The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 87. Secrets to Keyword Research Success with Aleka Shunk

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

Are you wanting to learn more about keyword research for your blog? Today, we brought on Aleka Shunk to share more about keyword research with you. Aleka is the founder of Aleka's Get-Together and Keywords with Aleka. After keyword researching ineffectively for over two years, Aleka was finally able to triple her organic search traffic in under four months by changing a few simple research strategies! She dives deep into keyword research and creating top-ranking content with us today. If you are looking to grow your blog, keyword research is a must. Tune in to hear more!Thanks for listening! Connect with us on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsJoin The Ultimate Blog Bootcamp, our online course and coaching that helps you build the blog that you have always dreamed of.Apply to the Ultimate Blog Membership! We would love to have you!Check out Cooking with Keywords  HERE!  Use code UBP10 for 10% off!Check out the show notes (link below) for more information including links and resources mentioned in today's episode!SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode87

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper. We're on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you're just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we're excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success and your own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging

and work from home life all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. Keyword research is a really important foundation when it comes to blogging. And it's something that Jennifer and I are really passionate about sharing with you. Because if you want to grow your blog, I think you just got to do keyword research. And we have somebody super special to share with you today that we are excited to share with you. Aleka Shunk is here with us to talk all about keyword research and how it can help you grow your blog. Aleka is the founder of Aleka's Get Together and Keywords with Aleka. She has a master's degree in teaching, learning and curriculum and was a teacher for 10 years before

resigning to work full time on her blog and courses. After keyword researching ineffectively for over 2 years, Aleka was finally able to triple her organic search traffic in under 4 months by changing a few simple research strategies. In her courses, she will teach you how to become a keyword research expert so bloggers can create top-ranking content that will bring you sustainable traffic for years to come. That is the goal, Aleka. And we are so excited that you are here to share your nuggets of wisdom that you've learned over the years with us. So welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here. Yeah. So let's just hear a little bit about your journey because I love

that you had basically a problem that you needed a solution for and you created it and then have decided to share it. So if you would like to share with our community just a little bit about how you got started with blogging because it sounds like you were a teacher first and just left that career. Yeah. So to try to keep it short and long drawn out, 2017 is when I started. I had a couple's game night, I remember. And I love entertaining and inviting people and going the extra mile with the little stuff. And somebody was like, Oh, this is so cool. You should make a blog and put this on. And I said, what is it? I'd never heard of it before. And I was about five years into teaching at that point. And I was like, okay. Before kids, I was like, yeah, sure five years into teaching at that point and I was like okay

you know before kids I was like yeah sure let me explore this I have time and I found food blogger pro podcast podcast and the website and all of that and I immediately was like wow like there are people actually making a substantial amount of income from blogging that it was succeeding my current teaching income. And I was like, okay, I'm not in teaching for money, but it's nice to have not a cap, right? You hit no matter how many hours you put in, you're capped off at 15 years, whatever it is. So like, okay, I'm happy where I am, but let me see if I can do this as like an extra income source. So I looked into it and I started creating ideas in my website and all that. And I launched it in 2017. And then a year in, I was like, okay, this is not as easy as I thought it would be.

Everyone thinks they're going to post things and everyone's going to find... I'm different. I'm going to be the exception. Everyone's going to find... But that didn't happen. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to problem solve. And thank God there's so much information. I don't know how bloggers that started in 2012 made it back then because the amount of information now, it's incredible. And I'm so fortunate to have that. So I learned, I taught myself and I was like, okay, SEO is what I'm missing. I can't just post things and make it look pretty and spend all this money and time and templates and themes and colors. It's not about that.

It's about the back, usually the back end of everything. So I explored SEO and I was like, okay, I don't know about coding and all that, but I do know words and I do know how to research. So let me look into this keyword research thing. And I saw so many questions from other bloggers about from beginner to advanced keyword research and everything in between. I was like, there is a need for this. There's so many people having similar questions to me. And people's answers are very vague. And there's never a set response to like, this is how much you should be targeting volume-wise. This is what a keyword is. I had almost stupid questions. And I say there's never stupid questions. But I had questions where

