As a food blogger transitioning from the NYC restaurant reviews niche to recipe development content, I needed to master SEO quickly. Cooking with Keywords, the only keyword research course that is specifically designed for recipe bloggers, caught my attention – but the $350 price tag made me hesitate for nearly a year. That was no small amount of money. Would it be worth it?
It didn't help that I couldn't find many reviews. While Greedy Girl Gourmet shared her experience in 2022 and My Minimalist Vegan posted a review in 2023, most online discussions contained opinions from people who never took the course, simply suggesting that no keyword research course for novices or newbies was worth a steep $350 price tag, suggesting free alternatives instead.
In late February 2025, I finally invested in the course. This review shared my honest assessment of whether Cooking with Keywords delivers value worth its premium price. For context, my background as a software engineer means I approach SEO technically and might grasp certain concepts faster than non-technical bloggers or people who didn't grow up in technology, so please take my thoughts with a grain of salt.
The quick verdict? The value you'll get from Cooking with Keywords heavily depends on 3 key factors: your current comfort with keyword research and knowledge of SEO, learning preferences, and budget and time constraints. This review will (hopefully) help you determine if this food blogging keyword research and SEO course aligns with your specific situation and goals in 2025.
What is Cooking with Keywords?
Cooking with Keywords is a comprehensive keyword research course created by Aleka Shunk specifically for food bloggers. The course teaches you how to research, organize, analyze, and track your keywords to grow organic search traffic to your recipe blog.
What you'll learn
- How to conduct keyword research for food blogs
- Techniques to find high-value keywords for recipes you've already published or developed
- Methods to write keyword-optimized recipe posts
- Strategies to refresh old posts that haven't received any traffic
- Analysis skills to track and improve keyword rankings
The core goal of Cooking with Keywords is teaching you how to select recipe ideas that can achieve top positions on Google, driving sustainable organic traffic to your food blog.
Course details
- Price: $350 (as of March 2025) 😨
- Recommended completion time: 1 week (and don't forget to note-take!)
- Format: 43 video modules totaling 7 hours, 44 minutes, 25 seconds (yes, I added it all up)
- Topics covered: Topical relevance, keyword research fundamentals, semantic keywords, LSI keywords, and more
- What's included: Lifetime access (including updates), 8 printable resources, and access to a private Facebook community
Required Tools
Cooking with Keywords primarily uses KeySearch ($24/month) (<-- affiliate link) for demonstrations. While significantly more affordable than alternatives like Semrush ($139.95/month) or Ahrefs ($129/month), this is an additional investment beyond the $350 price of the course.
If you're investing in a $350 keyword research course though, odds are you're serious about pursuing food blogging, and would also be serious about investing in the cheapest keyword research tool out there.
You'll need a KeySearch subscription to follow along with exercises and implement the strategies Aleka teaches in Cooking with Keywords. Aleka also recommends Keywords Everywhere as a supplementary tool, along with free tools she shouts out in her course.
I genuinely love KeySearch. The UI is intuitive for people new to keyword research, there are tutorials, plus the few times I've needed customer service they're quick to respond.
About the Creator
Aleka Shunk, the creator of Cooking with Keywords, brings valuable credentials to this course:
- Experienced food blogger, recipe creator, and food photographer
- Former teacher with 10 years of classroom experience
- Holds a Master's degree in Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum
- Self-described "keyword fanatic" and former content writer
- Claims to have tripled her organic search traffic in under 4 months using the strategies she taught
Why Keyword Research Matters for Food Bloggers
Keyword research is essential to making a food blog profitable. Keyword research is discovering the words and phrases people use when searching online. This research is crucial because it helps you target search phrases that will get your recipe to show up higher in Google's search results when someone searches for topics like "best blueberry muffins" or "marry me chicken" and so on.
While related to SEO (search engine optimization), keyword research is just one component of the broader SEO discipline. SEO involves structuring your entire website and content to be as easy as possible for Google to read through and understand so that your posts show up when people Google for them.
For food bloggers, mastering keyword research means having the ability to:
- Bring people to your website without promotion via social media
- Create recipes people are actively searching for
- Avoid wasted time developing recipes nobody is looking for
The goal of Aleka's Cooking with Keywords course is to teach you how to choose a recipe that will land in a #1 position on Google, driving long-term organic traffic.
Who should consider this course?
Whether you'll get value from this $350 investment depends almost entirely on your previous keyword research know how. I use the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition (which outlines five states of skill development) to explore who exactly might benefit most from Cooking with Keywords.
I believe Cooking with Keywords is a solid course for for complete beginners and novices.
So to expand on this, a novice:
- Uses basic tools like Google Autocomplete to find recipe ideas
- Focuses primarily on popular dish names without variation (e.g., "spaghetti carbonara")
- Overlooks seasonal trends and timely food topics
- Limited awareness of recipe-specific search intent or keyword difficulty
- Doesn't consider dietary restrictions or preferences in keyword selection
- Rarely targets long-tail cooking questions or technique-based searches
- Struggles to differentiate content from major recipe websites
An advanced beginner:
- Uses dedicated keyword research tools to find recipe opportunities
- Considers both search volume and competition when selecting recipe topics
- Recognizes different recipe search intents (quick meals, special occasions, meal prep)
- Incorporates dietary variations in keyword research (gluten-free, vegan, keto, etc.) Identifies seasonal food trends and holiday-specific recipe searches
- Begins to target cooking technique questions (e.g., "how to cream butter and sugar")
- Researches ingredient-focused queries (e.g., "what to make with leftover chicken")
In my opinion, Cooking with Keywords
And a competent person:
- Develops systematic approach to recipe keyword discovery across meal types and occasions
- Creates content calendars aligned with seasonal food trends and events
- Analyzes competitor recipe sites to identify content gaps and opportunities
- Prioritizes recipe keywords based on audience fit and monetization potential
- Uses keyword data to craft detailed recipe headlines and descriptions
- Monitors recipe ranking performance across different search verticals (web, image, video)
- Understands how to optimize for recipe rich results and featured snippets
If you're an advanced beginner, you might learn a few new things, but I'm not sure this $350 course would be the course for you to level up your keyword research strategies and knowledge. I do not recommend this course for anyone over that level of understanding and knowledge of keyword research.
