369: Developing Your Voice and Connecting With Your Readers When Writing with Jessica Holmes

This episode is sponsored by our friends at Tophat Content. We wanted to highlight three of their content services that help food bloggers maximize reach and traffic. Number one Content Audits tophat Content offers three different kinds of audits. So this is the first category. There's three kind of subcategories underneath. This one is a mini audit where they collect data for all your content on your website and provide recommendations on how to improve the content. Number two is a full content audit which also includes in depth competitor analysis and Persona analysis. And number three is a forensic audit where they identify which of your posts used to bring in traffic and are no longer ranking like they did before and then provide page level recommendations. So we actually recently used this service for print of Yum and we're able to make strategic content improvements to help optimize those posts that were identified. The second category of service that we'd like to highlight that Top Hat Content provides is Topic Ideation. And this will give you 12 new topic ideas and a content calendar detailing things like the primary keywords, heading structure, internal linking suggestions, and more. And number three, for those of you who don't like the process of writing, is content development. So it's combining both SEO and content writing. Top Hat Content takes your recipe and puts together an optimized blog post written in your style and tone, ready to publish. And for some of you, you love writing and for others you don't. And we talk about on the podcast how it's great to outsource the things that you don't like doing. So if you're somebody who doesn't like the process of content writing or is looking to partner with somebody to help.

With that, that's a service that they offer.

If you're interested in booking a free consultation with the Top Hat Content Content team, you can head to tophatcontent.com FBP. You'll also get 10% off your first order of any of their content services. So head to tophatcontent.com FBP for that offer. And thanks to the Top Hat Content Team for sponsoring this episode.

Hello, hello, this is Bjork.

You are listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast where we have conversations with publishers, creators, influencers, business owners, all in the in the food and recipe category. And some of you I know aren't food people. But you follow along with podcasts because you're interested in best practices when it.

Comes to building a business online.

So whoever you are, wherever you are.

We'Re glad that you're here and excited.

To share this conversation with you today with Jessica Holmes. She has a site called Sweetest Menu, and her background was in copywriting. So we're going to be talking a lot about writing. We're going to be talking about Voice, why that's important, and how Jessica was.

Able to use that to grow her.

Site to over a million monthly page views and was able then to take her site full time. And one of the things that we.

Talk a lot about on the podcast.

Is looking at what skills you have and seeing how you can fold those into your pursuits. And a lot of times that that might look like something like this, where Jessica said, hey, I have a really good experience. I have really good insights and expertise around copywriting and just in general, how.

To write with voice.

So leaning on that as a skill to build a website and to build a following. And some of you might have experiences in other areas. It might be video, might be photography. Maybe you're really good at networking or project management. Whatever it is, you can use that experience and fold that into your journey as a creator. And that's what Jessica did. So not only are we going to talk about her transition to working on her site full time, but we're also going to be talking about advice for.

People who want to develop a strong voice.

So let's go ahead and jump into this conversation with Jessica Holmes from the Sweetest Menu. Jessica, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, this is. So when we start out a podcast, I love to hear people's story, a little bit of their background. A lot of times I'll read through somebody's about page, but assuming that I haven't read your about page, give us a quick little background of who you are, what you're about, and catch us up to speed on kind of your journey as a blogger.

Yes, for sure. So I started Sweetest menu back in 2014, which seems like an absolute lifetime ago now. I was in an interesting place in my life where I was working full time as a writer, but I was doing some graphic design classes in the evening and. And my husband had just changed careers and he had gone back to university to do law. So I had a lot of time on my hands and my graphic design classes were finishing up, and I thought, what am I going to do after work in my spare time? And I just really wanted something creative. So I decided just to start a food blog just for fun. It was right around the time when I was following all the bloggers that are huge now, like Pinch of Yum And Sally's baking addiction. And yeah, I just thought, you know, I'll just start it and have some fun with it. And I did. That's what I did. It was purely a hobby. Very, very humble beginnings. I just did a free website on Blogger. I had no camera. I had, you know, barely any experience in the kitchen. But I fell in love with it very, very quickly and I kept it as a hobby for a long time. But it was about two years in, I think my dad said to me, you should put some ads on your website. And I was like, no, no, dad, I don't want silly ads on my website. But then he convinced me and I threw them up one month and I made $50 in my first month and I was super excited and I thought, this is so cool. I'm getting paid to do something that's super fun. And then it continued and grew from there, but it was a very slow and steady race for me. It took many years before I went full time with it.

