When someone comes to your site from Google, that’s called organic search. Organic search is search engine results that appear as a result of your SEO efforts. The better you optimize your blogs, the more search results you’ll appear in and drive more traffic to your food blog.
How do you optimize your food blogs? I’m glad you asked! Here are 5 SEO strategies to help you drive traffic to your food blog.
1. Perform ample keyword research
To be frank, there’s really no right or wrong way to do keyword research.
The purpose of keyword research is to help you figure out how to provide value based on what people are searching for. Long gone are the days that are blogs are solely about family stories and our daily journal. We’re a resource now.
Use google! Check the related searches at the bottom of the page and the “people also ask” sections for commonly asked questions. These two sections will help you formulate your blog outline.
SEMrush is also a great tool for analyzing topics/keywords but there are other free SEO tools that could do the job too.
Like I mentioned, there’s no right or wrong method. You eventually just have to figure out a system that works for you.
2. Download a Google-compliant recipe plugin
Did you know that Google ranks food blogs by recipe card FIRST?
This is why using a Google compliant recipe plugin and inputting ALL the fields is crucial for food blogs.
The recipe plugin has structured data which is a language only Google understands called recipe schema. That’s how your posts rank in Google searches.
I use WP Recipe Maker. Super easy to use and very straight forward.
I used the free version for a long time but the premium version allows you to customize the look and feel of the recipe card and auto-populate the nutritional label. It’s worth the upgrade! I wish I would’ve upgraded sooner.
3. Use headers throughout your blog post
Headers help readers skim your content. Let’s be honest, no one is going to sit there and read your 1000-word post. For the most part, readers don’t read, they skim.
Now, I wouldn’t necessarily litter each post with a bunch of headers. And please DO NOT add an H2 header around an entire paragraph!
Headers are meant to make the content more digestible and easy to read. Remember, above all, user experience is your top priority.
High quality content + value = happy readers. :)
4. Focus On E.A.T. = EXPERTISE, AUTHORITATIVENESS, TRUSTWORTHINESS
Google introduced E.A.T. in their March 2019 algorithmic update. E.A.T. stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.
In short, this means Google is looking to see if you are an authority in your field. Do you have an author bio in your blog posts that describe your expertise? Are you posting quality content? Are you an expert on this topic? Is the user experience good overall? Are recipes easy to find? Are they explained clearly?
Google is focused on quality over quantity more than ever now.
5. Optimize Old Posts With Fresh Content
Driving organic traffic with these SEO strategies is a long game so aside from doing all of the above, it’s always a good idea to optimize existing posts with a refresh.
New photos, retested recipes, filled out recipe cards, enhanced blog posts to become more of a resource, etc.
You can then resubmit these updated posts to the Google Search Console to get them reindexed in Google searches.
Hope you found these SEO strategies helpful!
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