Episode 732: SEO in 2025 – How to Thrive Amid AI Overviews and Algorithm Chaos With Ty Kilgore

EBT732 – Ty Kilgore

[00:00:00]  Megan Porta 

What is actually happening with SEO in 2025 here mid year? Is AI killing our traffic or is it opening new doors? In this episode I chat with SEO and digital marketing expert Ty Kilgore from Everything Digital Marketing who brings 16 plus years of experience and over 1000 successful site audits to the table.

[00:00:22]   

Ty delivers a must hear pep talk. Best pep talk I’ve ever heard in my life. This pep talk is for all bloggers who are tempted to give up. Plus he shares what he thinks might be happening in the future with the AI overview on Google. He also talks about how to withstand algorithm chaos and why pulling the right levers might just save your blog. Tune in for data driven strategies, encouragement and and clarity for the road ahead.

[00:00:59]  Intro 

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

[00:01:14]   

Food bloggers. What if stepping away from your business for just a few days could bring you back more focused, inspired and clearer than ever? The Eat Blog Talk Fall retreat is happening October 9th through 12th this year and it is so much more than a getaway. It is three nights of rest that fills your cup. Strategy that actually sticks, conversations that spark game changing ideas. So much good food and laughter and connection that will leave you wanting more, more and more. We keep these retreats intimate for a reason so you can go deep, build real relationships and walk away with a renewed sense of purpose in your business. The there’s no pressure at these retreats, just the space to breathe, reflect and reconnect with why you started this blogging journey in the first place. Past attendees say it’s unlike anything they’ve ever experienced and honestly, I think it’s something every blogger deserves. Head to eatblogtalk.com/retreat to grab your spot before they’re gone. Eatblogtalk.com/retreat

[00:02:17]   

Hello Ty, welcome back to the podcast. I think you’ve been on multiple times by now. It’s always so good to have you here.

[00:02:24]  Ty Kilgore 

Oh thanks for having me. It’s always a pleasure to eat or to be on this podcast and to talk to the wonderful listeners you have. So hopefully I can provide some value today. Yay.

[00:02:34]  Megan Porta 

And then I was going to show you I theme well so look what I’m wearing today. You are my Everything Digital Marketing T shirt that you gave away in Savannah. I was getting ready this morning. I was like this just seems perfect and I love it. It’s so soft. I love this T shirt.

[00:02:51]   

It’s the best.

[00:02:52]  Ty Kilgore 

We went through a. We went through a T shirt phase, and so this was part of it. So I’m glad. Yeah.

[00:02:58]  Megan Porta 

So I’m ready in all forms here to talk about SEO. But first, before we get into all that good stuff, do you have another fun fact to share with us?

[00:03:08]  Ty Kilgore 

Yeah, I do, actually. So fun fact about me is that I actually ended up marrying my. My older sister’s best friend.

[00:03:18]  Megan Porta 

Oh, my gosh.

[00:03:19]  Ty Kilgore 

So when I tell that story to people, a lot of reactions come out, but it’s been a crazy story. She was 16 when I met her and I was 14, so I always had a little bit of crush on her. She viewed me as a little brother for a long, long time.

[00:03:38]   

And then, long story short, we’ve been married for a long time now. But, yeah, it was definitely a fun journey.

[00:03:46]  Megan Porta 

That’s so cool. I didn’t know that about you guys. So how long before you went from, like, little brother status to, oh, this could be an interest.

[00:03:55]  Ty Kilgore 

Right. So let’s see. We were. We didn’t reconnect until our early 20s, so it was kind of like at a distance. Our families had known each other. There was a couple of moves in there. So we reconnected probably when I was 21, 22.

[00:04:12]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:04:13]  Ty Kilgore 

Yeah, we got married. I was 23 when we got married. So it was, yeah, a little bit of time, a little bit of kind of some coordinations and. Yeah, yeah, different events that occurred. But, yeah, it was. It was definitely a period where I. She took some convincing from her family because they hadn’t seen me for a period of about three years.

[00:04:33]   

So it was from 18 to about 21, which is a lot of growth happens in that time frame. And so her family kind of threw the idea out and she was very, at first hesitant, but eventually won over. And.

[00:04:47]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I love that. That’s very cool. And then the rest is history, right?

[00:04:53]  Ty Kilgore 

Exactly. The rest is history.

[00:04:55]  Megan Porta 

So in case somebody doesn’t know if they’re just tuning into the podcast, I would love it if you would just tell them a little bit about who you are, what your company is, what you do.

[00:05:05]  Ty Kilgore 

Absolutely. I have a company, Everything Digital Marketing that I’ve been running for. It looked, I think, seven to years now I have to go back and look, but essentially it’s changed over the years. But essentially what I do is I help businesses, content creators, bloggers, influencers, to receive more SEO traffic to their website.

[00:05:25]   

So I do that through a period of different ways, but basically the concept being I help strategize and provide content and direction because so many times the people I talk to, people I work with, they are constantly somewhat spinning wheels, if you will, and just wanting to know what the best path forward is.

[00:05:48]   

There’s a lot of information out there and there’s a lot of directions that you can go. Doesn’t mean it’s the right one for you. So I basically help help people get more SEO traffic

[00:05:58]  Megan Porta 

In a nutshell. And that’s what we all want right now. We’re all having a little bit of that head spinning so syndrome. And that’s what you’re here to talk about. So I thought it would be good to just have you back on. It’s right at the middle of 2025. It feels like this year’s been a lot, just not even just with SEO, but all over the place with AI and all of the different changes.Pinterest even. I mean, it’s kind of been a crazy year. So what is going on from your viewpoint as far as SEO is concerned here in late July 2025?

[00:06:37]  Ty Kilgore 

Yeah, that’s a great question. So I went and recently spoke at a travel conference called TBEX in Quebec City. And one of the things that they were consistently asking me about was about the AI overview. And here is kind of what the answer I gave them and what I here’s my opinion. Now granted, I do not have a crystal ball and I’m not in the boardrooms of Google, so I clearly don’t know this is going to happen.

[00:07:02]   

But here’s my take. So I think there’s inevitably going to be AI overview search results that are not going to come back. So if you’re in the food space, how many ounces in a cup, that is probably going to be dominated by AI overview. If you’re in the travel space, tourist attractions to see in New York City, that’s a very easy AI overview generated result.

[00:07:25]   

But there will be new and different intents behind searches that people do not just want an AI overview for. For example, I feel like I can go and have a chocolate chip cookie, and that chocolate chip cookie can be very bad. I’ve had very bad chocolate chip cookies and there can be really good ones.

[00:07:46]   

And so there’s a lot of nuance there. So I don’t anticipate that consumers are going to allow AI to give them a chocolate chip cookie recipe when they know that there are differences and nuances with that type of result. So similarly, if I asked AI to tell me what type of shirt to buy.

[00:08:07]   

That’s going to depend on the situation and circumstance and style. So there will be certain terms that absolutely AI will take and you’re probably not going to get them back. So if you were hoping for that, it’s probably time to let it go and do some serious intent around your keyword research and figure out the queries that are going to actually bring searches that want to click.

[00:08:32]   

I think that that absolutely is going to be a focus moving forward. I do also anticipate, particularly for the food niche, is that when Google sees that people are scrolling past that AI overview and choosing to click on a result for more in depth information, that is a signal to Google, similar to how web stories were a signal.