Y. When was it that you transitioned to doing it full time?

It was actually. It was actually in March 2020, which was really interesting time in the world too.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah.

Was that. Was that you? So March 2020, a lot of. For a lot of people, it was a change in their job around that time as well. Was that you saying, like, hey, there's a change happening with my career. I'm just going to do this now, or was it you saying, hey, regardless of what's happening in the world, I know that this is a time for me to like, make the transition into blogging full time.

Yeah, it was probably more the latter. So I actually really enjoyed my day job and I didn't have an intention of becoming a blogger. But then as time went on and the blog really turned into a business, it just became unsustainable to be working on it outside of work hours. But at the same time, my career was kind of not taking off. But I'd landed my dream job, like my dream corporate job. So there was really like this push and pull for probably. Probably a good year or two. But I knew sort of that's where I was heading. And yeah, it just got to this point where it. It was making my bog, was making more money than my day job. And I thought now's the time to make a switch. And it was purely coincidental that it turned out to be.

That's when it was. Yeah, yeah. A three year global pandemic. So you're.

Tell me a little bit about what.

You'Re Doing your corporate job. So you obviously loved it and it was something that you enjoyed doing. What was that that you were doing?

Yeah, so I was a UX writer or a copywriter, so writing for. Worked for a number of big brands, but yeah, we do writing for their websites and digital products and platforms, apps, things like that.

Yeah. So when you say UX writer, can you talk about what that means?

Yes. So it's talking about user experience. So it's basically just using your words to make sure that people can navigate a platform or a website and get where they need to, you know, where they need to go or do what they need to do and guide them through that process and hopefully let them have a good experience on your. On your website or platform or whatever it is.

Yeah, it feels like that really closely correlates to what you're doing when you're developing a recipe. Like you're guiding somebody through the process of understanding how to do a thing.

Exactly.

Did that. Did that transfer over pretty directly to your recipe development process?

Yeah, it really did. And to the whole blogging process as a whole. I mean, our website is our product, but yes, definitely our recipe writing as well. Yeah, it's all interconnected.

So let's talk about that because I think there's so many different pieces of what it takes to be successful as a creator, as a publisher, and I think what's exciting is that you can lean into the strengths that you have and leverage those. So for some people, they're going to be really great on camera and they love the idea of turning the phone towards them and recording when they're out and about without any script. For other people, it's going to be photography. Maybe it's people who are really into telling the story of food and history. For you, you have this experience in writing and specifically writing in a way that helps people understand how to get from point A to point B or accomplish what they're trying to accomplish. And you talked about it in two ways. One is the recipe itself, but the other is your website. What are some ways that you feel like your decisions around your recipes or your website were informed based on your career as a UX writer? Are you doing things with a different mindset or just looking through a different filter, essentially, as you think about your website?

Yeah, I love that you asked that because, yeah, that is one of the things that I truly recommend for bloggers is the mindset piece that you were just talking about there. Because I feel like, especially as food bloggers, we focus so much on photography. And then we focus so much of our time on recipe testing and being in the kitchen. And I often find that writing is really left as a low priority. And even for me, that was the case for many years because writing was my job. It's like, you know when people say they married a chef, and they say, like, oh, you must eat amazing. And they go, no, they come home, they don't want to cook. Like, it felt like that I got to the end of the week and I was like, oh, I have to sit down and write another thousand words. You know, no way.

And, yeah, a lot of times our job is one thing. We don't want to do that, even if we're good at it. Right?

Totally. And it was like, my least favorite part of the whole process. But actually, I felt like there was a bit of a shift for me when I was at work. And. Yeah, so I was doing. So this is an. I was in specifically, like, a UX role, and I'd be sitting in a room and there'd be, like, five writers, and we would spend. I'm not even joking. We would spend, like, an hour debating two words that were going to be on a.

Totally, totally. Yeah.

And I would be like. I'd be sitting there going, like, does the company know that we're all sitting? Like, this is how we're spending our time. Is this okay? You know, And I thought to myself, if these businesses can see the value in words and invest in their teams and invest in their copywriters and things like that. And I thought. And. And. And also, then we would do focus groups, and you would see how different words, like how people responded to different wording and things like that. It made me sort of realize the value and the power of words. And I sort of took that mindset over into my blog.

Yeah.

Do you.

Do you have an example, like, with the focus group? Like, if you. If you think that we're to do. Like, if you were to do a focus group on your blog post, let's say something you're writing or social media, whatever. It's. Whatever's easiest to think about.

