Writing a recipe blog post can be a tricky thing. On one hand, you want to simply share the recipe- who likes reading a novella before the actual recipe shows up on the page? On the other hand, how is your blog post (and your awesome recipe) supposed to be found? The reason there is soooo much content on a recipe blog post is because it needs to be adequately optimized. Then, people on Pinterest or people googling things like “chicken soup recipe” or “affordable dinners” or “ground beef recipes” can actually find your awesome content.
This post is going to be a little wonky – I am going to cover the following sections listed below, but I am also going to show you examples throughout the post to show you what some of these items might look like in a recipe blog post.
- Writing a Recipe Blog Post
- What to include in a recipe blog post and how to arrange the post
- How to optimize the post
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For an in-depth article about optimizing your blog posts, check out: Optimizing Blog Post Checklist and Maximize Readability on Your Website. If you need more help with jumpstarting your online marketing strategies and creating online content, consider buying my Content Writing workbook– 30+ Questions to get you on your way to making great online content for your blog or business.
Writing a Recipe Blog Post
The somewhat unfortunate part of writing a recipe blog post is that you need to have a lot of information on the blog post for search engines to find your post. When you optimize your content, you’re basically writing for robots- so that the robots (technical term is spiders) are able to bring your content to the search results for whoever is looking for “chicken soup” or “beef recipes”.
What to Include in a Recipe Blog Post
The list of 4 major items/layers to include in your Recipe Blog Post
1. Words/Written Content
For any blog post, you need to write at least 300 words and you need to choose a key phrase that will make it easy for the search engine to find your content. Your key phrase ALSO needs to be written exactly or similarlytwo times per 130-150 words.A key phrase is going to be that special word that people are going to be typing up to find recipes like yours. Some of my key phrases have been “keto cheesy bread,” “beef stew recipe,” “fat bombs,” and “cream of broccoli soup.” It’s pretty easy to pick key phrases for recipe blog posts because they are so simple. Other posts like writing a travel blog post, would be slightly more challenging.
2. Recipe
There are 2 ways you can have your recipe on this blog post- and I recommend that you choose BOTH in the same blog post. 1. Type out all the steps and list of ingredients. 2. Use a plugin like WP RecipeMaker. That is how recipes come out looking so organized and uniform in the blog post. It also makes it easy for the reader to Jump to Recipe or Print it out.
3. Images
To get to the 300 word count, write the recipe out step-by-step and include images of your amazing dish. It isn’t always necessary for the actual recipe section- but sometimes there are newbies out there who do not know how to cook and could use the extra details and visuals. Because you need to keep things organized for the search engine robots, use Headings and subheadings, Instructions, Ingredients and Notes.
4. Additional Content for the Recipe Blog Post
You want your reader to come back to your blog- to become a returning customer. The kind of content that you could add to your blog post throughout are:
- Mailing List Opt-ins
- WPForm block so people can join my mailing list
- Coupons or freebies
- Pinterest or other social media account links
- Pinterest Images- make it super easy for your viewer to save the recipe for later if most of it is done for them
- WPRecipe Maker Roundup Items- show samples of your other recipes in a very clean way that isn’t a bullet list. It shows the chosen image for that recipe and adds color to the blog post.
- Video walk through for the recipe! Some people are visual learners. Learn more about the importance of visual rhetoric and content here.
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How to Optimize the Post
To best optimize your recipe blog post, you need to include several additional pieces to make sure those website robots can find your recipe. You need to basically layer written content, key-phrases, internal and external links, images with alt text, and so much more. All of these layers are strengthening your article. For a full list for optimizing your blog post, visit the post I wrote about an in-depth checklist on how to optimize your content and why.
Internal Links
You want to keep your audience with you for as long as possible. Most of the time- myself included- you just want to Jump to Recipe, read the recipe and move on. But the goal of a food blog is to create returning customers for a variety of offers- especially your other delicious recipes. You need to use internal links to keep your readers inside your website.
3 Examples of Internals Links
- Related recipes
- Articles that would supplement the reader’s need for info on a related subject
- (TIP) Using a recipe roundup item block does not count as an internal link- you will have to opt for using a main image from that recipe and link the image or simply write a text like: “As you may remember, I am on a low carb diet…” ‘low carb diet’ is links to a category page of all my recipes categorized as “Low Carb”.
External Links
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External Links Examples
External links are website links that direct people away from your site. While it means your readers will be going bye-bye, the external links can be used to add authority to your blog post, credit another blogger and help their business, or promote items with affiliate marketing.
- A blog with a similar niche
- Affiliate Marketing links to tools or ingredients
- Membership Share links for sites like ThriveMarket (one of the links I use)
- Your Instagram or Facebook page/group
- Embed your Pinterest boards! Get people to visit your Pinterest account and Follow it by putting a link to a relevant board. It will show up as your actual pins and serves as a great visual in the blog post.
- Embed a Nutrition Facts label! I use a special website to customize my own Nutrition Facts info using my own recipes- then I embed the code and Yoast counts it as an external link!
Images and Alt Text
You need to show beautiful images of your cooking. It breaks up the content for the reader so that they can better compartmentalize the information. Plus it gives you the opportunity to add Alt Text to your images that are related to your recipe blog post.
Final Thoughts on Writing a Recipe Blog Post
A recipe blog post is no longer simply a throw a version of your recipe on a blog post with a few images of the dish and calling it good type of post. If you’re a food blogger, you need to optimize it and to make every blog post an opportunity to keep readers coming back, you need to include additional content such as email opt-ins, freebies related blog posts and more. Your recipes are great, but how is anyone going to find your bold recipe if it is simply the list of ingredients and instructions?
I hope this article was useful and if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments!
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