[00:08:55]   

You know, web stories were a rage for eight months and then all of a sudden they go away because people realized and Google realized that they didn’t just want a slide and a link that they could click on, they wanted more. So my crystal ball analysis and prediction is that AI overview for the food niche will be something that is a hot topic for the rest of 2025, probably for the first part of 2026, and then eventually they will have enough data with people clicking through it that it will be something that will go back to what we have seen traditionally. I could be 100% wrong.

[00:09:34]   

And if I am, then go back on this podcast and we can, we can mark the time I said it. But I think people, I don’t. When I see AI overview, it’s kind of like it reminds me a little bit of Wikipedia back in the day. Wikipedia used to just give you kind of a definition, right?

[00:09:52]   

A dictionary almost definition. And I don’t need AI to tell me what a lasagna is. I want AI. I want Google to tell me what’s the best type of lasagna to make. And those are different intents. So yes, I think people are going to look at AI overviews, but I don’t think it’s going to be the disruptor that everyone is fearful of now in other niches.

[00:10:15]   

Absolutely. It plays a bigger part, right. The travel space. I specifically talked about how you’re going to have to talk and write articles about three day trips to New York City and what to do and how to plan it, that level of detail. Absolutely. AI cannot provide. They can, but people do want opinions from real people.

[00:10:35]   

And so that, you know, Amazon has trained us to do that. I don’t see that going away anytime soon. The other just to transition away from that real quick is that this big update that came through in June. So it’s last day of June snuck in there and then we’ve had three weeks over rollout and it’s been interesting.

[00:10:57]   

There was a search engine journal article talking about a data provider Similar Web. And one of the things that they do is they track the average position changes by core update and they give it a particular number. So for example, the HCU update got like a 4.39 as far as the amount of average position changes that Similar Web tracked, meaning that it was one of the higher impactful core updates.

[00:11:30]   

The subsequent core updates of November, December, March of end of 24, beginning of 25, they were no higher than like 3.3, 3.5. So they weren’t as impactful. Well, this June update or July update, whatever article you read might call it one or the other says that this one is a 3.9. So it is not as impactful as HCU, but it is more impactful than the ones we’ve had previously.

[00:12:01]   

So what that means great numbers, Ty, what does that mean? Right? Like what that means basically is I have roughly six to eight people who I’ve worked with since either HCU or have had the feeling that their site has been in this SEO core update abyss, right? Where you make changes and nothing occurs.

[00:12:23]   

You make new posts, they don’t rank. You look at declining posts and you rewrite the thing four times and it’s not there. And then all of a sudden June 30th rolls around and their site is starting to rank for things that they haven’t touched in six months. All of a sudden those posts that they were not ranking for start to return rankings that they had no ability to do for the last year and a half are now starting to appear.

[00:12:49]   

And our calls are much more joyful. I tell you that. A lot more smiles. And you know, I had somebody in Savannah at your conference asked me like, Ty, should I just delete my site at this point? And I was like, no, no, like you absolutely have to put the work in. And I get asked this question a lot like, what can I do to recover?

[00:13:11]   

And I’m upfront with people and I explain that majority of the time it will be cut. It will. The recovery will come because of a core update. Right? But in the meantime, that means that we have to go through and do all the optimizations that we potentially can, knowing that we’re not going see the results until the next core update.

[00:13:32]   

So you have to have that mentality. And I think so many times bloggers, they give up sooner than they should. And it’s not a question of if your site will recover, it’s just a question of when. I’ve just been doing this for 16 years and I’ve just seen that so many sites, the person behind the site stops before they should.

[00:13:53]   

And I get it. It’s a mental warfare. Entrepreneurship is hard. There is absolutely an overwhelm that exists when, you know, effort does not equate to return on investment. I understand, mentally, the, the places I’ve had to go for myself. I understand, yes, that’s probably a different episode. But the goal is like, now here is a great example of people who, you know, essentially felt like their site was in SEO abyss and now they’re not.

[00:14:27]   

And so they’re seeing results and they’re seeing how quickly, how fast can we go, what else can update? You know, now the enthusiasm has returned. And so any, if anything, I think that 2025, with this core update particularly, and with AI, there is a lot of messaging out there that says that, you know, give up on SEO, give up on doing anything related to this, because it’s dead.

[00:14:52]   

Whatever. You know, it’s funny, I took my first job and I remember the article came out. I remember the first place I was, I remember the office I was, I remember the computer I was at. And I remember reading the first article, SEO is dead. And I honestly thought to myself, I have made a massive career.You know, I’m a, I’m an entry level employee at my first corporate job and I’m like, oh no, I don’t.

[00:15:17]  Megan Porta 

Know, what have I done?

[00:15:18]  Ty Kilgore 

Right? I made a massive change. And here I am 16 years later. People still need information. Google’s still around.

[00:15:27]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:15:27]  Ty Kilgore 

You know, it’s funny, the people who are not in the Facebook groups talking about their lost traffic, those are the people who privately I talk to and they’re like, I actually got more SEO traffic because of the update. But I don’t say anything because I don’t want people to like, be mad at me.

[00:15:42]   

Right, right. And so there is absolutely an ability. And now the playing field is even more level because traditionally the domain ratings were kind of that bigger site’s got more. That’s not necessarily the case. I have about four or five people I work with who have a lower domain rating than you would typically think, and they’re ranking and competing with the higher bloggers for big terms.

[00:16:07]   

And when you look at it, that probably wasn’t true five, six years ago, but now it is. And there’s a lot of people doing it right and doing it the right, correct way. And there’s a lot of people who are stuck in their ways and stuck in their. I keep doing the same thing the same way and I expect different results and just consistently spin their wheels.

[00:16:32]   

And I get it, you’re going to get burned out fast. You’re going to get burned out fast if you do that. And so, yes, I think, you know, in my opinion, strategies fail. People don’t fail. Right. And so people have to consistently have the determination, the grit, the grind to do it. But you also have to know when you have to step back and say, wait, this isn’t working.

[00:16:54]   

Right? Like, I’m not going to keep trying the same thing and hopefully break through on my hundredth try. Like, that’s insane. But yes, you can look at it and say, okay, I tried it three times this way. What’s something new? How can I change this up? And so I think the people who are adapting are thriving.

[00:17:13]   

And the people who want to do blogging the same way they did it in 2014, 2016, they’re struggling. And it’s almost as clear as day. I get on a call with somebody and I can tell pretty quickly, kind of where they are mentally and where they are from. Not just financially and strategy wise, but I can tell pretty fast, like, okay, you know, and people are smarter now, like they used to be back in the day.

[00:17:41]   

People wouldn’t even find a mastermind until like year three of doing it right. And now people don’t even have a site. And I feel like they’re in masterminds. They’re like this, deciding whether or not to do it. And so people are starting off really a lot in a much better spot. And so the competition is harder.

[00:17:59]   

I mean, that’s the reality. So it doesn’t mean that you fold and you say, okay, I don’t have a shot. It means, are you willing to play the game? And some people are, and they thrive and some people give up. And I get it. And so anyways, long answer to a very quick question, but no, that was great. Hopefully that provides some context.

[00:18:21]  Megan Porta 

So for the people who have regained some traction since this most recent update, do you see any themes like, are there things they’re doing to their posts or their sites, or is it just mostly mental? Or maybe all of the above.

[00:18:37]  Ty Kilgore 

So really, it’s two things. The first thing is the core update helps. Okay? So I can’t discard. And I even said this to people I talked to. I was like, you know, I would love to say that everything, digital marketing is the reason and the catalyst and the only reason why you are seeing success in your SEO.

