Alternatives to Blogging with SEO for Food Bloggers with Nicki Sizemore

Nicki Sizemore is a food content creator who explores our connections with food through her podcast, newsletter, and cookbooks. In this episode, she shares how her work has evolved throughout her career. We chat about things like healing from burnout, starting a podcast, writing cookbooks, and member supported content vs. blogging with SEO!

You can watch the full interview on my YouTube channel, and the interview highlights are written in the notes below!

How did you find your voice in a saturated industry?

Nicki: “Hmm. So it’s such an interesting question because I wrote my first three books and they were direct expressions of where I was in my life. These books were single topic books. One was on food processor meals, easy meals, one was on bowls… buildables, and one was on slow cooker meals. And they really reflected where I was as a mom raising kids just in my life. And I had my food blog. The blog itself started as a way for me to use my voice. And it ended as a way where I completely lost my voice. And I don’t wanna speak for all food bloggers here. This was just my experience. But for that blog to be a business, I had to start writing in a smart way where search engines could find the recipes. So this is a search engine optimization.

And at the end of that experience, I was really writing exclusively for Google. I was writing for search engine optimization, and I lost my voice. And in that process I got really sick. It was like my full, my whole body was just telling me it’s time to reclaim what you want to say. And I mean, this is kind of going into a little bit more than what you asked, but I literally got sick. No one knew what was going on. I had massive joint pain, massive fatigue. And in that time I realized that I had to let my blog go. And ironically, it was making more money than it ever had before. But from a soul perspective, I was totally burned out. So I gave myself this summer – you know, thankfully my work is built largely on passive income at this point.

So I was able to take three months off and I had no idea what was coming next. I knew, it was interesting because the book I’m currently writing that I’m currently working on, I started working on that before all of this happened. Like, that book became this avenue for me to start to explore what I wanted to say again. And it’s really exciting. So I knew the book was like this thing that was happening, and it was connecting me back to myself. I didn’t know where my business was gonna go. After a few months, it was almost like a download. My husband had mentioned a year or two earlier…he said to me, ‘Mind, body, spirit, food. That’s what you love, Nicki. You love the connection of all of it.’ And I wrote it down and I didn’t look at it again.

And all of a sudden it was like a September day, and I was like, oh, that’s it. That’s the name of what I’m doing next. And that ended up turning into my new newsletter, which is called Mind Body Spirit Food, and my podcast. And it’s just been so fun. So my blog still exists. I have not been active on it, although I am going to start uploading some new content just to keep it alive. Because a lot of people use those free recipes. But the newsletter is really my passion project. And it’s where I get to explore this intersection of how we feed ourselves with our cultural identities with who we are and what we want, and how we be human. How we be human on this, on this planet. So, long story short, right now I speak purely from my heart in my newsletter. And that is, it’s just such a joy. And I don’t even compare or really look at what other people are doing. It’s not really a comparison for me, it’s just what lights me up.”

What has been the biggest change with that? In the shift of going from the food blog to a newsletter and a podcast?

Nicki: “Yeah. Some of it is my own. Like, I kind of like circling back to what I mentioned before about how I view work and how I view life. And the blog felt like such a hustle. And I was always behind and there was always a million things to do to keep up and to get the next ranking and to compete with this keyword and to do more photos and then videos and then wait, now this is the new thing. And then, oh, and then the social media. You’ve gotta do this social media to promote it. And it was a race I felt like I was racing. And with this work that I do presently, I cannot race. It’s not how this stuff comes out. And the rest, I’m still developing weekly recipes and doing photographs. And I’ve had to find so much trust in slowing down.”

Can you explain for a what a member-supported newsletter is?

Nicki: “So I’m on Substack, but I’m sure there are other platforms as well. And it’s a newsletter that you can subscribe to for free and all of the podcasts are free. And every Friday I send out a new essay and a new brand new recipe. And so the essays are all free. And if you are a free subscriber, you get one of the recipes per month as you get the full recipe. For the paid subscribers, which is $5 a month, they get every recipe. So every week they get a new recipe. They also get bonus content every other week, and they have access to the full recipe archive and some other fun perks. Hopefully my plan is to start doing cooking classes and things like that down the line. So it becomes this community where I know that the readers who, even if you’re a free subscriber, that’s great, but you’re there to really support the creator.

I don’t make any money off of this except for the readers who are paid. They pay for the content. And that feels good to work for a reader instead of work for advertising. So in the blog model, I got my income through ads on the website. And that’s why people laugh when they go to a food blog and there’s like a million popups and a million ads, and they’ve gotta scroll through all this content to get to the recipe. And that’s because that’s how bloggers make money. That’s the only way…none of us should be working for free, but it’s kind of this third party way of working for, you know, working for an income. Whereas now I get to you know…the people who love my work get to support it directly. And I think that feels good. it’s an exchange that feels good on both sides.”

You’re working on your fourth cookbook, which is amazing. So what’s that been like? Learning how to write a cookbook for the first time and then having it evolve over the years?

Nicki: “[My first cookbook] taught me how to write a book. it taught me just like how to create the spreadsheet to keep myself organized. And then with each book, each book has gotten easier and easier because I just…you know what you’re doing. it’s like practice. So the second two books were such a joy to write. And this last book, like I said, I started writing it when I was totally still blogging and had no idea what that I would be doing what I’m doing now. No idea. But this book became as my practice of cooking and eating shifted. I started to write about that. And it’s really about bringing intention into the kitchen. And that book then became actually the genesis of the newsletter and podcast. And it happened so slowly.

But even with this book, like I use the same, you know, Google Sheets spreadsheet that I had developed for my other books. And I use my same method of testing recipes. So all of that has continued, you know, that’s all been the same throughout all four books.”

What’s the best piece of encouragement you’ve received about being an entrepreneur?

Nicki: “Ooh, that is a really tough question. The best piece of encouragement. Okay. The best advice I’ve been given is that there are cycles to business. Just like there are cycles to nature. Just as like there are cycles in our bodies. There are cycles to business, and there are going to be times when we need to go inward and become the seed and give ourselves the nourishment and the space to be able to create again. So not to be afraid to take breaks. And to get still, and to really sit in that trust that as a creator, you will create again, even when you need a real break.”

Connect with Nicki

Instagram: @nickisizemore

Newsletter: Mind Body Spirit Food

Blog: From Scratch Fast