We cover information about how to analyze your content and niche down to get more traction, why it’s worth investing in video, even if it’s not perfect, and ways to build a strong community.
Listen on the player in this post or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.
Write Blog Posts that Rank on Google’s 1st Page
RankIQ is an AI-powered SEO tool built just for bloggers. It tells you what to put inside your post and title, so you can write perfectly optimized content in half the time. RankIQ contains a hand-picked library with the lowest competition, high traffic keywords for every niche.
Laura Arnold is a New York City-based Emmy-Nominated Culinary Television Producer, Cookbook Consultant, and award-winning Content Creator with over a decade of experience. She currently is the Supervising Culinary Producer for Food Network’s The Kitchen, and has worked previously at ABC’s The Chew, DotDash Meredith, Good Housekeeping, Food52, kitchn.com, and with many more brands.
After learning about SEO through several food clients and brands over the past several years, she kept hearing from clients that they wished a food media expert had an SEO consultancy. She then founded Dang Good Digital, her own SEO consulting business specifically for food creators and bloggers to help them grow their brands, sites, and social media exposure.
Laura’s key words of wisdom with her clients are to always ask the question “Why?” and to understand that in this modern digital era, diversification of content most important: “Diversify or go broke!”
Takeaways
- Niche down your content: Analyze your past year’s performance to identify your content strengths and focus on building out those areas.
- Experiment with content pillars: Try increasing content in your top-performing areas, like salads, while maintaining a balance of other recipe types.
- Research keywords strategically: For newer bloggers, look for high-volume, low-competition keywords to target and build content around.
- Adjust your publishing cadence: Aim for 5 new posts and 12 post updates per month, adjusting as needed based on your blog’s size and goals.
- Write with a conversational tone: Incorporate trigger words and a more personal approach when writing blog post introductions and meta descriptions.
- Embrace video content: Experiment with creating simple video content to accompany your blog posts, even using a smartphone.
- Build a community presence: Invest time in building a community on 2-3 platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook.
- Expect SEO changes: Stay adaptable as search algorithms and AI continue to evolve, focusing on creating high-quality content.
- Understand domain authority: While it’s important, don’t let a low domain authority discourage you, as newer bloggers can still achieve success.
Resources Mentioned
Transcript
Click for full script.
EBT641 – Laura Arnold
Intro 00:00
Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported.
Supercut 00:37
You are going to want to download our bonus supercut that gives you all the information you need to grow your Instagram account. Go to eatblogtalk.com/Instagrowth to download today.
Megan Porta 00:52
I know you want the juicy scoop about SEO as we go into 2025. Laura Arnold from Dang Good Digital joins me in this episode to give you all the details about the things you need to know about SEO as we go into this new year, she talks about the fact that we need to be thinking about niching down, analyzing our content, seeing what worked in the past year and considering niching down a little bit if needed. She also talks about the fact that low competition keywords are not dead. Keep using that strategy. A couple other things she highlights in the episode are you need to be doing video, whether you’d like to hear it or not, and community should be a huge focus for you in 2025. There are so many good nuggets in this episode. You are going to absolutely love it. It is episode number 641.
Sponsor 01:51
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Megan Porta 02:34
Laura Arnold is a New York City-based Emmy-Nominated Culinary Television Producer, Cookbook Consultant, and award-winning Content Creator with over a decade of experience. She currently is the Supervising Culinary Producer for Food Network’s The Kitchen, and has worked previously at ABC’s The Chew, DotDash Meredith, Good Housekeeping, Food52, kitchn.com, and with many more brands.
Megan Porta 03:00
Laura, welcome back to the podcast. How are you on this lovely New Year’s Eve day?
Laura Arnold 03:05
Hi, Megan. I’m great Happy New Year’s very excited to be here talk about everything for the new year and see what goals we want to make on this call. Yes,
Megan Porta 03:16
thank you for being our voice of SEO for the new year. I always like to have some sort of SEO expert on to start the new year, just so people know what to have in their minds as they go into a new year. Things are always changing, as you know, so it’s good to keep certain things top of mind before we get into that. Do you have another fun fact to share with us? I
Laura Arnold 03:37
was trying to think of a new one for this call. A lot of people don’t know this about me, but in college, my school was really into study abroad. Almost every student did it as part of their curriculum, and I went to East Africa for four months and lived in a cabin and studied animals because I was a biology major, and it was probably the most life changing experience I’ve ever had.