[00:18:55]   

I’m not that vain and I’m not that guy. Instead, I will say, absolutely, the things that we’re doing has helped you. So when it relates to that, I’m thinking, okay, you can’t just leave a post alone. Like I talked about this in Savannah. You can’t just say, okay, I have this, you know, Carne Asada Fries post and it hasn’t ever ranked for me, so I’m just going to leave it and I’m just going to hope that one day it does.

[00:19:21]   

Right. Like that’s not a strategy. You have to go into that post and you have to be willing to cut it up and repurpose it and redo it and change everything. Like everything is of testing until it works. Right. And so absolutely the theme is people who are aggressive, meaning that they’re not passive, they’re not laying down, they’re not just allowing their sites to live on their, their posts to live on their site, but instead they’re hitting the edit button.

[00:19:48]   

And they’re not just going in with Machete every time, but they’re testing and experimenting. I’ll talk more about that in a second. And the second thing is, is clearly the things that they were doing the search engines are now responding to. So of course we were doing that for the last year and a half since HCU.

[00:20:06]   

Like I have one in particular. We have rewrote a post, I want to say five times, five times we’ve rewrote in this post and we have gotten, it’s been crickets, crickets. And so every call, okay, what are we doing next? What are we doing next? And I think, you know, that person has withstood the storm and now their site is reaching levels in a 30 day window that they haven’t reached since before HCU.

[00:20:32]  Megan Porta 

Wow. And so that’s so cool.

[00:20:34]  Ty Kilgore 

It’s crazy. Like from a data analytic person who I am and like the data numbers, I’m like, this is a crazy case study here. Like I want to break this down. So granted, like I said, absolutely impacted by the update, Google is now rewarding. It wasn’t like there was some fundamental difference between before the update and after the update.

[00:20:56]   

It’s just now the information and things we’re doing are working. So it’s interesting. Absolutely. You have to change things on your site. You can’t just sit there. I get asked questions all the time around like format and things to do? And is there this like abcdc? And the more and more I get asked that, the more and more I’m like, well, here’s an example of someone who writes long form copy and they are successful.

[00:21:24]   

Here’s an example of somebody who writes three paragraphs and they’re ranking and they’re successful. And so I think a lot like fashion, you have to find what works for you, right? And granted, there are some fundamental principles you need to answer the question, provide context, you need to give clarity, you need to provide information that people are looking for, right?

[00:21:44]   

And a lot of times people miss the mark when it comes to that. But eventually you have to find your niche. And so many times I’m like, I get a question like this Ty, I saw ABC Blogger do xyz. What is your thoughts? Right? Does that help her? Does that help them? Are they doing something differently?

[00:22:04]   

And then the next question inevitably is, and should I do it? And so I walk through it and I say, okay, do you like, let’s talk through the posts that you have that rank. Are those posts doing those things? Well, no. Okay, then what is your opinion of why those posts rank?

[00:22:24]   

And they’ll give me their best understanding and I will literally look at them and just say, well, let’s look at the. Some of the tools that I have to compare your site to others. Did you know that this site has 100 backlinks or this page does? I had no idea. Well, that is why this post is ranking, because it has the authority metric that Google looks for.

[00:22:47]   

And if you don’t have the authority metric, you know, how can we look at that and say, how can we build the other stuff? And that’s the next question. Like, okay, well how do I build authority? Well, great, now we’re asking the right questions. Now we’re figuring out like, okay, you got on this post, you were listed on these three websites.

[00:23:05]   

How did you get these? Well, two of them ranked me, linked to me on their own. And the other two, I had to do outreach. And I said, okay, well you’re almost answering your own question. We have to do more outreach. You have to get more of your content listed on other people, other people’s post.

[00:23:20]   

And so it’s, it’s a, it’s always once you start looking at it through the right lens, it is a repeatable pattern that people can follow. It’s just a matter of understanding what you’re looking for and then spending time and where your efforts are going to reply and are going to return something. And then most people, when they see it from that lens, it becomes exciting again because there’s a path forward and not just a.I don’t know. I don’t know why it ranks. Yeah, I feel like.

[00:23:52]  Megan Porta 

I feel like in the past there was much more of a formula. Like, there was, okay, this formula works for most bloggers to get XYZ results, and now it seems like there’s less of a formula and more of a just like customized, unique formula to you. So, like, what you’re saying is just because this works for this big blogger or this group of bloggers does not mean it’s going to work for you.

[00:24:18]   

So focusing on what exactly works for your content and experimenting and kind of keeping the blinders on a little bit and just doing more of what works specifically for you.

[00:24:32]  Ty Kilgore 

Absolutely. I mean, Megan, one of the things that I highlighted in Savannah at Flavor Media this year was just in the last seven years, I have analyzed close to 30,000 URLs. And as a data person, it really makes me like almost a little bit nerd out by looking at the results. And so what I broke it down by was the domain rating, right?

[00:24:58]   

So if you’re in a domain rating from 1 to 39, your strategy needs to be slightly different than if your domain rating is 70 or higher. Which makes sense, right? Like All Recipes. If I’m giving SEO advice to All Recipes or Food Network, it’s going to be very different than somebody that started their site six months ago, Right?

[00:25:17]   

But most people, when they think of SEO, they think of it like this. These are the advice, this is the information, right? Instead, it’s kind of like fitness, right? Like, if I’m going to compete in the Olympic games for the 100 meter dash, I’m going to have a very different training regimen than if I’m trying to run the marathon at the Olympics.

[00:25:39]   

Those are two different things. And so when it comes to SEO, everyone says, okay, just go running. Well, no, no, no. Like, you have to be very strategic. What does your training look like on day one? What does your training look on day 50? Right. So when you get advice from whoever it is online, you could be getting advice from them when they are on day 75 and you’re on day 20.

[00:26:04]   

So it doesn’t resonate. So the issue that I found and the thing that was interesting with the data is that we actually had to do more if your domain rating is lower than we had to do if your domain rating was higher. And what I mean by that is, like, if your domain rating is 60s to 70s.

[00:26:23]   

There was a certain formula that actually emerged as far as what we needed to do in order for your site to rank. Now I rank. I have numerous people that are 70 or higher, and we had to do less for them. So, for example, like, I had one site, she was a domain rating 74, I had to make, you know, three or four changes, whereas if I was a domain rating in the 30s, I had to make 20 to 30 changes.

[00:26:49]   

And so the way that I measured this for those that weren’t in Savannah was that for people that I work with, I select and we create six keywords per URL, knowing full well that there’s more keywords that bring in opportunity. But the six keywords are what we track on a weekly basis, right?

[00:27:10]   

So depending on where those keywords start and then what we do to the post and then how that those keywords finish, all is determinant, right? So basically what I mean by that is like, okay, we. We track six keywords per URL. How many of them got to page one? And because they got to page one, what did we have to do to the post?

[00:27:32]   

How many changes do we have to do? So in my vernacular, I call it levers, right? So I’m talking through and I’m thinking, okay, like for a site that has a domain rating 40 to 49, the average amount of levers I had to pull were in the 20s in order for most keywords, like four to six of the six keywords to get onto page one.

[00:27:54]   

Now if I compare that to domain rating 70 or higher, the average amount was nine. So to compare, like you’re doing more if you have a lower domain rating, which makes sense because you have more to catch up to. You have more that you have to do. But typically what happens is, like, people have their formulas, they have their patterns, they have their templates.

