135: Bjork Gets Interviewed: Making a Living from Blogging from the Dishing with Delishes Podcast

In this episode, I'm going to talk about a free tool that helps you with your recipe SEO. And instead of me interviewing somebody, I get interviewed. This episode of the Food Blogger Pro Podcast is brought to you by WP Tasty. And for those of you that have followed along the last couple episodes, you know that we have an official sponsorship by ourselves, which means essentially our brand, WP Tasty, which is another site, it's another brand, it's another business is sponsoring the Food Blogger Pro Podcast. But instead of just talking about WP Tasty and the products that we have, we wanted to do it in a way where there's also some value involved. So we're doing it as a Tasty tip. So I'm gonna do a little shout out to Tasty Pins and Tasty Recipes, the two products that we have over at WP Tasty. But I'm not gonna spend much time talking about those because I chat a little bit about them on the pod. So I just want to focus in on the Tasty tip. And the Tasty tip is all about a free tool that helps you with your recipe SEO. And that tool is called Google Search Console. And if you don't have Google Search Console set up, that would be my first tip. Kind of the high level tip. Make sure that you get that set up because that allows you to do is have an inside look at how Google views your site. And specifically today I wanted to share about this area called rich cards. So if you sign into Google Search Console and then you click on the area called Search Appearance, you'll see an option there to click on rich cards. Now what you'll see when you get into this screen is really, really cool. Google is telling you the cards that it is able to see on your site. And for those that are familiar with Search engine optimization with SEO, you know that Google sees recipes and treats recipe posts differently than it would a normal poster article. And there's all different ways that Google treats that differently. Not only does it display different information, but it displays that information in different ways, like a recipe carousel that a lot of you would be familiar with if you search on mobile and then scroll through different search results. And what the rich cards area does in Google Search Console is that allows you to see the different pages or the different posts or the different recipes on your site that are either invalid, so they're broken, something's wrong with them, enhanceable. So Google sees those as a recipe and knows that it's a recipe, but it's missing a few things or this is the really good thing, fully enhanced cards. And that would be where everything that you want to be a part of that rich card is present and available on that page. And we're not going to dive deep into how you would approach those, but what you should do, what you should be doing is making sure that you're using a recipe plugin that allows you to have fully enhanced rich cards. And when you do that, you'll be able to go into Google Search Console and see that your recipes are fully enhanced. Now, the big red flag here, and it's actually colored red on the screen as a big warning, is if your cards are invalid, and that would be a real big red flag. So you want to go in and check, make sure that ideally all of your recipes are fully enhanced cards. And it's also possible some of them might be just enhanceable cards, which means there's more information that can be included and hopefully you don't have any invalid cards. So the Tasty Tip today is to, if you haven't yet, sign up for Google Search Console, and then once you've done that, make sure that you check and make sure that your recipes are either enhanced or ideally fully enhanced in the rich cards area. All right, that's today's Tasty Tip. Today's interview is going to be a little bit different because instead of me interviewing somebody else, and I wanted to give you a little bit of a background here, this interview is for a podcast called Dishing with Delicious, and it's with Elaine Benoit, and she has a podcast that she's just starting up, interviewing people in the food and recipe niche, both bloggers as well as different influencers. She actually interviewed Casey as well, who's on the podcast recently, and she interviewed me for the podcast and I said, hey, it would be fun to be on the other side and share this interview with the Food Blogger Pro listeners. So be sure to check out Dishing with Delicious, and we will link to that in the show notes so you can check out that podcast. And let's go ahead and jump in to this interview with Elaine. And I won't welcome her to the podcast. She will welcome me to her podcast. So we'll jump in.

Welcome, Bjork.

Hey, excited to be here, Lane. Thanks so much for having me on the podcast.

I'm so excited to have you here. I was telling you before we started recording that I feel like a stalker because I've been following you guys for a couple years now.

Yeah, it's one of those things where anytime you follow Just about anybody on social media, especially if you don't know them as friends. Whenever you meet them in person, you're like, I know way more about you than I do most strangers. We were joking about before we started, I was like, sometimes it's even like, I know what your bathroom looks like, or, I know what your bedroom looks like, and I've never actually talked to you.

Exactly.

Yeah. So. But good to connect. Yeah. Excited to be here.

Yeah. Thank you. Bjork, what did you do before you started working with Lindsey on all of your projects?

