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This week, the top three adjectives used by food bloggers were easy, sweet, and baked; cheesy, stuffed, and savory also made the list. Pumpkin jumped to be the second most popular ingredient after chicken, just beating out apple and chocolate. Christmas has made its first appearance on the categories chart, and Thanksgiving and Winter have climbed.
Over on Instagram, plantyou grew its account by 45K this past week! Explore the rising stars chart too, to see who grew their following by 6% in the last week.
I’m Rachel Cunliffe, food blog designer + statistician at cre8d design. Every Sunday, Best Served Hot provides exclusive trend analysis, clear-cut insights, and industry news you need to know.
Figuring out how to organize recipes on a food site can seem really confusing and overwhelming. There’s no single “right” way to do it, but with so many people using AI for guidance, things can so easily get way too complex. So, I decided to simplify it for you. I created a quick cheat sheet with clear guidelines, plus a breakdown of exactly how the top 500 food blogs organize their recipes. If you are planning a site redesign or starting a new food blog, this is going to save you hours of frustration. Hit reply and let me know if you’re interested. Just type “yes please” and I’ll send you the cheat sheet (I’d love to get your feedback on it).
News Roundup
A good case study of how The Modern Nonna uses the WPRM recipe plugin on its website. Are you using all those features on your site?
Google launched a competitor to Canva called Google Pics, which integrates seamlessly with Google Slides, Docs, and Drive. Available to those on paid plans.
SEO expert Lily Ray discusses how shortcuts rarely help your SEO/AI search results and how to improve your content with E-E-A-T and quality, less-is-more information.
Australian ad industry grew by 14% in the last year to $19.8 billion, and display/video ads showed strong growth. Its ad industry is the best growth in 4 years, a positive sign for food bloggers.
YouTube will now label brand deals if you don’t disclose them, but still require vloggers to comply with all disclosure laws.
TikTok comments are enhanced with new voice comments, polls, photo carousel comments, and live photos. The aim is to get people to spend more time in the comments section.
