Episode 609: How To Qualify For MediaVine in Less than a Year – Proof That SEO is NOT Dead with Allie Hagerty

EBT609 – Allie Hagerty

Supercut  00:00

Hey, food bloggers, check out our new SEO supercut, a bonus 15 minute episode capturing highlights from SEO episodes we have recorded recently. Go to eatblogtalk.com/SEOsupercut to get access today. 

Intro 00:10

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. 

Megan Porta  00:54

How does going from 750 page views a month to over 100,000 page views a month, if that sounds good, please tune into this episode. Allie Haggerty from Seasoned and Salted talks about her strategy that made this happen. Ally’s story is super inspiring. She is super inspiring. She has such a great positive outlook on life and on her blogging journey, which, in my opinion, helps tremendously, but she does talk through some tangible things that you can do in order to gain a lot of traction for your blog as well. First and foremost, she strongly believes in putting together content clusters based on recipes and ingredients and food that you know and love and are so passionate about. Start there create some really high value, helpful content that your users just can’t refuse. She touches on other things, such as the importance of interlinking, how she uses RankIQ to optimize all of our content, making sure you keep a close eye on your site structure and those technical details. Ensure you have a strong title for each post. Create a bunch of evergreen content, be patient. Know that food blogging is a long game and you aren’t going to get traction for every post you write overnight. Consistency, Allie believes is one of the main reasons she gained so much traction so quickly. This episode was one of my favorites I recorded in a while. It’s so inspiring. I just know you’re gonna love it. It is episode sponsored by RankIQ. 

Sponsor  02:36

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Megan Porta  03:19

Allie has been food blogging since 2020, although she took a few years off. After being laid off from her full-time job as a new mom of a 4 week old, Allie decided to put all her energy back into reviving her old, crusty food blog. She started working on her new niche: new England and Mediterranean dishes (think fresh, minimalistic ingredients made delicious) in November ’23. Allie  had maybe 400 sessions monthly. Today, in June 2024, she has almost 75K sessions and is on MediaVine! Allie hunkered down, worked hard, and eliminated distractions like Instagram. She is proof that SEO is NOT dead! Hello Allie, welcome to the podcast now you’re actually a guest versus a listener. How are you today?

Allie Hagerty  04:09

Yes, I’m good. Thanks, Megan. How are you today? I’m so excited to be here.

Megan Porta  04:13

I’m good, and I’m super excited for you to be here as well and to connect with you. I love this topic, we’re going to talk about the power of content clusters. I think this is super relevant and will be really refreshing and inspiring for food bloggers right now. But before we get into that, do you have a fun fact to share with us? 

Allie Hagerty  04:31

I do so. Julia Child held me as a baby. What my dad is a fishmonger here in the Boston area, very prominent one. He’s had very famous clients like Yo Yo Ma, some athletes and singers, performers, but his most famous one in his most regular, his biggest regular was Julia Child. She bought all of her seafood exclusively from my father when she lived in Cambridge, all of her lobsters and. And one day, my mom came out of the walk in, and was like, Julia, I have this new, beautiful bag of shrimp. And she had me in the other hand, and Julia said, forget the shrimp, give me the child. And she, you know, grabbed me from my mother. And so I always joke. I’m like, I feel like some of her wisdom and passion, most of your passion, kind of sprinkled off on to me.

Megan Porta  05:21

Oh my gosh, that is the coolest story. 

Allie Hagerty  05:24

Yeah, I always joke. I’m like, Mom, If only that were the time where, like, we had flip phones with cameras like that would have been a great photo. Yes,

Megan Porta  05:32

best moment ever. But oh how cool. Yeah, some of her passion probably got infused into you. Definitely, definitely, I love that. I actually got goosebumps as you were telling that story. So yeah and cool, yeah. Oh, amazing, yeah. Too bad you didn’t have that capture, but memory for your mom, right? Exactly, exactly, yeah, yeah. Super, super cool. Okay, well, with that in mind, tell us a little bit about the history of your blog.

