{"id":1355,"date":"2020-07-16T16:22:26","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T16:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/keithjlang.com\/?p=1355"},"modified":"2022-10-19T10:03:59","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T10:03:59","slug":"long-recipe-story-intros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keithjlang.com\/long-recipe-story-intros\/","title":{"rendered":"Recipes Without Stories? Don’t Hate The Intros!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
If free internet recipes with long intros bother you so much, buy a cookbook!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the last few years, I've seen plenty of “influencers” and “journalists” from trash publications like the Huffington Post whine and moan about the recipes they find online. The complaint usually goes something like this, “Why can't you just give us the goddamn recipe already” or “I don't want to know your life story, recipe please!”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I'd like to point out that we're talking about free content on the internet. Content that anyone with an internet connection can access. Food bloggers pour their hearts and souls, and hours of their time into producing recipes that people can use and enjoy without spending a penny. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So what's everyone complaining about? Well, entitled people will always complain. Some people are so completely lost in their own self-importance they believe that the internet should provide for their lifestyle of sloth and ignorance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The same people that complain about having to spend two extra seconds on a recipe are the same ones that use book summary apps like Blinkist<\/a>, an app designed to make people shallow, less-informed, and bursting with one-liners suitable for Instagram and internet memes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Recipes can represent moments in people's lives and hold special personal significance. Food blog creators want to share their stories. It might annoy you to have to read these stories but here's something that will shock you: some people enjoy the anecdotes. And if the life story or backstory bothers you, don't forget that the content is free for you to read and use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Google rewards unique content. The fact that this recipe even surfaces in the search results (you know, when you type \u201chow to make flan\u201d into Google.com and magically all these detailed step-by-step cooking guides appear) is a testament to the quality of the article. A list of ingredients with basic instructions might rank well in the search results. But this generally only happens with very large, authority sites. Unless you\u2019d like every single recipe on the internet to come from the bland megacorp called allrecipes.com<\/a> be glad that Google considers relevant, interesting, and unique content to be more important than generic, me-too content. Or worse, copied content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Food should not be reduced to a to-do list<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n So how does a recipe creator get noticed? They write something that won\u2019t appear on other food blogs and they use a story to add relevant content to their blog post. You might not like this, but again, you\u2019re getting it for free<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Recipe creators are left with few options for monetizing their food blog apart from ads. People that browse free recipes websites rather than buy books, by definition, are not spending money on recipe-related products. Therefore it is difficult to generate income by promoting products, services, or courses. On the other hand, eyeballs on the internet are a magnet for advertisers. Ads are becoming a regular site on blogs of all kinds. Mostly because people refuse to pay for content.\u00a0Longer recipes are more lucrative because people spend more time eyeballing the content and this means more places for ads to appear. <\/p>\n\n\n\nHere\u2019s why people add backstories and intros<\/h2>\n\n\n\n