I felt like such an idiot asking in front of people in groups. I'm like, I can't ask that. So I tried to research as much as I could. And I learned and I applied all the strategies. I took courses. And I was like, okay, I started to see progress and my traffic increased. I was like about 10,000 monthly sessions at that point. And within a couple months, it tripled. And at that point, it was Mediavine was 30, 25 or 30,000. So I was like, okay, I'm in like first huge success. Like I may accomplish that first, everyone's first goal. And then from there, it tripled again. And I was like, okay, I need to share this information. Being a teacher, I was like, I want to help others. And it would also help me

supplement more income of course, if I could create a course. So I created cooking with keywords, which is really just for food bloggers. And the words got out about that. And people found it super helpful, which I was so happy to hear because I want to help people. I don't want to just... I'm not in it just to make money, although that's a nice thing to do. If people are coming to me and saying that was the worst course or I wasted my money, I am, I feel like a failure and I would take it off right away. Right. So when people said it was helpful, I was like, okay, I need to now put more time and effort into making it the best resource available. And then here I am today trying to

branch off of that for other niches and so forth. So can we just start at a basic level for those people who are just thinking about getting into blogging and they're like, hold on a minute, what is she talking about keyword research? What does that mean? So can you just give them a basic level version of what you mean by doingword research. What does that mean? So can you just give them a basic level version of what you mean by doing keyword research and why it's important? I'll try to make this as beginner as I can because I forget five years ago where I was.

You assume that people know, but they don't know. So to keep it super basic, it's basically finding the keywords that other people are putting into the search bar in Google and actually searching. That's really basic level. And then you can use tools, extensions that will tell you the amount of people searching every month for that word or words or phrases. Okay. So if nobody is searching for, I don't know, garlic coated chocolate bananas, I don't know. What's the point of targeting or

posting a recipe on chocolate covered bananas with garlic? Like nobody's going to... You may say it's the best thing in the world, but if nobody's going to find it, why put the effort into posting something? So just using tools to find those keywords is going to be the basic level of keyword researching. Great explanation. You did it. Yeah. I think the thing, especially for new bloggers, when they're starting, they're like, I just want to write. Writing is my favorite. And I just want to write. And that is a very common thing that we hear. I am also talking about my own journey.

Because I did the same thing. And I was like, I just want to write. And thankfully, I had Jennifer who was like, that's great and fine. But you need to do some keyword research. Like, buck up, sister. It's time to go. Let's do the thing. And I did just like you. When I started doing that, I saw more success with that. And it doesn't mean that you lose your creativity. And I think that that is also a really common pushback. And I totally get that. A lot of people say, well, I want to write about the things that I want to write about. And so what is your response when somebody says that as well? I'm going to lose my creativity if I do too much, if I get too technical with this. Yeah. I hear that all the time. And I try to address that in my course because it's the elephant in the room and something that

me personally, I battle with all the time because I used to sleep in my... I would wake up in the room and something that me personally, I battle with all the time because I used to sleep in my, you know, I would wake up in the middle of the night while I was, and I would write down recipes in my phone that I would just think of while I'm sleeping. Weirdo I am. And I would be like, Oh, these such an interesting recipe. Let me just jot it down in my notes. Right. And the next day I'd be so excited to make that interesting because nobody had it. It was like so unique, right? But nobody came to that post. Like nobody. Pinterest was good, but not for Google traffic, right?

Jumping off of that Pinterest comment. If you want to create something that is unique, 100%, it's going to do better on social media slash Pinterest than Google. So I say like, do like maybe like an 80, 20 percentage, like 80% of your content, make it geared towards keyword researching, finding Google traffic. And then the 20% you can do like whatever the heck you want to do, whatever floats your boat, whatever makes you, you know, fills your creative bucket and promote the heck out of it on social media and create all kinds of pins. And you will get that traffic if it's super creative and not been done before. So that's my

way of balancing that. I think that's good advice because it gives people a framework in terms of how to spend their time as well. Because I think as bloggers, we can feel like there's so many things to focus on. I could spend hours and hours on social media. I could spend hours creating content. I can spend hours doing research. And then that's not even setting up my blog, maintaining it and all of that stuff. So I love the framework. It gives just a little bit of permission to be creative. And it also gives you like that structure to really create the content that people are looking for so that you can drive that traffic back to your site, which is ultimately in the long run going to just continue to fuel that fire and fuel that creativity when people

are actually seeing what you're creating. Exactly. Totally. Well said. And I feel like even after you post something that is not keyword researched, you can still check out the keywords that Google will automatically rank you for and see if there's any low-hanging fruit keywords that you can optimize for and say, Oh, I didn't even realize that's a keyword that people are searching and it's directly related

to my post. let me tweak some things since it's already up and maybe I'll get some organic traffic too for it. That's a roundabout way of trying to get in some organic traffic. If you're a blogger who's looking to increase your organic search traffic using keyword research, we have an excellent resource that we are really excited to share with you. If you struggle to find the right keywords, maybe you're unsure of your rankings, or you're just plain running out of ideas. What if I told you that you can learn how to find the right keyword that will rank competitively on Google? Aleka Shunk is the keyword research guru,

