Episode 210: Use Digital PR to Rank for Short Tail, High Value Key Phrases with Dayana Mayfield

Intro:

Welcome to Eat Talk Blog, where food bloggers come to get their fill of the latest tips, tricks, and insights into the world of food blogging. If you feel that hunger for information, we’ll provide you with the tools you need to add value to your blog. And we’ll also ensure you’re taking care of yourself, because food blogging is a demanding job. Now, please welcome your host, Megan Porta.

Megan Porta:

Hey awesome food bloggers. Do you struggle with knowing exactly what you should be doing to move the needle forward in your business? Do you struggle with knowing what to focus on next? If so, if this sounds like you, I have two solutions for you. Number one is mastermind groups. There is so much power in getting people together and helping to solve each other’s problems. At Eat Blog Talk, we have put together our own mastermind groups and we are hosting these weekly. You can join at any time. You can try it out for a month or you can sign up for a quarter or you can go all in and sign up for an entire year. Come join us. See if it’s a great fit for you, and this will really help you to solve those problems you’re having in your business and give you clarity about what you should be doing next to move your business forward.

The next solution is the Eat Blog Talk membership. I have spent all of 2021 so far putting so much value inside of the membership. It is such a supportive and wonderful place to be for food bloggers. We are learning so much from each other. We are joining together in monthly intensive calls, where we focus on very specific parts of food blogging in order to grow our businesses in massive ways. We also have guest experts come in and join us very regularly to talk about really specific parts of food blogging. We get one-on-one access to these experts, such as Matt Molen from email crush, Casey Markee from Media Wyse. So many great people are joining us in the sessions and they are super valuable. There are so many reasons why you should be in the membership. I could not even start touching on all of it. If you’re tired of wandering around aimlessly in your business and not knowing what to focus on, give the membership a try for free for two weeks. Go to eatblogtalk.com. You can sign up for the masterminds there, and you can also start the process of getting into the membership for two weeks, just to check it out. The rest of us can’t wait to see you inside.

What’s up, food bloggers. Welcome to Eat Blog Talk. This podcast is for you, food bloggers wanting value and clarity to help you find greater success in your business. Today, I have Dayana Mayfield with me from pitchandprofit.com. We are going to have a chat about using digital PR to rank for short tail, high value key phrases. Dayana is a digital PR strategist who helps small businesses and bloggers become the authority in their market by combining publicity with search engine optimization. Her business has been featured in Forbes, CXL, YFS magazine and Business Insider. She lives in Northern California with her husband and two daughters. Dayana, I’m excited to chat about this today with you, but first we all want to hear your fun fact.

Dayana Mayfield:

All right. So after college, I didn’t know what to do with my life. So I got really good at hula hooping and I just practiced a ton of hula-hooping tricks. It was like the great recession and I was just doing odd jobs. I got really good at doing all of these fun festival hula-hooping tricks. I wouldn’t even know how to describe them, but it’s the hula hoop going up and down in all directions. I could still bust out some pretty good circus stuff.

Megan:

That’s so awesome. I was going to ask you if you can do the hula hoop that travels up your body to your wrist and then back down.

Dayana:

Yes, yes.

Megan:

Oh man, I’m totally jealous. I’ve got the basic hula hoop form down. I can keep it around my waist for quite a while, but that is the extent of my hula-hooping. That is so awesome. So do people ask you to pull out your tricks when they come over?

Dayana:

Especially because we live in a Northern California hippie town with lots of music festivals. So if there’s a big adult sized hula-hoop around, it’s like, Oh, show us what you got.

Megan:

That is so awesome. Yeah. I love it. That is so different from our topic. I feel usually SEO experts are very much like here’s the facts one, two, three. So the coolest SEO expert ever, a hula hooper and someone who knows about SEO. So let’s dig into this and I was telling you before we recorded, that I don’t even know how PR and SEO really go together. So would you mind starting by just kind of talking through that?