What.

What would. What would that look like? And how would people respond differently to different words? And do you even have an example of one of those focus groups and what you learned from that?

Yeah, I'm trying to think back now. A lot of it was when we would. We would do like. Like a guide through something. So if people were. So it might be like a payment, you know, if you want to pay or something. And the flow that people would go through. And I just. I could never get over the fact that something that seems so logical to you, but often that was because you were working on it and you were in it. Right. And you were in it every day. People wouldn't necessarily understand where to go next or which button to press or why something wasn't working how they thought it was. And it was really quite shocking sometimes. And it really just made you think how you need to come back to not assuming anything and to really looking at things with fresh eyes. And that is so true with recipe writing, because I think as our skills improve in the kitchen, it can be really easy to brush over techniques and things like that in the recipe and assume knowledge. But you really, like, I have to go back to my 10, like 10 years ago and go back when I was first in the kitchen and I didn't know what any of these words meant and kind of write to that person. Yeah, yeah.

So how do you do that? Like, I think conceptually people understand the idea of simplicity being extremely clear. But how do you know if you are doing that? How do you know if you need to change? Do you have any kind of, like, tools in your tool belt to help people who are interested in writing better writing more clearly? How do you go about doing that?

One way is to look at your readability. So that's something that we would look at professionally is that's how we would check if something's written well is your readability score. And there's tools you can use online. I think the Hemingway app is one where you can just literally cut and paste your paragraph or your whole blog post and it'll give you a readability score. And that's like you're saying that's looking at writing to a fourth or fifth grade level.

Sure.

And that's actually a tangible way of checking. Is this easy to understand? Is this written well? And that would be looking at things like sentence length, making sure your sentences are really short. If you used a word that was too, too long when you could use a simpler word, or.

Yeah.

Think. Yeah. Things like that. So it tests that all for you, which is wonderful.

Interesting. And so readability is essentially this idea of how easy is it going to be for the average person to read and understand this.

Yes.

And I think it's. It's probably pretty surprising when you look at your own writing when you realize, like, oh, actually, I'm not writing in a way that's very readable because of a sentence that's really long or like, I'm including a bunch of commas or words that maybe I think are good to include but actually are confusing.

Exactly.

Do you write with an app? Like, I have Grammarly connected in, and it's amazing how often it's like, I typed the twice or like, you know, don't put a comma there.

I use Grammarly, too. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. And the other app that you mentioned was Hemingway.

Yes.

Okay. And that is essentially just like an editor app that you can use when you're writing. Similar to Grammarly.

Yes. But it's. Our focus is on readability.

Okay, got it.

Yeah. Yeah, you can use. There's a free version online where you can literally just go to the website and just like, copy paste as well. Yeah.

Cool. That's great. So I think a lot of what people think about when they think of writing is, you know, obviously the instructions, making sure that it's clear, making sure that people understand that they have success in the thing that they're trying to do, which in our world is like create a recipe and have. Have that turn out well. But you could go way to one side, which is like, instruction manual. And it's like, yes, people don't want that. They want to make sure that you have, like, personality and voice, but they also want to have success with the thing that they're trying to do, which in this case is usually create a recipe. So do you have any advice for people who are looking to not only have success in communicating a thing, but also doing that in a way where people want to read it? A lot of times we talk about voice in the written word. How do you develop that?

That's a really good question, because I think you're absolutely right. I think as bloggers, we've kind of veered away from. Because, you know, back in the day, we used to just write whatever, and we used to write our long stories, and then we all got blasted on the Internet, and now we write more for SEO. I think we've moved into that robotic land, like you said. And also that's one of the mistakes. I see. Well, it's not a mistake, but maybe somewhere we can improve. Is a lot of blogs. When you go to a recipe, they're all the same. So there's nothing like you said, connecting people necessarily to you and to your recipe. But, yeah, I think that's our biggest strength or something that we can use to our advantage and a way that we can differentiate ourselves from big, like, food media sites is that we do have a personality, and there is the person behind it. And I think, yeah, I think we have to be not afraid to actually weave in our personality a little bit, even if that's just one or two sentences here and there. And. Yeah, and it can come down to also thinking about who your brand is, which can often, as a blogger, be an extension of your personality. But even writing it down, like, to kind of help you get into the mindset when you sit down at your computer, like, is your brand playful and fun? Do you want it to be joyful or are you a bit witty and sarcastic? Like, what are the kind of feelings and emotions and personality do you want to get across in your writing and to have a little bit of fun with it? So even for me, I know for mine, it can be as simple as I often have something I can put in about the origins of the recipe. So it's often inspired by my travels. So I'll just be like, you know, and it'll just be a couple sentences like, this cookie is inspired because I went to Italy a few years ago and I had this at this amazing cafe. And it's like just something really small, but automatically the person, you know, someone on the other end might go like, oh, cool. Like, oh. Or, oh, I tried something like that once. Or, you know, like, it gives something, rather than, like, you said that empty. Kind of like, here is the cookie, here's how you make it, you know, like, yes. I think it's not being afraid to, like, weave in a little bit of your personality and talk about. Yeah. Why you're inspired and. Or it could be something like, you know, you saw something on tv, this is your favorite TV show, or you grew up. You know, this is your childhood memory. Like, all these little pieces. You're leaving little pieces throughout your blog, and people put it together and they create a picture of who you are and the person behind it, and that's how they kind of connect to you.

