WordPress & SEO for Food Bloggers

Tom Greenwood

Introduction

Wholegrain Digital is a WordPress design and development agency.

We design, build and SEO optimise WordPress websites for clients ranging from individual bloggers to large corporations like M&S and Reed Recruitment.

What is WordPress?WordPress is a content management system (CMS). In simple terms, it provides an easy way to add/edit content on your website.

Started as a blogging system

Now the world’s most popular CMS

How popular is WP?

WordPress is used by 17.4% of all websites.

That is a CMS market share of 54.6%.

Source: http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management/all

Why use WordPress?• It is easy to use• It is free• It is infinitely flexible• It has a huge support community• Google LOVES it

“WordPress is a fantastic piece of software… it solves some 80-90% of the mechanics of SEO” – Matt Cutts, Google

What is SEO?The task of improving your website so that more people can find it in search engines

SEO FundamentalsIf anyone tells you there is an easy way to be #1 on Google, the are either lying or misguided

There are 4 main elements to SEO:1. Setup your website correctly2. Focus your content3. Write lots of good content4. Encourage interaction

Basics: Keywords

• Research popular search terms using Google Keyword Tool (filter to ‘Exact Match’)

• Keywords are useful, but less critical for bloggers than passion and personality

• Don’t stuff too many keywords into your posts or the keywords will seem unnatural. Keywords should be used sparingly, so don’t put keywords everywhere unless the keywords sound right.

• Quality content first, keywords second

Basics: Clean URLs• In WP under Settings > Permalinks choose Post name

Basics: Titles and meta

Basics: Headings

H1 heading

Basics: XML Sitemaps

• It automatically creates XML sitemaps and notifies Google & Bing of the sitemaps existence

• It includes images from your pages/posts in the sitemap

Basics: Analytics

Monitor which posts people are finding and reading, and learn from it so that you can write more posts that people find and love

Basics: Webmaster Tools

• Setup a Google Webmaster Tools account, submit your sitemap and make sure that Google is not reporting any problems crawling your website.

• If problems are found, you can deal with them

Basics: RSS Feeds

• Setup a Feedburner account and add RSS and email subscription links on your blog

• Feed Stats for WordPress plugin

Basics: Linking

• Create amazing content• Cross promote articles, recipes and reviews• Give love to get love – don’t be scared to link out• Guest blog for other people• DO NOT buy links

Image: http://www.leostartsup.com

Food Blogger SEO

There are some specific things that food bloggers can do to raise the profile of their blog

• Author profiles• Photography• Recipes• Reviews• Usability• User Interaction

Image: http://www.lolfoodie.com

Author Profiles

Get yourself known as a food blogger, and attract more traffic

• Create Google+ profile• Add you blog to your profile• Add your Google+ profile URL to your WordPress

author profile (use Yoast SEO plugin)

Photography

• Posts with images get 94% more views (Skyword)

• Get found in image search• Use readable file names, titles and alt tags• Use Yoast SEO plugin for image sitemap

• Encourage sharing• Use Pinterest "Pin It" Button premium ($29)

Image: http://www.foodcoachnyc.com

Recipe SEO

Recipe Schema and hRecipe

• Help Google, Yummly and SuperCook index your recipes

• Get thumbnail images next to recipes in Google search

• Cooking method, prep time, cooking time, cuisine, ingredients, yield etc etc

• Plugins - Schema Creator by Raven, Recipe Schema, hRecipe

Review SEO

Review Schema

• Review restaurants, cafes, bars• Google understands the site is a review and

references it within Google local listings• Sites like Urban Spoon also pickup reviews• If review is genuinely favourable, contact the

owners of the venue to suggest they to link to the review or quote something from the review on their website

Usability

• Keep it simple

• Break up text with lists and sub-headings

• Use photography

• Responsive design for mobile and tablets• Mobile important for restaurant reviews• Tablet important for recipes

User Interaction• Include sharing buttons prominently

• Lots of plugins for WordPress

• Facebook Comments• SEO Facebook Comment plugin

• Engage with commenters

• Engage with influencial bloggers/tweeters• Find influencers using Followerwonk.com• Ask to interview them• Reference their site or work• Review their venue (e.g. chefs)• Look for trending topics such as hot / new venues or

recipes getting a boost due to trends or celebrity chefs (e.g. recipes from Masterchef). Notify influencers via social media and interact.

WordPress Plugin List

• WordPress SEO by Yoast (essential)• Feedstats for WordPress• Pinterest "Pin It" Button premium ($29)• Schema Creator• Recipe Schema• hRecipe (better to use Schema)• SEO Facebook Comment plugin

hRecipe Website: http://microformats.org/wiki/hrecipeSchema Website: http://schema.org/Recipe

Conclusion

• Setup your website right• Figure out who you are and what you’re about• Write great content• Include great photography• Use schema to tag recipes and reviews• Make your content easy to share• Engage with readers & influencers• Monitor performance• Learn and get better!