A dietitian’s website and blog stir up more business

Like any savvy entrepreneur, Marisa Moore first launched a website to promote her brand and attract more business. “It was back in 2008,” recalls Marisa, an Atlanta-based registered dietitian and nutritionist. “I was making regular appearances on CNN and different media outlets. And I wanted a way for people to be able to easily find me. So, I put up marisamoore.com and started sharing nutrition tips.”

Since then, Marisa’s website has grown to become a key ingredient in her recipe for success — leading to more consulting work, media appearances and most recently, a cookbook-writing opportunity. She uses her blog to “to share (mostly) vegetarian recipes, credible nutrition information and a peek into my Southern roots and travels!” Popular posts promote Marisa’s brand of healthy and delicious nutrition, such as recipes for Mediterranean chickpea pasta salad and peanut butter banana breakfast cookies. 

Here are a few tasty highlights from our recent conversation with Marisa. 

Tell us about how you went from having zero online presence to becoming a content creator. 

It was a natural transition from sharing things with people one-to-one or in groups or in classes offline, to sharing that information online. Eventually, people started taking pictures of food with their phones. And I got wrapped up in that, [as well as] writing. So those two things came together and led me to putting up nutrition tips and recipes, to progressively getting better with my photography. Because I was appearing on CNN, I was also used to doing video. So eventually, I started to translate that into  doing my own videos and putting them on my blog. 

How is your community involved?

I've learned so much from other bloggers. We support each other because we're in this alternate universe where our families don't really understand everything we do and if something goes viral, we're the only ones who really care.

I'm also a part of the registered dietitian community, and I also have my [consumer] audience. So I have several different communities that I move about in, and it's all online and all fantastic.

How do you stay in touch with your audience?

Of course, social media — Instagram, Facebook and others. There are several groups that cater specifically to bloggers, and it's a great way to meet people. People can DM me and ask questions. Also, the comments on my blog provides important information from my community. I know the kinds of questions they have and the things they're looking for. I also use a newsletter to stay in touch. And now we're doing lots of virtual events such as live cooking demos. 

How do you monetize your blog or website?

I didn't add any ads to my blog until 2019. Then, I became part of an ad network, and that's worked out really well.  I also have partnerships and ambassadorships where I have some sponsored content and represent clients as a media spokesperson. I do a lot of public speaking and writing for other platforms. I also do a lot of consulting work with restaurants and food companies, separate from my blog. It’s really important to diversify your income if you’re self-employed. 

In my work as a registered dietitian, I speak to different groups as well. As a business owner, it’s also important to have a blog, because that's often how people find me. I've gotten some of the best consulting gigs just because someone Googled "registered dietitian in Atlanta,"  found me and hired me for a job. 

Exactly. It’s like the face you have on the web.

It's the one place that you own. And I think that's what's so important, because all of our social media could disappear tomorrow, which would be tragic … but it's really important that we own a piece of the web, and marisamoore.com is my little piece.