Episode 714: 3 Powerful Blogging Strategies To Prioritize in 2025 With Karissa Parrish

EBT714 – Karissa Parrish

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported. 

[00:00:37]   

Do you ever stop and think what should I be focusing on in 2025? I know I do all the time. There’s so many things coming at us. New platforms, new strategies, new concepts, new ways to blog. What in the world do we focus on? Karissa Parrish is the blogger over at Ginger Snaps Baking Affairs and she brings a strategy to the table for us. She shares what she’s focusing on in 2025 and I think it’s such a good strategy to move forward with. She talks about three main things that she is bringing into the rest of this year, including focusing on content clustering, making sure your existing blog posts are high quality so going back and updating those in the right way, and also interlinking.

[00:01:27]   

Don’t ignore interlinking. There’s so much power there and she has some bonuses that she talks about too that if you’ve got those three things nailed, you can move into including having a positive mindset because that certainly can’t hurt this year. This is a really powerful episode. Whether you are a new food blogger or you’ve been blogging forever, you’re going to find so much value here. If you it is episode number 714 and I hope you enjoy it.

[00:01:56] Sponsor  

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[00:02:33]   

Carissa is the food photographer and recipe developer behind the dessert blog Ginger Snaps Baking Affairs. She started her food blog in early 2020 with the number one goal of providing fellow home bakers with the confidence they need to bake up homemade and tasty desserts in their own kitchen.

[00:02:55]   

What started out as a hobby and just needing a creative outlet outside of work and everyday life has turned into a thriving and continually growing five figure business that allows her to stay at home with her son while still working on the blog. Carissa, hello. You’re a longtime listener. Welcome to the podcast.How’s it going today?

[00:03:15]  Karissa Parrish 

Hi, Megan. I’m very excited to be on here this morning and I hope you’re having a good day so far too.

[00:03:21]  Megan Porta 

Yay. Super excited to have you here. We’re going to talk about a really good topic for 2025, which is what to focus on in the year of 2025, when things are a little weird and maybe volatile feeling at times. We are going to get into it. But first, do you have a fun fact to share with us, Karissa?

[00:03:42]  Karissa Parrish 

Yes. And I actually asked my husband about this because I wasn’t sure what would be fun. So one of my husband’s hobbies growing up and he still loves to do is Rubik’s Cube solving. And they had Rubik’s Cube competitions for speed solving. So I actually entered one of them with him to do because I learned how to solve a Rubik’s Cube because of him.And so I entered a competition and I was very proud to say I did not get last because I’m not fast, because some of these kids do it in about 10 seconds or less.

[00:04:15]  Megan Porta 

What? 10 seconds? How is that even possible?

[00:04:19]  Karissa Parrish 

I don’t know. In the world record is like three seconds for somebody to solve the cube really fast. So I think I did it in like 45 seconds, which was great for me. I’ll take it. But that is my fun fact. I never thought I would be in a Rubik’s Cube competition or that those even existed.

[00:04:37]  Megan Porta 

I love it. Oh, my gosh. Do you have goals of improving your time or are you good with your 45 seconds?

[00:04:45]  Karissa Parrish 

I’m good.

[00:04:45]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. I think you should be good with that. Be very proud of that. I definitely. I couldn’t do it in a day. So you’re. You have one up on me big time. That’s very impressive and not something that has ever been shared here before. I don’t think Rubik’s Cube has ever been part of anyone’s fun fact. So you nailed it today.

[00:05:04]  Karissa Parrish 

Unique.

[00:05:05]  Megan Porta 

Yes. So let’s start by getting a little bit of a background on your blog, Krissa. So Ginger Snap Baking affairs is your blog. It is Beautiful. Tell us a little bit about it.

[00:05:15]  Karissa Parrish 

Yes. Yeah. So it started to come about in, I think, late 2019. My husband kindly said I needed a hobby outside of work. And so I was like, okay, let me try to figure this out, because I’ve always loved writing. I love. I love food. But outside of, like, a box of brownies, I didn’t really bake before.

[00:05:36]   

I remember, like, looking at the local library, and they had a book on how to start a blog, and I was like, okay, I’m going to check out that book. And it had a lot of good resources back in 2019. And again, I knew nothing. So I kind of used that as my starting point.

[00:05:52]   

And I was going to launch my blog after doing a lot of research, come, like, summer of 2020. But then when the pandemic happened and I wasn’t able to go to work anymore, I was like, well, I guess now’s as good of a time as ever to push publish. So I pushed publish in, I think, March of 2020.