[00:28:18]   

So if I were to ask you, like, you hit the edit button and I asked you to go optimize one of your blog posts, what are the four or five or however many things you do, what do you do? Right? What do you do to optimize it? And it’s amazing to hear what people say.

[00:28:33]   

People will typically tell me some version of this. They do keyword research, they change out some keywords. That’s as specific as I get. They change out some keywords and then they basically they switch. Switch out the photo photos. They tried to maybe change out a couple of the paragraphs with some additional information.

[00:28:55]   

And then basically they hope for the best. And so it’s not really a strategy that’s like going to the local gym and just like walking through it and hoping that you grain muscles, right? Like, you can’t, you can’t do it like that. You have to have, you know, a personal trainer that’s specific to your needs, your body type and what your fitness goals are.

[00:29:14]   

And so I think the specialized customized plan has really resonated with those that I work with simply because it takes a lot of the. Well, I don’t know what to do. I hear that a lot. Like, this is a post that ranked for me last year and now this post doesn’t. And I don’t know what else to do.

[00:29:33]   

I’ve tried everything I know, right? And so it’s like, yeah, I mean, I understand. So why don’t we try to look at something else, right? So as data comes in for people that I work, work with for six, seven, eight, nine months, I can formulate a pattern for them. That’s a customized formula that basically says, hey, in this scenario, for a declining post that’s ranking higher than, than page two, we have found that we’ve worked on seven URLs, like that five of them have gotten back.

[00:30:06]   

And these are the things we did for the five, these 15 things. So when we rank, we go to the next one and we’re going to be looking at the next declining post. We’re going to do these 15 things because we know it’s worked for five, right? So do you see how like, quickly it comes from, like, I don’t know what to do to data is telling me what to do and I’m just going to replicate it again and again.

[00:30:30]   

And, and so yeah, it gets, I can go in more detail there, but it basically allows for people to have a little bit of sanity when it comes to this insane world of SEO and a little bit of hope, really. That’s. I wasn’t trying to provide hope, but it’s mainly just like, yeah, like there’s like, I’ll give you a great example.

[00:30:50]   

Like, here’s a domain rating 40 to 49. I did 16 things and got five of the six keywords to rank on page one, where another post, I had to do 19 things to get it to rank. And then another post, I had to do 21 things, right? So as you go down the list and you look at the data, you’re like, wow, like even in domain range 50 to 59, like there’s so many things that you potentially can do.

[00:31:17]   

It doesn’t mean that you do them all. It means that you have to understand what’s the right order and then what’s the right thing to do. And so oftentimes there’s common mistakes people make, so those are quickly corrected with the variety of levers that we do. But it’s dependent on the keyword and dependent on who they’re trying to displace.

[00:31:38]  Megan Porta 

So can you talk about some of the things, the levers that you pull? I mean, 20 is a lot. So where do you start? And does it depend on if you are in the 30s for your domain rating versus 70s, what levers you pull?

[00:31:53]  Ty Kilgore 

Yeah. So the best way for me to do it, be like a live audit situation. But here’s basically the concepts. Format is huge, right? So when you look at your blog post, look at it on a mobile device. It’s funny, we look at everybody else’s on a mobile. Mobile device, but most people look at their own website on a desktop.

[00:32:12]   

And so when you look at your own site, you’ll notice that there are format changes that are easily understood. So here’s the general rule of thumb. You shouldn’t have more than three sentences without a line break because that’s too overwhelming for the eyes. The eye fatigue is real. People will make a decision like, oh, that’s too much text.

[00:32:33]   

I don’t want to read it. If I wanted to read it, if there’s something important with it, I’ll find it later. That’s the subconscious thought people have. So when you look at your introductory paragraph, if it’s four sentences or longer and you don’t really provide any value, then we have to reformat it.

[00:32:50]   

And what I mean by that is like, you have to write something that people actually want to read. If you’re writing content that just provides me with a fluff explanation of what lasagna is. People know what lasagna is. That’s not why they’re on your site. And if they were, AI Overview just gave it to them before they clicked.

[00:33:08]   

Right? So don’t tell me about how amazing it is. Tell me how yours is different. And you have to immediately hit the differences. And so many people want to resort back to 2016, 2018, where they introduce the topic, right? Like that is, that is how you learn to write in school. And I get it.

[00:33:29]   

I’m literally working with a teacher right now. And so I read their content. I’m like, you are through and through. A school teacher like you, in not a bad way. Just like you introduced the paragraph beautifully.

[00:33:42]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, right.

[00:33:43]  Ty Kilgore 

But the meat of the post doesn’t start until halfway through and you’ve already lost people at that, right? So if you’re not writing content that makes people want to read, then you’re going to end up in a situation where people are going to scroll. So when people scroll, what makes them stop scrolling?

[00:34:01]   

Bolded words, headers, images. Like not paragraphs of text. So either a numbered list, bulleted point, right? So people should be able to scan your post quickly and be able to determine. Just like at a shopping, just like at a grocery store, you go to the bread aisle and it’s overwhelmed, right? And you’re like, where’s the bread that I want?

[00:34:28]   

Like, literally, I have this conversation every time I’m asked to go get groceries with my wife. I’m like, I know where the bread, I know the type of bread we’re looking for, but I’m like, where do they put it? Oh my gosh. Like, where is the bread? Right? Same thing happens with the milk.

[00:34:44]   

I’m like, where is the milk? Right? And you know, when I go to this grocery store with my wife, she walks right to it and knows exactly where it is. So when you’re writing your content, right, you have to get to the point quickly, what makes your recipe unique? What makes it different?

[00:35:00]   

More importantly, what makes you different, right? So if you’re not doing that and I start scrolling, then the time on site is going to go down, the dwell time is going to go down. People aren’t going to get what they want. So that’s a signal to Google, I’m not getting what I want.

[00:35:17]   

I started to scroll, right? So you have to kind of untrain your brain to write the way that you’ve written your entire life. And it’s hard. I have so many people, I started working with this savannah where one person in particular, she’s like, I just do not get this concept Ty And this POV that you talk about.

[00:35:35]   

And I’m like, you told me about the thing, you’re telling me about the recipe. I don’t need to know about the recipe. I need to know about you. And so that’s one thing. The other thing, outside of format and how the I movement tracking happens, there’s a great article by the Nelson Norman group talking about the F shape pattern.

[00:35:55]   

And it talks about the way people describe and read content online. And maybe what we can do is I’ll share the link and share the link in the podcast episode for people to be able to read it. But essentially you need to recognize that the way eye movement Works, you have to put the key information in the key places.

[00:36:16]   

So that’s the first thing. So majority of the content, the levers that I’m pulling relate to format. Relate to format. The other things is, you know, are we talking about the things, same things that other people are talking about. Right. If somebody is talking about the right flour to make and you just say add the flour, then there’s obviously a discrepancy.

[00:36:37]   

If I look at the top five people and they’re walking through the type of butter to do, or the type of how to cool the egg or how to cool the butter before putting it in, or having like a great example, one of the top people that ranks for muffins talks about how after the batter is created, you let it rest.

[00:36:56]   

You let it rest for 15 to 20 minutes. And for those that don’t know me, I have no knowledge of food. Like I don’t know about food. So like when I’m reading this, I’m like, whoa, that’s crazy. That’s like blowing my mind. You’re not supposed to put it in immediately. And she’s like, like, no, Ty, you don’t put it in for these four reasons.

