Episode 392: Optimize Your Blogging Workflow Using Checklists with Jen Talley

EBT392 – Jen Talley

Intro: 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 and I’ve been a food blogger for over 12 years. I understand how isolating food blogging can be at times. 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. 

You guys are going to love Jen from Thyme for the Table. She is so full of energy. Great information and great value. She talks in this episode about checklists that she uses to go through her blogging process. So she has a checklist for doing research. She has another one for when she publishes a post. She has another one for post publishing stuff. So it’s really valuable. You will be taking notes like crazy, but she does have downloads that you can access as well, so you can get started with your own checklist. This is one of those value packed episodes that you cannot miss. So listen through to the end. She’s so sweet and likable, and I hope you love it. It is episode number 392 and it is sponsored by RankIQ.

Sponsor: Hey, there we are putting together an AMA episode. AMA stands for Ask Me Anything, coming up here on the Eat Blog Talk podcast, and we would love your help with this project. Submit questions that you would like for me to answer in episode number 400 that will be published on April 10th. Ask me anything about myself, productivity, planning, food blogging, any of those topics that I talk a lot about. I will do my very best to get an answer for you. Send me an email at [email protected] with AMA as the subject line and ask away. 

Megan Porta: Jen Talley grew up eating dinner with her whole family every night. In 2006, Jen moved across the country for college and she found a love for cooking and experimenting with new recipes. When Jen graduated, she had three kids and became a stay-at-home mom. Many years later, she finally got the courage to start a food blog, and she now loves following her passion for food. Jen is really enthusiastic about this job and wants to share her love of blogging with you, with others. Hello Jen. So happy to have you here today. How are you doing? 

Jen Talley: I’m great, thank you. 

Megan Porta: Thanks for joining me. So we’re gonna talk about workflows and checklists today for busy bloggers, because we all have to-do lists that are never ending . But first we wanna know if you have a fun fact to share with us. 

Jen Talley: Okay, so half my family is Jewish and the other half isn’t. But we grew up always eating delicious New York style bagels and lox and cream cheese, like that whole thing, right? It’s a big part of our family gatherings. When my husband and I moved to Utah, I could not find a single bagel place near me that had a good chewy New York style bagel. So I started making bagels, and then I started selling bagels in my neighborhood. I have a really big 9,000 people in my neighborhood. We’re up on a mountain. So it’s a little community. So I post it on my page and they literally sell out in minutes. Oh. Like everyone, these are the best bagels. I haven’t had these bagels since I lived in New York. It’s so funny. But it’s my own little big old business outta my own home. I only have a single oven, nothing fancy. 

Megan Porta: Oh my goodness. So how often do you do that? 

Jen Talley: Honestly, I just do it when I feel like it. Because when I do make them, I’m making a lot. Usually I’ll try to do six double batches, which ends up being like a hundred bagels. I have dough mixing, I have dough rising, I have the bagels baking, and then I’m rolling out bagels. I have it set so that everything’s happening at the same time and I’m just quickly rotating through each thing. So I don’t do it a ton, but maybe about once a month, once every other month. Just when I feel like it, I’m like, all right, today I’m gonna post that there’s bagels.

Megan Porta: Oh my gosh. That’s so cool. That shows that you have the true entrepreneurial spirit, right? You saw the lack of bagels and you filled that gap and people clearly love them. That’s so awesome. I want one of your bagels.

Jen Talley: My recipe is on my blog, so if you wanna make them. 

Megan Porta: Oh my gosh. What are they called? 

Jen Talley: I think they’re Sourdough Discard New York Style Bagels. 

Megan Porta: Okay, I’m gonna look that up. Awesome. That’s so cool and thank you for coming here today to talk about this because we were talking a little bit about how bloggers typically just are so overwhelmed. Because there’s so many things and I feel like there’s things emerging all the time. New platforms, new tools, new, the list is endless. We can so easily get caught up in Gosh, how am I gonna manage all of this stuff? Then publish content and you know how it goes. So you have some workflows and some checklists that you use to keep you on task. I would love to know, Jen, how you got to the point where you realized that this was important and that you needed to manage all the things going on. 