and we highly recommend her courses if you are ready to do a deep dive into keyword research. She has two courses that we'd recommend to start. Cooking with Keywords is for food bloggers, and Blogging with Keywords was created for others who aren't in the recipe niche. This is not a beginner course, but if you are ready to tackle keyword research, this is the best thing for your buck. To learn more about Aleka's keyword courses, click the link in our show notes and become a keyword research, this is the best bang for your buck. To learn more about Aleka's keyword courses, click the link in our show notes and become a keyword research guru. I think that brings up a question for me and that when you do create a post and put it out there, and then you are going to go back and see like, am I ranking for any keywords? Whether I intended to or didn't intend to rank for those keywords, how long does it usually take to start seeing

some of that come through? Rankings pop up? Yes. Yeah. So I mean, gosh, I remember, I think it was 2 years ago, I had a post rank for a top keyword. Now keep in mind, every piece of content that you push out should rank for at least... Oh, gosh. I don't think I've seen a post rank for less than 10 keywords, but at least 50, 200, maybe 1,000 keywords. So there's a lot of different variations of the word and different phrases or questions that one post could rank for. And all of those are known as different keywords. So with that said, I think that... I think it was like 12 hours that that post started ranking in the top 20 for my target keyword, not just the random unrelated keyword. And I was shocked. I was like, wow, Google,

you impressed me. So it was a good keyword to target. It wasn't very competitive, but 12 hours it was ranking. I think it was the 12th or 20th position. I forget. So you could rank as soon as that, but that's not common. Usually I would say average three months, it could take up to 12 though. Usually after 12 months, if a post is not ranking for your target high level volume keyword, then you should go back and say, all right, let's look at it again. Let's analyze, let's tweak.

But before 12 months, it's hard to say whether you should touch it, but it should definitely start ranking within a couple of weeks, slowly more and more and more and more keywords. So it's something with the new... Because we talked about going back and looking at your content, revising it if needed. And so it is kind of sit it... Not sit it and forget it. But be patient with it. If it's only been 3 months, you would not recommend changing it.

Yes. I have people emailing me all the time saying, Aleka, I just updated this and it's not moving. It went down a little bit. I don't know what should I do? And I'm like, okay, first of all, and I'm like, okay, let's look at it. And it's like two weeks ago, they republished. I'm like, you need to wait longer. And often, sometimes it will go down before it goes back up. So just be patient, let it Google fit, you know, do its fun little thing it does and wait for it to kind of settle again. And if you are using tools where you can kind of see like a trending line, which I love seeing visually, especially because I was a math teacher, which I love seeing visually,

especially because I was a math teacher. Immediately it showed me an upward trend is wonderful. Like a roller coaster, something's not, Google's not liking something. If it's downward, then maybe we should kind of like reverse maybe the changes that we did or take a second look. But at the same time, I've seen posts go down and then within a couple of weeks, they go straight back up because Google's maybe testing out other results. And it's like,

no, you know what? Aleka's post is the best. I'm going to put her back up. So this is why I like analyzing more than keyword searching. When it's all been done and up, I like breaking down. What do I see? Like, why could this be? And what can we do differently? And, and, oh, wow, I sound like Dr. Sue. I'm rhyming. And there are certain tools that could help you look into things a little bit more than maybe, you know, the basic tools. So it just matters how deep into it you want to go and how much you like it. And I just oddly love it. Not just because I was a math teacher. I just really like analyzing because it's like...

Kind of fun. Yeah. And when you see rankings go up, you feel so motivated and you're like, oh, I want to do another post like that. And after that 12-hour post, I was like, all right, I'm going to do another one. I'm going to start. And it's just so motivating. If I didn't have these tools and I was just looking at my Google Analytics everyday stay, like whatever, I would, I probably would have stopped blogging. Yeah. So what is like a basic tool that somebody can use when they're just starting out? Like, what do you recommend? Or maybe not even basic, like what is just like a pretty user-friendly

tool that you recommend for bloggers to use when they're wanting to dive into it? Yeah. I feel like when I started blogging, I thought I knew what I was doing. Everyone tells me, I thought I knew keyword research. It's what? You just find the words or the words that people are searching and you look for a high number, right? Keywords Everywhere is probably the more popular extension that's free. I think you can buy credits, but I think that's where everybody started with that extension right next to your Google results. You can kind of look and say, oh, boom, I'm going to go for this. But that's not very accurate. And it's misleading too. I think if you're just going off of one tool

