441: FBP Rewind — Blogging with a Full-Time Job – How Focusing on SEO Led to $2,000 Monthly Earnings with Cree Carraway

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Hey there. This is Emily from the Food Blogger Pro team and you're listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast. This is our last episode of 2023, so the next time you tune into a new episode, it will be on January 2, 2024, which is just crazy to think about. So we are wishing you all a really happy new Year and rounding out this awesome year of podcast episodes with an amazing Food Blogger Pro Rewind episode.

This.

This will be our last Rewind episode and it's a really great interview with Cree Caraway from Cooking with Bliss. This was the second part of our blogging with a full time job series and this episode really resonated with listeners. We wanted to bring it back and make sure that everyone got a chance to listen to it. If you haven't already or if you listen to it when it was first released, you might enjoy listening to it again. We find that you always get something different out of these episodes depending on where you are in your own blogging journey when you listen to them. In this episode, Cree shares more about how she balances her full time job with blogging and how she prioritizes different aspects of running her business in order to avoid overwhelm. For example, she strategically focused on SEO during this time to increase her site traffic in hopes of joining an ad network, but she decided not to focus on social media. Instead. She has a really great perspective in terms of balancing everything that it's needed as a blogger and it's just a really inspiring episode that we hope you will get a lot out of. So without further ado, I'm just going to wish you a happy New Year and let Bjork take it away.

Cree, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me, Bjork. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, it's going to be a fun conversation about this series that we're doing. It's a series focusing on what it's like to blog with a full time job and you're in this interesting position where you have your work and you have your side hustle as your blog.

And you've had some success with your.

Site and you're getting some traction and now it's like, okay, this is a legitimate business and we're going to talk about that, what that looks like, kind of the mechanics of it. But before we do that, I want to hear about November 2019 when you were kind of at this inflection point and it sounds like it was this point where you had some considerations around, do I do this? Am I burnt out? Is it too much? Take us back to that point and where your headspace was at.

Yes, Bjork, for sure. So I had, as you mentioned, so much burnout. I had taken a three month break at one point, four months, five months. And so I remember in November 2019 I decided to make a peach cobbler recipe. And excuse me, during that time I hadn't been really consistent. But you know, I figure, okay, Thanksgiving is coming around, I'm going to make a peach cobbler recipe. And at that time I hadn't really focused on Google Analytics. And so one day after making, or I think it may have been a week or so after making the peach cobbler recipe, I decided to look at my analytics and I was shocked that I had for that month, from November 1st through, I don't know, a couple of days before Thanksgiving, I had 15,000 sessions. I was shocked because I was usually used to seeing maybe 75 sessions, 150, then it jumped up to 350 at some point. But November 20, 20, 19, I felt as though it was A turning point for me. And so with 15,000 sessions, I'm thinking, okay, now I can really, I feel motivated. I can really focus on trying to get into mediavine. So at that time, that was my goal. So, you know, I decided, you know, I'm just going to focus on SEO. I'm not going to try to do all the things. I didn't know what was going on with Pinterest, so I just threw that out the door. I felt as though I was spending too much time on Instagram, but I just felt like the return on investment was not great at all. So I just really just focused on just trying to get into Mediavine. And so in June of 2020, I was at, I think, 24,000 or so sessions, close to 25,000. And so I decided to apply to Mediavine. And I was so happy that I had reached that goal.

Yeah. And so at that point, you apply, you get accepted, and you're able to then start running ads where I feel like there's a. There's a couple steps along the way, right? So when you're in the very beginning stages, it's like, wow, somebody came and they visited my site. I still remember that in the super early stages for Pinch of Yam, when, you know, we'd post something and be like, wow, 10 people yesterday. And I have friends who aren't in the food space, but like a mentor of mine who writes about kind of philosophy and faith and helped him kind of early stages get set up with a blog, and he's like, there's somebody from, like, Indonesia visited my site. And it's just really exciting in those early stages. And then comes a point where you think, okay, what does it look like to have a new mile marker? Right. So a thousand people in a month, whatever it might be. And, um, kind of having these markers along the way. Do you feel like in the early stages you had those.

What.

What were you kind of anchoring off of? What were. What was your goal in the early stages that you were shooting for? Or was it kind of like, hey, I just know that I want to create some money from this and, and build this into something that is a business. And that was a little bit nebulous. Where, where did you land in the early stages?

