How Google might be sabotaging your UX
Have you ever wondered why the UX of recipe sites is so awful?
It comes down to Google rewarding things which don’t benefit the user and it can apply to any industry.
Let’s dive into this strange problem and look at how a popular UK recipe blog called Mob was able to put users first and sidestep the problem.
When researching before creating my own recipe site, I was shocked by what I found…
Users consistently felt exploited because recipes were hidden under irrelevant content filled with ads.
How come the user experience was so consistently terrible for an area with so much search traffic?
We’re going to uncover what’s causing this and see how Mob’s user-centered approach gave me hope for my own site. This article contains insights about incentives, aligning user and business goals, and building strong brands which can apply across many other domains.
Why don’t recipe blogs seem to care about UX?
Let’s follow the money and answer a few fundamental questions to find out.
What is the site owner’s priority?
To make money by sharing their recipes. If you have a recipe website, the way you primarily generate revenue is to get as many recipe views as possible and for each of them to see as many adverts as possible.
How do they get page views?
By making Google think you have the most comprehensive body of information about pizza bites (or whatever your greedy ass was looking up) on the internet; this signals that they are the expert and boosts their rank in search results.
And how do they increase ads viewed per page?
They create as much content as they can so that there is plenty of space for Google Ads in between. Bonus: This can also serve to increase time on the page which is another ranking factor that helps them appear like a better result.
What does this mean?
The website owners are just cogs in a machine; Google is the one driving this effect by rewarding super-long pages filled with their ads. Any page with just a simple recipe doesn’t stand a chance.
And there’s your conspiracy theory. Now let’s see what we can do about it.
Solution A: Wait for Google (they might fix this soon)
It’s fun to bash Google, but despite their standing to make more ad revenue in the short term, they surely don’t want to contribute to this poor UX and make themselves vulnerable to more user-centered alternatives.
’s approach to delivering search resultsGoogle state two of their main approaches to search are:
- Delivering the most relevant and reliable information available
- Presenting information in the most useful way
In the space of recipes, I think they are clearly failing on both counts, so it’s reasonable to expect they will eventually find a better way to deliver this type of content.
Note: AI has recently shown its competency in synthesizing information and presenting it in the most useful way, so there will likely be a lot of disruption in this space. However, I don’t think these will be as trusted as a tested recipe with real reviews for a long time.
Solution B: Building a user-centered brand
To illustrate this solution, we’ll take a look at mob.co.uk as an example. Founded in 2016, they are a 50+ person UK-based food media production platform aimed at inspiring students and young professionals to cook tasty and simple meals at home.
The typical SEO method
This is the basic process a user goes through with the usual model used by recipe sites. The site is found when people are actively searching for a recipe and then maximises earnings for that one visit.
Mob’s social media marketing method
In this model, free content is published to users so that when they do want a recipe, they turn to Mob. The site is also designed to be as user-friendly as possible to maximise return visits.
First, they build awareness about their brand through social platforms.
Then, when a user wants to cook something, they will hopefully turn to Mob first.
My hypothesis was that by creating a user-centered site and building trust on social media, Mob have been able to create a much stronger bond with its users than a traditional food blog.
To test this hypothesis, I used Similarweb to compare Mob’s website traffic to that of some typical recipe sites and here you can see the striking differences:
These brand-focused searches show that a social media focus combined with a user-centered approach can lead to a much stronger brand. But how can Mob cover the costs of putting in more work to get each new user on its site?
Monetisation
The marketing rule of seven states that you need an average of seven interactions with a brand before buying from them; the number is not really a rule, but illustrates the value of long-term relationships when making purchasing decisions.
With the typical recipe site, people often only visit it once, so the only chance for the blog to make money is by using Google Ads; this allows companies already following people around the internet to pay the site owner to show themselves to the recipe viewer.
Highly-relevant partnership with Aldi
Mob has decided to partner with Aldi. Partnership deals share trust in a way that generic ads don’t.
If you already know and like Aldi, this gives credibility to Mob because they partnered with them. If you already are a fan of Mob and trust their recipes, you might also trust their shopping recommendations. If done correctly, these have the potential to convert highly and ad networks don’t take a cut of the deal.
Freemium
Mob ensures you can do the essentials for free, but also offers a subscription for anyone that wants to get some extra perks. This same freemium strategy is behind games like Candy Crush and Fortnite as well as MailChimp and many of your favourite SaaS companies, especially in B2C.
Conclusion
By thinking first of helping users reach their goals and then monetising without leaving a bad taste in their mouths, one can build great brands which are not vulnerable to an update in Google’s algorithm.
I’ve got plenty more to say about designing the UX and UI of recipe sites and generally creating mutually beneficial products. Give me a follow if you’re interested to read more.
You can see the current iteration of my site at realvegancookbook.com
