389: FBP Rewind – How Sarah Cook Went From 17k to 600k Monthly Pageviews

This episode is sponsored by Clarity. C L A R I T I. And I kid you not, I was going to record this half an hour ago, but I was in Clarity and realized there's an opportunity for Pinch of Yam that is a project we should move forward with. So I created a video, communicated it with a Pinch of Yum team, and said, hey, we should move forward on this and really get to work cleaning this up. In our case, what I had done is I said, hey, show me all of the posts in the past year on Pinch of Yum. And then I sort ordered that in reverse order by page views. So I was looking at pages that on Pinch of Yum in the last year got zero page views and I realized we have a lot of really thin, not valuable content, and it's important to clean that up. In our case, we're gonna delete a lot of that content, and we should have done that a long time ago, but we just didn't get around to it. And it wasn't until I was using Clarity that I realized that that was something that we should have done. I was able to see that a lot of, like, old giveaway posts and things like that. So we're going to move forward with that and clean up Pinch of Yum. And that's what Clarity is for. It's to help you discover that actionable information to create a project around it. And either you can follow the project or you can assign it to somebody within your team and then track the impact that that has by making notes or seeing when you made those changes over time. We bring all the information in from WordPress, Google Search Console, and Google Analytics. You hook it all up and. And then you can sort, order, and use Clarity kind of like a Swiss army knife for your content. So if you're interested in checking it out, go to clarity.com food C-L-A-R-I-T-I.com food and that will get you 50% off your first month. Thanks to Clarity for sponsoring this episode. Hello. Hello, this is Bjork. You're listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast. Occasionally we do what we call a rewind episode, which is sharing a past episode. And what we try and do with the rewind episodes is really shine a light on the episodes that have really resonated with people and with listeners and that we think you'll get a lot out of. And we want to make sure to revisit those to make sure that they can get as many listens, downloads, and exposure as possible. Because we've heard from people that they've really been impacted from them and they've seen a lot of like, actionable insights that they could get from them. So this episode is with Sarah Cook and she's going to be talking about how she went from 17,000 page views a month to 600,000 page views a month. What I love about episodes like this is that they're really tangible, not only in the actionable advice that you can have, that they share the steps that they took in, in, in growing their page views, but also the fact that Sarah is willing to share and say, like, hey, here are the numbers and here's what happened for me and my site and shares the insights that she's learned in that experience that she had growing from 17,000 to 600,000 monthly page views. So it's a really fun interview. We wanted to make sure to shine a light on it again in this rewind episode. So let's go ahead and jump in. Sarah, welcome to the podcast. Thanks.

I'm so excited to be here.

Yeah, it was fun to look back at. This was a few years ago, I think you were technically on the Food Blogger Pro podcast and we had done kind of like a Q and A episode where we took user submitted, listener submitted content and then I kind of did some commentary on it. But you had talked about kind of this moment where you decided to go all in with your site after working on it for a few years. So for those who didn't catch that episode a couple years ago, maybe don't remember, can you refresh our memories? Can you tell the story of that moment when you had this realization of like, I think I'm. You were teetering, it sounds like you were teetering on maybe going to quit, just call it quits. But then you decided, no, I'm actually going to do the opposite. I'm going to go all in and kind of had a 180 degree turn. So what was that moment like?

Uh, well, it actually involved you and your podcast. So in 2016, I had my second son and we decided that I would quit my university job, my college job, and stay home to work on the blog full time and then just also keep the kids out of daycare.

Yep.

At the same time my parents had moved in with us, I was taking care of the them and their health needs. And so it was a lot. I had a newborn, my mom had multiple sclerosis, was diagnosed with cancer kind of thing. And I'm like, okay, I'm full time, didn't know what that meant. Didn't know what SEO meant. Had absolutely no idea what any of that stuff was. And I think it was May of 2017. I'm like, you know what? I'm done. I've been doing this full time. I don't really know what I'm doing. Nothing's happening. In fact, I'm losing page views. I'm just done.

Yeah.

And back at that time, with all the responsibilities I had at home, I got one hour a day to like, yao walking. So I had a stroller because, you know, I had a newborn. And that's when I discovered podcasts. And I was like, oh, there's food blogging podcasts. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll listen to this one. And the very first episode I listened to was with Casey Markey about SEO. And as I was like cresting this hill, like huffing and puffing, Pushing the stroller.

Yes.

I was like, maybe I should look into what this SEO thing is. I had no idea at the time. I didn't even have a recipe card on my blog. I just typed the recipe into the post.

Yep.

And so that podcast led me to binge all your other podcasts. And. And then I was like, you know what? I'm not quitting. I'm not deleting this. I'm going all in, man.

That's a really big shift. I'm curious to know, during that time, what did things look like? So when you made a decision, hey, I'm going to go full time, was it kind of like, I know this could potentially move into a full time job and I want to give it the time and dedication to like, get it to a point where it can earn an income? Or were you at the point where it's like, hey, I'm making some money from this and if I just increase this, then it will be, you know, potentially a full time job. Like what. When you decide to go focus full time in your blog, what did that look like in terms of the, the, the actual blog and the business itself?