Yeah. So if we roll back the years, if we go back to 2010, Lindsay and I had. In 2010, Lindsay and I had been married for a year. So we got married in 2000, and we were both working in fields that we loved. I was at a nonprofit. It was a nonprofit called Youth Frontiers, and Youth Frontiers is a nonprofit here in the Twin Cities, but works with schools all over the Midwest and a little bit outside of the Midwest as well. But they do character education retreats, they call them. It really became popular after Columbine and when there was this response to violence and bullying in schools. And so what I would do is I would go around and work with schools, and we would talk about things like kindness and courage and respect with anywhere from fourth to seniors, fourth graders to seniors. So I was working in schools through this nonprofit, and at that time, Lindsey was a fourth grade teacher. So we were both involved with schools and involved with education and just really loved what we were doing. And to make a long story longer, what happened was around 2010, Lindsay was excited about starting or posting recipes, and so she was doing that to social media. And around the same time, I was listening to a book by a guy named Gary Vaynerchuk that talked about starting a website. It was called Crush it, which is, if anybody knows Gary Vaynerchuk, he's this, like, super extreme, really, like, total workhorse. And he's like, you can. If you want to do anything that you're passionate about because of the Internet, you can do it. And I was listening to it, and I was like, hey, that's kind of cool. And I wonder if it applies to this thing that Lindsay's interested in, which is like creating recipes and making a little blog around that. So that was kind of when things started to the very, very beginning for Pinch of Yum, where the seed was planted. And it was a lot of lot of time before it built into what we're doing now, which is working on our sites full time and have A team. And we can cover that kind of in the in between period as we grew that. But before it, to answer your question really shortly, I was working at a nonprofit. Lindsey was a teacher.

So, Bjork, how did you guys meet? I have to ask that.

Yeah, we're high school sweethearts. So, yeah, we both grew up in the same small hometown, Cambridge, Minnesota, through thriving metropolis of Cambridge. It's, you know, 10,000 people, and we live 10 blocks from each other. And we both graduated. We're in the same class. I knew Lindsay liked Lindsey for a really long time. It took her a while to come around her senses and realize that. That I was kind of waiting in the wings, waiting in the weeds, depending on how you look at it. And so, yeah, we knew each other since, you know, we have stories of like, hey, remember in eighth grade when, you know, blah, blah, blah, I over and played croquet. Croquet. Is that what it is when you hit the. Yeah, yeah. Ball through the. It's been how long since I've played in her backyard? You know, as eighth graders. And so we. Yeah, high school sweethearts. That's how we met. And we kind of. We started dating senior year of high school, and then we're kind of on and off again for maybe like a year or so, and then got dated. Dated throughout the rest of college and got married in 2009.

So that's awesome.

Yeah.

So, Bjork, did you help Lindsay on Pinch of Yum when she first started, or did you come in it a little later once you realized it could be successful?

Sure. That's one of the things that I love talking about, actually, because I think one of the things that can be really discouraging for creators, whether it be male or female, is if they look at somebody and they see they have a partner that's in with them and helping them, I think it can. You can really quickly get to the point of, like, I can't do that because I don't have somebody who is doing X, Y, Z. Like, an example in our scenario might be somebody that looks at Lindsay and I in our, you know, relationship, but also then partnership with the business. And then look at it and say, I can't do that because I don't have somebody that is helping with the technical stuff. And first and foremost, I want to totally validate that because there's a lot of truth that comes along with not having somebody on your team that's able to help out with certain areas and certain things. But at the same time, I also want to encourage people to not let that be the thing that holds them back. Because, number one, we've seen a lot of people that have been really successful without somebody that's starting out with them. They're owning it on their own, and they're moving forward, and they're figuring out ways to bring people in to help accommodate the things that they're not as good at. Um, and the one reality with that is it might take a little bit longer. You don't have two people spending, you know, a decent amount of time building something, so it's just you. So it might take a little bit longer, but it's something that's totally possible to do. And with our story with Lindsay starting Pinch of Yum, there were some things that I was doing, you know, in the first year, two years, three years that I was interested in doing, it was kind of the behind the scenes thing. So on a really high level. It was like when Lindsey first started, she started on Tumblr, which is funny to think about. So for those that know Content Management Systems, or CMS as they're called, Tumblr was kind of a blogging platform, but we thought it would be the best way to start, and it wasn't. But Lindsey used that for a year. So I helped her get set up with a Tumblr account and a domain name. So that's an example of something that I would do behind the scenes. Or I was kind of interested in figuring out how ads worked, but the vast majority of the value that was created in those first few years wasn't doing. It wasn't me doing some, like, really technical things behind the scenes. It was really Lindsay being diligent in creating content consistently over a long period of time. And I think that is the most important thing and the most valuable thing that can happen in those first years for people that are content creators, bloggers, vloggers, podcasters. You know, it's like we've been doing the Food Blogger Pro podcast for, you know, a couple years now, and it feels like we've been doing it forever. But it wasn't until this point in pinch of Yum's career, you know, the 2ish plus stand timeline, that it really started to pick up speed. And that was vastly due to far and away due to Lindsay and the work that she did and the. And the time and energy that she spent in creating the content. So to answer your question, uh, I was involved. There are things that I was doing. It was the things that I was interested in, like ads and Some of the technical stuff, but it wasn't anything that. That I should be given any of the credit to. Pinch of Yam and the building that happened with it. Um, I think some of the. I got more involved, actually, as it started to pick up more speed, and we started to realize, hey, this might actually be something. And it made sense for me at that point to start to shift some of my time and energy to focus on it, because there was some momentum behind it.

