Episode 753: How to Survive Google Updates (It’s Not What You Think!) With Elena Davis

EBT753 – Elena Davis

[00:00:00]  Supercut 

You are going to want to download our bonus supercut that gives you all the information you need to master Pinterest. Head to eatblogtalk.com/masterpinterest to download today. 

[00:00:14]  Megan Porta

Elena Davis is the blogger over at Cucina by Elena. She returns to Eat Blog Talk to share her hard won wisdom about growth, strategy and staying grounded. When everything in the blogging world seems to shift from how a a single photo tweak landed her in Google Discover more often to why updating old content is an untapped gold mine to the mindset that keeps her steady through every algorithm change.

[00:00:44]   

And she got hit pretty hard for a lot of those HCU updates. This one is packed with gems. This might be the most encouraging episode of the year, hands down. If you are feeling overwhelmed or uninspired, press play and you might want to play it on repeat when you need it. This will be encouragement throughout the year.

[00:01:08]   

Elena’s energy will reignite your spark. I hope you love this episode. 

[00:01:15]   Intro

Hi food bloggers. I’m Megan Porta and this is Eat Blog Talk, your space for support, inspiration and strategies to grow your blog and your freedom. Whether that’s personal, personal, professional or financial, you are not alone on this journey. 

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Business growth is amazing, yes, but the personal connections you make along the way, that is the cherry on top. I asked Cheryl and Anya what their relationships inside the E Blog Talk Mastermind are really like.

[00:01:44]

It’s nice getting to know the women in the group. Nice being able to support them where I can help them, where I can encourage them, where I can just kind of on a personal level, I’m looking at the fact that it’s July already ready. I’m like, no, I’m not ready for this to almost be over connections you make.

[00:02:01]   

I mean, we’re talking about it as a business decision and as a business move, but you’re also making personal connections. And Megan talks about a lot how isolating blogging can be. And unless you do have a very robust community of other bloggers that you’re involved with or that you’re working with, it really is isolating.

[00:02:21]   

And sometimes you don’t really notice until you have a community where you can bounce ideas back and forth. We’re gelling even as the year goes on. Yeah, I’m already thinking like, oh no, I don’t want this to be over.

[00:02:33] 

Come for the strategy, stay for the friendships. Join us in the 2026 Eat Blog Talk mastermind and experience it yourself. Head to EatBlogTalk.com/mastermind to apply today. 

[00:02:47]

Welcome back to Eat Blog Talk. Elena, it’s been so long. I’m so grateful to have you back on the show. How have you been?

[00:02:54]  Elena Davis 

So good. Thanks for having me back. I can’t believe it’s come full circle. So much time, but here I am still.

[00:03:01]  Megan Porta 

I know. And so much has happened since we last talked in just in our space, right?

[00:03:08]  Elena Davis 

Yeah.

[00:03:08]  Megan Porta 

But it’s always good to see your face. And I think this is going to be an amazing chat. We’re just going to talk about your story, staying true to your brand, building, community growth, challenges, and everything in between. Before we get to all of that good stuff, do you have another fun fact to share with us?

[00:03:25]  Elena Davis 

I do. I don’t know if it’s fun. So I have been married for almost 20 years and we have moved 12 times. And I’m sharing that because I think that change can be good. And, you know, some of these changes have been for schooling and my husband’s medical journey or things that we have done, rental properties that we’ve had that we’ve lived in for a little bit and moved out.

[00:03:52]   

But I think that kind of going along with our topic and what we’ll be talking about today, you can either who likes moving? No one is the worst. But you can either kind of embrace it as something new and look forward to something in it, or you can literally just live in the dread of packing every box and moving every box and then unpacking it.

[00:04:19]   

And you felt like you’ve already done this, but here you are doing it again. And it just kind of reminded me of just some of the aspects of blogging, of sometimes you’re rinsing and repeating and sometimes you’re having to completely shift, like to a new house and you didn’t expect it. So my fun fact is I’ve moved a lot.

[00:04:37]   

And as you know, I’m an Italian food blogger. So even before those 11 moves, as we were married, I moved many times cross continents and country and. And all of these things. So embrace. Embrace change. And we’ll start with that by all the moves.

[00:04:53]  Megan Porta 

Oh, my gosh. But no, it is fun because it relates so much to what we’re. What is going on in our businesses right now. So I love how you tied that together. The underlying message, embrace change no matter what’s going on. And trust me, you will be happier right when you do this.

[00:05:11]  Elena Davis 

Yes. Lean in. Lean into it.

[00:05:13]  Megan Porta 

Yes. I love it. This ties in a little bit to our chat, but why don’t you give us just an overview of your amazing blog. By the way, I just looked at your blog. I haven’t looked in a while. I love the new fresh color. It’s like so. I don’t know, it’s so bright and inviting and it’s a color that I don’t often see on food blogs.It’s just so beautiful. I love it.

[00:05:36]  Elena Davis 

It’s very intentional, actually. So I’m glad you brought that up because I am going to use that as an example that a little bit about my blog. I started in 2020. I did not mean for this to become a business. I always say I accidentally started a food blog and I wish I would have started the right way because who knows, maybe I’d be further ahead, maybe not.