It wasn't really defined. I, in my mind, I would quit and I wouldn't have to commute two hours a day. And then I'd have all this time to devote to the blog. And then when it actually happened, I then was also taking care of three other people who had needs. I was like, oh, I don't have as much time as I actually thought. But in my mind it was, you quit, you say you're full time, and then magically the page views just like grow exponentially and shockingly when you keep doing the same thing you were doing when you were working full time on the blog, your traffic doesn't grow exponentially.

Sure. Just because you've decided. Just because you're focusing on it full time. Yeah.

I was like, hey world, I'm full time. Let's bring on those page views. Yeah, totally didn't work that way.

Well. And I think one of the interesting things that exists with that change from having a job to your job being either early stages building a startup, even if it's not producing income or growing, or even when you are at the point where it's growing and it's sustainable and is a source of income, is that you are your own boss. And one of the things that's different and difficult and I feel like needs to be acknowledged is that, you know, as a for instance for Lindsay and I, we have our almost one year old and our almost three year old and one of the things that we struggle with, we don't have a good answer to is like anytime that we are working, we are picking not to be with them.

Right.

And that feels different than if you have a job and they say here's when you start and here's when you're done.

Yeah.

And that's defined for you. And I think it's one of the struggles that exists for anybody who makes that transition is then you start to have to pick. I'm going to work at this time and I'm intentionally not going to, you know, be doing other things that I could be doing. Whether it's taking care of projects that need to get done around the house or playing with, you know, in our case, playing with my three year old daughter.

Right.

And that's like a really hard thing that isn't often acknowledged. Did you find that to be one of the difficult things in making the transition was suddenly having time that you needed to define as work time and prioritize in a, in a season where maybe it feels like it shouldn't be prioritized?

I think so the but for me, and it's something that I think doesn't get talked about a lot, was once I quit, I could no longer really define myself by what I did. I know you've mentioned you tell neighbors that you guys run a food blog and they're like, oh, isn't that cute?

Right, right, right.

And people don't really understand it. And so I went from working since I was 13 and having a job that I could tell people I do and they understood what it meant to all of a sudden being like, well, I do this thing and I get money from ads. So for me, it took a full year. And I don't think most people talk about that. I would say, especially mom, what took a full year to, to redefine what I was actually doing and be okay with telling people what I was doing. And I tell my husband this because he's a firefighter, so he's home a lot during the day because he works 24 hour shifts every three days.

Sure.

And I, I tell him when the neighbors see your home, they assume it's because you're not at work. When the neighbors see me home, they think I'm a stay at home mom.

Sure.

And whether or not that's what I want to be or not. And I don't. I feel like personally I'm a better mom because I work. I still, I still was in this weird bubble of never being able to define what I did and people looking in from the outside and being she does X. Like, I felt like I didn't have an identity and it took an entire year for me to just be okay with that. What other people think of what I do has no bearing on how I actually do it.

And was that the change in that one year period for you was being okay with other people's perception of what it is that you're doing? Like letting go of kind of an identity of how other people would perceive you?

No, I don't think so. I think the real change was actually just figuring out how to blog from a business perspective instead of going from a hobby, but being okay with that. That change of my definition then allowed me to tell people, like, well, I'm going to this conference to learn about this, or I'm going to a photography class to do this. Because before I'd be like, oh, I have this thing that I do.

Right.

And now I'm like, hey, this is what I do.

And what, what do you say when you, when you say that?

Okay. Honestly, it depends on the age, the age of the person I'm talking to.

It's easier if you're like. It's if somebody's like in the like 13 to 23 category.

Yes.

It's like they get it and they want it. And what's interesting is I had a conversation with somebody who, she used to be an auditor and then she took a job at a college teaching, like business accounting. And she said, every one of my students wants to be an influencer. They want to be on YouTube they want to be on Instagram. Like, they get it. And so when you're like, hey, I publish content online and I get paid for it, my guess is the younger somebody is, the more they get it and the more, the cooler they think it is. Is that true?

It is. And then, like, I would say the older generation, like, at my church, they think that I'm a food photographer, because that's something that kind of makes sense to them. And so.

Profession?

Yeah.

Photographer. Yeah.

And I don't feel like every time someone asks me a question, like, well, how do you make money? How is it a job? And then I have to explain RPMs and things like that, I just say, I'm a food photographer.

Totally. It's. It's one of my favorite conversations when somebody asks and they're actually interested.

Right.

Like, I remember I was at this. It's like a retirement party. And that the. The person that I mentioned, who is now a professor and used to be an auditor, she started asking these really specific questions. I was like, oh, my gosh, this is super fun to explain, but. And then I realized, I was like, oh, you're an auditor. Like, you used to look at numbers and understand why they were there and what they came from. So it's like, that's why it's really fun to talk to you. But other people, it's. It's almost like they don't know what to do or questions to ask because it's just so unfamiliar. Another thing we say is, like, we have a food magazine, like, online food magazine. And then people are like, oh, like, magazine versus blog being the key.

Right.

