This year I approached my food blog with a plan for growth and a solid plan of action. Looking back I can say that the plan definitely worked and helped my blog grow way more than I planned for! As I’m looking back on this year, there are a few key takeaways that I’m walking away with and bringing into the new year that could be helpful methods to add to your own growth plan in 2024!

Earlier this month I shared a bit of an update on my blog this year. We published about 175 blog posts in 2023 and I shared what I learned through that process. If you would like to learn more about that process, go here because I go a lot more in depth about content creation there!

But today, I wanted to share a few major takeaways that are a bit more general about my blog growth this year. This year my blog has grown around 90% year over year and it is definitely the first year I’ve seen major growth. It definitely took a lot of work to get here, but it’s been very rewarding and not just in terms of traffic.

Takeaway #1: Always be looking ahead

A huge shift in my process this year was working further ahead than just the upcoming month. I don’t mean that I’m always a month ahead on my content, but that I am always looking further out to see what I can get ahead on.

For example, a few months ago I was shooting a risotto recipe and grilled asparagus. It made sense to add in some kind of a protein dish so that we’d be able to eat all of it for dinner, instead of just having two random side dishes. So I added in a grilled pork tenderloin recipe that wasn’t necessarily on my content plan for the month (or even quarter) but I knew was something that fit my blog well for the future.

Doing this means that whenever I go to plan a month of content, I already have photos that are done.

Takeaway #2: Batching

I already knew that batching is a huge part of content creation – it’s something I’ve been doing with this podcast for years. But because I hadn’t had as much of a strategic approach in years past for my blog, I hadn’t gotten into a rhythm of photoshoots and batching recipes before.

This year, I learned how important it is not only for creating more content but for being efficient with your time. When you are already in the mental headspace and the zone of food photography, it is so much easier and more efficient to add in one more recipe to your list than to start and stop again next time.

Another way this plays out is by shooting a few additional photos for a blog post that you might need in the future. I did a banana smoothie recipe once and went ahead and shot photos for how to freeze bananas.

Takeaway #3: Reusing parts and pieces

Always pull out recipes from what you are already doing or have already done. This is one of the biggest ways I was able to create 175 blog posts this year.

A few examples of this:

1. Ground beef tacos → taco meat → taco seasoning. 3 posts from one idea.
2. Grilled chicken salad → grilled chicken → salad dressing → croutons → grilled chicken marinade

This requires planning and keyword research to make this work, but you can also do this retroactively. It won’t always work to do this with pieces of a recipe, but more often than not, it does! A lot of the time these are also smaller competition keywords that you might rank for faster.

Takeaway #4: There is always a bottleneck

Whenever my assistant comes to help with recipes, we always end up having one of us behind in the process. Either she will end up waiting for me to finish with ingredient shots (because we always need so many bowls!) or I’ll be waiting on a dish to be finished cooking. It happens every time no matter how hard I try to plan things to avoid it.

This also happens with my writers. They will get ahead and be waiting for more images from me or I’ll get ahead on images and be waiting for the posts to be done.

This is totally normal and natural. It can become a problem though if your team or you do not have enough capacity to fix the bottleneck.

Takeaway #5: Create Rhythms

This is really an important one. Rhythms and routines are going to help you stay on top of what you need to do. It’s easy to get distracted or get behind. But routines and rhythms around your work help bring you back to focus if you do get off track.

Find a rhythm for your CEO time, your recipe development time, your photoshoot days, and whatever other pieces of your business feel difficult. Rhythms and systems will make them feel lighter.

Bonus takeaway: Outsource and get help!

I think sometimes we forget that we are trying to build businesses. Businesses are not meant to experience crazy growth overnight only to crash and burn the next year. We want businesses that are long lasting. In order to have businesses like that, we need support. Sometimes it means investing into your. business before there is a ton of cash flow. Sometimes it means getting free help from a friend to watch your kids or maybe it’s asking a spouse for extra help around the house. Figure out where you feel the most tension and get help there.

Related episode: What I Learned from Publishing 175 Blog Posts This Year

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