Ep #56: Build Your SEO Strength

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Learn how to build your SEO Strength through this interview with Hauke Fox of the site Hurry the Food Up. You’ll see how using SEO, including keyword research, is a muscle that can be built upon to get stronger over time. Grow traffic to your blog with Hauke’s expert advice!

Build Your SEO Strength with Hauke Fox on the Chopped Podcast

There’s a few, fun terms we’re discussing in today’s interview. Things like FGQ, Blue Collar Blogging, and Big Brain Blogging. Aren’t you curious about what these mean? I’ll explain below. However, today’s topic is focused on SEO and using keyword research to grow your site’s traffic.

Food Blogging is what I like to call Big Brain Blogging, because it uses both sides of your brain. The right, artistic side is focused more on things like creative writing, food photography, and recipe development. The left brain side is focused on things like SEO, the strategy behind social media sharing, and google analytics, to name a few. I believe to be successful at food blogging, at least today, it takes a little (or a lot) of both.

I asked Hauke why he decided to focus on SEO as a means to grow the traffic for his blog and he responded that he wanted a passive way to grow his site. That’s because social media, a favorite way to generate traffic for bloggers, is not necessarily passive. It takes a lot of work to build relationships and to post your content on social media platforms.

Hauke refers to things like that as Blue Collar Blogging, those activities in blogging that are repetitive, like sharing to social media. On the positive side, sharing contributes feedback. You learn what recipes your audience likes, so there are definitely positive outcomes to sharing on social media. And we also know that some social media platforms can have an impact on SEO too.

On the flip side, SEO has more of a learning curve involved. Once you understand how to use it, you can apply it to each post and then wait for the results. Hauke explains that SEO is something that requires time to develop. You create a new post and it make take months before it hits that desired top 3 spots in search results. “Seventy-five percent of people click on the top three search results,” said Hauke.

We rank for one or two recipes of four, and the other two we make because we like them or because we think our audience might like it. — Hauke Fox

Hauke talks about his Three Pillars to SEO Strategy, including ways you can push a slightly successful page from good to great! The first is to understand how you can determine which pages are on the brink of being great and then use Hauke’s tips to push it over the edge.

One way to improve your SEO is to focus on your food photography. Hauke and I talk about the concept of FGQ, which stands for FoodGawker Quality photos. The point is your photos don’t have to be museum-quality, but you can get a boost if your photos can reach that FGQ standard.

Make your food photography FGQ, or FoodGawker Quality! #choppedcon Click To Tweet

Our goal at ChoppedCon is to help you be your best. We hope these tips on to Build Your SEO Strength is helpful to the important work you’re doing every day!

Now, go forth and Be Your Best You!

Featured Content – Build Your SEO Strength

Here are some of the highlights of my discussion with Hauke, where we discuss:

  • Learn about why Hauke started his blog
  • Learn about the other people Hauke works with as a team on the blog
  • Hauke talks about the process they use to develop recipes
  • We also talk about food photography and the FGQ rule – is Your Photo FoodGawker Quality?
  • We talk about SEO, particularly keyword research
  • Hauke explains why he chose SEO as a way of growing the traffic for his site
  • We talk about why most people shy away from SEO
  • Hauke talks about his 3 pillars of SEO Strategy

Show Notes

This episode includes references to some resources you might find interesting. Here they are:

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Posted in Food Blog Resources, Food Blogging, Podcast