Dayana:

Yes. So I love to help people connect these two things. So when I talk about PR and SEO, we obviously mean more on the digital PR side because we want Google to know about it. So if it’s on TV, that would only help with SEO. Say you are on a local news channel and then they also put a clip on their website and then they link back to your site from that post. So think digital PR because the connection is back links. Some of your audience probably knows what backlinks are already. Those are links to your website from another. So a common strategy here is guest blogging. A lot of food bloggers will submit a guest blog for somebody else. That way they gain the exposure to that other bloggers audience.

Then they also get a link back to their site. But guest blogging isn’t the only way that you can do digital PR. You could also do podcast guesting. You could also get covered in a great outlet. It could be the digital version of a magazine, like realsimple.com or cosmopolitan.com. So what you’re getting is the back link. The way I like to say it is that SEO is like you telling Google what to rank you for. So let’s say you want Google to rank you for paleo bowls, but then the PR is other companies telling Google what to rank you for. So if you have a recipe and an online magazine, and it’s linking back to you from paleo bowls, then that’s another big credible, amazing website that’s telling Google, Hey, rank this site for paleo bowls, they’re the expert. So that’s the connection. It’s not just you tooting your own horn and saying, Hey, Google, Hey, Google. It’s other companies validating and tooting your horn for you.

Megan:

So it’s actually leveraging other platforms, right? So it’s less work for you to do that.

Dayana:

Yes. You get a lot of benefits when you figure how these things combine. Then not only do you get to access a new audience, but you are getting some SEO juice at the same time. So one of the easiest ways to connect these two things, is to create an optimized freebie landing page, or it could be a recipe page. So we’ll continue with paleo bowls. So let’s say you had a blog post that was 20, 30 minute paleo bowls on your website. You then had a download that was like, download the recipe cards with the shopping list so you could do some easy shopping or something like that. You had some sort of a freebie in that blog post. Then, when you write a guest post or you do a podcast interview, that’s the link you give, you don’t give the link to your main website.

If you can, if you can control that. Say at the end of a podcast interview, you don’t say, here’s paleoblog.com. You say, yeah, I’ve got some great things for you at paleoblog.com/paleobowls. So that’s a way that you’re connecting it where you’re still getting out in front of that audience, but you’re trying to control where that link is going to. Now you can’t always do that, right? If you get featured like a big online magazine, they will typically just link back to your main site as opposed to an individual post or page. But, you still get the SEO boost, because you get an increase in your domain authority. So there’s the little pieces. Then there’s the big piece. So the little piece is getting more links back to paleo bowls so that Google knows this is the best paleo bowl blog out there. We got to rank it. Then there’s getting links to your overall website, which increases your domain authority, which can help you have a higher chance of ranking. Facebook has a domain rank I think of like a hundred or 99. Most bloggers are somewhere between 20 and 50, but the higher your domain rank, the more likely you are to rank. So hopefully that all makes sense.

Megan:

Yeah, it does. I think in the food blogging space, we use a little bit different terminology, but it’s always good to talk to people outside of the space once in a while. You know what I mean? Because you get a broader perspective and you mentioned a few things that I don’t think are on food bloggers radars. So guest blogging is something that is very well known in our space. People ask me all the time, can I write a guest post? Then I’ve also done the same to other bloggers. That’s familiar. So are digital magazines. We’re all familiar with places like parade.com, Huffington Post. So we’re familiar with that, but I don’t think that food bloggers often think of going on podcasts. I mean, maybe some do. But there are so many podcasts out there that talk about everything under the sun. So there’s got to be podcasts about food because everyone loves food. So do you think it’s beneficial to do that? Even if somebody doesn’t really want to perfect their speaking skills or anything like that, is it beneficial to get on podcasts?

Dayana:

I think so because you also have to think about the audience too. So I’m sure there are plenty of food podcasts. I mean, I’m obsessed with food blogs. I’m all over food blogs, but you know, a lot of people probably wouldn’t go to a podcast for a recipe. Because it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s not visual, you’re not getting the ingredients, but you can think about it more in terms of your audience rather than the topic. So for example, like a mommy podcast with tips, productivity tips, organization, meal planning, things like that. If your audience is trying to make great healthy food in a quick period of time, then it might make more sense to be a guest on those sorts of podcasts.