You know, difference. And we say online magazine, but just to kind of, like, help close that gap. But I'm interested to hear about that year. So you listen to this podcast episode. Is it literally, like, then you get home and you pound fist on the table. I'm going to do this. Was that what it was like? And then the next day, you are just all in.

Yes. Except for I decided to, as I am, want to do, complicate things as much as possible. So I was like, okay, I'm all in on the blog. But you know what? We also just found out that my mom had cancer, so I'm going to start an Etsy shop so I don't have to feel my feelings. And so. And so I would be working on my Etsy stuff and listening to blogging podcasts.

Yeah.

And then looking back now, I'm like, I could have just been working on my blog, listening to blogging. Podcasts, but you do what you have to do at the time to kind of, like, protect your brain and your heart. And so all this time, I was working on my Etsy shop, I was doing. Listening to, like, every podcast you ever had, then finding other podcasts. And then it got to the point where my Etsy shop was taking off and my blog shop was taking off. And then I think I heard it on one of. One of your guests said, when you start to resent orders that come in or you start to resent something, you know it's time to be done. And one day I just got, like, a big Etsy order, and I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. So I just closed everything. And I was like, I'm a blogger now.

Huh? It's interesting. I have a friend who's a wedding videographer, and he's talked about that where he's like, man, what is it like when you get to the point where you actually don't want to book the thing that you get paid to do? And I was talking with Lindsay about it the other day, and she was talking about. In a conversation that she has, she's open and doing. Working with. I don't know if it would technically be a therapist or a psychologist therapist, but she said, like, anytime you have a point of tension or frustration or resentment or something like that, it's kind of an arrow pointing and saying, like, this is something you should be aware of. And it's important, I think, that you acknowledge that. I think it's a really good takeaway, because I think sometimes we just, like, especially, you know, in. In Minnesota, there's this, like, Scandinavian culture of, like, you put your head down and you bear through it, and it's going to be miserable. And that's just the way it is. Like, yeah, winters are long and potatoes are flavorless, but you just got to charge forward. But it's kind of an indicator, like, wait, this is something you should address. If it doesn't feel right, if there's resentment, if there. If you're like, if you don't want to fulfill the order, that then there's probably something there. So was that hard to do, knowing that it was you had some level of success, or was it. Yeah. What was. What was that moment like for you to shut that down?

It was really freeing. I just sold everything and donated a bunch of the proceeds to a charity. And then I was like, I'm done with it. It's in the rear view mirror.

Yeah.

And it's Funny that you joke about the, the culture there. Because I'm Norwegian and our family motto is no one ever said life is fair.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Instead of like, live love. Like, that's the, that's the words that you have on your. On your wall. Yeah.

Not in our house.

Yeah. So I'm curious to know at that point then, so acknowledging part of that is what you had talked about, which is like, in this season, you're processing through. There's a certain level of grief, I would imagine. And I can relate to that idea of like, what do you do when you experience that? Like, for me, in my moments of grief, it's like ordering and organizing, like.

Yep.

It's almost like that's how my brain needs to process. It's like doing something that is like the simplest version of something that a brain can do, like shredding paper or like alphabetizing files, but then getting to a point where you say, you know what, this isn't serving me in the same way anymore. So I'm going to shift, I'm going to shut this down and I'm going to focus instead on my, my blog. I'm gonna. And you have this kind of bank of content that you've consumed that's kind of actionable content. So what does that look like to then start with your blog and say, hey, I'm gonna. And talk a little bit about your blog. We haven't done that yet. We'll talk about it in the intro. But talk about your blog and talk about some of those first things that you did to start to focus on growth and building. That.

Sure. So my blog is Sustainable Cooks, and up Until January of 2018, it was called Frugal by Choice, Cheap by Necessity to any new blogger out there. Just if someone falls asleep by time you finish saying the name of your blog, it's a good idea to rebrand. It's so long. And so one of the first things I did was I got on a, I think an audit wait list with Casey from Media Wise. And then I got on a wait list to be on a wait list to have my blog redesigned and rebranded and all of that, because to me it was like, okay, I want this to be a full time job, but I was treating it like a hobby. You can't open a restaurant without. Without a bunch of pots and pans and plates. And yes, to think that I could just keep going with all the free resources available was. It's not realistic.

Yeah.

So I started investing money.

Literally the name of the site was Frugal. It had frugal in it. Was that a hurdle for you to say, like, hey, I'm going to put some money into this?

No. Because I'm always willing to invest in things that are going to last. And since I wanted this to last, I was okay with it. And we had moved this. Sorry, this is telling a story like my mom used to tell a story. We had moved to Los Angeles from Seattle so that my husband could work in film and television. He was what's called a grip. So behind the scenes, you do lighting and electrical. So we did that. I went, got the, the full time job with the benefits to support his dream. We did that for four years. We moved home during the recession. I got a job that was fine to support his dream of now becoming a firefighter. So once he got that firefighting job and then once I decided to blog full time, I was like, listen, the amount of time and money we've invested in chasing two of your dreams, I'm like, I'm gonna take 1% of that.

And I'm gonna make this happen.

