Episode 713: Will Google Kill Your Blog? The New Rules of SEO, Content, and Audience Growth With Ryan Robinson

EBT713 – Ryan Robinson

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. 

[00:00:37]   

If you need encouragement about continuing on in 2025 with confidence. Despite all of the changes in our industry with SEO and Google and search and AI and all of that, this is the episode for you to listen to.It is packed with gold. Ryan Robinson from Ryrob joins me inside of this incredible interview. It is one of the best interviews I’ve had in a long, long time. Not only is it full of value and things that you can actually take away and implement in your business, but it’s also packed with mindset related stuff.

[00:01:15]   

The marriage of both of those things makes it gold. Just pure gold. Trust me. Give it a listen. Ryan talks about things like what to expect with LLM SEO coming up in the very near. He talks about a free tool SEO strategy that he’s been using for his blogging business that has increased his organic traffic by a lot.

[00:01:40]   

He talks about the fact that we should all be experimenting constantly. How important video is in this new era, how important email is, and most importantly how important having a positive mindset is and embracing the fact that things are changing. Things are not going to go back to the way they were. This is an evolving industry always and we need to embrace the fact that there’s a new era in front of us. I think every food blogger on the planet should listen to this episode twice. It is good and I know you’re going to enjoy it. It’s episode number 713. 

[00:02:25] Sponsor

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[00:03:12]   

A one on one planning call with me to kick off your year on the right foot, private slack support and a supportive crew that just gets it. Whether you are a seasoned blogger or you’re finally ready to stop treating your blog like a hobby, this experience will transform the way you work and the way you feel in your business. And let’s be real blogging it can feel lonely, but you don’t have to do it alone. Go to eatblogtalk.com/mastermind to apply today. Spots are very limited and they go quickly, so do not wait on this. Let’s make 2026 your most expansive year yet. EatBlogTalk.com/mastermind 

[00:03:56]  Megan Porta

Ryan Robinson teaches 500,000 monthly readers how to start a blog and grow a profitable online [email protected] he is the co-founder of Right Blogger, a suite of 80 plus powerful marketing tools for bloggers and small business owners. He’s also a recovering side project addict.

[00:04:14]   

Ryan, so great to meet you and have you on the podcast. How are you today from Venice Beach? I am so good. Thank you for having me. I just did my first swim workout in 17 years and all these people who have got 20, 30 years on me totally destroyed me.

[00:04:36]  Megan Porta 

That’s funny. Where did you swim?

[00:04:40]  Ryan Robinson 

At the Santa Monica College. They have this really nice pool and it’s like a $10 session to come swim and have a killer workout with a coach and all these other people, which is so much more motivating to me than trying to work out by myself.

[00:04:53]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Oh that’s amazing. And you’re in the land of sunshine and lovely weather, so I’m sure that helps as well.

[00:05:01]  Ryan Robinson 

This is it. It’s so beautiful here. Summer is the time to shine in LA. It really is nice.

[00:05:07]  Megan Porta 

It is. It’s so lovely. I used to spend summers there with my mom and yeah, it’s a lovely place. So we were going to talk about some deep stuff today and I love the mindset that you’re bringing to this conversation, which, I mean, I can already tell it’s positive. You have good vibes.So I’m super excited. But before we get into it, do you have a fun fact to share with us, Ryan?

[00:05:29]  Ryan Robinson 

Ooh, I do. My dad took me on a bunch of road trips as I was growing up around the US. I’m from California originally and so thanks to him I’ve been to all 50 US states, which is so fun. And most of the national parks, which is crazy.

[00:05:46]  Megan Porta 

Oh my gosh. That’s such a great gift to give your children, I think. What an awesome thing.

[00:05:52]  Ryan Robinson 

Yeah. The gift of experiencing different cultures and ways of living is one that really, really stuck with me and oh man. More grateful for that than any physical gifts I’ve ever received, I would say.

[00:06:06]  Megan Porta 

Right. Do you have a favorite state?

[00:06:08]  Ryan Robinson 

Colorado. I have a place there in this little tiny mountain town called Salida where I’ve got some friends and it’s at 7,000ft. I can go for a trail run from my house and there’s a ski mountain and mountain biking and oh, amazing. The lifestyle there is so good.

[00:06:25]  Megan Porta 

Yes, agreed. And it’s so beautiful. The mountains are life giving, energy giving for me. I love Colorado. So cool to know. Yeah. Good rate to learn that about you. So I think this conversation will be framed really well if you tell us a little bit about your background. I know you have a blogging background, so give us a little bit of your history.

[00:06:47]  Ryan Robinson 

Yeah. These days I teach bloggers how to grow an online presence and then monetize with your audience in positive win win ways. That’s the way I try and do everything. But I’ve been blogging now for I think 15 years. This is my 15th year, which is crazy. I started it back in college when I sat down for my Internet Marketing 101 class to really date myself here and we, we registered domain names was the very first thing we did in this class.

