Do you ever wonder what your blog would be like if you knew back when you started what you know now? There have been a lot of lessons learned in the last 5 years of being in the food blogging world and today I’m sharing what I would do differently if I started a blog today. 

Today is episode 50 of the podcast! 

For today’s episode, I thought it would be really fun to share some of the lessons I’ve learned and how I would do things differently. 

Start on WordPress

If there is one thing I think almost every blogger ends up realizing, it’s that being on self-hosted WordPress really is the best option for a food blogger. 

Starting on self-hosted WordPress will save you a huge headache down the road and potentially even save you money not having to hire out support to switch later. 

Branding Foundations

Like a lot of you, I started my blog as a way to keep in touch with family and friends. If I was starting over today, I would get really clear on my branding foundations, my niche, my unique voice, and my brand’s mission. 

I wasted a lot of time (and I mean a lot) writing blog posts that I ended up deleting later because they were off brand for me or just a waste of time. 

The sooner you can get clear on your branding foundations, the more successful you will be. 

Set Smart Goals

Something else I struggled with was setting actionable goals. My goal was always to “grow my blog” but I never put any intention behind what that meant. 

Even setting a goal as simple as how often to post, or how much to grow my traffic by each month, would have been better than what I did.

Invest ASAP

Food bloggers learn to juggle a lot of things and wear all of the hats, but I spent a lot of time being sort of good at many things. I would choose to invest in a business coach, a VA and someone to help with Pinterest a lot sooner. 

Learn SEO

There were so many things I didn’t know for the first few years of my blog. I wish I had had an SEO checklist or listened to podcasts about SEO earlier on to do things right the first time. 

Hire Out Pinterest

I did hire out Pinterest to my VA pretty early on but I still wish I had taken it seriously earlier. I was an early adopter on Pinterest so my account has performed well for years, even though it probably shouldn’t have at first. Pinterest changes so often that it is not something I want to leave in my own hands and I happily outsource it now. 

Prioritize

After having kids, I had to really take a hard look at what actually moves the needle forward in my business. With my design business, it’s a bit easier to see this but I think if I had paid more attention and been willing to take more risks with my blog, I would’ve very quickly been able to prioritize what was actually making an impact on my goals. 

Pave my own way

There are so many people out there doing different things that it can sometimes be hard to know what strategy to follow. I followed pretty blindly for a long time and I wish I had stayed in my own lane and tried to really hone in on my brand’s uniqueness. I would figure out what works more for my audience, rather than following what other bigger bloggers were doing.

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