The Ultimate Blog Podcast - Monetizing Your Food Blog with Kayla Burton

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

In this episode, we’re excited to chat with Kayla Burton, the creator of the food blog Broken Oven Baking Company and a coach for food bloggers. Kayla shares her journey of starting a food blog because she loved web design and baking, and how she monetized and grew it until she could quit her 9-5 job. Today, Kayla explains how she gets feedback from her audience to create content they want, how she got brand partnerships as a new food blogger, what creative revenue streams a food blogger can use to monetize, and her best advice for food bloggers who are just starting out. Tune in to be inspired and get tips to monetize your food blog!🔗Show notes for Episode 148

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. This podcast is the podcast we wish we had when we started blogging. I'm Amy Reinicki and I'm Jennifer Draper. Our episodes dive deep into how to monetize your blog, sharing unique insights and practical tips. We bring you in-depth interviews with successful bloggers and experts who offer valuable, actionable advice. Our mission is to educate, support, inspire,

and empower you in your blogging business. Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. We have a lot of food bloggers who listen to the podcast. And I think this new direction that we're going and really talking to you guys about how to monetize your blog and how to make money is important to hear from people who have been in that race and done it. And I connected with Kayla Burton and I just knew right away that we needed to bring her

on so she could not only share her story, but share what she's done in order to grow her food blog and grow now a coaching business in a seemingly a short amount of time. And so I'm really excited to introduce you to Kayla Burton today. Kayla, welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Yes. Well, we connected on Instagram. Kayla actually followed us and I went and peeked and was like, oh, I like what Kayla does. And I think I actually messaged you that day and was like, I would love for you to come on the podcast

and talk about what you do. So I was instantly attracted to what you do, Kayla. So can you tell our listeners what it is that you do and a little bit about your blog? Yeah, so I started my baking blog, Broken Oven Baking Company in 2020, and I didn't really know anything about blogging when I started it, so I just started learning

everything I could about SEO, keyword research, and just blogging in general. And I just fell in love with the technical backend side of things, and user experience experience and all of that. Cause I guess growing up, I always enjoyed just like playing around with web design and I would make animated icons for aim and stuff like that just for fun. But I also enjoyed baking a FIGRAMA. So that's how I got into this kind of just combines the best of both worlds.

I love that. Yeah. So then I just quickly implemented everything I learned on my own site. And then I think I qualified for Mediavine within two years of starting my blog. And I was also doing brand partnerships at the time. But I think just doing all of that and learning everything and applying it to my own blog, I really enjoyed it and I wanted to help other bloggers get there.

So then I started just sharing whatever I could. And I also had an audit with Casey Marquis and he started using my blog as an example so people would reach out to me with questions. And I just really enjoyed connecting with everybody and answering their questions. And so last year I started helping other bloggers by doing coaching. So like just auditing their sites, seeing where they could improve SEO and user experience and stuff like that. And so I've just started diving into that more and now I share like helpful resources for food bloggers that who struggle with technology, but they want to understand the back end of things better. So I just try to break those

things down into like little digestible tidbits and tutorials. I think that's just one of the neatest things about the blogging community is that there's so many great connections to be made. There's so many awesome resources out there. And it's so fun to meet other bloggers and hear what they're doing because there's so many different paths that you can take along your blogging journey to create a sustainable business out of it.

And I'm sure people are curious to know a little bit more behind the scenes about when you started your blog, it was a time when a lot of people were blogging and there was a lot of competition out there, but you obviously were able to stand out amongst the crowd and gain some traction and gain enough traction to get traffic and monetize your blog. So I'd love to roll it back just a little bit for all the people listening who are like Can I even start a food blog today? Like there's a lot of them out there. What can I do you talk about like how you?

Decided to start blogging about baking specifically and then talk about if you've niched down even further and What do you think that means for other people who might want to start a food blog right now? Yeah, yeah, it's definitely very competitive. I think that it's still a good time to start though. But for me, what I did was, well, I actually started on not a very great theme or host. And so one of the first things I did that I think made a huge impact was switching to a reliable, trustworthy host and an optimized theme. I would love to know who you recommend. I'd just love to hear if it's the same people that we do.