Well, are you referring to before 29th, before November 2019?

Right. Like, at that point you're like, hey, I know that I want to build this up to a point where I can apply to an ad network. Was that always the case? Always something that you'd wanted to Do.

Well, a little bit of an interesting story. So prior to food blogging, I had an online boutique. And so. And so to make a long story short, there I wasn't working with the best people, and it just felt like work. I actually ended up hating it so much, and I just decided to just let that business dissolve.

So this was a business that you had started?

Yes.

Yeah. What did you learn in going through that with starting a new business?

Well, a couple of things I learned was. Well, the thing that I learned the most was when you're hiring someone to try to understand what you're. Why you're hiring them. And what I mean by that is, I remember I hired a company to run Twitter at the time.

Sure.

And so I really didn't know about Twitter. I really didn't know how to manage it. I really just didn't know too much about Twitter. And so I hired this particular company to run Twitter for me. And so one day I had gotten, like, thousands of visitors or not visitors. I'm sorry, what do you call when someone. I don't know, what's it called when some, like.

Like a Twitter follower?

Yes, there you go. I'm sorry.

Yeah. Like suddenly there's this huge increase.

Yes, exactly. So I was really excited about that. And as days went on, you know, I felt. Well, actually, as weeks went on, I felt as though no one was engaging. And I'm thinking, well, at least one person should be engaging. And so I did my research, and so I realized that a lot of the followers were from India.

Sure.

And so, you know, as I looked at the accounts, it seems as though those particular accounts were not active.

Right. So it's like, you get these followers, but it doesn't really mean anything because it just exactly. Number.

Yeah, right, exactly. And so once I realized that, you know, I'm thinking, gosh, had I known a little bit about Twitter or how to manage it, maybe I could have caught that early, you know? And so basically, you know, I decided to let that company go. But in the meantime, I had dished out quite a bit of money to them. Right. And so then from that point on, I said, you know, when I hire someone, I'm going to know a little bit about. About what I'm hiring them. Hiring them for. So I can kind of, you know, intelligently ask questions and things of that nature. But in any event, I decided to dissolve that company, and I felt like such a failure because Cree does not just let things dissolve and not do anything about it. And so once I did that I felt as though a load was lifted. However, I still wanted to build a company. And so I did a little bit of research online and I looked up lucrative online businesses, and somehow Pitch of Yum showed up on the list. And so, you know, I thought, wow, you know, I really do enjoy, you know, cooking recipes, you know, and so from that point on, somehow I came across Food Blogger Pro. And so that's. So at that point, you know, I figured, okay, this is something that I really enjoy doing, and this is something that I think I can make into a business if stay focused and, you know, do research and, you know, things of that nature.

So you knew, hey, this is something. And that combination is such a great combination where you are passionate about it and you want to hustle to build it into a business. And sometimes people are just passionate and they don't have the hustle. And sometimes people have a lot of hustle, but they don't have the passion for what it is. If you can combine those two things, what a. What a powerful thing that can be and yet can still be overwhelming. And so at that point In November of 2019, you. It's kind of like, gosh, this is a lot. Like, there's endless things for me to do. So how did you make the decision to say, you know what, I'm not going to do any social media. I'm just going to focus on search?

Well, because I knew that SEO would somehow get me to where I needed to be. I felt like that was the only thing I knew that just doing Instagram or Pinterest was not going to get me there. So I had to really hone in and focus on SEO, because in my mind, that was the one thing that could get me into Mediavine. I mean, because I just knew just doing Instagram alone would not even get me there at all. Yeah, I had to focus on that one thing.

