On a well-designed recipe site there's a "Jump to Recipe" button at the top that skips most of the page and takes you right to the recipe card. But should you always click that button? Maybe not... maybe you're missing a lot of good information!
Look Before You Leap
That's been good advice ever since one of our hairy ancestors looked over the edge of a cliff and thought, "There's some tasty fruit down there, what's the fastest way to get some?"
Let's step into the wayback machine. No, not all the way to that hairy guy looking down from the cliff, just back to the early days of food blogging. Advice from experts at the time was that what readers wanted the most was to connect to the blogger as a person. So posts used to start with things like what the weather was like, how the kids' piano recital went, or memories of the first time they had that amazing casserole or apple pie at grandma's house.
That might have been good advice at the time, but it doesn't work so well any more. People want to get right to the recipe. So the "Jump to Recipe" button was invented, and a lot of readers say if they don't see that button at the top of the page they'll leave the site immediately.
In my opinion, that's being short-sighted. (Or short-sited.) It doesn't take much effort to scroll to the bottom of the page and then up a bit to find the recipe. But there are some very good reasons to not click that jump button, unless you're really in a hurry. Bloggers are now encouraged to put useful information in their posts, and most bloggers are doing that now. Here are some of the things you'll miss if you jump right to the recipe card.
- Ingredients: The author may include information on why they chose the specific ingredients for the recipe, and how they affect the flavor profile.
- Nutritional Information: The potential health benefits of specific ingredients, or the recipe as a whole.
- Dietary Information: Whether the recipe is Keto, Paleo, Diabetic-safe, Vegan, or any other special diet. (But always check the recipe to make sure that it really is!)
- Background Information: Whether the recipe is perfect for a particular season or holiday.
- History: Where did the recipe come from? How did it get its name? Not essential to making the recipe, but interesting facts you can drop at the dinner table!
- Related Recipes: If it's a main dish, sides that would compliment it; or side dishes that would go well with some specific main dishes.
- Substitutions: What to use if you can't find or can't eat an ingredient.
- Variations: How to change a recipe into something else, for example changing the protein from chicken to pork.
- Helpful Tips: Suggestions for improving your cooking skills.
- And More: Frequently Asked Questions, details on equipment, how to store leftovers, and other useful information.
- Comments: Comments and reviews usually come after the recipe card, but it's worth reading through them, especially if you're not sure you want to make the recipe. People will comment on how the recipe came out, and substitutions they made that made it even better.
Another Reason That People Jump
Ads. There are ads on a lot of recipe sites... maybe on most of them. And they are there for a very good reason. Running a great recipe site costs money. A lot of money. Ads are the primary way to monetize a site so that the blogger can keep turning out more recipes. As the old saying goes, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Or breakfast, or dinner, or desert for that matter.
And this is nothing new. In the past, ads supported newspapers and magazines. Later they supported radio and television. Then streaming channels arrived, you paid a monthly fee and got TV shows and movies without ads! Until the channels put ads back in and you had to pay more for an ad-free account.
Then came something called FAST: Free Ad Supported Television. Services like Tubi, Plex, Crackle, and Pluto TV, with tons of shows and movies, at no cost, but with ads. Huh... seems like we used to just call that "television".
So when you visit a site and it's got ads, be nice to the blogger once in a while. Scroll through the whole page and ignore the ads, maybe even click on some of them. It will help keep your favorite sites alive.
And now we have to talk about ad blockers. These are browser extensions that can recognize ads and hide them. Yes, they can make browsing less annoying. But they deprive the site of income that they need to keep the site running. So if there's a recipe site that you've bookmarked and visit frequently, do them a favor. Tell your ad blocker not to block ads on that site. It's a small price to pay for quality recipes.
The Bottom Line is...
Don't always jump to the bottom! Read the whole page sometimes. If it's not interesting or useful, you can still scroll down to the bottom.
Let the ads show and click on them once in a while to support the sites you like.
But mostly... relax! Take your time and see what you might be missing if you're always skipping most of the page.
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