Allie Hagerty 06:04

Yeah, so my blog was really born during 2020 when we were spending more time at home. I’ve always been a really passionate cook, but I’ve always kind of made stuff up on the fly. I was never really good at following recipes, and so my husband would ask me all the time, like that was amazing that that pasta that she made last week, can you make it again? And family members would ask the same and the answer was always, I can’t. I didn’t record what I was making. I just was so excited in the kitchen. And still to this day, recipe creation is my favorite part. And so I had more time at home, and I finally said, You know what? I’m going to create an Instagram. And my best friend said to me at the time, she was like, Instagram, go big or go home, make a website. And I said, Okay, so I started in 2020 with a Squarespace website, and would take all my photos on my phone under fluorescent lights in my kitchen. And you know, would just even back then, though I loved sharing the tips like it, and really just educating people and kind of taking these elevated recipes and making it approachable for an at home cook. So I started in 2020 and then if you fast forward. So during this time, I was working full time. We got two dogs during the time of COVID, fast forward. My wedding was postponed twice, and I got a new full time job, so just working on my blog and Squarespace and kind of just it was a hobby. In 2022 I stopped working on the blog, probably in January, I had a brand new job. I was really focused on it, and I just felt really burnt out from a full time job that I had just left and poured my heart into and just I was exhausted, I didn’t touch my blog from January 2022 until probably November of 2023, after I had my daughter and was laid off. And so over like about a year and a half went by where I didn’t even log into WordPress, and it was really being laid off in August of 2023 when I was four weeks postpartum with my first child that I that I realized I need to do something for myself, and I want to make the blog profitable, and I want to make it more than just a hobby.

Megan Porta  08:17

Oh, I love that story. Yeah, sometimes we just need life to well. Life can like cause us to stop blogging, but then so true life events can cause us to want to restart. How did you feel when you started back in was it just a foreign world, or did it feel pretty natural.

Allie Hagerty  08:33

Really overwhelming, you know, I think I’d always been really fortunate that I love my full time role as a human resources director, and I’m able to use the income that I make there to invest in my blog. And so I thought to myself, look, I’m laid off, but I do have this severance. How can I use this to invest in myself in the business? So I did a few different things. I kind of I took some courses, I met with some mentors that were really great. And started to learn about this concept of content buckets or clusters, something that I know a lot about, being my father’s daughter’s seafood. I’m very confident, especially cooking with lobster. And so I love lobster. I live in New England. It’s part of my blood. And so that’s where I started. I said, You know what ally just focus on, focusing on recipes that you know a lot about. So I just started there. And then, you know, working with, I worked with, I was motivated to redo my website, optimize. It really just started kind of small. Yeah,

Megan Porta  09:40

I love that you started with just what you knew and what you loved a lot, because I think this concept of working on your content clusters is kind of popular, like, it’s really compelling too, because we kind of want that to lay the path before us. Like, I don’t want to have to think every time. We sit down about what I’m going to write about. So having a cluster to focus on is really just kind of relieving. Do you know what

Allie Hagerty  10:06

I mean? Yeah. And I think that we too. I mean, look, you know, it’s so funny. I think something that we hear all the time as bloggers is, oh, the market’s so saturated. Like, that’s not true. I think, I think especially in 2024, and beyond, you know, people go to Google, right? They for with something in mind that they’re looking for, and it really depends on who’s being the most helpful to the reader, who’s going to get those first spots. And so I think that there’s room for everyone, especially when you’re niching down, especially when you’re focusing on what you’re passionate and know that the most about someone’s gonna go to, you know, I have a friend, and she has just pivoted her her niche. She’s focusing on all like, party bites, small desserts, like mini desserts. I love that. I mean, I would go to her. I would go to her for something like that, if I’m hosting a cocktail party, versus my friend, who does, you know, larger cakes, right? Like, I’ll go to her if I’m baking my daughter’s birthday cake. And so I think that we’re really in this time where people are looking to trust someone, and I think just focusing on your niche really established that helps establish that trust with readers. 

Megan Porta  11:14

I think you nailed it. I think that’s so true, because when you type something really specific into Google, you’ll see there are, like, 4,009,000 million gajillions searches, or, you know, like results for this. But how many of those are actually helpful? Probably not many. So you have to consider that as well. Totally, yeah. Okay, so you started with lobster, because that was something you just really knew, yes. And then how far into lobster did you go? Like, what did you think through with this lobster content cluster?

