10 Years Blogging!

If you would have told me when I hit “publish” on my very first blog post 10 years ago that it would one day become a business or my career or that it could even be a job/career, I would have looked at you a little funny and said ‘sure’ and thought in the back of my mind you might not really know what you were talking about. Here we are, 10 years in, and I am still in awe and appreciate the fact that my little corner of the internet (sweetphi.com) has become a business, and I am SO GRATEFUL AND THANKFUL to each and every one of you, and your support and eyeballs reading my content and making my recipes in your home!!

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For this 10 years blogging anniversary post I’m sharing a look down memory lane with the previous Sweet Phi logos and what has all changed and all sorts of random thoughts. There’s a giveaway at the bottom too!!

• 2011- Not a logo, just typed the ‘site title’ into the free wordpress.com template and went with it. In text you cannot read it said “find and share some of the sweeter things in life”. Big note here is that I didn’t think I’d need a logo. Also, wordpress.com is a free platform and eventually I had to switch over to wordpress.org and learn what a hosted website and domains and all that jazz means!
• 2012 – I tried making this one myself, it was brutal and that horribly edited whisk was as good as it was getting. I remember being Up North visiting my husbands’ grandparents and being in tears trying to figure little things out that just weren’t working. Looks more like a food label or something lol, but it worked for a while! Also, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t exactly right from a copyright standpoint.
• 2013 – A creative friend made this for me, and was the first time I started thinking of things like logos and colors and ‘brand’ as being a possibility.
• 2014 –When I started thinking of Sweet Phi as more than just a hobby, and hired a talented graphic designer friend who created this beauty. Still didn’t think about ‘brand identity’ or brand colors at all beyond the logo, which I loved.
• 2015 -2018 –Worked with an uuber talented web designer friend who put together a brand guide and site, it was honestly business-changing and so incredible. Several web things changed and fonts/templates became unavailable sadly, which is why the change to the next, loved this one and how it opened my eyes to web design. I still work with them to this day, true genius creative friends. 
• 2018-present – The current Sweet Phi brand logo! I love the end result and the brand colors and how it flows and ties everything together. I’ve become super confident in the brand identity, which I know happens over time, but I feel like the logos and colors really solidified it (that might sound trivial, but it’s a consistent look that I love). However, the process of getting this logo was awful and disappointing (I worked with a highly regarded designer but I think she had other things happening and the experience fell flat and we weren’t on the same page. I feel like I ended up putting together this logo and finding the fonts I currently use, which is probably one of the reasons I love it to this day), but it was a good learning experience and I have a logo I’ve used and love and the brand colors are spot on.

Over the past 10 years blogging, so so much has changed. As I’m sure with any new industry, but I can really look back and pinpoint several HUGE changes. Please keep in mind this is just from my experience, I didn’t know blogs were even a ‘thing’ when I started, and I’ve come to find/learn that there were/are so many incredible sites that have been around way longer than I, and I’m still learning (truly!) what seems like daily! Here are some big changes that have stood out to me:

