We cover information about how to drive traffic to your blog from Facebook and Pinterest as well as how to pick seasonal content to boost your visibility.
Listen on the player in this post or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.
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Guest Details
Connect with Kristina Cadelina – Website
Bio Kristina is a food blogger who helps her readers reconnect with their wellness by offering nourishing and versatile Mediterranean inspired recipes. She is also a food photographer and helps brands and food bloggers grow their business by offering professional photography and video services.
Connect with Rose Sioson – Website
Bio Rose is an experienced IT professional with over two decades in the field. Nearly a year ago, she launched Deliciously Rushed, a blog that blends her love for food with her need for a creative outlet, all while balancing a full-time job and family. Aware of her limited time, Rose strategically invested in courses to streamline her growth and minimize costly mistakes. Her primary goal for 2024 is to qualify for the Mediavine ad network, and she is currently on the verge of reaching the 50K session threshold needed to achieve it.
Connect with Mandy Martinez – Website
Bio Mandy is the photographer and recipe developer behind Semi Homemade Kitchen. Her passion lies in simplifying the art of cooking without sacrificing flavor. She believes that anyone, regardless of their cooking expertise, can whip up mouthwatering dishes. Using shortcuts like cake mixes, cookie mixes, pudding mix, premade pie crusts, biscuit dough, canned soups, pasta sauces, and more to make the cooking process accessible and enjoyable for everyone.
Takeaways
- Consistency is key: Maintaining consistent activity and content creation across platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, and Google is crucial for driving traffic and growth.
- Experiment with different strategies: Try various tactics like video pins, animated pins, and keyword research tools to see what works best for your unique blog and audience.
- Invest in yourself: Joining mastermind groups, taking courses, and outsourcing tasks can provide valuable insights and free up time to focus on core activities.
- Leverage niche communities: Actively participating in relevant Facebook groups can be an effective way to drive immediate traffic and build relationships with your target audience.
- Capitalize on seasonality: Aligning your content with popular seasonal trends, like holiday recipes or summer ice cream, can help boost your visibility and engagement.
- Diversify your traffic sources: While Google traffic is valuable, don’t rely solely on it – explore other platforms like Pinterest and social media to build a well-rounded traffic strategy.
- Stay true to your niche: Focusing on content that aligns with your blog’s core purpose and resonates with your target audience can lead to greater success.
- Embrace an experimental mindset: Be willing to try new things, even if they don’t work out initially, as it can lead to unexpected breakthroughs.
- Leverage freelancing opportunities: Combining your blog with freelance work, such as photography or recipe development, can provide financial stability and creative fulfillment.
Resources Mentioned
KeySearch: A keyword research tool used by bloggers to identify effective keywords for their content.
RankIQ: Another keyword research and optimization tool that help with traffic growth.
Cooking with Keywords by Aleka Shunk
Tailwind: A scheduling and analytics platform used by bloggers
Transcript
Click for full script.
EBT644 – Kristina Cadelina, Rose Sioson & Mandy Martinez
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.
Supercut 00:37
You are going to want to download our bonus supercut that gives you all the information you need to grow your Instagram account. Go to eatblogtalk.com/Instagrowth to download today.Â
Megan Porta 00:52
This interview was the best. It was so much fun to record because I got to talk to not just one, not just two, but three, amazing newer bloggers who have found massive success in the year of 2024, the year that has been very difficult for a lot of people, especially newer bloggers. Kristina Cadelina, from When Salty and Sweet Unite, joins the interview, as well as Mandy Martinez from Semi Homemade Kitchen and Rose Sioson from Deliciously Rushed. What I love about these three bloggers is that they found successes in different areas, and they collaborated a little bit in our conversation so they were able to ask each other questions about their successes. How Facebook groups worked, what exactly did you do to launch the traffic that is now working on your blog? Kristina has a successful freelancing business. We asked her a little bit about that. Rose is definitely an anomaly in our area, because as a food blogger, she has found Google traction as a new blogger in 2024. We talk about so many juicy things. I hope you absolutely love this episode. It is episode number 644 and this is part one of two, so the second installment is to come very soon. All right. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoy.
