Liane from Foodie Digital: "Stop doing these 4 things"

Again and again, recipe creators are writing in to Siftr saying:

• “Ugh, I’m losing traffic.”

• “Why, why, why can’t I grow; Google hates my site.”

For answers, Siftr editors reached out to Liane Walker, Managing Director of Foodie Digital and Siftr investor, for an interview and asked for her honest input.

Liane and the Foodie Digital team provide SEO and tech support services to 100+ recipe sites across many niches and cuisine types, and of varying sizes — big, medium, and up and coming.

With Liane at its helm, Foodie Digital has grown its membership’s monthly traffic portfolio to 30+ million monthly views in just 4 years.

Foodie Digital’s waitlist is closed, but Liane’s hands-on experience and insights from working directly with hundreds of recipe site owners is shared here for your benefit.

Essential insights from this interview:

✔️ Today’s algorithms are different than the algorithms from 2-3 years ago, so you need to adjust, adapt, ditch old habits, and develop new approaches for SEO success.

✔️ Foodie Digital spends a lot of time teaching its community members what not to write in posts. This includes avoiding making health claims when you don’t have credentials from an accredited institution. The example she shares of the recipe creator who cleaned up health claims from their site below is pretty eye-popping!

✔️ Tables of contents, FAQs, and excessive internal linking are signs, or patterns of content produced for robots, not readers. Below Liane shares an example of a recipe creator who de-optimized their post library, and was rewarded by the August 2024 core update for their efforts.

✔️ Liane says recipe site owners seriously know their s**t. But, for some reason, they abandon their gut when it comes to SEO.

Here are some examples of the impressive organic traffic results Liane and the Foodie Digital team supported a few of its community members to achieve in the last 16 months, among 2024’s many frequent Google algorithm updates:

And she was quick to say there’s more where that came from!

Here’s a write-up of our interview from October 30th with Liane Walker:

Siftr: A lot of Siftr readers are writing in to report that their sites are losing organic traffic, or just can’t seem to get in Google’s good graces. What are a few things they can do to make gains?

Shoot, okay. First, I want them to know I’m rooting for them. 💛 

It’s actually not about what they should do.

Today, it’s about what they should stop doing.

I tell new and longtime Foodie Digital members this often: advanced recipe SEO isn’t the ticket to success today. You need to do the basic, simple things well, and consistently.

A lot of folks think they’re doing the basics right, but they aren’t and it’s impeding their site’s growth.

At this point, I’ve had the opportunity to audit and study a lot of recipe site content strategies, and a lot of SEO basics that became important in the last 2 years are not adhered to. Like don’t write for robots. Write for people.

Writing for people is an SEO basic today that’s really misunderstood.

I tell Foodie Digital members all of the time to write a recipe post like they’re sitting at the kitchen table with their best friend telling them about their recipe while they sip a cup of tea together.

You wouldn’t randomly start listing off six FAQs that aren’t actually specific to the recipe while talking with your best friend, right? That would be weird.

Google wants content that’s people first. So write how people actually talk.

Be casual. Have personality. Don’t repeat yourself. Don’t repeat what the person next to you just said. Let people ask questions.

The type and style of recipe post writing that performed well 3-5 years ago just isn’t what robots — and more importantly, readers — want today.

To begin, here are 4 things recipe site owners should stop doing:

1 — Stop operating like it’s 2022. It’s almost 2025.

The truth is, food bloggers need to stop expecting that the SEO stuff they did 2-3 years ago still works. Today’s algorithms reward, or punish, entirely different things than they did 2-3 years ago. The goal posts in SEO are always moving.

That’s the nature of this work. To be successful at recipe SEO you need to accept that. If one algorithm update just passed, it means another one is coming soon. That’s search marketing. Things just don’t stand still.

I think that’s what makes SEO extremely interesting! Nerd alert. Hah!