like that, and that's your keyword research, your keyword research. There's so much beneath the surface to explore. And KeySearch, which is, I think, gosh, $30 a month now. I think around there, it's very affordable. And it's... I think it's only $17. Oh, why am I thinking $30? I think they have 2 plans. Starter plan is $17. I think it's around $17. Even better. Yeah. It's very user-friendly. It's very basic. It uses Google APIs, which means it is more accurate than some of the other tools, which is nice to know. But at the same time, I'm in the middle of an email series to people that want to join

my mailing list. It's free. You guys can join. But I'm talking about keyword discrepancies and how sometimes key search says, Oh, this keyword gets 20,000 monthly visits. And people are emailing me saying, I'm in the number one position and I'm getting a thousand. What is going on?

So you have to make sure you're understanding key search correctly. Otherwise, it could be also misleading. But that's a whole other topic for another time. Or we can get into that. Well, maybe we, let's just talk a little bit about what are we looking for when we go in there and we, and we put in a keyword. Yeah. How are we coming up with the idea and what are we looking for to figure out if this is the right fit for us? Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to pull up KeySearch just so I am like, I know exactly where everything is. So when you open up KeySearch, there's a search bar under the keyword research tab and you type in any keyword you want to make or you want to target. What if it's from... If it's a recipe, you can type in... You can start

off with, I don't know, cookies. Really basic. And then obviously, cookies is not something you want to title your post because you're never going to rank in 20,000 years. So start with a broad term. If it's not a recipe, you can do like... I do a lot of entertaining posts or I have essential oil blogs. So I can do, I don't know, diffusers. And then you start with a bit... I'm never going to rank for that either. But you start with a basic term. You can start by adding other keywords to it. You can do that in Google itself, to be honest, because that's really the most accurate, free, quote unquote, keyword research and see what Google auto pop, you know, the search bar auto populates or suggests for you. Because sometimes if you start typing a keyword,

it'll drop down about 10 suggestions. Keep an eye on those because Google puts them there for a reason, right? So, and usually they have higher volume. So if you type, you know, diffuser, and then you type the space bar, other suggestions will come up. Diffusers for essential oils, diffusers for your bedroom, right? Look at those, and then you can take that and search in a tool like Key Search to find the actual volume because the volume is the most important thing, right? If people are not searching, why target it? So once you type in the keyword and you find a good volume, which people are probably wondering, well, what's a good volume, right? I would say, even if you're a brand new blogger, don't target below 300, like never. Don't target below 300, like never.

Total, total. So you can have a keyword that's 20 here, 20 there. So 20 times five is 100 times three is 300, right? So that's like, if you find 15 keywords that are each 20 volume and you add those up, that's a good keyword to go after. It looks like it's not a large volume because it's only 20 for one variation of the keyword, but people type in things differently in Google. So diffusers in the

bedroom, bedroom diffusers, diffusers for any room, all of these different keywords, you can come up in Google as a good match for that keyword. So I would say if collectively those variations add up to around 300, that would be a good starting point. And then also something to keep in mind is if you're in the first position in Google, you're only going to be getting about 28% of that 300, which is only around to 30. How much is that? 100? 100 visits a month, which is... At first, it's like, wow, 100 visits a month. That's great. It's a couple a day, right? But that's not going to move the needle in the long run. And I've had a lot of students that are too afraid to target

larger volumes. But I would recommend mixing it up and maybe target some lower 300, 400 volume keywords, and maybe a couple thousand just to start off. And then once you have that, and you found a keyword with a good volume, you can look at the difficulty score, which KeySearch shows you by color, because it's wonderful, right? So blue is like the best. If you can find a keyword that is a blue colored score keyword, that's usually, usually not of them are not competitive. It could be a restaurant that you had no idea was the name of the restaurant in Arkansas or wherever. Or it could be a product, which is really popular with food bloggers, a popular issue when I see, okay, well, the traffic you're going to get is not going to be as high as it says, because most people are trying to click on a product like Oreo ice cream.

It's probably going to be a product that comes up. Don't make Oreo ice cream, right? Especially with diffusers, right? I mean, it's going to be products galore. So making sure that you narrow it down so that the user intent is matching what you're posting about. So how to clean a diffuser would not be product related. Okay. So take a deep breath. I can stop there. I think this is really insightful.