Megan Porta 04:01
Oh my gosh. So four solid months, and where in Africa was that?
Laura Arnold 04:06
Half the program was in Tanzania and half the program was in Kenya, and, you ever have the opportunity and jump on it, because it was absolutely incredible.
Megan Porta 04:17
That sounds so life changing. I was in Uganda for, let’s see, I don’t know, three weeks a couple years ago. It was right before COVID, so I think it was 2019, but, yeah, life changing. I will never forget that experience. I can’t imagine being there for four months. I’m sure that was just incredible.
Laura Arnold 04:34
It was so cool. But, you know, one day I’ll go back. Can’t wait.
Megan Porta 04:39
Oh, do you have people you stay in touch with there?
Laura Arnold 04:41
Yes, a handful of friends. It was a tight knit group of about 30 people, and they we had local teachers, which was amazing, so they knew everything about the country and where to go, what to see. So it’s truly amazing. Oh,
Megan Porta 04:56
incredible. Love knowing that about you. Well, let’s get into SEO. So we are barely into 2025 when this episode is published, it’ll be a couple weeks into 2025 I’m trying to reserve it for one of the first episodes of the year. So I don’t know, SEO just seems like a point of contention, like food bloggers are afraid to even talk about it anymore. Like, I don’t want to, I don’t even want to think about keywords or doing research or whatever, like, I just want it off my radar. But we do have to think about it because it’s a really important part of our businesses still, do you agree with that?
Laura Arnold 05:35
I totally agree SEO is not dead. I know that’s all over social media right now and all over online, but I can truly speak to it. It’s so growing. It’s evolving daily. I think that’s what’s the most intimidating thing about it. And you know, as a site owner, as a food blogger, creator, whatever you may be, we all just want a format, and we want to be able to follow that format. And unfortunately, we’re now in the day and age of we don’t know what’s coming next week, next month, three months down the road, but I have a bunch of tips to give everybody to make sure they feel calm about SEO. I can speak to that my clients and just briefly starting to review their q4 analytics have done like the best they’ve ever done since the pandemic. Wow, so many of them, and they are thrilled. So great. The strategies are still working. So everybody needs to stay positive still, and it’ll be great.
Megan Porta 06:37
I know I hear this kind of floating around all the time that newer bloggers can’t make it in the land of SEO. But I was just talking to a newer blogger the other day who I think her site is only just over a year old, and she is getting Google traffic. She is getting keywords that are ranking on Google, and it’s because her niche is so niche, it’s like she’s super, super niche down. So what do you think about that, whether you’re a newer blogger or a more established blogger, do you have to really focus on the niche right now?
Laura Arnold 07:13
Yes, I think that was the first thing I was going to touch on. And what is so important in early January, it’s the best time to start looking at what happened in Q4 your overall themes and what your site is about, even talk to your friend, your family about it, and niche down and understand what your strengths are in Google’s eyes, as well as your followers eyes, your community’s eyes, and what’s really being picked up by the web and lean into it and see what happens. And for a lot of sites, that’s where we’re seeing success the most. So if it’s cookies, if it’s casseroles, if it’s grilling, if it’s 30 minute meals, there’s probably some themes in the analytics that you can see month over month. And analytics is free. That’s the beauty of it. So just go in and spend a day and even have a friends look at it who doesn’t know anything about your site, whether they’re in blogging or not. Because oftentimes people who aren’t even in the industry can easily look and say, Well, I think it looks like you’re good at this. And see what, see what they pick up on.
Megan Porta 08:23
Do you recommend looking at, say, the past year, what Google has seen you as an expert in over 12 months or longer or shorter?
Laura Arnold 08:34
I would go quarter by quarter over the last year and kind of see what happened, especially because we had some major updates last year, which I think were shocking to a lot of people. It helped some people. It really hurt. Some people still trying to figure them out. So I think the last year is a great place to start, especially with, you know, the development of AI being more and more in Google search platform, and how that’s affecting everything as well. So I usually go in every quarter and kind of see how it’s shaping up, what’s performed well, what hasn’t, and kind of just readjust my content month by month for my clients, because once again, I like to hit home too. I know a lot of bloggers, and this may be a pain point. Like to plan their content six months a year in advance, I strongly discourage that, just because, as we keep saying, SEO is changing every day, what you’re ranking for, what’s current, what’s trending, it all plays into the online Google game. So we need to make sure we’re planning more timely content. Two months out is great. That’s still early enough. Even three months out is fine. A month in advance is fine. I’m finding that too, which is insane. That’s how quick Google can really pick up on things.