[00:37:13]   

And I was like, that’s cool. Like that’s information that I can’t get from anywhere else. And that’s the information that when people come online, that’s what they’re looking for. Yes. They know they can find a muffin recipe anywhere, but they want to know the top one, the bakery style. Right. The ones that, that are different.

[00:37:32]   

So the amount of information you’re giving, what type of. I call it content analysis. Right. Like how are you differentiating yourself from the other people? Like if, if I go to the top four people, I read every single article on every single word on their post and then I read yours and there’s no new information, there’s no uniqueness.

[00:37:55]   

You basically regurgitated everything that’s in the top four. Then it becomes an authority race, meaning that whoever of those top four people have the highest authority is ranked number one, the second person is number two, etc. And so there’s always losers when it comes to authority. So the only thing that you can really control when it comes to your SEO is are you providing unique takes unique information and it doesn’t have to be earth shattering.

[00:38:24]   

Like some people are like, well Ty, I can’t say what they say. Like, give you an example. There’s somebody that I work with that they literally have five people make their recipe before it goes on their Site. Okay, so their assistant makes it, their two photographers make it, their two videographers make it, and then they have a social media person that makes it.

[00:38:45]  Sponsor 

Food bloggers, are you ready to make money and share your brand with the world? Whether it’s cherished family recipes, health focused meals, weekly meal planners, or your unique kitchen creations, Lulu has helped thousands of creators turn their cookbook dreams into thriving, printed, income generating realities. Here is why Lulu should be your cookbook partner of choice.

[00:39:09]   

More control. Keep creative control over your content and branding faster to market. Get your book in front of readers without the delays. Build your brand. Know exactly who’s buying your cookbook and connect with your fans. Imagine your recipes in print, your name on the cover and your audience raving about your cookbook. With Lulu’s powerful tools and support, that vision is within reach.

[00:39:34]   

Don’t wait to share your passion. Start creating a new revenue stream for your business today. Turn your cookbook dreams into reality with Lulu. Head to eatblogtalk.com/resources to get started today. Eatblogtalk.com/resources and click on the Lulu link.

[00:39:54]  Ty Kilgore 

So five different time zones, five different kitchens, and that’s what they say in their first paragraph. And people are like, Ty, I don’t have that. I can’t say that. And I said, you’re not supposed to be them.

[00:40:07]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, you’re just right, right.

[00:40:09]  Ty Kilgore 

You’re supposed to be you. Like, how do you, like, I always ask this question, let’s say the recipe doesn’t work, let’s say it flops. What do you do to change it? They’re like, well, I start testing things. I either put it in too long or put it in too short or I didn’t missed an ingredient or the ingredient I had was bad.

[00:40:27]   

I was like, how do you know that? Right? Like they just naturally in their mind have this expert ability to be able to do it. And I just try to like take them a step out of it and say, explain to me like you’re a three year old or a third grader or a fourth grader or a fifth grader.

[00:40:44]   

How do you just do that? Right? And so then they’re like, oh, okay. And they write it down and they will tell me stuff on the call, call. I’m like, that’s great. Where is that on your site? And they’re like, okay, I get it, I get it. I’ll go back and I’ll rewrite it.

[00:40:59]   

And so that’s another thing that I would do. And then it comes down to the basics, like changing out your SEO title, changing out your post title, changing out your recipe name, changing out your H2s, changing out the information that you give. Right. How you wrote. If you write your content and you can keyword, you put keywords in all of the different posts and all of the different contextual words.

[00:41:23]   

I’m going to have you go back and strip that all out and say, write like a human being. So many times I’ll read a piece of content from someone, I’m like, yeah, these are three reasons why it doesn’t rank. It doesn’t have any authority. You keyword stuff over, over the moon and you provide no uniqueness.

[00:41:41]   

So, yeah, this is never going to rank. And people are like, you’re right. Like, it’s like a light bulb moment. Right? And then they’re like, okay, what do I need to do to change it? I’m like, delete these three paragraphs. We’re going to redo this and we’re going to reformat that and then we’re going to actually get it some links internally and externally.

[00:42:01]   

And then over time it starts to change. So it’s not a matter of like, does SEO still work? It’s does your strategy work? And that’s where people make mistakes.

[00:42:14]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. I always love hearing you talk through this. And you have taught me to think differently when it comes to writing. I mean, like everyone else, I used to do the this lasagna has perfectly cooked noodles. The sauce is so delicious. But now I look at it from a new perspective, like, okay, but why would someone want to keep scrolling on my particular lasagna recipe?

[00:42:39]   

Just thinking through, like, have I made it a million times? Does my family eat every single morsel every time I make it? Like, those sorts of details specific to you and your recipe are so important. So thank you. Because I really do write content differently now. And I think you’ve helped so many people to do that.

[00:42:58]   

Can you talk us through a few examples? Do you have anything that is really compelling? Like the first couple sentences in a recipe versus maybe something that’s just kind of fluff and no juice. And don’t tell us whose website. It’s probably my website that it’ll be.

[00:43:18]  Ty Kilgore 

You don’t need to get. We’re going to get super personal real fast here.

[00:43:23]  Megan Porta 

But I also appreciate that about you. You’re not afraid to be real and just say, look, this is not effective. You need to change this. And a lot of people aren’t willing to do that. But I really appreciate that about you, Ty. Thank you.

[00:43:39]  Ty Kilgore 

Yes. So let me Give you an example. This person will rename Anonymous, but this is the current version of the introductory paragraph for this post. Okay, so let me just share this with you. And this sounds very familiar to what everyone else writes. If you’re looking for a perfect chocolate cake that’s rich, moist and covered in a decadent ganache, you found it.

[00:44:05]   

This chocolate cake with chocolate ganache recipe is all about decadence. With just one bowl for the cake batter and a simple ganache poured right over the top, it’s effortless and completely satisfying. No matter the occasion, this easy chocolate cake with chocolate ganache is guaranteed to impress. Grab your whisk, preheat that oven and get ready to enjoy the easiest, most decadent cake, chocolate cake.

[00:44:34]   

Who can turn down chocolate on chocolate cake? If you love decadence, check out this chocolate mousse cake and my strawberry chocolate brownies. Okay, I say it like that because I have read content like this for seven years and it makes my head explode because I’m like, thank you so much for stuffing the keywords.

[00:44:54]   

Thank you so much for telling me to try your chocolate mousse and your strawberry chocolate brownies. And thank you for giving me adjective throw up. Rich, moist, covered. Right. Like it’s so. It’s so. Okay, so working with this person, I’m going to give you the new one. Okay. So let me and then I’ll let you be the judge.

[00:45:11]   

Okay.

[00:45:12]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:45:12]  Ty Kilgore 

So this is the new one. This chocolate cake has been through so many test runs in my kitchen, I could probably make it in my sleep. It’s not the kind, I’m not the kind of baker who just shares something after one or two tries. I want it just right. After dozens of tweaks, lots of late night note scribbles, and more taste tests than I’m willing to count, this cake finally makes the cut.

[00:45:35]   

It’s rich, moist and topped with ganache that pours like silk and sets up just enough to slice cleanly. It looks like something from a pastry case and it’s meant to be made in a real kitchen.

[00:45:49]  Megan Porta 

Sold. Sold on option two.

[00:45:52]  Ty Kilgore 

Right. Like when you read it, you’re like, oh my gosh, how do you, how do you make this?

[00:45:58]  Megan Porta 

Right?