Jen Talley: Okay. So to be honest, I found this out pretty quickly as a new blogger, and I’m still, I still haven’t hit Mediavine yet, so I’m still in the, I would say beginner stages, although I’m definitely growing and seeing my sessions grow, which is very exciting. But from the very beginning, I was constantly asking what am I missing? What am I missing? Then I’d post a recipe and then I’d be back at that recipe editing it and republishing it like three times because I’m like, oh, dang it, I forgot this and I forgot that. I know you can use different tools to try not to do the republished date or whatever it is, but I was just like, I need a list so that when I think I’m done with a post, I can go through and be like, okay, am I missing anything so I don’t have to go back in there and go back through and fix it, right? 

Megan Porta: So saving time down the road. So upfront, creating maybe like a checklist so that you don’t have to keep going back in. Yeah. Okay. So what checklists, do you have a handful of them, or do you just have one main checklist? 

Jen Talley: Yeah, so I’ve created three checklists. Real quick, before we go into that, I just wanna say that these checklists aren’t just for new bloggers. So obviously they’ll be extremely helpful for a newer blog blogger because it really lays so many of the different pieces when it comes to researching and creating the blog posts and then after publishing. But also even for seasoned bloggers, having a checklist like this that literally just lays down as much as possible. They can even customize to make it fit their exact workflow, is just so helpful. It just saves so much time. Then also when they get to the point where they’re ready for Avir to pass off some of that to a virtual assistant or something like that, they have that in place where they can say, all right, so when it’s done, just go through this checklist. Then they’ll have a clear path. 

Megan Porta: Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I like that you pointed out that it’s not just for new bloggers. Anyone can utilize this and customize it. 

Jen Talley: Yes, exactly. I have all three checklists on my website and I go into a lot of detail on the post. So on the post on my website, it talks about every single bullet point. Then for the printable version which you can print out, it is the bare bones, so that it’s really nice when you’re going through it, you can just be like, all right, check, check, check. Oh, forget that one and just do it real quick. Check check. Then on the post, if you’re like, wait, what does that one mean? You can refer back to the post and see what that one specifically was about. 

Megan Porta: Do you wanna talk about each checklist and kinda what’s involved? 

Jen Talley: Let’s do it. Okay. So we’ll go ahead and start with the checklist that is before you’re going to write your post. So this is like your, I call it the recipe research checklist. This one talked a lot about keywords. I know that you’ve. a lot of information on your podcast about keywords. It’s been so helpful. A couple of things that I did mention in the actual post is Cooking with Keywords, which is a course that really goes into so much detail about trying to find keywords that you can hopefully rank for, and or even just like your current recipes, what keywords can you add that maybe will help you gain some position in Google rankings. Then I also just wanted to mention RankIQ, which I know you use as well. I have loved RankIQ. As a new blogger I’m really seeing a lot of growth using it, which is great. So again, just a couple of tools for you to figure out what keywords to even try to go for it, right? Okay. So I just wanted to start with that. So the first thing on that list would be just finding the keyword or keywords for that recipe. So again, using either RankIQ, Cooking with Keywords, or something like that. Then next after you have your keywords picked out, deciding if you need any kind of attention grabber, like this is the best cookie recipe, or gourmet or easy, or little words that will be like, oh, if that’s the best, I’ll click it. Sometimes you’ll even see that as part of your keyword research, like you actually should include easy or things like that. Then the next one is keyword variations. So for example, if you’re doing a raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake, maybe during your research you find out you can also include the words no bake white chocolate cheesecake or raspberry and white chocolate swirl cheesecake, or things like that you might find. Oh, okay. I should probably include those throughout my post because they all relate to this exact recipe. So that’s the main keyword part of that section. Then on top of that, just a few things like researching your recipe ingredients. So sometimes I’ll be about to write a blog post and I’ll go into RankIQ and my recipe doesn’t call for chili powder, right? But in RankIQ it says chili powder. I’m like, you know what? That actually might be really great in this recipe. So if you are able, and it doesn’t always work because you have your recipe and I’m sure it’s super great. There may be a time where you’re like, actually this actually would work really well in the recipe and it’s part of the research. I can easily just add it in. 

