Episode 513: The 5 Biggest Mistakes I Made with My Food Blog with Samantha Blake

EBT513 – Samantha Blake

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. 

One of my favorite things is learning from food bloggers who have been on their journeys and who have made a lot of mistakes because there are always lessons and growth opportunities that come from those mistakes. Samantha Blake from Samantha Digital joins me inside this interview to talk about the mistakes she made as a food blogger. Her food blog is put on hold for a little bit while she builds up her web design and SEO business, but she’s going to get back to food blogging soon. She imparts some really important lessons that she learned when she was food blogging that we can definitely learn from, including not niching down, having poor keyword research strategies, pursuing different SEO strategies at the same time wasting time on your blog design. And she presents a handful of other things that we can definitely learn from. I hope you love the episode. It is number 513, Sponsored by RankIQ.

Sponsor 01:39

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Megan Porta 03:10

Sam began a web design and SEO business after food blogging didn’t go as planned for her. While she still enjoys cooking and baking as a hobby, she learned she truly how to love for web design and SEO when it comes to business. Sam particularly loves designing and developing websites and coming up with SEO strategies for food bloggers. It’s the best of both worlds. She loves sharing her experience and knowledge about SEO to help more food bloggers grow their blogs. Hello, Samantha. Thanks for joining me today. How are you?

Samantha Blake 03:39

Hi, Megan. I’m doing great, thank you.

Megan Porta 03:41

Good. I am excited to chat about your food blogging mistakes and how we can learn from you. I think we learn best from hearing about those unfortunate mistakes they turn into good things. Right. But first, before we dig into that, we would love to hear a fun fact from you.

Samantha Blake 04:00

Oh, sure. So a fun fact about me is that I have a twin brother and I also share the exact same birth date and year as my fiancé. So, big day in September for the three of us.

Megan Porta 04:13

Oh my gosh, that’s so cool. So do you guys do anything extra special for your birthdays?

Samantha Blake 04:18

Actually, no. It’s pretty standard birthday kind of shared amongst us. My brother doesn’t live in the area anymore, so it’s usually just a phone call with him. But yeah, it is kind of fun to share that day with them.

Megan Porta 04:28

Absolutely. That’s really cool. I love that. All right, well let’s dig into the topic. And I know you were a food blogger and then you transitioned to be more of a web designer and SEO expert, correct?

Samantha Blake 04:41

Yes.

Megan Porta 04:41

So I’d love to hear that, like when did you start your food blog? How did you make the transition, all of that? Just give us that background, if you don’t mind.

Samantha Blake 04:49

Absolutely. So I started my food blog in the fall of 2020. During the pandemic, I was working really long, stressful hours at my nine to five job, and so it kind of became a fun, creative outlet and hobby for me on the side after work and on weekends. And I absolutely loved food blogging so, so much. But about two years in or so, I realized that what I really love is the web design and the SEO piece. And so I won’t say I quit my food blog, I’ll say that I put it on hold because I do hope one day to come back to it, but for now I’m definitely all in on web design and SEO. I absolutely love it. I love working with food bloggers in particular because any way that I can help, you know, help them avoid some of the mistakes that I’ve made absolutely makes my day. And so it was definitely a slower transition. I think I was a little afraid to take the leap, but I am so happy that I did. And it’s definitely starting to pick up speed and just overall been a really fun, exciting journey.

Megan Porta 05:55

I love the story. I love also that you didn’t get discouraged enough to just throw in the towel with food blogging, that it’s on hold for you and that you are just pursuing another venture in love. Right. I love that story.

Samantha Blake 06:07

Absolutely.

Megan Porta 06:07

Yeah. So you started up your web design and SEO business and how is that going and how long have you been doing that?