[00:45:59]  Ty Kilgore 

Like I’m already want chocolate cake. Right. Like my 13 year old daughter will laugh at me and like, dad, do you just get hungry all day? Yes, it is, it is, is difficult because this, I mean, and then she goes on and she talks about her training. She talks about how texture and flavor matter and how she’s gotten away from the dry crumbs.

[00:46:24]   

And she talks about the pains that she found in making this and how she overcame them. So naturally, two things happen. First, like you said, you’re sold. Second, you’re like, okay, if she’s going into this level of detail, I don’t have to. I know that I can make something from her that I can find that’s not going to be like everyone else.

[00:46:48]   

So again, she is classically trained. She has a lot of information, but her POV is so different. Right. Like, Like, I’m not the kind of baker that just puts things after one or two tries, I want it just right. Again, it’s nothing about. And like, she still includes the adjective throw up, but it, it makes sense now. Right? Like, and it’s not the main thing, it’s not the very beginning thing. So they do a good job. Do we have time for one more? Because.

[00:47:16]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I love these. Yep.

[00:47:17]  Ty Kilgore 

Okay, let me try. Okay, so there’s a different one. So this one. Chocolate chip cookie pie. decadent chocolate chip cookie pie. So sorry, let me give you context. This is the first one. This dessert features a. Frankly, a fake. Flaky, creamy, creamy cream cheese pastry crust filled with rich and fudgy chocolate chip cookie dough.

[00:47:39]   

The crust adds a subtle tanginess from the cream cheese when the cookie filling is infused with a hint of vanilla and boosts a deep caramel like flavor from brown dark brown sugar. The dark chocolate chip provides a perfect balance, offsetting the sweetness and adding a fabulous richness to every bite. Okay, so this is a chocolate chip cookie pie recipe.

[00:48:00]   

Okay, so here’s the test. Like if you could take your introductory paragraph, take it away and go put it on another blog and it completely reads and makes sense. Meaning, like, I could probably put this on your site, Megan, and it would make sense.

[00:48:17]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:48:17]  Ty Kilgore 

There is no distinction between this blogger and your you. And there’s no way for me to know. I could put this on, insert whatever URL you wanted and it would read and it would make complete sense. And that’s where a lot of people go wrong. So here’s the new one. When I say this cookie pie works, I mean it really works.

[00:48:37]   

I’ve been in the pastry world for over 15 years, working in busy kitchens, training under liquid on bleu chefs, and baking more cookies than I could ever count. Along the way, I’ve learned exactly what takes a dessert from quote, pretty good to can’t stop eating in status. This one heats. Hits that sweet spot.

[00:48:58]   

Gooey in the center, golden on the edges. Loaded with melted chocolate and just the right amount of indulgence.

[00:49:06]  Megan Porta 

Way better. The. Actually, the first one, I kind of got lost. Like, I was drifting a little bit, like there was a few too many words. But the. The second one, I was highly engaged. Like, I know exactly why I want to make that one.

[00:49:19]  Ty Kilgore 

Right. So this is just one potential lever, but essentially the concept being, like, you have three seconds to capture people’s attention, and if you can’t capture them within three seconds, they’re gone. They’re either.

[00:49:32]  Megan Porta 

That’s huge. Yeah.

[00:49:33]  Ty Kilgore 

They’re either scrolling down the page or they’re hitting the back button. Because they’re going to base your recipe off the recipe card. Yeah, Right. And they’re going to base it off the featured image. So, again, if you’re wanting to move up in the SEO world, you have to show Google that you’re better.

[00:49:51]   

You’re better than what people have. So if people spend three minutes on the first one and they only spend 45 seconds on yours, you don’t have a shot. Right. And so writing content that people want to read is going to be the distinction between whether or not you continue to get SEO traffic or if you’re just going to continue to fade away.

[00:50:13]  Megan Porta 

I’ve noticed with you, too. Just. Just having people talk about it, just getting them started. Sometimes, like, at Flavor Media, you will call people out and they’ll volunteer to come up and pull up a URL from their site and just getting them, because they’re like, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Like, I don’t know how to make my unique point of view.

[00:50:33]   

And you just ask them questions. You’re like, well, why you? Why. Why do I want to make this Mac and cheese for my kids? Tell me. And once they get started, it’s really cool. They’re like, well, of course you would make it for me, because. And then all of this cool, like, the right stuff comes out, and you’re like, that’s it.

[00:50:51]   

So why is it so hard for us to do that, Ty?

[00:50:55]  Ty Kilgore 

Because of conditioning. That’s really the reason. Conditioning. Everyone has gotten to a template, and like we talked about earlier on the podcast, like, the customization of your information. And so, like, even with this example, like, this person on the call was like, hey, I see saw so and so do this. Can I do this?

[00:51:14]   

And they had a section on their site, you know, like, why we love it, the ingredients. And then they’re like, so I have this section of, like, chef’s tips. Is that okay? And I’m like, absolutely, it’s okay. Like, that’s what people come to you for, right? Like, you need to make your site your site.

[00:51:32]   

So it transitioned from, hey, give a digital diary online and then throw a recipe card up to, hey, write for SEO and keyword stuff and throw a recipe card up to now create something that people want to read that answers the query better than anyone else and then provide them with the information that you already sold them on.

[00:51:54]   

And the difference really comes from, okay, I know the answer. But because you’ve been so conditioned to write like this and to write your content this way, you verify. You basically, basically just follow the pattern and then you wake up in a year and you’re like, I didn’t get any of the posts in the last 365 days to rank higher than any of the content I already had.

[00:52:17]   

So you just hang on to the four posts that bring you 80% of your SEO traffic, realizing that the other 400 plus don’t need to have something done to it in order for it to start ranking. And then it’s a matter of overwhelm. But to answer your question, people just are conditioned. And so untraining somebody to do something is hard because, you know, they get trained and they feel like that’s the way they do it.

[00:52:43]   

And it’s evident in other areas and examples in life, but it’s more particularly in SEO. I found that people learn SEO, they feel like they have it, and then when it doesn’t work, some other idea comes in and they’re like, but this is how I do SEO, right? Like, this is how I.

[00:53:02]   

This is how I do this area. So you telling me it’s different is like hard for my brain to understand, right? But yeah, to your point, like you’ve seen it, people will come up with their own understanding. I’m like, why isn’t that on the site? And they’re like, well, because I didn’t know I needed to put it there, right?

[00:53:19]   

Like, and so it’s mainly making people marketers, not just information givers. And that’s really separate skills.

[00:53:28]  Megan Porta 

Do you find that video is playing a role in helping people with SEO right now? Is that a good lever to tune into?

[00:53:37]  Ty Kilgore 

Yeah, absolutely. I think short term videos, like shorts and reels, and then you also have long form videos, like in the search results. You see that Google has actually for many results given both, right? You’ll have long form video there and then the reels. So absolutely, if you have video, lean into it.

[00:53:57]   

I think it’s Very valuable. I don’t think that the hands and pans video is going to be enough anymore. Yeah, I think you have to be in front of the camera and if that’s not your jam, I’m not saying that you can’t, you, you won’t be able to rank without it. There’s plenty of bloggers who don’t do video who rank fine.

[00:54:12]   

But yes, if you have video, absolutely use it as to your advantage. Right. Perfect example, you know, Make It Dairy Free. They came and they spoke in Savannah and they obviously do video really well. And so they can get a YouTube video to rank before the blog post will. And so then for them it’s like, okay, how do we get the blog post to rank?