Megan Porta: I love that. I love when I am looking in RankIQ and I am inspired by something that I find in there, and then I’m like, like you just said, oh yeah, that would be really great. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be a piece of your recipe card, but you could offer it up as a suggestion, like a suggested alternative. Or an additional ingredient to add or something. I love doing that. 

Jen Talley: Oh, yeah. Yes, definitely. Like substitutions. A lot of times you can use it, or variations of the recipe. Maybe you have a spicy variation of it or an Asian inspired version or something like that. I was making a green bean recipe and soy sauce was on there, and I’m like, oh, this recipe definitely does not have soy sauce. But I’ll include some different variations at the bottom of this post and include maybe something that has a little bit of an Asian flair to it with some garlic and soy sauce, stuff like that. Yeah, definitely. So for recipe ingredients along with that is just making the shopping list and don’t forget to include any garnish. So during that research stage, maybe you’re like, okay, so you know, visualizing what you’re gonna do and thinking about anything you might need to purchase for the recipe. Also, image inspiration. I know that there’s so many bloggers out there that are just so creative. They go to take their photos and it just comes to them and they just make the most beautiful thing possible. I’m not one of those people, although I can appreciate it and I love food photography. It is beautiful. I’m one of the people that has to go through and search my term and say, okay, I like a little bit of what this person did, a little bit of what that person did, and then make my own version. I’m not copying anyone else. 

Megan Porta: But to be inspired by it.

Jen Talley: Exactly. Yeah. Because there’s things I don’t think about oh, maybe I should place a little cute wooden spoon there, or a little spill of that, or things like that. So that can be part of research. Then also obviously, just making sure that you’re prepared with your photography backdrop and props. If you need a video plan, if you’re planning on taking video, and then any social media extras. So for instance I know I’m gonna post this to Instagram and I need to make a reel. So I need to make sure that I capture this clip. So just a little bit of research when it comes to what the plan is for social media.

Megan Porta: Do you write all this down? So you have your document and you just log all of this beforehand? Or do you just have it in your mind? Or both? 

Jen Talley: A little bit of both. I mean for this one it comes naturally, like most of it because the keyword research is just part of just getting ready. Then the video plan, I don’t necessarily make a huge plan. But I do think about a couple things to say, maybe at the beginning of the recipe, if I’m gonna put myself on camera. That type of thing. Yeah. Like I said, these checklists I’m hoping are gonna give you more information than you need. So if you’re like, oh, I definitely don’t need to do the video plan, or I definitely don’t need to do that, but at least it’s there to remind you if you do need it. 

Megan Porta: Yeah. I feel like just thinking about this stuff in advance, even if it does take you a little bit of time to start, is going to save so much time down the road. That’s the point of this whole chat. But have you found that you just save a ton of time by doing all of this? 

Jen Talley: Yes, I definitely think that I save a lot of time. Really the checklist just helped my brain, I think, stay organized. Instead of searching, all right, so I need to make my recipe today. Do I have the ingredients? Do I even know what picture I wanna take for my hero image or that type of thing? Having the checklist. I can just be like, all right I’m getting ready to do it. So do I have the recipe ingredients? No. Do it. Do I already have my inspiration for the picture? Yes. Done. So it’s like a way to stay organized and it doesn’t have to take long, right? Making a shopping list? Super easy. But it’s just a way, I think, to stay organized and move through it quickly. 

Megan Porta: Anytime you can envision something before you do it, it’s going to help you.