That's great. How long did it take for you guys to pick out the name Pinch of Young?

That's a great question. I think it was probably a night. And it's one of those stories where you think back, and it was so not important at the time because we had no idea that this was going to be something that we would build a career on and that people would be familiar with. And so it was kind of like. I think it was sitting down and. And it's almost one of those stories where you don't know if this. If the story is actually true because you've kind of, like, filled in the pieces in between. But I think it was just Lindsey and I sitting down on the couch and saying, like, okay, what are some names? And it's so. At least for me, whenever I have one of those brainstorming sessions, it's so quickly goes into, think of the most ridiculous name you can and just suggest that, like, it goes into humor and joke mode. Uh, but we were able to come out with something where we're like, hey, this is. It makes a little bit of sense. It's like pinch of salt. But instead, it's yum. It's available. And so it wasn't anything that we were super intentional with. And we, you know, we often joke about that. It's like, if we only knew at that point that this would be something that, you know, we'd be building our brand and our business around. And not that. Not that by any means that we don't like it, but it's just funny how such a quick decision can become so integrated into what you do.

Exactly. And it's funny. I have to tell you this. When I first decided to do my blog, I was trying to figure out a name, and I kept saying pinch of, and I'm like, okay, cut it out. And then I'd be like, something of yum. And I'm like, cut it out.

Yeah, it's just like, right there. And it's like, pinch of yummy we could do, right? Yeah, I totally get it. Yeah. And it's hard to like, get outside of that box of the things that you know or that you're familiar with. But yeah, I think that four domain names for branding, I think there's. And for logos for any of that stuff, there's this weird balance between being intentional with it, spending the time you need to feel good about it, and then also not letting that be the thing that you spend all of your time on. Because inevitably what happens is people get so caught up in stuff that feels like work, like designing a logo and, you know, adjusting how their sidebar looks, that you, you don't actually end up doing any of the really valuable work. Which for people that are content creators, it's creating content. And some of that tinkering stuff can be so safe. Whether it's, you know, the name itself, I would say there's, it's, it's worth spending the time with it. But in terms of like, you know, a logo and site design and there's something about just like going. And so for those, for those of you that are in the beginning stages, my encouragement to you would be to give it a little bit of time, but to dive in as soon as possible and to evolve if you need to. You can always, down the line, change and improve and tinker once you have some of that momentum.

That is great advice because when, if you want it to be perfect, if you're thinking, oh, I've got to get it perfect, and talking about the sidebars, you'll never start, you know, because you'll be like, it's not perfect. Okay, I don't like this, you know, so, yeah, just have to start.

Yep. And it's, and it, I totally get it because I do the same thing and I have to constantly remind myself about what is, what is the most valuable work that I can be doing. And sometimes it's work that doesn't necessarily feel good to do. Like, it feels really good to lock in your logo or to get your sidebar perfect or to pick out the perfect colors. And all of those things are really, really, really important, but they're not important if nobody is going to see them. And the way that, the way that they become important is people seeing them, the way that people see things is if you're building a content oriented brand, like a blog or a vlog or a podcast, is to produce the content. So I would encourage people produce the content, do the work that it takes, and then you can tinker along the way, but don't let tinkering become your full Time job.

Great advice. How long did it take you both to get help other than just you two?