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Megan Porta 03:25
Welcome Mandy, Kristina and rose. I don’t typically record interviews like this that are four of us in one, but I thought this would be such a great opportunity to introduce you three. Since you are I’m going to say newish bloggers, and we’ll get more into your stories in a bit. But this episode has the goal of just inspiring other new bloggers to find success in 2025 even when it feels like maybe it’s not possible, because it is, as you guys all know. So I think to start, I’ll just have each of you talk through just your blog really briefly, to give people a canvas. So if they want to go to your blog as they’re listening, they can pull that up. So Mandy, would you want to start just tell us your name and a tiny bit about your blog?
Mandy Martinez 04:14
Yes, I’m Mandy Martinez, and my blog is Semi Homemade Kitchen. I started Semi Homemade Kitchen in September of 2023 and I focus on semi homemade recipes, primarily desserts, with a large focus on kid friendly and holiday cute things.
Megan Porta 04:33
Yes, you do have the cutest recipes. I’m just every time I see them on Instagram, I’m like, oh, that’s the best ever. Okay, Kristina, do you want to tell us your name and a little bit about your blog?
Kristina Cadelina 04:44
Hi, I’m Krisitina Cadelina, and I have a blog called When Salty and Sweet Unite. And my recipes are like, versatile, so they could be like, if you want to focus on gluten free or low carb, I like to consider them family friendly, and for anyone who wants to, like, reconnect with, you know, healthy foods or, like, improve their eating habits. Oh, and I started my blog at the end of 2021.
Megan Porta 05:11
awesome. Thank you, Rose, would you share a little bit about you and your blog?
Rose Sioson 05:16
Sure. Hi. I’m Rose Sioson, my blog is DeliciouslyRushed.com. I started last year, November 27 that’s when I when it went live. My blog is about it’s still pretty wide, but it’s quick and easy recipes. Most of my recipes are Asian. And then last summer, I added some Ninja Creami ice cream recipes.
Megan Porta 05:42
Oh, Ninja creami. Okay, so my family, we my husband, I just bought a ninja creamy for our family. Oh, because we have a son who’s obsessed with ice cream. So we figured this might be a little bit healthier option to, oh yes, explore. So I’m excited to look at some of your recipes. Awesome to know that. Sure. Thank you. Yeah. Well, thanks, guys. Okay, so I’m just gonna go around now and ask you each a little bit about your specific successes, because I know success is defined differently by everybody. And we can find success in many different areas of food blogging. We can find success with traffic. We can find success with a specific platform like Pinterest or Instagram, or maybe we do a project that brings success, like a cookbook or ebook or freelancing or another avenue. There’s all kinds of ways to find success. So Mandy to start, would you just talk about some of the successes that you found on your site, and if you want to share numbers, that would be great, if you’re comfortable with that. And yeah, then you can just turn this into a conversation.
Mandy Martinez 06:50
Yeah, absolutely. So when I first started, I think, like a lot of bloggers, my goal was to make it to MediaVine. That was a goal I had set for myself, and I had wanted to get it done within a 12 month period. So I wanted to be ambitious, so I decided to join the Eat Blog Talk mastermind, because I wanted to learn as much as I could and start off on the right foot. So I was actually able to make it in 11 months to MediaVine. So I hit that of August of this year, around 50,000 page views, which was great, and it’s just continued to my traffic has continued to really explode. For lack of a better word, I’ve been incredibly surprised and grateful for how quickly the blog has grown. I did put a big emphasis on holidays this year, which I think has been a big part of my success. So as of this morning, my my blog is sitting at 325,000 page views, which I just would never have imagined. I think that the main factors to that success has definitely been Pinterest. Pinterest is my number one traffic driver, and I think being consistent on Pinterest has been key to that success. I don’t pin a lot compared to some of the strategies that I’ve heard, so I only pin around four or five pins a day, but every pin that I do is a fresh pin. Another platform that’s given me a lot of success, particularly in the earlier six or seven months of my journey was Facebook. So I’m very active in sharing in recipe Facebook groups, as well as sharing my recipes in the roundup groups, which has given me the opportunity to be featured in a lot of MSN roundups, which are pretty popular right now. So that’s been great for growing my domain authority as well, which currently sits at 25 so I would say those are the consistency, and then just putting myself out there consistently has been huge to my success. Okay,
Megan Porta 08:49
I know that Facebook was kind of a launching pad for you, for somebody starting out who isn’t maybe seeing any traffic yet. Is that something you would recommend just going into those niche, specific groups and getting your URLs out there?