Jen Talley: Yeah, exactly. A lot of us probably already have some type of weekly plan or whether it’s batching or things like that. So we already make checklists. But this checklist is one that, once you customize it and create it to exactly what you need, like it’s just there and ready for you every single time you’re publishing the post. Every single time you’re done publishing the post. You can just go through really quickly and be like, I got that done. I just need to do this. So, I just think it helps you to organize your mind and get through that step quicker for your weekly plan. 

Megan Porta: Totally get that. So did you have anything more with your research checklist? 

Jen Talley: No, that one is done. 

Megan Porta: Okay, so move on to your next one.

Jen Talley: Okay. So the next one is my biggest one, and that is publishing the recipe post. So we’ll go ahead and go through this one. I don’t know, I’m really proud of this one just because, I remember posting as a brand new blogger and just being like, oh, what am I missing? So it’s just been really good to slowly add to it. So I really hope this one’s super helpful for people. So starting off is super simple. The title, right? Make sure that your keyword is in your title or your H1, right? Yeah. Next is that your title uses an attention grabber, if needed. Again, we’ve already talked about attention grabbers. Making sure your keyword is in your recipe card title, making sure your keyword is in the first two sentences of your post. Making sure the keyword is in the meta description in Yoast. I don’t know if you need this or not, but I always make sure that my keyword is also in that optional excerpt.

Megan Porta: Oh, I do too. I do the same every time. Just, yeah. 

Jen Talley: I’m like, it says optional right next to that on Wordpress but I’m like maybe I should include that just in case. Cover all my pieces. So anyways, yeah. So again, all those things are just super, super easy, but just checking them off to make sure you have them.

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Jen Talley: Then the last one with the keyword is making sure that all your keyword variations, which we talked about in the previous one, are used throughout the post. So you know, any variations to that main keyword is just scattered throughout the post and making it sound natural. 

Megan Porta: Okay, so you got your keyword bases covered, then what do you do? 

Jen Talley: Next is images. So for this you’re just making sure your images are saved on your computer with the file names, using the target keyword and using dashes between the words. So if it’s a white chocolate cheesecake, it’s white dash chocolate dash cheesecake and maybe that’s your main hero image, right? Then for the next one, you would have white dash raspberry dash chocolate dash cheesecake. So you’re just like using some of those keyword variations in the file names, because apparently, correct me if I’m wrong, you can rank for the file names sometimes like on Google Images. Is that correct? 

Megan Porta: Oh yeah. That sounds familiar. I don’t know exactly the answer to that, but I do know that saving your files with the target keyword is a really smart thing to do. 

Jen Talley: Yeah, I’m not sure if that’s exactly how Google images would find that or not, but I don’t know. But I did hear that as well, it’s on the list. It’s one of the things to do. Okay. Next is making sure images have alt text and that the alt text is a maximum of 120 characters, and it’s a complete sentence with a period at the end. Images have a caption below if needed. Not all images will need that, and sometimes it’s overkill, so it’s an optional thing. Image file sizes are under 200 kilobytes, and according to Feast, they have 250 kilobytes. In general, you’re looking at 200 kilobytes. I know some people say less, some people say more. So that’s a general size thing. Making sure your images are 1200 pixels wide. Your hero image is 12 by 12, a hundred pixels wide. Adding your featured image to that post column in WordPress, so on that right side where you can add your featured image. So that’s all the image stuff. So next is Pinterest. For that one, it really depends on what you’re using for your Pinterest right now. I’m using the Mediavine Grow plugin, and so for me, I add a hidden pin and then I add a Pinterest title and description and use keywords in the title and description. So again, that might be different for what different people are using. For SEO, this is just some random SEO things and some of the stuff that we mentioned before are also linked to SEO, but I have made sure that you link two to three of your other blog posts near the top of your post. So if I’m making chocolates, real cheesecake, maybe I’m gonna link also to my raspberry cheesecake or something related right at the top of your post. Then all your internal links open in the same window. All your external links open in a new window, and that your target keyword density is below two percent. Okay. So that’s all the SEO stuff. I told you, this is a super long one. 