• Social media wasn’t a thing.  Pinterest was just invite only. Facebook groups were just starting. Instagram wasn’t a thing at all!!!! It wasn’t really even a consideration for me when I started (and sadly I only got started on social media years in). I know a lot of bloggers who got tons of traffic from joining various social media sites early and really gaining a huge audience. I’ve always been behind the curve slightly because the blog had to come in second to my full time job at the time – up until last year, so it’s just the way it happened.  Now social media is it’s own thing basically, people run entire businesses on one social media channel or another (I’ve always steered away from making social media the main focus because you don’t own the connection to your audience and the platforms can shut down at any time and poof, your audience goes away, one of the reasons I’ve always focused on my newsletter community).
• Income from Ads and Ad Networks. When I started hearing that people were monetizing their sites with Ads, I did a lot of research, and was setting up ‘Ad Waterfalls’ where if one Ad wasn’t filling up, it would be filled with another less earning ad (we’re talking pennies at this point). I had no idea what I was doing. Ads are based on Advertising companies bidding on your site and traffic and all sorts of stuff I didn’t (and still don’t lol) fully understand, but I was doing it and earning a couple of pennies a month (literally, $0.54 my first month I think). Then I heard about Ad Networks that manage it for you based on traffic thresholds. Over time I joined a few different Ad Networks and in the last few years qualified for some of the bigger Ad Networks and just couldn’t be more grateful I get to partner with a company that manages it for me.
• Income from other sources. The level of fascination with bloggers’ income is something I get, because it seems unreal. I saw a meme once saying ‘you wouldn’t ask your doctor how they make money’ but people always like to ask how bloggers make money. Please keep in mind I’m a little fish in this big sea. When I first started working with brands, I remember feeling honored they wanted to send me product which I’d then photograph and give them the photographs of, and then they’d have a bunch of requirements of what I’d say, where I’d post it, and all the things I’d have to do for free product. Essentially I was spending my time (money) to promote their product. Then it went from that to (five years in!) earning $50 for working with a company. All this to say, it took me YEARS and YEARS to understand the business side of blogging, and there’s still a huge gap in my knowledge. Essentially though, here are some ways bloggers can make money
  • Ads – ads you see as a blog visitor, costs you nothing as a reader, but advertisers bid on your site based on your topics/traffic/etc.
  • Affiliate – bloggers recommend a product(s) and if you use their link, they earn a small commission.
  • Sponsored posts – bloggers work with brands to talk about their product, they’ll get payment for developing a recipe with the companies’ product, photography, content creation, social media mentions, any and all combinations.
  • Products – this is when a blogger has a product (like I have 2 published cookbooks), or a course, or ebooks, something they’re selling.
  • Services – photography or consulting for brands or projects. This can be things like photographing for companies’ websites/products, or offering other services like consulting/recipe development/social media management or copy writing for others. These are typically things you don’t see on a bloggers’ site (if a blogger is doing a lot of these, they typically roll it into sponsored posts or have a separate ‘services’ business).
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – This is an ugly beast that’s reared it’s ugly head in the last few years. You may have heard more about it in the news with words like ‘algorithms’. Basically this is how search engines deliver your content to those searching. So for recipes for example, if you google ‘xyx recipe’ the order in which that recipe comes up is part of the algorithm which weighs a bunch of different factors, and you try to optimize it so your results show up 1st page, or top 10. This is constantly changing, it’s like a game with no rules, or changing rules. And if you ‘write for seo’ too much you get penalized, but if your stuff isn’t optimized, you don’t show up in search results. This is where you’ll find a lot of content creators differ in opinions. I’ve personally seen beautiful writer friends change the way they write posts and have lost their beautiful writing, because it’s not ‘SEO’ friendly. Ever wondered why there are ‘so many words’ in front of a recipe? Part of it is that it is someone’s site and they want to give you good information about the recipe and connect with their audience, but another BIG PART of it is SEO. If they wouldn’t include certain things, like repeating the recipe title in the first paragraph or having a minimum number of words, or or or, chances are, you won’t even see their recipe when searching.
  • A random SEO example that really hurt my business – Google randomly decided to change the way it delivers search results on mobile a year or so ago. Before it would weigh all websites the same, so if you were a real estate company but had a recipe for something it would deliver those results the same as if it was classified as a food recipe website. The change was that the ‘algorithm’ now weighed recipe websites/food blogs differently, and included a carousel of images on mobile (where something like 70% of my traffic comes from). The carousel is an inch thick and includes a picture…but only delivers 3 results…vs. a list of 10 on mobile. A lot of my top recipes just weren’t showing up for people anymore and my overall traffic took a hit, on mobile. It’s little things like this that literally take months to figure out, meanwhile you see numbers tanking and it’s scary.
• Small business things – it’s endless. That’s the beauty of it, but also, sometimes it seems like A LOT. I know sometimes when I say I’m a ‘food blogger’ images of me just sitting there randomly posting whenever may come to mind to some, but um, it can be a lot of work lol. Some of the tasks that go into this small business in case you’re curious (just to name a few): content creation (posts/videos/etc.), editorial direction, recipe development, recipe creation, recipe testing, photography + photo shoots -styling/editing, branding, outreach, social media, web design, brand collaborations, project development (in my case cookbooks), audience engagement, community building, accounting, analytics tracking, search engine optimization/communications, updating -old photos/posts/website stuff, education on all of the afore mentioned.

