Cut the Recipe Section to Make Way for Lead-gen Content

It’s had a good run. Now it’s time to slash the recipe section in favor of hard-working content that informs, inspires, and converts.

The “Recipe Section” has long dominated premium real estate on foodservice manufacturer websites. Often comprising dozens of individual recipes, these sections tend to be over-engineered and filled with outdated, inconsistent, or low-quality photography, all while dictating specific applications that aren’t always relevant to the foodservice professional.

There’s nothing inherently bad or wrong with creating and publishing high-quality recipe content, but your website is not necessarily the best place for it all. Building out a comprehensive recipe section is resource-intensive. It’s often communicated as a mandatory – table stakes for any food brand. But the purpose and goals around the recipe section are ill-defined if at all.

Focus on lead-gen

For most food manufacturing brands, the website needs to support lead-gen efforts. There are three key ways to do this:

1. Inform – What is the brand/product? Who is it for? What pain points does it solve?
2. Inspire – How can I use this product on my menu? What trends or data points support your claims? How has it helped similar operations?
3. Convert – What is the offer, and what’s in it for me? How can I get it / Who do I talk to?

With your bigger goal in mind, prioritize content efforts that ladder back to these three priorities.

Rather than filling your site with standard recipes, consider the following high-value content types:

• Menu concepts illustrating product functionality and versatility across menu segments and dayparts
• Product comparison tools
• Trend information relative to your product(s) and target buyer segment(s)
• Profit calculators
• Consumer messaging and merchandising ideas
• Video demonstrations

It’s not about abandoning recipes altogether, but rather focusing your energies on harder-working, higher-ROI content. There are already thousands of recipe websites – it’s time your brand did something a little different.