No, it wasn't because I handle all the money. He's like, yep, fine, do it, whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I was like, I think I went from always asking, like, should I be doing this? To telling people this is what I'm doing. Like, I took ownership of it. I had pride in saying what it was, that kind of thing, but it did. It took money and it's. It's not a popular thing to say.

Yeah. What were the best things that you spent money on in the early stages.

Or just in general Getting a new site. My old, I'm like terrible with design. I'm terrible with anything tech related. And so having someone completely do that for me was huge. And then going from like a free or cheap theme that I didn't know how to work to this, like, I'm gonna say beautiful because I'm now like, site that someone else helps me manage. It was like, oh, okay, this is what it can be.

Yeah.

And then doing the audit with Kasey, I mean, I knew I had lots and lots of problems, like lots of problems with how my site had been. And so just getting that 43 page report of these are the things you need to fix. Like, it gave me marching orders. I'm type A. If you give me a to do list, I'm on it.

Yeah. So can you talk about. So you talked about Kasey doing the SEO audit, other people that you worked with or companies that you worked with in the early stages, just to give them a shout out for people who would deserve a shout out.

Yeah. So I started working with Lindsay from Purr Design. So she did my site. I started listening to simple Pin Media podcasts. Kate, all from Pinterest. I had zero knowledge of Pinterest. I didn't even have a personal account. I didn't have a blog account. So I worked with her. She did a Pinterest audit. So I could just kind of like, I guess it was called a board cleanup. Just to get me set off on the. The right foot.

Yeah. Awesome. So did you start to. When did you start to notice an impact then? So you do these things. You're. You're investing into Pinterest, you're investing into SEO, you're actually doing the work. Right. That's the other important piece. It's not just an audit. Doesn't do anything unless you actually do something with the audit, whether it be Pinterest, SEO Technical. At what point did you actually start to see an impact and a change? And what did that look like?

So I had my audit with Kasey in May of 2018. And then by the next month, I had, like, just put my head down and churned through that work, that checklist. By the next month, I qualified for Mediavine. So, like, I saw results within 30 days. But I would say from the time I decided to, like, be serious to the time I actually started making money was almost 12 months. Like, because I said, okay, I'm going to be serious. But I didn't know what that meant and I didn't know what it looked like. I would say it took a full 12 months of just researching and education to figure it all out.

Yeah. And what did. So on that day one, when you said, I'm going to do this to 365 days later, what did your day. How did your day look different than it did 12 months before? Were you doing different things? Were you thinking differently? Were you producing different content?

Absolutely. I had never done keyword research before. And as I said, I didn't even have a recipe card on my blog. So I converted all my old recipes to a recipe card. I think I did that three different times because I switched so many recipe cards. I started doing keyword research. And so that meant going back through all my old posts that I thought were actually worth keeping and retitling them. So going from the best thing I ate all week as the title to air fryer pizza rolls or something like that, I mean, that, that was a slow and long and painful Process. But I noticed that the SEO, once I started going, things snowballed quickly because I was fixing the old stuff that already had a little, I would say, juice behind it. Like content juice behind it. And then all of a sudden Google's like, oh, this chick is serious. Let's give her another look.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What tool did you use for the keyword research?

I use KeySearch. I still use KeySearch.

Okay, got it. And one of the things that I think is so great is you're looking at the content you currently have and optimizing that alongside or even before you started looking at producing new content. What did that process look like? Was it a long season of focusing on the assets you currently had? Because it had been six, seven years of producing content?

Yes, it was definitely looking at what I had before moving forward. I also, I think I went from like 3,000 posts and then I deleted all but 800 of them. Now some of those that I left were like a weekly wrap up post or some or something that I just wanted for myself that I de indexed.

Yeah.

But, yeah, so doing that deep clean like you talked about, you know, when you're in a time of stress, you like to deep clean. It was like so wonderful to just get rid of all that old junk. And then once I had the posts that were left, I'm like, okay, so what do I do with these now?

Yeah.

And then I started working my way through them.

Can you talk about why you would do that? I think that's a foreign concept for a lot of people that you would have so much content, and as a strategy to get more traffic, you would delete the majority of it. It seems kind of counterintuitive. But why? Why did you do that?

So I think it. You can kind of think of it like a playroom that is completely full of toys, and then your kids come upstairs and say, we don't have anything to do. Whereas you get rid of 80%, do a huge goodwill run, and then they go downstairs, they're like, oh, look at all this stuff we have to play with. Because it's not cluttered, it's not, you know, it's not overwhelming. And I was overwhelmed with that. Almost 3,000 posts. And a lot of that content was super thin. It'd be like an old cell phone picture, like from 2010 with like 10 words like, nobody needs that.

Yeah. And by thin you mean not a lot of content and not valuable content.

That is there by any means. And, and what Kasey explained to me, and I'M not going to put words in his mouth. This is just my interpretation of what he said was you only get so much crawl allowance by Google, so they can only look at so many of the pages you have on your site. And if the vast majority of your pages are junky old content, they're not going to see and index any of your good stuff.