Megan Porta: No, it’s good. I can see this being especially valuable for new to intermediate bloggers. They’re just little details that we might miss that we’re like, oh I forgot that. Like the 1200 pixels across and things like that. So this is really great. Yeah, keep going. 

Jen Talley: Some of that stuff is very basic. So I have a question for you. When you go and you’re done writing a post, do you, how do you know you’re finished? Do you have some type of a checklist where you’re like, okay, I just need to make sure I literally hit all the things I need to do before hitting publish?

Megan Porta: I’ve created so many recipes that I used to have kind of a checklist, but no, I don’t anymore. It’s like when you do something so many times, it’s just in your brain. If I forget something, I just think, oh. I’m just to that point where I don’t wanna go back and do major fixes, so I try to get all the details that I can, but no, I do not have an official checklist outside of my brain.

Jen Talley: Okay. That’s awesome. That’s great that you’re at that point. I always feel like I am, I just don’t wanna miss anything.

Megan Porta: I think that’s really smart. But how many recipes do you have in your blog? 

Jen Talley: Not a ton. I wanna say 40. 

Megan Porta: Okay. So yeah, I think once you get to having a couple hundred, you’re to that point where it just is second nature and you know what you need to do. Anything else that doesn’t matter just doesn’t get done. 

Jen Talley: All right. So the next part of this, again, we’re still on the publishing a recipe checklist. I have one more paper. So the next one is the recipe card. So just make sure that you have any important recipe notes in the recipe card, like how to store, reheat, freeze leftovers. Making sure you filled out as. as the recipe card as possible, like all those little extra boxes. If this applies, embedding a video in the recipe card and adding affiliate links to the recipe card. So that’s a recipe card. Then the next one. So this one, I use the feast theme, and I know that’s pretty popular among a lot of bloggers. It’s a really safe one to use, especially when you’re new and you just want everything to be right. So anyways, for that one, I have it on my checklist just to add some of the images with a link to that recipe so that people can actually see some of my other recipes. Eye candy, and they’re like, oh, that looks good. So it’s just like another way to break up the post, have them hopefully click on another link and then spend more time on my blog. 

Megan Porta: Great idea. I love that. 

Jen Talley: I know that others, not just Feast, have options like this, but for me, I just wrote add Post ID numbers to the FSRI block, which doesn’t make a lot of sense to other people. But I did put a little parenthesis, letting people know basically it’s just a picture with a link to a new recipe.

Megan Porta: Oh, I like that. 

Jen Talley: Then a few other items, making sure that your most important questions are found in the Yoast FAQ block, that your URL includes the keyword and you may not wanna use any numbers in it. So for instance, if you’re having a post that’s 20 homemade dressings, if you wanna update it down the road and have 35 homemade dressings, you may just wanna take out the number and just have like homemade dressings as part of your url. Things like that to keep in mind. Then make sure your paragraphs are short. I remember, this is so funny, I think it was Casey Markee. He’s hilarious. I think he said when you write, you’re supposed to be writing as if it’s like a drunk adult or.

Megan Porta: Toddler, I think he said.

Jen Talley: Toddler reading it or something like that. So just short paragraphs, easy reading.

Megan Porta: I think that’s a common problem, not a problem, but it’s something that we commonly do as food bloggers is write longer paragraphs. I’ve just gotten trained to notice when people write really fat paragraphs. Nobody wants to read a really long paragraph. So that’s just a really easy way that you can just improve the user experience on your site.

Jen Talley: Yes, super, super easy. Then adding your categories and unchecking. Oh wait, maybe this is embarrassing, but do you uncheck the uncategorized category? 

Megan Porta: Yes. So that pops up by default, so yeah, I always uncheck that. 