Yeah, so for a host, I really like big scoots. I've been with them for a few years, and they've been great. They are amazing. Yeah, is that who you recommend to? It is. And it's funny to me that if you had to? It is. It is. And it's funny to me that if you had asked me seven years ago if I would have been excited about a hosting company, that answer would have been a big no.

And I'm like, I love big scoots. I love big scoots so much. We can be passionate about a hosting company. Yeah, I got to meet Katie and a couple other teammates last, no, actually earlier this year when they were in town for Tastemaker because I'm in Chicago. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome that you're right there.

Yeah. Yeah. So big skits for hosts and then for theme, I really like Feast. Yeah. Yeah, that's really popular. They do a really great job. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like SEO friendly and user friendly on both sides. So I just, I think it makes my life a lot easier as a food blogger. Right. Anything to make your life a little bit easier. Yeah, there's plenty to do already. And I got to meet like Skylar and Melissa and then at the like earlier this year, too. So that was cool. I love that you brought up meeting some of the people who have created these things that help bloggers because I think a good reminder is that it's somebody who's trying to make this industry flow easier, work easier for us. And they really are real people behind it who are genuinely supporting bloggers. So anytime I know that we recommend companies, it's because we have honestly thoroughly vetted

them and use them and recommend them to our students. Sounds like you do the same thing, Kayla. And I think you can have a lot of, there's a different theme company that we love. We recommend Restored 316 Themes, but we know a lot of food bloggers used Feast. And so I don't know, there's so many things to choose from that I think it's important to say,

you've got to trust your gut, I think, and find your quote unquote expert who you're going to learn from and then be like, okay, I'm going to trust. Otherwise it's kind of like anything in our life. If we overthink it, because there's a lot of theme options, there's literally hundreds of theme options out there, for instance. Your theme is really important. I guess my recommendation is probably going to be either go with Restore 316 or Feast.

That would be what we would suggest. But I think that knowing that your theme actually is important, that's an important piece of a food blog or a blog in general. Don't skip that step because it is an important foundation. Yeah. I think it's important not only for your user's experience, but for your experience using it yourself. Because if you don't know how to work your back end, it's going to be so hard for you

to get content up and make a good user experience. Oh yeah, I think that's definitely what holds people back sometimes is just the overwhelm of being able to get it all set up from the start. And then I think also just knowing is there space for me? Does anybody want to hear what I have to say, I think is another common thing that holds people back. Do you think that that niching down even more is where we need to be right now when it comes to food blogging?

Or, you know, do you think you could just say, I love to cook, I'm just going to make all different kinds of recipes? I don't know that there's a right answer for this. I personally, I think do what you're passionate about and that will shine through your content. If you're excited about what you're creating, your audience is going to be excited about it usually, but you still want to make sure that there is an audience for it. So I don't think you need to get super niche down. You don't have to put yourself inside of a box that's, I can only make something that uses pumpkin. I don't know what's following.

I think you should be passionate about what you're creating and that's going to make it like sustainable long-term for you because if you are limiting yourself, it's you're just going to get wiped out and you're not going to enjoy it as the years go on. Yeah, especially as these Google updates come out and really impact bloggers from time to time and you feel so frustrated. But like you said, if you're putting out content that you're passionate about and that your users and your readers are wanting, I think that's just the fine balance in getting that content to be seen, but also being able to grow and grow your audience and all of that

as well. Yeah, you are your biggest threat to your business So if you're not enjoying like the core of what you do I think that's really gonna not set you up for success in the long run That makes me think about a question for you in the beginning and you said like you were kind of into website stuff growing Up, but what do you tell a person that you might meet in the beginning who is really struggling with that technical piece of it? What do you say to them to encourage them? I know what we say, it doesn't last forever, but how do you feel like you can really help