It's interesting. I had a conversation with a friend, friend of a friend who does just Instagram and TikTok, and he does like, birth order humor. So like older child, middle child, younger child, and how they respond to like, you know, homework or whatever it might be. His name is tj. And anyways, what's. What's interesting about it is like, oh, he's in an industry doing work where he doesn't think at all about traffic. Like, all that he thinks about is followers and engagement and the income that he produces is through sponsor content. In our world, where you're thinking about advertising dollars, like, if you're not thinking about sponsored Content or working with brands. Like, it really is about traffic. And with the changes in Pinterest, like, one of the main ways to get that traffic is through search. There's also direct. You can get featured, things like that. But it really is like, in our world, a huge driver of traffic is search. And that being so important if you are looking to monetize via ads. And so if I'm kind of understanding your story, you have this inflection point, November. You're like, wait a minute. Like, this is something where, like, if I improve this. These numbers a little bit, then I can actually go through the process of applying to be part of this ad network to start to create some significant income in a way where you're also not having to have inventory. Right. So if you have some, like an online boutique, like, you might have $2,000 in revenue, but then you have 1,500 or $1,000 in expenses, that looks different than what in some ways can be pure profit. You have to buy food and do the work, and sometimes you'll maybe hire pieces of that out. But that's one of the great things about this. And one of the reasons why it makes it lucrative is because you don't have a lot of back office overhead or cost of goods. So when you first applied, when you, when you got to that point, like, what did. What did those first few months look like? And was that motivating to start to see, you know, 300, 400, $500? What did that look like, that amount? And then did that encourage you to work more on it once you saw the possibilities?

Yes. So, okay, so I was so, like, as I said, I applied June 1, June 30, I was actually approved. And so I believe I can't. I think. I believe. I believe I received my first payout in September. And so it was for $431. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. For some reason, I just expected $100, possibly $100.

And this is the best part about this, is you have a cheerleader in the background. You have your. Yeah. What is the. What is the name of your dog in the background? Anytime that a dog can make an appearance, it's a wonderful thing, right?

Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry. Her name is Ebony and she's a Chihuahua mix. She's actually in the backyard. And I didn't realize the window was cracked. So my apology for that. Hopefully you'll stop soon.

No, we all get it. In this work from home reality that we Live in.

Right, exactly. So as I mentioned, so my first payout was $431. And I was blown away by that $431. So I assumed, okay, so my next paycheck will be around, you know, $431, maybe $500. And it was for $1,061. And so, and I was so. I just could not believe it. I was so encouraged and I felt even more motivated. And so I remember saying to my mom, gosh, what if one day I can pay my mortgage? Yeah, right. Through media or through my payout from mediavine if I wanted to. And so my next payout was $2,550. And so it just like went from there. However, then when you reach January. Yeah, I'm like, oh my gosh.

Yeah, it's not as exciting.

Right, Exactly. So I remember January of 2021. Yeah, 2021. Um, my January check, I believe it was 1500.

Uh huh.

Oh my gosh. But you know, after the first quarter it gets better.

Yep. And for those, most people are educated in that world right now, but the idea being January advertising budgets reset.

Right.

Scales way back. So even if you have more traffic, everybody's, you know, suddenly interested in cooking and eating well. And your traffic might go up, but earnings usually will go down in that first quarter. So you see that. And even, even quarter to quarter, you see that, like the end of a quarter, money spend within advertising budgets will go up and reset. So like quarter three into quarter four, you'll see that. So that's why that sweet spot is really like December at the end of.

The year, November and December.

So what were the things that you.

Did and what were the things you didn't do that were most helpful for you to get to that point where suddenly you're creating a substantial amount of income from your site?

You know, I, you know, I went through, I went through the SEO. I can't remember the actual course name that's on Goo Blogger Pro. And I went through, I went back and read through the SEO on threads. Um, I mean that, those can actually be overwhelming too, because there are so many. But you know, I just try to just every day just, just take in what I could. And I listened to podcasts that I pretty much listen to all of Casey's podcast.

Yeah. Yes, Bugger Pro Expert. You'll see him in the forums in those SEO threads and.

Yeah, yes, exactly. And you know, I pretty much did that and I started to be more intentional about my title. And so, yeah, that's what I pretty much did. I just really just. I just really dove into SEO. Like, whatever information that I found was, you know, was reliable, was valid. I mean, obviously all of Casey's, you know, information is valid and things of that nature. So I just really, really focused on, you know, his different podcasts or podcasts that he was on.

Yeah. So do you remember anything that was a significant learning piece for you? So you like, oh, actually, I need to spend time in Google search console or like, keyword research. Or, like, was there anything along the way that for you was significant in terms of a moment where you didn't know something and then you did know something and applying that new thing was impactful, right?

Yes, totally. So I started. I started with Keysert. I think I used their. I think they have a free version, I believe, if I'm not mistaken. But anyhow, I remember using that for. Or maybe they have a trial period. I can't remember. But anyhow, I use their free service for, I believe, two weeks. And so I found that to be very, very valuable.