[00:06:12]   

And it started out as a. It is a baking blog. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do, but I thought maybe taking pictures of desserts might be easier than trying to take pictures of, like, a steak or a soup or something. So it started as a hobby, and then about a year into it, 2021, I realized, you know, I think I can make this a business.

[00:06:34]   

I’m seeing other people do it. I was listening to resources like your podcast, reading up on webinars, googling, a lot of stuff. And so by, yeah, 2021 of spring, I started to transition more of, like, my mindset of, okay, this can be a business along with a hobby, but I want to make it professional.

[00:06:54]   

And so every year, I’ve been building upon how can I get better at the business side of blogging? And I’ve continued to stay in the niche of baking, but over the years, I’ve been trying to mold to not just be generic with baking, but rather like, what kind of categories or how can I even niche down a bit more because it’s so broad to just focus on baking.

[00:07:21]   

So I started as a hobby, and it became more than a hobby. And I’m very, very passionate about it. And I never thought I would find something I would love outside of. I was a basketball player my whole life through college. And so this was. This is, like, my basketball now as an adult.So it’s become my number one thing that makes me happy to do every day.

[00:07:41]  Megan Porta 

Oh, I love that. So it’s a deep passion for you and clearly you have talent and skill. I mean, looking through your photos and your website is beautiful, as I said. So, yeah, thank you for sharing a little bit about your background. You’re another one of those successful 2020 bloggers, which I, I always love hearing those stories. It’s so cool. One of the good things that came out of the year, right?

[00:08:09]  Karissa Parrish 

Yes, exactly.

[00:08:10]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, yeah. So you are thinking about this year and how things are a little bit rocky at times. There’s a little bit of fear floating around out there. So you have a few things that you’re focusing on your blogging business to actually not just get through the year, but thrive this year.

[00:08:34]   

So let’s talk about some of those things. What things are you specifically focusing on in order to make your content better serve your readers and all of the good stuff?

[00:08:44]  Karissa Parrish 

Well, as we know as bloggers, there are so many different tasks that we can be working on and feel like we should be working on. And I’ve, for the longest time I’ve been trying to do it all, trying to be on every social platform, trying to try every new tactic that maybe an SEO expert puts out there or somebody.

[00:09:03]   

Somebody else from an interview I’ve listened to is trying. But I realized once I had my first child, March of 2024, my time got completely cut off and I was like, I barely have a few hours a day to maybe work on my website and my baking. So I knew as the year turned, turned over to 2025 and I really, like, I have really big goals personally to not, not just financially grow, but to. To bring more readers to the website, I knew I needed to focus on a few things and do that exceptionally instead of trying to spread myself out too thin to focus on everything.

[00:09:41]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, it’s a smart approach. It’s hard as a food blogger because we like so many things and we’re good at different things, but I think doing that hyper focused strategy is super smart. So talk through some of those things.

[00:09:56]  Karissa Parrish 

Yeah. So one of them is content clustering. And I’ve started to slowly hear about that, I think towards the end of 2024 and I didn’t really understand what that meant until I started doing some research on my own. I heard a couple other people on podcasts and trying to think some other maybe webinars.

[00:10:16]   

So rather like, because I focus on baking at first, like probably the first four years, I would make sure I’d hit like every category. I’d maybe do like a cheesecake recipe, then a pie, then a cupcake and did like eight to 10 new recipes a month but they were really spread out like I never usually did two of one recipe.

[00:10:35]   

So like not I didn’t do two cupcakes or two cake recipes. So I was really spreading out my content into like 10 or 12 categories. And for one thing it’s takes a lot of work to do that. And two, I didn’t, I wasn’t seeing much success with that formula I was giving myself.

[00:10:58]   

And so in January when I was trying to goal setting, goal setting for the year and figuring out what do I want for my business and what like what brings me joy with baking, I, I broke it down into six categories of baking topics that I want to cover more, more fully and like expound those categories on my website.

[00:11:23]   

So I partly did that with looking on Google search console you can kind of see which pages get more traffic and what search queries people are searching for on your website. And surprisingly some of the categories that are more popular are not the ones that I love to do on my website. Since 2020 some of my more popular recipes have been like a cake or banana bread back when I didn’t know what I was doing.

[00:11:49]   

But SEO wise they’re doing really good on Google. So I decided I really enjoy cupcakes and cake recipes and those are really easy for me to do while the baby is sleeping. I can complete those. Whereas like a cheesecake or pie recipe I can’t do that as easily. So I was trying to work smarter, not harder with trying to get content created as quickly as I can.

