipe. I think people love to watch videos of people making recipes. I think pretty soon there’s going to be a market for people wanting to actually just listen to the recipe while they’re making it. So one of my big questions is, talking about naming your podcast. Is it like a domain name where you can’t duplicate another one? Or how does that work? How do you check domain names for podcasts? I’m not sure who can answer this for me. 

Megan Porta: If you’re talking about starting a website to support your podcast, yeah. You would definitely need to check that just like you would a blog. If you want to keep your name along the vein of your food blog, I would basically just put a podcast after it. So I know Taryn, she went a different route and she just decided on a whole different name, but she could have just added a podcast to the end of Hot Pan Kitchen podcast. Then you would just acquire that domain. Does that make sense or is that not what you were asking? 

Susie Weinrich: I don’t think I’m interested in having an actual whole webpage for the podcast. I think I want to integrate Cook the Story, how she integrated the actual podcast episode with the actual recipes. So you’re sending people to the recipe. So I’m guessing there’s not a duplication wherever I named my podcasts, if I wanted to name it, like I think she named her recipe of the day or something. Did she have to check that name to see that it didn’t already exist? 

Megan Porta: Oh yeah. So like in the podcast directory, I would just do, I would search in all of the directories for the name that you are thinking of. Also just Google it, like whatever you’re thinking. I know Taryn, I think you told me this, that you just Googled Grill Like a Mother, and you just want to make sure that is nowhere else. Does that answer it Suzy? 

Susie Weinrich: It does. Thank you. 

Taryn Solie: I would say to Susie, it’s smart to not want to do another website. So like for me, my Hot Pan Kitchen. Okay. Let me backup. So when I was starting the podcast, I was looking for a resource and I joined a podcasting course community membership, whatever you want to call it that has videos and information that I can go to. It’s like a course essentially, so that it tells you all the tech stuff, how to set things up and and all that jazz. One thing that was said in the course about naming your podcast is you can either be clever and clear or clear, but don’t just be clever. Don’t try to think of just a cute, like for, and this is for anybody who might be thinking about this, not just you Susie, but don’t try to think of like the cute name. Think of a clear name. If you can make it cute, great. But if not, it just has to be clear, so people know what to expect when they listen to your podcast. Then on the topic of websites and stuff. So for me, Hot Pan Kitchen podcast was not a good descriptor, was not clear as to the topic of the podcast. So I needed a new name. Then Grill Like A Mother thankfully is fairly clear and cute. So it worked out for me, but in terms of a website, I searched the domain, Grow Like A Mother to make sure that nothing was already out there. I bought the domain, but I’m choosing to host my podcast archives on my website, because it’s just so much easier. I do need to get the Grill Like A Mother website up and then redirect it to my website. But it was just so much easier to have your show notes pages on the website that you have already. Additionally, I am with Mediavine, so I’m able to automatically run ads on those pages. Not that they’re going to get like a ton of traffic, but I am able to get a little to monetize them a little bit immediately, which is just an added bonus.

Megan Porta: To make a case for it. I completely agree with what you did to Taryn just to get it up and running. I love that you just dove in and you did it. Putting the show notes on your Hot Pan Kitchen site is what you needed to do. But here’s a case for eventually moving them off. When you have a really niche podcast and you create a website that supports just the podcast, you can create a high domain authority very quickly because it’s going to be so niche. My Eat Blog Talk site, I have very little effort actually into making sure the SEO is good and all of the things that I do for my food blog, I don’t do on my eatblogtalk.com at all. But my domain authority is pretty good considering I just started this like what, not even three years ago. So there’s a case for doing that eventually, but don’t let that be a reason that you don’t get started with the podcast. Do something like what Taryn is doing, or just don’t create show notes to begin with. Maybe you could create the copy and save it for later. Figure something out so that you can just get started with it. So don’t let that be a reason not to get started. Then I would love to welcome David to the stage. I had an awesome conversation with David this week that was so good. You guys are going to be hearing that episode, come out on, eat love talk soon. I can’t wait, but what do you have for audio, David? 

David Crowley: Hey, Megan, thanks. Yeah. Great to talk to you twice in one week. Yeah, I’ve been having this bug in the back of my mind a little bit. Hearing you talk about it a couple of times on your podcast and ah, maybe I need to take the plunge and this is definitely encouraging me to do it. Another reason I’m interested in expanding my food blog, is I also have a full-time day job, whereas also toying with the podcast idea. I’ve sometimes found one thing I do with my food blog because it is my second secondary income and so forth. It’s actually a great place to test stuff before I’m ready to jump into it for the organization I run. So definitely thinking of maybe launching. I love the idea of doing seasonal things. I feel that definitely sounds very good and a way to make it a little more accessible. I wasn’t interested in some things you started touching upon, some of those brass tax type things, but you covered some of it, but a little bit of follow-up, cause I would take a quick peek at your site, Taryn. So it does seem to start out with the idea of putting it on my blog, Cooking Chat would make this easier. So doing that, it looks like you’re doing each of those show notes is like a blog post. I’d love to hear a little more about how that works. Does that still help with building up your SEO? Then those are just internal links or do you, in that case, are you getting an external link from an Apple podcast or something like that? Or do you really have to have your own website to be getting that benefit of having a podcast? 