Mandy Martinez 09:08
Yes, definitely. I think it’s the fastest way to get traffic, because it’s immediate, right? People will click and go to your your page directly, whereas Pinterest and Google take a lot longer to build that. So I’ve been now 15 months, and I’m just starting to see Google traffic. So Facebook was definitely the launching pad for me. I will say that if you are going to go into those groups, like mentioned, like Megan mentioned, I would recommend searching for niche groups. I find that niche groups give more traffic than just the kind of generic or recipe blogs or recipe groups. Sorry, and make sure you read what the group rules are. Make sure you’re participating. If that’s one of the group rules, don’t just kind of drop your link and then run away and expect it to be clicked on. I do participate in a lot of groups, and I think. That kind of helps. So engaging with other posts and things like that will help the algorithm boost your posts as well.
Megan Porta 10:06
How long do you think you need to be consistent in those groups in order for you to see traction? Is it something you can just do right away, or do you have to establish some credibility first?
Mandy Martinez 10:17
So definitely, it’s going to grow over time. So I’ve been consistently active in the Facebook groups for 15 months now, and it’s it’s growing, but that’s also because the number of recipes that I have available to share has grown as well. But just to give a little bit of perspective, so I started in September of last year and by December of last year. So what’s that? Three months, I had already grown to 13,000 views, and that was just from Facebook, because I was getting nothing from Pinterest, nothing from Google. So it is possible to see growth, especially if you’re looking to qualify for a journey, which is now an option 10,000 although I heard that they’re accepting at lower rates now too.
Megan Porta 10:57
So and how long did it take for you to see both Pinterest and Google traction after you started your blog?
11:04
So the Google I still don’t get a ton of Google traffic. So out of that, those 320 odd page views, I am probably getting 15,000 of them from Google. So I still haven’t cracked the Google code, that’s for sure. But Pinterest I started, I was pinning once a day when I first, after about three months, I’d started pinning once a day because I didn’t have enough content initially to pin every day. And then I would say it was late July of this year that I started increasing and I went to three pins a day. And then in October, mid October, I went to four pins a day, but as soon as I moved from one pin to three pins in July, is when the uptick happened, and you can see a steady incline in my graph. So from July to probably like October was definitely a steady growth. But then when the holidays hit. Pinterest loves holiday content, it seems and holiday holidays just kind of took off Thanksgiving and now Christmas.
Megan Porta 11:08
So while you were saying your numbers, listeners probably can’t see my face, so you wouldn’t have seen that, I was like, mouth dropped. All of us had dropped mouths because that is so impressive, and I’m so happy for you, Mandy. I remember you sharing in the mastermind that your goal was to get to 50k by the end of this year, and here you are at 325k I just could not be more happy for you. So congratulations on that success.
Mandy Martinez 12:34
Thank you, Megan, thank you.
Megan Porta 12:35
So in a nutshell, I think the Facebook groups you utilized as a launching pad and you’ve really tapped into Pinterest in conjunction with holiday seasonal content?
Mandy Martinez 12:49
Absolutely and then staying true to my niche as well, I think has been important. There’s a lot of things I want to do, but I’m have to really go back to thinking, does it align with my blog, and will that be too much of an outlier? I do have a couple of recipes on there that I was kind of that I thinking back here, like, does it really fit? So I think staying true to the intent behind the blog is important as well.
Megan Porta 13:13
And you do have a pretty niche blog, so I think that probably serves you. And then Rose and Kristina, do you guys have any questions for Mandy as she’s talked through her successes, feel free to chime in.
Rose Sioson 13:26
I have no question right now, but it’s really impressive with your success in Facebook, Facebook groups. Oh my gosh, that’s that’s huge. Because I, I try doing that. I tried joining some Facebook groups, but whatever I post, whenever I get some traction. Sometimes the admin will just delete my my post for some reason, because I will put a link there. I guess I haven’t really cracked that part yet, but wow. Kudos to you, Mandy.