Samantha Blake 06:14

So it’s definitely started out slow, I will not lie. Working full-time, needing to really like learn the, the web design piece to offer it as a service. And same thing with the SEO side to build up my portfolio. It took some time, especially while I was working a nine to five job, I actually had to switch my nine to five jobs in the process of all of this because my nine to five job wouldn’t allow me to have a side business. So that slowed things down. But now I’m definitely starting to kind of pick up steam and have a consistent client base and get results for my clients. And so yeah, it’s been a, a really fun journey. A lot of lessons along the way. A lot more to learn.

Megan Porta 06:53

So you were actively food blogging for two years, you would say?

Samantha Blake 06:57

Exactly.

Megan Porta 06:59

And two years is a kinda, I mean, it’s a while to be food blogger, so you learned, I’m sure a lot of valuable lessons that you’re going to impart with us. So yeah, let’s just talk through some of those things. What are some of the things that you learned from that experience?

Samantha Blake 07:14

Absolutely. So I would say the biggest mistake I made in blogging was not picking a clear niche and not having a proper keyword strategy in place. And on the surface, this probably sounds so vanilla because everybody is told pick a niche and have a good keyword strategy in place. But I think the interesting part about my story is I actually thought that I was doing these two things. I thought I had a niche, I thought I had a keyword strategy, but about two years in I realized I was not on the right track. And so I really had to make a decision. Do I want to reset and go down the blogging path or pursue the web design and the SEO piece? And ultimately it was a really tough decision. But like I said, I’ll, I definitely plan to come back to food blogging down the line. But, so to talk a little bit more about why this was such a mistake and provide kind of some more information there. My vision for my food blog was to be the go-to spot on the internet for all things easy holiday and seasonal recipes and party ideas. So the idea would be that, you know, let’s just say January, my audience would say, oh, you know, like Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day are right around the corner, let’s go to Sam’s blog and see what she’s cooking up and planning so that I can plan my party on a budget, you know, with ease and just have it be such a blast for everyone. But there was a few problems with the implementation of this, all that holiday recipes and parties is not a niche. So Google didn’t know if I was an expert on Christmas cookies, holiday brownies, summer desserts and so on, because in the beginning I had like maybe six or so posts per season. And the idea would be that eventually I would build up a library across, you know, all holidays and all, you know, food categories. And so I was just really in the beginning lacking that topical relevance. And as a new website with very little authority, you know, it takes a good while to rank. So even though I was writing Christmas cookie posts in August, Google has, you know, a million of Christmas cookie posts in its database. So why would it ever choose this brand new food blogger that wrote two posts about Christmas cookies, when there’s so many others? And so that was kind of one big learning lesson, if you will. And the next piece about that is when I chose my keywords or my kind of keyword research strategy in air quotes, I chose recipes that I wanted to create and then I found a keyword for it. So for example, I knew I wanted to make chocolate Christmas cookies, so I would go into my SEO tool and then look for keywords that had low competition with high search volume. And so I think this was a mistake. Instead, what I should have done and what I do with my clients now is I take more of a top down approach and I just find that this is so, so much more valuable and strategic. And so what I mean by taking a top down approach is I’ll start with a competitor in the industry or more of a seed term like chocolate chip cookies and then work my way down from there. So for example, if we’re starting with a competitor, we would then kind of find keywords that they’re ranking for that have high surge volume and low competition because they’re already existing, we already have the data for them, and you just tend to find so many more opportunities that way. So that’s kind of one piece, or just starting more broadly. And so tying this back into my holiday, you know, kind of concept of a niche , if I were to do it over, I might start with something like strictly cookies and just covering all of the cookie topics across all of the holidays and all of the seasons. And I think that would’ve been a way to still pursue what I loved, but also following the data. And you know what, Google needs more. One other piece to that was, I think a really big mistake was focusing primarily on seasonal content. I really don’t recommend this until you have consistent, steady blogging traffic. So focusing on those evergreen keywords, because what happens with seasonal content is you might get a spike in December, but then you know it’s a lull until maybe 4th of July or whatever the case may be. And so those spikes are so exciting and so fun to see, but you know, it can just be quite a choppy journey if you’re not starting with those evergreen keywords.