[00:07:15]   

And so this very special teacher of mine who’s, who’s still in my life, like really inspired me a lot and brought in some guest speakers who were already professional bloggers at the time, selling info, products and whatnot. This is around 2010 and so I found it very inspiring. And this blogging has been a through line. Over the last 15 years of my life, I’ve had a bunch of different stages where I’ve ran a podcast, I’ve been on YouTube for a while. I’ve been a consultant doing content marketing and SEO for B2B SAS, startups, some Fortune 500 brands. I’ve written for the Forbes and Business Insiders, fast companies of the world.

[00:07:55]   

So I’ve had a lot of really interesting experiences that have been quite fun and taught me a lot about how to grow online audiences. And so my blog, ryrob.com has been the place where I share really openly everything I’ve learned and am learning as we go. And I, I get about half a million monthly readers who use my free tools and check out my guides and watch my videos and generally just have fun.

[00:08:23]  Megan Porta 

Amazing. I love your story. And yes, 15 years is a long time to be blogging. A lot of my audience…

[00:08:31]  Ryan Robinson 

I’ve seen it all. You get to see enough cycles repeat themselves too, which is the really interesting.

[00:08:36]  Megan Porta 

Right. Patterns. Right. Cycles and patterns are everywhere, including blogging. I would say a good portion of my audience is can call themselves longtime bloggers as well. So we can relate to you and all the things you’ve been through and seeing those cycles over and over. How have you kept SEO? I guess at the top of your mind because in 2010, when you started and when I started, I started the same year.

[00:09:01]   

SEO was not a thing. Like, we just wrote about whatever we wanted in the food blogging space. I made whatever I wanted. It was not at all on at the top of our minds, but now it’s huge and scary and people are kind of freaking out. So I’m curious to know how you got into learning about SEO and how that’s evolved for you.

[00:09:27]  Ryan Robinson 

The thing that I love most about SEO is that the story of SEO is that it’s always changing. And anytime you get super comfortable with the way things are, a change is right around the corner. So if you just adapt to the reality that change is the persistent nature of this field, then you can make games and have experiments around like, ooh, what’s coming next?

[00:09:53]   

Like, oh, I’ve noticed this change. Let me tinker around, let me play with this thing. Let me see how I can be constantly learning about it. And so from my very early days of blogging, I got pretty fascinated with SEO because I, I saw that I had a few posts that very naturally, like, ranked in organic search back in, you know, the early 2000 teens, let’s say, for relatively competitive topics.

[00:10:18]   

And I was kind of surprised that I, I somehow naturally nailed my on page SEO. And, and then I was making friends with other bloggers, other content creators, people in the space. I was writing for some software company blogs and linking back to my sites. And so I was kind of naturally doing a lot of SEO stuff without really strategically thinking about it.

[00:10:43]   

But once I realized, like, oh, my content’s starting to just naturally rank here, maybe I need to actually systematize this or be really thoughtful and what can I do if I actually have a strategy behind this? And so that was sort of when I like, you know, I’m a big fan of experience is the best teacher rather than just say, watching courses on SEO.

[00:11:07]   

And so I’ve built tons of websites, like with one of my friends Andy, who I run, Right Blogger with my AI software platform. Right now, he and I have upwards of a hundred websites together where we reach over a million people a month across this portfolio of sites that do a ton of different things.

[00:11:27]   

And some of them are blogs, some of them are tool sites, some of them are just silly experiments. Like fartjokegenerator.com is an AI tool that’ll write a fart joke for you based on any topic you put in. So I’m a perpetual experimenter. I like to go from silly idea to bringing it to life as quickly as possible for the learning opportunities that come along with it.

[00:11:52]   

And SEO is the same thing. The more you experiment, the more you try, whether it’s on your single blog or on different platforms, then you’re gonna learn faster. And so I’ve always used my sites as experimentation playgrounds. That’s kind of the way that I hold them. And then it’s a business second.

[00:12:14]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Yes. That perspective is amazing. I think it’s really hard to get into that mindset right now, especially in 2025, when things are just. They seem to be changing more than ever. And maybe that’s not true. Maybe like you said, everything’s a cycle. So looking back, maybe we go through this once in a while.It just feels really big and heavy right now. Do you feel that too?

[00:12:40]  Ryan Robinson 

Yes, I do. Like, I want to validate those feelings because this is a new type of change. It’s more of the same in the sense that change is, is the story, but this is some new change. This is like a totally new to the world technology. And you could take the perspective too that, you know, AI in its infancy right now is kind of like fancy autocomplete.

[00:13:06]   

Like it’s, it’s a little better than that now, you know, there’s tools that are doing AI, generative, video, audio, et cetera. But for the most part, like, this technology is in its infancy. And so I think mindset, how you approach this internally is always the most important thing. And so if you, if you view these tools, these changes as opportunity creating experiences, then that just subtly reframes how you feel towards all the changes happening.