Then there are experiences, opportunities and things I’ve learned that I just couldn’t imagine my life without that have all been made possible because of the blog.

• Photography – when I started this blog, I used a little point and shoot camera. I knew absolutely nothing about photography or editing or lighting or literally anything. I literally just took a picture and posted it. Over the years I’ve upgraded cameras and learned about lighting and files and editing. And and and. Photography is so powerful and one of the things I’ve truly come to enjoy and am proud of.
• Cookbook Author – I love cookbooks and have such a huge collection. It still gives me goosebumps to know that I’m a published cookbook author of 2 cookbooks. I’ve been through the publishing experience, twice. It’s a lot and so incredible. I do get asked a lot when/if I’m doing another cookbook, and while I’d absolutely love to, it has to be the perfect fit, because truly cookbooks and book publishing is a labor of love. It takes so so so much time and energy.
• Developing recipes – what an honor and incredible thing that I develop recipes that lovely readers make in their homes. Thank you!!! I love seeing your recreations and hearing and seeing what recipes you are loving.
• Working with brands – I cannot tell you how amazing it is to be able to partner with brands I love and use to then be able to share with you. I think people would be surprised by how many ‘nos’ go into it because it does seem too good an opportunity to pass up, but I wouldn’t want to share about something I’m not truly passionate about. I’ve also had the opportunity to travel with brands (pre-pandemic, I truly miss it) and visit places I never would have!
• Friendships – because of this website, I’ve literally made life long friends, it’s truly special to me. Some Internet-online friendships, some online friends that I’ve met in real life who I’d now consider close friends, some bestie level friendships – like my bestie who is the godmother of my children, all because of a chance meeting at a blog conference. I have so much love for each and every one of you that comes to my site and is part of this community.
• Growing a team + family – it takes a small village, it truly does, and I couldn’t be happier or more grateful for the small village that helps keep SweetPhi.com running. I’ve shared meet the SweetPhi team and I’m continually so inspired and happy to work with such amazing people.  I love the different styles we all have too – and every week in Love Lists there’s a section of Bridget & Alyssa finds, I look forward to reading Love Lists every week because we all find so many neat things! I also work with other people who are not mentioned but that have a big impact special projects like web development/SEO/etc. on as needed project (thank you Mike & Nick!!!). And I can’t help but be a proud mom, I get to cook in the kitchen and involve my kids which is so special to me!
• Community – Every comment, message, ‘like’ on social or share with your friends/family of one of my recipes truly means the world. THANK YOU!!!! Fridays I send out a weekly newsletter which shares seasonal recipes, all the new posts that have appeared on the blog from that week, and a bunch of other fun stuff. I cannot tell you how much I enjoy spending hours responding to replies or questions/comments. It’s the part of the ‘job’ that is most meaningful, this amazing community, I truly feel blessed to be able to share with you.

I’m lucky enough to have gone into this journey of blogging of it being a passion that turned into a business. I’d still do it if weren’t my business because I love it so much, maybe in a slightly different way, but I truly love it so so much! I’m excited for many more years of SweetPhi.com and can’t wait to take you along on the journey.

Every comment, interaction, email, feedback, pageview from you means the world. As a small thank you, to celebrate my 10 year business anniversary, I’m going to be a giveaway!! 5 winners will receive a $100 Amazon gift card!!

• To enter the blog giveaway: pick any blog post (besides this one) and leave a comment on that post. It could be leaving a comment on a recipe post telling me you’ve made that recipe or want to make it in the future, or it could be on a life post about babies or parenting sharing your own story, or on a love list post telling me something you’ve found through the lists you’ve loved…you get the idea!
• Then come back to this post and mark on the widget that you’ve commented on another post, and voila, that’s it, you’ll be entered!
• Additional, optional entries available!!
• US entrants only, giveaway live ends 10/31/2021, winner chosen 11/1/2021 and notified via email.

*Please note – none of these giveaways are sponsored or affiliated with companies in any way, I’m just doing this giveaway because I am so grateful and appreciative of you and your support!!

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