Keyword research know how aside, if you're determined to build sustainable traffic from Google over a period of time, have $350 you're not going to miss to expedite your knowledge, and learn well via videos go for it.
If you're trying to get traffic quick, Cooking with Keywords is not the course (or the industry) for you since what you build today likely won't see any returns for half a year.
What I learned and how I apply it
I stopped making recipes nobody asked for
I'm extremely proud of the first 4 recipes I've developed for this blog. These recipes include Cardamom Rose Toasted White Hot Chocolate, Cheesy, crispy feta potato rösti with caramelized onions (gluten-free, vegetarian), and Hōjicha crème brûlée. I exercised my creativity and imagination developing them, got better at photography with each one, AND they taste damn good.
The only problem is that they continue to get no traffic (until I update them using Aleka's recommendations and instructions I learned from Cooking with Keywords).
According to KeySearch, "rose white hot chocolate" and "feta potato rosti" have no monthly search volume to report and 40 people monthly search for "hojicha creme brulee".
These recipes took time and money to develop and while I had fun developing them, nobody is getting enjoyment from them.
Cooking with Keywords taught me that there's a balance between developing the kinds of recipes you want to develop, and developing the recipes that people are actually looking for via Google.
I changed my approach to keyword research
I do keyword research before developing anything! I let that lead me through my culinary adventures 80% of the time.
And the rest of the time I'm off reading books on making vinegar at home, having fermentation experiments, and trying to reproduce copy-cat one of my favorite cookies in NYC that just so happens to be vegan and SO delicious.
I also do a little competitor keyword research, which Aleka goes into and I thought was quite valuable.
I go through keyword research holistically
For now, until I level up my game and get a better technical grasp on everything.
What's missing: Limitations to consider
Content gaps and technical depth issues
I wish the service itself, Teachable, had closed captions.
Update frequency concerns
Aleka says in the intro to the course that she updated all of the course modules in 2023. I recently got an email (March 2025) that she added and updated a handful of modules mostly about generative AI and new features in KeySearch and Keywords Everywhere. I'm not sure if the course was updated between 2023 and 2025, but I'm going to reach out to ask and report back.
Areas where you might want to dive deeper
I wish it went more into keyword tracking, but I guess that's why Aleka was promoting her other course on keyword tracking. I wish it went more in depth into SEO and keyword strategies and got a little more technical
Committing without knowing
I wish there was some kind of teaser, or trial she'd do before you commit to a full $350. Aleka doesn't offer refunds since you get the whole course up front (so it makes sense!), but it really wasn't fun to just lay down the money without too much idea of what I was getting myself into.
Alternatives worth considering
If you don't want to dish $350 for Cooking with Keywords, here are a couple recommended free courses you could take instead if you're low on money, but still want to get some basic SEO know-how. They should give you a comprehensive and about equal amount of knowledge as what I learned in the Cooking with Keywords course, plus they're cost effective.
- KeySearch's Learn KeySearch tutorials
- Semrush Academy's Keyword Research Course with Greg Gifford
- Semrush Academy's Keyword Research with Semrush: A Step-by-Step Guide (This one's a little more Semrush specific so maybe remove it)
- KeySearch's KeySearch SEO Crash Course
Final verdict: Is it worth $350 for YOU?
For me, Reddit was right: I didn't learn anything in Cooking with Keywords that I couldn't have learned for free sifting through videos and articles online and reading through SEO and keyword research series.
But that's just it: it's nice to have info specifically for bloggers
Before buying Cooking with Keywords, in order to make sure you get the most out of the course, I suggest asking yourself these questions:
- What's my current understanding of SEO and keyword research?
- Do I have $350 to spare currently?
- Will a course specifically marketed towards food bloggers make me feel more knowledgeable about my choices as opposed to just taking a general perhaps free SEO and keyword research course?
- Do I vibe with the podcast episode on Food Blogger Pro that Aleka guest starred on and explained the basics of keyword research on?
5 key questions to ask yourself before buying
- Current SEO knowledge assessment
- Budget consideratioins
- Learning style compatibility
- Time availability
- Long term blogging goals
Takeaway
I did learn a lot, but not as much as I would have liked. HOWEVER, one thing you should know about me is I have a highly technical background stemming from a BA in Computer Science and several years in the industry at this point. I enjoy digging deep and this didn't quite scratch that itch as much as my technical heart would have liked.
If you're just starting out in your SEO journey, I've created this printable of basic SEO terms and this Quizlet deck of terms you should know.
If you're deciding to take this, Aleka did a podcast episode with Food Blogger Pro that gives you a basic overview of what her Cooking with Keywords course teaches, and also what kind of things you'll learn and whether or not you vibe with her style.
Also: Consider taking Cooking with Keywords because in this industry, you need to invest in yourself because a lot of us starting out have to wear many hats. It took awhile for me to learn that the single most important investment I could have made is quality photography (gear, editing software, courses to learn staging, food styling, composition, etc.). If you want to make blogging work you HAVE to invest in yourself when you have the money.
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