Yeah, it's so true. That connection piece especially, I think, is so important to point out. And we live in this world where we're constantly balancing all of these different variables. One of them is, how is the content that I'm writing going to be discovered on a search engine? That's really important because a lot of people search for recipes. We can get traffic from that. That traffic can result in money through ads. So you can see how that plays out. But another consideration is, what does it look like for connection? Like, how connected are people to me and how well do people feel like they know me or like me or trust Me, whatever it is.

Exactly.

And so much of that comes us sharing stories and, you know, sharing about ourselves. And, you know, as a super extreme example, if this podcast was. The transcript was taken and, like, redone in, like, us not telling stories, but just, like, actionable information. First do this, and it's like this robot voice we wouldn't have people following because it might be good information that actually is helpful and impactful. But what people are looking for is to be a part of a story. And so for us, as creators, we're constantly balancing the strategy, the execution, along with the art of connection in what we're doing. And I think at the core, there isn't an answer. And it probably depends on who you are.

Yes.

I'd be curious to hear from you, Jessica. Where do you feel like you land as you think about interjecting your voice, your personality, but also being strategic about optimization for search? And I know you shared this, which is really incredible that you're at this point where you can get a million page views to your site. And so what you're doing is working. And what is that for you? How do you strike that balance?

Yeah, I think for me, I think the connection point or sort of writing more from the heart per se comes more naturally to me. And it's actually the strategic kind of SEO side is probably what I have to work harder at, which is interesting because I know some people would be the other way around. And I think that might be because of how my blog started, because it really did just start as, you know, the hobby and the outlet. So. So that's sort of how it grew. And it was just all about. All about me. It's not all about me. It's all about the reader. But, yeah, it just comes from my.

It wasn't like contributors. It wasn't like you trying to rank for a certain piece of content is like.

Exactly.

Sharing recipes that you've made. Yeah.

Yes. And something I'm genuinely excited about, genuinely passionate about that. You know, I wake up in the morning and I cannot wait to share with you because I want someone else to experience the joy of this cookie or this cake or whatever it is. So, yeah, it's definitely a balancing act. And I think as time goes on, you kind of find your own rhythm in that. And it just takes time. And. And it's the same as the voice piece that we were talking about before. I think, you know, when people are looking at, like, photography, it takes time to find your own photography style. Right. And you. And you look around and you, you know, might mimic others or you try different things and then eventually you find what you like, what suits you, what suits your brand, what you can create, what you're good at creating. And yeah, I feel like the same thing happens with your brand voice and writing is it just takes. It takes time to find that. And you eventually find what. What works for you personally and then what works for your readers by the sort of the feedback that you get and the success that you have. You can kind of learn from it, but it is a bit hard because It's. It's not 100%, like, tangible, really.

Right. And you've never. You never arrive. Like, you're always.

Exactly.

You're always on the journey of trying to find that balance. And, and yeah, it's never. It's not a perfect calculation or it's not a formula that you follow. It's always kind of ebbing and flowing as well.

Exactly. And I think everyone's readership is different. That's the other thing. So obviously everyone's brand is different, even though we're all doing very similar things. But, yeah, your readership is different. So it's not necessarily your voice, but it might be how you talk to them could be different because you're talking to a different set of people and what they get from you can be different.

