Episode 537: What you Should Prioritize Now for Long-Term Success As a Blogger (+Why Google Analytics Should Be Your Friend) with Madeeha Anwar

EBT537 – Madeeha Anwar

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. 

Megan Porta  00:37

Can I just say how much I love my guests. I love my listeners. I don’t know why I felt prompted to say that right now. But I just feel so filled up after talking to Madeeha Anwar. She is from the blog The Side Baker, and we had this amazing conversation about understanding this concept that blogging is a marathon. It is definitely not a sprint and how we should prepare our mindset to align with this. Madeeha has been blogging for a couple of years, and she’s learned so much in these past two years because she really dug into learning. She invested in her blog and her business in different ways. She plans ahead, she understands what’s entailed in this long game. She gives herself grace to procrastinate when she’s just not feeling it on any given day. And we have such a great conversation around this topic. I think no matter what stage of blogging you’re in, you will find this valuable you’ll find it inspiring listen to the whole thing from start to finish to I hope you love it. It is episode number 537 sponsored by RankIQ. 

Sponsor  01:44

Hello, their food blogger friends, I want to take a really quick break from this episode to chat about a few ways Eat Blog Talk can help you to feel connected as well as to get your hands on relevant, valuable information in 2024. It has been a bit of a tumultuous year so far do you agree? But you have come too far to stop now. This time is a minor blip in the journey. So buckle up and let’s do this journey together and come out on the other side stronger than ever. Eat Blog Talk now has a Facebook group. Go join the BlogTalk community Facebook group to get in on some great discussions. Once you’re inside, you will gain access to a free job postings shared document whether you’re offering a service or looking for a service. There’s also the new-ish accountability group that you BlogTalk offers. This group is a low investment membership for anyone looking to connect with peers and grow your business. This is for newer bloggers, intermediate bloggers and experienced bloggers we offer robust calls in Slack discussions and so much more in this group for the low cost of $34 a month. The Eat Blog Talk Mini Minds and mastermind groups are still being offered in 2024 and beyond. Mini minds groups start up again in October and we will start filling the 2025 mastermind group in late summer of 24. Join the waitlist for one of these groups and you will not be disappointed. And last but not least join us at an in person retreat. If you are ready to learn, grow and build relationships in person. Join me and a handful of your fellow food bloggers and an upcoming Eat Blog Talk retreat. This is such a great opportunity to convene in an intimate setting. So you can learn collaborate and connect. These retreats involve mastermind style peer to peer collaborating, and they’re incredibly powerful, delicious, so much good food and fun. For all the offerings mentioned head to eatblogtalk.com and you will be directed in the appropriate way. We are more than just a podcast go explore some of these other offerings as your time and budget allows can’t wait to see you in some of those other places. Now back to the episode. 

Megan Porta  04:00

Madeeha is a baker, recipe developer, food stylist, and photographer. Her blog, Now Delish, was started in December 2021. In addition to the blog, Madeeha continues to work full time, and has reached a point where she knows how to organize her blog well to keep things moving forward. Now Delish primarily features baking recipes and easy main course recipes, especially the authentic Pakistani recipes that Madeeha grew up with.

Megan Porta  04:24

Hello, Madeeha. Thank you so much for joining me. How is your day going so far? Hi,

Madeeha Anwar  04:29

Megan, thank you so much for having me. And my day is wonderful because I got a chance to talk to you so.

Megan Porta  04:37

Same, I feel the same right back atcha. I am super excited about this topic. I love it. It is blogging is definitely a marathon right. It’s not something we can accomplish in a short amount of time. And this was such an important message especially this year. So I’m excited to dig into it. But first you have a fun fact to share with us?

Madeeha Anwar  04:58

Yes, sure. Megan so it My fun fact would be that we are three sisters and we live continent apart. So one of the sisters in Pakistan, the other one is in Sydney, Australia. And I’m here in Virginia, United States.

Megan Porta  05:12

Oh my gosh. So how often do you get to see each other? 