[00:06:00]   

But I just started sharing recipes. I am from Italy, born there, grew up living there every summer and I have done so my whole life. Even when living in the United States. In 2020, we couldn’t go back to Italy. So I was looking at my kids just crying, thinking, oh my gosh, what are we going to do?

[00:06:19]   

Well, people have always asked for my recipes. So I started putting them out online and just created a community really. And then started this blog on a WIX blog. I wish you could see the before and after. Right now as you’re sitting here looking at my blog, I wish you could see see what the WIX website was, but I was so proud of it.

[00:06:39]  Megan Porta 

Did you keep those?

[00:06:41]  Elena Davis 

I think I might have some somewhere which I could share with you.

[00:06:44]  Megan Porta 

Okay. Find them and send them to me.

[00:06:46]  Elena Davis 

Okay. So we could like put them in.

[00:06:48]  Megan Porta 

And we will put them on YouTube. We’ll do a little flash on YouTube because I love before and after pictures.

[00:06:55]  Elena Davis 

Let’s see if we can find those. So this is a little message to someone who’s just starting out. You’re already 100 steps ahead of me because there’s so much knowledge, even in the five years that I’ve been doing this now of how to start a blog, how to do it correctly, but it wasn’t my intention.

[00:07:09]   

So it’s kind of like I did it backwards and grew a community, you know, kind of authentically first and then and then started thinking, oh, people and are can actually do this and make money. And then I was like, okay. And I was teacher. I taught for 13 years. So this opportunity actually led me at a crossroads where I could choose.

[00:07:30]   

And it led me here. I chose here. And I am still a teacher at heart. And all I do that it led me here. So I share mainly Italian recipes. That is the Heart, Heart and Soul of Cucina by Elena. But I also have embraced American favorites, Mediterranean flavors. And we love Mexican cuisine, inspired cuisine.

[00:07:50]   

So I share a lot of that. But, yes, you’ll find Thanksgiving turkey, and you’ll find my nonna’s lasagna. So it’s kind of morphed into. Into a lot of things. And at first I was a little scared to start sharing more of the American recipes, like for my husband’s family and whatever, because I thought I had to stay so niched into, you know, my, my Italian.

[00:08:13]   

And some of my most popular recipes have now been the American ones. So it’s, you know, it’s.

[00:08:21]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:08:21]  Elena Davis 

Well, that’s a part of your. Right. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:08:24]  Megan Porta 

I love that. Yep. Okay. So you started in 2020. So you’ve seen a lot of changes since then. I mean, it’s like a totally different world. So talk about some of the changes you’ve seen in these couple.

[00:08:38]  Elena Davis 

So many. Right. The algorithm changes on Google are one which I was starting in 2023. It was like, Google is like, I am after Katina by Elena. Let’s knock her down at every update. Let’s see how much she can persevere. So it started in Q4 of 2023. Like, I was doing so good.

[00:09:03]   

Never seen so much growth. Just like, wow, just. Just kept growing, growing, growing. And a lot of that was like my authentic community. But then things on Google started to pick up as well. And then all of a sudden it was like, what happened? And just starting. I was like, probably in October, and that was when the first one hit.

[00:09:22]   

And then I don’t know, there was too many to count. Like, there was one in January that year, one in March, and then there was one the following year. And it just, I kept trying to do changes and a little bit it would help at each time, but it just didn’t really seem to overall help a lot.

[00:09:39]   

But I, I still. What I did was I, I did. I updated a lot of recipes. And then I can tell you something that I started doing recently in 2020, later 2024, that has made a huge difference. But part of the things I did was I never stopped updating. I know indexed when I needed to know index.

[00:09:58]   

I had a whole category which I actually talked about on here. The first time I was on this podcast, which was my stories. I had a section where I told these Sunday stories, Saturday stories. And I still. Yes. And I still kind of weave that into. You can see if you pull up a blog post, it’s just at the very beginning it says like, why you’ll love this family favorite.

[00:10:20]   

Or I add just a personal note that might be kind of against some SEO recommendations. I actually think it’s very helpful. My face is for better, for worse right there within that first scroll and you know it’s me there and you know a little bit about the recipe. So I updated some old recipes, but with those stories, they were part of my blog, but they are now no index, which means they are still there.

[00:10:46]   

But Google doesn’t crawl them because it’s not information that helps my blog, it’s personal information that is kind of fun to scroll through if you want to know stories about my life, which I used to write and I love. But Google doesn’t need to see those because they aren’t recipes, they aren’t SEO researched, they don’t have keywords.

[00:11:07]   

It’s just distracting to Google. They’re like, what is all of this? So noindex. Those did little things along the way that with each, with each update that would be helpful to a user. It is not helpful to a user to have a block of just links to different recipes. That just is literally a block which I used to do sometimes and just really add these cumbersome, lengthy links to other recipes.

[00:11:34]   

It’s very important to interlink. It’s important part of your blog’s ecosystem. But there are certain ways to do it that are so much better. So it’s just important, I think that you keep going. And that’s kind of what I did through all of those changes, like the algorithm changes, Instagram, same thing. Things change all the time.