Taryn Solie: Yeah. Yeah, I’m happy to talk about this. Megan might be able to answer the external link more because I don’t know if I’m actually getting an externallink. I host with a company called Libsyn and that’s a fairly common podcast hosting site, which you do have to pay for. It’s not very expensive. I don’t know if there is a link from there. But in terms of the show notes pages on my site, I created a new category called podcast and they’re just posts. So you just hit click on a new post in WordPress and create the show notes page as podcast and only podcast. Then it just goes up on your site. So it’s pretty easy. So I’m doing transcripts and I’ll be honest, the transcripts are my least favorite parts of doing the podcast. You don’t have to do transcripts. I just decided to do it because otherwise my show notes page was very bare. I just didn’t have the mental energy to draw out a summary. I was like, oh, show notes will be easier, but I don’t know if they really are. Because that’s a lot of editing. But yeah. Does that answer your question? 

David Crowley: Yes, I think it does. Yeah, definitely. What’s the course you took? I was curious. I do feel like this is helpful for giving me more of a nudge, but you referenced that course and would love any other ideas. So if you’re ready to do it, what are some good resources for taking the steps needed to actually get it done? 

Taryn Solie: Yeah. Megan was the one who directed me to this course. It’s Podcasters Paradise. It’s put on by John Lee Dumas, Entrepreneurs on Fire, that is his podcast. He has been on Megan’s podcast as well. It’s not super cheap. I want to say it’s 97 a month maybe. So it is like a membership but it is very in-depth. It is a very good course. That they have an active Facebook group that you’re able to search. I have searched multiple times. One of my favorite things about Facebook groups, even though they can be overwhelming, is that I love it when a course has one. So that if I have a question, I can just Google in the Facebook group and see if that has already been asked and get an answer right away. They’re very active in their Facebook group. They do host monthly live Q and A’s. So if you have a question that hasn’t been answered, you can ask them on a live Q and A. It’s run by him and his wife or excuse me, his fiance. They’re getting married in like a couple of weeks. But they answer right away in the Facebook group. They’re very responsive. As I said, it is expensive, but I haven’t even finished the entire thing. They have a create module and then a grow module, all about once your podcast is up, like how to grow it. Then a monetize module. I haven’t even touched the monetize module yet because I’ve just been in the create and the grow. So I don’t know, Megan, I don’t know if you know of any other ones that are really good. 

Megan Porta: I highly recommend Podcasters Paradise. That is the one that Taryn was just talking about. You can pay month to month, so you can literally pay for three months. So it would be like a $300 investment. Which sounds like a lot, but you literally get every single bit of information that you would ever possibly need for starting a podcast, like right down to the nitty-gritty details. Then I do have a few resources to mention. So you mentioned transcripts, Taryn. If you guys do this, I highly recommend doing transcripts because it makes you accessible and it can help with SEO as well. There’s a service called Descript and that is the most affordable, robust one that I’ve found. My VA actually does all my transcripts for me because I, too, do not like that part of it. But I think it is really valuable, so I also wanted to mention Libsyn. I do have an affiliate offer that can get you, I think it’s two months for free. So let me know if any of you want that link, because why not? It’ll save you. It’s not really expensive anyway, but it’ll save you a little bit of cash. So I wanted to mention those resources. Then also Taryn, you can link, you can put your show notes link to hotpankitchen.com/podcast, whatever that specific link is, directly in the apple podcast directory. So that is, I believe, considered a back link. Just a little nugget there. 

Taryn Solie: Oh, that’s interesting. Because yeah, I have links for the show notes on my WordPress. So that must be a back link. I’m assuming. 

Megan Porta: Yes. Yes, I believe so. David, everybody’s saying that you have a great voice or Amy was saying that you have a great voice. So another reason why you should start a podcast, right?

David Crowley: Stay away from video.

Megan Porta: Stay away from video? I’m going to go grab that link for you guys. Does anyone else have anything just for a minute here while I go grab the affiliate link? 

Taryn Solie: Jenna, I know you mentioned you had other technical questions you wanted to ask. Did we hit the ones that you had or did you have other ones as well? 

Jenna Urben: So you mentioned the seasons and and you also mentioned that you’re doing a guest once a week and then for your What We’re Grilling, is that also once a week or what was the cadence for that one? 