Like, yeah, this is, this is really, really good information. It is more complicated than I think people initially think, but it's approachable and it's attainable if you're willing to think outside the box. For sure. And I think that this is something that this is a part of blogging. Let me rephrase. If your goal is growth, if your goal is to create an income with blogging, this is part of the gig. Yes. I think so many people want to just pump out, so many bloggers just want to pump out more and more content, which is good. The more content, more chances that you're going to get more traffic. But depending on the type of blogger you are, sometimes it's not. It takes hours and

hours to pump out one post. How long do you think it's going to take the research? It may take a couple hours, but guess what? At least you know the effort is going to be rewarded in the end and you're not wasting your time, right? It's like time is money. So put the time in. Don't rush through the keyword reach, which everybody does. They rush through and they don't look at all their competitors. They don't look at the first page of Google.

They don't open up all the 10, 20 links on the first couple of pages and examine the outlines of all the other and look at all for all the related keywords. And when I started, I would have a list next to me. I would have my two monitors up and I would just be analyzing everything to make sure that I was prepared as I could to write that post because I didn't want to have to go back in a year and redo it. Right. So I think that's, yeah, that's good advice to really like, if you're going to take this seriously as a business and not a hobby, that's not all fun. If it's, you know, and for me, this is fun, but for you, it may not start, but when you start to see progress, you're going to start thinking it's fun. I promise. Yeah. And so I think your advice would be,

spend the time to put out one really good piece of content rather than just pumping out. So if you can commit to one a week, one really good, well-done post, that would be better than hurry to get like 3 posts out. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And I think that should feel like a relief to someone too. I think it's not just about creating content constantly. It's about doing a really good job and just understanding the amount that you're going to be able to put out is going to impact how quickly you will grow. But if you can set your own reasonable goals for how much content you can create in any given month, I think that that's going to set your expectations and set yourself up for more success in the long run

because you're doing it intentionally. For sure. 100%. And you'll see the results. If you're just patient, you will see the results. Just don't rush. Don't rush. Don't rush.

I think that will be the hard part for a lot of people is, okay, so I did the research. I put the post together, I put in all my keywords, I did what I was supposed to do. Okay, goodbye. I think we put it out there. And then we're like, okay, well, we'll just see what happens. We'll see the traffic, whatever. So there's got to be a next step. We've got to be keeping track of this somehow. Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like? Yeah, 100%. So when I do some coaching sessions with bloggers, I look at their site index map, and I look and see their older posts. And sometimes it's like years.

There's like 30, 40, 50, 100 posts that are a few years old. And I said, they're sitting right here, which is usually at the, I don't know, second page at the bottom of the first page. And they're just sitting there. It's like waiting for some love. If you update it and give it a little bit more optimization love, most of the time it does move up. I see drastic... I'll look at the trend in my keyword research tool and I'll see as soon as I made that update, within a couple of days, you see the rankings increase. And again, motivation and reminder to update old content. Always, always. Because usually the first try is not going to get there.

You need at least two, sometimes three tries. I just emailed somebody. She's like, I gave up on that post. I just, I'm like, don't, don't give up. You're in the 12th position. Just keep like, just change everything. If it's not working, just change the whole format of the post and try something new. So I said, don't give up. People give up too easily. Don't give up.

But to track your rankings, you can do it in KeySearch. They have a rank tracking. You would just type in your URL. You can put it in the Explorer section. Make sure you click on specific page if you want to check out a specific post. Or you can check out all the rankings that your entire domain has, your entire blog, and just view. And the only thing negative that I don't like about KeySearch rank tracking or Explorer section

is you can't really filter the positions or the keywords. I wish you can do a keyword search like other tools, but you can't do that. And it only shows you a certain... I think it's like 1000 keywords per post, which some posts are... You're going to be ranking for more than that. So right now I'm looking and I wish I can just research or search for appetizers and see how many posts are ranking for appetizers, which posts, and where they're sitting. But I can't do that.

You can export and search in a spreadsheet, which I've done before. It's just more work. But if you can afford it, try SEMrush or Ahrefs because those tools are amazing for tracking and analyzing. And you can have their rank tracker alert you for increases and decreases in positions, which is super helpful. And KeySearch does have rank tracking as well. It's just not as thorough as the other tools. Obviously, you get what you pay for, but it does allow you to track certain

keywords. You have to pay a little bit more, which is not a lot to track more keywords, but you can kind of see how the keywords are doing. And right now I see like for one of my keywords, it's just, it's been in position five, the last, what is this last couple of weeks. And it's just sitting there, but look, you're going to look for dips and increases to kind of let you know if things are going well after an update or not. And it'll show you red down arrows for decreases and green up arrows for increases. And it's just really, it's really helpful to see. blogger, they're not necessarily, they might want to go in and look and see how things are performing and keep an eye on things to help them figure out the new content that they want to create. But they're not necessarily going back and updating old content just yet. Cause you kind of want to give it, like you said, about a year. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah. So if you just start blogging, first off, everyone's afraid to publish a blog with two posts, right? But who cares? No

one's navigating your entire blog, usually, unless it's your parents or your friends. No one's really digging in posts. As soon as you have the first post, publish it. I remember I was waiting until I had 20 or 30 posts, but just do it. And as you go, just publish. It'll start to get traction, but just focus on quality. Don't second guess yourself. Don't look back until a year in. And then after a year, that's really when the hard work comes in. Because then it's like, it's not about the fun producing new content. It's really the analyzing aspect of your business and looking and seeing which post needs the most time right now.