Yeah, yeah, totally. And I think about that with, you know, when you think of the spectrum and some people could land on the side of, hey, I really want to be strategic about getting a lot of people here for search traffic, and I want to optimize for SEO. That would be one end of the spectrum. The other spectrum end of the spectrum could be, I want to focus on connecting with my readers and maybe I'll show up in search, maybe I won't. But what I'm going to position myself as is like somebody on social media, on my blog, potentially a newsletter, which I think a lot of people are starting to look at doing. Like, my strength isn't going to be SEO optimization. My strength is going to be connecting with my readers around a certain subject. And I think there's real value in that where search a lot of times can be transactional. I need this apple pie recipe. Where's the best place to get it? I'm going to get it and give it to me as quickly as possible. I don't want to hear your story.

Cut it out of there.

Just give me the apple pie recipe. Whereas other people are going to be on the side of, I have been baking pies for 20 years and come along with me on my journey as we learn how to like, really do this craft well. And you might have a newsletter. People would subscribe to it, they pay to it, they want to follow you, they want to come alongside you as opposed to just check in real quick to get a thing and leave. Neither one of those is right or wrong, but I think we need to remember, like, there's lots of options as creators for us to play the game in different ways.

I 100% agree with that. And the, I was gonna say left or right side that the group that you were just facing, the group that you were talking about with a smaller, like more connected group is definitely more valuable. And you kind of, you kind of. For me personally in my business, I do need some of the other to kind of like you said, like, keep it going and bring in more of probably the traffic and more, you know, revenue generating, like instantly. But this core group, like, that's, that's who I do it for. That's who I love to connect with. And that's where, that's where you can kind of create. And I don't mean to say this arrogantly, but that's where you can create like super fans, right? Like people who literally, like, love you and love your brand and love what you do. And they're the people that, you know, if you ever put out a product, I assume that, you know, they're the people that are probably going to buy it. Like if you have to do a cookbook or something like that, right? And it's not going to be those, like you said, those transactional people that are like, hi and buy and off they go. So I think that's often how people come to your website and you kind of hope that they can transition and come into your core group. But not everyone will, obviously. But that's sort of the dream.

It's a, it's a great time to mention Kevin Kelly's 1000 true fans. And I've mentioned it before on the podcast, he's this tech writer, I think. And now it's kind of become this famous post. But this idea of as a creator in the world, if you can get 1000 true fans, you can support yourself. Like if you're a musician, yes, you have a thousand true fans and they'll buy tickets and they'll buy your music and you can get to the point where maybe they each pay like $50 to $100 a year for your things. You have your thousand true fans. And I think that doesn't Come if not for feeling connected. So my follow up question is like, how do you connect with readers through your words? What are the things that you can do to actually connect with people?

Well, yes, I do think it takes time, but social media is a great way to connect with, with readers. One thing I think we have like a tool in our tool belt at the moment is you can literally talk to these people or your newsletter or however it is, but you can talk to these people like instantly. And that's a great thing about like social media, you know, question boxes or polls or however it is, you can ask for their opinions instantly. And I love to do that. Like I love to invite my readers on my recipe testing journey and, and sometimes I just ask some things. Like even last week I was making a cookie and it turned out a bit more cakey than I was expecting. And I thought, oh, do I. But it was really delicious and I was like, I was torn because I was like, do I retest it and make it more like, you know, how I sort of pictured it in my mind or should I just go with this kind of new version and like I just throw up a picture and I say like, hey guys, like, what do you think? Do you want this more cakey? Do you want it more crispy? And you'd be surprised how many people are just like, would love to share their opinion. And yeah, just like this is like small examples, but and another one, the other week I was doing a sponge cake recipe and like sponge cakes are known for being a bit tricky and I've had problems with them in the past, but I just immediately like ask my readers, like, what if you've made a sponge, what problems have you had? You know, and you get hundreds of responses of people, you know, saying, oh, it's flat or it tastes eggy or I could never get mine to rise. And that's great because you can use all that information to then trouble write troubleshooting tips in your post. So it's super helpful for you. But then you're also providing a great service for people who want answers to their questions.

Yeah, it seems like at its core it's being able to have a conversation with people. Like, yeah, I think of Lindsay shared this thing the other day. It was kind of a random. We were sitting on our back deck with our friends.

I saw that with the wine.

It was crazy. And, and she was. And we have a bunch of trees in our backyard and it was windy and she was sitting with the holding wine glass and this branch fell like Straight down. And, like, exploded the wine glass.

Yes.