Megan Porta 11:33

Okay. The evergreen thing is really good advice, I think, because it is so tempting to do like, oh, Christmas cookies and all the seasonal stuff because it’s fun. I think a lot of us enjoy that. Were you able to switch this before you put your blog on hold? Or is this something you’re going to going to come back to eventually?

Samantha Blake 11:51

Good question. This will be something that I come back to.

Megan Porta 11:54

Okay. So you have it kind of in the works. Do you have it? I’m wondering if you have a goal in mind, like are you set to restart your food blog anytime? Just curious. That’s a curious question.

Samantha Blake 12:06

Oh, no, no problem. So it, it might be in the next kind of year or so.

Megan Porta 12:11

And in the meantime you’re just going to focus on the web design and SEO and kind of build that up. I love it. What if people are listening and they’re just like, I didn’t do this, I didn’t pick a niche, I don’t choose my keywords. Well, is there hope for them? I know it can feel like very hopeless when listening to a podcast like this, like, oh, I did it all wrong. What would you say to them?

Samantha Blake 12:34

Oh, absolutely not too late. Never too late. Like I to feel like I totally could have pivoted and just put in the time and things would be totally different. But there was other factors too that kind of went into my decision to pivot. But it’s absolutely not too late. I think it’s really just part of the learning process of blogging. It’s a very long journey as, as you certainly know, and it’s certainly not too late.

Megan Porta 13:01

I love it. That’s music to our ears. And I do think the niche blogs are really powerful right now, just as things evolve in our space, that seems to be a trend that the more you niche down or if you start like a second blog or purchase a second blog or something, that when it’s really, really niche, they’ve just been doing really well. Have you seen that too?

Samantha Blake 13:22

Absolutely, yes.

Megan Porta 13:24

Okay. So number one is just make sure you have a really defined niche and you’re doing quality keyword research. What other mistakes did you learn, Samantha?

Samantha Blake 13:35

So the next mistake that was a big one was not having a proper SEO strategy in place. So I watched a bunch of YouTube videos, thought I got the hang of it, and then just kind of went out and implement all the things that I kind of thought that I learned. But this was a mistake because there’s a lot of nuances to SEO and piecemealing strategies from different, you know, SEO YouTubers for example, isn’t necessarily a strategy. And so, you know, there’s a lot of great information to be learned from these tutorials, but it’s important to take a step back and think about your goals and what you’re trying to accomplish. So something that works for one person may not necessarily work for you. And so what I recommend is, you know, finding a course or a community, a mini mind, something and, and kind of go all in on that on one strategy and one approach rather than trying to kind of piecemeal different strategies together. Because one of the things with SEO is, unlike social media where you get instant feedback about your content and your strategy with SEO, it is very much a delay. And so the work you do today, you might not get feedback for for three months. And so, you know, waiting that long to find out if what you’re doing is right is a really big kind of time suck. And so taking the time to join a community, grow your network, talk with others about this, I think is a really powerful approach to, you know, solidifying your SEO strategy and kind of starting to move yourself in down the right path.

Sponsor 15:10

Hello food bloggers. Let’s take a quick break to chat about my favorite keyword research tool, RankIQ. I love how the way I’ve used RankIQ has evolved over time. Here is one new creative way I have been using the tool. I go to the keyword library in RankIQ and I type in the topic of the post I’m creating or updating. An example is if I update my pulled pork recipe, I would type pulled pork into the include section and apply filter. I’d then sort from lowest to highest competition and browse through the keywords that populate. Starting from the top, I would pick three or so of these keywords that would help to round out my post a couple examples, can you freeze pulled pork and brisket versus pulled pork? Now I put those selected keywords into my pulled pork post as H twos and type my best answers to the questions underneath and body copy. This is a great way to potentially grab other low competition keywords outside the main keyword I’m shooting for. Feel free to use this strategy as well. I hope you do. Head over to rankiq.com to test it out for yourself. Now, back to the episode.