Taryn Solie: So the guests are going to be once a week and then the What We’re Grilling is every two weeks or twice a month, but it’s actually in, I have to say, I got this idea from the Didn’t I Just Feed You podcast, which is a great food podcast. It’s been around awhile. I think they have a hundred plus episodes. So that is a really good one to listen to. It is run by two food writers. One of them has a cookbook. I think they’ve both written for like The Kitchn. So they’re like in the industry, so a little bit different. But they do what we’re eating or something along. I can’t remember if that’s the right name. That’s where I got the inspiration for it, and those are much shorter. So in terms of length, my interviews they’re usually 20, 25 minutes or so. Then my thing is like less than 10 minutes, like between five and 10 minutes. So it’s meant to be very quick. I’m doing that with my avatar in mind and this actually goes in really well, Megan, with the podcast episode that was on Eat Blog Talk, I think was it today or yesterday about knowing your audience? Because for me, my audience is a woman who does not have a lot of time and she can listen to the podcast while she’s preparing dinner, right? Or cooking dinner. Or if she needs to get out of the house and just take a quick walk around the block, she can listen to the podcast then. So that’s what I’m keeping in mind as I’m doing my podcast. Does that make sense, Jenna? 

Jenna Urben: Yes. Absolutely. I’m so glad you said that. I noticed with your interview that you posted, it was under 30 minutes and then, What We’re Grilling was like nine minutes. I was like, Ooh, okay. I really like this a lot. So I’m glad that you just expanded on that and gave more insight to how often you’re posting. That’s just good to know. Then I think. I was just like soaking everything up, to be honest. I’m just like, yes. Just talk forever about this please. Because I know nothing literally. So it’s just fascinating to hear this. I guess I’d love to hear you on the show notes versus transcripts and what you can use for that. I guess the only, like the big glaring question you guys mentioned, SEO, which I know is like a big topic. But I guess just how important is SEO when you are naming or doing something like a description or any of the different fields that you have? Like how important is SEO and for searchability, and all of that I’d love to hear from y’all.

Megan Porta: I can give you my perspective and then I’ll let Taryn chime in too, but I don’t do keyword research in the way that I do for my food blog. In fact, I don’t really research it at all, but I just try to be really intentional about the words I’m putting in every title. So I want it to be something that I know is something that people are going to be wanting to be searching for. So I try to be a little bit creative with my titles and to pull people in. But I also try to add those words. If SEO is at all a part of the conversation, I always put SEO in because everyone is searching for SEO information. Or keyword research. I’m just pulling out from whatever conversation or episode that you’re doing, the most important topics and making sure to put that in your title. Then also write a really robust description that you will put both in your apple podcasts description and also your libsyn description, which goes out to all of the other players. I try to just, again, just include making sure you put SEO. If you have a guest, here’s another thing. Always make sure you put your guests information, just to give them credit. I always put Taryn from Hot Pan Kitchen, the food blog. Hot Pan Kitchen joined me. I try to put all of that in there just to cover all my bases. What other tips do I have? I probably should do keyword research on all of that, but I just haven’t. That hasn’t been a huge priority for me. But if you have learned anything from Podcasters Paradise Taryn, please share it. 

Taryn Solie: So I’m in the same boat as Megan, it’s not nearly as SEO driven for me like my blog is. I do think it helps to have an SEO background because once you have that background, that’s how you approach anything that’s going out on the internet. It’s okay, I need to keep in mind SEO. If I had no SEO background, I would just write random words. Now, knowing a little bit of SEO background, I might put in some search terms that I think would naturally come up like what Megan was talking about. So for me, family camp cooking was the first interview that I did. I think in the description I have the word recipe and I have the word camping and I have the word I think I’m sure like fire or stove, or some there’s certain things in there that I was like, oh yeah, somebody might be searching for those things. But because, as Megan mentioned, the food podcasts niche is so small right now, it’s not like you’re competing for a ton of other food podcasts. I guess what would that be? A small pond, big pond, big fish in a small pond. There’s some sort of analogy there.

Megan Porta: The wild, wild west, it’s the wild west. 

Taryn Solie: Yeah, a little bit. The one thing that I do keep going back to and that I mentioned already, and that is a lesson from Podcasters Paradise is to be clear. So that’s what I think of when I am naming the episodes. Even in the description. Because some podcasts episodes have a very clever name, but they are clever and clear. So I don’t want to be clever, just clever. I have to be either clever and clear or just clear. So my default is to just be clear and if I happen to be clever, that’s great. Because clever people can draw people in. But even more so, you just, you really just want to be clear. Does that answer your question, Jenna?