But, like. And she just continued to sit there because it didn't hit her anywhere else. And she was like, I don't know what the question was. She was like, what does this mean? And it was super fun to read through everybody's comments of, like, responses. Yeah, yeah, for sure. In the different things that people said and just how creative people are. But it allows for a conversation and interaction, which is connection, I think, which is what so much of us are after. How about on the writing side for people who kind of struggle with how do I craft a. You know, I'm posting something on Instagram. It's easier if I have a video. I can do a poll, I can do a question. But maybe people who struggle to know how to write a caption or what to include in a post. Do you have any advice for people who maybe don't love writing but know that they need to continue to, like, write in service of social media?

Yes, I think just trying to think of it like you're just talking to your friends, how you would talk in daily life, how you would have this conversation with a friend. But I think try not to overthink it, to just be a normal person and ask normal questions. I think sometimes we can really overcomplicate things or try and be super creative. But it's like the example that you just gave there, like, that's something, right? If Lindsay rocks up on Monday to work and she would just say to a colleague, like, oh, my gosh, look what just happened to me. It was so crazy. I was just sitting on my. You know, and that's exactly how she talks in her stories. Like, she's just talking to a normal person, having a normal conversation. Yeah. I think take. Sometimes you just got to take the pressure off and realize, like, you can be a little bit more casual and have a little bit more fun with these social platforms and in how you engage. And it's just trial and error as well to see what resonates with your audience. And if you don't get much response to something like, that's fine. Just try something else. No harm in it.

I think one thing I need to constantly remind myself of is this reality that the things we do in our personal lives that are really great are also the things that we can do in our professional lives that are really great. For example, like, to your point, a good story that you tell your friends, saying that same story on social is a good story. Like, sharing that in both places makes sense. Or how you would talk to your friends is probably a good way for how you could talk to people that you're interacting with online like that. It doesn't need to be. There doesn't need to be a change with those. But at the same time, I think one of the things that I found to be true is for people who have a personal brand, a lot of times they're maybe like 1.5x of who they are in their normal day. Like, it's just the dial is turned up a little bit.

Do you feel like that's true?

Does that need to happen? Or can you be like the. You know, if I write an email to my friend and then I'm writing email to food blogger pro people, those look the same, or does it need to be kind of amped up a little bit in order to really come across and cut through?

I think it really just depends on your brand and who you want to be. I know what you're saying. There definitely can be, I think, because there's the fine line between trying to get cut through. Right. Like, sometimes you're trying to, you know, you might be a bit quirky, a bit creative, or you're trying to. Yeah, like you were saying, like, kind of come on a little bit stronger because you're trying to get cut through. You're trying to really create. Create your brand, your brand personality. But, you know, that's not for everybody. You know, some people are very chill, very quiet, and I feel like people should have the freedom to be able to create whatever brand they like. And if they're. If their brand isn't as, you know, in your face as other brands, that can definitely be your strength rather than a weakness.

Sure, sure. Yeah, that makes sense. How about on the. On the side of, like, mistakes? So we've talked a lot about things that people can be doing, things that are smart to do. What are some writing mistakes that you see people making when they're publishing blog posts?

Yes, I think the biggest one is. I think the biggest one is being a little boring. To be honest, that sounds a little brutal. But I think it's what we're talking about before, about standing out from the crowd, that it's good to get a little creative with it. And when I say boring, I mean, like, I think we've gone down the path of creating. You know, this is the recipe, this is how you make it, this is what you do. And all that information is wonderful and really helpful for the reader. But you can get, like, a little bit creative even with your Descriptions. I find bloggers and myself included, we can get really lost in the like using the same descriptions. You know, this is amazing. This is delicious. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with those words. But I do encourage people to just try and get a little creative and get out the thesaurus, like try something a little bit different. And it's even thinking about going a little deeper and looking at textures and flavors and smells and all the visuals to whatever it is that you're cooking. And is it soft and is it spongy? Does it crackle? Does it have an aroma like just going a little bit deeper than. This is a great cake. Here's how you kit and I encourage people actually to start a spreadsheet and just keep an eye out for some really interesting words and descriptions. And the way people phrase things in your daily life, like it can come from anything. Like you're watching a TV show or you read a book and you think, oh, that's a cool word. Or I love how they described that. Or an ad you might see or a billboard or something and just keep a list. So that when you're sitting at your desk and you're writing your hundredth blog post about a piece of cake and you think, oh my gosh, how can I describe this any different? Like grab, grab out your sheet and have a read through and kind of just get inspired to get a little bit more creative. Yeah, yeah, that's great.