Kristina Cadelina 13:53
Thank you. I don’t have any questions for Mandy, but, I mean, I’ve been a part of the mastermind with her, so to see her growth. I mean, it’s so amazing and so inspiring. So, you know, definitely like the Facebook thing. That’s something I want to give a try in 2025 so yeah.
Megan Porta 14:12
And just one more question about the Facebook groups. Mandy, how much of a time investment would you say you put in to start?
14:20
Yeah, yeah. So I will say that the Facebook route is definitely a much bigger time investment than Pinterest for me. I spend anywhere from one to two hours a day in Facebook just because I really wanted to be consistent. But I think that’s what really helped me at the start, whereas my Pinterest, I probably spend two to two and a half hours a week, so it is a much different time commitment.
Megan Porta 14:47
Okay, thank you for sharing all of that. I think we’ll move on to Kristina now. So Kristina, tell us a little bit about the successes you’ve found. I know you’ve done freelancing work that has been successful for you. Talk about, I know you have Pinterest that took off for a while and that did well. And anything else you want to mention
Kristina Cadelina 15:05
Well for me, especially this past year, Pinterest did take off last year, around this time, I was sitting at about 2000 views, and I sat at that number for a really long time, and people were telling me, like, Pinterest is a long game. Don’t worry, it’s gonna pay off eventually. And I’m like, Yeah, whatever. And I started increasing my pins, and I added some more boards, and once I increased my pins and started really being consistent, like so scheduling out on Tailwind or through Pinterest, that’s when it really took off. So this year it hit like 22,000 views, and that’s pretty incredible, like, just over three four months. And the number, the number dipped a little bit, like around September, but now it’s starting to go back up again. So I think right now it’s at 16, 16,000 so, you know, not bad. And I only expected to go back up, especially with the new year and everything, and then also my blog growth. So I think I was, I don’t know, 1000 sessions a day last year. So just through updating and consistently putting out better content each time, I was able to hit Journey MediaVine this year. So that is pretty amazing. And also another part of my business is my freelance so just reaching out to clients and pitching, so, pitching them, and, you know, hearing back, hearing back from them. You know, it’s like you got to put yourself out there to to grow awesome.
Megan Porta 15:35
I have so many questions. So let’s go back to Pinterest just for a bit. And you mentioned your consistency. There was part of your success. You both have mentioned consistency all across the board, which I think is key for any platform, any blogger, any growth at all. Is there anything else you did that was unique on Pinterest? Like Mandy said that she creates a unique pin for every single pin. Do you do anything like that?
Kristina Cadelina 17:18
I started to now, one thing that I do, and I’ve been doing, is video pins. I may be doing, like, one to two a week, I noticed that video pins, for me, they don’t take off right away, but like, after a month, they perform well, and they get a lot of saves or outbound clicks. So those perform well. I think one of the things with Pinterest, for me is trying new things. So I’ve tried animated pins. I really didn’t see that great of success with animated so I just stuck with the video. But whereas some people will say, Oh, video doesn’t work for me, so I think, you know, you have to try different things,
Megan Porta 17:57
definitely seems to be an experimental platform, and different things seem to work for different people, because I’ve heard those animated pins work great for some accounts, and video pins work great for some accounts, but that isn’t necessarily for every account, so just keep experimenting and see what works. Right?
Kristina Cadelina 18:16
Yeah.
Megan Porta 18:16
Okay, now to your Google traffic, so your journey, congratulations. I’m so excited for you. When that happened. Do you feel like your updating is what tipped you over the edge for that?
Kristina Cadelina 18:28
Ooh, I think it’s a few things. Well, I think so one of the big things in my success overall is like being willing to invest in myself. So, you know, taking taking time to get the SEO course, or joining your mastermind group, like, you know, those are all big things. And just like, surrounding myself with people in the mastermind group and even other bloggers that I’ve met along the way, like that has, I mean, all of that information is coming in and like, I’m able to just write better post or, you know, whatever. And it all like, compiles up to successes. Yeah,
Megan Porta 19:11
it’s hard to pinpoint exactly, like, oh yeah, my updating equals Journey. It’s more of a just combination of so many different things. And I didn’t mean for this to be an ad for the mastermind group, but there really is so much value that it’s hard to communicate that you get from a group like that, and not just mine, but any high quality group, that it’s like, yeah, it’s such a unique, valuable experience. And you can’t just say it in a sentence, right? But I’m glad that that it helped you this year. Yeah. So happy for you with all your successes and then the freelancing. So I know Mandy, you can maybe weigh on, went way in on this as well, because I know you’ve done some what, what prompted you to go the freelancing route, and Kristina or Mandy, you guys can both answer that.