Jen Talley: Okay, good. Me too. All right. Checking your categories and then creating blocks. So even as a new blogger, I haven’t hit Mediavine yet, so I don’t have ads on my site, but you can create your group blocks. So that when you do have ads on your site it will place the ads strategically so that it’s a better user experience. So it’s nice to start that from the beginning so you don’t have to go back. I think we are ready for the next one. 

Megan Porta: All right. Let’s go to your next checklist. Is that like post publishing? 

Jen Talley: Yes, exactly. I was trying to think of a good word for this checklist and it’s post.

Megan Porta: Literally is post publishing.

Jen Talley: I know, but it’s confusing because obviously we write posts so I’m like, ugh. I called it the after publishing checklist. 

Megan Porta: Whatever works. We get the gist. 

Jen Talley: Yes. Okay, so this one is a shorter one and it’s pretty basic, but just after you’re posting, going back to two to three similar posts and linking back to your new posts. That prevents the orphaned content, yeah. So you’re gonna go into some of your old posts and link to your new post so that everything is linked together. Then after you post adding five stars to the recipe card, I heard that just What is the word, almost kinda like completes the recipe card. I don’t know if you’ve, have you heard anything like that before?

Megan Porta: I don’t know if I’ve heard that, but I don’t think there’s any harm in doing that. I think that’s good. Okay. 

Jen Talley: I swear I’ve heard one of our amazing SEO gurus talk about just doing that as one of the steps after publishing. Then add the post to your homepage if that applies, and create a Google Web story if that applies. Then the last section is for social media. So after you have your post done, you might wanna pin it to Pinterest, make an idea pin for Pinterest. You might want to add or schedule it to Instagram, Facebook, any Facebook groups you want to put it in or add it to TikTok. You may wanna post it as a YouTube video or a YouTube short or post to Twitter. So pretty basic. 

Megan Porta: That is so complete. That is so much. But it’s so good. I can see this preventing a lot of extra work going back into your post and having to redo things. Is there anything else after publishing? 

Jen Talley: Nope, that’s it for after publishing. 

Megan Porta: Okay. So where do people start with this? So do you recommend they take your lists and they just comb through it and cater it to what fits them? 

Jen Talley: Yes, exactly, and I’ve written that so many times on each of these blog posts. Again, take this and customize it to what you need to do. And there was a lot of me talking and going through this, but when you look at the actual printable list, the bare bones one, it is just so easy to just go through each one so quickly because you’ll see it and you’ll be like, okay done. Oops, missed that one. So it’s just such a great way to just, without having to rack your brain and be like, ah, did I miss anything? Is there something I need to do? It’s just such a great way to just go through it so fast and not have to think too hard about all the different steps. Because oh my goodness. There’s so much to it. 

Megan Porta: There’s so much. I know bloggers who are really into video and producing videos for TikTok and all the platforms, Facebook reels, Instagram reels, Pinterest and then repurposing them. So they have checklists for that too. So you could even take it a step further and do a video checklist and then have I created a vertical video? Whatever process you need to go through to make sure you do that. So you could take this to so many levels. You could just do a checklist for social media or I don’t know, this could go on and on, but this is so helpful. 

Jen Talley: Yeah, definitely. It links into what spreadsheets you may have, right? I know I have a spreadsheet for where I’ve shared my posts, right? So that I’m not hitting the same post too many times or things like that. So yeah, it all links together and it’s just supposed to make it just a little bit easier for your workflows to move smoother. When you get to the point where you can offload some of this work to a VA, how great would it be to have something like this in place and be like, all right, so these are all the things we need to do. Let me know if you have any questions and then you know that everything’s getting done because it’s written out, it’s done.

Megan Porta: This is such a great way to simplify our lives and going into this new year, I think we all love to hear that word simplify. It can be so easy to get overwhelmed in our space. So this is something easy to implement. 

Jen Talley: Yeah, definitely.