[00:11:56]   

And you can either move with the times or you can be stuck, you know. And I’ve tried to just keep going and my community hasn’t given up on given up on me. And they have given me a lot of support through it all. And so that also keeps me going. And as you were mentioning about, I wanted to create an experience on my blog where you would remember it by the color, by the feeling, by the logo, by my face, by whatever it was, you would have a feeling on the other end and it would be very branded to who I am.

[00:12:40]   

And I think that is very important to create that. Because I’m not in your kitchen with you, I’m not cooking with you, I’m not holding your hand as much as I want to do cooking classes all the time, which I have a little bit let go of that part of my business as well to focus more on blogging.

[00:12:59]   

How are you going to create that experience for the reader on the other side, what will it be that you do for them? And it will look different for everyone.

[00:13:08]  Megan Porta 

Oh, gosh. That’s all so well said. And I think one of the things I remember about you and just know about your, your brand is that you’re super authentic. You, you have a community that appreciates your authenticity, not just with your recipes, but with just this environment that you create. And I think that is what people want right now.

[00:13:32]   

They want to feel invited into a brand or to a person, to your kitchen and to really feel cozy and important there. And I think you’ve done that so well. Do you, do you think that has served you through all of this? And also I’m very sorry that you got hit by those updates.

[00:13:53]   

I know that was really hard for a lot of people. Like, it almost makes me teary thinking about it. It’s, it was, it’s been really hard. So acknowledging that. But has that authenticity served you?

[00:14:07]  Elena Davis 

Yes. And it honestly, like I kind of see you get teary eyed and I as well, because it, there were times like it will really make me cry where I just thought, okay, done. Yeah, done. But I’ll tell you what. Algorithms change, platforms change. Community is your safety net. That is what makes blogging sustainable because it’s people making their recipes.

[00:14:41]   

That’s who we’re making. We don’t have robots yet that cook for us. Right. So that’s who we’re trying to reach. And I don’t think that you’ll ever regret in putting people first and creating that and building that. How do you do that? People ask me, how do you build a community? Like, I have a thousand followers.

[00:15:03]   

Like, this is so overwhelming. How do I do that? You know what? I did a lot at the, the beginning. You have to promote yourself in ways that make you uncomfortable. And sometimes that’s kind of what it takes. In this time, right now, you’re at the grocery store, you’re at a party, you’re wherever you are.

[00:15:27]   

What do you do? Don’t just tell them what you do. I’m a food blogger. This is my website. Be proud. This is what I offer. Like, you’re going to love it. Have you tried my cornbread? It is my mother in law’s recipe. People are obsessed with it this time of year, going into fall, whatever.

[00:15:45]   

You have to talk about yourself and that one person will then maybe reach 10 more people at some point and it just multiplies. So I listened to an interview with Tom Cruise about like, how did you become so famous and he said I was at my every single one of my premieres. I went to all over the world.

[00:16:07]   

And he just said I was there, I was promoting myself. And a lot of times we don’t think about that. We just sit in our, you know, kitchens and we’re just typing away or cooking away and we’re like, well, how people make this. Yeah. But they got to know about it. They got to know why it’s different.

[00:16:25]   

So wherever you can make a connection with someone, you’re getting your nails done. Wherever, whatever. Talk to one person each day about what you do at a kid’s school, at whatever. That’s just a little bit. And then, you know, social media, it’s a hard one because it changes as well, that it can really actually work in favor and work with your blog, which we’ll get to that.Also in our next talking point, I think.

[00:16:56]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:16:57]  Elena Davis 

Of how social and Google. Yeah.

[00:17:00]  Megan Porta 

I want to touch on what you said a little bit because I think this is such a hang up for so many of us and that is talking about ourselves and promoting what we do. And like everything that we create, we put so much heart and soul and passion into. Yet it feels so hard to talk about it.

[00:17:20]   

It’s like we’re. We feel safe putting it out, but promoting it is another thing. Do you have any. I guess, I mean, you’ve already given a lot of encouragement on it, but any tips for just how to get over that hurdle for people?

[00:17:35]  Elena Davis 

Start small. Start small. Do an Instagram story if you don’t want to be on a reel and share something unique about your day, about your life, about yourself, about a recipe. You don’t have to show your face every time, but show your kitchen. Show something that will make. Show something that will make others remember you.

[00:17:58]   

So whether you’re showing your same kitchen every day, you don’t want to show your face, that’s fine. Or you’re showing your face making something every day or it’s a certain place that you’re showing. You want these memories ingrained in people as part of your brand. Like the color that’s on my blog or my lemon icon with the blue.

[00:18:19]   

That’s the same as the blog. These are things that I’ve tried to intentionally create to create a memory. Think about your fondest memories of, like, grandparents or your childhood or something that is comfy and cozy to you. It can be a family member, it can be a friend, anything. Why do you remember that?

[00:18:39]   

Create that to give to others. And start small.

