Create by Mediavine is the newest industry player, and a welcome addition to WordPress repository of recipe card plugins available for recipe SEO.

In this post, we share helpful step-by-step and video instructions for how to add a recipe into a card using Create by Mediavine. We highlight the plugin’s beneficial features for recipe SEO, nofollow compliance, and draw attention to features of the plugin that are easy to overlook.

But first, a bit of background on Create.

Create by Mediavine

Launched in the fall of 2018, Create by Mediavine—like Tasty Recipes and WP Recipe Maker—uses industry-standard JSON-LD Schema Markup to generate structured data.

Create supports HowTo and ItemList schema in addition to recipe schema unleashing a whole new world of potential when it comes to publishing SEO-friendly, and voice search optimized content.

From recipes to craft tutorials, city travel guides, restaurant guides, and more—even instructions for how to add a recipe in Create by Mediavine (yes, we use it to mark-up our HowTo instructions below)—the plugin is designed for a whole host of content creators and publishers.

And best of all, it’s 100% free.

Create by Mediavine is also:

• Built for speed
• Mobile friendly
• Compatible with WordPress’ new block editor
• Open to everyone; it is not exclusive to Mediavine publishers

3 best WordPress recipe card plugins compared

Which WordPress recipe card plugin is right for you? In this comparison we look at Tasty Recipes, Create and WP Recipe Maker.

The plugin also has several well thought through bells and whistles in addition to the expected feature base, including:

• Easy affiliate product and equipment promotion (free to use!)
• Custom affiliate messages
• Visitors can apply a 4 or 5 star rating without commenting
• A prompt that can be enabled/disabled to ask for a recipe review
• Importers available for a long list of existing recipe card plugins
• The option to hide or display video in a recipe card (so smart!)
• Nofollow for compliance purposes
• Allows users to use the Amazon Products API for recommended products

Expected feature base

Diet metadata

Create users now have the ability to add Diet metadata (new as of March 2020 using suitableForDiet metadata) to specify what type of dietary preference recipes are suitable for.

Diet metadata displays in the recipe card automatically by default. There is a fixed list of options to choose from, including vegan, vegetarian and gluten free and several more.

Category and cuisine fields

In Create the category and cuisine fields don’t include a dropdown list. You add your own terms by typing into each of the fields. Separate your terms with a comma.

Examples of categories include: 

• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner
• Dessert
• Snack
• Soup
• Salad
• Appetizer
• Beverage
• Side dish

Examples of cuisines include:

• American
• Indian
• Pakistani
• Thai
• Italian
• Mexican
• French
• German
• Chinese
• Japanese

Prep time, cook time, additional time

Always enter minute information into the prep time, cook time and total time fields. Satisfying a user’s search intent is priority #1 for Google and time is paramount when it comes to cooking.

Don’t make searchers and site visitors dig for this information.

Consistently fill-in these fields so that searchers and site visitors know up-front the time it takes to prep and successfully make your recipe.

Video structured data

If you produce recipe videos they can easily be added in a Create recipe card. This results in video structured data (such as description, duration, and uploadDate) getting included in the recipe schema output, which is a great thing for recipe SEO.

In Create, you also have the option to hide or display video in a recipe card. This is ideal if you want to embed your recipe video higher in the body of a post (i.e., the top 1/3rd of a post) but still benefit from video structured data without showing the same video to users twice.

Pro tip! We always suggest including the URL in the recipe card video field specifically. This way, if you ever switch to a new recipe card plugin your video structured data will not be affected.

Nofollow compliance

You can add links to freeform fields in the Create recipe card (such as description, ingredients, instructions and notes). Links, including affiliate links, are added manually in the plugin’s freeform fields by clicking the link icon in the WYSIWYG.

To add an affiliate link to an ingredient, switch the toggle button to Detail and expand the arrow to the right of the ingredient. A nofollow tag for can easily be applied to specific links here too.

Create uses the standard WordPress link editor, but adds in a nofollow checkbox globally, so that nofollow can be leveraged the same way in both the recipe card and post editor for compliance.

Pro Tip! With Create if you use the classic editor, the nofollow checkbox shows up under the checkbox to open a link in a new window.

If you use the block editor it’s a differently approach entirely, which we outline in our post on nofollow compliance for food blog SEO.

Learning how to use Create isn’t difficult

Don’t let learning the ins and outs of a new WordPress recipe card plugin block you from achieving your food blog’s SEO goals.

Success with food blog SEO is when a series of small daily actions add up. Today, that includes learning how to use Create to your advantage.

Set aside 30 minutes to install and activate Create, correctly configure the plugin, and study our helpful how-to instructions below.

How to add a recipe in Create by Mediavine

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Active Time: 10 minutes

Additional Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Difficulty: Beginner

Estimated Cost: Free

Step-by-step instructions for food bloggers who want to learn how to use the WordPress recipe card plugin Create by Mediavine to generate structured data, more specifically JSON-LD Schema Markup, for their recipes. Special attention is given to beneficial features for food bloggers that are easy to overlook.