[00:13:39]   

And rather than feeling the fear of like, oh my gosh, my traffic’s going to go to zero, don’t worry so much about that. I think the shift we’re going to see, like, this is what I do think the biggest change is going to be, is that traffic will become much more of a vanity metric in the years to come.

[00:14:01]   

And I do believe especially for food bloggers, that this will require some shift in business model. I’d say slightly away from dependence on ad revenue. Because I do think that while people will always want to connect with the creator, the food blogger, the person who is bringing their stories, their life, their experiences, their examples into the recipes, the content that you’re sharing, I think that while people will always want to connect with that person, that will kind of gradually go down, at least in terms of the volume of people who come through.

[00:14:40]   

Now, the people who do come to your blog will probably be much higher quality, much more engaged with you. And so there’s going to be this interesting trade that I expect to happen, I kind of see it already happening, is that traffic will go down on sites that are sort of purely content focused, purely blogging focused, and the quality of people who come through will probably go up.

[00:15:07]   

And so I think that the shift in business model that’s going to be required is what do you do with these deeper relationship opportunities you have here? How do you build that connection? Do you have a group? Do you have a membership community? Do you have courses? Do you have coaching, service offering?

[00:15:25]   

Honestly, there’s a lot of ways to monetize with people that you build deep relationships with, but I think that’s going to be what’s required much more than say, you know, five, 10 years ago, it was so much easier to just spin up a site, figure out your traffic sources and then, you know, generate 10 grand a month through MediaVine or something. I think that business model, while it will remain in some form, will become much more competitive in the years to come.

[00:15:57]  Megan Porta 

So what do you think is going to happen with organic search right now? Because honestly, a lot of us do rely solely on advertising. So I, I, I totally agree with what you’re saying. Like there is going to be a shift away from solely relying on that. But it’s really scary to think of that because we’re not really, like a lot of us aren’t there.So, yeah, like how’s that going to go, do you think, with the AI integration in Google and I don’t know, I mean, it’s just hard to determine how to go about this.

[00:16:36]  Ryan Robinson 

Well, if you couldn’t tell already, I’m not a very doom and gloom person. Yeah, I like to look for the opportunities and in all of the changes that come because this is where like the next stage in your own personal evolution gets to come through your business, your blog, as a vehicle for creating some of this personal change.

[00:16:57]   

Like inevitably, yes, you will have to rise to some new challenges. But is that perhaps awesome? Is that exciting? Can it be? And so I think that’s the sort of mindset that’s going to really be helpful. But from my perspective, the biggest change we’re seeing right now, and I think what’s going to play out over the next couple of years is LLM SEO is now going to be a big thing.

[00:17:23]   

Large language models, right? And what that means is how do I become the recommended source for a particular query in ChatGPT? Claude Google’s AI mode there’s going to be a lot of ways that this kind of plays out. But the best thing is that SEO, good strong SEO is going to be the backbone of how you become a recommended source on these LLMs.

[00:17:50]   

And so what I expect to see is if you’ve played or you know, anyone watching listening has played with Google’s AI mode, please do if you haven’t, because it’s a fascinating glimpse around the corner of what I would expect Google to do. They, they somewhat recently announced this at their I O conference in I think May 2025.

[00:18:12]   

And you can go to google.com/aimode try it out yourself. It’s super fascinating. It’s basically a ChatGPT style experience of Google search. And they’ve said the quiet, they’ve quietly said that this is probably going to become the default search experience, some version of it. And if you’ve taken it for a spin, you can pretty much see immediately like the blue links are gone, the, the 10 results on a page that’s gone, there’s a sidebar of sources and you can kind of click to expand it and you can see, you know, Maybe the top 10 results are right there in these, in this little source pack up there.

[00:18:57]   

And so there is going to be some pretty wild change I think coming no matter what. But the best thing about having an established website already, if you’ve been blogging for a while, I know a lot of your audience has been doing this for a bit. Your website is your LLM training manual.

[00:19:17]   

It’s the manual for teaching AI what your site is all about. And so what I see as like a really cool change coming in regard to this is that you now have the opportunity to care less about these super competitive vanity traffic posts, that maybe you’d get 10,000 readers per month to this single article on a really competitive recipe topic, but people would, you know, just come to your site, they’d read the recipe, they’d leave, right?

[00:19:49]   

So this is kind of the shift in business model away from ad revenue to something that is deeper relationships with people. But I think we’re going to really see the value and long tail keywords go up quite a bit because the way someone interacts with AI, they ask quite a long question, right.