Almost like another analogy would be if you have a luxury or like an antique store and you had these, like, beautiful, incredible antiques, but then you also had, like, then additional 75% of it was these, like, crummy antiques that weren't valuable and were, like, not well taken care of. And when you go in, what you see isn't like, wow, these are beautiful. This is a beautiful antique store. It's like, well, this is kind of crummy.

Right.

And if you get rid of all the crummy stuff, you walk in, you're like, oh, my gosh, this is incredible. Similar concept to content where it's like, man, if you just have incredible content, the general ideas, all of your content is incredible. It's not, it's not hit or miss. And if content is crawled, the pieces, the articles, the posts, the pages, whatever we want to call it that are crawled are all like, wow, this is good, this is good, this is good. So did you, in doing that, did you notice an increase in traffic pretty quickly just from doing that, or was it a cumulative effort of a lot of different things?

It was a cumulative. But by deleting as a first step, I was then able to see what was left and then work on it and categorize it. And one thing that, getting rid of all that junk, one thing that it did is it helped me see themes so which posts were popular. And then by seeing that, I was able to put my content kind of into three categories. I have three very distinct audiences, and they have nothing to do with each other. So I have people who love to can and garden.

Yep.

I have people who want, like, fast weeknight meals. And then I have people who have been with me since the beginning, and they're just there for like, friends, whatever. Yeah.

Like Internet friends. Whether, you know, Internet friends.

Exactly. And so by able, by being able to focus on kind of those three groups, I was able to then build out content plans going forward. So instead of wasting all my time on, oh, I should do this because it's popular. I should do this because it's popular. I think, would one of my three readers like, yeah, do they want that? So I kind of went from a Cheesecake Factory menu to. To a tasting menu as. As opposed to everything we have. You can have whatever you want to. Hey, this is what we have. If it's not for you, great.

Yeah, yeah. And you could, especially if somebody's starting out, probably just one of those buckets, like, here's the bucket where we produce content. It's canning, you know, or it's like Whole 30 or whatever it might be.

Right.

But as you start to grow, in your case, it was kind of like you had all this stuff and you kind of compartmentalize it into three down from a lot. But especially if somebody's starting out, could even just have one of those and expand maybe later on. I think of it almost as like, when I text my friends, I know, like, okay, I have my friends who are really into tennis.

Yes.

And then I have my friends who are really into business, you know, and then I have my gadget and tech friends, and I'll text them about stuff. But what's nice is, you know, okay, here's content. And what I hear you saying is you almost have these kind of Personas, you know, okay, I'm going to create this content. Here's the person that I'm creating this content for. Do you have any type of schedule where you're like, the canned people are going to get four pieces of content every month, or is it more like, here's what I feel like creating content, here's how it will fit into the site, and then I'll schedule that?

So one of the benefits of having that, like, canning, gardening niche is that it's only seasonal, so I only have to push that stuff out May through early October.

Yeah. If you're doing it in January, it's going to be like, how to eat. How to eat canned goods.

That's exactly right. And then. But so what I do for my, you know, quick weeknight, weeknight meal recipes is I'll often link back to a canning recipe. Like, sure, let's say this stew requires, you know, canned tomatoes. And I can. I'll just put a little link within the post. That said, you know, interested in preserving your own food? Check out this recipe on how to can whole tomatoes. It's gonna make making this dish next year be a lot faster kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. Um, so can you talk about the impact that some of these changes actually had? So you have this moment where you are like, you know what? Kasey's speaking to me on the Food Blogger Pro podcast as you're coming over this hill. The sun is. The sun is rising. The smoke off your coffee is rising.

Birds are chirping.

Birds are chirping. There's a bear in the forest waving hello. What did that look like in terms of traffic growth? To the extent that you're comfortable talking about that?

Sure.

Was it at the end of the year? You're like, hey, and now I've gotten to this point. I got accepted to meatyvine or whatever it was, and I'm able to earn enough to justify this. What. What did that look like? Just so people can get an idea of if they were to do this.

Sure.

Not that it's guaranteed that the same thing happens, but just results that can come from taking it seriously, like you did.

Yeah. And I'm happy to share numbers because I feel like too often people keep that stuff close to their chest and that's. That's fine. I don't think it actually helps anyone by saying, well, I improved.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so one thing I'll just note, especially for newer bloggers, is back When I joined Mediavine, the qualifications to join were 25,000 sessions. Now I believe it's 50,000. Um, so it's hard to compare those, you know, apples to apples. Exactly. Uh, so at the time I had my audit with Kasey, I was probably at like 20,000, maybe like 17,000 page views. I also had my audit during, like, the slowest traffic time for me, which is April, and maybe, um, and then by the next. By June of 2018, I was able to get over that 25, 000 session mark.

Cool. And that was then. That's when you apply for mediavine. And that's when you start to be like, oh, this is. Or this just from ads, I'm. I'm able to earn, you know, 10, 20, $30. And that's when it. You can start to get into the numbers game a little bit where you're like, yes, okay, 30 is actually pretty close to 100 and 100 times 365 is 36,000. Like, yeah, that's where it starts to get kind of cool.