somebody understand that? That's one piece and yes, you have to know technical stuff moving forward, but you won't always feel like that. What do you say to encourage them or what did you say to yourself in the beginning when you were there and learning this brand new thing that you'd never done before? I would say just baby steps. You'll get comfortable with it eventually, like you say. But I think a big thing is just not being afraid to play around with things. You can save backups. You can use your staging site. Just don't be afraid to try new things. The more you

do it and practice, the more comfortable you'll get with it. But I think a lot of people just think they're going to go in and break something if they touch anything, and that's usually not the case. And if you do break it, you can always roll back and fix it usually. That's why you need a good hosting company. Back to big scoots. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a great encouragement is that you likely will not break your site. You can always restore a backup. Make sure you have your hosting obviously set up and backups and all that. I just think the technical piece and that understanding of like, is anybody going to want

to be here or not? And I like what you said, if you're passionate about it, that's truly going to show and shine through. We are definitely in a day and age where, you know, back when you started in 2020, I feel like Google worked a little differently. We've had a couple of updates here that have posed some challenges for bloggers is what I will say. And so we've had to make a shift when it comes to creating content. I'd love to hear a little bit about what you think now. Is SEO still important?

Is that an area that you still focus on? And how have you shifted with the Google updates? I do think that SEO and like keyword research and that stuff is still important. I just, I don't think it needs to carry as much weight as some people give it. Like I think a lot of food bloggers just worry, what is Google going to think?

How is Google going to react? And yes, Google's important because it's such a big recipe search engine, but you need to think about your audience. Spend more time worrying about them because you're not going to have a business or a site if there's nobody going to visit it. I still do keyword research and make sure that my site is optimized.

But I think just I'm trying to add more personality into my blog and do more of what I'm passionate about and what I see my audience likes. What are some ways that you're able to connect with your audience to get some of that feedback about what they like and don't like when you create any recipe or any posts? Yeah, so I mostly engage with my audience on Instagram and my email newsletter. So if I'm testing a new recipe or I'm trying to get ideas for something,

I might share a poll on my Instagram stories, just asking for their opinions. I also just recently sent out a survey to my audience in my email newsletter, just to get their feedback on what kind of, like what are their baking preferences, what ingredients do they like, how helpful are my recipes on my site, if there are any issues there, so stuff like that. And I added an incentive with that survey, just I did like a giveaway.

So if you fill the survey, you can enter to win just like a broken up and baking up a tote bag and stickers So that just I think helps like foster a good relationship with my audience there to get them excited about my recipes and my brand in general I like that you do that because I think what I've thought when you just said that One we love the idea of a survey That's something that we recommend to a lot of people. People like to share their opinions, so give them the opportunity to do that. But two, you said that you gave them an incentive for doing that. So you weren't just asking and ask. You actually had something that you were going to give them if they did it. And that what

you gave them is essentially marketing for your brand. And I am curious, you said a tote bag and something else. Is that something that you sell on your site and is this another way to generate revenue or is this something that you do simply as a give back in different circumstances like this? I don't sell them. I've had a few people ask, but I just like to use them as like a fun promotional kind of marketing piece.

Yeah. I think that's fun though. Who doesn't love free swag? I think people love swag of any sort. People like free stuff. And so a lot of people would probably fill out the survey just to win a giveaway or whatever. But I think the other thing I was thinking when you were talking is you take yourself seriously and you treat yourself like a business because you are. And I think that's sometimes where, especially in the beginning of this journey of blogging, is that that is hard for bloggers to do and to take themselves seriously. So is that ever an area that you struggled with or do you feel like you started and like

right out of the gate, you're like, yep, I am starting a blogging business and I understand this? Or was that like a mindset shift that took some time to get through? No, it definitely took a lot of time. I feel like it's still happening. Yeah, because like I never really even read blogs before I started blogging. So I just really liked the technical website stuff and baking. And yeah, I don't really know. It just kind of happened where I started gaining traffic and a following on Instagram.

And I was like, it's just so weird because I'm not used to that in real life. No. Yeah. What was the point when you realized, hey, I actually can make some money from this? And what was that? Was it the ad network first or was there something else that came about before you got on the ad network?