[00:18:43]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Wow. That’s yeah, really simple but very powerful. And that’s really can apply to anything. It can apply to social media, to YouTube, to video of any kind, to writing about yourself in a blog post. Just starting with one little thing that is maybe just a little bit uncomfortable and then that will grow as you.

[00:19:07]  Elena Davis 

Do it more and share that thing over and over and over again. Oprah said, your story isn’t remembered by sharing it one time, is remembered by sharing it a hundred times. So you think, does anybody really need to know that? I was born from. Born in Italy and grew up there. Again, does anybody really need to know that?

[00:19:29]   

But anytime I share something about my story, you know, you gain. You know, you have new followers all the time. Or somebody didn’t realize this about me and I’m like, wow, how did you not know? They don’t because it’s not like, you know, I’m not Taylor Swift where people are stalking every second of my life, you know, and so they’ll miss things.Reshare it. People don’t care. Just make it familiar.

[00:19:50]  Megan Porta 

How does social media play into your whole brand?

[00:19:55]  Elena Davis 

It is a big part of my brand. Many people are always surprised to say, like here, that I don’t mind being on camera. I’m not one of those that like has a fear of it, that it might not be my favorite thing, but I make myself do it. I do think that when you show up with your face or with a repeated background or something that is familiar, that does help you have a, again that memory piece on social media because there’s so there’s just billions of videos out there now that you have to find something that when someone’s scrolling it.

[00:20:37]   

Oh, that’s Megan’s. That’s Megan’s post. I already know I don’t even have to view the whole thing. I already know it’s hers based on whatever element it is that you have put in there. Social can be a very big traffic driver. Some people don’t want to hear that. They want to hear social doesn’t matter, you don’t have to do.

[00:21:00]   

Has made a big difference for me on multiple levels. And when I ignore it, I do see a difference. Now the majority of my traffic is Google and direct and. And then it’s kind of a tie between email and social. So it’s not like, you know, I lose all the money of the month or the day or whatever if I don’t share on social.

[00:21:23]   

But it, it is a huge boost. It’s a huge boost. Like email is a huge boost. It is not something that I would feel comfortable saying, oh, just ignore it. Only focus on your blog. Not now. Because I’m circling back to how we started this conversation of the human aspect, the community aspect.

[00:21:43]   

And then there’s one more thing that Google rolled out in July and I don’t know if many people know this. Your Instagram posts reels TikTok. It is now fed into the Google algorithm. Your reel can show up if you type in shrimp scampi recipe. And it used to be sort of a thing where that would randomly happen sometimes yes, sometimes no.

[00:22:14]   

Google is pulling from the SEO in Instagram. So if we want to dive into that a little bit more, I can share a few things that are helpful that you could be doing. So if you’re like, it’s such a waste. Well, here is a little bit of an incentive for you. If you’re like, ah, Google’s everything.

[00:22:38]   

Now that they are tied there is just think of as you’re writing a blog post and all the things you’ve learned in SEO ish is the same in Instagram. So make sure that if you’re shrimp scampi reel on Instagram. If you can do a voiceover and then do the captions, that is a bonus with the keywords.

[00:23:02]   

The other is the text in the caption. Make sure that kind of the first ish line has the actual recipe title name. Maybe don’t start off with like this. You know the story, at least within the first line. I would say kind of like your intro to your blog post. Right. You want to make sure that your H1 is then bolded in that first paragraph.

[00:23:27]   

So Google’s like, okay, double header. This is where she’s going with this whole thing, Right? Same thing in Instagram. You can also write on your reel like a. Like a text overlay optional. I’m not quite sure if that is part of. Well, I do think it is part of SEO. I don’t do it all the time because I don’t necessarily love how text looks on there, but sometimes I’ll do it like for the first time, six seconds.

[00:23:51]   

You know, shrimp scampi. I don’t know why I picked that today. I don’t. It’s not even a very popular recipe on my website, but I just felt in the mood. So we’re going with it. You could, yeah, have that in bold in there. So just as many times. And then, you know, people say hashtags don’t work.

[00:24:09]   

They don’t. Whatever. I would say stick to a few, like three or four. three maybe. And hashtag shrimp scampi. So you’re, you’re hitting all of the point. Just think of it as a blog post. All of the things you want to make sure. You know, say the recipe name a couple of times but don’t change it up a little, a little bit.

[00:24:29]   

Right. You don’t want to just say shrimp scampi. You know, then people are gonna know that there’s no purpose. So serve your user, but use those words in there as you are creating that reel or even a picture, photo carousel, post it would be have the same, have the same value.

[00:24:47]  Megan Porta 

Do you think that video is more important now than ever? So video in reels. Yes. But also YouTube videos and TikTok.

[00:24:56]  Elena Davis 

Yes. So I don’t do YouTube, should I? Probably. Yes, I should. So if I am advising any, anyone out there who’s thinking, should I do more video? The answer is yes. The answer is yes. Think of what you like to consume. You can do carousel. There is value in carousels. Do some, maybe not, maybe not all and just heavy on the video.

[00:25:27]   

It’s what people like to watch. What do you like to watch? I bet you just answered probably video. I don’t know.

