Beginner's Guide To Recipe Plugins

Easy Beginner’s Guide To Recipe Plugins that will leave you with a clear head to make the RIGHT decision & not leave you more confused !

Today instead of talking about food , we are going to talk about something that makes it easier to view, collect, print all your favorite recipes. A major life saver for food bloggers and an equally important tool for readers.

If you are a food blogger probably a beginner or somewhere in between, at one stage you might have gone through the hassle of deciding which is the right RECIPE PLUGIN for your blog that will make it easier to display your recipes, give your readers a great experience where they can save or print your recipes and is also SEO friendly! Yes, a huge plus point if it’s SEO friendly.

Since I started blogging I have basically used 3 FORMS of recipe plugins. At the time when I was looking for a proper Recipe Plugin, I was a lost soul. There is so much information out there and so many darn plugins that it’s easier to get lost in the crowd and just pick up something random. And that’s what I did too at that time. I was so confused about all this that I went with NO PLUGIN at all for the longest time!

So today we are sharing with you guys whatever we have learnt over the past few years ->> A SIMPLE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO RECIPE PLUGINS to help you decide what’s best for you.

NO RECIPE PLUGIN ->> Yes I was writing my recipes the way I was writing my post. This stayed with me for good 2 years when I was simply having fun & still figuring out what this whole food blogging thing was.
- Pros of Using NO RECIPE PLUGIN:
  - A. FREE (A major PLUS point when you are starting out & still testing the waters)
- Cons of Using NO RECIPE PLUGIN:
  - A. RECIPE WRITING (I had to write the whole recipe & make my own so called heading sentences so it was easier for my readers to understand)
  - B. NO OPTION FOR PRINTING/SAVING (Readers often times would complain saying that to print or save the recipe, they had to print the whole post)
  - C. NOT SEO OPTIMIZED (This is important if you decide to grow it as your business)
  - D. NOT RICH SNIPPET OPTIMIZED

RECIPE CARD PLUGIN ->> This was the first recipe plugin I tried and I was really happy with it too.
- Pros of Using RECIPE CARD PLUGIN:
  - A. FREE ( Yes! This plugin was free)
  - B. CLEAN LAYOUT ( It is a very clean plugin with basic features which makes your recipes stand out from the rest of your post)
  - C. PRINT/SAVE OPTION ( That makes readers happy!)
  - D. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZED ( Which makes it easier for Google to locate your recipes)
  - E. RICH SNIPPET OPTIMIZED (Not really! It recently started to say that it is RICH SNIPPET OPTIMIZED but even few days back my recipes that were saved in RECIPE CARD were not being converted to Rich Pins on Pinterest. So based on my experience it’s NOT Rich Snippet Optimized BUT I would totally love to hear your take and your experience with this plugin.)
- Cons of Using RECIPE CARD PLUGIN:
  - A. NOT RICH SNIPPET OPTIMIZED
  - B. LIMITED CUSTOMIZING OPTIONS
  - C. NO WAY TO HYPERLINK

EASY RECIPE PLUGIN ->> This was the second plugin I tried & I felt it was doing the exact same things that a RECIPE CARD PLUGIN was doing.

EASY RECIPE PLUS PLUGIN ->> I am using it currently & absolutely recommend it if you are serious about blogging & don’t mind spending on a plugin.
- Pros of Using EASY RECIPE PLUS PLUGIN:
  - A. CLEAN LAYOUT ( It is a very clean plugin with basic features which makes your recipes stand out from the rest of your post)
  - B. PRINT/SAVE OPTION ( That makes readers happy!)
  - C. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZED ( Which makes it easier for Google to locate your recipes)
  - D. RICH SNIPPET OPTIMIZED (That means it converts your recipes to rich pins. So when your recipe is pinned on Pinterest, Rich Pins will display the ingredients under the recipe picture which increases the chances of readers clicking on the recipe and ultimately reaching your blog.)
  - E. RECIPE CONVERSIONS (Converting old recipes to Easy Recipe Plus plugin is a cake walk. All you have to do is label ingredients & description and click on Easy Recipe Plus plugin. It automatically converts your recipe to Easy Recipe Plus plugin format.)
  - F. HYPERLINKS (You can hyperlink your recipe ingredients or if it’s adapted from somewhere, you can hyperlink to that post right inside the recipe plus plugin!)
  - G. TONS OF CUSTOMIZATIONS (It comes with lots of cool customizations which you can pick as per your need & taste)
- Cons of Using EASY RECIPE PLUS PLUGIN:
  - A. NOT FREE ( For $24.95 you can install the PLUS version of Easy Recipe Plugin on your blog)
  - B. NUTRITIONAL DATA ( I found that when I was converting recipes to this plugin, it generated nutritional data for my recipes which was scary as it showed 1000 calories for a toast! So I had to delete the nutritional data by hand. I suppose it is some sort of bug in the plugin. I have tried to contact them regarding this & waiting for their reply.)

*Easy Recipe Plus Plugin was suggested by Bjork & Lindsay From Food Blogger Pro & I totally recommend checking out their website! They have tons of useful information on their website & I absolutely adore what they do!*

Other RECIPE PLUGINS: I have heard good things about BigOven recipe plugin but never used them myself. However, they offer some pretty cool things for the viewers. It allows the viewers to save ingredient list from the recipes,create weekly menus from the recipes already available on their app, they are FREE for upto 50 recipes but any more recipe after that and there is a yearly fee.They have their PROS & CONS but I have not tried them personally.

CONCLUSION ->> You might think what now??

A . So if you are just starting out and having fun I would suggest stick with NO RECIPE PLUGIN for some more time until you feel like you are going to be doing it long term.

B. If you really like food blogging and want to get little bit more serious and consider it more than a hobby, then I would suggest to go with either RECIPE CARD or EASY RECIPE plugin.

**If you decide to go with EASY RECIPE plugin and want to transfer your old recipes to easy recipe plugin format, then all you have to do is label ingredients & instructions and then click easy recipe plugin and tada all your old/new recipes will be converted .

C. If you are all set and serious about making this hobby of yours into your income source, then EASY RECIPE PLUS plugin is the way to go. It is little pricey but totally worth it in the long run.

***If you end up getting this plugin and want to transfer your old recipes to easy recipe plugin format, then all you have to do is label ingredients & instructions and then click easy recipe plus plugin and tada all your old/new recipes will be converted .

How was that for a little Beginner’s Guide to Recipe Plugins friends? I would like to know what plugins you use for recipes & are you happy with them?