[00:20:09]   

You can ask multiple questions, you can query against it. You can get, you know, recommend me something from Spain instead of this, you know, this version of a recipe from Italy. Right. And so you now have the opportunity to also use AI tools at your disposal to perhaps produce more content and focus on longer tail stuff.And I think you’ll see much more of a pickup come from long tail traffic.

[00:20:38]  Megan Porta 

So if you are a recommended source through say the AI tool on Google, does it provide a link to your site or does it just provide the information from your site?

[00:20:50]  Ryan Robinson 

Do you know there’s in this little like kind of, I call it a knowledge pack over on the right side. This is at least for Google’s AI mode, which would be the most consequential place for this to change. Right. So in AI mode there’s this little knowledge pack and you can click to expand it. It does include links. Yeah.

[00:21:08]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:21:08]  Ryan Robinson 

It’s kind of a classic like SERP pack. It has your meta title, meta description and then you know, it’s, it’s hyperlinked. So someone who wants to learn more. This is, this is what I like about this change is that you have the opportunity to build much deeper relationships with people and it’s going to be fewer people who come to your site.

[00:21:30]   

It could be anywhere from, I mean traffic could go down by 90%. Who really knows? I, I have no idea. I don’t know how this is going to fully shake out. But if the numbers go down dramatically, the quality of the people who do come through will be significantly higher. And I think that’s the, like, that’s the real domino of what can I do to prepare over the next six to 12 months to have some other potential business model experiments up and ready to go?

[00:22:03]   

Like, how do I capture more value from the people who are visiting my site? And, and honestly, how do I provide more value to them too? Like that’s the, that’s the positive outcome is that this is a call to like rise to delivering value, more value beyond just sharing like content alone. What can you teach?What can you inspire? What can you motivate? Right. Like this is where I think the, the positive side will create a lot of opportunities for people.

[00:22:38]  Megan Porta 

I’ve already been seeing the shift happen where, you know, the fear kind of sinks in. Creeps in a little bit and we’re realizing that we do need to expand and experiment. So I’m seeing people who are solely relied on ad revenue do the coolest things. Like they’re now on YouTube exploring how to create recipe videos.

[00:22:58]   

They’re on Instagram doing really cool things and growing there. They’re exploring Pinterest when they maybe have been ignoring it for a while. So I am already seeing this take shape a little bit and it’s been really, really cool from my perspective and I think it’s only going to continue.

[00:23:16]  Ryan Robinson 

I’m. You absolutely nailed it. I think video is the best way to like, you know, the pessimistic view is buy yourself a few more years by, by getting good at video before AI is amazing at video. Right. But I think that is also like kind of a fake fear personally, because what’s so special about the video medium is that people really get to feel who you are, your personality.

[00:23:45]   

Like it’s, it’s such an intimate thing. And you know, as, as humans we’ve evolved for hundreds of thousands of years, we can argue about that one, but we’ve evolved for a long time to, to detect like little subtle things about interactions with one another. And so whenever you watch AI video, unless it’s like really quick clips or stuff without speaking, without direct to camera, something just feels like a little bit off.

[00:24:17]   

And I think there will be emerging use cases where AI video serves a cool purpose. I think as bloggers, content creators, we’ll even want to use it quite a lot in what we do. But replacing yourself with a video avatar? Yeah, I don’t think so. I think you want to take the route of like producing videos yourself, getting comfortable with the craft.

[00:24:42]   

And here’s a secret, there’s a lot of self growth to happen through video. Seeing yourself on video, listening to your voice, there’s a lot of inner work that’s going to come up through this. And I’ve loved doing video as a tool for my own sort of self development and repairing my relationship with myself.

[00:25:03]   

And as a result, like people online also love connecting with me too because I get to just present who I am authentically and talk about things I care about. And you know, once you get the, the scaries out of your head and you get comfortable with the format, then it’s honestly pretty easy and it’s a huge competitive advantage.

[00:25:26]   

If you start making videos today or you, you know, you pick it back up, you find ways to have more fun with it. Maybe you need to like be a little more inventive or creative about the format, the style. But start simple. Use your iPhone. Like, don’t worry about having fancy equipment and lighting and whatnot.

[00:25:44]   

Like, all this stuff comes with time and comfortability. But video, YouTube is the best place. Like that is by far the best search engine for the next few years to come. Like, I would be way more concerned with how do I increase my video traffic engagement. Like, I want to see likes, I want to see comments and like really build the community in these video first platforms.

[00:26:12]   

Instagram’s a great one too. TikTok can be awesome. But I think know where your audience is, right? Like for, for food bloggers, the content on TikTok and Instagram are probably going to be some of the sweet spots. But you know, educational stuff, instructional videos, how to do XYZ recipe videos on YouTube. People are going to love that too.