Kristina Cadelina 19:57
For me, the freelance so. So when I first started my blog, I really wanted to learn photography, like, pick up the camera, learn everything about it, and have that be a part of my business as well. So I went in with the intention that I wanted to do freelance. And it kind of, I mean, it makes sense for me to be emerged into the blogging, versus trying to hold my other career that had nothing to do with blogging, and it just wasn’t fulfilling. So for me, it was like a whole creative package to be able to do my blog and do freelance.
Megan Porta 20:36
To cover some of the finances, like you said, and not be in a completely different field that maybe is draining you. I don’t know if it was draining you, but for me, I know it did for me when I was there.
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Megan Porta 21:33
And then Mandy for you, did you feel like it was a natural fit to go into freelancing for those same reasons?
Mandy Martinez 21:40
So my story is actually a little bit opposite of Kristina. I was a freelance photographer and recipe developer for two years before I started my own blog. So I had those kind of skills already, and I just felt like I really wanted to, there was certain recipes or certain things that I do that I just really wanted to have my own voice to and put my own spin on, which is why I started the blog. So I was kind of the opposite. I had the freelancing first, and I’ve scaled down my freelancing to make space for the blog.
Megan Porta 22:13
And for a while that was bringing in significant, it might still be significant income for you, right?
Mandy Martinez 22:20
It was, yeah, so that was my business. That is what financed my my blog. I was very fortunate. Up until last month, actually, it was the primary income source for my business. But that has now tipped for these past two holiday months.
Megan Porta 22:36
That tipping point is so fun when you get there. Okay, Rose, we haven’t forgotten about you. We want to hear about your successes. What successes specifically have you found in your business in this past year?
Rose Sioson 22:49
Sure, just to put some perspective, I do have a full time, full time job, and I blog at night and sometime in the weekend right now, I’ve been like I said, I’ve been blogging for a little over a year, and I was able to get into Journey last August, unlike Mandy and Kristina, I solely relied to Google traffic. Actually, I do have a little bit of Pinterest, but with the recent update that Pinterest did around, I think it was around October, from having an impression of like 50, 50k it went down to zero to 100 for over a month. Plus we have, as we are all aware, we have this recent, frequent Google updates. Actually, we have one last month. We have another one going on right now, and yeah, it it’s slowing things down, but I’m still very thankful and very grateful that my traffic, although sometimes goes up, goes down, but it progresses slowly. Right now, I’m I’m thankfully close to 50k hopefully once this Google update in this September, in December, is done, Google will put me up there. So, yeah.
Megan Porta 24:08
Okay, so the traffic, you said dipped, were you talking about? You said that was Pinterest traffic. That dips was Yeah,
Rose Sioson 24:14
that one is Pinterest, yes. And then last October, last October, also I had a, I had an audit with with Casey last October, and as I was working on all the improvements in my website, I noticed that my, whenever I look at Google Analytics, my it’s always going down, and I realized there was an ongoing Google update around that time as well. So
Megan Porta 24:39
so your Google traffic is good, and it’s been, like you said, there are dips and valleys and peaks, but over time, it seems to be going in the right direction. What is the secret there? Because I feel like that’s pretty unusual for a new blogger to get significant Google traffic. Do you have any insights there?
Rose Sioson 24:58
Well, I think just. Kristina and Mandy. I think I will attribute it to consistency. Also, when I reach out to Casey, I remember during the time it was, I think, may I only have 80 blog posts? No, no, no, just 50. I think just 50. And he said, wait a little bit, once you’ve reached I think 80 is what he said. Then reach out to me again. So that motivates me to really pump up on, you know, creating new blog post. He was able to schedule me on October. During that time, I was able to double what I have. So I think when, when I had my audit, my my blog post, is almost 200 so it’s really, I don’t know. I don’t exactly what I did, but I know I’ve been very consistent. I made sure that I have at least three blog posts a week, or sometimes I have five. Yeah, I think it’s all just about consistency. Consistency again, our favorite word for today, I guess,
Megan Porta 25:59
No, it’s the word of the year. I think, honestly, the people who have been consistent in any aspect have been the ones that seem to thrive. Because it’s hard. It’s easy to give up in this landscape. Unfortunately, it is. So do you feel like Rose, that you’re because you have some niche topics on your blog? Do you feel like that? It can be the reason for some of your success too. Like, I know you focus on the Ninja Creami… I’m just looking at your content, and you do like easy, 30 minute dinners, chicken dinners. So do you feel like that is part of your success?
