How to Fix: Step-by-step instructions

Step-by-step instructions is an important SEO check in the Recipe Sites category. This is a high-priority issue with a significant impact on your SEO performance — on a recipe site, structured steps are the difference between a plain blue link and a rich result that eats half the screen.

What this check is really about

This check verifies that your recipe (or how-to) content presents its instructions as discrete, ordered steps — and, crucially, that those steps are marked up so Google can read them as structured data, not just prose. A wall of paragraph text describing how to make the dish will feed a human, but it will not populate the numbered, sometimes image-rich step carousel that recipe searchers see and tap.

Concretely, it wants your steps inside the recipeInstructions property of Recipe schema (or step in HowTo schema), each step a distinct HowToStep rather than one blob of text.

Why it matters for SEO

• Rich results. Structured steps are what qualify a recipe for the enhanced listing — image, ratings, cook time, and step preview — that dominates recipe SERPs and pulls clicks away from plain results.
• Voice and assistant surfaces. “Hey Google, what’s the next step” only works if the steps are individually addressable data. Prose cannot be read back step by step.
• Comprehension and dwell time. Clear numbered steps keep a cook on the page instead of bouncing to a competitor whose layout they can actually follow mid-recipe with floury hands.
• Featured snippets. Ordered steps are the format Google most readily lifts into a “how to” snippet.

Write the steps for someone cooking, not reading

The markup is the mechanical half. The half that actually wins is how you write the steps, and here is the standard I would hold: one action per step, in the imperative, with the doneness cue attached. “Sauté the onions until translucent, about five minutes” is a step. “Then you’ll want to cook everything down for a while until it looks right” is a paragraph pretending to be a step. The person reading it has a hot pan and no free hand — respect that.

Two things I would insist on. First, keep the ingredient quantities in the ingredient list and out of the steps, or repeat them deliberately — do not make the cook scroll up mid-sear. Second, if you add a per-step image, make it earn its place by showing a state that is hard to describe in words: the color of a properly caramelized onion, the texture of dough that has come together. Decorative step photos slow the page down for nothing.

How to fix this in WordPress

Difficulty Level: EASY – This fix is straightforward and can typically be completed by anyone with basic WordPress knowledge.

Estimated Time: varies

1. Use a proper recipe plugin. WP Recipe Maker, Tasty Recipes, or Create by Mediavine output valid Recipe schema with a dedicated instructions field. This is the single fastest fix — the plugin handles the recipeInstructions markup for you.
2. Enter each step as its own step in the plugin’s instructions repeater, not as one pasted paragraph. One action per row.
3. For non-recipe how-to content, use an ordered list and, if the guide warrants it, HowTo structured data — though note Google has narrowed HowTo rich results, so lead with genuinely useful ordered steps first, markup second.
4. Rewrite the steps in the imperative with doneness cues, one action each, before you worry about anything else.
5. Validate the output with Google’s Rich Results Test to confirm the steps are being read as structured data.
6. Verify: clear your cache, re-run the SEO Roadmap audit, and re-check the recipe in Search Console’s enhancement reports after a few days.

Recommended Tools & Plugins

• Yoast SEO – Comprehensive SEO plugin with built-in checks
• Rank Math – Feature-rich SEO plugin with detailed analysis
• Google Search Console – Free tool to monitor your site’s search presence
• SEO Roadmap – Complete SEO audit and action plan tool

Common mistakes to avoid

• Writing instructions as one paragraph instead of discrete, ordered steps
• Hand-rolling recipe HTML when a recipe plugin would emit valid schema for free
• Cramming multiple actions into a single step so the cook loses their place
• Skipping the Rich Results Test and never confirming the markup is valid
• Adding decorative step images that slow the page without helping the cook

This guide is part of the SEO Roadmap knowledge base – your complete resource for WordPress SEO optimization.