26 Jun Essentials Themes and Plugins To Create a Food Blog
Ever thought of creating your own food blog? Maybe you want somewhere to share and organize your recipes with family and friends or ever with the world. What few might not know about me is that I have been creating blogs in most niches for years. I have created several food blogs of most I have sold off. Currently, I still have one foodie blog that I occasionally update. Why am I telling you this?
Just to demonstrate that I have actually been there in the trenches setting up and marketing my food blog. So today I will share with you, my top recommendation to have you up and running in minutes.
For further reading see:
How Start a Successful WordPress Blog: 11 Lessons I Have learned
7+ Best Social Media Plugins for WordPress
Best Food Blog WordPress Themes
Here I have tried to find tried to find templates that both functional but also elegantly designed. While searching we several themes but was unable to include them here because they didn’t meet my criteria is one way or the other. First on my list was functionality then design, mobile-ready, social media orientated which when you start your own blog will quickly realize why this was so important to us.
Without further ado, let us have a look at our most recommended WordPress themes to have you hitting the ground running. You can all see more food templates here: https://85ideas.com/wordpress/best-restaurant-cafe-food-wordpress-themes/ in nor particular order:
Talisa – Food Recipes WordPress Theme
Talisa is excellent if you want to create a blog where your visitors can submit their own recipes ideas. In terms of design, Talisa ticks most the boxes the only issue I have is the menu area looks slightly dated. The highlight of Talisa is that it’s pack with features that’s slightly different from the other themes mentioned here. For example, you get front end posting of recipes, the ability to save recipes as favorites to your user profile.
Being in this field where image speaks louder than words, Talisa as you cover with retina support to display images in higher quality especially on Macs, iPads etc..
A final note is that out of the other themes mentioned, Talisa recipe page is by far the best present with all the essential details layout in plain sight. Let me know in the comment if you agree?
If you were curious what theme I currently use for blog food, click here.
Foodie Pro
Foodie Pro is built on the Genesis framework by studioPress that is one of the most popular WordPress frameworks. By doing, I quick Google search you will see an infinite amount of praised by industry experts. Foodie Pro is defiantly one you should consider; it’s built on a solid framework that as stood the test of time. What I love about this theme is the simplistic design that is well layout. As the brainchild of Copyblogger Media the content marketing company, you wilt be glad to know that this Foodie Pro is also well optimized to drive the conversation. This is very important if you want to create something that in more than just a hobby just look at what a pinch of yum achieved.
I urge you to go check out the demo if you do nothing else just to see what I mean. Foodie Pro also allows you to showcase your creation and recipes in a visually appealing way. Now the downside to this theme in my opinion is the small font sizing that I struggle to read. That being said you can easily change that in the themes option area.
ICOOK – FOOD/RECIPE WORDPRESS THEME
When you first land on the homepage, you are blown away by the big beautiful images that are the focal point of the blog. With that box tick lets dig further, on the post page again you are greeted by an ever bigger image. Complimented by the well layout post structure you can easily add galleries to show different angles of your masterpiece. A standard you also get the recipe shortcode to inform users on the ingredients required.
Other highlights of iCook include custom post types with a predefined element such as team members, calendar and more. You also get a variety of customization option to help you make this them unique to you.
What I personal like is the most popular recipe widget to promote your best creations. As like all the themes mentioned here iCoook is also responsive meaning it will look great on all devices.
Best 3 WordPress Food Plugins
Now we will look at a few plugins that can help turbocharge your blog. While all the templates mentioned above are exceptionally good, this is what could help you stand out ever more. I wanted to mention 100 different plugins here but have decided only to mention the top 3 that will have a positive impact on your blog.
In the case that you choose a theme that does not come with a built-in recipe creator. Having schema markup intergated can help you stand out in Google search, luckily I have included a plugin that can handle that for you. I’ve also mentioned a plugin that can help you share your cooking tips and recipes with more reader.
Recipe Card
As the name suggest, you can create recipe card that enables your to print, save and review your recipes. So if you decided to go with any other theme whether free or paid. With Recipe Card, you can easily display beautiful recipe details you and over 100 combinations to ensure it’s in keeping with the look and feel of your blog.
If you want to display multiple recipe cards in one post, Recipe Card as you covered. Now you can easily show several variation in one post.
With Recipe Card, you get maximum search visibility because of the Schema markup included as standard. This mean if a user searches Google via a set of ingredients, cook time or calories you stand a better chance of being found. You can read more about this here:
Cooked – A Super-Powered Recipe Plugin
Cooked is a drag and drag recipe builder and so much more. With it you can start accepting guest submissions and allow users to have their own profile to create a community sharing site. What I love most of all is the predefined layouts included which makes integrating this plugin in any theme a breeze.
You will also be happy to know that it’s fully mobile ready and gives user a simple timer to help with each step of the cooking process. With Cooked, you can add nutrition facts of each recipe which is the displayed below each recipe direction.
Recipe Hero
Recipe is defiantly one to consider for the most part it’s free but it also have a few premium extension to enhance the functionality. You can add an custom post type of recipe which then produce a custom display of the equipments needed, cooking time ingredients and more.
If you plan to start your food blog in another language other than English, then I’m happy to report that Recipe Hero is translation ready.
For a free plugin you get a lot of features and a well supported plugin.
Wrapping up
So there you have it my top tips on how to create a food blog to help you stand out. If you are experiencing any issues or have any concerns not covered. Please leave a comment below and I will try my utmost best to reply promptly. The themes mentioned above are some of the best on the marketing with cutting edges features to take care of all the technical stuff. Thus giving you more time to focus on what you love creating. In the plugins section hopefully you found suitable plugins to help you further your reach.
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