26:35
That’s a good point also. Because, as you can see, my blog is really it’s kind of generic, quick and easy recipes. There’s a lot of blog just quick and easy recipes, but mine has more on Asian, particularly Filipino recipes. And then last I had so much fun making ice cream and with my Ninja Creami so that gave me a way of adding it in my in one of my category. And yeah, during summer, when everything seems to be a little bit down for other niches, it’s, it’s performing well, because summer is, you know, ice cream month. And until now, people during Thanksgiving, you know, people are buying Ninja creamies. And yeah, there people are looking, most of my traffics right now are still all about ice cream, to be honest. So yeah, it really helped me a lot as well. Oh, that’s interesting.
Megan Porta 27:27
So even here in December, ice cream is topping out for you.
Rose Sioson 27:32
Yes, yes. I mean, surprisingly Yes, because we I do have some fall favorite fall fall flavors, and I haven’t had much time making winter, but I have few winter flavors or Christmas recipes also for ice cream, so those are helping me out with my traffic as well.
Megan Porta 27:52
That is so interesting. Do you think you’ll go more that route now, or do you think you’ll continue with easy dinners and your some of your other categories.
28:02
I just plan to grow that niche, also under my, under my Deliciously Rushed blog, and also, I think I’ll do 50/50, that’s the plan right now. But I plan to niche down, but using another, another domain. So that’s a plan in the near future.
Megan Porta 28:21
Okay, so you are. I feel like an anomaly that a lot of people want to be, because the coveted Google traffic is hard to get for a new blogger, I started a niche blog in July of 2023, and I have like zero traffic granted, and I’ve been consistent. I just, I don’t honestly give it a lot of attention outside of just publishing posts. But it’s not easy these days. It is no joke. So kudos to you. I am so impressed with your growth on Google.
Rose Sioson 28:55
Oh, thank you.
Megan Porta 28:56
Okay, I would love to open it up. Do you guys have any questions for each other as we’ve kind of talked through our unique successes?
Rose Sioson 29:05
Well, I’m very interested in the sorry, Mandy, you want to go ahead first? Sorry.
Mandy Martinez 29:09
No, you go ahead Rose.
Rose Sioson 29:10
Oh, well, thank you. Well, I’m very interested in your success in Facebook group. Do you have your own page, or is do you just join existing Facebook group?
Mandy Martinez 29:24
Yeah, I don’t have my own group. I just join other recipe sharing groups that are out there, and there are a lot of them, but like I mentioned earlier, I think finding something that’s more niche to your kind of recipes is important, because I feel like the group members tend to be more invested in the niche groups, because they’re there looking for that specific thing, as opposed to, like the larger recipe groups that just have all all kinds of different recipes, right? There’s not as much engagement from the other group members, just because it’s hard to be really engaged in everything.
Rose Sioson 30:00
I see, do you create a post on on those groups? Or do you just actively put a comment on each post? Or do you do both?
Mandy Martinez 30:09
No, I both both. I’ll do both. And I have a spreadsheet, a Google spreadsheet, that has a tab for all of the different groups that I’m a part of with the date and which recipe I shared, just so I’m not sharing the same recipe in the same group too often, because I don’t want to become spammy.
Rose Sioson 30:27
Okay, last question, how many groups do you have?
Mandy Martinez 30:29
Oh, gosh, so many, maybe 10, 12, or 15 that I that I share in almost every day. But it did take time to kind of find those groups, and the more that you share, the more frequently, Facebook will suggest other groups for you to join. So that’s kind of how it evolved over time.
Rose Sioson 30:47
I see Thank you.
Kristina Cadelina 30:48
I have a question for Mandy and Rose, how many posts are you publishing per week?