[00:26:38]  Sponsor 

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[00:26:56]   Megan Porta

I love that you mentioned the sideline perks of doing video too. Kind of that repair my relationship with myself, get comfortable on camera. That’s so huge and there’s so much gold to be found there when you can get past the fear of being on camera. I hear this all the time. People are like, I know I should be doing video, but I can’t. It’s too scary.  But when you do it, there’s. It’s like this process of healing and discovery and so many cool things await you when you can get kind of past that fear.

[00:27:28]  Ryan Robinson 

I could not agree more because I experience it almost every time I turn on the camera, which is amazing. Like it’s not this thing that you necessarily conquer one day and you totally move on and you’re this courageous person at the top of the mountain every day. That’s not how it goes. We’re all still humans.

[00:27:47]   

We’ve got our stuff in here. And so it’s small moments of courage. All it really takes is just choosing to believe in yourself and have this really small moment of, yeah, I can do this. I’m going to schedule the time to do it tomorrow, today, whenever that is. I think I’m a big fan of using scheduling as something to help guarantee that I make it happen, but this is a fascinating one.

[00:28:14]   

I with RightBlogger, my my AI tool platform, I offer free consulting calls. I call them strategy Calls to all of our new customers. And so I Talk with like 10 people every week who take me up on this offer. And, you know, it’s sort of framed under the guise of, I’ll teach you how to use AI tools for the future of blogging.

[00:28:36]   

But really what it ends up being is how to believe in yourself. Where you need to invest in, like this inner relationship in order to do the things that will help you be successful. Turns out most people don’t have that hard of a time writing or speaking on camera once they’re comfortable with who they are.

[00:28:58]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Oh, gosh, yeah. It is a process. I’m on almost episode 700 of this podcast. You would think by now I would be like, every episode gets easier. No, I, I still show up with nerves and all the things. And I feel like over time I’m, you know, working on myself a little bit more with each episode and each interview.

[00:29:22]   

It never goes away. It’s always like, we’re on video. This is going to go on YouTube. My voice is going to go on the podcast, so is yours. It’s an ever evolving process. And just to accept that, that you’re never going to be like, oh, totally comfortable showing up. I’m good. It’s not going to be like that.

[00:29:44]  Ryan Robinson 

I think that’s the coolest thing because you have this opportunity each time you turn on the camera or microphone, whatever you’re doing, writing. But I think camera video is just this very intimate, vulnerable medium. You have the opportunity every time to, to rise to this like, self mastery occasion. And so I’m a big proponent of doing hard things that you know, you know somewhere in here, you just know it’s for your own benefit.

[00:30:13]  Megan Porta 

Absolutely. Oh gosh, that’s such a great message. And then I was going to get your thoughts on email. Do you think email is going to be more important just like video going forward?

[00:30:24]  Ryan Robinson 

100%. Like, the email’s a really nice tie in to this sort of intimacy. We’re talking a lot about building deeper connection with the people who do vibe with you. Right. And so creating like curating a vibe across your blog is so much more important than it’s ever been before. And video is this really special way to do it.

[00:30:47]   

So if you’re not leveraging video in this equation, please, please, please do. But doing everything you can to get people on your email list is both a smart business thing and a very smart relationship building thing. Because email is this like very intimate place where you get to have a version of one on one direct communication with people and so really like feel into how special that is with your email list too.

[00:31:17]   

Don’t just like blast out, you know, ad links in your emails, I think. Rethink the ways that you relate to your subscribers and think about questions you can ask people. Think about ways you can provide real, genuine, life changing value. Let’s say that’s a really high bar, but something to really think about.Marinate on that and figure out the ways that you can become kind of a larger share in someone else’s mind by delivering genuinely useful, helpful value to them.

[00:31:51]  Megan Porta 

Do you think it’s ironic? I wish I just had this thought. It’s so funny how AI is kind of like stripping away humanity, but yet it’s causing us to be more human and to draw people in who seek humanity and that genuine connection. It’s kind of irony, right?

[00:32:12]  Ryan Robinson 

Yeah, there’s going to be, I mean there already is, but there’s going to be an increased premium on human creative expression, whatever that means. And the direct sort of one to one feeling of connecting with another person, especially online, I think that’s going to go through the roof. And being someone who is just your weird, silly self online and the content you make helps you stand out.

[00:32:41]   

I’m not talking about being performatively like goofy, but you know, maybe try on some characters if that’s fun to you, but tap into the things that feel real and interesting and being yourself online, that’s going to be worth so much as we move forward.

[00:32:59]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Showing who you are as a human. Sometimes it’s messy or weird like you.

[00:33:05]  Ryan Robinson 

Said, but I think always messy.

[00:33:07]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, always messy. Yes. Being real. So back to SEO, organic SEO. Now, is there anything currently that is working that we can tap into instead of just like abandoning ship? What can we do now in this moment?

[00:33:24]  Ryan Robinson 

Yeah, so I have a really cool experiment that I’ve been doing for the past couple of years. My blog still gets around half a million people a month to it, but five years ago that traffic was to educational content guides on everything about blogging, growing an online business purely like just educational content.