[00:54:32]   

Not just the YouTube video or, you know, and for other people it’s like, hey, I have a very good video. I haven’t uploaded it yet. Do you think it’d be valuable? Of course. Like anytime you are providing additional value for the reader, then you absolutely have to use that to your advantage. So make sure the video is very well thought through.

[00:54:51]   

Don’t just throw something together, right? Like do a little bit of research. Just like with your blog posts. Like if you do the right research, the blog post kind of writes itself. The same thing is true for the video. Like if your competition is talking about flour and you just kind of like have an unmarked bag and you just put the flower in.

[00:55:10]   

Right. In a glass container, you don’t even talk about flour, then that’s what probably a miss. Right. You need to talk through it and explain why that flower is important and why that one works. And did you try other flowers? So, you know, I think a lot of times people just want to throw up content.

[00:55:26]   

And what I’m suggesting is that the more researched you are, the better opportunity your site and your post has to rank out of the gate than if you just simply were to just put up whatever you wanted to put up. Some people can get away with that and their domain ratings are in the 70s and so that’s why they do it. So if you’re not in the 70s, that strategy won’t work.

[00:55:47]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Yep. I was just doing a little research this morning on a few of the posts I’ve updated recently. And one of them was edamame corn salad. And I put a YouTube long form video on YouTube but also a YouTube short up. So when I was doing my research, I noticed that my, my short for that recipe was showing up really, like really close to the top of the page in Google.

[00:56:14]   

And I was like, yes, that can only be helpful. Right. So I really think there’s so much value, especially since YouTube and Google are so closely tied. If people are searching for that and your video pops up, that has to fare well for how Google kind of sees your site too. And does it say like, oh, yeah, it.

[00:56:36]   

This, this is a great YouTube short. So now we’re going to move Megan’s recipe up in rankings a little bit. I think it all plays in together. Am I right about that?

[00:56:44]  Ty Kilgore 

Yeah, I think the data will show that there is correlation. I mean, for years it was like, hey, if I have a good Facebook post or Pinterest post or Instagram post, does that.

[00:56:53]  Megan Porta 

Right.

[00:56:53]  Ty Kilgore 

Yeah. Does that potentially positively impact my SEO? And you know, there’s been numerous studies, numerous debates, but with the short term, are the shorts and with YouTube in particular. Absolutely. I mean, clearly they’re owned by the same company. Clearly they’re in the search results. And I think the other aspect of that is clearly like you being able to monetize and getting money either through the YouTube embed or through the media player embed through your ad network.

[00:57:25]   

There’s been a lot of different scenes of opinion and placement and things like that. I get asked that question a lot, but absolutely, video is definitely a factor. Definitely can help you. It’s another area of a chance for you to share your unique take on your thing. So absolutely.

[00:57:44]  Megan Porta 

I love hearing that. Well, is there anything from your Savannah presentation this year or the previous year that you talked about then that you feel would be helpful here?

[00:57:55]  Ty Kilgore 

Yeah. Yeah. I think the biggest, like I was talking about earlier, the biggest takeaway is that most people underestimate the amount of changes they should be making to their website. They will go in, make subtle changes, or they will. Like, it’s two extremes. Right. The biggest thing is like, they’ll go in, they’ll make a couple of changes or.

[00:58:17]   

Or they think in order for the SEO to improve, they have to go in with Machete and basically rewrite the thing because nothing is working. So again, you have to take an assessment of where your current keywords are. So if your keywords are, you know, on page three, Google doesn’t hate your post.

[00:58:35]   

It’s just not as good to be on page one. So for that particular situation, understanding the right changes, understanding the right analysis, and a lot of times I don’t even know what I’m going to recommend until I do the research. Meaning, like, if you’re trying to rank for that post and I do analysis on who’s ranking ahead of you.

[00:58:55]   

The information that I give you as far as what you should do and change to your post is based off of the people ahead of you. So, so many times people base their decisions off of either a Facebook comment or the podcast episode they look at. And there’s oftentimes I’ll be on a call with a particular person and I’ll say, these are the things you need to do.

[00:59:18]   

Get on the call in the next hour with somebody else and give the opposite advice, simply because that’s what this research dictates. So when you look at your analysis and you say, okay, what’s the POV they’re providing? What’s the information that they’re offering? What’s the questions they’re answering? What’s the detail that they’re giving?

[00:59:38]   

I’m not saying just copy them, because that’s not how you’re going to outrank them. I’m saying take it in, do the analysis, put all the information that you got from what others are doing, and then make the conscious decision to say, how can I make something better? What can I do to provide more content, more context, more information, more uniqueness, right?

[01:00:02]   

Just don’t say, you know, like, and this is what I hear all the time, like, well, you can’t mess it up. It’s xyz and I go, let’s just scroll down to the comments and see how many people messed it up. Right? Because people did. And it’s so easy and natural to you. You’re such an expert, you’re on the top of the hill.

[01:00:20]   

You’ve done it, you did it, and you have a blog post about it. But you have to realize that people coming to your site are not your peers. They’re the beginner, right? Your peers never Googled it. Your peers never landed on your site to see what you did not to actually make it.They did it just to look at. They’re not doing it because they’re actually going to have the ingredients on their counter and they’re going to make the thing, that’s not how it works. So you have to recognize that when you do your analysis, it provides the context for the change. So when you look through the levers and you make the decision, decisions on what to make and what changes to make, don’t just make the same changes unless you have a formula that has shown to be effective.

[01:01:08]   

And so many times people want the formula without providing the experimentation and the data to get the formula. So instead they go into their post, they hit the edit button. And they do the same six things to every post, regardless of where it’s at, regardless of what type of post it is. Right?

[01:01:26]   

So that’s like going to the gym and, and doing. I’m gonna do 10 jumping jacks, 10 air squats, 10 pull ups, 10 sit ups and, and 10 push ups, and then I’m gonna leave. It’s like, okay, well, that’s a great. Like some people, that’s a warmup, right? Like, like you did a warmup for the people you’re competing against and you’re wondering why your body isn’t looking the same as theirs.

[01:01:49]   

Yeah. Right. And so you have to recognize that there is a level to this. And each time you go deeper and you recognize that you need to go deeper, you have to recognize that. Okay, based off of what I’m learning, not all sites are the same. Based off what I’m Learning, not all URLs and keywords are the same.

[01:02:06]   

Based on what I’m learning, there’s not one size fits all to SEO. Based on what I’m learning, how can I customize my optimization efforts for my particular site, these particular keywords and where they currently are. Right. So the best analogy I can give is the fitness one. Because fitness is such a variety of things.

[01:02:26]   

You can go to the gym and you see somebody doing something, you’re like, what are they training for? Right? And then you go talk to that person, they’re like, oh, I’m going to be cross country skiing in Canada in three weeks. And so that’s what I’m like, oh, okay, well that makes sense now.

[01:02:40]   

Right? But you look at that and you’re like, I don’t know what that is and I don’t know why they’re doing that. Right. And then you see like somebody that plays football and they’re doing a very different regiment than somebody that’s just trying to do yoga three days a week. Right. Very different regiments.

[01:02:54]   

And none of them are better or worse. It’s just that’s what’s working for them. So as you look at your SEO, look at your competition and analyze for yourself, why is Google putting these people ahead of me? And just look at the content, don’t look at the links, don’t look at the authority, just look at the content and say, if you’re Google, does this person deserve to be ahead of me?

[01:03:17]   

And be subjective? And sometimes you’ll find that there’s some serious holes in your content. And so that’s the catalyst for your lovers.