Megan Porta 16:19

This one is so hard. I feel like because there are so many voices and some are loud, some are quiet, some are bold, you know what I mean? Like who do we listen to? And then that whole part about sticking with it, I completely agree with you, but it’s so hard to stick with something when you don’t know if it’s working for three to six months. But this is the, this is the world we live in, right?

Samantha Blake 16:42

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I will say, I guess specifically in my case, I was following more broad SEO advice, not specific to food blog. So anything related to the Eat Blog Talk community, the blogging millionaire community, I think those are really great resources that I wish I found early, much earlier, but I was following much more kind of cookie cutter, high level, you know, maybe for like a business or an affiliate market or solely. And so my recommendation would be to specifically, you know, immerse yourself in the food blogging community more so.

Megan Porta 17:20

Yeah. And there are experts that emerge all the time in groups I’m sure. But I do agree with you. I think it’s important to kinda stick to one strategy, but I also think it’s important to hear people out, right? Like to hear other perspectives on just, there’s so many things that are included in the world of SEO. So do you find value in that too? Just like hearing what people have to say?

Samantha Blake 17:45

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yes, totally. I love getting kind of insights from all various sorts of experts in the industry, but just try not to implement all aspects of everything because you’ll find, at least I found that I was spreading myself too thin. I wasn’t really sure where my results were coming from. It was coming from this strategy or that strategy. And so it’s definitely great to hear all of the ideas, but you know, try not to get too much of like shiny object syndrome of like, oh, I’m going to try this hack or that hack.

Megan Porta 18:17

Okay, I like that. So hear people out, but kind of use your discernment to know what to go forward with and actually implement in your business. 

Samantha Blake 18:26

Yes. 

Megan Porta 18:27

Okay. Alright. Anything else about that, about SEO strategies before we move on to your next point?

Samantha Blake 18:32

Nope, that was it for that one.

Megan Porta 18:32

All right. What’s next for you?

Samantha Blake 18:35

So I wasted so much time tinkering with my blogs design early on, and it was just productive procrastination at its finest. Like I just wanted to have the most beautiful blog and it just, it really wasn’t necessary, especially as somebody coming into it with no prior blogging experience, no food photography experience, no copywriting experience, and all of these things that I had to learn. I was putting so much time into the design. But especially as an early blogger, all you need is simple, professional user-friendly and searchable. That should be the focus. And once you have that, focus on all of the other things, you know, as food bloggers, we’re copywriters, we’re videographers, photographers, we are salespeople, marketing people, and so, you know, a website’s a onetime thing that you need to do, whereas all of these other ongoing activities that you need to act really kind of in invest in like the photography and the writing, you know, focus your time more so on there and just, you know, check the blog design off as quickly as possible. Don’t obsess over it early on because I find that it can just be quite a big waste of time.

Megan Porta 19:45

Yes. Okay. I love this one. It’s, it can be such a vanity metric I think, and some people really prioritize that, I think to establish what their brand is and you know, that’s fine, but for most people, this really doesn’t matter. And I’m, so with you in the beginning, I did the same thing, Samantha. I would obsess over the colors, the exact colors and the details and the logo and oh my gosh, I spent weeks, probably months on end just obsessing over the website. And then, you know, then it would change. Then you would change your logo up and you’re like, why did I spend all that time on there? So I totally agree with this, just, okay, repeat those words that you said because those were gold.

Samantha Blake 20:27

So the four things that your blog should be early on is simple, professional, user friendly and searchable. Once it checks those four boxes, which hopefully it does very quickly because we’re not tinkering with design aspects, then you’re, you know, focus on the blogging pieces, recipe development, videography, photography, etcetera.

Megan Porta 20:45

I love that. Simple professional user-friendly and searchable. So keep those in mind as you are, you know, starting those days when you’re going to obsess over your blog , it really isn’t necessary. Love that one so much. Okay. What other mistakes did you make?

