Ice cream is a broad and deep topic and you could write a lot of blog posts without running out of unique material.  Every blog post that you write should be about a topic that is different from anything else that is already on your site and be interesting, informative and perhaps humorous as well.

If your site (and pages) are powerful enough google will display two, three or more of your pages in the top ten.

I spend a lot of time writing content that most people would consider to be cannibalizing - and it brings in a lot of longtail traffic and takes traffic away from my competitors.  I do it intentionally.  There's no sin about it.

I don't think that there is a sandbox.  A new site can be launched  and not have  any problems that people call a "sandbox".

I think that the problem is.... other websites scrape new content from you and post it on their site... then you  get filtered.  I think that has been happening for years but since nobody believes that is true they call it a "sandbox".

I know that this comment is going to get me a lot of thumbs down.   

Thanks for this information.

I have seen "leave a review about your transaction at......." on some of documents that I have received.

Better check the terms of use anytime a person wants to do this.

Ask customers to do it.  Print on receipts, mailings, email footer, etc.