[00:12:16]   

And so I decided to focus on for me it’s cakes, cupcakes, frostings and I think cheesecakes are the first four. Like I’m really focusing on and honestly I think this year I’ve only worked on cake, cupcakes and frosting recipes and it’s June now and I’ve only done three categories this year.

[00:12:38]  Megan Porta 

That’s great. And how does it feel to niche down like that? Does that feel aligned?

[00:12:43]  Karissa Parrish 

Yes. I was so worried about it for years because it did feel like it was going to be restricting or like not allow as much creativity to flow. But not only do I have more ideas coming, coming and going through my mind, my traffic is higher than it has been. Great from not just the new recipes that are being, that are being created, but also then focusing on making older content better as well.

[00:13:07]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, that’s so great. So you used your data to determine which categories you were going to dive into. Yeah. Is that what you would recommend for others too? If they’re kind of feeling like, ah, should I go deeper into my niche just opening Google Search Console? Or how would you recommend going about finding what these clusters are for others?

[00:13:30]  Karissa Parrish 

Yeah, honestly, I would assess personally, what. What categories on your blog do you like the most right now? What brings you the most joy for one. And then once you figure out, okay, these are what I love, these five or six different topics, then dive into your Google Search Console and see in some, like, maybe half of those align with what your data shows or maybe even just a couple will.

[00:13:53]   

Because, like mine, cupcakes and frostings were not high on my list at all. But now they’re one of my more popular categories because I wanted it to be because I found those more fun. So I chose to do what I liked first and then looked at the data. And thankfully the data had two topics, which was cakes and cheesecakes as being some of my more popular recipes.And. And then the rest, I just was like, okay, well, I really like cupcakes and I like frosting, so let’s like expand on these topics more too.

[00:14:28]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I like that you add what brings you joy in there. So it’s not just about the data because that’s not always going to be joyful. Right. You need to, you need to. If you’re going to continue this business, you have to enjoy what you’re doing. So I love that you’re just like, cupcakes and frostings are going to work and, and that they have followed suit.

[00:14:47]  Karissa Parrish 

Yeah.

[00:14:48]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Okay. Well, that’s great. And do you feel like this is a really important piece going as well? We’re halfway through 2025 now, but for the rest of this year and beyond.

[00:14:59]  Karissa Parrish 

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Because again, like I, like I mentioned in years past, like, my traffic has definitely slowly gone up. I thankfully was never hit by any of the updates. I’ve just been a very, very slow grower with my blog. Nothing has been quick. And with focusing on just a few topics, my traffic has grown more through the first six months of 2025 than any other year so far.

[00:15:26]   

And I do think a lot of that has to do with just focusing more on just a few categories of baking instead of trying to fill in every category each month and having very slim pickings from each category by the end of the year.

[00:15:41]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, it’s like a new way of blogging, honestly, because the old way back, like the old school way, is Covering all the areas. If you had a baking blog, you did everything. And that’s just not the strategy to use right now. I don’t think so. You’re embracing that. I don’t think so either, and I love it.

[00:16:01]   

Okay, what else are you focusing on here in 2025?

[00:16:04]  Karissa Parrish 

Yes, I am focusing on updating content for sure. And that’s always been like a hard concept for me to understand because I thought, okay, I published something June of 2022. It’s probably good for the next couple of years because I, like, did my very best work on it. But the more that I’m learning, that’s not true at all.

[00:16:24]   

I really should be going in there, checking on the post probably after two or three months just to see how it’s doing. And I think at this point I have about 300 blog posts. So I am going through, focusing on the categories that I’m focusing on for 2025 first, which are, you know, cakes and cupcakes.

[00:16:46]   

I’m going through those old blog posts that are pretty much beginning of 2024 back to when I started in 2020, and I am redoing the entire blog post completely. We’ve seen throughout the last year and a half alone how different we need to format our blog posts. And I was also one of those people for the longest time that, like, I had, like, my simple categories.

[00:17:09]   

I did not include my topic in the H2 headings because I did not want to, like, spam Google. So I had, you know, categories that was just instructions or ingredients. Why? You’ll love this recipe. It’s all very generic. And unfortunately at this point with AI, AI can do that very generically too. So one of the things I’ve learned this past year is to it’s okay to include our target keyword in one or two of those H2 headings.

[00:17:39]   

And so I’ve noticed with some of my blog posts I’ve updated, which I think I’ve updated up to I think 20 now so far since I started in March of this year. And I’ve like, some of these have zero traffic. They’re not doing anything important for my website or Google because they were poorly written, poorly optimized.