[00:25:35]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, most likely. Yep. Yeah. I mean it is being served up in so many different formats from so many different platforms. So take the cue. But this goes back to our conversation about not promoting ourselves and being maybe a little bit timid about showing up in that way. So for a lot of people, this is a big hang up video.I hear it all the time. People say, I know I should be doing video, but it’s just too scary.

[00:26:04]  Elena Davis 

To do like that. They have to be in it because you don’t. Right? You don’t.

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[00:26:30]   Megan Porta

I think the idea is that, well, I have to be in front of the camera talking for an hour about my recipe.

But it doesn’t have to start like that. Like you said earlier, start with something really small. Start with your kitchen and do a voiceover and see how that feels.

[00:26:44]  Elena Davis 

Find something that they can remember and it doesn’t have to be your face. I’m okay. People don’t remember my face. I want to create an experience that makes them feel a certain way and makes them want to come back. Just like why you want to go to grandma’s house or whoever. Why you want to go to your best friend’s house because you have a feeling there and you want to go back.

[00:27:08]   

That’s what you want your blog to be like. At the end of the day, in these changing times, how else are they? How else are you going to get them back? And part of that is creating very good recipes, creating a pleasant experience, creating recipes that make people confident, you know, not recipes that turn out to be complete failures.

[00:27:25]   

I doubt anyone listening to this podcast is doing that. So I’m, you know, keeping it to the basic of keep them coming back for a purpose and find that purpose, and you will see growth. And it takes time. It takes time. So if you’re brand new, you will know, have to know. It takes time.

[00:27:44]   

If you’ve been doing this for longer than I have, you know that it takes time. You know you’ve had to pivot, you know you’ve had to change. But there is so much good in it. And I have seen it. I have been on the floor of my kitchen thinking, okay, I’m done. I think.

[00:27:59]   

I think after this one, I am just cannot get back up after. And then I just keep going. And I have seen a lot of improvement that I think if I had stopped, I would not be here today. Telling you to keep going because it’s worth it. It’s worth it for your readers.

[00:28:22]   

It’s worth it for the passion that. I know you started this blog with whoever you are listening on the other side. I know that you either had a reason that, you know, I don’t know what it is, but it’s there. And remember that. Let that keep you going because there is success on the other side.

[00:28:44]   

I can’t even tell you how grateful I am to be where I am right now. And it is worth it. And, you know, without sharing numbers, I’m just telling you, keep going.

[00:28:56]  Megan Porta 

Oh, that. I mean, mic dropped that we could end the episode right there. That was such a great little bit of encouragement that I think we all need hope. We all want hope right now and just that encouragement to keep going and not give up. So thank you, Elena. That was. It’s beautiful.

[00:29:15]   

I want to ask you about. You mentioned earlier that you started going through some of your older content when things got shaky with the HCU’s and the updates. What were your main focuses when you did that? How did you restructure, redo, refresh?

[00:29:35]  Elena Davis 

Yes. So I’ve done it kind of a lot of different ways, but I’ll just tell you the most recent where I have seen 30 or more percent growth now year over year as of last month and 20 some month over month from, from even from last month. And I got help from Casey Markey, who knows I’m mentioning him on this podcast.

[00:30:03]   

And I think he books out for a while, I think October. But listen, he really, really helped me structure my blog, my old blog posts in a way that I think are the most current, the most competitive, the most up to date that you can have in this environment. Right now there are.

[00:30:28]   

Every blog is so different that I can’t kind of, I can say what I did, I have taken out. I’ve been very intentional with my interlinking. I will say that interlinking is an ecosystem that lives. This is kind of what I call it. And you’re on the web and Google is very good at reading kind of how these links go together.

[00:30:54]   

And it’s a very powerful tool if you’re using it the right way. And it can also be a very terrible thing if you’re doing it the wrong way, like I did for a long time. Again, I did not start blogging by taking courses and having, you know, all the resources of doing of a template.

[00:31:16]   

No, my template was writing my whole story and then putting a recipe at the end. Don’t do that which you already know. Other things, no indexing things that needed to be. No indexed and coming back to them later, focusing on your top 10 to 20 dropped post year over year and diving deep into those and bringing them up.

[00:31:38]   

Now one thing to mention with that, because of AI overviews and how things have changed, there are some recipes on my website that were extremely viral. I mean bringing in a lot of revenue for me that lost traffic kind of overnight with some of these updates and I have updated those and they have come back to life.

[00:32:02]   

Now the life that they have come back to is not the life that they died on. Let me explain that. That traffic is no longer available. It is not there. It does not exist because of either the kind of content it was or because now how AI overviews has changed that particular keyword.

[00:32:25]   

So some posts you should and can change. But it is important that you realize some posts will come back to life in a much more refreshed way. But a lot of it, you will not gain that viral traffic or whatever that you had when you, when you lost it. Okay, it could, it could go both ways, but that’s an important thing.

[00:32:47]   

That is a good reminder, however, updating a substantial amount of posts and having them gain traction again and being in the photo snippets at the top and anything that you can do to get visibility is absolutely worth it. Why is it worth updating old content? I took a little break from. I always create new, new content.