Yeah, we, the first person that we hired in a really consistent capacity was somebody that we actually met when we were in the Philippines. So we had a friend, her name was Jade. And when we moved back to the US So we spent a year in the Philippines. When we moved back to the US in 2013, Jade was a student at the time. And then she spent maybe, I'm trying to think what it was. Maybe at the time it was like 10 hours a week, kind of helping out with some behind the scenes things. So that was the first person that we officially hired. So that was, let's say three years after starting the blog. And then after that we kind of had people for a year or two that would be in a part time capacity. So maybe 10 to 20 hours a week of help doing things like scheduling Pinterest. So that was something that we knew was important to do. But Lindsay wasn't interested in spending a lot of time on Pinterest strictly for the reason being that she just felt like every time she went on Pinterest it was this. She was inundated with things that made her feel like she could be doing life better. Like, and that's true, I think, across the board. But with other platforms like Instagram, I think you're able to curate that a little bit more. And Pinterest, it's like, here's all these awesome houses and people who are in the best shape of their life. And, and this is now speaking for me, like, those are all things where I go into it. I'm like, I guess my life isn't that good. But also knowing that from a brand perspective, it's important to have a Pinterest account and a business perspective. And we would have companies that come to us and say, hey, we'd love to work with you, you know, what is your Pinterest following? And we'd be like seven, you know, like, we just didn't have a Pinterest account, so we knew that we needed to do that. So that was an example of, you know, a business decision of saying, hey, we need to bring somebody in to help out with what we're doing. And let's focus that first on areas that we're not super excited about. And the first area was Pinterest. And so, you know, we had Jade and then Lindsay's friend Angela, who was a stay at home mom at the time and still is, but is working with another company, but helped out with Some Pinterest stuff. And so that's kind of how it started. We kind of filled in, in tiny little gaps and found people that we knew and trust that could do that. And then over time, we started to realize, okay, you know, we need to make this more of an official position. So we started to transition from contractors to full time actual employees. And for those that aren't familiar, I think it'd probably be worth spending some time real quick just talking about the difference between those. Is that all right?

Yeah, definitely.

Okay. So for those that aren't familiar and that are interested in bringing on a team and building a team, probably the best place to start would be to work, work with somebody in a contractor capacity. And what a contractor or a freelancer would be. Another word for that. How they work is there's somebody who like kind of, they are their own little business, so they're not an employee, but they work with you on an ongoing basis. But from a company standpoint, you have to know that there's some flexibility that comes along with working with contractors where they maybe won't have set hours. They, you can't be super specific. Like you need to do this exactly like this at this time. It's kind of like somebody that you'd hire to redesign your website, for instance. They're not going to be somebody that's officially working with you over a long period of time. The benefit being that it's. There's not as much paperwork that's involved with it. You can kind of work with them and, you know, maybe after a certain amount of time you don't want to work with them anymore. So you can, you know, the relationship can end and it can start back up when you need to work with them again. And it's a really great way to start out when you're looking to work with a team. And that's how we did it. We worked with people on a contractor basis. So there's a lot of flexibility. And we said, here's generally what we need to get done and would love to work with you to get that done. But eventually we knew that we needed to bring people on that were actual team members or employees. And we wanted to work with people that would not only be incredible employees, but would improve the business and the brand as well. And we are just so proud to be a member of the team that we now have of employees and other team members. And the benefit to that being that now you have somebody that really understands how your business operates and kind of the ethos of it in a way that a contractor wouldn't. So that would be more of a long term play for people that are looking to build a business. But for us, it's been one of the most beneficial things because we get to work with these incredible people that are super smart, super capable, and they're a part of the ethos, a part of our team. But it really means that also as a business owner that you have to be extremely committed to showing up every day and to building the business. Those are all parts that there's maybe not as much flexibility that exists when you are working on building a team and having a team.

That's great. I'm glad you explained that because it's almost like the contractor is almost like a virtual assistant. Correct. Like it doesn't have to be somebody who's in your town that you see.

True for employees as well. We have team members that are all across the US and team member in Canada, and that's kind of in between. Jasmine is, does other things. Like she's an actor. I heard you, Elaine, that you. Were you involved with theater?

Oh, yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Many, many years.

Yep. Okay. So Jasmine is somebody who's maybe kind of this hybrid for us where she's a team member, she's part of what we do, but also has these other things that she's doing. She has some design stuff and she's an actor as well. Uh, but we have team members. Yeah. That are here locally and that are across the US as well. Um, but again, with the, with the employee side of things, it just looks a lot different. And I think it can be kind of scary for people that are used to building a blog and, and the idea of having this like, hey, I can kind of work when I want and I can have the, the time freedom of working here and there. And, and that doesn't exist at the same level when you have a team because like if we were to take three months off and let's say for pinch of Yum, not do any sponsored content, like that has a real impact on the income that the, the blog is able to produce, which is important because we have employees that we need to pay. So those are all factors that you should take into consideration. And, and we know people, and I know people that say, hey, I want to intentionally build a business and I want to be the only person that is operating the business. And on the Food Blogger Pro podcast, I did an interview with Paul Jarvis, who has built a business strategically in that way, and he has a book coming out. I Think it's called the company of one, where he says, I just want to do what I want when I want and not have to worry about anything else. So I'm just going to have my company be me. And Lindsey and I, we've taken a little bit of a different stance and we've said, hey, we don't want to build the biggest business in the world. We don't want to be a 500 person business. But we do want to have a team where we get to work with other people and it's not just us doing the work.

That's great. I told you before that I was a Food Blogger Pro member.