Madeeha Anwar  05:16

Quite often, you know, once a year, we trying to gather together in one of the countries so yeah, yeah, we that’s one goal that we stick to, yeah, be happy to meet each other. For example, I’ll be leaving for Australia next month. So it’s great. It’s hard as well, you know, people call me that you have a global family, rightly so. But it also gives you a chance to travel a lot.

Megan Porta  05:37

Absolutely. Yes. Once for opportunity. That would be amazing, actually, to have something that propels you to go travel the world. You got to see your family. So you might as well get out and explore, right? Absolutely. Yeah, that’s a cool, fun fact. I love it so much. Would you mind Madeeha? Just giving us a little bit of a background about your blog when you started? What’s your blog all about? Anything you feel is relevant? 

Madeeha Anwar  06:04

Yes, sure. So I started my blog back in December of 2021. It’s been a little over two years into blogging experience in about 100 posts. And I have been dealing with my blog along with a full time job. In my other life, I’m a journalist, and I work full time. And then you know, I’m handling this blog, my basic niche for my blog is baking. But I’ve also added, you know, the recipes, a main course recipes, especially the authentic Pakistani recipes, the cuisine I grew up with.

Megan Porta  06:36

And it’s so beautiful, I love just the color and your photography. It’s beautiful. 

Madeeha Anwar  06:43

Thank you.

Megan Porta  06:43

Yes, you can tell that you’ve put either you’re, like, naturally talented, or you put a lot of work into that, or both, maybe I don’t know, but it’s, yeah, it’s gorgeous. Okay, so I love that you are kind of a new blogger, because you already are seeing that this whole blogging game cannot be done in just a short amount of time. So you see the importance of having that mindset that it is a marathon, it’s not a sprint, and that you need to adjust accordingly. So at what point did you realize that blogging was a marathon? 

Madeeha Anwar  07:17

Not in the beginning, make and I will be very honest with you, and you know, I was going through different, I was doing some background research before digging into blogging, and you know, there were posts, like, you know, earning $1,000, but then one month of blogging or 3000, within two months of blogging, I was like, wow, this is very easy. And you know, I’m a good baker. And everybody always tells me that I bake beautifully and you know, really amazing, delicious baked goods. So I thought why not give it a try, you know, everybody wants to have a side hustle as well. So that was also in my mind. Little did I know at that point, that’s what I’m putting myself into. So after I would say, I mean, I started blogging, and you know, the first three, four months, I was very excited about it. And but after you know that, I started to realize that it’s not that easy. And you know, there are so many different dimensions and layers to it. And you explore so many things along the way, once you are into it, it’s very different to see it from an outside perspective. But once you’re inside it, and you have started blogging, and there are so many different things that you have to learn, you have to take care of and you have to be wary of. So it makes it a very different experience altogether. So I would say it took me about like six to eight months to come to that understanding.

Megan Porta  08:43

Yeah. And do you find that having the wrong perspective, so thinking that you can just get started with blogging and find success immediately leads to disappointment?

Madeeha Anwar  08:54

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, that was my case. And it could be both, you know, disappointment and also embracing yourself for this change. And because you know, there is not a get rich quickly type of scheme. So it’s definitely not that. So once you have made up your mind that okay, this is something that I want to do. Of course, this is going to be a little disappointment in the beginning, but then you will embrace yourself. And if you love challenges like me, then you would say one, right, let’s do it. Let’s learn the game. Let’s understand it. And let’s do it accordingly.

Megan Porta  09:27

And be in it for the long haul. And just yeah, adjust your story as needed. But what do you have specific ways that we can wrap our heads around this if somebody listening is maybe having those expectations that it should be a really easy, fast success? What are some things that they can do to change their perspective to get on just that mindset of being a long game? Absolutely.

Madeeha Anwar  09:52

So I think after two and a half years of blogging, I also have a few points that I can talk about and I think I hope so that it is going to be useful for other bloggers as well.

Megan Porta  10:04

Yeah, yeah, let’s hear them, what do you have? What’s a good place to start?

