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  • My Favorite Blogging Courses in 2025

    Since I started blogging in 2010, I’ve spent thousands of dollars on classes, courses, coaching, and training. That’s not an exaggeration. Some of them weren’t worth the time and money, but a few stand out as game changers in helping me grow my business.

    I thought it would be helpful to share some of the courses and classes that were worth the investment, as well as a few that I’d skip.

    The Best Blogging Courses in 2025

    Pretty Focused Photography

    My favorite course I’ve ever taken is Pretty Focused. This photography course is aimed at food and craft creators who want to take beautiful photos for their own site or who want to run a business selling recipes and crafts to other bloggers. (I’d say the majority is focused on food but it would transfer to crafts as well.) Here’s my affiliate link if you want to check it out! This really helped me level up my food photography. I’m planning to take their video course next!

    Food Blogger Entrepreneurs

    I signed up for Food Blogger Entrepreneurs back in 2019, and it has been a great resource to connect with other bloggers in my industry and learn from each other. (I should mention the price was cheaper when I joined.) I found this coaching style to be most beneficial since it’s specifically focused on content creators/bloggers/influencers.

    Two Loves Studio

    If you want to sharpen your photography skills in certain areas like editing or composition, Two Loves Studio has a lot of great one-off classes. I enjoyed her Lightroom Magic course as well as Composition Essentials. While most of this is covered in Pretty Focused, if you’re looking for cheaper classes to learn a specific skill, this can be a great budget-friendly option.

    Hashtag Jeff

    I received access to Jeff’s SEO course for free since I hired him for a site audit. (The site audit isn’t cheap but it was a great investment!) I’d say his course and resources are geared more toward beginners, but it’s great for an affordable place to start. You can even sign up for monthly access to try it out for a little while.

    Courses I Wouldn’t Buy Again

    I’ve taken many courses that were not worth the money, which is why it’s good to ask around for recommendations before you pay up. I won’t mention names, but I spent thousands of dollars on a business coach and didn’t get much out of it. We had weekly group calls, but most of the other people were in different industries so the takeaways weren’t great.

    I bought a course to learn G4, and it was okay, but I think I could have learned just as much by playing around on my own. I’ve also taken an email strategy course with smart strategies for people who sell through their email lists, but it was not very relevant for me as a food blogger. These courses and coaches would probably be great for others, but they weren’t right for me.

    I also took the Stupid Simple SEO course which was good at the time, but SEO has changed so much that it’s not very relevant anymore. The course is now called Stupid Simple Blogging and they try to offer tips beyond SEO. I gave it a try, but I didn’t think it was worth the investment.

    How to Know What Courses to Take

    Now that there are so many courses available, I think it’s worth digging to find a course specifically targeted to your niche. Don’t sign up for sales training if you don’t have a product to sell. Don’t sign up for an SEO course if you’re not creating long-form content. These days, you can find a course for anything so look for something specifically in your business niche.

    Ask around! This is how I’ve found the best courses. Ask for feedback from friends or other people in your niche before signing up. And be wary of online reviews, as many of these programs have generous affiliate programs.

    Free Resources

    If you’re not ready to spend money on courses, there are so many excellent free resources available. It’s a great way to sharpen your skills and help you decide where to invest next. Here are a few of my favorites:

    Choosing the right courses can significantly impact your blogging journey. Remember to get recommendations from your network, consider your niche, and explore free resources before spending money.

  • What’s Happening in February

    What’s Happening in February

    Hey friends! It certainly has been a strange start to the year, but I’m excited to get back into regular meet ups! P.S. If you want this delivered directly to your inbox, subscribe on Substack!

    Our Next Meet Up

    Our next content creator meet-up will be in Richmond on Tuesday, February 11th, at 12pm at Abi’s Books & Brews! I’m excited to see lots of you in person!

    What to Listen To

    I know it’s not the most fun topic, but tax time is around the corner, and creators have a unique business model. I loved hearing Richmond-based Cookie Finance share some good advice on the Food Blogger Pro Podcast!

    Something to Watch

    ShopMy has successfully secured an additional $77.5 million in funding, boosting its overall valuation to over $400 million. The rapidly expanding influencer-powered ad platform is set to use this investment to improve its advertising offerings. This could provide new earning opportunities for content creators.

    Quick Tip

    You might be sick of hearing about AI (or maybe you love it!) but regardless of how you feel about it, it can be a great tool for creators! One really simple way that I like to use it is to edit a post right before (or after) publishing. I just put the link into ChatGPT and ask if there are any typos or errors. It will quickly point out any mistakes and might even provide some optional suggestions, too!

  • How to Get More Pageviews in 2023

    I recently started working on a second blog (you can read the backstory here) and my goal was to hit 25,000 sessions in a 30 day period, to qualify for a premium ad network. I was able to do it within about 6 weeks of taking over the site, which was even faster than I expected! The site was previously getting about 2,000 sessions each month, meaning it was quite a jump to hit 25,000. So how did I do it?

    Blog traffic in 2023 looks a lot different than when I first started blogging in 2010. Back in the day, you could just comment on other people’s blogs, and it would generate traffic to your site. You didn’t need high-quality images or detailed blog posts to land on the first page of Google. There was much less competition but also less income potential. These days, the blogging world is competitive and the old tactics don’t work anymore. So what does work?

