Many food bloggers rely on us to maintain and support their WordPress websites. We have a lot of experience in search engine optimization for recipe content.
Just as food should be shared, SEO tips should also be shared!
These SEO tips from food bloggers will help you improve your recipe SEO.
Get articles like this and more at Article Market. Buy blog posts on virtually any topic.
1. LONG TAIL, LONG TAIL!
What if I said that this gluten-free mac and cheddar was made with turkey meat?
SEO is a lot about building authority in a niche. Everybody has a favorite kale recipe. But what makes your kale dish unique? Your long-tail keywords will provide the answer.
It’s amazing how specific people can be with their food searches. Many people simply search for “mac & cheese recipe” and then click the first result. Many people are looking for recipes that satisfy a certain criteria, such as recipes that comply with dietary restrictions or recipes that have a particular ingredient they need to stock up on in their kitchen. These people might be looking for “vegan butternut mac and cheese” and “slow cooker jalapeno macar and cheese”. These are the types of long-tail key words you should pursue to get some traffic from lower-competition sources.
You can also find ideas for future recipes by doing some keyword research.
2. Stick with your tags and categories carefully.
It’s easier for search engines and users to find what they are looking for by organizing WordPress tags and categories.
A WordPress blog with a lot of content needs to establish categories and tags. You probably know by now that you can use categories and tags to organize your recipe archives pages by ingredients, mealtimes, and other criteria. This is extremely useful for users as well as search engines. You need to be able to use categories and tags correctly.
This is important because it’s easy for tags and categories to become out of control, as we have seen from our years of experience working with food bloggers. You should limit your categories to those that your content is easily categorized under. Then you can use tags to make it more specific.
You can do a lot more with organizing your blog content. This is why we offer an in-depth guide to how to use WordPress tags and categories.
3. Keep ahead of the calendar.
We’re in the camp of “pumpkin bread is delicious throughout the year”
A food blogger’s life often involves baking pumpkin bread in July, and trying Thanksgiving recipes in September. It’s helpful to your readers to create season-specific content sooner, but SEO is a major reason why it’s so important.
SEO can be a tedious process. It takes time. It can take time to publish new content. Enjoy the delicious summer pumpkin bread!
4. Take into account the user experience of your website
Does your website make it easy for users follow a recipe?
“Ugh! Why can’t food bloggers just shut down and get to the recipes already!”
This is a common saying. Food bloggers and their readers are not happy with long personal stories that preface a recipe. Some readers wish that food bloggers would get straight to the point.
Are you looking for cooking websites?
I don’t need to know a thousand words about the process of discovering the recipe or the emotions it evoked in you.
Steps and ingredients. Total time to prepare and cook. That’s it.
I am trying to feed my family. I’m not responsible for curating the experience.
— Kevin M. Kruse, @KevinMKruse February 15, 2019,
Others celebrate thoughtful introductions of recipes:
I have a radical idea for you, recipe writers. You should be able to write as much as you want about recipes and any other topics that come up in your head. It seems like it happens about twice per week now.
— Deb Perelman (@debperelman), February 16, 2019,
What is our opinion? In this instance, we tend to sympathize. We sympathize with the food bloggers in this case. It can also be beneficial for SEO.
Long-form quality content is valuable. In many cases it is a requirement for success. Search engines like Google can distinguish food bloggers from large recipe aggregation websites by using these personal stories. These stories also give food bloggers the opportunity to make a living from their work by displaying ads in the body. Although does not love ads as much, most food bloggers offer their recipes for free to anyone who is interested. This is one way they can get compensated.
Your blog’s user experience is important. Mobile users, especially, shouldn’t be frustrated by endless scrolling or popups that are too difficult to close. These are two tips to help you find the right balance.
- Consider adding an anchor link to your recipe posts that are longer than usual. This gives users who are a bit more impatient the option of navigating directly to the recipe.
- To ensure that your ads don’t become too intrusive or hard to reduce, make sure to test the usability of your website frequently.
5. Optimize image alt text. Yes, all of your images.
“Rhubarb crumble, surrounded by fresh hazelnuts and strawberries.
The best thing about reading a food blog? Seeing all the beautiful food photos. The downside to all these images is… Each image needs an alt text.
We know. This is a lot to alt text for. But, we know it’s important to do it for every post. Alt text provides Google valuable information about your content. It also allows screen readers to see your content.
We encourage you to make each alt text description unique. While some bloggers have simply added the name of the recipe to the alt text for all images in a post, others do the same. Here are some examples of descriptive alt text that you might use if you share a recipe for rhubarb crumble with step-by-step photographs.
- “Ingredients to rhubarb crumble
- “Cut rhubarb on cutting board”
- “Mixing ingredients to make rhubarb crumble.”
- “Rhubarb crumble in a cast iron skillet straight from the oven”
- “One serving of rhubarb butter crumble in one bowl”
- “Close-up of the rhubarb crumble dough crust”
6. Stay on top of SEO titles and meta descriptions
Are you constantly creating new recipes? Remember to include your metas and titles!
It can be difficult to ensure that your posts reflect the most recent SEO best practices, as experienced food bloggers often have a large archive of recipes.
Every recipe should include a meta description and SEO title that includes long-tail keywords. These should be included in all posts, even those that are very old. Otherwise, you may be preventing your blog content from getting the traffic it deserves.
Do you want to make your life easier? Install the Yoast SEO plugin to make your life easier. It will streamline the process and ensure you follow SEO best practices.
7. Internal linking can help you boost related content
Sharing is the best way to enjoy food. The same applies to recipes.
Don’t miss the chance to promote your work in your work. People often search for recipes on different websites before finding one. Internal linking allows you to appeal to people who find your website but don’t like it.
A great way to convert a first-time visitor to a returning customer is to link to your content. You can be sure that they will return to your site in the future if they like the writing and photos in your posts.