Yeah, thanks.

And when did you start Food Blogger Pro and how long did it take you to launch it? From the thought to the launch, sure.

So I mentioned the Philippines. We were in the Philippines from 2012 to 2013. Lindsey was working at a school there as an orphanage and I was volunteering and then also working remotely actually for the nonprofit that I was a part of. Just doing maybe 10 to 20 hours a week for the nonprofit and then volunteering. And then also when I had time, when school was in session at the orphanage and when there wasn't anything going on, I had some of these gaps in my day. And so what I decided to do was we kind of had this idea and it was actually Lindsay that encouraged me to do it because I was thinking about a few different ideas and she said, I really think that you should do Food Blogger Pro. I think that there's a market for it and I think there would be a need for it. So I remember going to this coffee shop, Coffee Dream in Cebu City and sitting down and buying the domain and going through and starting the process of starting Food Blogger Pro. And the timeline for Food Blogger Pro, it was maybe. We had been kind of thinking about it maybe for six months. And then it was probably in the. I'm totally guessing here, but this is an educated guess. So probably in the. In the like 3 to 2 to 3 month time range. After we first had the idea for it, and we're kind of thinking about it, we said, okay, let's go ahead and do this. And then it was maybe two months of kind of prep and pondering about what it would look like. And then we did a pre launch and this is kind of an important idea or takeaway and it's one that people would be familiar with because it's kind of like Kickstarter. But it was a really short turnaround. So we did a Pre launch on November 1, 2012. And we said, here's what we're going to do. For anybody that's interested, you can sign up ahead of time for discounted yearly membership. And we're going to launch on February 1st. Is that right? It was February 1st. Yep. 2013. So we had three months to build it. So what we did is we worked with a development and design team in Tennessee and they built the structure for Food Blogger Pro and built it in a way where it could operate as a membership site. And while they were doing that, I created the first round of videos for Food Blogger Pro and Lindsay had some as well that she did that were photography videos. So we launched. And so with the pre launch that we started on November 1, that was we used those funds, I think we made $10,000 from that pre launch of offering memberships ahead of time. We used that to fund, fund the development of the site. And so since 2013, it's been, you know, what we talked about at the beginning of the podcast? This slow and steady intentional showing up and slow and steady growth to the point now where we have a small team and we're able to operate Food Blogger Pro as a successful little small business. And that is what now, four and a half years later, Quick math.

Wow.

Going on five years here.

So can you talk about the benefits of becoming a member?

Sure, yeah. Appreciate that. So we really. Food Blogger Pro, obviously it's a niche for people in the food and recipe niche. And our focus is on, we call it kind of level one and level two, although we do have members that are maybe at level three or level four. Level three or level four would be people who are operating a really successful blog and, you know, have a substantial income from it. Now our focus is on the people that are in the early stages and wanting to figure out how to start and grow and monetize their site. So people that are interested in learning not only the basics, but also where do you go after you have kind of your site up and running, you know how to post, you know how to maybe kind of work your camera, but would like to improve it a little bit. So that's really the sweet spot for Food Blogger Pro. Now I'll say this. We have had people that have had a really substantial either following online or they've been building a blog for a really long time. And people that have said, I feel like I really understand blogging. And then they come in and realize, hey, there's all of these things that I could be applying to my blog that are actually Gonna act as a multiplier. So one of the great things about those level three or level four bloggers that have been operating their blogs for a long time or maybe have a substantial amount of traffic, is that making a small change can actually have a really huge impact. And so what do we focus on? Food and recipe. And then from there we focus on everything that's involved with that. So photography, we have a huge course library on photography where Lindsey talks about natural lighting and artificial lighting and everything that comes along with food photography using your camera. We also have a course on food video. So how you can shoot recipe videos, which are obviously a really important part of building a brand in the food and recipe niche. All the blog stuff. So WordPress monetization, we talk about search engine optimization, how to get found on search, and that's through the videos. So either a recording of my screen as we walk through something or. Or recording a video. Lindsey doing a photography shoot. But then we also have a forum that's really active where people post questions and if they have ideas or thoughts or feedback, or maybe there's something that happened recently with Google or a certain social media account platform, they would go to the forums to have that conversation. So those are the two most popular areas of Food Blogger Pro. And then we also have live content that we do where once a month we do a Happening now video. And I get on and say, hey, here are the things that we're doing right now with Pinch of Yum and Food Blogger Pro. Kind of a behind the scenes look and then a live Q and A as well.

I don't think that I would have done as well as I did from the very beginning because I actually joined two weeks before I started. I launched the blog. And honestly, I think I've watched every single one of the videos and probably more than once, especially the ones that are technical.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Do you have. I know that you close off the membership and have a waiting list. Where are you at it now?