[00:33:07]   

I haven’t stopped there. I balanced it a little more with really heavily focusing on old content is. It’s already alive, it’s already been indexed, Google already knows it. And then it gets this boost and almost like okay, it’s, it’s just so much more easy. It requires less time for it to bring you benefits.

[00:33:27]   

It’s just better like return on investment of your time, if you will. Right. So that is one huge thing. And then there was just a lot of other things that with time clog up your blog, for lack of better words, that you can’t even see. So having somebody that can see those things is and is an expert at it and gives you a lot of resources for how.

[00:33:56]   

And I have a few people that help me with it that I’ve not like people that work for me that just kind of some temporary help to help with some of these things on this task list that have been very helpful and you may or may not be able, in a situation where you are able to do that and then tell, tell that to whoever is, is helping you maybe do an audit like Casey, hey, like I don’t have resources or I do have resources, so who, who can I pay to help me do these tasks that I don’t need to do or I can’t pay someone, so what should I focus on the most?

[00:34:33]   

Right. And if you are a new blogger of less than one or you know, two, two years, this may not apply to you because it, it is not enough time yet you people want to give up after a year. It’s not enough time that it’s just simply not enough time for Google to know who you are.

[00:34:51]   

You have to keep going. So if you’re in that less than two year, even the three year, you are at a point where you have to create systems and make sure that they’re working. Like maybe you can ask someone for a little mini on it. Like hey, is everything I’m doing right? Yes, it just needs time.

[00:35:08]   

Okay, then keep going. So those are some kind of different avenues that I would, that I would.

[00:35:12]  Megan Porta 

Say I heard someone say this the other day how when you plant something, you put a seed in the ground and you don’t sit there and get impatient because it’s not growing yet, you give it the time it needs to grow. Right. You don’t rush a flower into bloom. And it’s the same thing with food blogging.

[00:35:31]   

I think now the germination period is longer than it used to be. So just knowing that and being able to patiently sit with the process and watch it evolve and not asking yourself, why isn’t this working? Why? How can I brush it more? It’s just not possible. And I love that you touched on that.

[00:35:52]  Elena Davis 

Yeah. And another thing that I will add to that is that with time goes by, there’ll be weeds that come in your garden. Right. So you’re growing these tomato plants and you’re be careful of the weeds and always be mindful of what are the things that you may or may not know that you need to be fixing.

[00:36:12]   

Because times are changing always. So right now it’s the craze on AI and these AI overviews and how. And I can talk more about what I’m doing specifically to go in that direction, but when I started this, there was always SEO. When you started blogging, Megan, you’ve been doing this for a lot longer than I have.

[00:36:33]   

You have a lot more expertise and knowledge on everything that I’m even talking about. There wasn’t even SEO. So things are just know that the weeds will always come. They’re just gonna be different. We’ve gotta pull them out. We’ve gotta go with the season and keep up with the time going back to moving.

[00:36:48]   

You can sit there and cry with the boxes, or you can just pack them and go. And. And that’s just. It’s just how it is. And it’s. It’s not. We think, oh, blogging’s like this. It’s every job, it’s every industry. It’s education. I was in education for 13 years. You adapt a new curriculum and the next year they get rid of it and you.

[00:37:07]   

They’ve spent. Spent millions of dollars on it and training teachers for it. Now it’s gone. Now I have to learn a new one. So it’s, you know, we like to. I, you know, I think sometimes in the blogging community, it’s like, well, it’s just. What we do is different. It’s like nothing changes like this every.

[00:37:24]  Megan Porta 

Every year. It’s.

[00:37:26]  Elena Davis 

Don’t think like, oh, I’m gonna go back to whatever. It’s. There’s not gonna be as much change.

[00:37:31]  Megan Porta 

Right? No, yeah, exactly. No, I love that point. It’s a good reminder for all of us. You mentioned AI overviews. What are you with that?

[00:37:41]  Elena Davis 

Okay, this is something that is very personal. Because there are many views on this. So I don’t. I want everyone to take this with the grain of salt and just realize this is what I’m doing. But it doesn’t mean like, oh, go change everything and do this right now. Because this is kind of an experiment that I am doing.

[00:37:58]   

If you look at my blog post, it could. I think it’s just any of the newer ones that I’ve updated. Like, if you scroll down, there should be some. I’m trying to think there’s. There’s literally so many that we just updated how to store pizza in the fridge, I think has it. I do a little recipe overview and it just kind of breaks the recipe down that.

[00:38:19]   

That one actually might not have it. Have it. The Zupa Toscana might have it. But if you go on there. And this is something that I am doing in updates, but now I will be doing probably in posts, going in, new post going that I am writing and post going forward. Just a little recipe overview that I put at the top that has some very simple information that is very friendly for.

[00:38:40]   

This is another controversial thing that AI bots can pull from. I don’t block AI bots on my website. My ad provider, I know that they have a different stance on this and I think everyone’s trying to protect everyone and, and I understand, and I understand it, but I am kind of going this way.