Megan:

That makes sense. So not necessarily going on a podcast to share your recipes specifically, but to talk more about the scope of meal planning and meal prepping and making the food and maybe preserving sanity while you’re making dinner or something along those lines. Which I think we’re experts in all of our food blogs and because we’ve been required to do that in order to stay sane and keep our businesses running. So I think that’s a great idea and I’m really glad you mentioned that. So what else do you have for food bloggers along these lines?

Dayana:

So I would say that, now as much as PR and SEO do go together in some ways, they also don’t. Because PR is great for its own sake. So if you have the chance to get featured on a household name online website, then go for it even if you can’t control the link to your site. At the same time, your SEO content has to be really great. You have to optimize for that key phrase and the secondary key phrases and have images and make it really easy to navigate the content. So make sure that those foundations are in place. Then back to connecting them. I would say the best thing you could do would be to identify some of those life-changing key phrases. So make a list of the top 10 key phrases that, if you ranked for them, would most likely benefit your revenue a heck of a lot.

So it’s really smart to use PR for your short tail key phrases because those are really competitive. So it might be easier to rank for a key phrase that’s got like four or five words in it versus just two that have tons of volume. Maybe it’s a hundred thousand searches a month or something like that. So make a list of what those key phrases are. Oftentimes those are more like the pillar page or the head of the topic cluster. I don’t know if you’ve heard of those terms, but basically just fancy ways of talking about a group. So I’ll keep going with my paleo bowl example because I eat a lot of those and I look up a lot of recipes for those. So if you know, paleo bowl was on your top 10 list, then you would probably also have key phrases like taco paleo bowl or I’m trying to think of something like a cabbage paleo bowl or chicken paleo bowl.

There would be other things poking off of there. But if you ranked for the short tail, the head of the group, then that would give SEO juice to all those other ones, because you’re linking out to all of those other ones and they can explore those recipes in more detail. So think your top category pages, your roundups, your short tail key phrases, make that top 10 list. Then whenever you are doing a podcast interview or a guest blog, then pick which one is the most relevant and link back to those top 10. So that way you are using PR to go for things that are more competitive. So you’re giving yourself a bigger chance. Then for your long tail, you’re just doing SEO.

Megan:

Oh, that is so interesting. Okay. So you’re recommending looking through your content and determining what is maybe most popular. You said identifying life-changing key phrases. I love the way you phrase that. So life-changing would be something that you really want to rank for. So let’s say it’s Chili. So just making it really simple, like a chili recipe or something like that. Making that your pillar page, is that kinda what you’re saying? Then building things around that are more specific?

Dayana:

Yeah. Then building links to that pillar page. So people get overwhelmed when they think, Oh my gosh, I’m going to use PR for SEO. I’m going to be so busy now. Now not only do I have to write a post, but now I have to do two guest blogs and three podcasts for every post. That’s not what we want. What we want is your top 10 list. So you’re only using PR for things that are really both competitive and then also high value. So if it’s a chili recipe, then in your top 10 list, you would put your URL and your target key phrase. So most likely the URL would be something like your blog.com/chili/recipe. Then the target key phrase is chili recipe. Then when you’re writing a guest post, you include a chili recipe and then you link back from there.

So then Google has all of these signs. Google has your post, which has the URL chili recipe. Then they have a link from another high quality website that says chili recipe, and it’s linking back to yours. So then Google goes, Oh, this is the best chili recipe because it has great links to it. So just the idea of not doing it for every single post you write, but picking your top 10. It makes more sense for those to be your pillar pages or things that you really want to rank for. Maybe part of your brand or it’s maybe a recipe that you really want to be known for this thing.

Megan:

So interesting. So I used chili because chili was something that I was literally on the first spot on Google for the longest time with my chili recipe. This was a long time ago. I was like, wow. That’s so cool. I didn’t even try. I was just there and then it got more competitive and people started really honing in on SEO and very quickly I went. Now I’m on probably page two or three even. Between then and now what I’ve done is I’ve tweaked my key phrase to be much more specific. I don’t even know what it is now, but it’s something like chili in the slow cooker or something like that. So much less competitive. Chili is one of my things. I have so many chili recipes on my blog. So would it be beneficial to go back and make that a pillar post and change it back to just something really generic like chili recipe? Or should I leave it?

