If you're thinking about starting a food blog, one of the things you might be wondering is whether or not you need a recipe plugin. While you can technically type your recipe content right into your post, there are a lot of benefits that come with having a dedicated recipe plugin.
In our opinion, food blogs and recipe plugins go hand-in-hand, like peanut butter and jelly. Or cookies and milk. Or macaroni and cheese. You get the point. ?
In this post, we'll talk about what it is that makes recipe plugins so important and why you need them to run a successful food blog.
Let's hop to it! ?
They add structured data to your posts ?
This is a big one. If you want Google to recognize your post as a recipe and have it included as a search result when someone searches for a recipe, it needs to include recipe structured data.
Structured data is the markup that tells Google “Hey, this post contains a recipe so make sure to count it as such!” and luckily, most recipe card plugins will add this markup in for you. It lives in the backend of your post and is directly correlated with the information you enter into your recipe card (i.e. ingredients, cook time, nutrition information).
The general principle to live by here is that the more data you have filled out in your recipe card, the better!
Let's take the search result for Pinch of Yum's 5-Minute Sunshine Sauce recipe for example:
As you can see, Google has highlighted the recipe's title, rating, cook time, and calories. All of that information helps readers decide whether or not they want to dive into this recipe.
You've also likely seen recipes show up in a carousel, like so:
These recipe carousels typically attract quite a bit of attention, so you can see how powerful it can be to have structured data added into your recipe posts. ?
They make your recipes look good ?
This isn't so much a need per se, but having a recipe card that's pleasing to the eye can go a long way in keeping your readers engaged with your recipe posts.
Recipe card plugins keep your information organized within a single card so that your readers have all of the information they need to make the recipe.
For example, you can have a recipe post that's written out in plain text or you can have something like this:
The template above is the Bold recipe card template from Tasty Recipes. Most recipe plugins will also include different templates for you to choose from, so you can use whichever one looks best on your site!
Consistent updates ?
Things in the food blogging industry are constantly changing and recipe plugin developers are responsible for keeping up with those changes to ensure your blog is always set up for success.
Being a food blogger means you're juggling a lot of things at once (like, a lot), and having to keep track of all of those changes yourself probably isn't something you want to add to your plate. Having a dedicated recipe plugin ensures that your recipe posts are in line with SEO standards, and we all know how important SEO is!
Interested in trying Tasty Recipes?
We’re always looking for new ways to improve Tasty Recipes, and you can be confident that we’ll keep supporting you on your blogging journey, so feel free to give it a try!
Take a look at all Tasty Recipes has to offer here: https://www.wptasty.com/tasty-recipes
Also, don’t forget about our 14-day money-back guarantee! Trying Tasty Recipes is risk-free, and we think you’ll really like it!