Yeah, no, it wasn't ads. It was actually brand partnerships. So I started my Instagram account just sharing what I was baking January of 2020. And it was a whole different time on Instagram then. It's so hard to grow now these days, I think. But back then I got to 10,000 followers pretty, like fairly quickly, I think. And so brands started reaching out to me about doing like partnerships and sponsored posts and like just content creation for them.

So I started getting a couple of brand partnerships and that was when I was like, I can actually make a living from this. So I quit my corporate nine to fives and just went full time doing the brand partnerships and learning SEO and all of that. And then about a year after that is when I qualified for Mediavine.

So you were able, I like numbers, you don't have to share real numbers, but let's just assume a nine to five, like you had to obviously pay your rent, pay your utilities, things like that. So the money that you were earning by doing brand partnerships was enough to replace at least to provide for you. I had saved up a few months of expenses before I quit my job, so that was just to hold me over.

I knew that if I could devote my entire work week to my own thing, then I could eventually replace my nine-to-five income. So you had a plan? Yeah. Those are important numbers that we all need to run for ourselves so that we know where we stand in our business. I think that's one thing that people forget about is, okay, we have to be able to know, what do we need to bring in and how can we do it?

And like you said, when you're getting ready to make a big change, you're taking a little bit of a risk, but you're doing so very thoughtfully by saying, okay, here's the amount of time I'm gonna give myself to devote full time to this business. Yeah, it's like a calculated risk. Yeah, but knowing that you have the time to devote made it,

it's always risky. I feel like when you're in the online space, we just have to call it what it is, and it can be risky for sure. But I appreciate that you had a plan and that you had money saved in order to bet on yourself, essentially, which goes back to that taking yourself seriously and treating yourself like a business from the start, which

I think is just, I just think that mindset shift can make such a powerful impact on where a blogger can go in the beginning. If you doubt yourself, if you doubt what you're capable of from the beginning, you won't go very far, I don't think. But if you take yourself seriously and you block off the time, then the sky's the limit kind of thing. When it comes to hosting your website, you want somebody you can trust. That's why we recommend Big Scoots.

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Big Scoots is a perfect hosting company for bloggers. Use the link in our show notes to find a plan that works for you. So when it comes to generating content and creating it and putting it out there, do you have a recommendation for how many blog posts, a new food blogger who's wanting to build a food blog currently like in 2024, what's that recommendation look like? Is it X amount of times a week or is it X amount of times per month? Or how do you navigate that and how do you support a blogger

in that way to encourage them? Yeah, so I think quality over quantity for sure. I think in the beginning, you're just just getting used to how everything works and what your schedule is going to look like. So I think just figure out what you can accomplish in a week and just be consistent and share feedback with yourself about how things are going. Keep a journal if you can and just be like, okay, this is what I did this week. This is what went well.

This is what didn't go well and I could improve on and just, I don't know, just learning. I think just always learning and especially in the beginning so that you know, like, okay, once I hit my peak, maybe I can do two recipes a week and that will be consistent and get me to where I need to be. Because if you think about it, like if your goal is 50,000 sessions and you know how you want to get there, just think backwards and be like, okay, I need to get this 150 posts on my site maybe. And they have to be really high quality keyword research, share them on social, all that. And then just kind of think back, I have the capacity for two recipes a week, so it'll take me this many weeks to do it. So just kind of planning, setting a schedule for yourself and just learning as you go.

Yeah, it's certainly a balancing act to learn. You know, more is better, but you want to create that quality content. So you have to be realistic with yourself and what you can accomplish in a week, in a month, whatever. So just really just diving in and testing out the waters and then creating a consistent schedule for yourself once you have that piece figured out. And you kind of need to know your goals as well. You mentioned like getting enough traffic to get on an ad network, but I'd love it if you'd talk just a little bit about somebody that's starting a blog and they don't want to wait, you know, two years maybe to get on an ad network to be able to

