vanilla bean

 

There are many things that *I* believe will help make a good food blog better.

I’m not an expert — I’m just Rachel, just a Southern Girl tap tap tappin’ away on her Mac takin’ pictures of her food and writin’ out her recipes to share with those she loves at home and out there in internetz land.

After speaking about Food Blogging at BlissDom in January, I realized that a few of my favorite things are not all that well known; so today, I’m sharin’ my favorite WordPress Plug-Ins for Food Blogging.

First and Foremost –

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

Think about your favorite cookbook – is it black text on white paper? Or is it glossy and filled with beautiful photographs that leap off the page and cause you to drool?black bean pico

For me – pictures tell the story.

Therefore, I think every recipe should be accompanied by beautiful pictures however, a lot of photographs can bog your blog down so one of my favorite plug-ins EVAH is my  Flickr plug-in that allows me to pull my Flickr pics and insert them directly into my blog posts all with the click of a pretty little button on my dashboard.

Next –

Easy to Read and Follow

Recipes need to be well formatted and easy to read and follow.  When the ingredients are jumbled and the directions are an ongoing paragraph — the recipe is hard to read and can be more confusing than necessary.

That’s why I ADORE LOVE the hrecipe plug-in.  All you have to do is  enter the information in the provided spaces and the plug-in formats everything for you.  Your readers will love you for it 😉 LOVE> LOVE> LOVE <3

Next and this one is near and dear to my little heart

Copyright Protection

I’ve had blog posts and recipes plagiarized and it is an ugly horrible feeling.  There are only so many things that you can do and I highly urge you to do every single thing that you can to protect yourself and your work.  I highly recommend

Share-ability

If your recipes and blog posts aren’t easy to share – you’re losing out on potential readers.  You need to make it easy for your readers to share your posts – they WANT to share the posts and recipes that they love :-).  Reward them by making it easy!

Last but in NO WAY Least

Printability

Y’all.

Y’ALL

{insert serious eyes}

If your recipes aren’t printable – you are doing your readers and yourself a serious disservice

  • If you aren’t on WordPress or you aren’t in any way comfortable with html — Print Friendly is for you.  It’s crazy easy, it gives your readers the choice of highlighting – selecting – deleting what they do or don’t want to print
  • If you have some savvy with html (I have about zero and I can do this) or you have someone who can set it up for you, I can’t tell y’all enough just how much I love my  WP Print This plug-in.  A couple of easy little tags added to my posts and I can choose which part is printable and which isn’t – easy peas-y lemon squeeze-y.

Okay y’all, there you have them.   A few of my MUST have Plug-Ins for Food Bloggers.

Have I left any out? Do you have one that you just L-O-V-E?  Please share it!

 

I know this isn’t my typical Mouthwatering Monday but, I hope y’all don’t mind the lack of a recipe this week 😉

 

 

 

I'm a deep-fried Southern belle, married to a cowboy boot wearin', Harley ridin’ Texan Prince Charming. I am the always proud and frequently exhausted mom to two 8th generation Texans My childhood was spent at my Granny's side learning to cook with cast iron, butter and that special southern ingredient -- love Today, I share my passion for food, family and photography with thousands of monthly readers on my blog, A Southern Fairytale. I love cute boots, my Canon camera, belly laughs with friends, the beach, my family and ellipses..."

34 Comments

  1. You are awesome! Very helpful. I’ve been blogging for a year now and about 2 weeks ago finally found the print plugin. It was so darn easy, I felt dumb for taking so long to do it. I didn’t know about the recipe plugin, flickr plugin or the copyright, so thanks a ton for sharing your knowledge. 🙂

    Reply

  3. Awesome list, Rachel!

    Do you think the flickr plugin helps your blog load faster or do you just prefer it because it’s simple to use?

    Reply

  7. Nice, thank you for the print plugin for wordpress. I’ve been seriously slacking on my food blog but am getting back into it and wanted to update it more with plugins that I have found.

    I totally agree about the pictures too.

    Reply

  8. Thank you for another really wonderful, helpful post, Rachel, and thank you for hosting Mouthwatering Mondays!

    Reply

  9. This is SO helpful – I’ve been on WordPress for less than two weeks now and I know I have so far to go, but every time I think of something I need to update, I get distracted or forget about it. Your post is not only the reminder I need but the instructions I need as well. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

    Reply

  12. I share your Sour Cream Apple Pie recipe with people ALL. THE. TIME. I’ve shared a link to your blog at least 3 or 4 times every fall since you first posted that recipe, and everyone I’ve sent RAVES about it and your blog…. Love ya girl!!

    Reply

  16. Rachel, this is GREAT to have my hands on! I am currently casting about looking a little bit, for someone to redo my blog design and when I ever get it done I am definitely going to incorporate some of these gizmos!
    Thanks so much for sharing!

    Reply

  19. Great post! I get frustrated by the lack of a print function on so many blogs! It is a pain to have to copy a recipe onto a word doc just so you can print it!
    This week I am sharing my recipe for Mashed Garnet Yams With Bacon And Chipotle. This recipe also has toasted pecans in it. It’s yummy!
    Thanks for hosting!

    Reply

  20. Oh, this is so helpful. THANK YOU!! Stumbling through [ In another window} the printer friendly thing-y right now. You ROCK, KS! But that’s not new info to you, right?!
    *Blessings*

    Reply

  23. Rachel! What a wonderful list of plug ins! I have to make some additions to my blog to use some of these because I am so free form and I think these will help! There really is so much on wordpress to help bloggers do well. I am linking up a great way to make chicken tender and juicy! flip it! All the best, Alex

    Reply

  25. I had planned to share our pot roast recipe this week but had an emergency run into town that night so I put it off until next week. Hence, why I’m sharing a basic lasagna recipe.

    I don’t mind no recipe because the plug-in suggestions are great. I already had a few of them but am really interested in the recipe layout plug-in. Off to check that out now.

    Thanks for hosting.

    Reply

  28. thanks for the info, i am new to blogging and need as much help as possible and your infor has definatly given me something to think about

    Reply

  29. I have been wondering if there’s a PRINT option like that! THANK YOU for sharing that. I’ve started sharing more recipes, and just knew there had to be something that existed like that, and I’m excited to install this (and the others!).

    Reply

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