Where am I going to get the most bang for my buck? I don't want to waste time updating a post that really is just... It's either no keywords or it's just not... There's too much competition. Are you a blogger and looking for a community of bloggers to network and learn from? We are so excited to share with you that we have created a space for people just like you to learn, connect, and grow in their blogging business. It's called The Ultimate Blog Membership, and we would love to have you join us. The Ultimate Blog Membership is a monthly membership that includes two coaching calls each month and a forum to ask questions and get answers from both of us and others in

the community. Each month, we have a coaching call that will help you learn how to grow and improve your blog by bringing in guest experts and coaching ourselves on topics that will help your business thrive. The other live call each month is a Q&A call where you can hop on and connect with other members and discuss live questions that you have or troubleshoot any areas that need assistance. This community has been incredibly encouraging and motivating since we created it in January of 2022. And we are excited for you to apply to join us. If you are interested in joining us, click the link in our show notes for more information

and the application to become part of the group. We want to make sure that we can support you the best. So we have just a few questions that we need you to answer to make sure we'd be a good fit. We are so excited to connect with you even more in the ultimate vlog membership. Check the show excited to connect with you even more in the ultimate blog membership. Check the show notes to apply today. When you're in that analyzing phase, is there a certain amount of time you would suggest devoting to updating old content versus continuing to create new content? It depends how much content you have to update. But if you can, at that point, I try to do more

of like a 50-50. If I post one a week, I'll try to update one a week. If I post two a week, I'll try to update two. I mean, it depends on how much time you have available, but I try not to. It's never like a three to two where I'm publishing more than I'm updating. The updating part should always be more until you get caught up and then you can go back to publishing new content. But I feel like it's just that you're wasting all that effort if it's sitting in the 12th position when you really... It just needs a little bit more help optimizing. I've seen so many people, including my posts, increase. And I'm still... I'm literally always updating because I never get caught up. And that's fine. That's the nature of blogging. You just have to know,

okay, here's my updated post list. Okay, it's summertime. So I'm going to wait to update these posts in December or October. And right now, I'm just going to work on my summer because they need the most attention right now. And they're probably going to get the most traffic right now. So that helps to keep things a little bit more easier and more manageable. Yeah, just making a plan for that, I think is really important to know. And I think it also... If somebody has been a blogger for a little while and you're like, Oh my goodness, my initial posts are terrible. I should just delete them. No, I would say go back. We all started there. As you're talking, I'm thinking through some of

my first posts. I'm like, I'm pretty sure those are still on my site. Those should be taken down. Or no indexed or something. We're updated. We all have posts on our site that should be taken down. Or like no indexed or something or updated. We all have posts on our site that are not our best work. And so it's just asking that question is, does this content still meet the intention of the user that I am now targeting on my site? Because I think that there's something to be said about that as well. And maybe we can talk a little bit about this about deleting posts versus updating them. Let's say that somebody has had a post on their website for 5 years. It is literally never ranked. It gets very minimal traffic. What do you suggest?

If it's an old post that has not gotten a lot of traffic, after at least 2 updates, I would say you can delete it. But during those updates, you should be approaching it from, okay, is there a way I can tweak the keyword to target something else that maybe it's already ranking for, right? Because Google's going to see it. It's going to read it. It's going to try to understand it and say, okay, it looks like she's trying to target this keyword. So I'm going to rank her for this keyword.

She's trying to target this keyword. So I'm going to rank her for this keyword. But if it's not, if it's like totally missing the intent, consider that and maybe tweak it so that Google's not misinterpreting what you're trying to put forth. And then if that doesn't work, see if you can go in a different direction with a different keyword and make it maybe more broad.