Allie Hagerty  11:46

Yeah. So the first two recipes that really made a big difference from you were my lobster cake. So it’s like a crab cake, but with lobster, and then butter, poach lobster. And at the time, I’ll be honest lobster cakes, there weren’t a lot of recipes out there, but for butter, poach lobster, you bet. I mean, the competition was fierce, but I told myself, like, just focus, narrow in, don’t focus. And this is something I still do to this day, Megan, where I never once, now any recipe I post or I’m interested in, I never even look at who occupies the first few spots, like, I just don’t focus on it. Like, I just if it’s in my niche, if it’s something I know I can make really well, and something that I think that I can offer a unique take on, I just do it without even thinking. And so I did those recipes, and then I did like, lobster gnocchi, and slowly I would start these other recipes. And once I did those three, it really started to kick off. Then I added some other pastas and things. And once I did that, it kind of I also using Rank IQ. I mean, that’s my number one. Like my number one, you know, fighter in my pack is, is Rank IQ. Once I use Rank IQ, I started to learn how to write, hopefully for my readers, started to realize the importance of showing different options, sewing substitutions, thinking about expert ways to help them to cook with confidence. And so RankIQ then allowed me to say, Okay, I did a few for lobster. What are some other areas? And so, like, one big content bucket I have is pesto, and that’s something I’m continuing with. So by the end of the year, I’ll have like 25 pesto, different pesto types of recipes. But I think just focusing in narrowing your focus, and not worrying about what other people do are doing, really allows you to be more productive as well.

Megan Porta  13:39

Okay, there’s so much I want to comment on there. I love your strategy of just not focusing on the competition, because even I as a really OG blogger, can get get caught up in that because, like, something that I’ve ranked for forever. One of the examples is my chili recipe. Oh my gosh. I used to rank number one spot on Google for years. It got me so much traffic, and then competition started swarming in. And of course, you know, I got pushed out, so I’ve had to really fight for that spot. And I had this thought the other day. I was like, Maybe I should just find a low competition keyword for chili. And I was like, No, I my chili is the best dang chili recipe. I so strongly believe that I’ve made it a million times, so I just decided, no, I’m not gonna care what the competition is doing with chili, because I know that mine is better, and I know that I can serve people in that way. So, yeah, sometimes you do just have to put on your blinders and not give a crap what other people are creating. 

Allie Hagerty  14:40

That so true. I mean, like, I think Espresso Martini, right? Such a popular term. Well, mine uses vanilla vodka, and I think it’s, honestly, it is. It’s the best Espresso Martini in the world. Everyone’s always told me that it’s amazing, and I just went after it and I outranked out, if I’m not allowed to say who, but, like, top-rate bloggers who occupies so much of those top rankings. And so I think that’s an example like, Don’t worry about your domain authority, don’t worry about who has those spots. Just go right, passionately, right, honestly and focus on the things that you really know. And I do think that you will be rewarded if you’re being authentic and showing up that way,

Megan Porta  15:21

and that will shine through your authenticity and your passion for it definitely shines through.

Allie Hagerty  15:27

Thank you. Yeah.

Megan Porta  15:29

I mean, I think that that, I that there’s so much weight there as far as, like, what your how your users see you, but also how Google sees you. So, yeah, I love that. And then, okay, I want to ask you about your lobster strategy. So that was the first one that you really dove into. How far did you go with it? How many lobster related recipes and posts did you make? 

Allie Hagerty  15:50

Yeah, so for that one, I think I have about 10 or 12. I didn’t go as deep with that one as possible, because I started to want to do a few and then start to do a few other different clusters. But between you and I, like I have probably about 25 other recipes for lobster that I’m waiting to share this year and then next year to continue. I think the biggest thing with, I think the biggest thing with your content clusters, content clusters can be so many things. I think people get really hung up on this, Megan, you know, it can be an ingredient that you want to shine. It can be a type of appetizer or something. And the main point of those content clusters is you’re creating organically related posts to each other. So that way, you’re having an organic, easy way to interlink your different posts with each other that is not force. And I think that the end is what people need to think of when they think of content clusters. I think people get really overwhelmed by it, but that’s really in an essence, their purpose is to allow you to create those really genuine links between posts, and then that signals to Google. Oh my God, there’s so much. There’s so much alike in these posts on Season edand Salted. She must really be an expert in these areas. Yeah,