That's the keyword optimization research tool, Key search.

Yes, for sure. Yes. And so I felt as though I would really benefit from their paid version, so I purchased their paid version and. And so I decided to really focus on monthly search. That was around, I don't know, 2400 at the time. And then.

2400 in terms of volume.

Yes, yes. I'm sorry, 2400 in terms of volume. Yes. And so then I started.

And can you talk about why you picked that number, just out of curiosity?

Yes. Well, I believe I recall Casey mentioning in one of his podcasts, maybe 2000 or so monthly searches is a good point to start with. Exactly.

The idea being that you don't want to start, like, if you're in the early stages, you don't want to start with chocolate chip cookies, which might have a hundred thousand.

Exactly.

Because that's going to be super competitive. So you want to find this kind of sweet spot and you can start to think about, okay, if I can rank number one or two or three for a hundred pieces of content that get 2,000 searches. Like, you can start to play the numbers game a little bit and say, so if you're in spot number one for 50 of those, and then you get a thousand of those clicks, that might be 50,000 page views in a month. So you can start to be kind of strategic and think about how you can get those lower volume but less competition keywords. So that's kind of what you were thinking About.

Exactly.

Yeah. Super smart.

Yes. And so then eventually, you know, I got a little brave, so I started going for, I think the highest, you know, during that time I went for was 4400. So. But even still, I still stay within that range. Sometimes I get a little bit more brave, and I may go for 6,000 monthly search, but that's pretty much the tool that I use. And sometimes I'll go to Semrush just to kind of gauge numbers there. Because when you look at these different keyword tools, sometimes the volume can. I don't know, it's a bit different.

Right.

In terms of the keyword that you would like to aim for.

Yeah. One of the realizations that is important within this world is like, the data isn't 100% accurate. Like, it's the best guess at.

Yes.

Like, these tools don't have direct access to Google necessarily. Sometimes they can pull in information via API. But like, it's like, it kind of is a general. It's like, you know, if I was here and somebody was like, how do you get to Duluth, Minnesota? It'd be like, well, directionally, like, you kind of go north, and if you get to Grand Marais, you've gone too far. Like, that would be like. It's. It's that versus, like an exact calculation of this is exactly how many searches it is. So did you have a paid account for SEMrush?

No, I did not. However, recently I decided to use their paid version for a couple months. But, you know, I didn't see, like, I didn't see a huge benefit, you know, So I decided to cancel that.

And.

But I still stick with KeySearch. Yeah. Oh, and you know. And you know what I did recently also, which was so valuable, I took. What course was that? It's called Cooking with Keywords. With. I believe her name is Aleka. Okay, I'm not mistaken. But that was a really valuable course as well.

Cool. And the idea with that is all around keyword research for food bloggers.

Yes. Yes.

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One of the things that I love about your story, Cree, is that like two pieces. One of the things that I heard you talk about was this idea of like continual progress. So like this I. You don't want to. It's not like you're going to try and do everything. You're not going to try and do Pinterest and Twitter and Instagram. You're going to focus on one thing and make a little bit of progress on that, which we love that idea. The other thing that I think is so great is continual learning. Like not only are you showing up every day and doing the work, but as you're doing that, you're also being intentional to learn along the way. And what happens when you combine those two things is you get to the point where you are right now where you see success, you see Growth. I'm curious to know, when you look at today, you know, we're recording this in January, and when you look back to November 2019, what has the progress that you've made with your blog, your business, what has that done for you? Like, what is the change that's happened because of the progress that you've made? Do you feel like you think differently? Are you acting differently? I'm curious to know what that's done for you.

Actually, it's kind of like more on a personal level. And what I mean by that is when I see. Well, I have two kids, and so they see me, like, work really hard to build this thing. And so it's so interesting that I mean. Well, my husband, he's a big cheerleader of mine also, but so are my kids. And, for example, when they see me working really hard to create this recipe or working on the blog post to have out, you know, during a certain period of time, my son, he'll come up, he'll pat me on the back, he'll say, good job, mom. Or my daughter, she'll say, and so sometimes I'll look at my. My. My Google Analytics, and in my mind, I'm always trying to beat my number from the previous week.

Sure.