Megan Porta 09:49
Well, that’s good news for me, because I have never been one of those people who plan six months I know people who plan like 12 months out. Yes, that to me, that is. Just mind blowing. Like, how do you do that? But I leaned into intuition with this lately too. Like, it’s not healthy for your blog to plan that far these days, so I’m glad that aligns with what you’re saying. Yeah,
Laura Arnold 10:12
You wanna still ebb and flow with the current food trends out there, which is so important. Like last year we saw dill pickles come to rise. We saw cottage cheese come to rise. Well, you want to make sure you have room for that. If that fits into your content, niche things like that. So.
Megan Porta 10:28
So what if somebody has a more established blog and it’s kind of generally themed, like I do, like dinners and desserts and salads or whatever, and they look at Google Analytics and see that salads are the reason people are coming to them. They have, like, I don’t know, seven of their top 10 or recipes in the past year, salads. How do you go about that? Do you get rid of your other content? Do you keep it there? Do you just start producing more salad content? What’s a strategy for that?
Laura Arnold 11:02
I generally like to then start experimenting and leaning into salads, but don’t do all salads because, you know, we still want to create revenue and keep things not too scary and taking large risks at any one time. So I usually like to say, say you’re doing 10 new recipes a month, eight new recipes a month, maybe make a third of those salads, and then keep the other two thirds stuff that you know you can rely on, and things your community would still like, or Google knows you by and then just kind of grow that. If it’s doing well month after month, it could end up being half your content ends up being salads over time. I don’t think at the beginning there’s no reason to delete posts. It’s just starting to experiment down your content niche and understanding what might do well in different seasons, and with something like salads, you then really need to look at seasonality, when that post is going to go live, because it does wonders for the search engine, but it really, really does.
Megan Porta 12:03
Okay, so that would be the salad would be considered a content pillar, right? And that would be something to just round out Yeah, and to create a plan around, Yes, yep, okay, exactly. And then would you recommend changing your about page, so including more, like, I’m an expert in salads, and I don’t know, like making sure that people know that you are an established salad maker in your about page.
Laura Arnold 12:35
Yes. I mean, once, if it starts really trending, which is great, I definitely would alter your about page. But, you know, say you’re an expert in salads. But then if you still have all your general content, just say I’m an expert at home cooked meals, family friendly options, weeknight meal prep, all those trigger words that we yeah, we love so much.
Megan Porta 12:54
okay, and then for newer bloggers, let’s say they’re a year in or so or less and are just not getting any Google traction. Do you recommend just trying to niche down a little bit based on what is rising to the top in analytics?
Laura Arnold 13:11
Yes, I would first do that and see kind of what’s going on the past handful of months. If you’re still really not seeing any trends like it’s just all over the board, I would just start trying to look at your keywords. And I know this is very controversial right now, but I’ve been using it with my clients who have newer blogs, and we’re getting success and trying to figure out what their niche is going to be in their content. So we’re looking for high volume, low competition keywords. Once again, the competition score is something to look at, but not it’s not a rule by any means. Yeah, but you’re just wanting to try to find new recipes, because there’s a gazillion out there, and there’s more every day that are new. Nothing’s too old to do and trying to find your niche within that topic, whether it’s through a long tail keyword or something that just does it’s newer to the market, like dill pickle, tuna salad or something. And seeing if that is a high volume low competition and seeing if you can get ranking quickly with the right post, writing, photos, etc.
Megan Porta 14:18
Okay, so, so if you find one of those high volume, low competition keywords that ranks quickly, then do you carry with that theme like, Okay, this worked. So I’m gonna run with the tuna salad or the dill pickle or something. Yes, hidden in there. Okay.
Laura Arnold 14:34
So I would start trying to kind of develop out your site and your categories, which I call content pillars to make sure you have just an organized site to begin with that’s SEO user friendly, and you’re finding topics that are ranking okay. And I see that every month with new recipe ideas my clients, I don’t let them do fluff anymore. It is every recipe is chosen for a reason so, and we’re seeing them most of the. Time for a majority of the recipes ranking very well, very quickly. So okay,
Megan Porta 15:04
do your clients have a magic number of new posts they publish weekly, or does it just depend on the publisher?