[00:33:46]   

Today, 50 to 75% of my traffic comes to free tools on my blog. And on my blog, ryrob.com/tools you can see a collection of my. I think I’ve got 50 free tools for bloggers, marketers, content creators, and these tools have now become one of the best ways for me to provide awesome value to my audience.

[00:34:14]   

So that’s always been a guidepost that I try and keep at the forefront of my mind is how can I, given the life experiences I have, the tools at my disposal provide the most value to my people. And if you’re thinking about this, that you will want to be constantly experimenting with stuff.

[00:34:34]   

And so free tools for your audience is such an awesome way to do it. And we decided to really invest in making this something that everyone can do, like how to make this super easy. And so in Write Blogger, we have a new function called Tool Studio where you can go build these free tools and embed them on your website.

[00:35:00]   

And it takes like 30 seconds to make these tools because we use AI to build the tool for you. And you just type in, you know, hey, make me a recipe generator for, you know, Italian food. And you’ve got dropdown options, you’ve got buttons you can press, you’ve got fields where people can type in their allergies, or they can select I want pasta recipes from Sicily.

[00:35:27]   

And you can get really personalized outputs from using these tools. And for, you know, for the bloggers here, it also functions as a lead magnet. So when someone customizes this recipe they want to build, maybe based on what’s in their fridge or something, they’ll be able to click generate my recipe. And then you, as the blogger, the creator who controls how this tool functions, you can say, hey, give everyone a free recipe before asking for their email address.

[00:36:01]   

Or maybe you want to say, no, I would like to collect someone’s email before they get their first recipe. So you can kind of decide how many freebies you want to give out before asking for someone’s email. But this is kind of again, like built around this. How do I get people on my email list? Who are these higher quality visitors of my website?

[00:36:24]  Megan Porta 

So for that, the recipe idea that you had, is that something that just like, how, how is that generated? Where does it pull that information from?

[00:36:33]  Ryan Robinson 

We use AI behind the scenes for everything. And so RightBlogger is our suite of AI tools that you can use. There’s AI article writers, there’s my favorite tool takes any video you’ve made and it’ll turn it into an SEO optimized blog post. It’ll write your Instagram captions, your TikTok captions. It’ll help you kind of redistribute your content.

[00:36:55]   

But Tool Studio is our platform that uses AI to both build the tool and then also, like on the front end of your blog, let’s say you embed it on a page of your site. The tool uses AI itself to generate the recipe as well, okay, I can.

[00:37:15]  Megan Porta 

See that being a stumbling block for food bloggers because we so badly want to protect our content, like the stuff that we create. We’re humans, we create these recipes. So then to direct people to an AI generated recipe feels a little bit weird. Does that make sense?

[00:37:35]  Ryan Robinson 

Oh, totally. That was just a random example. There’s basically like the way that RightBlogger’s Tool Studio functions is once you sign up for rightblogger, you can make a free account, by the way, and do all of this that I’m talking about here. You get to like tell our AI behind the scenes what your site’s about.

[00:37:53]   

You create a project, it it learns from scraping your site and understanding all the content you have on there. And then it’ll suggest tools for you to make. So it may not even suggest a recipe generator. It may suggest something totally related to, but also relevant to your audience. And so we have some cool, like, tools behind the scenes inside Rightblogger that’ll help you figure out what are some SEO, you know, proven topics for free tools that I could make for my audience that have traffic potential and maybe don’t step on the toes of, you know, my recipes.

[00:38:31]  Megan Porta 

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. And that, that’s at Tool Studio. Is that where we find that?

[00:38:36]  Ryan Robinson 

Or write blogger rightblogger.com and then once you make a free account, you log in Tool Studios right there inside too.

[00:38:45]  Megan Porta 

Wow, that’s so cool. So when did you create this?

[00:38:48]  Ryan Robinson 

This year. This? We rolled this out about two months ago. And we’ve seen such cool success from this. We have a ton. We’ve got like 33,000 customers who use Right Blogger, and we’ve seen so many awesome tools go up already. And the cool thing about using AI for this is that you can get really niche about the tools you create because this doesn’t take much time.

[00:39:19]   

And like, on the individual tool level, when you make your tool in Right Blogger, we also generate landing page copy for you. We write your meta title, your meta description, we give you the first draft of all the content that you would need to place on a free tool landing page in order to position it for SEO, you know, on page success.

[00:39:42]   

So we really try and make this process as easy as possible. And we’ve got courses inside Rightblogger 2 that kind of teach the more deep dive nitty gritty of how to do this stuff.

[00:39:54]  Megan Porta 

So you are maintaining your traffic or getting better somewhere around the same, but you’re just changing the way that traffic is coming to organically, basically.