Mandy Martinez 30:54
So I try for a minimum of two. Ideally, I want to get up to three. It’s just I haven’t quite gotten there yet.
Rose Sioson 31:02
For me before, before my audit with Casey, my target is three to five per week. I know it’s a lot, but I’m trying to create as many posts before my audit, but after the audit, I just focus on really updating my old posts. And I really haven’t had a lot of, I mean, I haven’t really dedicated that much time to create new posts, but my target for now is at least one post a week, along with, you know, updating all all my old posts based on all the inputs I got from Casey, which is overwhelmingly a lot.
Megan Porta 31:39
How do you do your keyword research rose? Do you get inspired by a certain type of content and then go, go down the rabbit hole of key search? Or do you do it the other way around?
Rose Sioson 31:51
Well, initially, I’m pretty stubborn. I early in the game, I got Alex Cooking with Keywords, although I although I learned from there, I still focus on recipes, making recipes that are making a post of recipes that I really, I really want, and like Casey said, I’m very good at making posts that is ranking number one, but no no views, there’s no traffic on those keywords. So after that, yeah, aside from so I use my I use KeySearch, and last during summer, I tried RankIQ as well. That helped me. That’s another one that helped me with my traffic also, but I stopped it for for now, because it’s just a lot. I mean, I guess I get too excited on on, I know they have this credit of 18, 18, posts, I think, or 18…18, yeah, 18 posts. And I have the tendency to really, really make sure that I have 18 so I’m not wasting any, any money when, while I’m while I’m paying for RankIQ, but, but I really enjoyed RankIQ, yeah. I mean, it’s, I attribute it to really just RankIQ and KeySearch
Megan Porta 33:03
Okay, and those are both pretty easy and intuitive to move through. Kristina and Mandy. Do you have thoughts about keyword research? How do you guys go about that?
Kristina Cadelina 33:12
I use key search as well. I also have a girl that I recently started working with, and she is doing some keyword research for me as well, and she has helped me get a couple of new keywords coming up, and then help on updating old keywords.
Mandy Martinez 33:32
My keyword strategy, if you want to call it that, is, I make what I what I feel my readers like or what I want to make, and then I work backwards to find the keywords that fit. So I don’t necessarily find keywords to make recipes for I’ll make my or know what I want to make, and then kind of reverse engineer it. But I also use Keysearch for that, and I use RankIQ for the optimizer. I love the optimizer tool.
Megan Porta 33:59
Same. It is my favorite. I use it for every single update, every post I do. It is magic. I love hearing how all of you do keyword research differently. I feel like everyone has a different starting point and strategy and how they move through it. And you can find success with many different ways, right? It doesn’t have to just be one cut and dried way. Anything else you guys feel attributed contributed to your success this year, and any last words of wisdom for other people who are just feeling stuck because there are a lot of people out there in that situation, anything you can say to encourage them would be awesome.
Kristina Cadelina 34:40
One thing that helped me recently, or, you know, over the past year, was like outsourcing, even if it’s just small things. Like I really wanted to do some updates to my blog, but I just didn’t have the mind power to want to learn how to do it myself. So I. Got, like, an IT guy to help me out, so that way the task got done. And, you know, if I ever needed him for future stuff, I can always, you know, email him or whatever. But it was just nice to know that you don’t have to do it all.
Megan Porta 35:14
For sure. Go ahead, Mandy, what were you gonna say?
Mandy Martinez 35:16
Oh, no, that’s interesting, because I was actually going to ask a question, if anybody is outsourcing, because that’s something I definitely want to look into more in the future. So that’s great. I had a thought, and then I completely Oh, no, I remember what it is. Sorry. I just want to echo what Kristina said earlier, that investing in yourself, I think, is really key. I think especially when you’re new, you have a tendency when you’re not making money, to not want to spend money, which is totally normal. I get that 100% but I think if you’re really wanting to pursue this and to make this successful, that investing in yourself is one of the best things that you can do for yourself and your business.
Megan Porta 35:56
Totally agree. I go ahead.