Dayana:

I would leave it. Because it’s a good point that in the food industry there’s sort of different levels of competition. Where it’s like even chili in the slow cooker, even though that longer tail could still be really competitive. Whereas chili is just so competitive, it’s not even funny. It’s just insane. So I would still leave that, but you can use PR to retain your SEO rankings as well. So I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of people will update their content every six months. They might add another paragraph to a post or add some more images. So at the same time, if you have something that’s ranking, you could also set a goal for how many links you want to build to it per year.

If it’s something really valuable and really important to retain, I would say to try to build four links to it a year. That could be a HARO feature, using HARO (help a reporter out) where you answered queries or guest postings or podcasts or pitching top tier media features by pitching journalists. But I would set a goal for between two to four links per year to retain those rankings. But you bring up a good point that, when I say short tail, coming from the B2B world, short tail key phrases are competitive, but can be doable with PR and SEO. With food blogging where you’ve got the whole world searching these key phrases and then these big brands, I mean, you can be up against Campbell’s and these big magazines.

So maybe we want to make sure we’re shooting for the moon, but also being realistic. That can come down to the competitiveness of the key phrase. So something that I like to do, that’s just an easy way to check if I should go for something, is I try to go for key phrases that have a difficulty score that’s below my domain rank. So if my domain rank is 45 in Hrefs, when I’m doing key phrase research, I try to find key phrases that are well below 45, if not below 30. So that might be something, because a lot of people wonder, well, okay, I checked the difficulty score, but what am I actually looking for? Right. So that’s kind of a quick and easy way to determine what’s your cap. So I would imagine that chili would probably have a really high difficulty score. Maybe when you were ranking for it, a lot of bigger brands were slow on the SEO push and now they’re putting a big budget behind it.

Megan:

Yeah, that makes sense. Wow. I had never heard anything like that before, as far as the difficulty score being below your domain ranking. That’s really interesting. What else do you have for food bloggers? Because food bloggers really do try to stay current with SEO. I see this all over the forums and in the communities and groups. This is a top thing that people want to know about, SEO as it relates to food blogging. So do you have any other tips, goodies, nuggets for us?

Dayana:

I would say that you know, as much as PR helps in terms of telling Google that this is worthy, telling Google that people are interested in this, your onsite content still has to be really, really great. It’s just as many images as you can and the length, but also it’s making it readable. Where it’s putting that jump to the recipe button so that people aren’t having to scroll so far. One of the top things that SEO specialists are doing now is getting really, really good at adding secondary key phrases. I don’t know if food bloggers are doing that as much. One of my favorite tools for this is frase.io. It’s FRASE.io.

There’s also Clear Scope and Market Muse as other options, but they are more expensive and these tools don’t just give you variations. A lot of times when people are thinking secondary key phrases, they’re thinking variations. For example, if you type in a chili recipe in a slow cooker, then maybe Google might also suggest spicy. So you’re thinking, I’m going to add that. These go a little bit deeper and they tell you just a lot of topics that you might want to add in and other words that you might want to add in. Then it lets you capture more searches because when we think of optimizing for a key phrase, we think of, okay, I want to rank for this one key phrase. But the reality is that key phrase pools in a hundred different searches because people are people.

So they’re typing in whatever the heck they want. They’re typing in things in their own way that makes sense to them and trying to find something and all these different extra words that they might add. So it just tells you what all of those other words that people put in with that key phrase. So for any key phrase you’re trying to optimize for, it’ll give you 30 words that you should also include. Then I’m sure you’ve seen when you search something, Google will show you in bold that word, right? You see on the search results page, if you typed in chili and slow cooker, Google will show you on the text, in the search results page, in bold where they have that or if they don’t have it, it’ll say missing. It’ll say missing, must include. So Google can show you right before you click on something, if it has that or not. So it basically gives you a chance of ranking for more of these imperfect searches that aren’t exactly what you thought the person was going to type. Then it’ll show them in your texts that, yes, there’s this word because Google will pick that up and put it on the search results page.