Madeeha Anwar  10:08

Sure, I think prioritize planning, that would be my first thing to start with, I think it is a key factor to run a blogging business, it is very important, especially, you know, if you are somebody like me, who is very disciplined in their life, and also we have a full time job. So it’s not easy to juggle around between these two things very easily. So I have a thing that I prepare a content schedule each month. And you know, my days are marked for different tasks for, for example, you know, one day is to show the recipes and to take the pictures and added the photos, I do this all at one day. And then you know, I write and publish the posts accordingly, later in the month. And I believe that, for me, it’s much easier to stay on top of my game. And you know, with my blog schedule, sticking to it, it’s much easier when I have a prior planner in front of me, and you know, that makes my life easier. I already have my keyword research done. I know, next Wednesday, this is the recipe that I’m going to shoot. And these are the eight or 10 recipes that I’ll be posting in the coming month. So I think prior planning is has worked wonders for me, of course, you know, some days you don’t feel like sticking to the schedule. But if you have the prior planning, it makes it much easier. And also, I would say that content batching is also important. So you know, you can set different days for different tasks and content batch will help you to to be able to produce more content, by sticking to your planner as well.

Megan Porta  11:40

Yeah, I love this point, because not only does it help you to stay organized, but it helps to take off a mental load, right? Like it takes out the guesswork, you already know what’s coming. So you just dig in and do it right. That’s awesome. And then how far in advance do you typically plan your content, and also your organization, like how your week and month is gonna go? 

Madeeha Anwar  12:01

I would say one to two months, but definitely a month ahead. Usually it’s a month ahead. For example, right now I know what I’m going to do throughout the April. But sometimes I can plan for two months in advance. And that’s really great. But most of time, it’s a month in advance.

Megan Porta  12:17

Okay, love this, I think it’s one of the most important things to have in place, just set that cadence of your content and the way you’re blogging is gonna go and just keep going with it. Right? There’s, it’s a long journey ahead. So keep at it. What else do you have for us Madeeha.

Madeeha Anwar  12:36

So make an off course, you know, understanding the game, understanding the rules of the game, it is very, I think it’s another very critical factor and a key factor to understand that, as you said at the beginning that blogging is a marathon. And you know, that’s how it should be treated, and nobody should expect results right away. There’s a lot of work and sweat that will go into it before you will see any results. So it’s not like a lottery scheme, okay, you have purchased this ticket and you know, you will get a lot of money out of it. No, and it’s not a get rich, quick list type of scheme, you have to put your heart and sweat into it. And then you will get the results. So understanding the whole process is very important. And as I said, you know, in the beginning, I also had no idea about blogging. Once I was doing it on a regular basis, only then I understood how many different layers are to this thing and how many different dimensions are there. And you know how many hurdles you will face in your way. For example, you know, Google core update, you know, you have done so much work on your website, and all of a sudden your traffic that you were getting is down, and you’re totally clueless what to do. And you need to figure out so many things, you need to figure out search engine optimization, you need to learn social media, you need to learn photography, artificial lighting, and the list goes on and on and on. It can be overwhelming, quite frankly, you know, and it will take you some time before you can grip on blogging. And there is so much competition Megan I mean, there are so many bloggers out there, they are all competing for the same thing. So it is definitely not easy. There are so many people around you who are striving to get same results as you or even they’re better in their work than you and you have to, you know, look at their work and admitted and then tell yourself alright, I have to you know, level up my game. And it’s never easy because you have to learn skills, you have to practice it, and only then you’re going to get some results. So that also brings to me to one more point, you know, be ready to improvise, you know, in this whole journey. You should be ready to improvise because You know, there are so many things that are going to change continuously, you have to follow the trends blogging game will change, you know, so much has changed in the past couple of years. And you know, I listened to your podcast and some other podcasts where I hear, you know, bloggers like you, you have been doing it for so many years, and the changes that you have seen and the changes that you share, and you know, I always get amazed by it. So it’s like constantly evolving, and you should be able to improvise accordingly, you should be able to adapt the changes quickly and to learn them and to start again.

