How to Create a Great Food Blog Post

Follow these easy steps on how to create a great food blog post! You'll learn how to find SEO keywords and how to write for your audience to gain traffic.

(this post has been updated on 3/7/2020)

How to structure a great and effective food blog post is something I struggled with for some time. In the early OBB days, I was very happy writing whatever I felt like writing about, which I later found out why this is NOT such a good thing.

When you start to really consider things like driving traffic, monetizing and strengthening SEO, your perspective on how to write a food blog post changes. Back in the day, I wasn't aware that there were reasons behind some of the things that food bloggers do.

I added some steps to my process that have helped me create awesome posts and I'm happy to share them with you! This is ever-evolving, but these steps will get you started in the right direction.

Step 1: Start broadly

When browsing through blogger forums, I often seen many people reaching out for help on what they should be writing about, and I know it can feel overwhelming. However, rather than focusing on the daunting mountain of an entire blog post, bring yourself back down by starting simple.

In the beginning of my blogging career, I used to think that I needed to come up with some grand, elaborate post topic all on my own, which lead to instant writer's block.

As a sharer of recipes, I'm inspired by my own tastes, cravings, ideas & experiences which drives most of what I write about. I narrow down those ideas through research on Pinterest, Google and other sources.

If I'm thinking about doing a post for chocolate cupcakes, then I start with "chocolate cupcakes". That's it.

Step 2: Research

As content creators, it's exciting to jump right into your blog editor and start typing away, "I love chocolate cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes are my favorite! Yum yum yum..."

However, to give yourself the best chance at gaining visitors and building an online presence, you MUST keep the reader of your blog in mind for every blog post you write.

You need to target your posts to what readers are looking for. Yes, they are probably visiting your site because they are interested in your chocolate cupcakes, but you want to center your content around what people are looking for. Hint: they want more than just the recipe.

So, taking our chocolate cupcakes example... what is it about chocolate cupcakes that would be a driver for people to visit my website? Are they looking for new recipes? Maybe, people don't know how to make chocolate cupcakes and they want to learn.

Maybe people actually hate chocolate cupcakes and it wouldn't even make sense for me to blog about it (speaking from experience, unfortunately you sometimes end up at this point).

These are all great hypotheses, but you need to make it your mission to research and find out the why in order to create the best content. You can use sources like Pinterest, Google and more to find out what's trending.

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 Learn EXACTLY how I research & create my blog posts

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Step 3: Go make your recipe!

I recommend starting with your idea, do the research and then create the recipe so you can best serve your audience.

There have been times when I made a recipe, took all the photos and then went through the research steps only to find that my content wasn't going to fit in well. For example, if I make chocolate cupcakes and didn't take tutorial photos or video and I find out that's what my audience needs the most, then my post isn't going to perform as well.

I might end up scrapping the whole thing which would have been a massive waste of time!

Step 4: Write.

Stuck on what to write about? Start here.

If the words come easy, start with your heading. In one or two sentences, describe the food/recipe. This should include as many targeted, trending, SEO keywords as possible. It should be brief, yet descriptive and naturally spoken.

It should instantly grab the reader’s attention and set the stage for what they can expect for this recipe. Keep in mind, this description gets piped elsewhere when you share your posts, so it's often the first thing people read.

My Easy Chocolate Cupcakes Recipe is sweet, has a light and moist crumb and full of chocolate flavor! This cupcake recipe is made with dark chocolate and the chocolate frosting is rich and creamy. 

I like to insert my pin after the heading. (I use PicMonkey to make all of my pins. 

A few ideas to help you add even more text to your post, and some tips:

• What inspired you to make this recipe?
• What is the highlighted ingredient? Talk about any specifics of the recipe; this is where you can include affiliate links to special products needed to make the recipe.
• Are there specific steps/instructions for this recipe that you can elaborate on.
• What is the benefit of this recipe vs. other recipes? What does your recipe have that others do not? (gluten free, vegan, fast, easy...). Connect this to the keywords you found.
• Use your heading settings in WordPress to make the post easy to read and boost your SEO. Reminder: heading 1 should only be used once, all other heading should be H2+. Lastly, your targeted keywords should be included in the headings whenever possible.
• Add some visuals. I like to break up the paragraphs with as many related photos as I can. If I'm talking about texture of the cookie, I include a close up of the cookie so the reader can see the texture. Adding a drizzle? Include an action shot of you drizzling icing! (this is when it's handy to have planned the post before making the recipe & taking photos).
• Aim for 350 words minimum.
• Ensure your readers can easily share the recipe to their favorite social media platforms, and be sure to ask them to tag you in any photos of them making the recipe. Include any tagging information to help build your following (Tag @owlbbaking on Instagram and hashtag it #owlbbaking for example).

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Congratulations!!

You now have an amazing post to publish on your food blog!! Taking the above steps will serve as a handy guideline to help you create a great food blog post.

I hope you found this page useful! If you have any other successful methods or techniques to share, comment below! I'd love to hear about them!