[00:18:00]   

Going in with some of these new tactics, like adding the H2S keywords, I’ve gone from like page three on, I think this was a bundt cake recipe I had, and it jumped into the top nine on Google on the first page after just like a week of updating, I’m like, okay. I’m like, I think this is working.

[00:18:18]  Megan Porta 

So for those posts, you’re very minimally making changes, so you’re just going in, making a few key changes. You’re not sweeping through the entire post, or are you?

[00:18:28]  Karissa Parrish 

I am sweeping through the entire post, yes. So I actually start from bottom to top. This is where like another. Another thing I’m really focusing on, which we can kind of intermix with this topic, is interlinking. I kind of knew what interlinking was. I added a few links to the bottom of each blog post to like, related blog posts.

[00:18:47]   

But I’ve been trying some different tactics of interlinking from the top of the post to the bottom, trying to make it naturally flowing, which then goes back to your content clustering and why I think it’s really important to have a few topics you’re focusing on because then they can all interlink together as you’re writing these new blog posts or updating them.

[00:19:07]   

So I, yeah, I start with, you write your intro, you have your photo, and through those first, like four to six paragraphs, I include. I try to make sure I have five or six links I am interlinking to other related blog posts. So whether that’s like I created, I have like a strawberry cupcake recipe.

[00:19:25]   

And so I created a strawberry frosting because that makes sense with my content and I can interlink with those. And so I’m making sure as I’m going through that strawberry cupcake recipe to interlink back to my frosting recipe or even other flavors of frostings that can go well with those cupcakes or other cupcake flavors that you might want to consider making if you really like strawberry cupcakes.

[00:19:49]   

And it’s, it’s flowing really easily through the blog posts it used. I’m really quick at updating now. I think it takes like maybe 15, 20 minutes because it feels so natural. Because I feel like we can be more natural with our blog posts now compared to.

[00:20:03]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:20:04]  Karissa Parrish 

You know, even before two years ago when it was very like, Google centered.

[00:20:08]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. So giving it kind of a perspective of like you being your user and looking through it with that lens and just like, okay, now strawberry frosting seems to fit perfectly here. So. And not just like throwing in random things to stuff, you know, links and keywords in. Yeah. Yes.

[00:20:28]  Karissa Parrish 

Yeah, exactly.

[00:20:29]  Megan Porta 

And what other things are you thinking through as you comb through your old blog posts?

[00:20:34]  Karissa Parrish 

I definitely. If. If is it giving value to those readers that I want to attract to the blog post? And again, I think pretty much anything prior to 2024, I think they’re good recipes, but the blog posts are not giving value at all. So I’m definitely going in, like you said, with the lens of like, if I’m a user and I’m looking for this recipe, does it make me want to make it just based on how the blog post is set up and is it useful and helpful to me?

[00:21:03]   

So that’s what I try to keep in mind with updating and not trying to add like extra fluff or make my blog post really long so you can add, you know, more ads, which I don’t think is helpful at all. I think it’s. It seems as though the shorter the blog posts now as I’m updating, they go from like maybe a thousand words down to like 600, 700 words.

[00:21:25]   

Okay.

[00:21:26]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:21:26]  Karissa Parrish 

Again, they’re, they’re doing, they’re doing much better than before. Than before I updated them.

[00:21:32]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:21:32]  Karissa Parrish 

And I think it is a combination of not caring as much about Google, but also just trying to be as helpful as possible. So every information that’s there is helpful instead of trying to like, figure out the algorithm of what Google wants that day.

[00:21:47]  Megan Porta 

Right. Yeah. It’s an important lens to look through. I think right now, like, the, the benefit your blog post is going to be to your user is massive. It’s everything. So do you feel like that requires just a lot of practice? Because at first it might not be clear, but when you do it over and over, like you’ve done 20 since March, that’s a lot. It becomes easier to do that.

[00:22:14]  Karissa Parrish 

Definitely. Yeah. Because I feel like my head was spinning with trying to figure out like, what’s the best technique to go into updating this blog post. I think just the repetition of going through your old content and maybe even some of these contents you haven’t looked at for years since it was previously published.

[00:22:32]   

So I, I really do think the more that you do it, the more that you analyze. Just like with any part of our business that we do, the, the less we’ll be thinking about it and the more we’ll just freely be doing it.

[00:22:41]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. And that includes photos. Right. So providing ingredient photos, if that, if you, if you think that’s helpful and step by step process shots and things like that.

[00:22:53]  Karissa Parrish 

Yes, definitely. I think, I believe the ingredient photo is still very important. I’ve always done that since day one. And then the process shots, I’ve been more kind of hit and miss on it. As I’m updating, I’m going in and adding those process shots and instead of, I think how with the process shots, if we can line them up, if we’re showing step by step instructions, if we can have a photo for each step, I think that’s really user friendly because then it’s easy to flow through.