Yeah. So if people sign up now, what we do is we have two really big public enrollments every year where we post about it on the blog, we post about it on the podcast, we talk about it, we talk about it on social media, and then we do a private enrollment in between that. So the idea with that is we want to make sure that we have these times where we're talking about it on our, you know, with our followers and being kind of loud about it. But we don't want that to be all the time. We don't want to be loud about it all the time. So in between those times that we do twice a year, those public enrollments, we do a private enrollment, which is just to the list, so we don't talk about it anywhere else. We just do that enrollment period for the list. So I don't know the exact dates of it, but if this comes out at the end of January, it'll probably be sometime in February. And we have the exact date, but I just don't know what it is off the top of my head. So if people were to sign up after they hear this podcast, it wouldn't be that long after that. We would do an enrollment, and that would just go out to that email list.

That's great. Okay. And I'll keep my eyes out, and I'll update the Show Notes page when it comes on.

Awesome.

Okay. Some people are saying that you're the pioneers of publishing your income reports.

Sure.

And why did you start that practice?

Yeah. And I'll say this. We're definitely not the pioneers for it, So I don't want to take any credit for being the first people to do that. There's a movement online called the transparency Movement. I don't know if that's an official thing or if it's just kind of describing this idea of companies being more transparent in how they operate. There's individual bloggers that have done it. Pat Flynn is a really popular blogger, and he has a smart. Passive Income is his brand. Buffer is a social media company, scheduling company, and they're really popular in the transparency movement. Barometrics is a company that does SAS analytics. So SAS is software as a service. So basically like software online, and they publish all of their income. And there's also companies, they call it open startups, that publish their dashboards as well. So there's a lot of companies that are doing it. And. And we just kind of. When we started those, we saw that, we said, hey, this is kind of cool. For us, it was less when we started, it was less of, like, here's where a company's at and how much money it's making, because it wasn't making any, so it wasn't super interested. Interesting. It was, you know, maybe 20 or 30 or $40 when we first got started. So we called it an experiment. And that's really what it was, was us jumping in and saying, we think it might be possible to build a business here, but we don't know if it is or not. We're confident that we can do it, but we'll see. So we're going to do this experiment and we're going to do it publicly. And that's really what the income reports were, was us saying, hey, we want to do this experiment and see if this is something that is going to result in us either building a blog and creating an income from it, and maybe even a career from it or not, and still learning along the way and maybe applying that in other places. But it ended up being that from doing those, we were able to create an income from the blog and make it sustainable. And that's also a huge. It opened a huge door for Food Blogger Pro. You know, in Food Blogger Pro, it wasn't like this grand master plan that we had of like, hey, we're going to do income reports. And then after a few years of doing income reports, now that we have the proof, we're going to do Food Blogger Pro. Like, we had no plan to do that. But naturally what happened was as we were doing these reports, people would come to us and ask specific questions or would ask Lindsay, you know, how she shoots in artificial lighting or something like that. And it's just hard to explain that via email. And so we realized, hey, there might be a solution here for another product and another offering. And that's really what we've done over the past seven or eight years, is continually create and show up every day. And as we're doing that, try and do a decent job of listening to what people are saying and figuring out if there's a need somewhere and if so, figuring out if we can respond to that. And Food Blogger Pro is an example of that. WPTasty, which is a plugins and software WordPress plugin site that we have, is an example of that. And nutrifox, which is a nutrition tool, um, is another example of that. So it's, it's definitely not something that we are. It's probably not as intentional as it seems when you look backwards. It's just us kind of building as we go.

Can you talk a little bit about tasty recipes? I actually have it. WP Tasty.