Megan Porta  17:05

Yeah. So that’s so funny. So I use Rank IQ in two different ways, like, obviously the I run reports. So I run my keyword search reports using Key Search, and then if I deem that as like a really good keyword, then I’ll pop it into RankIQ, and then I have parameters that I kind of go by, and if it kind of checks all my boxes, then I’m like, Okay, this is a viable, a viable keyword, but then, like you, I love to use the keyword library in that way, because here’s the thing, you are amazing at making chili. Like, you know, everything there’s doing chili, you have the world’s best chili recipe. Sometimes, when we’re in that zone of genius, it is hard for us to think the perspective of someone who’s never made chili before. So what I love about RankIQ is that it kind of clues you in, like, Oh, someone might not know how to store that chili. Well, that makes sense, because Chili’s traditionally, I’m a big batch or, or, you know, how do you make a chili spicier or toppings for chili people, again, assume that someone’s never had chili before. What are these things that they need to know? So I love that ringfecue has that, because I think that it’s it’s really helpful for those each two headings and just even things to include in your post. Yeah.

Megan Porta  17:05

I love that kind of way of thinking about it. I know for me, RankIQ really helped me with this, because mentioning the chili years ago, I was like, Okay, I know I’m an expert in Chili and everything related to it, what you can do with it, what you do with leftovers? Blah, blah, blah. So that’s where I started. I went to RankIQ, and I literally just typed in chili, and all of these ideas came up, and I was like, Oh my gosh, I can write about that. I know how to store chili. I know how I know what to serve with it, like all of these things I never would have thought to write about otherwise. Is that kind of how you thought through some of your clusters as well. 

Megan Porta  18:59

Oh my gosh, that’s so true. I love it. I’m in that tool all the time from ideas and all kinds of, yeah, there’s so much goodness. 

Allie Hagerty  19:09

It’s so funny. Everyone asks me, they’re like, is it worth it? And I always say, I’m like, I I have to be honest, I think it is the most worth it tool I’ve ever had. 

Allie Hagerty  19:18

I would pay more for it honestly.

Allie Hagerty  19:21

They increase the price. Yeah, same. I love it. I love it.

Megan Porta  19:26

I’m glad we’re on the same page with that. I always love finding fellow Rank IQ users. It’s yeah, I think we’re on the same wavelength with our content. Okay, so I’m just wondering if somebody’s listening and they have no idea where to start with clusters. Do you have any advice for them? 

Allie Hagerty  19:43

I do have. So I have a course that I can talk about later where I kind of teach people about how to use clusters. But here’s the thing that I would think of, think about start with an ingredient, for instance, or think of a type of appetizer ready. So I’ll give two examples, lobster or. Or bruschetta, which is crusty bread with different toppings. Think of something that you love so much, and you can think of 10 different iterations or 10 different linked recipes. Start there. And you know whether it’s lobster pasta, lobster pie, lobster mac and cheese like just dive into it, get the notebook out, just write as many things as you can think of, and you’ll start to just explode with ideas. And then maybe you have a lobster. I have a lobster gnocchi, well, then you think of yaki, and then you think of all these other gnocchi recipes. And then you start to build out this kind of all these different interlinked clusters as well. So I think just go on a nice walk, or go sit in a park and take a notebook, or go to a coffee shop, just go somewhere where you can be creative and don’t put pressure on yourself, but just start to write ideas down, and that’s how you will come up with your content clusters.

Megan Porta  20:57

I love that, and you can just start with one thing, like my chili, yeah, led to so many different things. Like, I found chili was a great topping for baked potatoes. And I was like, Oh, I, I know a lot about potato, you know. So you it will lead you on different paths too. Yep,

Allie Hagerty 21:12

yeah, yeah. And I, and I love someone once gave me really good advice. So I said, you know, I have a great scallop and risotto recipe. And they were like, break it up into two, do brown butter scallops and do the risotto separately, because then you interlink them, and that is kind of break it down for people and then build those ideas together. I think is so important.

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Megan Porta  22:28

So you recommend really just starting with something you know and love inside and out, and that will come through in your writing. 

Allie Hagerty  22:36

Yeah. Like, I think too. Like, I mean, and I’d say the biggest thing is try to start a few months ahead of when you think people will be looking for that. So we always joke like tomato girl summer, people love tomatoes. Well, just start to create, like, 12 different recipes using tomatoes, and you will slowly become an authority on tomatoes, or just really anything I think don’t like the biggest thing. If anyone takes anything away from this episode. Do not let other people, or what they’re doing or their successes dictate what you want to write about. Like write about what you want to write about, and just go all in on that.