So I'm like, oh, man. And then she says, what's wrong? And so then I said, gosh, last week I had, like, I don't know, 2500 sessions on Saturday, but now only have, like, 2400 sessions. And she's like, mom. She's like, mom, but you have 2400 sessions, Mom. I'm like, you know what? You're right. And so she's like, mom, you're doing great. And so when you have kids and, you know, you encourage them in school, you encourage them in their sports or whatever extracurricular activity they may have, I encourage them so much on their biggest cheerleader. And when I hear them saying the same thing to me, I'm like, okay. They were really listening. Because sometimes you think, are they, you know, are your kids really listening? You know, and so when they actually use the same words that I use for them, I'm like, okay, I think. I think I'm doing a pretty good job as a mom.

That's awesome. Yeah, totally. It's an opportunity for your. For you to do a hard thing and your kids to support you in that.

Exactly.

And what a cool thing for the relationship that usually is, like us as parents supporting our kids in hard things to give them the opportunity to support us or to support you. That's really cool. I love that.

Exactly. So that it just, it just makes my heart melt because, you know, if they see me working really hard and trying to build this business, you know, I feel as though that's going to always stick with them and they're going to do the same thing as they get older. They're going to remember, well, mom and dad worked really hard to, you know, build this business, you know, or whatever it may be, you know, just to just stay motivated, keep going and just keep thriving.

That's awesome. Love that. So you're at the point now where you are making multiple thousands of dollars monthly from your blog. Unless it's like January. Right. So, but also, as far as I understand, have you transitioned this into your full focus or do you have a full time job that you're also working on? What does that balance look like and how are you making decisions around where to allocate your time?

Well, this is a side hustle. I do have a full time job and a couple of things. So I have a full time job and my son, he's a high school athlete and so his schedule is bonkers. Crazy. It's crazy. So I feel as though.

What sport does he play?

A basketball.

Okay, great.

Yes. And so I feel as though.

And basketball is like a year round sport. Like you're, you're traveling, you've got practices, it just never ends.

It never. Right, exactly. And so I feel as though I have two full time jobs and obviously he's priority. And so I try to, when it comes to my blog, it's. I kind of balance it around his schedule. Unless my husband is available to take him, you know, to practice, to training, to traveling, to games, to this and that, just, you know, whatever it is. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But I really try to do what I can on the weekends. But I mean, he has games on the weekends too. But I really do try to, I try to sneak in, you know, one or two recipes if I can. I really have to be honest, I have no set schedule. I try to, you know, I try to, but it doesn't always happen because of his schedule or because of my work schedule. I work from home, but still, it can be challenging just trying to, you know, focus on the blog and what I have done if I can. If my workload is pretty manageable during my lunch, I may sneak in a quick recipe and then on the weekends I'll write the post about it.

Yeah, I remember when I was working at the nonprofit, I would do a lunch sprint work. I'D go to Subway, I'd sit down with my computer and I'd get in. If I was taking like a one hour lunch break, which would be on the longer end, like I'd get in like a 35 minute sprint. And so it ends up being like early mornings, lunch, evenings, like a lot of times I'd get home and I'd work evenings and weekends. And it's, I think it's one of the advantages. Yeah, one of the advantages being that it is you can slot it in where you have time. And I think for some people it's an issue. Like it'd be really nice to be scheduled and follow schedule. But one of the advantages is, you know, different than other side hustles is maybe you're just totally gassed on a Friday night. You don't have, you know, the kind of mental or physical bandwidth to invest in it. So you just say, you know what, I'm not going to work on Friday night. But then you can on Saturday morning and you can, you can figure out when it works for you. So do you have thoughts?

That's typically what I do, you know, and sometimes I'm up at 2, 3 in the morning. Sometimes I get my best work done because, you know, everyone sleep, you know.

So is that, is that, is that by choice that you're getting up then or you just can't sleep?

Well, it's both. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It just depends. It just depends.

That's all. I can. We have somebody on it. Daniel on our team starts his days at 4am and I'm always just like trying to wrap my head around that. I think, I think I'm doing well when I get up at 6 and get everything in order and then people like you and Daniel get up at 3 and start your day.

Right. Exactly, exactly. So it really depends. But, but you know, I, and so I look at it like this. Building a business takes sacrifice, hard work. And if I need to get up at, you know, two, three in the morning to get something done, you know, and it's out of my brain, I just want it out of my brain.

Right.