Print

Materials

• Your list of recipe ingredients
• Your recipe instructions
• Image assets ready
• Video asset(s) ready
• Affiliate products for promotion ready

Tools

• Create by Mediavine WordPress plugin (free)
• Internet access
• Your WordPress website
• Patience and a positive attitude!

Instructions

Install Create by Mediavine

1. In WordPress, go to Plugins in the left hand menu. Click add new
2. In the Search Plugins field (on the right) type ‘Create by Mediavine’
3. Click ‘Install Now’ button, and then click ‘Activate’

Configure Create by Mediavine

1. In WordPress, go to Create Cards > Settings in the left hand menu
2. In Settings > Display (tab), choose your recipe card colors, photo ratio, Pinterest button location, as well as your recipe card theme. Currently, create has 5 different themes to choose from. Each card theme in Create displays images differently (i.e., horizontal rather than vertical). Test image placement in the different card theme options
3. In Settings > Advanced (tab), choose your primary card type (i.e., Recipe, How-tos, Lists), default copyright attribution (if it applies), the primary heading tag (default is H2), draft global affiliate message (if it applies), enable autosave (always a good idea), allow reader reviews (very important for food blog SEO!), enable recipe review prompt/pop-up (again, very important for food blog SEO), and enable/disable public reviews
4. In Settings > Recipes (tab), choose if you want to remove nutrition from the recipe card, choose if you want a traditional nutrition display, and apply a custom nutrition disclaimer (if it applies)
5. In Settings > Lists (tab), choose if you'd like rounded corners for buttons, enable external and internal list items to open in a new tab (if desired)
6. In Settings > Pro (tab), you can chose to enable the jump to recipe button option
7. In Settings > Registration (tab), register. It's a free, one-time action that grants access to all of Create's external APIs

Step by step, how to add a recipe in Create by Mediavine

1. Once Settings are configured, go to Create Cards (in the left hand menu) > Add New Create Card
2. Choose Recipe, from the trio of options (HowTo and List also available)
3. You’ll be prompted to input the title of your recipe into a set field.
4. In the Author field, add your first and last name (not your food blog's or company name)
5. In the Yield field, add the yield for the recipe (i.e., 12, 24)
6. In the Diet field, select the preference that applies to the recipe (i.e., vegan, vegetarian)
7. Write a short 150-word description of the recipe
8. Upload the recipe’s featured image. For food blog SEO, make sure the image file name is keyword optimized, and that the image file size is reasonable. Always add alt text to an image
9. Apply an existing category or categories to the recipe
10. Apply a cuisine to the recipe in question (i.e., Italian, Thai, American, Lebanese, etc…)
11. Add total prep time, and total cook time in minutes. If needed, add additional time in minutes (do not skip these fields)
12. Copy and paste ingredients into the freeform ingredients field. You have a choice of toggling between ‘bulk’ or ‘detail’. We recommend food bloggers use 'detail'. In detail, expand the arrow for an ingredient item; here, you can add an ingredient link, and tag a specific link no-follow for compliance purposes.
13. Input your recipe's step-by-step instructions into the freeform instructions field. From the dropdown menu choose either List, Heading, Paragraph to format the instructions. Use the handy ‘Optimize’ button to reformat your instructions into a numbered list (big time saver!)
14. Add additional recipe notes to the dedicated notes field if needed
15. Video structured data is very important for food blog SEO. In the Video URL field add a Mediavine video or an external video (if you’ve created a video for the recipe specifically). If you do not want the recipe video to display in the recipe card, but you do want the video structured data benefits, you can choose to 'display' or 'hide' the video in the recipe card. This is very handy for food bloggers who add the same video twice in a post: once high up in the post body to boost a user’s dwell time, and again in the recipe card at the very bottom of a post
16. At no extra cost, in Create, you can earn affiliate income through affiliate product promotion. In recommended products, choose to ‘Add New Product’ or choose from your library of products. Add the product name and affiliate URL. The product image will auto-populate (big time saver!)
17. For nutrition related information, input the recipe’s serving size into the field called ‘How many servings does this recipe make?’ Create will automatically calculate nutrition information
18. For SEO and social media, add keywords that describe your recipe. The keywords should not be duplicates of existing categories. There is also an option to add a Pinterest URL, Pinterest description, and image for rich results on Pinterest
19. Under Utilities, you can clone the recipe card (nice time saver!), and validate the recipe’s schema right away by clicking the button ‘Validate JSON-LD’ (very cool!)
20. You can also print preview the recipe before you publish. It's nice to preview what the visitor sees if they decide to print the recipe
21. Click 'Publish and Insert' in Create's top right hand corner to insert the recipe card into your post

Notes

The task of entering ingredients and instructions, plus keywords, cuisine, prep time, cook time and more into a recipe card plugin is admittedly a bit tedious but be thorough, it’ll pay off. Consistency is key when it comes to success with structured data and recipe SEO.