[00:23:22]   

Whether you’re on your phone or your computer and you’re looking, each step aligns with a photo and we have to keep in mind that like maybe this person has never ever baked a cupcake before or has never ever cooked like a salmon dinner.

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[00:25:12]  Karissa Parrish 

So I think if we have those process shots and focus more on those then the final shot. Because I used to include about five final photos in my blog posts and I have now cut those back to 2 to 3 at the most. I really like photos, I love looking at them but I know they’re just not as important or helpful.Like if somebody wants to make your dish based off of one photo, they’ll probably want to based off the first one they see.

[00:25:36]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I think that’s kind of a vanity thing that a lot of us were like oh, well, this angle is really good and this looks nice. I’m going to include every single angle possible when it’s really not necessary.

[00:25:48]  Karissa Parrish 

Yeah, it’s not. I don’t think it’s necessary at all.

[00:25:50]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, yeah, this is all really helpful. Okay, so go through. Have the lens of your user make your blog post helpful. If you’re updating, add ingredient shot, process shots and interlinking as if you were reading it from the user perspective. Is there anything else with either content clustering or existing blog posts that you want to talk about?

[00:26:15]  Karissa Parrish 

Yes, with existing blog posts as well. I think I’ve. I might have heard it on a few podcast interviews recently on. On yours of like, how. How much more important it is to show our expertise. And it’s not. We can’t just stop with at our About Me pages, which we do have to make sure those are really, really well written and kind of just highlights us as a blogger.

[00:26:42]   

But I’ve also been including those in these. In the newer updated content of having basically like a small paragraph, maybe one or two sentences describing like, as a professional home baker or as a home baker with like less than an hour to work with, like, this recipe is really good for this reason.

[00:27:04]   

And then I will link my About Me page to like, those headings. So I really focus on home baking because I didn’t go to culinary school, so I’ve learned everything in my own kitchen. So I really focus on home bakers and home baker and home baking. So I will link to my About Me page with those keywords throughout the text.

[00:27:23]   

And I will usually do that within the first three to six paragraphs because I don’t want it right at the beginning of the blog post, but I don’t want it all the way at the end either.

[00:27:33]  Megan Porta 

Do you feel like that has helped your users to be able to really relate to you better? And has that increased your domain authority too?

[00:27:42]  Karissa Parrish 

You know, I haven’t checked my domain authority since the beginning of the year because it was so low, but I should. I need to check on that again. But I would imagine it would because not only are you making yourself relatable to those that are potentially reading your blog posts, but you’re also showing Google like, hey, I have authority with writing this specific blog post and here’s why you should, like, you know, push this up further on the on page one.

[00:28:07]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, right. It can. I think that can only help and definitely cannot hurt. So I love that recommendation and it just requires a line like one sentence like, who are you? Why are you credible?

[00:28:20]  Karissa Parrish 

Yeah.

[00:28:20]  Megan Porta 

Why? What gives you the right to publish this recipe and assume that people want to make it too? So yeah, I love that so much. So in addition to these things, I know you have some kind of extra things to focus on once you get these three things established. What are some of those extras?

[00:28:38]  Karissa Parrish 

Yeah, some of the extra things I really want to focus on this year as I, as I continue through updating blog posts, I am going to continue updating blog posts as I go and I’ve really cut back on how many new posts I’m working on. But as I, as I move into the newer posts, I am going to be focusing on those content clusters.

[00:29:03]   

So see, I’ve already outlined a bit for June and July. So it’s again, I’m only focus, I’m only focusing on like cupcakes and frostings right now. And I don’t see that changing right this second because it’s, it’s working really well, not just with Google, but I think through my audience as well through email and Instagram.

[00:29:20]   

So I definitely, I will be focusing on, on creating new content that can interlink together again. So cupcake recipes that make sense and it might not necessarily have like a good keyword research number which I haven’t used too much this past six months with trying to look for. I’m looking more like my website, what benefits my website, what benefits my users. And then kind of working the content around there and then searching using keyword research, like by the second or third step of my content creation process.

[00:29:55]  Megan Porta 

That’s great. Yeah, I think that’s a good new strategy that a lot of people are employing instead of leaning on the keyword research tool alone to create content. Yeah, like what makes sense for the user if they come here for a strawberry cupcake, what else are they going to potentially want and thinking that way and then going to keyword research.

[00:30:16]  Karissa Parrish 

Yes.