Megan:

So I have never heard of frase.io, but I am going to check that out. So what do you recommend for doing just basic primary keyword research?

Dayana:

I would say in terms of a software that’s affordable, but still has all the research aspects you need, I would say mangools. So that’s M A N G O O L S. They don’t have some of the really advanced tracking stuff that these hundred dollar SEO tools have, but it’s $30 a month and they have really, really great key phrase research features. Like the ability to set your parameters, set your difficulty score, type in some different topics and then get all of these ideas for your primary key phrase. I highly recommend that because when you’re a small business owner, a blogger, there’s a big difference between a hundred dollars and $30 a month.

Megan:

There is. That’s huge, added up over a year, that’s a lot of money that we could be spending on other things. This is a point of frustration for food bloggers as well, because we all hear about SEMRush. Is it really worth it? It’s so expensive and it’s really robust, but do we even really understand what’s going on in there now? No, not really. I remember the first time I looked inside, I was like, I have no idea what any of this means. It looks cool. It looks important, but I don’t know. So I’ve never heard of Mangools. That is great information. For the longest time I have been using Keywords Everywhere. Also kind of dabbled in Key Search and that has worked really well. There’s a new keyword research tool that’s emerged recently. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but RankIQ. That has been amazing.

Oh my gosh. It’s so cool. It kind of goes into what you were talking about as far as suggesting other secondary keywords. So you focus on one key phrase and then it tells you, Oh, you might want to also add this to your post. If you’re talking about Instant Pot Chocolate Pudding, you should probably also talk about dark chocolate. Something really specific. It’s really good to know that because if you don’t have something like that, you’re just kind of writing blind. I assume people would want to know about dark chocolate and white chocolate as well, but I don’t know. Maybe not. So that’s super helpful.

Dayana:

Yeah. And then it also lets you group more of those things into one post rather than try to create all these different posts, which I think was the old way of doing SEO. Where it’s putting dark chocolate pudding chocolate, right. Where it’s really similar, but then you’re just recreating something just to hit a different variation. Where the new way of SEO is really getting more of one meaty high quality piece of content that can rank for those different types of searches. As long as it’s still relevant.

Megan:

Right. Exactly. You mentioned quality and everybody says this. You can have those really specific parameters. You need to write 1400 words in a post and all of that, but really, quality content is key. Do you agree with that?

Dayana:

Absolutely. One thing that I like to do is try to zig where others are zagging. So after I pick a key phrase, I look at what’s in the top 10 and then I see what can I give Google that’s different, because Google doesn’t want to rank all the same types of things. Because from the user experience, it’s like, Oh, there’s not much options for me to pick from. It’s all the same thing. It’s not interesting. It’s not going to keep you clicking on more results and doing more research. If you see like every single thing is a hundred cute cookie recipes. 50 cute cookie recipes. Or you’re seeing everything is the same, where can you pivot? So if there’s a lot of listicles, don’t write a listicle. ight. Write one recipe that is amazing, has tons of images and has information about the ingredients. Or if you see that there isn’t a listicle for that key phrase or a round up there’s just specific recipes and there’s no roundup for that key phrase, then you might do that.

Megan:

That is so intriguing. I love that because I was looking at something the other day. I cannot remember what it was, but yeah, this huge list of roundups came up and I was like, huh, that’s not what I was looking for. I was actually looking to see what recipes came up. So, you’re saying if we see that, if roundups style posts are what’s coming up on the first page of Google, maybe to try something completely different.

Dayana:

Yeah. Because once Google has something different, they will usually rank that. This is something that I’ve done with many clients over the past six years: zig where you are while others are zagging and then you can get a ranking pretty quickly because Google is actually like, Oh cool. Here’s another option that we’re going to put in the mix for people. Like one example, of course this is not food blogging, but one example was travel management. So for a B2B client of mine, travel management was their high value money-making key phrase. All of these other companies were putting it on their homepage, which was sort of short. So we did it on a 3000 word guide and it went to number one two months later because there wasn’t something like that. So a lot of time length can help. But it could also just be the type of thing. If it’s a guide, it’s information about the ingredients, it’s more a story of how you came up with the recipe. It’s a roundup. You can kind of think of all of these different sorts of food blogs, and then try to give something that Google doesn’t have yet.

