Hi there Reader,

It’s time for yet another Blogging Newsletter from your friends at Food Blogger Pro. 😊

We send these newsletters at the end of each and every month to recap some of the biggest news, strategies, and insights to come out of the food blogging and content creation industry.

And this Blogging Newsletter? It’s jam-packed. We’re talking about:

• A Google Core Update
• FAQs in search results
• A virtual conference
• And more!

Let’s jump in:

1. Google’s August Core Update. 📈

Have you noticed a big change in your search traffic? Google’s core update may be the reason!

The rollout for Google’s most recent core update started on August 22 and is scheduled to take two weeks to complete.

What’s a Core Update?

In short, they’re significant updates to Google’s search algorithm, and you can find a history of updates on this Google Search Status Dashboard.

What can you do if you were negatively impacted?

There are both “winners” and “losers” to each core update –– as a webpage moves up in search results, other webpages need to move down.

So what do you do if you see a dip in search traffic after a core update?

​According to Google, “there’s nothing in a core update that targets specific pages or sites. Instead, the changes are about improving how our systems assess content overall. These changes may cause some pages that were previously under-rewarded to do better in search results.”

That said, it may be helpful to make sure that you’re creating the most helpful content possible. Google has a guide with questions to ask yourself to help with that.

We also have a course for Food Blogger Pro members all about what to do when you experience changes in search traffic. Learn more about it here!

2. A beginner-friendly (and free!) GA4 course. 💻

Have you been frustrated by GA4? You aren’t alone!

Change is hard, especially when GA4 differs so much from its predecessor, Universal Analytics. That's why we were excited to see a new GA4 course, available for free from Google.

In the course, you’ll learn:

• How GA4 handles data
• How to create an account and property
• How to set up your site for data collection
• How to confirm data is being collected
• And more!

If you’ve had difficulty getting up and running with GA4, hopefully this course will clarify some things for you!

3. The Virtual Tastemaker Conference! 🌮

The countdown is ON! Tastemaker’s virtual conference will happen on September 15, 2023.

During this one-day conference, you’ll get access to six classes and workshops, as well as a keynote presentation. Plus, you’ll get bonus on-demand content, virtual networking and cooking classes, and more!

You can learn more about the virtual conference and snag your $69 ticket here.

4. Google downgrades visibility of HowTo and FAQ Rich Results… but what does that mean for food bloggers? 📉

You may have seen this headline this month: “Google Downgrades Visibility of HowTo and FAQ Rich Results.” And if you’re anything like us, you may have been a bit confused.

As food bloggers, we’re often adding schema markup to our blog posts… even if you’re unaware of it!

By using a quality recipe plugin, we automatically add schema markup to our recipes. This helps Google understand our recipes and increases the chances of our blog’s search results including more interesting information like photos or ratings –– these are called “rich results.”

Another popular type of schema markup for food bloggers is FAQ schema, and it can easily be added to your blog posts by using the Yoast FAQ Block. It can add schema-rich FAQs to your blog posts like this:

But when Google said that they’re “reducing the visibility of FAQ rich results” for all content except for government and health websites this month, you may have wondered if it’s worth it to use the FAQ block in your blog posts anymore.

According to our SEO Expert, Casey Markee, in the Food Blogger Pro forum, “the FAQ schema still provides you a competitive edge in the People-Also-Ask (PPA) sections, which are run by entirely different algorithms.” The FAQ block is still very helpful for users.

In short, you should still consider adding FAQ blocks to your recipes!

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And that’s a wrap for this month’s Blogging Newsletter! Have any feedback or questions? Hit reply!

Otherwise, we’ll see ya next time. 👋