Megan Porta  15:35

And accept that change is part of that journey that you are not going to get out on the other side without massive changes. That is just a given. Yeah, yeah. Love that one, too. And not also to acknowledge that it’s not easy all the time, right, like some of those changes, you mentioned can be really hard. And at times devastating. The helpful content update, for example, was really devastating for a lot of people’s traffic. So not to diminish that or minimize that, like, oh, it’s changed, you just deal with it. That’s not what you’re saying. I don’t think and not what I’m saying. It’s just like more of a yes, it’s hard. But come to terms with it, figure out what you need to do to pivot and to keep moving forward, that sort of thing. 

Madeeha Anwar  16:19

Exactly, exactly. And these things can be so disappointing. And it’s not easy to pick yourself up again, right? It’s you know, you have to constantly tell yourself, no, you can do it, you can do it. And at times, it’s not easy to be honest. But if you want to be a part of this game, then you will have to learn this.

Megan Porta  16:37

Exactly. And you mentioned competition earlier, something to give you an edge over that competition, is this, wrapping your mind around the fact that you are going to have to face changes, you are going to have to pivot. And this game is going to take a long time. So that is your edge right there in my opinion.

Madeeha Anwar  16:56

Yeah.

Megan Porta  16:57

What else do you have for us what other things are on your list Madeeha?

Madeeha Anwar  17:00

So Megan, I think one more thing, while you know you’re embracing yourself to, to adapt to all these changes. And to understand this game of blogging, there is one more thing you need to be easy on yourself as well. For example, I’ll tell you, you know, you should allow yourself to procrastinate. And what I basically mean by it, you know, as I explained in the beginning, that, you know, I have a content planner. And I always think that prior planning is better. But you know, there are tears when you know, when I have a task, and I want to do it. But you know, I don’t feel like that. So for such days where you know, while I know it is best to stick to your schedule tasks for the blog. But you should also allow yourself to procrastinate at times like these, because you know, that’s how we humans operate. You know, there will be times when you just don’t want to do anything, then don’t curse yourself or don’t be hard on yourself, just allow to take that one day off, and tell yourself alright, I’ll start again from the following day. So set the goals, but don’t kill yourself, you know, if you have fallen out of the track, give yourself time to get back to your routine, give yourself some time to make you realize that you know you are into it for the long duration. And you know, this realistic approach is going to prepare you better to stay focused in the long run. And as we said, it’s a marathon. It’s not a journey for one day that you know, you’re done with the race. No, it’s a constant race. So burnout is a real thing. And it’s I find it very easily with blogging. You know, when you first start you have no idea about it, but down the road, you will know about it better because then you would know how much time each task is taking. And you know, there are different tasks in blogging that you would like and there are different tasks that you would not like to do. But you have to do all those things. So you know, of course you have done your prior planning you’re you’re done with keyword research, you have done groceries to make the recipes, but what happens on the baking day, you just don’t feel like baking. It’s okay. It’s okay to be like that. So you have to tell yourself about it. It sounds weird, I know. But this is so true. And this has happened so many times with me and you know you feel like that you have fallen back but then you have to muster up the courage you have to tell yourself we are in the scheme for long duration long times, and then you will start again.

Sponsor  19:32

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Megan Porta  20:30

Do you find that forcing work when you don’t feel it? Like you you mentioned the baking day if you have on your calendar baking day, and you go into it and realize I don’t want to do this today. And then you force yourself to do it. It’s actually counterproductive. 

Madeeha Anwar  20:46

Absolutely. And I’ve done that to me and I have done that too. And I find you know, that it’s much better to avoid it than to force yourself into it. It’s okay, as I said, taking a day off or two, it’s fine. Even taking a week off. It’s fine. Blogging is not a one day game. So you know, you have to, as they say, you have to constantly feed the beast, it’s literally like that, you know, you have a blog, and you have to constantly feed it. So it’s okay to to live the task for that day. But as you said, if you’re doing it, if you’re forcing yourself to do it, and your heart is not into it, it will also reflect in the post. I think so.