Megan Porta: Do you have anything to leave us with? I’m trying to think about any last questions I have, but I think you covered everything so thoroughly. Do you have a place where we can go to get your templates? 

Jen Talley: Yeah, so on my website I have a page in the menu that has blogging resources. In that it has all three for the before, during, and after publishing. So the posts, like I said, have a lot more detail in them. Then at the end of the post, you can get a link for a PDF to print out, like the bare bones checklist. On that, like I said, take it, run with it. Go and create your own that’s perfect for you and customize it. Also, I would love if anyone has things that they do that they are adding to their list, I would love if they were to like email or comment and let me know what I’m missing because I’m always adding little things here and there to my checklist just to make it a little bit easier to make sure I hit all the different parts of it. So I’d love to add to my checklist too. 

Megan Porta: So I was trying to look through my post just to see if there’s anything you didn’t mention that I do. But I think you covered everything and more that I do. Yeah. You’re amazing, Jen. This is such a great checklist. 

Jen Talley: I’m hoping it’s super helpful for people. 

Megan Porta: I think it really will be. So we will put those links to what you were referencing in your show notes page so that if people wanna go check them out. You might get a lot of hits on those pages. Go grab those and cater them to your own liking and hopefully this simplifies your life in 2023. So thank you Jen, so much for all of this. This has been super valuable. I feel like you didn’t even need me for this interview. You just had so much quality information to share that I was just here being someone to talk to. 

Jen Talley: I love hearing your voice. I hope I’m not speaking for everyone, but like your podcast has been so helpful as a newer blogger. I really look forward to listening to every single episode that you have. It brings me joy. It’s one of those things that I’m like, oh, I can listen to this while I’m doing dishes or, and every once in a while I’ll have to sit down and take some notes because there’s such good information.

Megan Porta: I’m so happy I can do dishes with you. I love that. 

Jen Talley: I know. I feel like it’s such a privilege to be even on your podcast. I’m like, oh my gosh, this is just amazing. You have helped so many bloggers and so yeah, it’s just amazing. Thank you for all that you do.

Megan Porta: Jen, you are gonna make me cry. This is my last interview of the day, so I suppose I can cry. That was seriously so sweet. Thank you so much. You are adding value by being here and talking about your area of expertise, so we appreciate you too. Just want you to know that back. Well to end, do you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration to share with us? 

Jen Talley: Okay. Yes I do. It is from Eleanor Roosevelt and it’s, I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday. Love it, right? 

Megan Porta: Yeah, I love that so much. 

Jen Talley: It really speaks for itself. But I remember wanting to start a food blog years and years ago, and if I had started, I would be in a much different place. But you know what? All I can do is make the right choices today to move me forward tomorrow. Whether it’s being a good mom or being a successful food blogger, we can just make that choice every day. Some days are harder. Some days it’s hard to stick to the plan, but we can move forward and I love that. 

Megan Porta: Aw, amazing. Thank you so much for ending that way. I love it so much. We will put together show notes for you Jen, so if anyone wants to go look at those, you can go to eatblogtalk.com/thymeforthetable And time is THYME. We will put all of the stuff we talked about in this episode in your show notes. So just to reiterate, where can people find you online and on social media?

Jen Talley: Yeah, so like you said, my blog is thymeforthetable.com and thyme is the herb, like T H Y M E. Then on all social media platforms it’s at thymeforthetable.com. So yeah, pretty much across the board. I felt pretty lucky that it wasn’t taken. Thyme for the Table. 

Megan Porta: Seriously. That is lucky. That was a gem you found. 

Jen Talley: So yeah, I got lucky with that. So you can find me there and I’d love to make some blogger friends. It’s been such a fun journey, so reach out if you’d like to become blogger friends.

Megan Porta: Awesome. Yes, definitely reach out to Jen. Thank you again, Jen, so much for being here and thank you for listening today, food bloggers. I will see you in the next episode.

Outro: 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.