[00:30:17]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, that’s great. And then exactly what keyword research tools do you use, just out of curiosity?

[00:30:22]  Karissa Parrish 

Yes. So I use KeySearch, which is just very simple. Just type in the keyword that you’re looking for. I just like how simple and user friendly it is. I have been using Rank IQ for the last several years as well to kind of help set up my blog posts. And I don’t use it as much right now as I used to before just because the way of how we write our blog posts has really changed and I still find it beneficial, but just not as like I’m not trying to search or trying to reach that A plus mark on Rank IQ as much anymore. But it’s still very nice to have that as like the resource of like, you know, keywords to try to fit in within your blog posts.

[00:31:03]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, agreed.

[00:31:04]  Karissa Parrish 

And then a newer one I found, it’s called Keywords Everywhere. Oh yeah, it’s a Chrome extension. I’d never heard of it. And you basically just allow it to, to be on your Chrome. And whenever you Google anything, it’ll pop up on the right side of your screen. Both short, both short term like keywords, like two or three words and then long tail keywords of five or six sentence or five or six words.

[00:31:34]   

And I have found that to be helpful with updating blog posts. So I will just Google. Let’s see, I did like a, like a lemon curd cookie recipe I updated recently. And on the right side of my screen on Google it gives all these different long tail keywords that people are searching for in Google and there’s a paid version to it to where you could find out like the exact number of how many people are searching for those.

[00:32:00]   

I haven’t felt the need to use that. I just kind of used the free version. Just show me what the long tail keywords are. And that has really helped me like with my H2 headings throughout the blog posts. And, and when I interlink on various blog posts, I will use those as like the, the long tail keywords.

[00:32:22]   

So I can. Because if, if you’re interlinking, you don’t want to just say lemon cupcake recipe, you want to have descriptive words. So like easy lemon cupcake recipe, moist lemon cupcake recipe. And the Keywords Everywhere has helped me figure out some of those words that I can use.

[00:32:39]  Megan Porta 

Oh, that’s great. Yeah, yeah, that’s a great.

[00:32:41]  Karissa Parrish 

So yeah, I really like that one right now. Cause it’s free.

[00:32:44]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I used to use the paid version of that many years ago and I really liked it for a while. I feel like keyword research strategies evolve for everyone over time. Like I used to solely rely on Rank IQ and then I, you know, moved to a different. Now I use Key Key Search and Rank IQ in tandem and that has been going strong for a while.

[00:33:05]   

But yeah, it’s like an evolution. Right? Like you find new tools that work and then they don’t and then you move into a. And that’s just unique to you. You have to find your way with keyword research tools, I think.

[00:33:18]  Karissa Parrish 

Yes. Yeah. Just when you feel like you figured out like what works for you and your system, you have to like adapt and change again.

[00:33:24]  Megan Porta 

Right, right. It’s part of the game, I think.

[00:33:27]  Karissa Parrish 

Yes. Yeah.

[00:33:28]  Megan Porta 

So, yeah, I love that you’re adding that to your strategy. So just like incorporating new recipes into your plan, your system. How many new recipes do you create a week or a month currently?

[00:33:40]  Karissa Parrish 

Yeah, so it. It was four until I started focusing on updating. But honestly, right now I think it’s only about one or two a month I’m working on because I’m so full, like, solely focused on updating older content to make it as best as I can. Because I think if you’ve been blogging for a while, which five years, I feel like that’s kind of like in the middle of, you know, bloggers of either been at it for a long time or they’re fairly new. And so I’ve accumulated, like, about 300 blog posts, and I don’t want them to be, like, tearing me down, like, on the website side of things.

[00:34:18]  Megan Porta 

Right.

[00:34:18]  Karissa Parrish 

So I’ve been really. I’ve been really just trying to hone in on how can I make these better. And then hopefully by, like, once the fall season hits again, I really want to get back to about at least four new recipes a month. It’s honestly, it’s all I can really handle with taking care of my son at the same time.

[00:34:34]   

So whereas, like, updating blog posts, it’s, you know, that’s less time consuming. You don’t have to worry about recipe testing and photos and videos and all that stuff too.

[00:34:42]  Megan Porta 

Right. Yep. New content does carry a lot of extra tasks and pressure. Honestly. I have a question for you about when you go through your existing content. So let’s say you find something in Google search console that has no clicks or very few clicks. How do you determine whether or not to. No index it or delete it versus giving it a refresh?