[00:40:05]  Ryan Robinson 

Yeah. And We’ve, we’ve been executing this, like Andy and I, we run around a hundred different websites and so we’ve been executing this playbook across a bunch of different verticals. Not food blogging, to be, to be super clear with you, but a ton of different niches and verticals. We’ve seen this free tool play work really well.

[00:40:25]   

And so my hunch is that if we brainstormed on it for a while, I bet we could come up with some really good food blog related tools that could also serve as lead magnets for people.

[00:40:37]  Megan Porta 

Right? That’s exciting. So just this concept of embracing this new era because the people who resist it are what they’re going to sink. They’re going to be sad and depressed and holding on to something that is no longer so talk about that. Just the need to embrace and move forward and adapt to this change.

[00:41:03]  Ryan Robinson 

You know, I think this is the coolest part about it because adapting to change is a pretty simple choice. At the end of the day, it’s really a choice. It exists inside our own heads. Whether we want to have fear and friction around it or if we want to let that go and maybe experiment with what would it feel like to embrace this change?

[00:41:30]   

What would it, what’s the hypothesis of what it would be like to try some new things, to step outside of our comfort zone? And you know, I think even just in our conversation here today, we’ve given people some really good, like, actionable things to experiment with. And so you don’t have to be like this visionary that sees the future.

[00:41:52]   

We’ve talked about real things you can do and try and see if it works for you. Right? Not everything is going to be for everyone, but you do have to take this agency in your own business’s future and say, okay, this is kind of an inflection point in my life, my business, the industry, who do I want to be in this moment?

[00:42:16]   

Who am I going to be most like? What version of myself am I going to be most proud of in 10 years? The version that embraces fear, gives in to, oh, this is hard, this is challenging, this is difficult. Yes, it is, it is all those things. But do you also have the opportunity to prove to yourself that you can reinvent, you can try new things, you can have fun with it?

[00:42:44]   

That’s the really cool one, is once you figure out how to have fun with these new things, let’s say, then it’s, it’s just a playground and then you get to have more freedom and less. It’s. It’s not as heavy when you experiment and you find these other ways that can support the growth of your business too.

[00:43:04]   

But I think that framing that mindset, that way of being with it has served me so well. And I try and impart that in as many conversations as I have with bloggers.

[00:43:17]  Megan Porta 

And when you’re blogging for so long, honestly, things can get pretty stale. I mean, it’s like we’re writing about food in the same way every time, producing kind of the same sorts of content over and over and over. So this is actually a relief because we can incorporate fun in new ways into our businesses.

[00:43:37]   

That’s really cool. That’s an opportunity that we didn’t know would come to us, and here it is. So seeing it more as a gift instead of as something that is terrible. I think that’s a huge shift right there.

[00:43:54]  Ryan Robinson 

Yeah, it is a gift. Like, don’t let. And when you tune into just your own inner environment about it, I think you will reach that conclusion yourself. It’s all the noise from the outside world that can really alter our, you know, feelings, our thoughts about this stuff. And when you strip all that away, like, I mean, I don’t have social media on my phone.

[00:44:20]   

I don’t have news on my phone. I do a really, like, thoughtful job of not taking in all of the world’s noise into my own inner environment. I, I find that the things I need to learn about come to me.

[00:44:36]  Megan Porta 

Yes.

[00:44:36]  Ryan Robinson 

And it allows me to be way more creatively free and, and to enjoy this stuff so much more.

[00:44:43]  Megan Porta 

And not to adopt the negative mindsets. I don’t watch. I, I haven’t watched news for many years. Like, sometimes it’ll. The TV will be left on. I’m like, what? What? Turn it off. I don’t need, I don’t need that garbage in my brain. I stopped looking at Facebook a handful of years ago. I only look at Instagram to post about my business.

[00:45:04]   

I do the same thing and it has served me so well. And you’re right, the things that need to come to you will find their way to you. You do not need to go seek that out. But I think that is a key thing here, is that seeking out that noise and allowing it into your brain is detrimental, especially in 2025.

[00:45:26]  Ryan Robinson 

Totally like it. It is more difficult. It does require more discipline. It is harder to tune out all of the stuff. Like it’s just a fire hose that will never end if you allow it to just stay on. And so where you do have agency is controlling the valve Control. Do you want it on, do you want it off?

[00:45:49]   

You do get to control that to varying degrees. Right. Like all of us bloggers, content creators, we have to play with social media, we have to post. Right. And so I often will. I mean I, I download and delete these apps on my phone multiple times a week because I like to post natively versus on like scheduling tools.

[00:46:11]   

But it’s not that big of a pain in the ass to download and delete an app. Like it takes an extra 30 seconds. Right. So find what works for you.

[00:46:20]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. And do you find that there? I find this. There are people who are like, what? How could you do that? How could you not watch the news? My mother in law is like, you have to watch the news. I’m like, no, I don’t. I’m fine. My life has been way better without it.