Samantha Blake 21:01

I worked primarily in a silo, so I just didn’t really connect or build my blogging network. And this is probably one of my biggest regrets with my food blog because I think if I took the time to build that network and those connections, I would’ve been able to grow and learn so much faster rather than operating in a silo. There’s so much to be learned from one another, and I think it’s just such a powerful tool. And I’ve been binging your podcast in preparation for this, and I’m like, man, Sam, I really wonder how differently things would’ve gone if I found this in 2020 when I started my food blog.

Megan Porta 21:39

Oh yeah, this is a biggie. I think you’re not alone with that. I was in the same boat for a really long time. I just kept thinking, I can do this. I’ve got this on my own. But then once you taste that magic of just connecting with people and networking, you see how powerful it is. And then you have regrets like, oh gosh, what if I would’ve done this from the start? So I’m with you. It is really hard to do it alone. In fact, it’s not possible to Yeah, really thrive, right? And do it alone. You have to have people.

Samantha Blake 22:14

Absolutely. I totally agree.

Megan Porta 22:16

So do you have recommendations for this? How do you start reaching out? I love hearing, I love asking people this question because everyone has different recommendations. So where would you recommend starting?

Samantha Blake 22:27

Oh, such a great question. Well, absolutely your accountability group. I mean, that may sound a little corny to say on the podcast, but I mean, what a better place to go. It, it seems like the perfect option. You can also join free Facebook groups that have online communities, start connecting with other food bloggers on social media, see what they’re doing. That’s a really great place by, you know, just commenting on their posts and say, oh my gosh, this recipe. And then, you know, maybe sending them a DM, you know, how’s your blogging journey going? Like what food blogger wouldn’t love to have somebody reach out to them to talk about that.

Megan Porta 22:57

Yes, that’s great. And yeah, I’m glad you mentioned the accountability group. It’s funny I always forget to mention my own things, like, oh yeah, that’s right, that’s, that’s a really great way to connect. It’s a really low investment monthly subscription type situation and people are getting really connected in there. So that’s a good place to start. If you just don’t know where to go. Okay. That is such a great one. And then do you have any more, Samantha?

Samantha Blake 23:22

Those are really the two big ones. You know, through Facebook groups and social media would probably be my go-to spot.

Megan Porta 23:29

Those are super easy, right?

Samantha Blake 23:31

Absolutely.

Megan Porta 23:31

And then do you have a last or a couple? I, you might have one or two more mistakes that you’ve learned from that you can share?

Samantha Blake 23:38

Yeah, so next up is I didn’t take backlinks seriously as a food blogger. I just thought they applied to different industries or I was too small to ever get a backlink backlink from another website. And that eventually, hopefully people would just share my recipes onto their Facebook or whatever the case may be. And I just convinced myself that I didn’t need them because it was a tedious process to conduct outreach and I should have been creating content on my own website. And you know, if I wanted to then just buy back links, which is technically against Google’s policy, you know, it would get expensive. And so it was just never something that I took seriously as a food blogger. And I think taking the time for this is so, so worth it, especially now looking back into it as I get more into the SEO world and help other food bloggers with their SEO, like the power of backlinks should not be understated. And so I know it can be really hard as a food blogger. So kind of two tips for food bloggers trying to build backlinks is start with people in your network. Like if you’re part of, you know, a food blogging group or you have friends on social media offer to write them a post for their blog and then you know, they can write one for you and then this way you can each get a link, you know, maybe spread it out a couple months apart or so. And it is just such a great way to, you know, reach a wider audience, build credibility of your website with Google, and as you get practice, it’ll get more easy and natural to like reach out and pitch yourself to other bloggers and also just build relationships with them.

Megan Porta 25:13

Yes. Oh, it’s really easy, like you said, to ignore this because it’s not something that’s directly tied to creating content, right? So it’s like, oh, I can put that off and think about it later. But I think that the bloggers who really do focus on getting back links are not sorry, they’re really glad that they did it and put the effort in. I heard about someone was talking the other day about maybe a Facebook group where you could contribute recipes from your blog into Roundups or something like that. I am, I’ve never done that. I’m not familiar with it, but I think something like that exists out there and that can really help to build up your backlinks too. Are you familiar with that strategy?