Megan Porta  23:13

Love that I think we need permission to do that because we can. I don’t know. I feel like the quote experts can tell us, like, Okay, you need to go look in key search and look at your competition. And if you, if you don’t align with their da domain authority, then don’t even think about it. But I don’t, I don’t necessarily agree with that. If you feel it in your gut, do it? 

Allie Hagerty  23:36

I have an extremely low da. I have a 17 da, and, you know, I again, I had like, 120,000 120,000 sessions last month. So, like it DA, I think doesn’t, it doesn’t matter as much. I think, I think it’s really just about, you know, the volume of linked recipes you have, and just the quality. Like, I know it’s people don’t want to hear it, but you have to write quality blog posts, and you have to give them time. Like, I think people are often looking for quick fixes. You gotta give it time and just trust the process. Like, I challenge everyone out there, write six posts that are interlinked with the same topic. Give it two months, you will see huge traffic. Like, I really believe that.

Megan Porta  24:26

Like if you plant a garden, you don’t expect everything to come out of the ground in a week, right? You have to let it do its thing. And I think it’s the same with logging. It’s just an expectation that I have at this point, after doing it so long, just like, Yeah, this might take a year to come up in Google. That’s fine. In a year, I’ll be really happy. You just have to have that. You just have to be okay with that. The potential of it taking a long time.

Allie Hagerty  24:56

Exactly, but once it will stick like it, it’s. It’s, it’s really exciting once, once that comes through, and again, I can’t say enough, like just, just trust it. You’ll, it’ll, it’ll happen. 

Megan Porta  25:08

The process. Okay, so I want to talk about your progress, because you went from like 750 page views to over 100,000 in eight months. So tell us about that? 

Allie Hagerty  25:20

Yeah, I think you know, the most frequently question asked questions I get on this are, how many posts and what are you using? I would I will tell people this. Google is not Instagram. There is not a specific algorithm. So if you like people always ask, how many per week? Well, don’t think about posting per week. Think about like, like just an infinite amount of time, or a month. So I post probably 12 recipes a month. Last month I did 15 like, so it depends. And, you know, I think the biggest thing is high quality content, interlinking, so making sure that every post on your site has at least five other, you know, links towards like, interlinks into it from another blog post. Like, I think that’s really important. And then I think as well, like, I hate to say it again, but like, Rank IQ, for me, is like, a really big deal, and really helps. And then I think just focusing on your site structure, and just like those little back end things like, are your images the correct size? Are they optimized? Are you avoiding keyword stuff? And keyword stuffing will kill you? And I think just, you know, focusing, I focus a lot on evergreen content, and I think that’s been really helpful, too, overall.

Megan Porta  26:43

All right, that’s all such good advice. I think you hit some really good, like solid things that food bloggers should think about. As far as using Rank IQ. Do you use? It sounds like you do use the optimizer correct? 

Allie Hagerty  26:55

Yes, I do. I love that. It is. So I write all of my posts in RankIQ. And actually, in my course that I created my 100x workflow course, I actually have a video walking people through how I write in RankIQ, because I think people get really hung up on a list of words that they should use. And it’s about doing it organically, and it’s about really thinking of like, okay, these are helpful things to include, but I need to, I need to make it happen organically. I shouldn’t just be stuffing them, but I love that optimizer. And I think too, just focusing on, like, a really strong title, it sounds silly, but, like, my titles used to be, like, you know, just an example. Was No Need for Washup. Just that, yeah, and that’s, that’s one, that’s one of my recipes that I’m updating this month. And now the new recipe is going to be a lot stronger, a lot, you know, more meaty. And so I think, just like thinking how we can provide more context to the reader quickly with those titles, and then just making sure that you’re, you know, really telling them what they need to hear, and that you’re not just overly wordy, or just, you know, writing to write, write with purpose.

Megan Porta  28:08

That’s good advice. Also, user intent, which is kind of something you’re alluding to, is huge right now, so just making sure that you pick a title that like the user is intending to click on right? So it can’t be ambiguous at all anymore. 