[00:35:08]  Karissa Parrish 

Yep. That’s something I’ve been trying to figure out the last month or so too, of trying to decide which one is best. So for me, I don’t. I don’t want to delete anything because I think all of my content has some place on my website, whether it’s where I want to be, where I want it to be in terms of quality or not. I had about when looking, I had about almost 90 blog posts that have gotten zero traffic in the last 12 months, which is not. Which is not great.

[00:35:39]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:35:40]  Karissa Parrish 

So that’s why that’s like my list to start with. And some of those, I believe six were like, roundup posts.

[00:35:47]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:35:47]  Karissa Parrish 

And then I haven’t touched Roundup posts for a while. So I actually no index those just for now because I feel like it wasn’t benefiting me through Google right at this moment. But I know once I go in to update them and try to make them more user friendly, then I will, I will re.

[00:36:06]   

I will unindex them. But deleting, I have not deleted anything that’s baking related. I’ve deleted a few. Like, I think I had like a, like a lifestyle post back in 2020. Like I deleted those because those make no sense for my website right now.

[00:36:20]  Megan Porta 

Right.

[00:36:21]  Karissa Parrish 

But I think if it aligns with your niche and what you are really passionate about, at the very least just no index it until you want to get to it. Because no indexing doesn’t. It doesn’t hurt you. In a way it can kind of help you, especially if that blog post is really outdated because it just Google won’t scan or won’t scan it and so won’t use it against you basically.

[00:36:45]   

So I would just, if you want to know, index until you can get to it. That’s cool. I think besides my roundup post, I will probably keep everything as is and I’m just going to keep slowly going through it and then get to it when I get to it.

[00:37:00]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, that’s a great strategy. And I think for you, your blog is new enough that your content is probably mostly relevant. But maybe if you have an older blog like mine, the stuff I wrote back in 2010 through 20, I don’t know, 15 was not always relevant. So I think there is a time and a place for deleting. But yeah, just kind of assessing the relevancy and the helpfulness to the user and going from there.

[00:37:28]  Karissa Parrish 

Yes, yes. Because I would imagine blogging back, you know, the beginning of 2010 was completely different than compared to the beginning of 2020.

[00:37:36]  Megan Porta 

Yes.

[00:37:37]  Karissa Parrish 

So I, yeah, I don’t, I don’t know if it would be more beneficial to then, you know, delete and basically, you know, if you wanted that kind of topic on your site to just completely start over from scratch, that might be more helpful than compared to like me, which I don’t feel like I need to delete it.I just need to make it better.

[00:37:54]  Megan Porta 

Right. Yeah, I think it’s probably a case by case basis. And what content do you have on your blog? Okay. I want you to talk about mindset in 2025 because I have never felt this more strongly and since you’re a longtime listener, you probably know that I feel really strongly about mindset and I always have, but it’s never been so strong that I feel like we should all be paying attention to our mindset this year. Do you agree, Karissa, and give us some thoughts on that?

[00:38:24]  Karissa Parrish 

Yes. Yeah, definitely. Because what we do is really hard and it’s a lot of times it’s really discouraging. And I’ve had many points since my son was born last March of 2024 that I wanted to quit. It just felt like it was too much. It was overwhelming to try to be a good parent while also, like, for something I’m really passionate about, to be able to give 110 to it the way that I wanted to.

[00:38:49]   

And what is it? June of 2025. I only feel like recently I feel like my mindset has completely shifted. And like, instead of trying to worry about doing all the things and trying to be the most relevant in my specific topics, I think it’s just focusing on what can I do today to be a little bit better.

[00:39:13]   

Whether that is, you know, maybe it’s even not even working on the blog today. Like, I just need a mental reset. I need to take a moment and then tomorrow it’ll still be there. It’s not going to go away. Or maybe I can just focus on updating one blog post today and then maybe a couple of days later I might work on some Pinterest or something like that.

[00:39:33]   

So I think it’s. I think we just put too much pressure on ourselves and I am a huge culprit of that. I put too much pressure on wanting, you know, to do it all. I would love to work on my blog, you know, nine, ten hours a day. That’s just not realistic. And I think that’s probably not realistic for a lot of us, depending on our life situation right now.

[00:39:53]   

So I just been preach, inwardly preaching to myself of like, just be a little bit better today and better looks different for everybody. And like I said, if that just means, you know, don’t even open up your laptop today, go enjoy being outside with your family. That’s probably more important than trying to respond to, you know, several emails.

[00:40:11]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, okay. That is such a huge point that you just focused on and that is getting a little bit better every day does not equal hustle necessarily. Or doing more sitting down and cranking out an extra blog post. That’s not what it means. It can mean that maybe for some people, if you’re in that perfect season, but I love your perspective of getting a little bit better can mean not working today.And that is a huge message to everyone around you that you’re taking care of yourself. So thank you. I really appreciate that perspective so much.