bring some money in. I know brand partnerships are another possibility. How soon do you think somebody could start pursuing other revenue sources when they start a blog? And do you have any other recommendations for them to consider as well? I think you can get started as early as you want or even before. I think a lot of times we think we have to be at a certain point and be super comfortable, but really you just need to get started even if you are uncomfortable and you will learn just by doing it. If you are working on your blog, then clearly you are learning or you have those skills needed for

blogging. Copywriting, photography, recipe development, all that stuff, those are all things that you could monetize. So you could offer those services to other food bloggers or like food brands if they're looking for recipes for their website, things like that. I don't think it's too early to get started. I think you just have to put yourself out there and get the experience in. So do you recommend that a blogger would just reach out to a brand directly and say, these are my skills, this is how I can help, and these are my rates? Is that something that they can do right off the bat then? I would think so, yeah. I would say go for it.

Just introduce yourself and try to establish a good relationship with the brand and see how you can each benefit each other. How else do food bloggers make money? So obviously being on an ad network is a really powerful way to generate revenue. But like Jennifer was saying, it does take a couple of years usually to get on an ad network, especially in the competitive environment that, that we have today, especially in food blogging.

And so how are food bloggers making a lot of their money? Are there other products and services that they're offering? Or what kind of things are you finding that food bloggers are doing to generate more revenue? Yeah, I think there are a lot of options out there these days and you just have to be creative and think outside the box sometimes. But I've heard of people creating digital products, doing cooking classes online or in person, doing eBooks and cookbooks. Like I mentioned, brand work, freelance work. Even starting a YouTube channel, if you really like that kind of thing, you can monetize a YouTube channel. That's similar to monetizing a blog and it takes the same consistency and building up good content.

But yeah, there's like all those different things. And I think just building a branded community in general, like I think you can eventually monetize just a community, like a little paid subscription for access to you and like maybe exclusive rest fees or something like that. Yeah, we went to a conference earlier this year that really talked about the power of community, and it really hit home with Jennifer and I, that power of community. And I really think it's an area that any niche and almost any blog could have a community. And that's recurring revenue that comes in. So that's something that a blogger can think about when they're

thinking about all these different options But I think you also have to weigh your time and know like yes, I need to generate revenue Yes, I need to create content and all of that But I think there has to be a really honest conversation with yourself that you can do anything, but you can't do everything and so Being real and saying okay, like I'm going to set some realistic expectations for myself and my time and knowing that you're not a failure if you can't do all the things. In fact, I don't think that the three of us, I don't think that there's probably one of us here that would tell you to do every single thing because it's impossible. You would need a team of like 15 if you did everything that everyone tells you to do to

grow a blog. I mean, I think it can be very overwhelming. So yeah. Speaking of that, when I was getting started and like doing the brand partnerships and learning SEO and all that stuff, I also like almost immediately outsourced my Pinterest because I knew that was important for food blogs, but I never enjoyed using Pinterest and I didn't really care to do that. So I just focused on creating my content and SEO and like brand partnerships.

So I kind of diversified my traffic from the start, which I think really helped. I think you said something really important there. You didn't enjoy it and you trusted the process enough to say, okay, I'm gonna outsource this because I know it's an important part of my business, but my focus needs to be elsewhere where I can make more impact in my business. And for you, that was Pinterest.

For somebody else that might be photography, I'd love to actually talk about that if we can too. Because I think a lot of people love to cook or bake. They love the idea of having a food blog, talk about that if we can too. Because I think a lot of people love to cook or bake. They love the idea of having a food blog, but they're like, I am a horrible photographer. How in the world, or I don't have an expensive camera. So what advice do you give somebody who isn't a photographer currently, does not know how to take like a decent picture, but they still want to do that? What's your recommendation? And did you know how to do that when you started

or is that something else that you've learned along the way? I kind of learned it. I actually started off, my partner was taking my photos because he started his own like product photography business like the year before I started my blog. So that was something he started off doing for me. And then I was like, I want to have control over all of this. So I'm going to learn photography and take over.