Allie Hagerty  28:25

So true. And I think to like, you know, really own your recipe and your zone of genius and your expertise. Like, you know, I was just talking to a friend of mine. She’s a vegan blogger, my friend Lauren, and she posted the most incredible looking chocolate chip cookie recipe the other day, and it’s dairy free completely. And you know, I love that. Now, if I also have a chocolate chip cookie recipe, I’m not I’m not shouting from the rooftops, oh, you could make this without eggs. No, no, that’s not my focus. And so I think people need to just figure out what their recipe is and really scream that from the rooftops, don’t, don’t try to appeal to everyone. Try to narrow who your audience is. And I think that will really help, because the last thing you want is for someone to click into your post and then quickly realize this is misleading. Click out. That’s how you really lose trust with potential subscribers and readers. Yeah.

Megan Porta  29:24

Oh gosh, I so agree with that. I’ve been trying to give extra thought lately to the SEO title in each post, so that title that shows up in the snippet on Google. So instead of just saying, like before, I would say, I don’t world’s best chili recipe. Okay, that’s great. It’s It is the world’s best. But now I could say something like, world’s best chili dash. I can’t even think of like some like highlighting something about.. 

Allie Hagerty  29:51

Jalapeno or right? Like, taco seasoning, yeah? 

Megan Porta  29:55

Like, make it mild or spicy. Or, Yes, great for a large gathering. Or. Like, some of those things that really make it unique. Or my chili is, like, not one of those really thick chili, so I could highlight that. So something that just makes it stand out from the rest, right up front, before they even click over to your post, that’s perfect.

Allie Hagerty  30:16

Yeah, I for mine. What I do is I actually just completely copy and paste my and I’ve done this for all of my posts along the way. Whatever my blog title is, is my SEO title, and it’s worked really, really well. 

Megan Porta  30:29

I love that. Yep. Okay, so do you attribute your massive growth, congratulations on that, by the way, everyone wants that to the content clusters, or do you attribute it to kind of a collection of everything that you mentioned.

Allie Hagerty  30:43

Good question. I would say content clusters. But really, at the end of the day, what that means is proper interlinking, which, again, I go over on my course. But then I would say as well, like, consistency. I was really consistent. Like, you know, I had a newborn at home. I was searching for a new job. I was grieving the fact that I lost my my job that I loved and cared about while having newborn trying to, you know, feed this newborn, trying to sleep, etc, trying to eat, you know, just so many things. And the one thing I kept consistent was when my daughter went to bed at 7pm I would sit down on computer and I would write and I would just write and write and write. And so I think that the biggest thing is just keep up with it. Just act as if every blog post I have written in the last year, I go into it thinking to myself, I’m going to get the number one ranking. I’ve never once in this day. I was just thinking that today, like every post I just I act like I’m gonna get the number one ranking in my head and like, just have that attitude and just just trust it, and don’t obsess. Don’t keep checking about when you know the ranking for it, you will see on Google Analytics in a little bit, and you’ll see that traffic. And that is such an exciting feeling. So I think for me, just I’m not a patient person. Megan, my husband, if my husband hears this episode, he’s gonna roll his eyes back. I’m not with my blog. I am, and I think that’s really, really important for people to hold on to, like, don’t give up. Don’t give up. Keep doing it. Be honest with yourself about the amount of time and commitment you’re actually giving and if you’re actually putting out your best work.

Megan Porta  32:21

That’s all so great. And I like how it is more a formula. It’s not just like, Okay, here’s the answer, content clusters are it? It’s more just thinking through all of what you’re talking about, the high quality content, the niche, the consistency, the patience, seeing it as a long game like it all plays together, and these are all really important factors.

32:44

Yes, it definitely, I mean, and I think too, again, like, I’ve been so fortunate. I love people. Megan, like, I’m a people person. I’m the head of human resources for, believe it or not, like a an adult company in the United States here. And I, I love people. And so I’ve been so lucky that through my blog chair, I’ve met some really, really, really good friends. You know, not everyone is someone that’s collaborative, willing to share their knowledge, willing to, you know, but when you find those people, you can learn so much. You can share knowledge. And I think that that’s been really helpful too. This can be such a lonely journey. You know, our spouses, our friends in real life, they don’t understand this is a very different career than most. And to be an entrepreneur takes guts and not everyone. It also takes a lot of persistence. And so finding those people who are in your corner that you love and truly trust, it makes such a big difference bouncing ideas off of them, and I think that that made a really big difference for me. In the last year or two, I really focused on who is in my corner and who’s not my corner, and who do I not need to associate with, and and that made a really big difference, too for my head space.