Like, oh gosh, I have to go through the recipe route. Like forgetting Napoli was a keyword that had 18,000 or 30,000 monthly visits, super low competition, but they're not getting the traffic for that keyword. I don't know why. I think US volume was like 200. Globally, much, much higher. Probably most of that in Italy, right? So I said, well, why don't we try to target more of a US-friendly keyword like spaghetti with red wine or spaghetti made with olives, I think she had, or Italian-inspired spaghetti, something that's not just a different route. It can even be the easiest spaghetti recipe. That could be your header.

And I'm sure people are Googling that, right? People don't think more broad, take a step back. If we all think long tail keyword, let's be super specific. But if that doesn't work, maybe we like take a couple steps back and make it the opposite, super broad and see what Google picks up there.

And then after those two attempts, you're really still not picking up any traffic, then it's okay to delete or no index like you mentioned, which means it's a simple setting and one of the plugins that you just click and Google just doesn't look at it. But it could stay on your blog and your users could still find it helpful or your readers, right? But if nobody's visiting it, it's okay to just get rid of it. I hate it because I'm like, I put so much effort into it. Like, well, I don't want to get rid of it. Let me, you can sell it. I've told people to try to do that. Take the photos, take the content and try to, there's so many people that would buy it.

They don't need to know that it wasn't bringing you any traffic. But I don't know. Maybe they want to use it for something else. Who knows? But especially the photos. Because I think especially food bloggers, they spend so much time... If you have these beautiful photos, you can sell the photos too. So... Yeah. It's great to trim content. Yeah. That's a creative idea. I never thought of that. Very creative. Business-minded, right? We have to be entrepreneurs.

I love that you said that because I think that that is so true when we have to think of ourselves as entrepreneurs and as business owners. And when we are doing keyword research or doing things to grow our blog, it's for the good of the business and it's the business as a whole. So that can be something as simple as investing in a course that teaches you things. That can be spending the time to do keyword research, building your email list. These are all really important foundations. Yeah. And I think that honestly, part of being a blogger is being willing to stay a learner. Yes. Oh my gosh. You can't stay stuck in this space that I know all I could ever know.

There's nothing more to learn. I mean, we're blog coaches and we still are learning every single day. We learn from our students. We learn every day. And I think that that is really something to embrace in this journey is I think you have two choices. Truly, you can be really open-minded and know that that is part of this job. You can be really closed-minded and kind of fight it.

And I don't think you'll last in the blogging community if you're unwilling to learn. And you won't see the success. I've had so many... And it's funny because I can see people when they go through my course, I can see what modules they finish and what modules they skip

through. And it's kind of sad to see that people aren't willing to... You bought a course, you're not willing to put all the time and get the most bang out of your buck because you probably assume you know it. Oh, she's talking about this. I already know this. I'm going to skip to the next one. And I've caught myself doing that when I purchase courses, I'll fast forward or whatever. But there are pieces within that content that you miss. And I know they miss it because they asked me the same question. I said, I talked about it in the course, but I see you skipped it. It's those people that are going to set themselves apart from the other ones. So the people that are really like, I'm going to buy this course, I'm going to take notes. I'm not going to skip through. I'm not going to be distracted and get up and go do this and that. I'm not going to be running on

a treadmill, half listening. Like you have to be really a hundred percent focused to get out of the course, what you want to get out of, because the ones that do that immediately, they see success. The ones that don't they're, Oh, it didn't really work for, well, because you didn't, you know, it's like in the classroom, the ones that were listening and taking notes and asking questions, those are the students that did well. The ones that were half listening and assume, Oh, I can do that. I don't need to listen. I don't need to do my homework. I'm just going to do well on the test anyway. It's not... No. It's so interesting that you're saying this. I had somebody email us lately and ask,

what's your success rate for the Ultimate Blog Bootcamp? That's a good question. How do you measure that? I'm like, there's zero way to measure that because there are people who don't do the course. And we have no control over that. We have no control over somebody coming in and whether or not they put forth the effort to utilize everything that we have provided. I will say that people who do the course, who ask the questions, who are in it and doing it, they all finish because they're doing it. But we can't make somebody do a blog who never goes through the course fully. Or the ones that start it and then finish

three months later and they don't go back to the beginning. You're going to forget things. Right. Yeah. So I think that is really important. I think too, what we're talking about is be willing to invest in your business if the goal is growth and to create this as a business. Sometimes you have to spend money to make it. And I know that that's scary. I do. I think all three of us sitting here can probably say, yeah, sometimes we've put forth investments that we're like, oh shit, I hope this works. You're really hoping. And it's scary. But then when it does, you're like, Oh yes. I bet on myself. And don't be afraid to do that. Don't be afraid. Don't hold yourself back because the beautiful thing about blogging is that the

opportunities are endless here. There is no cap. And you said that at the very beginning when we hit record, there's no cap here like there is in other professions. Which is so motivating. Yes. Right? And there's so many avenues to make incomes with the blog. So it's like, how much do you want to put your time and energy? And how much of that do you really want to put in? If you're going to half-ass it, you're going to get half-ass results. Right.