Laura Arnold 15:12
It depends on the publisher. I don’t like to make a total rule out of it. I think I said on our last talk, my general kind of guess when I tell people is I love 10 new pieces of content, 10 new recipes and 10 post updates. It sounds like a ton, but it’s showing Google that you’re really active on your site and publishing new current content all the time, which is a great SEO goal to always have. Some of them can do that. Some of them can’t. So if it’s five, that’s great. If it’s eight, depending on the month, what’s going on, just to try to see what they can do. And I’ve seen success with all different numbers.
Megan Porta 15:54
So did you say 10 new and 10 updates? Or were you saying 10? Oh, wow, that is a lot, a lot. Yeah, that feels like a huge stretch.
Laura Arnold 16:04
Overwhelming. Most of my clients, I say, Let’s aim for like five new posts, yeah, and see how that goes, and especially depending on what size their blog is. So it’s a larger blog, maybe we just want to dive into more updates and do 12 updates or something, and four new posts, just to kind of see how the strategy is going to work. So every every site is a little different, just depending on what you need to do. And usually, you know, as the site owner, if you feel like your content super outdated, you never have time to do an update. Well, we should probably focus on some updates, okay, for the time being, rather than just delete pages for no reason.
Megan Porta 16:44
so that’s kind of where I’m at. My site’s pretty old. It’s 14 and a half years old. That feels crazy, but I have just felt like I need to focus on updating. I have so much content that doesn’t get any traction. It’s just sitting there, but it’s like, really good stuff, really good recipe. So if I can find a keyword that fits and that’s high volume, low competition, I will redo it. So since September, I’ve been doing between 10 and 12 updates a month, which has been a lot, but it’s been doable. And then I’ve been doing four new so I’m definitely leaning toward the heavy on the update and more lean on the new. But yeah, like you said, it can vary depending on the individual it’s gonna every site’s gonna have a different requirement, I think.
Laura Arnold 17:33
yeah, and the updates do wonders as well. It just depends on what you’re updating. And you can even tweak the recipe a little if it’s 10 years old, and I have been doing that. Yeah, if you need it to fit the keyword, there’s nothing stopping you from tweaking that recipe, making it more current, a better version of it. Google loves that as well as your readers. So yes, maybe some new images. I mean, it’s basically a new post that hopefully takes about half the time, maybe even a third, if you’re lucky.
Megan Porta 18:04
Exactly, yeah, it’s kind of felt like a dream, like, wow, this is all kind of new content, but it’s not. It’s old content, but it’s been working, and some of those recipes have really risen in ranking, too. I’ve been keeping an eye on it. So you mentioned no fluff, so no more fluff. Choose keywords intentionally. Is that? Does that same rule apply to writing? So just getting right to the point when you’re writing.
Laura Arnold 18:31
Yes, my next unbelievably important point is all about writing your blog posts in this day and age, and what we should be doing, what we shouldn’t be doing. So, you know, back in the original days of blogging, it was all about telling the story, the three page story, finding a story for everything. Then it turned into the opposite, which was almost like robotic writing with just keyword stuffing like crazy. And now we’re kind of in the middle of that and learning how to master a personal touch with the SEO requirements that are going to get us to rank, then many everyone’s confused, which is understandable, and it’s kind of tough to figure out, and it takes a lot of practice, but my biggest tips of advice for just writing posts is, how are you selling this recipe? And that needs to be in your meta description. So I call that meta description the top of the post for newer bloggers, more people that need a refresh. So I say it can be two to three sentences, and then obviously you then shorten that to put into your Yoast meta down at the bottom of the post. But in this meta, we need what I like to call our trigger words. So 30 minute meal, seven ingredient recipe, meal prep with ease. Weeknight supper, all of these, all of these terms. And when I have a new client and they’re trying to figure out how to do this, I have them do an exercise where I just say. Okay, for 10 minutes, I want you to just open a Word document and write down every sort of trigger word that you can come back to as your dictionary in the future and a reminder, because we all want to go back to this fluffy, fluffy biscuit with a great, creamy Herbie butter and like all of this stuff, which I hate to say it. That’s why the reader is coming in the first place, is for that exact recipe, and they see it in your photo. And yes, we can still describe in a great way, but also add in those more trigger words to kind of sell the recipe as if you’re talking to your friends like, oh my god, I made this great chocolate chip cookie. I didn’t have to refrigerate the dough. It only took me 10 minutes. I had them ready for my party in under an hour. Like this is amazing, and that’s the mentality we want to start getting into when writing.