[01:03:25]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. And then just to bring it around to how you started. And I would love for you to just end by giving people a little bit of encouragement. There’s hope. Don’t throw your blog out to outer space. Don’t give up on it yet. So, yeah, just what do you have about that, Ty?

[01:03:43]  Ty Kilgore 

Oh, man, do you have another hour? So here’s what I’ll say about that. When you started your site, there was this subconscious desire for you to start a successful business. Successful businesses do not come unless you put the hard work in and you adapt and you become things that you never thought you were having to become.

[01:04:09]   

I never wanted to learn how to run QuickBooks, but lo and behold, I know how to run QuickBooks. I never wanted to learn that. Every year I have to renew my license for my LLC. But I know, painfully, that when you don’t, you can’t operate the way that you hope to. There are things that you are going to learn.

[01:04:32]   

And as your business grows, you can either decide, I love to do this or I rather pay somebody else to do this. I do not love learning taxes, so I pay for somebody else to do my taxes. Now, some people at the beginning I couldn’t afford to. So who did their taxes? I did.

[01:04:50]   

Right. So my point in all of this is that successful businesses come from people who are willing to adapt and are multiple hats. I understand that when you made it your food blog or made your content, it was because you loved that thing. And I recognize that you do it because you love that thing.

[01:05:12]   

But when it comes to being successful, there are skill sets that you have to learn and SEO is one of them. I rarely have met a blogger who has been extremely successful that doesn’t have a healthy of amount, amount of their traffic come from SEO. They are out there. But this is typically the conversation I have.

[01:05:32]   

Most of my traffic comes from Pinterest. Pinterest Assistant algorithm. I lost half, 50% of my traffic. Right. Most big bloggers have a variety of places and channels that bring traffic to their site. Those are the people you hear at conferences. Those are the people that most people look up to. So they at some point, point, at some level had to learn things that they did not want to learn.

[01:05:56]   

And it’s the same concept with you. I understand that SEO wasn’t what you signed up for. I get it. Not everybody’s weird like me. I understand. I mean, not everybody loves SEO. But I can also teach you that there are certain aspects that once you understand from conceptual level, you will make sense to you.

[01:06:18]   

And you can absolutely do those things you can replicate and make the best opportunity for your site to go forward. So if you’re in a depressive state, if you feel like your site is losing, if you feel like there’s no way for you to win the SEO game, here’s my advice. Take a hard look in the mirror and say, are you wanting to have a site in a year?

[01:06:40]   

Are you wanting to have a site in two years? If the answer is unequivocally yes. Because the why behind why you did this is for financial security, family freedom, being able to have your spouse join your, your cause, have him quit his 9 to 5, whatever the why is, are you willing to pay the price to get the desired outcome?

[01:07:04]   

And if the answer is, heck yeah, it is, then send me an email. I’d love to chat with you. If it’s like, you know what, I’m done, then there’s no advice, there’s no podcast, there’s no information that I could give you. The people that want to change their bodies, do. The people that want to change their eating habits, change it.

[01:07:24]   

The people that want to be successful in business are. And because they’re willing to pay the price, they’re willing to put the effort, the determination, the grit, the grind, the blood, sweat, tears and mistakes that is necessary for their site to be successful. And those that don’t, don’t. It’s really like a light switch situation.

[01:07:46]   

It’s as clean cut as that. There’s a lot of motivation books that I could share with you that I’ve had to read. There’s a lot of podcasts that I’ve had to go to, a lot of conferences I’ve had to attend where I have felt the same way. We’re done. I’m done. This is done.

[01:08:03]   

And honestly, I look back at those now and I’m like, I would do it all again to be able to have the why that I did this for in the beginning. And the why is what drives you. So sorry to get on Soapbox. I can go forever, but hopefully that’s helpful. There is a path forward, and oftentimes it’s not as hard as you think.

[01:08:26]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, that was the best pep talk I’ve heard in a long time. That was incredible. Not just with SEO, but just with everything. If you want to make a change, you can do it. You really do have what it takes. So what a perfect way to end. That was great. And I know a lot of the stuff we talked about, people can get in and kind of do themselves and retrain the way they write and all of that.But if they want help Ty from you. What services do you offer?

[01:08:54]  Ty Kilgore 

Yeah, thank you for offering that. Hopefully you’ve had some value. So basically Everything Digital Marketing has two. It used to be just one core offering where I would work with individuals for a 30 day period in a done for you option. And that’s typically what I have broadcasted and shared any place I’d gone to recently, I’ve had a couple of people reach out and I’ve decided to create a new offering.

[01:09:16]   

This one is called the SEO Jumpstart. And so the concept being that the done for you offering me and my team do everything. The SEO Jumpstart is we will provide you with the framework, but you essentially do them. So different price points, clearly. But the SEO Jumpstart is the concept would be, is that we get four people on a call and basically we have five calls an hour each week where I’m basically walking you through what to do.

[01:09:49]   

Meaning, okay, this week we’re going to select URLs. This is how you select URLs. These are the reports, reports you need to pull. These are the information you need to consider. I need you to get me 12 URLs by Friday and then I will basically give you access to a library where I filmed myself explaining the concepts.

[01:10:08]   

Then the next week I say, okay, great, now that we picked the URLs, now you need to do keyword research. You need to pick 6 keywords per URL and you need to put them into this spreadsheet. And then here’s a training video on how to do it using the tools that you’re going to need.

[01:10:21]   

And then this is due by next Friday and then the next week. Okay, now that we’ve done the keywords, now I need you to do a content audit. This is how I’m going to train you how to do a content audit. And I’m actually going to walk you through it. And then on the calls, I’m answering questions, I’m giving you insight, I’m giving you examples and then providing you with a due date.

[01:10:41]   

So essentially it’s more of a less economical impact as far as, as far as offering. But for those that want to do it but just can’t afford the higher price tag, so then it’s a three month window. So basically what I do is I work with you every week for three months and then every two weeks or so, excuse me, for five weeks we meet every week and then every other week after that.

[01:11:07]   

But basically the concept is we do the tracking. We do a lot of the framework that you would get if you were a client for us, and then you basically do the legwork. And so we track everything. I give you advice and say, all right, hey, you gave me this recommendation. Why? Okay, great. So basically the concept is I’m just trying to teach you how to fish, not just giving you fish.

[01:11:28]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[01:11:29]  Ty Kilgore 

And it’s meant for the person that really wants to be successful, but like I said, just doesn’t have the clarity, doesn’t have the direction. So, yeah, if that’s not your jam, we’d love to have work with you with Everything Digital Marketing and have you do it for you. That’s basically the concept. But yeah, kind of a done for you option and then you do it option.

[01:11:49]  Megan Porta 

Great. And we’ll put the links, I think, to those in the Show Notes page. But is there a way that people can reach out to you if they have questions or just go to the website?

[01:11:59]  Ty Kilgore 

Yeah. Everythingdigitalmarketing.com My email is [email protected]. There is a link on the services for the site for SEO Jumpstart, so you can see all the details there. So. So, yeah, grab your friends and let’s come talk SEO.

[01:12:13]  Megan Porta 

So great. Well, everyone go check that out. I’m sure one of those options will fit into most people’s lives, so thank you, Ty, so much again for sharing SEO value and the best pep talk of 2025 in my opinion. That was amazing.

[01:12:30]  Ty Kilgore 

Thanks, Megan. It’s always a pleasure to be here.

[01:12:32]  Megan Porta 

Thank you so much. 

[01:12:37]  Outro

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.