When I started this blog, it was mainly just recipes that I loved. I loved sharing, but also found myself overwhelmed with all of the SEO requirements. What happened to just sharing the list of ingredients and steps?? These days blog posts have become less real and more staged. And, trust me, I get it — if you want your blog to show up on Google, then you HAVE to focus on SEO.

I realized that I did not like the production aspect of blogging, so I quit. I no longer had the time or energy to focus on key phrases, readability, or meta descriptions. I didn’t publish a post for almost two years. But, I really missed writing and connecting with people who followed my blog. I also missed throwing a recipe together and quickly sharing it.

A few weeks ago, I decided I would pick blogging back up. I re-did my website to reflect the things I’m doing, and spent some time creating categories for my blog. I published two posts and had a few ideas for more. But, something didn’t feel right. Again, I was inundated with all of the SEO requirements and began to realize that I was not having much fun with it. This was a frustrating realization because I was so ready to start writing and creating again.

Enter: Substack!

A few people mentioned Substack to me in my real life and then I had some conversations online with a few people about it. Honestly, the last thing I wanted to do was to learn a new platform. However, the more I looked into Substack, the more intriguing it became. I created an account and played around with it for a bit. Last week, I published my first post!

You might be wondering — what is Substack? Simply put, Substack is an online platform that is almost like a mix between email marketing, a website, a blog, and social media. You can “subscribe” to publications and have them directly sent to your inbox. As a user, it is a little bit like a self-curated newspaper. There are publications you can pay to subscribe to and there are publications that are free (mine is free!).

I love Substack because I don’t feel like my posts have to be perfectly edited or curated in order to share, which is such a freeing feeling! It is also great because I get to knock out two birds with one stone — blogging and email marketing! I am going to share the link to my Substack here. Please feel free to subscribe and follow along! I plan on sharing recipes, business tips, podcast updates, and general lifestyle content. Basically, anything you would find here on this blog will now be shared on Substack.