Megan Porta 20:53
I love that. That’s a good perspective to get into when you’re thinking of those couple of sentences to put at the top. How would you describe this to a group of friends if you were sitting around and they’re like, Okay, why? Why should I make this cookie recipe to bring to the baby shower or whatever? Well, here’s why, and then, yeah, all of those important things come out that keep people scrolling so they keep reading and actually make your recipe. I love that. I’m gonna try that.
Laura Arnold 21:23
Yeah, it’s we’ve found it’s been super helpful, and especially in the meta description, once you get into the intro, that’s where you can have a little more fun, tell a little bit of the story. If it’s your husband’s favorite soup, if it’s your kid’s favorite recipe to make after school, like explain that. That’s great, but then still keep that same language of the trigger words being easy, etc.
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Megan Porta 22:52
You could even do it in real life, sit down with your family or friends and explain to them why they should make the recipe and see what comes out. That would be a fun exercise.
Laura Arnold 23:01
Yeah, that’s the best exercise. I tell every client is sit down with whoever you want to hear from and has great advice and just start asking them questions about your site, and they’ll have a lot to tell you right off the bat. I
Megan Porta 23:13
t’s hard to do that, though I know, but very important as well, yeah, and you’re right, the writing of the entire post is such a balance these days, because we’re in this phase where it’s like, okay, no no long storytelling, no robot, robotic writing. So find the balance in there. And it is a challenge. I mean, it’s like, where, where do you fall? I think just the more you write, the better you get at finding that balance, right?
Laura Arnold 23:43
Yes. And I mean, the other exercise I give right at the beginning as well is just spend an hour, not much time, even 30 minutes, reading through top blogs and understanding where, how they’re phrasing things, what they’re doing, because they’re probably updating their content pretty frequently. They’re probably seeing the trends. See why they’re ranking your competitor is, unfortunately your enemy, but also your best friend. So it’s really important to go and see what they’re doing too. And if you just start reading over and over, the lingo kind of starts to stick with you as well.
Megan Porta 24:23
Love that recommendation. What are your thoughts on video?
Laura Arnold 24:29
I love it so much. Another pain point for a lot of
Megan Porta 24:33
Another pain point, which is why I looked pained when I said it.
Laura Arnold 24:38
That’s definitely a pain point, and it’s something some people love to hear and something others don’t. But yeah, my biggest thing with video is it’s only growing and getting bigger. We’re in the digital age, and it’s lovely to have a visual representation of every recipe. The best part of video two is, I’m all about. Right now diversifying your content, so why not make a video and then we can also post it to social media, because it’s a great marketing tool that’s also free to get traffic to your site. And there’s so many ways to direct that Instagram traffic or Tiktok to your site, and we’re seeing incredible numbers come in from that as well, using social links, or many chat all of those different tools to then start getting organic traffic to your website as well more ad revenue. So it is painful, but I think it’s super rewarding at the end of the day, and I think it’s only going to be more rewarding as we see how Google evolves. And if you can just start practicing setting up a camera, and you don’t have to post the first videos. Practice a couple just while you’re making your posts and see what you can do with them. And the best part is now we really are in the age of video where it does not need to look perfect, as we can all see, and people actually like imperfection a lot.
Megan Porta 26:02
So it is a relief. I’m kind of in the camp where I kind of, like, I’ve been there, I’ve created the videos. I’ve done hundreds of videos in my past years, and I’m kind of over it. So it’s, it’s hard to hear that I need to do video, because I just, I don’t want to, Laura, I don’t want to do video. I’m so I loved it for a time. It was so fun to experiment and do the hands and pans and even experiment with, you know, face video. I don’t know it’s just something that I’ve been resisting. I don’t want to go back there, but I do feel the pressure removed when you say that it doesn’t have to be perfect. So I could take out my phone, probably, and do some sort of quick video, and that could suffice.