But then you learn the defeating truth of the first quarter of the year in which you're.

You're RPM familiar.

Yeah. So each. Each quarter of the year has kind of a different average in terms of rpm, so how much you can expect to earn from your ad company. And the first quarter. So January through March is always the lowest because that's when budgets reset for the new year, that kind of thing. The fourth quarter. So kind of October through December is usually the highest for most bloggers in food and, and wine and that kind of stuff. For me it's actually July and August and September because that's when all the canners are on my site and those, those posts are very long because people don't want to kill their families with botulism. So they in depth so the time on page is extended, that kind of thing.

It's a certain level of like that it's, it's accountability for you to be like I want to make sure that all of these steps are correct and oh yes. Yeah.

The fear based earnings are high in summer. So I went from like 17 to 20,000 page views in spring ish of 2018 to just finishing my, my best month ever yesterday in which I hit 600,000.

Wow, that's awesome.

So it's like an overnight success. Took me 11 years.

Yeah. But I think what's really cool for me to hear is this moment where you said, you know what, I'm going to take it seriously. And we talk about this a lot but it's because there's truth to like it's showing up every day figuring out how you and your site can get a little bit better making those improvements. And you'd use this phrase but that starts to snowball and that results in something that I would assume in some ways is life changing. I mean I don't know if that's too significant of a word to use but can you talk about how that has changed things for you and your family and.

Yeah, absolutely.

This new kind of reality that you're living in.

So I'll note that last spring I switched from Mediavine to Ad Thrive and everyone's experience is different making that switch but for me it was like 100% the best decision. And so as soon as I made that switch, my income skyrocketed at the same time that everyone as a is trapped at home because of the pandemic and they're online. So it was good timing on my part. So last year just you know, the increase in page views and the increase in earnings, you know, I was able to save enough for, from a few months to complete really remodel our kitchen which has been driving me crazy for 10 years.

It was life changing in that way.

It was, it was what we called a one butt kitchen.

Totally.

And so we, we've basically done all the things we haven't been able to do since the recession. We've remodeled things, we've put more money aside for retirement. We've, you know, Padded our kids college fund. But I would say the best part about making more money is the freedom that it gives me to support causes that I care about.

Do you talk about some of those?

Yeah. So I, I mean obviously I love the fact that I got a new kitchen, but I also love the fact that I can see something and see a need and be like, well, here's some money. It's. And being able to, you know, bless people that never even have to know about it. Supporting things through our church. We just had a neighbor's son pass away from COVID left a family and so I was just able to just throw some, had a gofundme. And the material things are great, but being able to do all the things I've wanted to do for so long but couldn't, it's been much more exciting.

That's really cool. This is something that, that we, I'm trying to think remember when this was so part of our story, which some people know, some people don't, is our firstborn son, Afton was born prematurely and passed away. And so massively life changing for Lindsay and I just in terms of how we view the world and context for just everything, really.

Yes.

One of the things that we did to tie this in with like business and blogging and the things that we talk about is we created what's called a donor advice fund. So the reason I'm saying this is because one of the things that I've wanted to do a better job of, and you are encouraging me to do this in this interview, is to not only talk about best practices with like, hey, how do you grow? How do you establish a strong business? What do finances look like? But also talk about then what? And to your point, great, you can do some incredible life changing things for your family, like say for college or remodel a kitchen. But there's so much more that you can do and so much more that can be life impacting. And so we created what's called a donor advised fund. And we call it the Afton fund, which is the name of our son. And we just have a process and I think this is an important piece of it to say every year or every month we look and say like, okay, cumulatively, what did the tiny bit companies profit? What did they make? And we take 10% of that and we just put it into the donor advice fund. And reason I'm saying that is because I think somebody will hear this and they'll hear you sharing your story and they'll say, you know what? I want to do that. And maybe I've thought about it and I've never done it, but I'm going to take that next step forward. And I hope that they do, because that's the kind of stuff where. And I know it's true for me and sounds like it's true for you. Year, 2 years, 3 years, 10 years, 20 years down the line, you'll look back and you'll say, hey, kitchen remodel is awesome. Right? We've done that twice. Two different houses. But you'll say, I'm so glad that I did these things that actually truly matter. So if anybody would ever be interested in hearing more about it and kind of how we do that, please drop me an email. Would love to talk about that. And thanks, Sarah, for bringing that up because I think it's such an important thing to do and it's something that's not talked a lot about when it comes to building a sustainable, profitable, strong, strong business. So what. What does that look like for you where you are right now? You're at the point where you just had your best, best month and. And you have a successful business.

I do.

What does it look like now, moving forward? Are you still looking at things the same way where you say, hey, I'm going to keep doing this because it's working, or is it like, there's some things I need to change and do a little bit different moving forward?

Well, I think, like all parents, I've been in survival mode for the last 18 months.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

And the west coast, most schools start after Labor Day, and this will be the first year that I'll have both my kids in school. So honestly, I don't know what the next few months hold for me or any of us, but what I really want to do is just take one to two months and figure out what my workflow looks like when I'm not rushing or yelling at the kids. Like, don't touch the food. Move out of the way. Stop hitting me with a Nerf dart. I'm trying to take pictures. And so I just want to give myself a few weeks or months to kind of just figure out what it looks like to run a business not in chaos.

