As a side project at Ppc Soft, we run a popular culinary blog. And we’ve learnt a lot about what works on food blogs from our own experiences. The strategies that work for a marketing blog, a fitness blog, or pretty much any other genre are not the same as those that work for a blog in any other genre. The case of food blog SEO is unique. We’ll even let you in on a few secrets. SEO is a method. It’s not a quick remedy for shoddy content. Here’s how to make sure your food blog is optimized for search engines and that each recipe achieves its maximum potential.

The Best Form Is Long-Form
Write 800-1200 word blog posts about recipes.

Longer material, contrary to popular belief, still works well for recipe SEO.

Don’t listen to the naysayers who grumble about the length of your recipe posts. Food bloggers are increasingly writing the story behind a recipe and providing some context. That isn’t a problem at all. It’s actually a positive thing. Those whiners simply want you to put in the effort but receive nothing in return. Ignore those individuals.

If you post a plain recipe, it’s likely that no one will notice it. Instead, give a recipe some context and life so that Google can figure out what it’s about and who it’s for.

To help Google understand what a recipe is about and who it’s for, give it some context and life.
Remember to include all of the long-tail keywords that will help visitors locate your blog.

What are long-tail keywords? Here’s an illustration:

Let’s imagine you’re looking for a strategy to minimize sugar while still enjoying a lovely chocolate cake like your grandmother used to make. There’s no perfect solution here, but you could expose guests to your keto-based chocolate cake, which was inspired by your grandmother’s food. What would be the best way to find this recipe? They can look for “sugar-free chocolate cake” or “cakes made the way they used to be made, but without the sugar.” That’s how people search nowadays, especially with the advent of voice search.

Long-tail keywords are so-called for a variety of reasons that we won’t get into here, but you can learn more about them here.

Long-tail keywords will aid in the discovery of your recipe.

Accept Voice Search SEO as a part of your SEO strategy.

Voice search is quickly becoming one of the most popular methods for finding information. You’re missing out on a lot of Google traffic if your recipes aren’t voice-optimized.

The results of a voice search are brief. As a result, it makes sense to keep replies to critical queries succinct and to the point. Voice search is an important aspect of SEO for culinary blogs.

You may be wondering why you should bother. “Who’s going to read your recipe when all they want is a quick answer?” you argue. That’s an excellent point. However, by answering a variety of questions, you will gain Google’s trust, which will result in your website being pushed higher in the search results for the major keywords.

That is, at least, the SEO idea.

You’re missing out on a lot of Google traffic if your recipes aren’t voice-optimized.

However, this does not imply that your recipe should be brief or that your post should consist solely of one-line responses in 300 words.

All indications point to longer material (in general) ranking higher. However, this does not imply that you must produce 10,000-word books. However, you should endeavor to write as much as you necessary to address a topic completely. To write what you know about baking rye bread, you might need 2000 words. If that’s the case, don’t stop until you’ve finished. Include a segment at the conclusion with frequently asked questions to catch some of the extra voice search phrases.

“In Google search, the top-performing recipe posts are over 1000 words long.”

How can you know if your recipes and blog posts are showing up in voice search results? There are a few different ways to keep track of this.

The most straightforward method is to employ a SERP tracking tool.

In 2021, Accuranker published an excellent article about optimizing for voice search.

Another (though inadequate) method is to utilize Google Search Console and filter for Mobile in the devices category under Performance > Search Results.

This will show you how many mobile requests your website has received. Of course, not everyone uses voice to search on their phone, but until Google marks search queries as “voice,” this is the best we have.

Long-tail keywords should be included.

It’s easier to rank in Google for keywords with less searches than the huge (head) ones like “pasta recipe.” Because fewer individuals are searching for “vegetarian whole grain pasta dish,” it takes less effort to generate traffic to these keywords. The primary reason for this is that there is less competition. (This is not always the case.) There are still a lot of searches for some long-tail keywords. However, these types of keywords are looked for less frequently.)

What’s the easiest approach to figure out whether a term is simple to rank for?

Make use of a keyword generator. You can also use Keywords Everywhere, which is a less expensive but less precise and detailed technique of discovering what people are looking for. If you know where to look, finding the ideal keywords for food blogs is simple.

When It Makes Sense, Compete

I’ll provide an example to demonstrate this tip. Let’s imagine you have a fantastic custard cake recipe that you know people will enjoy. But assume that because this recipe is on page 5 of the search results for your keyword, no one ever sees it.

So, what exactly do you do? The short answer is that you should optimize the recipe page’s on-page SEO. How can you boost your on-page SEO? By studying your competitors’ blog articles to see what kind of language, keywords, and structure they use. After that, you work on refining your material.

Use a keyword tool to determine which keywords are the most important to concentrate on, and then look at the top ten results for that keyword. Assume you’re attempting to rank for the phrase “lemon custard cake recipe.”

(According to my keyword difficulty tools, this keyword receives roughly 1000 searches per month globally.) It is, nevertheless, a difficult keyword to rank for. For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll continue to use it.)

