‘Healthy recipes’ were in the professional scope of my previous company, ‘Five Links’. My job there was to write articles to market our in-house developed recipes and ensure that they comply with Google’s ever-changing SEO standards.

The team and I went through certain steps:

1. Keyword brainstorm: understanding our target audience's preferences, we came up with a list of what might appeal to them.

2. Keyword research: one by one, the items in the list were put through our tools to see which ones are pursuable, and if yes, their related keywords (short tails, long tails, and the likes). We understood our position as a small business, so we went with the ones (recipes) that are less competitive.

3. Forge the articles: related keywords were put into a file, which I, the writer, turn into a first draft. Of course, there was also the actual crafting of the recipes done by our in-house chef, nutritionist, and I, the writer–we don’t copy from other sites, but the process was rather long to be mentioned in detail. Most importantly, I took into account the values and the unique insight that I could breathe into the writings, to outshine our competitors.

4. Improve the SEO score: adding relevant external and internal links, ensuring the number of keywords as well as their frequency, including appealing visuals, affiliating with other sites, keeping track of the data–traffic, on-page time, etc. were a few of what we did. These might become obsolete very soon, but we were ready to learn.

5. Articles' proofread: I then worked with native proofreaders to check for errors and improve the overall tone. Finished articles were published on a schedule, and those with high rankings are further improved.

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If you have reached the main page, you might come across a ‘Healthy Eating Guidelines’. That was the work of writers and nutritionists combined, from crafting the numbers to the writings, to convince our audience. Our hardworking days paid off when several readers commented, saying how the detailed guidelines had helped them.

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As we grew to more than 1000 articles, we changed our niche to more relevant ones:

 

• How-to-preps were crafted with steps similar to recipes, showing users how to cut, prepare, and keep ingredients in stock. The article series extended our audience pool to beginners at cooking, supporting them with pictures and videos.

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• Round-ups, articles that introduce 20+ recipes, were a bit different. As their purpose was to reinforce in-links and promote articles that were, unfortunately, less popular (but of great quality), we focused on including good-looking recipes from other sites and, in return, asked for their promotion.