That's one less thing in my brain, you know, I do it, I feel good about it, you know, at least it's done, you know, and I could just go on about my day and, you know, if I want to work on it again, you know, Sunday morning or something like that, I'll do that.

Yep. Love that. So in this series, we've talked to people about what that's like to build their business while also having a full time job. And people are the, it's kind of a spectrum where some people are like, you know what, I love what I'm doing in my day to day job and I also love blogging and that's a really good balance between those two things. And other people would say, you know what, I would love to do this full time. And that's kind of my pursuit and my hope would be to eventually build it into a full time thing. Where do you land on that spectrum? What would your hope be when you look out 2, 3, 4 years? 1, 2, 3 years? Whatever the timeline is in regards to what this represents for you and for work.

So, okay, so first I want to say that I have a really good position. I get paid very well. But you know, I would like to turn this into a full time. I would eventually like for this to be my full time job. I don't think I've reached my potential doing the food blogging. I have so much, I have so many ideas, you know, as to what I want to do. So that, that's ultimately that, that's my goal is to, you know, one day soon turn this into a full time job.

Yeah. And how you're doing it is, is a really great way to do it. It's similar to what we did, which is fitting it in when you can. Maybe the thing that you sacrifice most is like time. You're, you're, you don't leave a lot of. It's not like you have these like weekly spa days where you're taking four hours on a Saturday to like unwind.

Right.

Because you have family, you have your full time gig and then you have this. And not that you never get to the place of having more margin but, but what that allows us for a more kind of smoother on ramp into this potentially being your full time thing. And as much as possible as you can draw that out, I think that's great. As opposed to sometimes what people do and teach their own would be like, hey, I'm going to do this, I'm going to make it my full time thing and I'm going to start today. Even though I don't know what it will look like or where the income will come. But if you can get to a place where you build something where it replaces your full time income, which that was the case for Lindsey and I. She was a teacher, I worked at a nonprofit. So we didn't have this huge lifestyle that we had to accommodate, but we were able to get it to the point where we said, you know what, like, we're at that point where we feel comfortable then making that switch, and we have kind of some history with knowing that that's been the case. That becomes a great, great switching point.

So what about for people who are on a similar.

Want to go on a similar journey, they're interested in following a similar path and saying, gosh, that would be really cool if I could get to the point where my site was making, you know, thousand, two thousand, three thousand dollars a month, that would be life changing for me. You've gotten to that point. What would you tell them in terms of advice and insight that you have being on this side of that initial journey?

Right. So what really worked for me once I realized, well, a couple of things. So for me, what I had to do, I had to really stop focusing on the big bloggers.

So.

So I had to really just stop following because I felt as though that was a distraction for me. And of course, the comparison game comes to play. Right? And so I would say just really, and I know this may sound cliche, but just really focus on what you see as your vision. And once you see your vision, I think that everything else will kind of fall into place and that you will really come to a place to where it feels authentic. Because I know for me, at the beginning, I felt like nothing was working because I wasn't being authentic. I mean, I felt as though I was trying to write the way other bloggers were writing. I felt as though I had to kind of just like, create recipes based on what other bloggers were doing. I felt like nothing was coming from me, really. And so, And I struggled with that, like, so much. I just felt like I was not moving forward until the moment I'm like, you know what? I just need to stop following other people and just focus on what I am, what I really want to do with this blog. And like I mentioned to you earlier, I had to pivot, like, so many different times, you know, because nothing seemed right. But now it does. I mean, but it took time. It took time. Once I realized this is my thing, I'm the director of this show and I'm going to do it this way.

That's awesome. So how would you describe your vision right now?

As far as where I want to take the ball or.

Yeah, like, if, if. If you. Like what? One of the things I heard you say was, like, just be. Really understand what your vision is and, like, align with that. And I'm curious to know what your vision is.

Right. Okay. So basically, well, I. Earlier on, I wanted to have a niche, but I just couldn't, like, find the right niche. Right. And so I tried to do the healthy food route. At the beginning, I felt as though everything was focused on quinoa. I made a couple quinoa recipes, but I don't really like quinoa.

Sure.

