How to Start a Food Blog
I wanted to start a food blog to share my passion of cooking in the keto style and as a way to make some side income for my household. When I first started learning about how to start a food blog I made a few mistakes here and there. I hope that this post will help you learn how to start a food blog and avoid those mistakes I made back at the beginning.
Find your Niche
A Niche is a small segment of the internet that you want to focus your posts on. My Niche is Dairy Free Keto Recipes. Once you know broadly what you want to blog about try to narrow it down. I started out blogging about Keto and Paleo recipes but then I narrowed it down to Dairy Free Keto and Paleo. The next step was to narrow my niche down further to just Dairy Free Keto.
You got a great blog name?
I created the blog name Omg Keto Yum because of my Instagram handle. On Instagram I am OmgKetoBecky. I thought it was hilarious to name myself Omg Keto Becky because of my shrinking butt, and there is a rap song with my name in it and they talk about big butts.
Not everyone gets it so for this reason I changed the blog title to Omg Keto Yum. I figured people would like and get it: Omg I make yummy keto recipes, Omg Keto yum!
Try to think of something short and creative. Don’t name your blog something complicated or too long. Try to keep the spelling of the words in your blog title correct. When you refer people to your blog you want them to remember the title, not flounder with the spelling.
Lets Look at Hosting
You need two things when learning how to start a food blog, A Domain and a Hosting service. Think of it as a trailer park. The domain is your awesome double wide trailer and the hosting is the trailer park that you pay rent to keep your trailer there. You need both in order to run a smooth blog.
A blogger can purchase Domains and Hosting individually or together. Whatever floats your boat. I chose to purchase everything through one provider as well as my SSL certificate. I went through Name Cheap.
Name Cheap
I shopped around and finally decided to purchase my domain through NameCheap. They often run sales to get your domain for as little as .88 cents! This is a pretty stand up business and their customer support is amazing! I was so confused about everything, I was a total beginner and their set up was step by step and clear enough for me to figure out.
As a total beginner, I spent a lot of time with their customer service in a chat which is extremely helpful. I also chose to purchase my hosting through Name Cheap. Like I said, they’re pretty great, I can’t recommend them enough!
Blue Host
Another great Domain and Hosting service is Blue Host. This hosting comes highly recommended on almost every How to Start a Food Blog tutorial that I see. Definitely check them out and see if there are any current sales that you can jump on.
WP Engine
This is another highly recommended Domain and Hosting service that I almost used. They have a very user friendly interface and excellent customer service. WP Engine often runs sales and specials so keep a lookout for those. This one is for beginners because they will help you with everything and is an amazing resource for bloggers.
Install WordPress
Once you have decided on hosting and domains, follow the steps in the email that your hosting service provides you and install wordpress for free.
Images
Invest in a good camera. I currently shoot with a Rebel T-3i and a 50 mm lens in natural sunlight. Make sure that your images have the same title and alt attributes as the keyword and site title. This will help you rank higher in Google.
Use a Recipe Plug in to improve your SEO
WP-Ultimate Recipe Maker VS Tasty Recipes
This one is pretty great. You can input the information and edit the themes of your recipes in the free version. There is an upgraded version that I have been thinking of purchasing but I am currently on the fence in between WP-Recipe maker and Tasty Recipes.
Tasty Recipes is more expensive however it appears slicker on the blog than WP-Ultimate Recipe Maker. They have almost the same features and SEO upgrades. I will update later on which one I decide to purchase.
Important WordPress plugins:
Yoast
Download this one right away. Do what the plug in say’s. Check all the boxes to help learn what you need to do in order to start a food blog and get the noticed on search engines.
Google Analytics
Sign up for Google Analytics and track your blogs growth. This is vital and pretty soon you will be addicted to looking at your stats on your phone using their handy app.
Social Media
It is important to master SEO however in the meantime promote your blog on social media! Sign up for a Facebook page, Instagram account, Twitter and the big one here is you will need a Pinterest account.
Social Warfare
I use Social Warfare to advertise my social media accounts and promote sharing across platforms. Notice the cool buttons at the top of the post or stuck to the top of your mobile device? People click on the buttons and share your work all over social media. Pretty slick right?
Use Canva to create amazing Pinterest Pins to promote your hard work. Canva is super easy and free to use. It will elevate your work. Pinterest has millions of users everyday. Join the group boards that are specific to your niche and re-pin other peoples pins.
Tailwind
Tailwind is an auto posting service for Pinterest. I use it every month to post my recipe pins and I have increased my page views significantly since joining. Tailwind also has tribes. Tailwind Tribes is basically Pinterest group boards on steroids. Post your pins on tribes and maximize your reach!
Email List
Google and Social media might someday crash and burn and all that traffic you have been receiving will go away with it. One thing that will forever be yours is your email subscribers list. Email subscribers to increase your brand recognition. The more people see your emails the more they will remember you exist and check back for updates.
When I started my blog I had no idea how to start a food blog. I neglected my email list and did not start one until I was 6 months in! Don’t be me, learn how to start a food blog the right way and start your list now!
Mad Mimi
I currently use Mad Mimi to send out my emails. I also use Pop Maker to create a popup signup form when new users view my food blog.
Check out this slick email signup for I created using Canva and Mad Mimi.
How to make money with a food blog
The next step is how to make money with a food blog. There are many different way’s that you can make money right from the get go.
Affiliates:
Amazon Associates
When the reader clicks on your affiliate link they will be directed to the Amazon store page for the link. The reader’s account gets a 24 hour cookie and whatever they purchase through Amazon you will get a small percentage of as a bonus for directing them to look at this gorgeous Instant Pot or Wookie Coffee Cup.
I created this awesome slider, anything people click on will send them to my Amazon Affiliate link!
Ads
Google Ad-sense
Go sign up for Google Adsense right away! Google will put ads on your page no matter how small your blog is. Once the ads are up you can track your income using their webpage or an app on your phone. You need to earn at least $100.00 in order to cash out and this might take a while when you are starting up so get this in order and earn your first .7 cents! It will add up and the better you get at blogging, the more you will make.
When I first started food blogging I wrote my recipes right into the copy of my blog. This was a mistake. In order to get noticed on Google you need to have your page fit the criteria of google. In other words, you need a recipe plug in to help boost your SEO.
Wikipedia
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the online visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine‘s unpaid results—often referred to as “natural”, “organic“, or “earned” results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a website appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users; these visitors can then be converted into customers
There is a lot to creating a food blog and being successful. These are just a few tips and tricks to get you started. Good luck and goodnight!