[00:39:01]   

I’m leaning into it. I am leaning into AI because I believe that it is the future. So I am going to say I would like to be featured in your AI snippets because now Google is very good about quote, about linking, quoting credit, giving credit to where the information is coming from. When they first started doing these AI overviews, it was literally just copying and pasting and taking recipes and putting them on there.

[00:39:28]   

That was a huge. No, no. That is literally stealing our content and putting it up on there. And now I even have little buttons that say save to chatgpt Gork I think is what the other one is. AI whatever. Because everyone has. Most everyone has a chat GPT account or similar, whatever platform you’re on and it knows who you are, it remembers you, and you can actually save stuff on it.

[00:39:57]   

Kind of like an email. I’m just to kind of get in perspective here. Kind of like at the bottom of my recipe post, I always have like saved to your email, right? Because people want the recipe emailed to them and that way they can remember it. And it’s a really great thing and tons of my users use it.

[00:40:11]   

And love it. Well, now you can do that to your AI accounts, whether it be ChatGPT or whatever. You can just. I have little buttons that say you can save it to your, to your account. It is my recipe, my website. It will take you there, but maybe it can condense some information for you or whatever. I know this is a little bit controversial. So it’s.

[00:40:33]  Megan Porta 

It is.

[00:40:35]  Elena Davis 

I personally, what I’m doing is I would. I think AI is another chapter. I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I think it is just going to grow bigger. And this is a way that I am trying to incorporate the changing times into what I offer. And I, I am not signing up for AI to steal my content.

[00:40:57]   

I am not signing up for any of that. I’m just making things maybe just a little more friendly for, for, for the times and for what’s going on. And I have seen some benefits of that.

[00:41:11]  Megan Porta 

So you’re not sitting on the floor crying about moving again. You are, you are moving those boxes and you are embracing the move. This is the theme.

[00:41:23]  Elena Davis 

We might need to pivot. You know, we might need to pivot. Another thing I’ve done is change the orientation of my top two photos to see if that is more friendly for Google Discover. Because it. It is.

[00:41:37]  Megan Porta 

I’ve heard that it is this. Yes.

[00:41:40]  Elena Davis 

So I, so that’s another thing is there’s actually not too much data. It’s not like, oh, my revenue went up by 30% because now everything’s going on Google Discover. There’s not such data yet, but there is enough that may say, hmm, I’m really curious about this. So when I’m updating old posts and doing the photos.

[00:41:59]   

So sometimes I update posts and the photos are so good and I’m like, not my time and resource, not worth my time and resource to update the photos that are actually really great. But we’re just going to update all the writing. So with those, yeah, I’m not updating. If I’m updating a post that is so terrible, the writing is terrible.

[00:42:18]   

The photos are garbage. iPhone photos or whatever it was from like my first year, then I will make sure that I change orientation with all new recipes. I’m. I am doing that and again, I am excited to see where that goes. I just started this about a month ago, so I personally don’t have a lot of data to share about it, but I do have a good feeling about it.

[00:42:40]   

And you know what? I. This is something that I do. I test things with my family, friends, community, anyone. So I just pulled people and I said, scroll through this blog post, scroll through that one. Which one is easier? Which one do you like more? In the first two scrolls, nine out of 10 times of the people and there was, I did a lot more people than that, but it was overall, they liked the horizontal photos at the top.

[00:43:12]  Megan Porta 

Interesting.

[00:43:12]  Elena Davis 

I personally don’t because I love a big photo.

[00:43:16]  Megan Porta 

I know.

[00:43:17]  Elena Davis 

I love my photos. They’re so beautiful and I want them everywhere and I want a hundred of them. That was another thing. It was like, wow, you have so many photos. Stop. I know, they’re so pretty, no one cares.

[00:43:30]  Megan Porta 

I know.

[00:43:30]  Elena Davis 

I want a few very delicious looking photos, but you just. There’s some things again that those weeds, you just gotta let them go. So yeah, I had to take a lot of photos out of a lot of blog posts that were just very photo heavy. Recipe which worked in 2023 and it wasn’t such a big deal.

[00:43:47]   

You just can’t get away with some of that stuff right now. So make sure it’s clean, make sure it’s scrollable, make sure they can get to the recipe quick and guess what is back. Make sure that your personal touch is in there at the top. Make sure that there’s a human element to it, which I think is important.

[00:44:03]  Megan Porta 

Wow, you’ve given us a lot to think about, little fun tidbits and also overarching themes. I do want to ask you one last thing and that is do you have any advice or encouragement for people who like you were just maybe hit by updates and algorithm changes and feel like they’re just done?

[00:44:24]   

Do you have logistical tips or mindset encouragement? Anything that comes to your mind a.

[00:44:31]  Elena Davis 

Little bit would be. I actually wrote this one down. Google updates can feel overwhelming. Big time. Like you’re on the floor overwhelming. I’ve learned recently to lean into technical SEO and user friendly content to weather the storms of these changes. So I think right now if you have to pick a focus on your blog where how can I pick back up?

[00:45:00]   

I would pick those two things, the technical aspects of SEO and if you are very uncomfortable with that, I would say find someone who can help. Find someone who can help you because that is making or breaking your blog right now, probably guaranteed. And the second is never stop creating for your user.