The next step is to look at the terminology and phrases used by the top results to determine if there are any similarities. Make sure the headings and title tags are correct. Take a look at the image tags.

Alternatively, you may use a programmed like Surfer SEO to handle the heavy job for you. Surfer SEO examines your blog post or recipe post based on the recommendations of your competition. Google already has a good idea of what people desire. Google prioritizes the pages that provide the most value to its consumers (search engine users). You may enhance your rankings by crafting your recipe content to be more in line with what Google expects. More traffic equals improved ranks.

Of course, if your website isn’t constructed on a strong domain (you can verify that here) or you’re just getting started, it’s probably best to avoid challenging keywords. Look for less difficult routes to the top.

Have a Website That Is Quick

Create a quick website or hire someone to do it for you. The Google Search team has been urging website owners to enhance the speed of their sites in recent years (how quickly pages load for the reader). Speed is becoming a significant ranking component.

Simply said, pages that load slowly do not make the top ten. Websites that do not appear in the first ten Google results receive extremely little visitors.

Make use of structured data. What is structured data, and why is it important?

Simply simply, structured data is a method of structuring your recipe’s content and style so that Google can recognize all of its elements. Search engines need components like directions, ingredients, nutritional information, video, and photographs to interpret your content. The easier your material is to read for search engines, the more love it will receive.

Structured data appears to be a difficult concept. It is true that putting it in place can be a pain. However, adding structured data to your website has become easier. There is no longer any reason to be without it. And the traffic and exposure increases that a structured data setup can provide make it all worthwhile.

Use video The best method to go is to use video. If you want to keep up with the expanding trend of video material, you’d better go “visual.”

Some folks despise reading recipe instructions. Cooking-related podcasts aren’t very effective. So, in order to please everyone while also increasing traffic, you need make films to accompany your recipe. Not only will it keep people on your site for longer (a good signal to Google), but it will also help you get a spot in the YouTube and Google search video results.

Meta Descriptions And Titles

Make your title clickable by including engaging meta descriptions.

The title is arguably the most difficult component of this. You don’t want to become too smart and humorous, or too focused on clickbait, as this could cause you to overlook keywords in the title.

Google and other search engines ignore the Meta Description. It is, nevertheless, critical because people read the description and rely heavily on it to decide whether or not to click on whatever you’ve placed there.

Keep in mind that Google reserves the right to change the Meta description if it believes that a different one will better serve the users. Let’s hope it’s a good one.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Finding and answering FAQs in your own way and then adding these questions and answers to your blog post or recipe is a little-known SEO tip that will soon become commonplace (so jump on it before everyone else does).

Why?

People commonly ask these questions, and if they are related to your topic, why not be the blog that provides the answers?

What are the best places to look for people’s questions?

The simplest method is to type your term or recipe name into Google. Look for the section “People also ask” in the results. Google has built a gold mine of questions and answers based on user requests. You may be confident that someone, most likely through voice search, has already asked these questions.

More questions will show if you click on the most relevant topics. If the questions start to veer off-topic, move your cursor up the list to get back on course. Once you’ve compiled a list of 5 or 6 questions, respond to them in your own words and include them in your post. Make sure your responses are succinct and to the point. There are various plugins that can help you add FAQ structured data to your posts if you’re using WordPress. One is Yoast’s “SEO” plugin. Another is the Gutenberg FAQ Block.

We no longer suggest Yoast and instead recommend SEOPress. Once schema is enabled in SEOPress, you may add FAQs and other sorts of schemas to any article without having to add a block.

Make Use Of A Recipe Plugin For WordPress

Obviously, this only pertains to WordPress users, but WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system, and the vast majority of food bloggers use it. After all, why not? It’s ideal for the task, plus there’s a sizable community of other food bloggers that use WordPress. WordPress is an excellent platform for developing an SEO strategy, and many recipe plugins are built with SEO in mind.

Optimize Your Images

Food bloggers understand the importance of having amazing photos and images in their recipes more than other people. Nobody will read a post if the images are bad. The photo that displays in Google Search will also represent your blog content, so don’t anticipate a lot of traffic if it’s not click-worthy.

It’s even more crucial to execute picture SEO now that image search is gaining traction thanks to mobile phones and stronger AI for comprehending photos.

Final SEO Advice for Food Bloggers

1. Check to see if your website has an SSL layer. The use of HTTPS rather than insecure HTTP has become critical. If you don’t follow the recommended web standards, your blog will lose rankings over time.

2. Use a good WordPress theme or hire a designer to create one for you. Even with a beautiful theme, getting it to the point where it’s perfectly optimized for your visitors is a lot of work. In 2021, the StudioPress Foodie Pro theme and the Astra Theme are two of the top food content oriented themes. Both themes are updated and maintained to the highest standards on a regular basis.

Obviously, SEO enhancements do not end there. We may get even deeper into the weeds until, well, it becomes complex. Please contact us if you have any questions concerning SEO for food bloggers or Recipe SEO. We enjoy answering difficult questions. In the comments, let us know what you think about this article.