Megan Porta  21:32

Yeah, absolutely. It’s like the story of the tortoise and the hare. I know I bring this up all the time on the podcast, but it’s so true. If you just go go go and force it and just do whatever you can to get to the finish line, you’re gonna burn out, you are going to be exhausted, you’re not going to be fruitful. But if you’re the tortoise who just hangs back and takes his time walking to the finish line, taking pauses when you need to. It’s such a good metaphor for what we experience as food bloggers just see yourself as that like slower paced, but always moving forward person, right?

Madeeha Anwar  22:06

Absolutely. Moving forward is the game. 

Megan Porta  22:08

Yeah, moving forward. Because burnout, you mentioned burnout, it is a horrible place to be. And once you experience it, you’ll be tempted to never come back to blogging again. I think a lot of food bloggers quit because of burnout, sadly.

Madeeha Anwar  22:22

And that is very real. Honestly, the whole real.

Megan Porta  22:25

And you think you’re immune, I thought I was immune for so long, Madeeha. And I mean, nobody is I experienced it. It was awful the first time and then I did it again. And then again. And I became an expert in burnout. And it’s a really hard place to be so you don’t want to be there.

Madeeha Anwar  22:39

Yeah, absolutely. 

Megan Porta  22:40

Yeah. What else do you have?

Madeeha Anwar  22:42

learning Meegan I mean, invest in learning, it’s very important because there are so many different things that you would want to learn be it search engine optimization, keyword research, photography, there are so many things that you have to learn when you start blogging yourself ad which you have no idea about that, you know, once you start blogging, then you have to acquire these skills as well. So this attitude that you are open to learning new skills, you are open to new challenges, and then you will take out time to learn those tasks. Again, these are not easy things to do, you would need hours and hours into learning and practicing and mastering these skills, you know, probably years, but there is a starting point for everything. So you have to tell yourself that if you want to be a food blogger, then you have to be open to learning and invest into learning. And of course this comes on to budget as well. I mean, I find myself lucky because I have a full time job so it makes my life much easier. I can take out money for different courses. For example, I have taken courses for SEO and keyword research to develop a better understanding and not everybody can afford it. So what should they do, they should do what I was doing prior to this. It was like listening to your podcast, or you know The Food Blogger Pro podcast. And I think it is such a great thing. 

Madeeha Anwar  24:08

It is such a great thing you’re doing for this community Megan honestly, I want to appreciate you as well. It’s such a good thing because you know when people are coming to your podcasts and they are sharing their real life experiences about food blogging, and you know there are times when you can relate to them. And there are times when you can learn from their experiences. It’s unbelievable and as they say information is gold you know, you don’t need to invest some money in listening to these podcasts and getting all these experience this is just amazing. And you know, eventually you can take those experience of other people and try to apply it in your blogs and you know, there are chances that you will understand the craft of blogging better and probably eventually be seeing results. I think the more you get to know about different perspectives and stories of success. and sometimes failures as well. It will help you to make changes in your blogging career as well. And it will help you to relate to these people. I always find all these podcasts a great experience that has helped me to, you know, to find a path for myself and to solve some problems in my blogging journey as well. So I think this is a great service, and everybody should be listening to these podcasts. And I would also recommend one more thing that is my go to thing if I have any question. It’s Food Blogger Central’s Facebook group, I think it’s such a nice group, diverse group, there are so many experienced food bloggers over there, and they are so open to anything, you know, if I have any curiosity, regarding anything, I would just go and posted there. And you know, people will be there coming and giving you advice right away, telling you the ways how to fix your problems, your issues on the blog, I think it’s a great community. And it’s a great resource, especially for new bloggers, and also for the experienced ones as well. And lastly, last, but not the least, I think, YouTube, it’s great. There are so many people over there, you can learn so many skills without investing any money, there is so much free content of high quality out there. And you just need to have the zest to go and search these videos related to your subject. And you know, to learn to be open to learning new skills, I think that is also very important for a food blogger.

Megan Porta  26:30

Oh, you touched on so many good things there. And if you don’t have the money upfront to invest in courses or anything like that, you made a really good point, you can invest your time. In the free stuff. There’s a lot of free content in our space. Now, when I started food blogging, there was nothing we were just like, here you go figure it out. But now there’s so much there’s podcasts, there’s Facebook groups, YouTube. So do that if you are discouraged about not having the money to invest, right?