Megan Porta  33:53

I would be bold enough to say that prioritizing people actually trumps probably everything else we’ve talked about. Honestly, this is one of my messages. If you’ve listened to the podcast for a while, I so strongly believe, and this is so undervalued, I think, in our space too, but I so strongly believe that if you prioritize people, that you are going to accelerate your business growth by leaps and bounds over what you would if you didn’t. 

Allie Hagerty  34:21

I mean, think about it, you know. So again, I’m the head of human resources, and I’m a recruiter like the top talent that you bring in that moves your business forward. So in our world, the top people that we surround ourselves with, you know my mentor, Sam, she always tells me, surround yourself with people that are stronger than you, that are where you want to be, and people that you look up to as role models, and that’s what I strive for. I always strive to be in a room with people who I can learn from, because that’s how you grow. That’s how you push yourself, and that’s how you you learn. And I think to just finding people. People who are good, people who are positive, who are who are there to see you succeed, and who are not threatened by your success. I think once you find those people, it just it really helps, and it makes it makes everything better.

Megan Porta  35:15

Oh my gosh, we’re meant to be friends. You just we are, yeah, this was a huge Amen. Like, yes, everyone needs to hear this repeatedly, every day, myself included.

Megan Porta  35:26

Oh, that’s so true. And it can be hard because it can hurt feelings and it can also produce some guilt, like, I’ve carried a little bit of that too, like, Oh, she was actually really good person, but I know she wasn’t good for me. You know, like, you just have to let go of some things and search for, like you said earlier, those people who are going to challenge you and make you grow in ways that you never imagined you could grow. That’s so important in business and being an entrepreneur, it really is, yeah. Is there anything else that you would say contributed to this massive growth and success that you experience? 

35:26

Yeah, and it’s hard, right? Like, I think too. Like so many of us, like my closest some of my closest friends, I’ve met in person. Some of them I have not. Some of them I FaceTime. Some of them, we voice message each other. And, you know, I think it’s just about finding those, really, those people that you can count on and just say, like, I’m having a really hard time with this. What would you do? And I think, you know, there’s trial and error, like, there’s some people that I’ve been close with, and then I realized they’re not my type of people, and that’s, that’s okay, you know, it’s okay. And I think you need to protect your peace more than anything. And you know, it’s something I’m sure you teach your boys. It’s something I’m going to teach my daughter, Charlotte. Like you are not for everyone, and everyone is not for you, but you need to just do what you feel most comfortable with, and always stick on, hold on to that gut feeling. 

Allie Hagerty  36:50

I would say the other thing I worked hard on my friend Christina fromTasting with Tina. He, you know, is one of my friends who has always been so kind, so warm and so helpful with sharing knowledge. She said, really great success, not only on Instagram but her blog. And so she told me early on, she was like, Ellie, one thing you should do is focus on getting high quality backlinks to your website. And I was like, Chris, you know, what does that even mean? And there’s a lot of ways to do that. You know, reaching out to your local like local newspapers and publications are always looking to highlight local recipe creators and bloggers. So reaching out there, you know, different publications, online media pitching getting those high quality backlinks is very important. I also love Facebook roundup groups, but something to be very careful. You want to make sure that you are never like link swapping with someone. Google’s smarter than that, so really make sure that they’re authentic, high value links back to your website. Even just getting one or two will make a big difference in time.

Megan Porta  37:55

Yeah, the I just learned this recently from an SEO expert. He was saying to my mastermind group that it’s great to get backlinks, but you have to focus on the quality of the place you’re getting the backlink from, that is so important. And we never used to have to think about that, but now it’s like, oh, you have to research first. Do they have a high domain? Are they a quality site and all of that?  Yeah, it’s really important. 

Allie Hagerty  38:19

Do your due diligence, but that’s definitely been really helpful. And it’s fun too. It’s fun getting to network with different publications and people in that way. So I love that that’s been very helpful too.

Megan Porta  38:30

Yeah, it sounds like you have a good just network of people who support you and who give you great advice, and you probably do the same for them. I love that so much. 