Right. And so. And so I remember a few years ago, I think it was in 2017 or so, somewhere up in there, I did Whole30. Right. But I didn't. I just did Whole30 because I had a sweet tooth. And I just wanted to challenge myself to see if I can go a month without sweets and cutting all this other stuff out. Right. And so then during that time, I'm like, oh, you know, maybe my. My niche will be whole 30. But then I'm thinking, why would I do that when there are so many more successful Whole30 bloggers? And Alex of the Defined Dish, she was just killing it. So I'm like, okay, that doesn't make sense for me to do that. And so then I thought, you know what? I'm just going to, like, post based on how I eat. I mean, I eat healthy already, but I don't have to focus on quinoa and all these other, like, dishes, you know?

And these are all the pivots that you were talking about along the way.

Yes. And so then right now, my vision has been to just focus on how I cook for my family, whether it's, you know, a healthy dish, a dessert, some type of bread, whatever it may be. So my vision is just to stick to how I cook for my family, because that's what I do. And because that's what I do, that's going to be easier for me to create posts around how I feed my family, if that makes sense.

Yeah. And what's great about that is it doesn't require you to kind of bend in a certain way to get somewhere. It's like, hey, if. If you stopped blogging tomorrow, this is still who you would be if we can reflect the closest version of who we are. Like, and I feel similar in a way where, like, if you and I were hanging out and, like, the record button on this podcast wasn't like, it wasn't flashing red, but it was just you and I having coffee. Like, I think I would be curious about the same things and ask. Be asking you the same questions, because it's just a world that I'm curious about. And so, point being, I think for us as creators, the closer that we can get to how we operate normally, the better and maybe becoming. It doesn't mean that you kind of are willy nilly and just do whatever you want. Like for me, one, it's not. I'm not going to do a podcast episode on self driving cars. Even though Lindsay has this theory that if you talk to me long enough, no matter where we start in conversation, like you and I could start talking about quinoa and if we talked long enough, it would come back to self driving cars.

But.

But idea being that, hey, as much as possible, how can you get closest your content reflecting who your true self is? Which is what I hear you saying, which is a really cool thing. Yeah, that's great.

Exactly.

So as we come to a close, I'm. I'd be curious to know. Well, we'll talk about where people can find you and follow along with you. And the great thing is like, you'll see you're starting to do a little bit more on social, which you can talk about, but we'll talk about that. But let's say you, you were having a conversation with yourself. This is something that. Talking about the coffee shop conversation. You were sitting down with yourself in 2019 and you had a minute and you're like, here's what I can. Here's what Cree from the future is going to tell Cree of the past. Here's my advice for you. What would, what would that advice be that you'd give to yourself of two, three years ago?

Right. I mean, pretty much what, you know, pretty much what I just, you know, stated about just really focusing on your own vision and just staying true to yourself. I mean, that's to me. And I say that because that's what got me over the hump.

Yeah.

Really. Just. Really just. And to me, I feel as though I believe I had mentioned, to mention this to you also is that there's so much noise out there on the Internet, in the food space, here and there on social media, Pinterest, and it can be so overwhelming. So really you have to just know what to take in, just what to take in. And what's going to, you know, help you progress slowly. I mean, perfection. Don't go for perfection. You know, it's all about just progressing slowly. And that's another thing. I think trying to be perfect helped me back at the beginning, and I still struggle with that. But, you know, I say just get it out there.

Yep.

And you know, I can, you know, try to perfect it along the way.

I think that's that idea of perfecting along the way is I feel like it allows perfectionists to have progress over perfection. When you say, you know what, like, let's just ship this if you really want to, like six months from now, you can come back and improve it a little bit.

Exactly.

But it doesn't have to be perfect before you ship it. Right.

I mean, but, but I mean, you know, that doesn't mean that you put garbage out there, obviously.

Right? There's a balance with that.

Exactly. Yeah, that's my point.

And the other thing that I think is important to point out as we wrap up here is this idea of being like, protecting yourself a little bit from the noise and chatter. And there's. There's a balance with that because it's like you still want to know what's happening, but I almost view it as like, opt in content consumption. I think podcasts are maybe a good example of that. Courses would be a good example of that. Where you're saying, I need to learn and want to learn about this thing, so I'm going to seek that out. But there's something about the kind of the mental gymnastics that you have to do to avoid being like, riled up in some way. If you, if somebody's like, hey, like flashing red light over here, there's this thing, be aware of this, or this thing over here, be aware of this. And it's really hard for that to not like, grab your brain and then you to be consumed by that. And so there's something about, like, the sanity of dialing down the volume on inputs, especially inputs that you can't control what the content is, and instead dialing up focus and on demand kind of learning, does that resonate? And do you feel like that was along the lines of what you were doing?

