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I’m a Yummly Publisher! But what is that, why does it matter, and why do I seem excited? Well, I’ll tell you.
What’s Yummly?
For those of you who don’t know what Yummly is, it’s a big virtual recipe box but so much more. You can search by just about any category you can think of and it learns what you like based on what you Yum. You can even put together a shopping list and have your groceries delivered to you in under an hour. So it’s a pretty powerful toolbox.
I like it because it pulls all the important information from the recipe, saves it for you in a rather attractive looking gallery that you can organize by collections (Desserts, Pizza, etc.), but it still also directs you back to the original source (like a blog post). It pulls the list of ingredients, serving size, total time, ratings, nutrition, tastes (salty, savory, sour, bitter, sweet, spicy), and recipe tags. To get the directions on how to make it, you are directed back to the original source, which is why Yummly is so good for bloggers.
To use it all you have to do is register and then start clicking that “Yum” button you probably see a lot. Easy.
Why I decided to become a Yummly Publisher
I’ve actually had a Yummly publisher page for a while now (which you can visit here) but didn’t follow all the steps to become an official publisher until now. These steps include:
- Adding the Yum button (done)
- Introducing readers to Yummly with a blog post (you’re reading it now)
- Directing readers to your Yummly publisher page (done)
- Filling out a form showing that you’ve done all of the above for a chance to be featured.
I added the yum button immediately but I was hesitant to do anything else. Why? Well I’m tired of all the social media hoops I’m forced to jump through to get any sort of traffic at all. It’s freaking exhausting. And my blog readership is growing so slowly, like molasses-only not edible and delicious.
A lot of what I thought blogging was ended up being totally wrong. The things that I thought would be the hardest are easy and the stuff I didn’t even think about is turning out to be the hardest.
Thinking up recipes, taking pictures, writing: easy. I still work hard (especially at trying to improve my photography) but it’s the part I love and that comes more naturally to me.
Expanding my reach, being my own social media marketing department, developing good SEO, and being a social butterfly are all skills that do not come naturally to me. Some of it is even the exact antithesis of my personality.
But then I noticed something on my Google Analytics: Yummly is my number one source of traffic.
And I don’t have to do anything. I just yum my recipes and others I like. I don’t have to plan a social sharing schedule. I don’t have to create attractive long pins. I don’t have to copy and paste info into forms like at photo sharing sites (which takes so much time). Besides writing this one post and filling out the form, I don’t really have to do anything except press a button. That’s so awesome and it’s why I gave in and pressed publish on this post.
Happy Yumming!
Thank you so much for the reminder! This post has inspired me! I have an account but never did anything with it. I will now! I’m curios about the yum button, I don’t see one on your blog. Is it something else? Also how do you get the button on your recipe to redirect back to your blog? Tha
I’m so happy you found this post useful! I have the yum button on a sticky side bar (it’s black and on the left hand side-and the yum button is the fourth one down). Once you have a yum button installed on your site and you “yum” your recipe, a publisher page is created for you (this can take a few weeks). I had to email Yummly for help in finding my publisher page (that part isn’t exactly user friendly) and they were really helpful and sent me a link. You don’t have to do any work, Yummly does it all for you. But it helps if you have rich recipes. This means that Yummly can extract the featured imaged and ingredients, which helps because more people are likely to click on it. If they click on it, it takes them to a more detailed breakdown, but in order to see the complete recipe, there is a button that says “Read Full Directions on Meg is Well.” Some recipe plug-ins include this in how they work so you don’t have to worry. I use EasyRecipe Plus. I hope I answered your question!
Thank you so very much!!! Very helpful!!! xO
Interesting post to read. I’ve considered Yummly in the past but never bothered because I got exhausted with all the social media. It’s kind of the opposite for me: I find the content creation the most difficult, but the most rewarding and fun. Social media etc. I find easy but can’t bring myself to do it well because it’s like nails on a chalkboard for me. Funny the things you think about before blogging and after you’ve been blogging for a bit…things change so quickly, as fast as tech changes, really! I like the way you laid out your reasons for becoming a Yummlu publisher – it makes me want to try it!
Lol first, I’m so happy someone read this post! I was afraid it was going to annoy people or not offer anything to them. Blogging continues to surprise me and probably always will because like you said, the tools and whims of the trade are always changing.