Laura Arnold 26:54
Exactly nothing crazy at all. Just set it up. But your kitchen doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t need to be perfectly styled. People are loving just watching someone walk into their kitchen and whip up something that they think looks good and try it themselves. So it’s finally we’re getting to that point because hands and pans was so over styled and very time consuming. And now your video, I have several people I know that just make their videos while they’re doing their blog photos and just edit them together, and it’s a one, one stop shop, and ends up being rewarding in the end, and not as time consuming as people think it is. So
Megan Porta 27:33
okay, all right, fine. Sorry. No, no, it’s good. I mean, it is the way that everything is going. So it’s good to hear some things are painful to hear as bloggers, but we need to hear them anyway. Yeah. And then what are your thoughts about community? I know this is a really important piece of the puzzle right now. You need to build community. Is that on your radar, too?
Laura Arnold 27:59
Yes, that is one of the main themes for all of my clients. For 2025 Some people love it. Other people are trying to figure out how to do it in their own way, because there’s so many different ways to go about community. But trying to build that follower base and with a site, it’s a little difficult, because it’s organic search, unless they remember your name or bookmark your site. You know, a lot of times it’s a little bit random, unless you’re always in the top five search results, which is not many. It’s building that community and finding the way you’re most comfortable to do that, so you’re still getting ad traffic and kind of that foundational base you can rely on and grow over time. And that could be through email, that could be through Facebook. A lot of people have success there. It could be through Instagram. There’s so many approachable methods of doing that these days. We’re all about diversifying and just seeing how we can take that SEO as just the foundation and the base for the site, but then use it as a tool to grow the community, to keep the business running, and making sure you can keep your blog as your part time or full time or income, or however you’re seeing your blog work for you. And everybody’s kind of honing in on how they’re going to do that this year and what time they’re going to spend on it, and seeing how they can find that community and what that community is for. And then it also helps you, then to circle back to the beginning of the conversation, niche down on your content, because then you have a follower base that tells you you are the casserole expert. You are exactly what you are, yeah, the breakfast expert, and that’s what I come to you for, and I love you for it. So I want to keep coming back to you more and more.
Megan Porta 29:49
It’s, it’s hard to invest time in it, I think, especially as a new blogger, because you don’t see the ROI immediately. You’re like, why am I doing this? I need to put time into new recipes and keyword. Research and video and blah, blah, blah. So it’s hard to justify, I think, in the beginning. But for the people who do, I think they’re the ones who really find like, Good things come quickly to them because of what you’re saying, because then it creates this loop of, okay, this is our feedback for you. You’re getting, you’re hearing exactly what you need to hear from the people who are looking at your content and absorbing your recipes and everything. So yeah, it is really important, but it’s another one of those kind of do I have to do it things?
Laura Arnold 30:37
You’re just making your internet friends, as I like to call them. So it is painful at the beginning, and just make small goals. And that’s the biggest thing also, just since it is New Year’s Eve, make the small goals and they will spiral into the large goals. And that’s also what I tell people as well. Let’s not, like get on a call and say, I have to double my organic search next year. Let’s start with approachable goals and see how they then spiral out and yeah, benefit us at the end of the day.
Megan Porta 31:10
How do you recommend finding the place to start with community? Do you mentioned Instagram? Newsletter, maybe sub stack, Facebook. How do we know where to begin with it? Or do we just try one thing and see what happens?
Laura Arnold 31:26
If you’ve really have no presence at all and are starting from scratch? I would try, like, two or three things, whatever is manageable for you, and try to repurpose content you already have to start because it is overwhelming to try to do everything at once. We wear so many hats in this business, so I see most reward for building community that’s consistent on Instagram and Facebook. So I would try those two things. Tiktok is a little more like, am I viral today or out tomorrow? Like, what’s going on? But if you want your your consistent followers to keep coming back to you and excited to see what you’re posting next. I would try those two platforms. They’re very approachable, and you can use the same video for both. So if you have a reel that you’re posting on your website, maybe it’s a longer form on the website, and then you edit it to a little bit of a shorter form that goes both on Instagram and Facebook, and then it’s pretty, pretty breezy from there, and you kind of just watch the traffic and see which platforms responding better. I mean, in our dream world, we’d post on everything all the time, but if you’re starting to get great response from Facebook, then let’s put more energy there, responding to comments and getting more content up there and seeing how it’s helping our site at the end of the day too.
Megan Porta 32:48
A bit of experimentation, just like with everything else that we do, right, just experimenting and seeing what works and tweaking the process as we go. I was going to ask you about the HCU, so I know we had a few really big updates in 2024 that crushed a lot of content creators, food bloggers specifically. Do you have any insights on that, like, are we going to be in a world now where this is always happening? Do we know? Do we not know? Any thoughts?