I love the idea of monitoring kind of while you're out in the world looking for inspiration. You know, phrases that you hear people say, words that stick out in that, in that way too. I think part of our job as creators is not just creating, but also strategically consuming. And who are the people that we look to that are really good writers in this case, or people that we find inspiring? And then how can we spend time with the things that we're inspired by to then take that inspiration to inform our own work? So I love that and I love the idea of the intentional added effort of keeping track of it. Like you have a note or a spreadsheet or whatever it is that you can refer back to and kind of collect along the way, which I think is great. So as we close out some of the conversations around writing, I want to go back to your story as a creator, as a publisher, blogger, whatever we want to call it, and hear a little bit about what you've learned along the way. Because I think anytime that we're talking to somebody who's working on this as their full time career it's always interesting for people to hear what they've learned. So when you look back at your eight years working on your blog in different forms, what are the things that you've done along the way that have been most impactful for you in your business?

Okay. I think so. My story is very slow and steady, so I feel like many people seem to have a real turning point where they either had a really quick spurt of growth or they were able to be like, okay, I'm taking this amount of time and I'm turning this around to a business. But mine was very slow and steady. So I think the key things for me were SEO, obviously, is a big one, and I know everyone talks about that, but for me, it wasn't. I knew what SEO was from my day job, but it took a long time for the penny to actually drop in my mind, which sounds really weird, but.

And when you say that, what is that phrase, penny to drop in your mind?

I was probably not even actually saying. My husband says I make sayings up all the time. But what I mean is, so I knew the rules. Like, I knew a lot of, you know, SEO was a lot about rules and guidelines that you need to follow, but I didn't understand sort of why. And once, once that really dropped in my mind about how we're writing for the readers. And you're not just following these rules to make Google happy, which I feel a lot of people still are. But when you realize you're following these rules because that's easy for your reader to understand, and it's providing a lot of value to your reader and it's showcasing, you know, obviously, your expertise and things like that. But when it came down and came back to the reader, for me, I felt like there was this ease in creating because that I could really get around following rules and having this more structured approach, I found probably a bit constricting. But when I realized I could do that for the reader and keep the reader at the forefront of my mind, I felt like there was a bit of freedom that came with that, and that sort of helped me balance the creativity and the strategy. Yeah, but. Yeah, so one of the.

Yeah, at that point, it's less about what are the rules, is this right or wrong? And it's more about the general rule is how do you create something that is helpful for people? And some potential ways that that might be true is you divide it up with headers like, you use an H2 to make it easier to browse. You include bullet points for steps of a certain thing that you want to walk people through. Like there's photos that help people understand each step, whatever it might be. It's not because like Google's like, here's the rule.

Yeah.

The search engine is saying how do what's most helpful for people? And then how do we help creators by saying, these are some generally helpful things you can do. I think that's a great thing to point out.

Yeah. And I think it can take a little bit of time because I think at the start. Yeah. Just, yeah, as I was saying, like you can get that bunch of rules and I think if a blogger comes in and goes, oh, I need to learn SEO. And they're like, okay, this is how I have to structure my post. This is how I have to do it. This is, you know, all the rules I have to follow. And you kind of go like there is that. But then you can kind of have a little bit of like a play with it. Like you can kind of relax a little bit. Like you don't need to panic if you didn't include one heading section. Like, it's not going to be the end of the world. You know what I mean? And kind of releasing yourself from that stress of how you need to create it. And I think that also helps in, like we were saying before, in creating something that's unique to you because you're not following necessarily the exact outline as everyone else. Like you might want to explain your recipe slightly differently and that's okay.

Yeah, that's great. And I think a really good reminder for people, especially as we get into it. I think sometimes what can happen is you learn these quote unquote rules and if you haven't been with it long enough or haven't been learning it long enough, you can think those rules are the end all, be all. And if you do break them, everything's going to break. And it's kind of like these guidelines to help you get to the destination of like success for your reader. Framing things up for the reader, but it all coming back to the reader. That's great. Um, so another question that I'm always interested in hearing from people who are doing this full time. Digital creators. What are some of your favorite tools like you, you apps that you really like to use? You know, is there a process that you use for like jotting down notes as you're developing a recipe? But it's just kind of a fun question that I think people like to hear about from other creators. Anything that they use that that's a Beneficial tool or app or software or anything like that.

Yes. I'm a, I'm a pen and paper girl.

Love it.

So. So when I'm in the kitchen, I, I write. I do all my recipe testing by hand. So I have notepads and notepads full of all my recipes. But then yeah, it's for writing like things we were just talking about before, like Grammarly, the Hemingway app and, and a dictionary.