Yeah. Yeah. What? Because how do you do that now?

Not well.

Like, is it its margin? I remember in the, the interview you did before, I think you mentioned, like, super early mornings or late nights or is that fitting in the kind of margins of the day? Is that kind of still the reality of what it looks like?

It is it's still super early mornings, but that's because I'm an early morning person. And I realized once I started making a certain amount of money, I'm like, you know, my late nights are no longer productive, so I'm just gonna stop doing this, and I'm gonna try and survive having my kids home for the next week and then see what that brings me. Yeah. So it's still really early mornings. We were able to put one kid in preschool three days a week, so that became, like, my work time, that kind of thing. I think the best thing in terms of business that I've done since the pandemic started was hiring out some photos and some videography. I do not enjoy taking photos. It is my least favorite part of the job, but it's one of the most important.

Sure.

And so by hiring out to the same person that I trust very much, hiring that out frees me up to do the creative things that I actually enjoy.

Yeah, I heard you mention that a few different times. And it's something that I'm trying to teach myself continually still is like, who, not how. And this idea of who's a person who's really good at it that can get it done. I don't necessarily need to know how to do it, especially if it's something that would be in the joyless category, which it sounds like photography is for you. And I had a friend who had a blog, and he was like, I learned that I just didn't like photography and why am I blogging then? And the hard part is like, oh, you could still do recipe development. You could do the things you want to do if you can figure out a way to get to the point where you can hire somebody to help with it. So the hard part, though, is getting to that point.

Yes.

So did you just kind of grind and grind?

I did.

I know that I don't like this. I know that I like it even less when I'm getting shot with a Nerf dart while trying to take a photograph.

Yep.

I know that I need to get to a certain point until. And until then, I have to do it myself. But eventually I want to hire for this. Did you always know. Have that in mind?

It, like, in the back of my mind, it was always a dream, but I never thought I would make enough to make it a reality. And then I did, and I was like, all right, first thing off my plate, I still do take photos. I. You know, I totally. I took a bunch this week. I. Batching photos has become like, my Thing. It's much easier for me now. I still do it because I think no matter what aspect you hire out, it's still important that you know how to actually do a thing, because if that person quits or something happens, you still have to be capable of doing this aspect of your business, but it doesn't mean you have to spend all your time on it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Or in it.

What was it like to go through the process of having somebody else take over photography?

It was awesome. Like, the second I signed that contract, it was just like deleting all those old poll old posts. Once I signed that contract, I'm like, this is awesome. I feel so free. Now I'm gonna go do something I want to enjoy doing.

What are the things that you enjoy doing?

I love. I actually love writing blog posts. Like, it doesn't bother me whatsoever. I know people have writer's block. I rarely do. But my favorite thing is responding to comments and emails and things like that from my readers. Hands down, that's my favorite part and something I would never outsource. And so outsourcing the things that I. That took up the most time has given me the time to do the things that are the most valuable to me.

Yeah, that's awesome. If you. If you were to look back at your journey from 17,000 page views to 600,000, which is so cool to say that. And I'm sure it's like anything where I've used this analogy so often. I just talked to somebody about it the other day, but it's like, there's this guy who raised. Did a fundraiser by crawling the London Marathon, and I feel like that's such a good analogy for building and growing a blog. But if, as you look back to your crawling a marathon, 17,000 to 600,000, what were the checkpoints along the way that were most impactful? So for somebody else who's looking to make a similar journey that they can maybe, maybe shorten that time period and say, like, hey, I'm gonna try and condense these significant steps along the way sooner if possible. Maybe it's not sure.

So I think one of the things that new bloggers have going for them is there's a lot more information out there on how to actually do things. Back when I started, most people started it as a hobby, and so there was no course on SEO. There was no photography courses or anything like that. So I think just having all that information out there will help most people shorten that. That timeline. I think just, you Know, finding podcasts and the education. Your podcast especially. And education was huge Then my audit with Casey was huge. Then getting a new site, so I felt proud of what I was putting out there. Totally was huge. Another, like, I would say landmark for me was getting out of my silo. I assumed, like, I assumed this is the stuff that I know I'm not going to share it with anyone. And then taking on a more of a rising tide. Lift all ships. There's also another word that's escaping me. It's not surplus, but just an attitude of, there's enough here. Yes, there's enough here for all of us. And so that led me to going into blogging Facebook groups. And through that, I met, like, my blogging accountability partner, who's Katie from Hey, Nutrition lady. And we've kind of been through the. The fire together. We start our audits were at the same time. We started doing everything, improving everything at the same time. So having kind of a battle buddy for me was huge.

That's. And it's, you know, you have neighbors, you in a typical job, you have coworkers, you know, you have connections from church, maybe, and you all have kind of these central shared pieces. But it's really hard to find somebody who gets what we do. And if you can, what a gift it is to be like, hey, what did you do when you came up against this? Or I just got this comment, and it's a bummer. And it's like, if you share that with your neighbor, they'll be like, oh, shoot. But not really get it. But it's not.