Laura Arnold 33:21
Well, I think we were surprised there was a December update. I definitely didn’t see that coming, just because we had a pretty big one in October. So I think it’s just unfortunately riding the wave, which is not the answer people want to, want to hear at all. But I saw different results for every client with every update this year, some really did great with them. Others did not do so well, but I did see recovery for most by the end of the year, which was great news for for everyone. In terms of next year, it’s hard to know AI is going to keep evolving. I don’t know what that’s going to mean, in general, right now, we’re already seeing that lovely search bar at the top of the page that’s pushing all of our rankings down more and more. So I think over time, just have to ride with it and keep producing the best quality content for the reader that we can. Because right now, chat GPT cannot really create a great recipe, at least in my opinion. Yeah, some other people have found it different, but every time I look, I’m like, that’s not gonna work, yeah. So they still need our content, and we just have to keep making quality content in Google’s eyes to be able to get through every update and see see how we’re gonna make it so
Megan Porta 34:41
I know a few bloggers who were told by SEO experts that they had a classifier on their site or a tag after some of the updates in this past year. What does that mean? And is there a way to know if our site has been given a tag or whatever you call it?
Laura Arnold 35:01
Yes, I think with a classifier that’s in simple terms, just meaning that your traffic dropped quite heavily in Google’s eyes. And for whatever reason, your content or your technical SEO needs a little bit of a dive into to see exactly what happened. If it’s technical, great, that’s probably a somewhat quick fix. If it’s content, then it might take a little longer. I mean, just looking at was it keyword stuffing? Do I need to take a bunch of keywords out? You don’t need it in every age two anymore. Is it honing in on my content? Is it just looking at my site holistically and seeing why? For some reason in Google’s eyes, did this drop by half of my traffic that I had previously. But it needs to be a pretty significant traffic drop for you to be worried.
Megan Porta 35:49
Okay, I was going to ask about domain authority, because I also heard from a different SEO expert that if your site is under a certain number, and I don’t remember what that number is that basically you’re kind of out of luck, like there’s nothing you can do. You just have to build up that domain authority in order to be seen these days in Google’s eyes. What do you think about that?
Laura Arnold 36:11
I don’t know if I fully agree, which is probably good to hear, mainly because I do have newer bloggers, and we are making great strides with a low domain authority because they haven’t had their site for very long. I mean, we all know that blogging is a long game. If you’re trying to do short wins through SEO, I can’t say that that’s going to really happen easily. And if you have a strategy, I’d love to know it, but it is, and domain authority is when I’m teaching someone about blogging for the first time, it’s your credit score. So we all know what a credit score is. It takes a while to build when you get your first credit card. Same with your blog, it’s going to take a while to build as well, unless you know you came from the media industry and have incredible backlinks overnight, which is not most people. So I think there’s still room for growth. It’s going to be a lot of patience, a lot of strategy and just figuring out exactly what your niche is yet again, to get ranking in the top 10. But I have bloggers that have not been blogging for more than two years, and we’re ranking so I’m not totally discouraged.
Megan Porta 37:22
Yeah. That’s great news, I think, for newer bloggers, because it is so discouraging right now to start when we I am thinking like six, seven years ago, when you started a blog, it was just so different. There was kind of a formula that you went through, and it wasn’t quite so difficult. So now I see so many newer bloggers get discouraged right away and give up, or they just don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to move forward after a year when they’re not seeing traction.
Laura Arnold 37:53
it’s tough the recipes that aren’t ranking too once again, diversification is my way to go. So let’s take those and make a little ebook and see if that helps. But then the newsletter, there’s always a way to repurpose content that may not be ranking for SEO, but is great, and making money off of it or finding a community through it. So and both are going to benefit you at the end of the day and in the long run.
Megan Porta 38:20
And there’s always Pinterest, right? And and Facebook. I know people who are making or getting traffic from Facebook still, and definitely Pinterest. So expand your horizons. If you feel frustrated with the whole Google landscape, yes, but don’t give up on it, right? Laura, don’t give up…
Laura Arnold 38:38
No, because at the end of the day, your site is your resume, and everything else builds off of that. So that’s what people will know you as if you’re trying to also get brand sponsorships, they want to see your website so you can’t just fully give up. It is one tool in your vast array of different areas to spend your time, and you just have to choose what motivates you, what’s most fulfilling, and what is also going to financially support you as well.
