10 Tips for Writing a Great Recipe Blog Post

Writing a great post on a food blog shouldn’t complicated, but yet most of us do overcomplicate the writing process. We have some tips for you that will help you write a great recipe post your readers will love!

If you are just starting out on this adventure of the food blog life, these tips will help you! Even if you have been blogging for some time now, there will likely be some value to you too.

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Write a catchy headline.

Make sure your blog post has a catchy headline that will draw readers in. A great headline will make people want to read your blog post, even if they don’t know anything about the topic. Seriously I have visited food blogs before because I saw something unusual and wanted to check it out.

If your headline isn’t interesting, you will not stand out among the other food blogs. Say you looked up chili as a reader, not a food blogger. Now my post just says “Chili Recipe” but one of the other bloggers showing up in search has “The World’s Best Chili.” Which one sounds better?

Grab attention with first paragraph

The first paragraph of your blog post is important because it’s the first thing readers will see. You want to make a good first impression, so make sure your opening paragraph is interesting and catches the reader’s attention.

I was pretty guilty of writing boring first paragraphs. It is something that I still struggle with from time to time. I can make the recipe, take the pictures and write but I am not great at hyping up anything. It’s just against my comfort zone, but I do it.

Make is sound so delicious or so easy for that busy weeknight that your reader will want to see the recipe now.

Keep out the fluff

Don’t take this personally, but your readers (or potential readers) do not want to hear all about your life. I know it sounds harsh, but your readers are not bloggers.

Bloggers (like me and you) are usually cool with reading stuff about other people. We communicate online, it’s our job! But your readers, they are just there so they can make a meal. You can add a quick “this is why we love it” about the recipe, but don’t talk about how your whole day went.

Also, do not add any other fluff just to get a longer post. A longer recipe post may (notice the word may) generate more ad revenue then a shorter one, but adding fluff is bad user experience.

People have short attention spans, so make sure your blog post is to the point and don’t go off on tangents.

Add the right stuff

What you should be adding is thorough instructions, possible substitutions and anything else that would help with making it. This is about what to add to your recipe post, not your recipe card.

Have you ever made this recipe and noticed a possible problem? Like maybe grainy cheese in your mac and cheese? You should definitely mention it in the body of your post. Go into details there about how this could happen and how to prevent it from happening.

Is there a substitution they can use? Maybe they can use half and half in place of heavy cream. Any good and tested substitutions should be added in the body of your recipe posts on your food blog.

Add an FAQ section. If you have Yoast, it is included in their SEO plugin. It is great because you can show some quick answers without having to write a whole section on it. This may be “can I bake this at a lower temperature?” You don’t need an H2 and whole post section for that, you can answer it in the FAQ.

Your post should go into more detail then your recipe card. Remember your recipe card will often be printed out or viewed on a mobile device, keep it to the point.

I do like to use the notes section of the recipe card for any special notes that would be helpful to them. This maybe different temperatures and cook times if applicable. Like for scalloped potatoes you could add the different times depending on if they are cooking with a roast at a different temperature. That to me is important and should be added.

If it will help readers make your recipe, it should definitely be added.

Be unique

Don’t regurgitate the same old information that everyone else is writing about. Be unique and offer a new perspective on the recipe. If you’re going to write about a popular recipe, make sure you’re offering something new to the table. In your post it should offer readers something they cannot find on other food blogs that show up in search.

I know I said not to go on and on with fluff, but you can still add your own style. You can speak with a personality, just don’t go on for sentences about personal life. You will eventually find your blogging voice so do not worry if you are not sure yet. Your blogging voice will change throughout your food blog life, trust me on that!

Do your research

Make sure you do your research on the recipe you’re writing about. If you’ve never made it before, take the time to make it and test it out. Do not make it once and post it right away. While this may work for some, it isn’t a good idea. Things can change next time you make it and you need to be sure the recipe is worth buying the ingredients for! If it’s not, the readers likely won’t come back.

If you have recipes that you know are great but not sure if you should post them, start looking up keywords! You may find that there is a great potential for them. I do like to do this with recipes that I have been making for years. It saves the time of testing a few times (got that beat!)

Once you go through your tried and trues, start doing your research before making the recipes. For new recipes, you really want to research them first. Are they easy to target or is the competition way too high? Are people even looking for this?

If you have never taken Cooking With Keywords before, I highly recommend you do so! Listen, there are very few course that I can recommend and Aleka’s is definitely one of them. She goes over the best ways to find keywords that you can rank for. Her course is amazing. It is designed specifically for food bloggers.

Take good photos

We really cannot compete in this food blog life if we do not have good photos. Seriously, there is way too much competition for you to have photos that don’t look so good. I have been there so I am not knocking you, mine were really (REALLY) bad in the beginning. Not even kidding.

I am not saying that your pictures are not good, I do not know you or your blog! But it is something that is super important. If they are not good, you really need to work on that first. We recently wrote how to take mouth-watering food photos with some quick tips. It also has our favorite photography resources.

Link to relevant posts

Internal linking is very important! Google has said it, top SEO experts have said it and now I am too. I know this is hard in the beginning, you don’t always have a lot of recipes to link to. It’s ok, but don’t forget to go back and add links when you can.

You can also link to other food blogs in your post as well. Do not use anybody’s photo without permission ever, but you are allowed to add a link to another site. If somebody else’s recipe inspired you to make this recipe, go ahead and link to theirs!

But the links that will help you the most are the internal links. Say you have a London broil recipe post and you are writing a post for a top sirloin, you can easily add the link to the London broil.

End it with a call to action

I am adjusting to this myself so many recipe posts do not have this on my food blog, but you will notice I have been doing it on this blog. A quick call to action is best.

Maybe a “tried our recipe? Let us know what you think in the comments!” or “what is your favorite way to eat (whatever it is?)” You can even use this for social sharing. “Like the recipe? Save it for later” or “Follow us on (social) for (reason they should follow you.)”

See those were short and sweet. More importantly, it’s something your readers can do without much fuss. Make it too hard and they won’t do it.

Proofread

Last but not least, make sure you proofread your recipe blog post before you hit publish. There’s nothing worse than hitting publish and a week or two later finding out you forgot to finish one of the paragraphs. Or maybe you misspelled something.

The biggest thing is that you want to make sure that it is easy to read, you didn’t leave important recipe information out and try to be free from typos (but hey we are not perfect.)

Conclusion

Writing a great blog post is not as hard as you think! Just remember to be yourself, be helpful and make sure your recipe is amazing. The more work you put into it, the more likely people are to want to come back and visit your site again.

Do you have any other tips on how to write a great recipe blog post for a food blog? Share them with us in the comments below!

Happy blogging!

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