Yeah, for sure. Uh, and appreciate that. So WP Tasty is the brand most people would understand. WP stands for WordPress. But for my friends who aren't in online businesses, they have characterized WP Tasty as this British poet. And so he, they say that he's this, this character that has like a really long mustache that he twirls and he drinks tea and pontificates on life's greater problems. I was like, it's actually just a plug inside. It's not as cool as that. But WP Tasty isn't a British poet. It is a brand for plugins at this point. Themes eventually for WordPress sites and what we it was in a lot of ways, it was really solving our own problem. And that's how it got started. And we were using a recipe plugin that wasn't being updated. And there are some things that we knew that we wanted to implement. We were having to custom code that. And we're putting a lot of time and energy and money into it to make it just right for Pinch of Yum. And we said it's probably smarter for us to just develop the exact thing that we want and have control over it. And we had income from Pinch of Yum that we could shift and then focus on building this product in a way that maybe wouldn't be possible for other people, but we realized other people would maybe be interested in using this thing that we built. So WP Tasty is the brand and then underneath that, we have at this point two plugins, Tasty Recipes and Tasty Pins. And Tasty Recipes is a plugin for people that have a food blog and they publish recipes. And there's two things that it does that are really important. Number one is it makes your recipe look like a recipe and allows users to interact with it in a way where, you know, if they click Print, it pulls up a print page. You know, it gives an actual recipe card. But the more important thing that it does is it talks to Google in a certain language. And the language that it uses is JSON LD Jason or JSON Jason ld. And that's a type of language that you can speak to Google with. And it's important that content creators, especially food bloggers, are using a plugin and using one that's up to date. Because Google has a preferred type of language. And that preferred type of language is JSON, LD and tc. Recipes uses that to communicate with Google and say, hey, this is a recipe. So Google could then display certain elements like a recipe image will show up in a search result or nutrition information or a star ratings if people have come to your recipe and left a review for that and given it, you know, a certain star rating. And Google doesn't know that it's a recipe unless you are correctly marking that up and communicating that to Google. So that's what Tasty Recipes is. And we're using that on Pinch of Yum. And there's hundreds of other food bloggers that are using that now.

Me. Me.

Yes. Yeah, I appreciate that. Really nice of you to use it. And. And giving it a little shout out. And then we have Tasty Pins, which is the plugin that we recently launched here. This actually came out of a conversation with previous podcast guests that you had, Casey. And Casey was messaging back and forth, and he was talking about on Pinch of Yum, he said, hey, you should really be. You're doing your alt text wrong. And for those that aren't familiar, the alt text is that text that shows up in the image. Like when you're putting an image into a blog post. And what the alt text is meant to do, it's called for alternative text. And one of the things that I love in technology is when something, the name for something is exactly what it does. And alt text is just the alternative text. So when the image isn't there, what's the alternative? And it's this text. And that text is important because for people that use screen readers, they can't see an image. So visually, somebody who's visually impaired can't see an image. So it describes what that image is to them. So that's really important. Number two, it's important because Google is using that as an indicator of what the image is actually about. So it's a search engine optimization strategy. But the tension or the issue came in because a lot of food bloggers and content creators, bloggers in general, were using the alt text to create an optimized Pinterest text. So they would put in a really descriptive image for the recipe, but not necessarily for the image. And the. The issue with that is that the alt text is meant to describe the image, not to be a promotional piece of text for Pinterest, especially if you're including, like, your blog's URL or hashtags. And so what Tastypins does is it allows you to do both. So now for Pinch of Yummy, we optimize the alt text by describing what the image is. And it's really boring. It's not, like, exciting. Like, if it was a picture of me holding our dog Sage, it would say, you know, a man holding a dog. Like, it's not. Or maybe a recipe example would be better. You know, if it was ingredients for a smoothie, it would say, you know, like peaches and milk, almond milk and spinach in a blender. Like, it's not super exciting content. But then the Pinterest description can be something like, world's best green smoothie. Start your day right. Healthy hashtag recipe pinch of yum.com but that's not a great alt text. So TastyPins allows you to separate those two things out so you can do both for an image. So that's the primary purpose for TastyPins. It also allows you to hide a Pinterest image. So if you have a really long Pinterest image that you want to show up when people press the pin button on your site, then you can do that. So that's tastypin. So those are the two plugins that we have right now, but we're excited to continue to build the WP Tasty suite.

We talked a little bit before we started about Social Warfare Plugin or the Social Warfare Pro, and I was saying about hiding the pins. So you're saying that Tasty Pins will hide it?

Yes. Yep. So Tasty Pins allows you to hide it in a similar way to what a Social Warfare would do. That would be kind of the like, hey, this is nice part of Tasty Pins. The primary purpose of Tasty Pins is like, the thing, at least for Pinch of Yum, that we use it for the most isn't hiding Pins. It's the intentional separation of the alt text or the title text of an image from the Pinterest description. So that's really the sweet spot for Tasty Pins is optimizing your images, the alt text, and the Pinterest description in a way that isn't detrimental to your SEO. And really, it literally just creates a new field for your image that says Pinterest Description. So you can confidently put that in and know that the alt text, which is the, you know, alternative text which we talked about, can be used to describe the image. And then the title text, which is another one that's. It's the less common to use the field in title text. It's actually in the advanced area for WordPress. A lot of people don't see it technically can be used for the Pinterest description as well, but then it would show up whenever you hover over the image and getting kind of into the weeds a little bit here with the description. But TastyPens allows you to just be really clean with not having to bend something that's not supposed to be used a certain way and to just know that you're operating with your images in a really clean way.

Okay, that was a good explanation. I didn't think you went overboard with it.

Okay, yeah.