Megan Porta 39:07
Well said, I love that. What else do we need to know going into 2025 on in the realm of SEO? Is there anything else that should be in our minds?
Laura Arnold 39:18
The community aspect is really what I’m hitting home. So we’ve touched on it, but that is, I would put a post it on your computer and write community, and just make sure you really know what that means and how you want to build that. Because I think organic search is just going to become more and more competitive between other bloggers, other sites, AI, all the things. So we need to start kind of creating a name for our blog in a different way, and just seeing how that, how that shapes out.
Megan Porta 39:49
I love it. Well. Thank you for all of this. This is juicy, good information going into 2025 and as you know, things can change, but it’s kind of a good template for us to start with as food bloggers. So we appreciate you. Thank you so much, Laura, for all of this.
Laura Arnold 40:04
Thank you for having me. I’m very honored to be your 2025 SEO expert.
Megan Porta 40:09
Yay. So now I know you have something called Sizzle SEO, your new membership program, right? Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Laura Arnold 40:18
Yes. So with all the questions that I’ve been getting over the past year. My company started, kind of as an SEO for food bloggers company, and I have a food background, working in food media in New York City for over 10 years, learning all the different ins and outs of digital media with recipes specifically, and I’m also a professionally trained chef. So with that came learning all different realms of different things in the industry, and seeing the ebbs and flows. And kind of started out with SEO consulting, and now we’re kind of opening that to just brand management consulting and all all different things specifically for food creators and bloggers. So Sizzle SEO is super exciting. I can’t wait to share. It’s launchy the first week of February. The registration is opening mid January, and it’s a food membership, so monthly membership where food creators can come and ask me questions every single day. And that sounds crazy, but it’s true. So if you have a question about your SEO, there will be a chat. I will answer the questions weekly, so you will get responses from me. And then I’ll have a lovely newsletter full of tips that are current, how to stay current in our space and keep building on all the things I’ve talked about in this call and different goals. And then there’ll also be a monthly webinar that takes all those unanswered questions from the weeks that I didn’t get to because can’t answer everything, and we will create an amazing webinar to dive deeper and make sure you all are understanding. But I think what’s awesome about it is it’s only for food creators, so it’ll be very content specific, and seeing what works for some people what doesn’t work for others, and kind of bouncing ideas off of each other, awesome.
Megan Porta 42:06
And we will put that link. I believe I have the link here. I’m just checking. We’ll put it in your show notes. Is there? So there’s currently a wait list, and then you said it opens right away in February?
Laura Arnold 42:17
Yes, yeah. So just join the wait list for now. And then mid January, it should be open to just actually get into the platform. It’ll be hosted through Kajabi, if anyone’s familiar, and then it’ll actually begin February 1, where you can start posting.
Megan Porta 42:33
Okay, and see more. Great. Yeah, I’m excited for you. I hope that goes well. I’m sure it’ll be a hit, and I love that it’s for food creators specifically too. I think that will be highly valuable.
Laura Arnold 42:46
Yes, yeah, because you know, recipe SEO is very different from other types of SEO, so yeah.
Megan Porta 42:52
For sure. Okay, well, awesome. Do you have a quote or words of inspiration to leave us with? Laura, I
Laura Arnold 42:58
would say my quote I say on every call to every client is diversify or go broke. Sounds harsh, but it’s true, and it’s really helped a lot of people. And just with the new year in mind, small steps lead to larger ones. So don’t get too too excited or make too lofty of goals, because you’ll feel guilty at the end of the year next year, and that’s not great. So that small goal, yes, exactly.
Megan Porta 43:30
Awesome. Well, we’ll put together a show notes page for you, Laura. We’ll put everything we talked about today in it, as well as the link for Sizzle SEO, and you can find those at eatblogtalk.com/danggooddigital2 tell everyone where they can find you if they need to get a hold of you, if they need to see your content. Are you on social media, website, etc,
Laura Arnold 43:53
Yes, my website is danggooddigital.com. You can see everything I do there. That’s where the membership also is, as Megan said. And then I’m also on Instagram at dang good digital as well for different SEO tips and new news.
Megan Porta 44:11
Great everyone. Go check all of that out. Thanks again, Laura for being here, and thank you for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time.
Outro 44:21
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