Rose Sioson 35:57
For me, it’s the same. If we really mean business, I think we should be prepared to spend. I In the beginning, I tried to I was hoping that I could start a blog by just using free stuffs. But I realized that if I really mean business, I have to prepare to spend. I heard from one of your interview, Megan, that they said, use your nine to five to fund your dreams, and that’s what I’m really doing. So because we want to, we want to earn, so we really have to spend. I guess that’s what this business is about.
Megan Porta 36:36
Alright, you guys are amazing. And then on my normal interviews, which this definitely isn’t, but it’s so awesome. I’m thinking I might need to do more of these. I ask guests to share, just like if you have favorite quote or additional words of inspiration, we’ll end that way. If you don’t have anything, it’s totally fine.
Rose Sioson 36:57
I guess for me, I’ll just say, just start it and focus on the progress and not perfection.
Megan Porta 37:03
Amen to that
Mandy Martinez 37:05
Exactly. I’ll echo that 100% I was going to say consistency is better than perfection. 80% 80% done is better than 0% done. If you’re waiting for it to be perfect.
Rose Sioson 37:16
They say Publish is better than draft.
Kristina Cadelina 37:20
I heard this from another creator, but I really, this really resonated with me. Don’t post your content, post your purpose. If you post your purpose, your audience will find you.
Megan Porta 37:31
Oh, that is so good. Mic drop there. Kristina, oh my gosh. Publish is better than draft and then everything. Kristina just said, Wow, I actually got goosebumps a little bit. All right. And then the most important question of the day, Rose, which Ninja creami recipes should I make first from your site?
Rose Sioson 37:51
Well, I’ll start with my favorite base. It’s a vanilla I mean, from the vanilla recipe, you can add fruits, you can add chocolates, you can do a lot of things over on that one. So yeah, also start with plain vanilla, if you’re if you wanted to try something that’s maybe fall related, maybe my campfire. How do you call it? But
Megan Porta 38:14
I was just looking at this.
Rose Sioson 38:17
That’s my favorite.
Megan Porta 38:18
Okay, because my son, the one I was telling you loves ice cream. He he also loves s’mores. He loves s’mores ice cream. So I’m gonna make this for him over Christmas. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m sure it’ll be delicious. Okay? And then will you just reiterate what your blog is and maybe tell everyone what your social handles are too.
Rose Sioson 38:35
Sure My blog is deliciouslyrushed.com. You can find me on Facebook and Pinterest and Instagram using the same handle, same name, thank you.
Megan Porta 38:45
Okay, awesome. And then Kristina, what is your what are some of your top recipes on your site?
Kristina Cadelina 38:52
My cumin sweet potatoes do well. My bison meatloaf recently, my spice mixes are are ramping up. I love making homemade spice mixes, so…
Megan Porta 39:05
Sounds like The perfect Christmas dinner to me, or Saturday meal, yum. And then reiterate where people can find you and mention your social handles too.
Kristina Cadelina 39:14
On Instagram, I am When Salty and Sweet Unite, and I’m on Tiktok When Salty and Sweet Unite, and on Pinterest as well.
Megan Porta 39:23
And Mandy, from all of your amazingly cute, adorable content that I just wish I could pinch their cheeks. What is your audience’s favorites right now, during around the holidays, currently, so during the season?
Mandy Martinez 39:35
So I have two cake mix cookie recipes that are just going crazy right now. One of his one of them is a gooey butter cookie recipe that has holiday colored sprinkles in it, and the other one is a loaded cake mix Christmas cookie with marshmallows, pretzels, M Ms, chocolate chips and sprinkles. So I say that’s Santa’s favorite cookie.
Megan Porta 39:55
Oh, that sounds so good, between everything you guys just mentioned. I feel like, Yeah, I’m just starving right now. I need to go eat and then tell us where people can find you and mention your socials as well, Mandy.
Mandy Martinez 40:08
So my blog is Semi Homemade Kitchen, and I’m on Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram, at Semi Homemade Kitchen as well.
Megan Porta 40:17
Thank you all. You all are amazing and inspiring, and thank you for sharing your successes with us. And also congrats to all of you, because you should be really proud of what you’ve accomplished. Seriously, so happy for all of you, and let’s stay in touch. Thank you all.
Rose Sioson 40:33
Thank you, Megan.
Outro 40:38
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. Don’t forget to rate and review e vlog talk on your favorite podcast player. Thank you, and I will see you next time you.
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