    New Content

    I re-launched the site with about 12 new blog posts and recipes. The site has a lot of old content that needs to be refreshed so I’m working my way through that. But I wanted to have fresh content on the site so that new visitors would see where the site is headed.

    Webstories

    I created 64 webstories in a 30-day period. Yes, that’s 2-3 stories every day. I don’t plan to continue that pace but it was a good way to give my site a boost of traffic. Webstories typically provide a short term burst of traffic and then they die down, but I’ve had a few consistently bring in a bit of traffic, even weeks after being posted.

    Facebook

    I shared a lot of my recipes in Facebook groups that were right for my niche. The more specific the group, like “gluten free desserts” performed much better than something generic like “tasty recipes” so I recommend looking for groups that are very specific to your content. I tested out dozens of groups and kept track of what I was sharing in which group (so I didn’t accidentally share the same thing twice) and I looked at how things performed to see if it was worth sharing in the group again.

    I also tried a lot of things that didn’t work, but I’ll save that for a separate post. If you’re working on growing your pageviews in 2023, I recommend trying Facebook group and Webstories!

  • How to Grow Your Blog in 2023

    Hey friends! I mentioned that I’m working on growing a new blog this year and I wanted to share some of the strategies that are working so far.

    pass me a spoon

    When I took over the site, it was averaging about 200 pageviews per day. I’ve been working on it for about a month and a half, and I’m currently averaging around 750 pageviews per day, so I’m happy with the growth so far!

    Blog Analytics Update

    My goal is to hit 25,000 sessions to qualify for Mediavine. Mediavine requires 50,000 sessions for new blogs, but only 25,000 sessions if you’re a Mediavine pro member.

    How I’m Growing My Traffic

    While I’m testing out a lot of different things, here are a few ways that I’ve been able to grow my traffic pretty quickly:

    Google Webstories– These can be very hit or miss, but it’s a great way to get a small boost of traffic every now and then. I’ve had a few webstories take off and bring in a few hundred hits in one day. So I’ve made a few webstories every day, hoping to hit a few more home runs.

    Writing Rank IQ Posts– I signed up for Rank IQ. (That’s my affiliate link.) I tested it out for my main blog last year but didn’t use it much. However, I think it’s a great tool if your blog is smaller and you’re still working to build up traffic and backlinks. This tool helps you find low-competition keywords to target in your niche. I know the payoff for this will be slower, but I want to create content that will eventually generate more traffic from Google. This requires a small monthly investment but for me, I think it’s worth it.

    Facebook groups– Since I’m in the food space, there are lots of niche-specific Facebook groups for recipes. I’ve had the most success with very targeted groups (like gluten-free baking, low-carb recipes, etc.) Obviously, not all of my recipes fit into every group, but it’s an easy way to give certain recipes a little boost.

    That’s what’s working so far! If you have more questions, check out Creator Insights. Let me know what questions you have and I’ll try to answer them in the next blog post. Thanks for following along!

  • Starting a Second Blog in 2023

    Starting a Second Blog in 2023

    Hey friends! I’m diving into a new project, and I thought it would be fun to take you along for the ride! I’m a full-time food blogger (you can find me over at I Heart Vegetables), and I’m working on a second blog!

    You can see the work in progress at Pass Me a Spoon.

    I’ve been thinking about starting a second site for a while, and I’ve seen more and more content creators go down this road, so I thought I’d share the why behind it. I’m also planning to blog my way through the process of growing a site in 2023.

    blogging

    Why Start a Second Site

    This is usually the first question people as. Why start a second site? The simple answer is to diversify my income. Rather than have all my eggs in one blog-basket, spreading out my income streams across two sites could be a good way to set myself up for the future. But the other reason is that it’s fun to think about something different! I’ve been writing about healthy vegetarian recipes for over 10 years, so doing something in a slightly different space feels like a fun creative endeavor.

    Now, I’m not straying far from my current space. My second site is still a food blog, but my plan is to focus more on cocktails, desserts, appetizers, and recipes for entertaining.

    Starting from Scratch or Buying a Site

    While I toyed around with starting a second site from scratch, I was curious about what it would look like to buy a blog from someone else. Buying and selling websites has become its own industry, and I shopped around on sites like Niche Investor to get a sense of how it worked and how sites are priced. Generally, “starter sites” that have content on the site but aren’t making any income yet, cost around $1,000. Sites making money through ads, affiliates, or digital products can range from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

    My hesitation with buying one of these starter sites was that a lot of the content felt… thin. Maybe even a little spammy. Since this industry has popped up, lots of people have been trying to create starter sites to quickly turn a profit. So I wasn’t sure I wanted to go that route.

    How I Found My Site

    I ended up purchasing a site from an Instagram friend. We’d been connected for years and we’d chat about blogging and food photography sometimes. I saw her mention in her stories that her domain was going to expire, and she wasn’t planning to continue her blog. I asked her if she’d ever consider selling her site, and she said she hadn’t thought about it. I explained how I’d seen other people do it, and we started negotiating prices and contracts.

    In the end, we both felt good about it, and we made a deal! I purchased her site at the end of January, and since then, I’ve been flipping it. I’ll share more about what the process has been like in the second post!

    Check out my second blog here: Pass Me a Spoon