[00:46:35]   

So there will be those people who encourage you to do these things. But like you said, you have control of the valve. Only you can turn that on and off.

[00:46:45]  Ryan Robinson 

Yeah. And also only you knows what really serves you or not. And I mean now we’re getting into like the inner work journey stuff here of many, many years. But having daily practices like meditation, breath work, yoga, like doing these things that, that have helped me tune into my inner environment and know how I best thrive and feel happiest, feel the most joy, the most peaceful, that has allowed me to like very easily let go of some of these things like news and social media.

[00:47:21]   

And I also think there’s, there’s such a cool thing going on with AI where we have these tools that are awesome tools, like use them to help yourself. And my favorite way of doing this is video first creation. Now every time I go to create content about something, I, I lead with the video.

[00:47:43]   

And maybe this is a little different, right? For food bloggers who need to sketch out the recipe. You guys need to do some testing, some experimenting before you maybe actually get to turning on the camera. But do your homework ahead of time. Then lead with video and feed your video to a tool like RightBloggers Video to Blog tool.

[00:48:02]   

There’s a ton of tools out there that do versions of this. And you get your blog post from the video you just made and you can use some tools. SubMagic is my favorite one for creating short form clips somewhat automatically from your longer videos. And that gives you your stuff for TikTok and Instagram. So the tools are out there. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to have fun with it. And then that’s the biggest switch that’ll flip.

[00:48:32]  Megan Porta 

Amazing, all of this. Ryan, thank you so much. Is there anything else you feel like we absolutely need to touch on before we start saying goodbye?

[00:48:39]  Ryan Robinson 

I think we’re in such a good place here. Really, like, mindset. That’s the, that’s the biggest thing, like how you choose to believe about the future of this industry will dictate how it goes for you. And so I highly recommend taking the optimistic route and figuring out, like, ways to enjoy this change as it’s unfolding rather than feeling tons of friction with it.

[00:49:07]   

Is it okay to be frustrated about your traffic going down? Of course that’s inevitable. But is it also an opportunity for reinvention? I think yes. And now is actually such a good time to do that because some of the biggest changes are likely to shake out over the year to come from here. And, you know, in a year from now, you’ll find new ways to have fun too.

[00:49:33]  Megan Porta 

This has been so good. Thank you. I have absolutely loved this conversation. And if you are not listen, if you’re listening and not on YouTube, you have to look at Ryan’s really cool red back. It looks like a dark room behind you or something. It’s so fun. I love that. It’s like a red tinted scene behind you.

[00:49:50]  Ryan Robinson 

You get to have fun with your scene and your setting and you get to try different lights, right?

[00:49:56]  Megan Porta 

Exactly. Okay. I like to ask all my guests if they have a favorite quote and if not, any additional words of inspiration as we close today, Ryan?

[00:50:06]  Ryan Robinson 

Ooh, yeah. I, you know, something that I just find myself often saying to people that I chat with. I’ll go with that rather than someone else’s quote. Experience is the only teacher. At the end of the day, you can do all the learning, consumption, reading, watching, listening that you want, but at the end, end of the day, you do need to actually create some things, to try some things to get outside of your comfort zone.

[00:50:33]   

And so finding that edge of where your comfort zone is and then moving, living at that, that edge is one of the best things I’ve ever done. I, I have a much better time too, as a blogger. When I’m doing things that are pushing me, when I feel that fear rising up inside, I now use that as a positive trigger that I’m on the right track for something rather than as a thing that makes me shrink.

[00:51:03]   

I mean, I’m still human. Sometimes I shrink, but the feedback loop is much shorter now to rising again and realizing, oh, this is just an opportunity to rise once more.

[00:51:17]  Megan Porta 

Love your perspective. Thank you for sharing that we will put together a show notes page for you Ryan. So if people want to go there and check out all the links we talked about and the tools that Ryan was sharing about earlier, you can head to eatblogtalk.com/ryrob – R Y R O B so tell everyone where they can find you Ryan?

[00:51:36]  Ryan Robinson 

yes, ryrob.com is my home base on the Internet. RightBlogger R I G H T blogger.com is where you can find all these tools we were talking about. And inside Rightblogger I also have a ton of free courses, so this is where I do all my education now and where I have the most fun.

[00:51:56]   

We have a few courses that are like two, three hours in length and go through kind of like modern SEO. What’s changing? How to get the most out of AI tools in your mix. So a lot of these things we previewed here. I’ve got much deeper dives. If you enjoy listening.

[00:52:13]  Megan Porta 

Great. Everyone go check that out. I’m sure you will get a lot of attention there just based on how this conversation went. So thanks again Ryan and thank you for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

[00:52:28]   

If you enjoyed this topic, you’ll also love the episode I recommend in the show notes. Click on the episode description to find the link. Thank you and I will see you next time.