This summer I celebrated the 12 year anniversary of Bourn Creative, the design and development agency I founded and now own with my husband — I’m a designer and he’s a developer so it works out great.
Over the years, I have invested heavily in personal and business growth through masterminds, business mentorship, training programs, and more. I’ve also spent a small fortune attending conferences and live events because I believe in being a life-long learner. I also believe that it’s a critical business expense because it ensures we’re in the know with the current trends, studies, data, and technology, not just for ourselves, but for our clients.
Until now, every event I have gone to has been focused around business, freelancing, entrepreneurship, technology, or WordPress. But as I continually worked on building everyone else’s empires, I eventually had the urge to create something that was all mine, that no one else could mess with, mess up, or change — something where I had 100% control. Then, I launched this blog, Inspired Imperfection, my own personal space that has nothing really to do with my core business. It began as my little corner of the internet where no one but me had a say in how things were done. It’s a family blog. I share my recipes and our family adventures, as well as thoughts about my own personal journey trying to get healthier, eat better, have more fun, and live an inspired, imperfect, fulfilled life.
This isn’t my first blogging rodeo. I’ve been blogging for business, for Bourn Creative and as a guest blogger on many other sites, since 2008. I’ve also designed around 300 websites and blogs in the past 12 years, most of them powered by WordPress. But blogging to support a service-based business and is quite a bit different than blogging about my personal life and my family, and places we visit, things we eat, and adventures we go on.
This September, I’m actually going to my first non-business, non-WordPress focused conference… and I’m speaking.
9th International Food Blogger Conference
The 2017 International Food Blogger Conference is in Sacramento this year. It’s happening September 29-30, 2017 at the Sacramento Convention Center with add-on events and experiences happening the Thursday prior and the Sunday after. I’ll be giving a one-hour talk on Saturday morning all about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) — after all, no one can hire you, buy from you, or learn from you if they don’t know you exist.
Now, I rarely have nerves, but this event has me a little nervous, which is sort of a weird experience. I’m not nervous about speaking — I’m excited about that! I speak quite a bit, lead in depth workshops, and have taken the stage in front of audiences of 15-1500 for more than 10 years. Speaking and teaching is my favorite part of what I do. I am a bit nervous however about attending a whole new type of conference in a whole new vertical with a completely different market of attendees. Not nervous in a bad way, but nervous in a good way!
Up Your Food Blogging Game
The International Food Blogger Conference began as the world’s first food blogging conference. Today, food bloggers are critical influencers of the food and restaurant industries, and it’s not all recipes. Food blogs and social media accounts run the gamut including restaurant reviews, new products, meal planning, budgeting and more.
A sampling of the sessions include:
- How to make money from your blog
- Get Paid For Your Posts
- Let’s Talk Massive Instagram Growth
- What bloggers need to know about SEO (by me!)
- How to write a scroll-worthy blog post
- Google Analytics for maximum engagement
- Styling for social: how to slice, style, and solve your trickiest food styling challenges
- Hot topics in food blogging
- Hungry for words: keep your writing fresh through observation
Sacramento, as the capital of California, the epicenter of the nation’s food production industry, and the farm-to-fork capital of the country, is the perfect place to host this year’s Food Blogger conference.
- No major city in America is more centrally located amid such a vast range of high-quality farms, ranches and vineyards.
- Sacramento’s Mediterranean climate produces some of the nation’s most diverse and high-quality crops year-round.
- If you’re eating sushi anywhere in the nation, chances are, you’re getting a taste of Sacramento’s massive rice crop.
- California supplies 80 percent of the globe’s almonds, and Sacramento-based Blue Diamond is the largest almond processor in the world.
- The Sacramento region contains 1.5 million acres of regional farmland and 8,000 acres of boutique farms, and 70 percent of the region’s land is agricultural, forest or other open space.
- The Sacramento region’s craft beer scene is exploding, boasting more than 40 breweries.
I’d Love To See You!
I’m looking forward to the event, meeting bloggers local to the Sacramento region, and sampling some amazing food!
If you’re coming to the event, I’d love to connect with you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn and say hello in person! Then, if you see me at the event, please come on over, introduce yourself, and let’s chat — I’d love to meet you and learn more about you and your blog.