They won't get it.

Yeah, yeah. Can you talk about what that's like and how other people could look to replicate having kind of an accountability. Is it accountability partner? Is it like, friend? Like, how would you classify that? And what do you view as kind of the main focus of that relationship or relationship like that?

So Katie definitely started out as an accountability buddy. We were going through our audits at the same time, working through the checklist at the same time. So it was like, hey, do you want to bounce this idea off of me? Kind of thing. And then it developed into, like, a true, true friendship. But, you know, I still talk to her every day, and she's a Canadian living in Sweden, so it's not like there's like four hours a day that we're both awake at the same time, but I still chat with her. We still talk about kind of the. The slogging through of it. Cassie from Cook It Real Good. We discovered each Other because she was also going through a rebrand, like I had done. We joined mediavine at the same time. We joined. We moved over to Add Thrive at the same time. And it turned into a sound from a sounding board to, this is someone I want to talk with about my life and my kids and. Oh, yeah, maybe we'll talk about business, too.

Yeah, totally, totally. It's almost like those are the best connections, because you can be your most real self in those. Because so much of what, personally speaking, so much of what we do overlaps with home and connections, friends, relationships. And then you have the business and blog and building that stuff as well. And there's just this kind of. It's a web for sure. There's no clean lines.

And I have lots of friends who now work from home because of the pandemic, but none of them are their own bosses.

Yeah, yeah, right.

And so having being able to joke with someone like, oh, my boss is being a real brat today, and it's making me work late. Totally, totally. Someone who gets it. It's huge. It's huge.

Yeah. That's great. So for those people who are where you were starting this journey, maybe they. They are literally. We know that at least they are literally listening to the Food Blogger podcast the same way. Maybe this is their moment that you had, you know, three, four years ago, was it. You said it was 2017. 2017. So four years ago, what would you say to them? What would be your kind of words of inspiration as we're closing out here?

Well, first, turn off this episode and go listen to Casey.

Yes, totally.

And also, and I'll say this is what Casey always says is you don't know what you don't know. And it's okay that you don't know everything. It's okay that you're not an expert at everything. But once you learn that there's a part of this job that's important, really dig into that and figure out how to do it, how to do it well, and then move on to the next thing. Like, you can't drink from a fire hose and be okay at the end of it. So it's okay to learn little aspects of this business one at a time, and once you feel comfortable, just know to move on to the next one. You're never going to stop learning, but at some point, it gets a lot easier. I promise.

That's awesome, Sarah. Super fun to talk to you. It's. I was looking forward to this interview. I knew just a little, kind of. A little bit of what we talk about, but I think folks will really get a lot out of it. I know that I did. If anybody wants to connect with you, if anybody wants to follow along with what you're up to, where can they do that?

The easiest way to like message me would be through Instagram. I hate Facebook, so I'm. I mean, my blog's on there, but I'm not. Yeah. And you can also check out my site, sustainablecooks.com and email me through there if you want. And I'm always happy. Whenever I do a podcast interview, I have people email and they're like, oh man, I felt. I've felt like such an idiot for so long. And thanks for saying you were an idiot. So if you felt like an idiot and you want to like, just escream with someone, I'm always happy to do that too.

That's awesome. Appreciate you coming on. Sarah, thanks so much for chatting. It was great to, great to be here with you.

Thanks so much for having me.

Hey. Hey.

Alexa here from the Food Blogger Pro team. We really appreciate you tuning in to this episode of the Food Blogger Pro podcast. I'm here with a special announcement. Are you ready for this? Because I'm hoping you're sitting down. It's a big one. So one of the things that we pride ourselves here at Food Blogger Pro on is the fact that we always are contributing content to the membership. So our members memberships are always growing in value because we're adding new courses, we're doing new events, we're adding new deals. It's just a constantly changing and evolving membership in a good way because things change very often and new strategies need to be talked about, et cetera. So one of the new pieces of content that we're really excited about for 2023, they're called coaching calls. So we've been asked for coaching calls or one on one calls with Bjork or with just so many times over the past few years and we're finally doing it for our membership. So you can work through your specific blogging and business questions with the one, the only, Bjork in these calls. So you and Bjork will discuss your blog and your business and we'll record each conversation and add it to the membership so the greater Food Blogger Pro community can learn from the advice shared there. So anyway, any active Food Blogger Pro member has the opportunity to take part in one of these coaching calls. We actually have an application that members can submit and you can find that over on foodbloggerpro.com live. So if you're an active member, be sure to go there and you can submit an application. But essentially we'll go through the applications and reach out to you if we think there would be a good time for you to come on and have a coaching call with Bjork. So we are just so excited about this. And if you're not a member and really excited about the opportunity, you can go to foodbloggerpro.com join to learn more about the membership and get signed up right there. Otherwise, we're really excited. We're just so excited about this new content idea and we hope you are too. So that does it for us this week. We will see you next time. And until then, make it a great week.

Sam.