Samantha Blake 25:55

Yes. Roundups are a fantastic way to build up your backlinks. So a couple ways you can go about finding these opportunities, whether it’s a guest post or a roundup, is you can go to Google and just conduct a search for food blog or roundups or you know, food blog guest posts and all of the variations of that. Like, you know, get a guest post for a food blog. You know, there’s so many variations to kind of go down, so many rabbit holes for that.

Megan Porta 26:22

Yeah, I, there’s so much power in roundups, even outside of just the back links. I do so many roundups, there’s so powerful. And one of the things we do is if we, like, let’s say we’re putting together, I don’t know, 40 side dishes to go with pot roast or whatever. And in my content I only have maybe 20 or 25 that leaves some left, you know, that we have to fill in. So we kind of reach out to the people that by we, I mean me and my VA reach out to the people that I know and trust, like bloggers who I know produce really high quality content. And we just say, would you mind if we put your recipe in, you know, using all the best practices? And they’re always happy to do that because they get a back link. So doing things like that is going to make people want to give back to you when they’re creating roundups. They’ll think of your content. So just something to keep in mind if you are creating roundups for your content.

Samantha Blake 27:20

Great point.

Megan Porta 27:21

Okay. Anything else on that point, Samantha?

Samantha Blake 27:23

I just wanted to add that I do have an entire listing of guest blog posts opportunities for food bloggers. If you’re interested, you can send me a DM on Instagram or send me an email and I’d be glad to send it to you.

Megan Porta 27:36

Awesome. That’s amazing. Do you have any other points, any other mistakes you’ve learned from that we can absorb?

Samantha Blake 27:43

So those were my top five, and I think not making those mistakes will absolutely help put you on your path towards your success.

Megan Porta 27:51

Yes, agreed. I love all of these so much. If you could pick out one most important, which one would you pick out?

Samantha Blake 27:58

Oh. I would say building your blogging network as hard as it may be, because I think each is so, so important. But I think building your blogging network not only has, provides accountability, you can learn from each other, you can help each other and just really accelerate your growth and your success in food blogging. Yeah,

Megan Porta 28:16

That’s a biggie. Learn from Samantha, learn from me. Don’t do this. Don’t ignore people. Don’t work in a silo like we did for a time. So there’s so much power there. Well, thank you Samantha. So I know you have this amazing web design and SEO business. How can we support you in that business? Are there offerings that you have that could support food bloggers? Why don’t you talk about that?

Samantha Blake 28:37

Oh, sure thing. Yes. So I have a one day website service for food bloggers, so you can get your website off the ground running professionally. And as we said before, searchable, user friendly and simple. It’s all goes down in one day. So it’s a really easy way to save yourself so much time and just have it looking great from the start. And I also offer monthly SEO services for food bloggers. So it involves keyword research, content optimization, building backlinks together and more. And so those are two great kind of services for food bloggers that I do offer. And you can find me at samanthadigital.com or on Instagram at samanthadigital.co

Megan Porta 29:19

Awesome. Well thank you so much. And to end our chat today, do you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration to share?

Samantha Blake 29:27

Sure. So yes, I would say be proud of the work that you do and don’t be afraid to ask for help. And remember that business is a journey and not a destination.

Megan Porta 29:40

Oh, all such good words. Amazing. Thank you for sharing that. We’ll put together a show notes page for you, Samantha, so if anyone wants to go look at those, you can head to eatblogtalk.com/samanthadigital, and you already shared where we can find you. So thank you so much for being here, Samantha, and thank you for listening today, food bloggers. I will see you in the next episode. 

Outro 30:05

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. Please share this episode with a friend who would benefit from tuning in. I will see you next time.