Megan:

I love that. I just have to say this, how awesome you word your sentences. I’ve been writing notes down as you’ve been talking and a few of my favorites, zig where others are zagging. Oh my gosh. That’s so creative. Then also one meaty high quality piece of content because that kind of relates to food. So I was like, Oh my gosh, that’s so good. But seriously, one really just robust, something that has all of the information, which is kind of what we’re doing now anyway. But just to have that in our minds. Just creating one meaty high quality piece of content that answers everything about topic X. What else do you have for us? We are food bloggers eager to learn from you Dayana. So shed more light on the SEO topic.

Dayana:

So let’s actually take it back to the PR side, because I think when you have that meaty long post that is targeting an amazing key phrase, then you’re gonna want to get more exposure. So you know, the PR thing can feel overwhelming for people. So I want to offer a few ways to make it simpler. I think food bloggers probably have guest blogging down. So in terms of podcast pitching, I would recommend Postaga and Podbooker as two tools that make it super fast and easy to pitch podcasts. Because they have contact information and you can make your template set and forget your pitch campaigns. athen another thing that I want to mention to make the PR feel really easy, is that you can get inbound PR.

So that means PR coming to you. So what I would suggest would be to make a list of say 50 relevant journalists. So who writes for the outlets that you really want to be covered in. Make a list of them and then connect with them on social media and comment on their posts once a month. Because if a journalist doesn’t know you exist, they’re not going to be able to ask you to give a quote in an article. Or to be featured. So I think that connecting with journalists online and in social media is a very underutilized way to get media coverage. It also can be faster and more fun. It’s not as predictable because you’re not directly pitching, but it can work really well. So it could be Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram. So find who’s writing the articles.

So search. You could search competitor blogs. If you see a blog that has all these media features on it, find out who wrote the article. Search the name of that blog, plus that media outlet. Find out who wrote that article, then connect with them on social media, then comment on their content. Because a lot of people think of targeting potential customers and clients that way in the B2B world. But a lot of people aren’t doing that with journalists and it’s actually more of a reliable way than you might imagine to get features.

Megan:

Well, that’s a great idea too. So could you even use that with contributors? So I know some food bloggers write for example Parade magazine online, parade.com. So finding contributors on there who write relevant information, something that relates to your content, and then searching them on social media and following them? Is that kind of what you’re saying?

Dayana:

You can definitely do that with contributors as well. Then on Twitter, journalists and contributors will often ask questions. They’ll say, Hey, I’m writing a post about healthy Thanksgiving meals. Does anybody have any cool recipes or ideas for me? Then they’ll either just want you to reply to the tweet or they’ll actually put their email. So by following these journalists, not only are you hoping that they’ll see you and maybe ask you a question sometime, but you are also giving yourself the opportunity to put your hat in the bucket when they are asking a question. I don’t know if that’s the right cue, is that the right phrase, your hat in the pocket? I don’t know.

Megan:

I like it. That works.

Dayana:

Get your hat in the ring or your something in the something. They will often write things. So for me, like as a publicity strategist, just yesterday, somebody that I was following, asked on Twitter, what are tips for small business owners looking to do PR on a budget? So then I replied to her tweet, but then I also used hunter.io, which is a cold email finding tool. I also use that to find her email address. Then I just responded to her via email with more details than what I could put in the tweet. So she wrote back, thanks. If I include this in the article, I’ll let you know. So that only takes five minutes, but if you’re doing that a few times a week, you’re definitely going to get featured in the media. Which gives you new audiences as well as those backlinks that boost your SEO. So pay attention to what those relevant journalists are asking online. You can also use #journorequest. So J O U R N O journo not journal requests. Then that’s a quick way to see what journalists are asking on Twitter and you can just scroll through. Check that hashtag and just scroll through to try to find anything related to food or lifestyle or cooking or meal prep or whatever you feel is relevant.

Megan:

So the hashtag is J O U R N O request.

