Are you a food blogger who is struggling with SEO? SEO for food bloggers doesn’t have to be complicated or difficult. Here are some simple SEO tips for food bloggers although they can be used for any type of blog.
What Is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation.
This is the practice of trying to ensure the posts on your blog rank well in Google search. The higher the posts rank in Google, the more traffic you’ll get. More traffic means you can make more money from and ads and sponsorships.
Think about the last time you Googled something. Did you find the answer on the first page? Most people will click one of the first three posts they see on Google. Many people won’t go past the first page of websites so the more of your posts you can get to that first page, the better.
As with anything, you can be at the mercy of algorithms and post rankings can change often. But it’s still worth learning good SEO practices as Google traffic is often more consistent than traffic from social media.
SEO can be quite complex so in this post I am going to take a look at some basic starting points with a focus on food blogging. With thousands of recipes out there, how can you can your recipe stand out and more importantly rank near the top of Google search results?
Simple SEO For Food Bloggers
Start With A Good SEO Plugin
If you’re using WordPress then one of the first things you’ll want to do is install a plugin to help with SEO. While no plugin is perfect, they do work as a good guide for getting started with SEO.
Essentially the plugin will scan your text and score how well you’ve done for SEO. The plugin may make suggestions such as adding internal links or using a keyword more frequently. It’s kind of like using a checklist.
As it’s only a guide, don’t worry too much about getting everything perfect but if you’re just learning about SEO then it’s a great place to start.
The main two SEO plugins for WordPress are Yoast and RankMath. Yoast uses a green light system whereas Rank Math scores your post out of 100. I’ve used both in my five years of blogging and my personal preference is for Rank Math.
Both Yoast and Rank Math have free and paid versions but for basic SEO the free version is fine.
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Use A Good Keyword Research Tool
When using both Yoast and Rank Math they will both ask you to input a keyword for your blog post. This should be the main thing your blog post is about.
But, before choosing a keyword, you might want to do some research about how difficult that keyword could be to rank for and how many people are searching for it.
My keyword tool of choice is Keysearch which costs around £10 a month but has been invaluable for getting traffic to some of my niche websites. It suggests different keywords based on what you put in and tells you the monthly search volume.
As an example, you might want to write a recipe for Lemon Cheesecake.
‘Lemon Cheesecake’ has a high search volume but is also difficult to rank against other more established websites.
Keysearch can help you decide which other keywords you might want to use in your post for a better chance of ranking in Google.
No-Bake Lemon Cheesecake
Quick Lemon Cheesecake
Easy Lemon Cheesecake Recipe
While these may have a lower search volume, they are also easier to rank for.
Try Using Longtail Keywords
This brings me to my next tip, using Longtail Keywords. Just like above, this is where you use a selection of keywords to give you the best chance of ranking.
Easy No-Bake Lemon Cheesecake Recipe
No-Bake Lemon Cheesecake With Lemon Curd
Lemon Cheesecake Made With Marscapone
Rename Your Images
When using images on their blog, many people don’t give much thought to what they’re called, especially if they are uploading them directly from their laptop or another device.
However, renaming your images with your keywords and/or variations of them could mean more traffic when people are doing an image search and find your post.
Remove Dates From Your URLs
When you first set up a blog, WordPress is automatically set to add dates to your URLs.
As well as having an impact on SEO, it can also make your older blog posts feel dated, even if you’ve updated the information in the post and republished it to a more recent date.
Changing the URL structure in WordPress is easy to do in the setting, but before doing so you should set up some redirects so you don’t end up with lots of broken links on your site which could also affect your traffic.
This is something your web host may be able to help with or you could use a redirect plugin. If you’re with Lyrical Host then this is something they are happy to help you with.
This post doesn’t cover every aspect of SEO but I do hope it has given you some easy starting points if it’s something that you struggle to get your head around as a food blogger.