Not to be. Hey, I like blunt sometimes. Sometimes I think tough love is good love. So totally good with that. Yeah. So I know that you have two different courses. You have one that's geared towards food blogging, but you have another one that's geared toward another space. And I'd love to hear the difference in that. Does keyword research look different dependent upon what your niche is? Yes. I do have a couple of courses. The first one, like I said, is cooking with keywords.

And that's just for food bloggers because I use a bunch of recipe keyword examples. And I always said the food blogging niche is a unique animal. It was another animal. It's so different when it comes to user intent because most people just want the recipe and they want an

informational intent, not transactional, not whatever. And it was tricky because there's so many different dietary restrictions now and people that are gluten-free and paleo and keto and those keywords, vegan, a whole nother ballgame as well. So that's that course. And then the other course is the same idea, same strategies, but just really communicating the information to the students that take it using different examples from the health niche to travel to anything else. so that you can relate better as a non-food blogger. Because I also have a non-food blogging, a food blog. And I used some of those examples and showed how I would use the same strategies to get similar results. So the idea is the same regarding keyword research. It's just you have to think about user intent a little bit differently. And I actually like writing posts that are non-recipes because it's...

I mean, when you write a recipe post, it's so redundant. It's the same thing. The instructions, the tips, the storage. With other posts, it's fun. You have to stop yourself from going off the grid because there's so many different directions you can go in. But that's awesome for interlinking your content as well. And telling Google, well, I have this and I have this. And I'm going to link everything together and hopefully build this using all kinds of different keywords and become known for that. Whatever you're trying to rank for.

So very similar to course. I actually have a third course as well on Ahrefs, which is like that tool I keep saying. It's like SEMrush. So that's for not beginners, those that really want to take their... If you've been blogging a couple years and you've been using KeySearch and you're a quote-unquote pro at that, that would be for like, what do you do now after... Oh, I have a keyword analyzing course too. So four total. So the keyword analyzing is like what I recommend taking after you have your keyword research down.

Remember we had said, well, what do you do after keyword research? You analyze. So that course is for everything's done. Let's go back and look at all of our rankings and dig deep into not just how to locate them, but what to do with what you're seeing. So that's for any, not just food bloggers. I made that for all niches as well. So yeah.

I love that. Fantastic. Yeah. I think there's, there's so much to learn. And I, what I love about the blogging community is when somebody puts in the investment to learn, they're often so willing then to teach. And that is some of the most valuable stuff you can learn from somebody who's been through it. They've done it. They've figured it out and they know where you're at and what you're going to struggle with. So you can learn so much that way. Yes, I agree. I hope that people agree. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing how you've learned and being willing to extend a hand and teach us and teach our community. My brain is just going, going, going, going. I'm thinking

about all these things. And I think that you've given us a lot to think about in regards to keyword research. And I really hope that you've inspired our community as well to be willing to think outside the box and be willing to look at the opportunity that blogging has in front of you. You've done the hard work. I mean, if you're listening to this episode, most likely your blog is already up and running. And so you've done the hard work already. Go ahead and take a bet on yourself and be willing to take that next step and prove to yourself that you can create content that people can actually find. Because that's the whole purpose of this work is making an impact on people. That's the important part. So Aleka, can you please share

with our audience how they can connect with you? And we will be putting a link to all of your courses as well in our show notes. But how can they find you and connect with you? Yeah. So you can find me and my courses on my main blog, which is Aleka's gettogether.com. And then I also have an Instagram channel for that and also for my keyword courses, which is Keywords with Aleka. And then you can find that link to the course there or on my blog as well. And I think I also have a freebie that I had linked to. It's a competitor analysis freebie that you guys can download. So when you're deciding whether to go for a keyword, you can have this checklist open and see, okay, these are the things I'm looking for to see if it's really worth going after to

increase your chances. So you can sign up and get that as well. And I also have a discount code. If Forever wants to take any of my courses, it's UBP10 for 10% off. So awesome. That's great. Thank you so much for sharing that. And thanks for being here today. Thank you for having me. It was so much fun. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with us, please find us on Instagram at Spark Media Concepts. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips and inspiration. You can sign up by finding the link in the show notes for those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your own blog. Join the waitlist for the ultimate blog bootcamp. The link to join the waitlist

is also in the show notes. Go out and make today a great day.