Folks forget that change creates opportunity. For example, a lot of new recipe creators will join the Foodie Digital membership, and be like:

“I’ve lost so much traffic in the last 2 years. I’m not doing anything differently. I don’t know what happened?! Help!”

And we’re like:

“Well, actually, that’s part of the problem. You’re not evolving with the algorithms. You’re still creating content like it’s 2021 or 2022, and following out of date SEO rules or suggestions. You’re behind where the algorithms are. Let’s catch you up!”

Of course, establishing new habits is easier said than done. But getting in the right mindset, and being open to change is step one.

2 — Stop making subtle health claims in posts that you don’t have the expertise or authority to make.

From an SEO perspective, without a doubt, one of the top contributors to traffic loss for recipe sites since Sept 2023’s helpful content update — the dreaded Sept 2023 HCU — was food bloggers making subtle health claims in their posts, claims that they just don’t have the authority to make.

We shout about this from the rooftops at Foodie Digital!

Every single Foodie Digital community member knows what not to write in their posts.

Below is an example of an FD member who manually removed health claim information from 300+ posts between April 2024 and August 2024. This recipe creator did not have the authority or credentials to be writing about nutrition, and health-related stuff online.

The FD team and I coached this individual to completely remove health claims, and health references from their site.

And to their credit, they did the work, and quickly.

And as you can see they were rewarded during the August 2024 core update for the extensive manual edits they made in posts. This FD member still has work to do to get back to their pre-Sept 2023 HCU traffic, but this is a good start.

On health claims, here’s what I’ve learned in the last 18 months:

When SEO people say, “Don’t make health claims in posts,” food bloggers misinterpret that advice. A lot of the food bloggers that we work with at FD have told us that when they hear the words ‘health claim’ they think it means an extreme health claim, like “This dish will cure cancer.”

Obviously writing that’s a no no.

But what we teach at FD is that writing, “Broccoli is a good source of fiber” is also a health claim when you do not have nutrition credentials from an accredited institution. It’s more subtle, but it’s still a health claim.

When a subtle health claim sentence like that shows up in 300+ indexed posts, and you don’t have legit nutrition credentials, your site will get in hot water with the algorithms.

Why? It’s a pattern of abuse. That’s just how today’s algorithms work.

Yes, Google cares if readers find your content useful, helpful, and satisfying.

But the algorithms also care a lot about who the author of a piece of content is, and what their credentials are.

Just because you work in food, use healthier ingredients, or have a personal experience that means a lot to you, it doesn’t mean you’re the right person on the internet to discuss the health benefits of certain ingredients.

You can dislike that this is how the algorithms work, but if you want to grow your recipe site’s organic traffic today, you’ll need to accept that that’s what the data analysis that we’ve done at FD over the last 2 years has revealed.

Don’t shoot the messenger. Hah!

Many Foodie Digital members are surprised at how many subtle health claims exist on their sites once they search their post libraries for terms like “healthy”, “fiber”, “vitamins”, “nutrients”, and more.

We totally get it though, it’s hard to remember exactly what you wrote in 2015 when the SEO game was entirely different.

[Siftr editor’s note: for those interested in reading more on this topic, we discuss recipe site-specific health claims in detail in this Siftr issue.]

3 — Stop over optimizing.

Even though the Foodie Digital waitlist is closed, food bloggers email me directly all the time asking for help.

I honestly love how resourceful and relentless they are! I respect that big time. They really care about their work.

But because we can’t work with them right now, I always politely decline. But, I do usually take 5-10 minutes to look at the recipe site of the person who emailed in. I don’t tell them that, but I’m always curious so I look quickly.

A pattern I’ve found is that recipe sites that have lost significant organic traffic in the past 2 years are always deeply over optimized.

The content is clearly produced for Google, not readers. I can tell in 2 minutes.

This looks like unnecessary content, or site elements added to posts over a period of 1-3 years, and as a result, a pattern of over optimization happened.