Jenna Urben: Yes. 100%. Thank you guys so much. Yeah, that was really great. I just had one other kind of question. So Megan and Taryn, you guys were talking about resources. Megan, I feel like you’ve podcasts about podcasting, is that right? Have I seen that? If so, can you share which you do and then I can just search them because I feel like I’ve seen somewhere, when I was scrolling maybe. But I would love to learn, or hear about that process. Like what you’re using to record or how you’re editing it. How you’re uploading, I guess Libsyn is where you guys host. So that’s very helpful to know that. But I know. There’s so many options, it seems like when I did my primary Google search, there were so many options. So I know we’re getting close on time, but if you’ve already covered that I’d love to go back in and dive in deep there. 

Megan Porta: So if you go to eatblogtalk.com Jenna, and go to podcast episodes, in the search bar, just type podcast, and you will have a few options that come up. So I do talk about it in episode 265, we cover it extensively. Also 245 and also 221. Then I have a few coming up as well that will have some of those details that you were talking about, like where to go for editing. There are some really good free editing options. I always say, if you are a food blogger, this’ll be no problem for you because you’ve probably dabbled in video editing, which from my perspective, is a nightmare. I do not like video editing. So if you’ve done that, audio editing is a piece of cake. So you can learn that really easily. Audacity is a free tool that you can use. I use Adobe Audition just because I have Adobe Creative Cloud, so it’s free for me anyway. It was very easy to learn. Taryn, you use Zencastr, but do you edit with them? 

Taryn Solie: Okay. No, I ended up with GarageBand, which is free on a Mac. So that’s what I just went with because I knew I would always have that and it’s free and it’s fairly easy to learn. I did, in Podcasters Paradise, they do have tutorials on Audacity, on GarageBand. I think of the one that you mentioned, Megan. I do use a program called Zencastr. You could use Skype, you could use Zoom. I did have to use Zoom for my first interview because the person I was interviewing couldn’t get it, she had a new computer and she couldn’t figure out how to allow microphone and video access to Zencastr. But normally the other interviews have been fine to use on Zencastr. The thing that I do like about Zencastr or some other sort of platform over Zoom, with Zoom, you get one audio file with both of your voices. With Zencastr you get one for each voice. So for me, for whatever reason, and I have to figure this out, I’m gonna have to talk to you about the second after this, is the person who I was interviewing, their voice came through very loud and clear, and they were actually on the high end of loud and my voice was muted and soft. So I had to bring up my audio and bring hers down in the editing software. That would’ve been very difficult to do if it was all just one audio file. You could do it, but it would be a lot of editing. That is one thing to think about. Zencastr is not very expensive. Actually, I don’t think it’s free. I think it’s like $50 a month or something like that. But those are all things I would highly recommend, if you really are serious about doing this, I would highly recommend getting Podcasters Paradise or a different one. I would wait to start it, if you’re going to do Podcasters Paradise, I would wait to start it until you were like ready to hit the ground running because I started, I signed up I think like in January and I kinda waited for a couple of months while I was figuring things out and I was still paying during those months. I wish I would have waited like a month or two until I was really ready to go and dig into it and where I have the time to dig into it. So that it was a little more cost-effective for me.

Megan Porta: That was all such great info and we’re almost out of time, but I wanted to mention really quickly, Jenna there’s another option for recording, which I use. I think Zencastr is a great option. I love that it does separate tracks. That is a necessity if you are doing interviews because it, oh, I cannot even imagine doing all of that editing with the same track. So you want your voice on one track, your guest’s voice on a different track for sure. I use Skype and Skype is free, but I just bought this $30 extension that I uploaded. It’s a $30 flat rate. That’s it. I’ve just paid $30. That allows me to record my guest track. So it can be as easy as that as well. Awesome. I think this will be a really valuable resource. So in the episode that I publish with this audio, I will just include all of the stuff that we talked about. I’ll have my VA go through and just put all of the links in there for you, Jenna, or for anyone else who wants to go back and reference it. So this was so valuable. I feel like we should do part two sometime. But maybe next week we’ll do just a regular food blogging conversation to break things up. Thank you so much. This was so fun. 

Jenna Urben: Thank you guys so much. This was amazing. I feel like I could start a podcast right now if I wanted to with all the tools that you guys just gave me. So this was incredible. Thank you. 

Megan Porta: Have a great rest of your week. See you next week, guys. 

Outro: We’re glad you could join us on this episode of Eat Blog Talk. For more resources based on today’s discussion, as well as show notes and an opportunity to be on a future episode of the show, be sure to head to eatblogtalk.com. If you feel that hunger for information, we’ll be here to feed you on Eat Blog Talk.


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Megan
Megan

Megan started her food blog Pip and Ebby in 2010 and food blogging has been her full-time career since 2013. Her passion for blogging has grown into an intense desire to help fellow food bloggers find the information, insight, and community they need in order to find success.

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