So I just want to touch on one thing before we wrap it up. How do you get your balance in life with all the things that you guys are doing.

Yeah, that's. It's a great. It's a great question, and I think a really important one because I think there's a danger in what we do in getting your worth from the work that you do or the numbers or likes or page views, uh, because it's such a tangible thing. And also on the flip side, it's. It's also possible to feel worse about yourself based on what somebody else is doing. Like, if somebody else has grow, growth or, you know, is doing better or whatever, it would be, um, I think in terms of, like, you know, balance or worth or, you know, kind of the soul side of things, it's one of the most important things that I think we can talk about as business builders or entrepreneurs or bloggers or whatever category you'd want to put us in. For me personally, it's a continued reminder of the things that always and forever will be most valuable to me. And none of those things have to do with any of the things that we've built. I have a lot of pride in the things that we've built and a lot of passion around them, and I want to do everything I can to make them awesome and to continue to do that for years and years to come. Uh, but I know that the things that are truly valuable to me are. Are much more accessible and ground level. And it's things like spending time with Lindsay on the weekend, or tonight we're going over to our friend's house and we're just going to have dinner and watch tv. Um, it's things like going to the dog park on a Sunday afternoon with Lindsay and her dog Sage, like, having, like, a deep appreciation and gratitude, not in a superfluous way of, like, you know, hey, everything is awesome and there's nothing bad in the world, but just recognizing how these small things can be so massively, massively valuable. Um, and for me, that's what allows me to continue to have balance and to know that, you know, no matter how much growth something has or success or whatever you want to call it, that it's never going to be enough to make me feel like, and now this is enough. Like, it's. It's never going to be done and we're never going to get there. Uh, and I think realizing that allows me to say, okay, if I know that I'm never going to get there, wherever that might be, then how do I find a way to be. To be fully present and grateful and thankful for where I am right now? And it's not finding ways to be like, you know, I had a hundred downloads today and I feel super great about that. Instead, it's focusing on the things like, man, it's really awesome to, like play with Sage at the end of the day. I keep coming back to our dog Sage, but it's such an easy example because it's so simple and basic. Basic. But for me, that's really what it comes down to is just a really deep appreciation for the normal things that have nothing to do with like the quote unquote work that I have around me that won't go away if or when everything else crashes and burns. Because that could happen and you see it happen with people all the time. And I know that when or if that does happen, that I still have the ability to be grateful and thankful because the thing that I most value isn't the business thing or the blog thing that I've created. It's the things that I have around me. And those are the things that are most dear.

That was very eloquent. Thanks, Bjork. Can you rattle off all your websites so we can put it on your show notes?

Yeah, really appreciate that. So pinchofyum.com is the food and recipe blog that Lindsay runs. Food Blogger Pro is our membership site. And for those that you know, we talked about how there's seasons of enrollment for that. We also have some free content. So if you go to foodbloggerpro.com podcast, we have our podcast there and we're actually going to repost this to the Food Blogger Pro podcast. So usually I'm interviewing people, but I thought, hey, it would be fun to post an interview where I'm being interviewed. So if, if you are listening to this on the Food Blogger Pro podcast, obviously you know about that, but for those that aren't, you can go to foodbuggerpro.com podcast and that will bring you to the podcast. Um, WP Tasty is not a British poet. It is the plugin site that we have for WordPress food blogs. And then Nutrifox is a nutrition tool that we have for food bloggers that we've been building over the past year and a half or so. And people can check that out. So those are the places you can find us. I'm on Twitter. I'm not super active on Twitter. Bjork Ostrom. Otherwise you can reach out to me. Bjorkoodbloggerpro.com well, I'll put this all in.

Your show notes page.

Awesome. Yeah, thanks so much, Elaine. Super fun to chat.

Well, thank you so much Bjork for being on the Dishing with Delicious podcast.

Thanks.

Wasn't that a great episode? I loved hearing about the background of how Bjork and Lindsey started Food Blogger Pro and Pinch of Yum. And I loved learning that our good old Food Blogger Pro is turning 5 on Thursday. Happy Birthday Food Blogger Pro. I'm also here to bring you the review of the week and this one comes From Kate of giftfromhospitality.com and it says this podcast is my go to podcast when I'm cooking or preparing a recipe for blog post. I appreciate Bjork's well thought out questions and the breadth of content. SEO best practices, how to get Instagram followers and how to create a brand story have been three of my favorites. I usually jot down one to two big takeaways from each episode and have put several action items into practice so far. We love hearing that Kate. Thank you so much and we're so excited that you put some lessons that you've learned into practice on your blog. So if you guys have any questions, comments or concerns, feel free to email us at podcastoodbloggerpro.com from all of us here at FBPHQ, make it a great week.

Sam.