Adding off topic content to blog

[tomhumf]

I make handmade pottery and write a blog on the subject using WordPress on my own domain. I sell my work through Etsy and direct sales traffic there.

My question is, I'm also a chef so thought i might add a section of recipes. The food would be displayed on my tableware so would kind of be relevant. I realise people looking for recipes probably aren't interested in buying pottery, but would good content even if mostly unrelated help me?

I would only add maybe 10% of the content as recipes, but wonder if even this much would kind of dilute the theme of my blog and affect rankings for more relevant terms?

[lucy24]

people looking for recipes probably aren't interested in buying pottery

Maybe not, but people who buy pottery also eat--and they've already evinced an interest in food presentation, or they wouldn't be buying your pretty dishes. Think about your existing audience first.

[tangor]

Matching a food to a dish isn't that far fetched. As for diluting ... you more likely to get two different kinds of traffic and can only hope there is cross interest for the visitor when they hit the page.

Bear in mind there are a zillion recipe sites and that kind of content can't be copyrighted, thus has little "value" as far as most search engines are concerned.