Madeeha Anwar  26:58

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it’s you, you just need to invest in time. Yeah.

Megan Porta  27:03

So what do you think about investing in other things? Like, I know, there are plugins and themes. And you know, those sorts of things that are really important, too. What are your thoughts on that? 

Madeeha Anwar  27:13

Totally, totally agree with you. I mean, again, Megan, it depends on the affordability, I mean, it’s best to go for the best available resources that you know will help you to elevate your blogging from day one. For example, I have a feast plus theme and I have some paid plugins such as Yoast premium, WP Rocket, WP recipe maker, shortpixel, etc, etc, that will help you with your SEO immensely, you know, right from day one, if you can invest in wonderful, that’s the best way to move forward, do some prior learning about these things. And you know, just get to know about these plugins. And if you can invest, invest in them, because you know, they will help you with your SEO game, right from day one. And it is very important to understand the importance of a good website that is pleasing to eyes, you know, and you’re passing your Google core easily. So these are all things you know, and they all go hand in hand. But I think if you can take out some money to invest in these things, these will really help you with your website. 

Megan Porta  28:19

Yeah, that’s great advice as well. And a lot of the things you mentioned are not massive investments. I mean, it’s not like you have to spend 1000s of dollars or, you know, even upwards of $1,000, the Feast plugin, I think is just a couple $100 a year. And that is such a good investment in just knowing that your site is taken care of on the back end. So I would say do your research, right, and then kind of determine what your budget is and see what you can afford. But you can do it really affordably if you’re smart about it. 

Madeeha Anwar  28:51

Absolutely. 

Megan Porta  28:51

All right, what else do you have for us, Madeeha.

Madeeha Anwar  28:53

And this is the thing that I’ve learned very recently quarterly content analysis. You know, I until recently, you know, I was not good friends with my Google Search Console, and I thought it was very hard to understand it. And you know, there were so many things, but whenever I would go there, I thought they were very scary. And I just couldn’t make any sense around it. But I think I think it’s very important to be friends with Google Search Console and to try to understand what it is telling you because it’s all data and data is not going to lie to you. And you know, this data and analysis of this data is only going to help you to move the needle further in your career, you would know what is working with for you and you know what is not working which are posts that are performing well which are not, you will also develop an understanding how your audience is receiving your content and you know what they like what they don’t like and you know, things like that. So I would definitely say invest some time and again, there is so much resource or internet and YouTube and this is something that I’ve done entirely learned over YouTube to understand Google Search Console to you need to learn to know how this data analysis is going to help you and your blogging career, you need to learn it, you need to develop an understanding around it, you cannot get scared with it as I have for the past one year or so. In the end, you have to develop the understanding if you want to improve your blogging. So I think that is also very important. And then you know, after every quarter, sit down and take notes, and then compare it from your past quarter and see if there are any improvements. Are there any things that you need to improve? It will tell you a lot about your website.

Megan Porta  30:44

Yeah. Oh, gosh, there’s so much hidden in there. And just to acknowledge what you’ve said, too, it’s really scary. At first, I think, especially as a creative individual, like a lot of us are going in and looking at analytics is like, oh, gosh, no, thank you. I’d rather not. But once you get in and become friends with that, like you said, I love that term. It’s really not so bad. And it can be really interesting.

Madeeha Anwar  31:08

Yes, yes. And it can be your friend. 

Megan Porta  31:10

It can be your friend. Yes, don’t write that off. Because it can also be directly correlated to increased traffic, increased revenue. So being friends with your analytics, I think is a really good piece of advice. What else do you have for us?

