In episode 546, Megan chats to Carl Ross about the current state of SEO and why our traffic is either dropping or increasing following changes in Google's algorithm.

Carl is an engineer who spent many years in corporate technology consulting roles which gave him a unique perspective on the application of technology, processes, and getting a return on your investments. It means he's spent literally decades helping customers make sense of technology products. In 2019, he started offering SEO services and the food blogging niche was an obvious fit. While Carl works with bloggers in many different niches, food bloggers are his bread and butter.

In this episode, you'll learn about current effective strategies to rank on Google, including what is implied by 'helpful content' and why you should focus on user experience and backlinks.

Key points discussed:

- SEO is not dead: While some sites have seen traffic declines, Google is still sending traffic to food blogs and recipe sites through search results.

- Focus on content, technical SEO, and backlinks: These three pillars are important for SEO success according to the three-legged stool analogy.

- Optimize ad density: Reducing intrusive ads can improve the user experience and SEO performance of a site.

- Build your brand: Establishing a presence on platforms beyond your website signals to Google that you are a genuine content creator rather than AI.

- Be careful with AI-generated content: You can use AI to generate ideas, but do not copy and paste AI-generated text for your blog post.

- Evaluate affiliate links: Excessive low-revenue affiliate links may affect your site's Google ranking.

- Experiment with changes: Disable or turn down ads to evaluate how they affect traffic and revenue.

- How to deal with algorithm updates: During an algorithm update, some blogs rise while others fall, so monitoring changes and being flexible is important.

- Focus on what you can control: Prioritize your efforts on things you can control on your blog, social media profiles, email list and other revenue streams.

Connect with Carl Ross

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