Dayana:

Then that’s like a thing that journalists use when they basically are trying to get responses and experts to answer their questions so that they can quote them.

Megan:

Awesome. I think the moral of the story here is just show up. Show up on those platforms and also be ready to contribute or to offer your information and know what you’re offering too. If they ask for something. So that’s a really great recommendation. I have one question: how closely are back-links and domain ranking related?

Dayana:

Very closely. So yeah, your domain rank is actually not made up of how many key phrases you rank for, but rather the strength of your backlink profile. So that means how many backlinks do you have from big websites. So a lot of SEO specialists will only collect back links from sites that have a DR of 45. So that’s what’s great about the PR side of things is that these big online magazine versions, these online publications, they all have domain rank of somewhere between 80 and 90, which is really, really high. So you get the feature, you get the coverage and the audience access, and then you also get the backlink from a site with a high domain rank, which raises your domain rank, which increases your chances of ranking for key phrases across your website.

So that’s why I love to do PR for backlinks is because you get the coverage. It’s also more fun because the alternative that a lot of SEO specialists do is backlink outreach where you’re basically just pitching people and asking them for a link. I don’t know if you probably received those emails where it’s like, hey, we’ve published this great post. We’d love for you to link back to it. It has a nice infographic. Please give us a link. That’s really tedious. It’s actually incredibly tedious and then it only gives you the link. It doesn’t give you anything else. Whereas the time you spend responding to journalists, pitching podcasts, that gives you the benefit of a relationship, the audience, plus the link.

Megan:

Yeah. You nailed it there. The relationship, and that’s actually an unexpected byproduct, I think of doing things like that, is you create those relationships and that is what is going to grow your business more than anything, in my opinion. Do you have anything else before we start saying goodbye?

Dayana:

So just one quick tip when you get tired of blogging is, make a video or a recording and then get it transcribed. So I have a blog as well and it is tiring to keep up with it sometimes and sometimes you just don’t want to write. So when I feel that way, what I do is just record a 10 minute video or audio. Then I have it transcribed from rev.com, which is like $1.25/minutes. So if it’s a 10 minute audio, it’ll be like $12.50 and then I can just quickly edit that versus writing something from scratch. That will help a lot when you’re in those points where you’re writing about the ingredients or the story behind it, right. Obviously that’s probably not an effective way to plot out a recipe, but when you’re writing the content that goes with the recipe, if you just need a break from the computer, that can be a great work around.

Megan:

That is such a great tip. And here’s another tip about Rev. You can pay, I think it’s 25 cents a minute if you want the draft version and the draft version will need to be combed through, but it’s usually pretty good. I use that for my podcast transcriptions and it’s so much more affordable and we can just go through there and make all those quick fixes. So great tips. Oh my gosh. This has been really great. Thank you for taking the time for us.

Dayana:

Thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun. I really appreciate it.

Megan:

Yes. Super valuable stuff. So before you go, we would love to hear if you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration to share.

Dayana:

Yes. So actually I just have one word. I have one word of inspiration and that is simple. You probably have heard people do their word of the year. I have the word SIMPLE written down on my wall and it has felt really healing to not try to be doing all the things. So as much as this stuff sounds complicated, I just always urge people to find ways to make it simple.

Megan:

After 2020, I think simple is probably most of our keywords for the year. Yes, please. Sign me up for that. We are going to put together a show notes page for you Dayana. We will put that at eatblogtalk.com/pitchandprofit. So if anyone wants to go peek at that, you can do that easily. Tell everyone where they can find you online. Where’s the best place to find you?

Dayana:

The SEO PR resource hub has insights into different services, tools, and how to create your strategy. So you can find the SEO PR resource hub at pitchandprofit.com/SEO-PR.

Megan:

Well, thanks again for being here so much. Thank you for listening today, food bloggers, I will see you next time.

Outro:

We’re glad you could join us on this episode of Eat Blog Talk. For more resources based on today’s discussion, as well as show notes and an opportunity to be on a future episode of the show, be sure to head to eatblogtalk.com. If you feel that hunger for information, we’ll be here to feed you on Eat Blog Talk.