[00:40:48]  Karissa Parrish 

Yeah, it’s still really hard because I love to work so much. It’s. Yeah, it’s some. It’s really hard to just sometimes, you know, the only thing you did today was you fed your child and you made dinner for your family and you went grocery shopping. Like, those are all still very important. And so I had to.

[00:41:04]   

I had to continue to tell myself like, I did good things today, whether it was necessarily like, my to do list or not, like, my family is happy and healthy. So, you know, take a deep breath. Karissa, you did well.

[00:41:16]  Megan Porta 

Yes. Oh, I love that so much. Is there anything that we’ve missed, Karissa, that you definitely wanted to focus on before we start saying goodbye?

[00:41:24]  Karissa Parrish 

Oh, I think the. The plugin. There’s a plugin that I have found very beneficial with figuring out interlinking with your website, and it’s called Link Whisper. It’s a free plugin on WordPress. I believe there’s a paid version as well. I just haven’t looked into it. But Link Whisper will basically analyze every blog post and every internal and external link you have on your website and they’ll break it down for you.

[00:41:51]   

So I’ll usually go through the category of, like, from 0 links to, you know, 25 plus. So it kind of tells me which posts don’t have any internal links, which is not good. And so usually a lot of my older blog posts do not have those internal links. So having like a small little resource like that, instead of trying to go through every single blog post to see how many links I have here or if they have none, this little tool just kind of helps, you know, saves you hours of time to just analyze your content and you can just, you can have it run your blog posts, I think, every day at least, and it’ll go through and organize that for you.So I found that to be helpful and a time saver with trying to figure out my internal linking strategy as well.

[00:42:34]  Megan Porta 

Working smarter, not harder. Right? Letting a tool do some of that work for you. I love that. And I’ve heard I actually use that for a while. I haven’t used it recently, but I’ve heard so many people over the years saying how much they love that plugin. So give it a look. And yeah, it was such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for sharing about your story and everything that’s working for you in 2025. We really appreciate you showing up today.

[00:43:01]  Karissa Parrish 

Yes. Thank you for having me. I really, really enjoyed it and I was looking forward to this conversation with you.

[00:43:06]  Megan Porta 

Yay. Same. I follow you on Instagram. Love your content there. So it was really fun to connect face to face in person today. So thank you. And then to end, do you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration to share with us?

[00:43:22]  Karissa Parrish 

Yes. And I’ve also was trying to figure out what would be the best. So again, I mentioned the beginning. I was a basketball player, so I have a lot of basketball quotes that flow through my mind. And one of them I’ve lived by since I was 12 years old was hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.

[00:43:41]   

And although I think that has more to do with, like, sports and we’re competitive and we’re trying to win and beat the other team, I think it can, it can apply to blogging as individuals. So we’re not necessarily trying to beat out anybody. We’re not trying to win, but rather we’re trying to work as hard as we can to be the best that we can be and to persevere as we’re going through this.

[00:44:03]   

Yeah, just through the business. And I, I just, I keep coming back to this quote over and over again because I. We work so hard on our blogs and our businesses, and I think first and foremost we do it for us. We’re not trying to beat anybody out, but we’re doing it for us. I keep hanging on to the hard work because at least for me, I work really hard with it and I’m going to keep on going.

[00:44:25]  Megan Porta 

I love that so much. What a perfect way to end this conversation. Thank you. I love how it always comes back together. You did that really well. I’ll put together show notes page for you, Carissa, if you want to go look at Those, head to eatblogtalk.com/gingersnapsbakingaffairs which leads to where can we find you?

[00:44:44]  Karissa Parrish 

Yep, my blog is Gingersnaps Baking affairs and I am pretty, I’m pretty active on Instagram right now. Also the same handle of gingersnaps Baking affairs. And I’m trying to be More active on TikTok with the same name of Gingersnaps Baking affairs, though those three main, main places for me are how you can get, how you can see my blog and reach me.

[00:45:05]  Megan Porta 

And I’m glad that you repeated it because I didn’t realize there was an S. So actually you can find the show notes eatblogtalk.com/GingersnapsBakingAffairs. Thank you for saying that.

[00:45:17]  Karissa Parrish 

Yeah, you’re welcome.

[00:45:18]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Awesome. Everyone go check out Karissa’s blog and socials. And thank you again, Karissa, so much for being here. And thank you for listening, food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

[00:45:19] Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. Don’t forget to rate and review Eat Blog Talk on your favorite podcast player. Thank you. And I will see you next time.