And I did always enjoy photography. And I took photography classes in high school. But I never actually really learned it. So I kind of just got a camera. I got a FUJIFILM X-T3 and just started practicing looking at other food photos and trying to recreate them with my own style and just learning Composition lighting all the different settings and how they work together. So just a lot of practice

Yeah, I think even you don't need like a fancy camera Especially these days like you can just use an iPhone like the camera There's really good enough and I have clients who they only use their phones for videos and photos and they're doing amazing. You definitely don't have to feel like you have to have the best equipment and be super incredible at it. It's one of those things that's like done is better than perfect. Yeah. It's just like you have to dive in.

You figure out what you enjoy doing, what you want to learn, and it's going to be a learning process no matter what when you start something new. So when blogging, you're going to have to learn a little bit about WordPress. You're going to have to learn possibly a little bit about photography and social media and Pinterest and Google and all the things. But there are options to hire things out. You can hire people, other bloggersgers like you mentioned before, if photography is your own passion, you could offer your services.

But on the flip side, if you're a blogger and you can potentially budget, you can hire out some of your food photography so that you don't have to focus on that piece. It's all a balancing act because there is a lot to do and you can't do it all. And like you said, done is better than perfect. So just jump in, do the pieces that you want and see what you can get some help with along the way. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Don't be afraid to try things and just continuously learn.

Always share feedback with yourself. Yeah, yeah. That's great advice. I love sharing feedback with yourself. I love you've said that a couple times and I I think that's important It's not sharing criticism with yourself or beating yourself up about something that you don't know But it's like oh, okay I could do this better or I'm doing this really well or I'm really good at this and I'm not so good at this and

I actually hate doing it, but I think that's important in the beginning I think it's important in the middle though, too To just continually having those conversations with yourself about where your business stands and what's working and what's not. Because like we've said, like in the beginning, blogging today looks different than it did in 2020. It's going to look different in 2027 than it looks today. And I

think just being willing to be along for the ride is an important piece of it and considering it something fun. And this can be a really enjoyable experience if we allow it to be. And I think that blogging is a lot about learning, repeatedly learning over and over and so not getting too bogged down in the things that you don't know because I mean, I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but there's always going to be something that you don't know, you mean, I don't want to be the barrier of bad news, but there's always going to be something that you don't know, you know, that you're going to have to learn because things change. And so that's why having like a strong community and having resources that you

can go to, I think is so powerful because we don't know everything. And so we have to lean on people who know more than us and different aspects to remind us of why we did this in the first place and knowing that we are here for a purpose and our passion is worthy of being shared and we are helping people each and every day when we share our content with the world. So I'm thankful that you share in the way that you do and you seem so calm about it, which I think is I love it because I'm not a calm person. And I love when you remind me of Jennifer because you're both just, this is what you

do and this is how it's done and just go do it. So I think that's important. I think sometimes we can be emotional about it and we can make it very emotional. And I'm not saying that blogging can't be emotional, but sometimes we can really talk ourselves out of something. Sometimes we need to talk ourselves into our strengths. You can do this. Yes, it is competitive to start a food blog right now.

Yes, this is a market that looks different than it did, but that doesn't mean that I can't do it. I always appreciate when I meet people like that who are just like, yeah, you should totally go for it. You should't do it. And so I always appreciate when I meet people like that who are just like, yeah, you should totally go for it. You should totally do it. Yeah. I'm like a full believer that anyone can do anything. Like my dad always told us you can do anything you set your mind to. You become what you think. So that was kind of ingrained in me. I love that. And now you're sharing that with everybody in your community, which is really cool. Kayla, will you please let people know where they can connect with you and find you on

your website and your social media? Yeah. So for my baking blog, it's brokenupandbaking.com and I'm on Instagram and other socials at Broken Up and Baking. And then if you want like food blogging tips and resources, you can find me on Instagram at foodblogcoach or foodblogcoaching.com. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing your journey and how you're growing your food blog today and supporting other food bloggers on their journey too. So we're glad to have

you here today. Yeah, this was fun. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. If you'd like to learn more about building your blog, visit theultimateblogpodcast.com backslash newsletter to get signed up for our email newsletter. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love for you to share it with a friend, subscribe and leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for tuning in today, and we'll see you next time.