Do you have a physical one? Is it like an actual. You said grab a. Okay.

I don't, I just use the one online. But I should get one actually. But yeah, but they're the main tools I use. I don't, I don't use a lot of fancy things and I use a lot of spreadsheets like Google sheets and things like that. So. Yeah, that's great.

Do you. This is a question because I actually just bought a new notebook and this is a Baron Fig. I don't know if you know the company Baron Fig, but do you have a. To speak analog. Do you have a favorite like notebook or is it just kind of like spiral bound random notebook that you grab?

Yeah, they're totally random. They're all different, like all different kinds, whatever's available. Your notebook.

Yeah, it's. So I'll describe it for people who are listening to podcast. So it has the like dotted lines and a couple of things. This is not a Baron Fig promo.

Yeah.

But they have one of the most beautiful designed e commerce sites that I've ever seen. It's just like a really inspiring. But a couple of things that I really like about this is it lays flat. So like a lot of like notebooks, like you can't use like 20% of it because there's this little like fold in the middle and it's really annoying when you're using it. So I really like that. And then it also has some perforated pages at the end. So if you do want to like rip something out, you don't have to have the like awkward rip that you have in the middle of the notebook that you don't. That you don't really like. But Baron Figs, this incredible company, I don't have much of their stuff, but I have the notebook and then their pen I use as well.

I love that. That looks amazing.

That's not sponsored content, but it could be. I'd happily do Baron Figs Fun Con. So last question for you, Jessica, as we, as we rounded out, if you were to go back in time, have a conversation with yourself as you're just starting out. What would you tell yourself in Those early years? 2014?

That's a good question. What would I tell little Jess? I would probably tell myself I feel like I could have done things better, but I don't mind that I was slow and that it's taken me a long time to get here. It's all part of the journey. But I would tell myself. I know what I would tell myself. I would tell myself to get better at photography faster.

Sure.

Because it is so painful to see all those horrible, horrible images that seem to live forever on your website. And even though you try to reshoot them and repost them, it's like you're never going to catch up, you know, like they're just. They're just there and they haunt me. Like I go to bed, they haunt me.

Those pictures keep you up at night.

They really do. They really do. So, yes, what I would tell, I would tell Jess, I'd say, get your photography sorted.

Yeah, that's great. The one of the things that I think about when you talk about, like, taking a long time or, you know, slower than you had hoped or whatever, there was a. Had a geography teacher in High School, Mr. Salo. He was awesome. And one of the things that he had written on his board, it was like a quote, maybe it was just up somewhere, but he'd always say, it's not that far once you get there. And I think about that in the context of these journeys that we're on. We're all on our respective journeys. We're kind of hoping to get somewhere, wherever that might be. And when we look back, like, it's not that far once we get there, but it can. When we start, it looks like it's really far.

Like, oh, totally.

Three years, five years, seven years, Whatever it is, it seems like, man, this is going to be forever. I don't know if I want to sign up for that, but, like the time passes anyways and we will get there eventually. And I think it. When you are there, it feels like it's not that far once you get there. But I think about that of these journeys that we're on. So, Jessica, really great to connect. I think anytime we can talk about writing and the craft of writing is important to shine a light on that because it's so much of what we do. But where can people follow along with you and what you're up to? Social, your website, all of that?

Yeah, you can find me@sweetestmenu.com and come join me on Instagram. Sweetestmenu I'm over there every day and love to chat.

Cool. Jessica, thanks for coming on.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Hey there Alexa here. Thanks for for tuning in to this episode of the Food Blogger Pro Podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. And if you are sitting there thinking, man, someday I'm going to start my own food blog. Or maybe you're sitting there thinking, I just started my food blog and I have no idea what to do next. Don't worry, we've all been there and we actually have a free ebook just for you and it's called the Food Blogger Starter Kit and it's full of different resources just to help you along the journey as you're getting up and running with your very own food blog. So you'll get access to our free course all about setting up your food blog, some of our favorite podcast episode recommendations, some tips about plugins and photography, and then just some other ways to continuously learn and get a tiny bit better every day. If you're interested in downloading that ebook for free, just go to foodbloggerpro.com podcast start and you can download it right there for free. We'll have a link to it in the show Notes Notes as well so you can easily click on that there. Otherwise you can just go to that URL foodbloggerpro.com podcast start to download that food blogger starter kit PDF for free. So we'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in again and until then, make it a great week.

Sam.