Yes, for sure. Yeah, sure, 100%.

So Cree, where can people follow along.

With what you're up to? Find some of those old quinoa dishes that you posted and maybe some of the more recent ones as well.

Right. Well, you can find. Find me@cookingwithbliss.com on Instagram. Cooking with Bliss. I archived all of my old post.

That's right.

Yesterday. Yeah, I don't have any posts there right now. My plan for, for 2022 is to kind of sort of, I don't know, just brainstorm on some type of strategy for Instagram. On Pinterest, I'm at Cooking with bliss with 1s at the end.

Cool. I just want to point this out because you've done something that we've talked about a lot on the podcast and you've done it well, which is drawing a line in the sand and saying, we've mentioned this a couple times, but I think it's important to come back to it. I'm not going to do all of these things. I'm going to do one thing and do it well. And what's great about that in this last section is it doesn't mean that you don't do everything forever, but it does mean that you get really good at that thing. And then at some point you say, you know what, I think I'm ready to roll in this additional thing. And what I hear you saying is like, I think I'm ready to maybe roll in Instagram. Like I've, I've. To some degree. It's not necessarily complete mastery, but you have some level of mastery of a certain thing. You know, your plan, you've stuck with it and now it's folding something else in. I think that's awesome and super wise.

One other thing I wanted to mention is, I don't know, maybe this will, maybe this will resonate with some of our food blogging friends. But I was always afraid of email. And so before, I guess around, I don't know, maybe the second week, the second week of October, I decided to create a quick start guide around perfect holiday cooking. I created like a five day series.

Sure.

So I did that. And then the last week of December, I decided to create this January healthy cooking challenge. And from the second week of October till today, I have 118 extra email subscribers. So that was my focus. One of my goals into 2022 is to focus on email marketing. And my point in saying that it isn't as scary as I thought it was. And so, you know, to our friends out there, you know, if they haven't started, you know, email marketing, just, just, just try it. It's not that bad. And I thought it was really truly bad at first.

Bad meaning like difficult or.

I mean.

Well, yeah, bad in terms of difficult. I just thought it was going to be so time consuming. I mean, I'm still trying to understand it, don't get me wrong. But my point is that, you know, I tried it and I got a hundred And I believe 114 or 118 more ESO email subscribers.

Yeah. And the awesome thing about that is with email it just layers. So you now that you have that, you do the work once and that becomes a new kind of multiplier on your content. Where people come, they'll maybe discover that they'll sign up. Whereas before that just didn't exist. Like people didn't have that option to sign up. And even if it's, you know, single digit percentage, which it is with most people of email, people who subscribe over to email, it still is a multiplier on your content that hasn't has a lasting impact. So a great little note note to wrap up on here.

Cree, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

It was a joy to talk with you. Really appreciate it.

Thank you, Bjork. This was so fun. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Hey.

Hey.

Alexa here from the Food Blogger Pro team. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Food Blogger Pro podcast. Thank you for tuning in. I wanted to let you know that we have a live Q and A coming up. We typically have a live Q and A every single month for our Food Blogger Pro community, for our Food Blogger Pro members. And if you're not a member or maybe you're a new member of the community, maybe you don't know what they are. So I wanted to give you a quick rundown on what you could expect from a live Q and A at Food Blogger Pro. So like I mentioned, we have one per month. And in these live Q&As we typically focus on a specific topic. So whether that be photography, SEO, WordPress, developing recipes, we kind of COVID everything and anything on these live Q&As. And then Bjork or sometimes Bjork and a guest and industry expert come on and answer all of our community's questions live. So our community submits questions and then Bjork and whoever is joining him in that specific Q and A will answer the questions live. And all of our past live Q&As are available for all members. So they are just such a great time. And we love being able to connect in a way that's sort of face to face in a virtual setting. So if you're interested in joining our next Q and A and you're not already a member, be sure to head over to foodbloggerpro.com join so you can learn a little bit more about the community and sign up there. And then if you are already a member of the community, hello. Hello. We hope to see you at our next one soon. And you can head over to the Live tab whenever you log into the site to get access to us and register for our next live Q and A. So thanks again for tuning into this episode of the podcast. We appreciate you so much and we'll see you next time, make it a great week.