Allie Hagerty  38:39

Yeah, I feel very fortunate.

Megan Porta  38:40

Oh, well, that means that you are putting out good things too, because you tracked what you put out. I so strongly, so true. Yep. Okay, so I know you have this course. I would love for you to talk about this, because I think this will really serve and help food bloggers.

Allie Hagerty  38:54

Definitely. So I created the 100x Workflow because I went I 100x my traffic, which was crazy in eight months. And truly, I’m gonna preface it by saying it’s a no frills course. This is easy. It’s digestible. There’s tons of videos of just me walking through exactly what I do for every single blog post. I’m talking key, search, Rank, IQ, writing the post, optimizing images, alt text, posting everything in between my templates. And then what I do after posting that, I think is the number one reason why I get the traffic I do. And so it’s very easy, digestible, it’s, again, it’s just my goal. With it is just to help people I’m not someone that is threatened by other success. I want everyone else to be successful, and that’s what gets me excited. So there is a code I actually created for Eat Blog Talk listeners, and it’s just eat blog talk spelled out completely, and that’ll give everyone $50 off the course, which brings the price under $150 but it’s really helpful. I think the number one piece of feedback I’ve gotten from people is, oh, my God. It’s just about consistency and keeping with what you’re doing, and that’s what I try to teach in the course. Is like, use everything I’m teaching you, but you have to use each piece, and you have to do each piece over a period of time and just focus. And then I would say the other big piece that people are loving about the course is I have this keyword planner I go more into in the course, but I talk about how I strategize my content bucket, and how I basically create this process so that every day, so on Saturdays, when I do my shoots, I open up my laptop and I see exactly what I can focus on next to shoot and write. And I do not like it kind of like eliminates the noise from the outside world, and it helps you to just plan what you need to do. And the biggest piece of feedback has been people have found that’s really empowered them. So I love that

Megan Porta  40:58

this sounds amazing. I think this could help so many people. So the code is, where do they go to your site, or what is the URL? 

Allie Hagerty  40:58

Great question. So I can send that to you for the notes, and then I’m actually going including that if you follow me on Instagram, it’s @seasonedandsalted spelled out. I’m actually going to be, later today, adding a highlight to the bottom of my page, and in there, we’ll have the link and all the information that people need. But on the once you follow the link, there’s kind of a landing page. It’ll tell you a little bit more about it, but it’s great. I mean, I think it’s really been helping people. The feedback has been just tremendous. 

Megan Porta  41:34

Amazing. I’m so excited for you, and I hope you get tons and tons of traction. It sounds super valuable. Yeah, love that you have that heart for helping people too, and that’s really important in our space, to have a few of us out there, right? Yes. Well, thank you, Allie. This was such a great conversation. I could probably go on talking to you for hours, but I have to let you go about your day. Thank you for just sharing everything that you did and congratulations on all of your success. I’m so happy for you.

Allie Hagerty  42:04

Thank you. Thank you so much, Megan. It’s been so great chatting with you. 

Megan Porta  42:08

Same, it was my pleasure. Do you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration to end on?

Allie Hagerty  42:13

I do so my favorite, and I do not know its origins, but comparison is the thief of joy. It’s something that I tell myself all the time, and I think it’s the one thing that bloggers need to keep in mind. Comparison is the deep of joy. So just focus on yourself and be happy and stay creative.

Megan Porta  42:33

Such a great way to end a good chat. We’ll put together show notes for you, Allie, if anyone wants to go look at those and to get the link that Allie referred to, you can head to eatblogtalk.com/seasonedandsalted. Tell people where your blog is. I know you’ve mentioned this, but let’s just reiterate it all

Allie Hagerty  42:53

So you can follow me at seasoned, S, E, A, S O, N, E, D and salted. So all one word.com, you can also find me. That is my instagram handle and Tiktok, although I’m not as active over there. So Instagram, you can also, if you have any questions about blogging, I’m happy to help people and my email is [email protected] and Allie spelt a, l, l, i e happy to talk with any bloggers about anything that I can help them with.

Megan Porta  43:23

Oh, that’s super generous. Thank you, Allie, and thank you so much for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

Outro  43:32

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. Don’t forget to rate and review e vlog talk on your favorite podcast player. Thank you and I will see you next time you.