Madeeha Anwar  31:26

So this is the last one. Of course, this totally depends. If you have the budget, get an audit. It’s very important. You know, once you have applied all the above points that we have discussed so many different things. And you’re still not seeing the results that you expect it to see after you have put so much heart and sweat into this blogging thing. And you know, for example, I had over 80 posts, and I was thinking that my traffic should be much more than this. And perhaps I’m doing something wrong, then get an audit done with an SEO expert. Definitely, definitely. But know that it is going to be an expensive, expensive pill to swallow. It’s not budget friendly. You have to take out budget for it. I recently did an audit with Casey, Markee and all Megan, oh, my God, I mean, I cannot even tell you, I got to know so many things. I had no idea I was doing so wrong. So you know, it was such a great session with him. And he was looking at my blog, he was telling me different things, changing some plugins, changing the style of the blog postings, and so many so many different things, you know, and then at the end, I got such a big document from Casey. And you know, there are so many things that I have to get right on my blog, I’m still working on that long list. And I think it is going to take me a few months for now I have put a pause on new posts. I think for the next couple of months. I’m trying to work around in these old posts. But I think from plugins to writing the post or to understanding how to write the alt text for pictures or you know, do understand SEO, I think it’s an eye opening experience, at least for me. And I opted for it because you know, I’ve learned from so many people on your podcast and from other podcast where these audits have helped them immensely with their blog blogging journey. So I would definitely recommend it. Definitely it’s going to be a little hard on your budget. But if you want to take blogging seriously, this is one thing that is really going to help you a lot.

Megan Porta  33:25

Yeah. Yeah, great advice, too. Because sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know. Like, we have no idea what we need to do, because we just don’t we have no clue what is even there, right? So some, sometimes we need to lean on the experts to tell us what we need to do. So great piece of advice there as well. And do you have anything else, Madeeh?

Madeeha Anwar  33:46

No, I think that would be it. That’s all my experiences. That’s what I’ve learned in my little over two years of blogging experience. And you know, if you are a blogger, just hang on to it, learn skills, and eventually you will find your way around that.

Megan Porta  34:00

If you could pull out maybe the biggest takeaway that you feel is important for somebody who just needs to grab that mindset that this was a long game, what would it be?

Madeeha Anwar  34:13

Yeah, I mean, it’s a long game and just be open to learn things. Be open to learn once you’re open to learning new skills, new things, and you’re able to apply it on your blog, and take it a step at a time and know that you know you’re in for a long time. And this is not a thing that you will be an expert within a year or two or five years. It’s a it’s constantly evolving. You need to be open to it. You need to be constantly learning these skills. And only then with that mind and attitude. You can be a good food blogger. Yeah.

Megan Porta  34:47

I mean, I’m coming up on 14 years and I still don’t feel like I’m an expert. I don’t know anything. Everything changes all the time. There are new bloggers who come in who know way more than I do about something so really, you never get to that point where you’re like, Yep, I’m an expert now. It’s always going to be changing. And you always need to be learning. So I think all of these points that you brought to the table are extremely important. Thank you. Madeeha. This was such a fun chat and so valuable.

Madeeha Anwar  35:14

Thank you so much, Megan. And let me tell you, I’m still you know, I’m still in awe. And I’m still trying to tell myself Oh, I am speaking to you. So, thank you so much for having me.

Megan Porta  35:24

It’s my pleasure, so great to connect with you today. Do you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration they’ll leave us with?

Madeeha Anwar  35:31

I have one and it’s by Winston Churchill never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about. And I think that’s food blogging for me.

Megan Porta  35:42

And that’s funny because almost every food blogger I talk to says the same thing. We get obsessed with our businesses, which is a good sign that there’s passion, right? Great quote to end on love it so much. We’ll put together a show notes page for you, Madeeha if you want to look at those you can head to eatblogtalk.com/nowdelish. Tell everyone where they can find you.

Madeeha Anwar  36:04

So it’s the same handle over social media nowdelish for Instagram for Facebook and YouTube as well, although I’m not active there. 

Megan Porta  36:12

All right, everyone, go check out Madeeha and all of her amazing content. Thanks again for being here. And thank you so much for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

Outro  36:23

Thank you so much for listening to this episode and Eat BlogTalk. If you are craving accountability, focus and connection at a low monthly cost, join the blog talk accountability group at eatblogtalk.com/focus. I will see you next time.