WordPress & SEO for
Food Bloggers

Eugene Molari

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 worlds 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 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 Fundamentals

If 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:Setup your website correctly

Focus your content

Write lots of good content

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

Dont stuff too many keywords into your posts or the keywords will seem unnatural. Keywords should be used sparingly, so dont 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 dont 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

UseYoast SEO plugin for image sitemap

Encourage sharingUse 'Pinterest "Pin It" Button'

Image: http://www.foodcoachnyc.com

Recipe SEO

Recipe Schema and hRecipe(wait for update)

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(wait for update)

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

Engage with commenters

Engage with influencial bloggers/tweetersFind influencers using Followerwonk.com

Ask to interviewthem

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

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 youre 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!

Click to edit the title text formatClick to edit Master title style

07/07/13