[00:45:22]   

Your why did you start? Who did you start for? Who has made your recipes? There’s got to be one person. If you’re listening to this podcast, what did they say about it? What did they love about it? Keep creating for them. Go back and Read comments that people have written you, even if it’s your family, even if it’s your mom.

[00:45:43]   

Go back and read comments of what people are loving and let that push you forward. It has to me so many times I’ll receive emails and comments and DMs and whatever and I’m like, like, wow, I sure needed that today. And then share it. Share it with your community. Look at what somebody said that’ll motivate them to share.

[00:46:04]   

Oh, I didn’t think I, I could tell her that. How all the things that I’ve made and that I love. Well, now somebody else is sharing with you. Share that. It’s a domino effect. People, people love, people love to talk about themselves. They want to share, they want to be featured.

[00:46:21]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. I noticed in one of the blog posts that I was looking at of yours that you have a beautiful call out to just that people talking about your food and your recipes. And I think that’s amazing. Just to show other people what others are thinking and saying and feeling and tasting about your recipes. That’s something all of us could do for every recipe.

[00:46:46]  Elena Davis 

Yes. And if you’re sending emails, do it in your email. I do that all the time. Here is a comment with a 5 star review with a picture of their recipe that somebody loved this week. And it’s just a heartfelt comment. Who doesn’t love reading that? Wow. This person felt that way. I want to make that.

[00:47:04]   

It’s like that effect of like the buyer approval kind of a thing, you know, share, share what people are, are saying that are good about you. And don’t, don’t be afraid to share.

[00:47:13]  Megan Porta 

That you could even get. I just, this just came to me. You could even get those from Pinterest. People share my.

[00:47:20]  Elena Davis 

Yes.

[00:47:21]  Megan Porta 

Their versions of my recipes on Pinterest all the time. I go on, I’m always shocked when I go on to see that they’ve not only made the recipe, they’ve gone to my website, made the recipe, but then they take a picture of it and post it to you. To Pinterest, I’m like, what?

[00:47:37]  Elena Davis 

This is crazy. Yeah. Yes. And I totally forgot to talk about Pinterest. That is another huge avenue.

[00:47:44]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:47:45]  Elena Davis 

Let’s not forget Pinterest. It’s still alive. I don’t care what people are saying. I see it on my dashboard. It is still bringing in dollars.

[00:47:51]  Megan Porta 

Yes.

[00:47:53]  Elena Davis 

Yeah, yeah. So Pinterest. Email, email, email, email. I would just also email start. If you’re starting small with something and you don’t want to do a video. Email. Email is so personal. When somebody lets you in that inbox, don’t let them go. That’s huge. That’s huge.

[00:48:12]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Email is a big one these days, and I’m always an advocate for Pinterest. Don’t. Don’t. You’re a food blogger. Food blogger should never, ever lose hope on Pinterest. It’s. It’s the perfect platform for us.

[00:48:27]  Elena Davis 

It’s. Yes.

[00:48:28]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. It’s made for us.

[00:48:30]  Elena Davis 

Agreed.

[00:48:31]  Megan Porta 

Yes. Oh, gosh. I mean, I could go on a lot of soapboxes. You’ve given so much, Elena. This is going to be such a valuable episode. So thank you for all of this. I mean, you just very willingly shared what’s working, what some of your challenges were, what you’re leaning into, some experimentation that you’re doing.

[00:48:52]   

Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate you so much.

[00:48:54]  Elena Davis 

You’re so welcome. I’m really giving you a big hug right now. Listening on the other end. I hope you contact me. You can email me. DMS are kind of a hit or miss. Some days it’s, like, flooded and they, like, hide. I don’t know how it all works out, even if there’s different tabs.

[00:49:09]   

So email me. I’m literally sending you a big hug. It’s just. Just. It’s hard, but I know it’s worth it to keep going. If it’s in your heart and you started to, you know, for the right reason, I know that it’s worth it. So it just. And never stop educating yourself as an educator.

[00:49:24]   

You know, listen to, like, you’re listening to this podcast. There’s other ones. There’s so many resources now. So just delve into. Delve into learning about how to better whatever it is that you’re struggling with. I don’t know how to do video. There’s so much info out there right now that can help or whatever. So, yeah, you can do it. Like, seriously, you can. If I did, trust me, if I did, you can.

[00:49:49]  Megan Porta 

I don’t know that there’s another episode with so much delightful encouragement. I hope that people re listen to this when they need a burst of hope and encouragement. Come back to it if you need it. Elena said everything so beautifully. So we’ll put together a show notes page for you if you are listening and you want to go look at everything we’ve talked about.

[00:50:10]   

You can find those at eatblogtalk.com/CucinabyElena that’s E E L E N A. I love your name, by the way. It’s so beautiful. Yeah. And Elena already mentioned where you can find her if you want to reach out. That was very generous. Thank you again for all of your time today and thank you for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time.

[00:50:33] Outro   

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. This episode was brought to you by the Eat Blog Talk mastermind, where bloggers come together to break through barriers and accelerate growth. Learn more at eatblogtalk.com/mastermind. I will see you next time.