It’s not about the presence of one thing that makes a post over optimized. It’s about a pattern of over optimization in hundreds of posts.

Like a table of contents added for no good reason.

Sure, a useful table of contents in 10 posts out of 300 is no big deal. But unnecessary tables of contents stuffed with keywords in 300+ posts? That’s over optimization.

Or, FAQs added that are unnecessary, not recipe specific, and frankly, totally keyword-stuffed in 300+ posts. Or, if there’s an excessive number of internal links in 300+ posts.

I’ve seen recipe posts with anywhere from 10-25 internal links. Whoa, slow down, we get it you have related recipes! Hah!

When it comes to smart, strategic internal linking, I share this example often with Foodie Digital members:

“If a reader is on a post for a shrimp taco recipe, internally linking to another shrimp taco recipe really isn’t the best internal link to include. The reader probably isn’t going to make two different shrimp taco recipes tonight. People don’t cook like that. Instead, internally link to a recipe that the reader actually needs. Like, internally link to a quick avocado crema that they can whip up tonight to go with the shrimp taco they’re having. They’re way more likely to click on that internal link — and just like that, bam, another view per session.”

Here’s an example of an FD member who, urged by us, manually removed deeply unnecessary FAQs from 200+ posts between April 2024 and October 2024.

It was a ton of work. She was a champ!

Once we pointed out that her posts were really overrun with unnecessary FAQs it was like a lightbulb went off for her.

I remember she was like, “Whoa, yikes, you’re right. And even if you’re not right about it for SEO, all the FAQs make the post feel really unnatural and cluttered. Once I took a step back, slowed down, and thought about it for a second, I can totally see what you’re saying about things being over optimized, and written for robots.”

This open-minded FD member still has work to do, but things are headed back in the right direction, and she’s so pumped. And I’m pumped for her.

What I really want recipe site operators to know is that nothing about writing for robots and over optimizing posts is ‘helpful’ for the reader at home.

More info is not always more helpful.

It’s actually overwhelming, which is the opposite of helpful.

We know cleaning up over-optimized posts is taxing — it’s manual work. It also requires an open mind and a critical eye. But today, the data reveals it’s worth it.

[Siftr editor’s note: for those interested in reading more, we discuss over optimized recipe posts in detail in this recent Siftr issue.]

4 — Stop ignoring your gut.

It’s unfortunate, but a lot of recipe publishers don’t trust their gut.

I wish they did though, because every recipe publisher I’ve had the pleasure of supporting and working with directly at FD has excellent intuition, and a good gut.

Seriously, food bloggers know their s**t.

But, for some reason, they abandon their gut when it comes to SEO.

They’ll let someone else, like an SEO expert, tell them what to do.

Or, they listen to a podcast that isn’t recipe specific, and then they run with SEO advice that’s actually meant for a product review site, or an e-commerce shop.

I’m often invited to attend SEO webinars or conferences that I’m told by the host are advanced, and I’m like, “Huh? This is advanced SEO? Food bloggers were doing this like 18 months ago. This is old news!”

Recipe site owners are some of the brightest content strategists and SEOs I know!

I’ve asked so many Foodie Digital members over the years why they did that weird SEO thing. Again and again they tell me, “It felt a bit weird and unnatural to me at the time, but I was told it was the right thing to do for SEO, so I did it.”

They didn’t follow their gut instinct.

This is why I invested in Siftr, and why I advise on the Siftr newsletter’s editorial topics.

Google’s algorithms have evolved so much in the last 2 years — not to mention what AI is doing and disrupting — and a lot recipe creators are still working off of SEO checklists, or SEO audit advice from 2022.

The goal of the Siftr newsletter is to help recipe site owners get their confidence back, to get them to trust their own decisions more, and to open them up to new ideas, and more contemporary, creative interpretations of what great SEO is.

Once they do, the sky’s the limit.

I know, because I’ve watched 100+ Foodie Digital members do it.