How to Start a Food Blog: A Step-By-Step Guide
As someone who is passionate about food and cooking, you may have considered starting a food blog. After all, creating a blog is a great way to express your creativity and share your ideas with the rest of the world. Fortunately, it’s easier than you may think. And with the right tools and strategy, you can make your dream a reality.
In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to start a food blog, from choosing the right name to monetizing your website.
How to start a food blog
01. Pick a name
Now that you’ve officially decided to start a food blog, you’ll need to decide what to name it. While this may seem simple, your blog name is also going to define your brand and distinguish your website from others, so you’ll want to choose wisely. Therefore, be sure to select a name that describes the core of what your blog is all about.
Don’t expect to narrow down your choice right away. To start, come up with a list of blog name ideas and select your winner from there. You can start this process by thinking about the types of content you plan to post. Are you going to post recipes? If so, what kind? Or do you want to publish content about healthy, plant-based living and restaurant recommendations? Be sure to define your direction and your blog niche before settling on a name.
Consider various word combinations that describe the content you plan to post. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box and incorporate puns or even slang that might be fitting. If you’re feeling stuck, you can even try a blog name generator to get the ball rolling.
02. Choose a platform
The next step in starting a blog is to choose your blogging platform and a reliable web host. The good news is you don’t have to be a technology wiz to do so. With many professional features at your disposal, getting started can often be just a matter of identifying the right online blogging tools.
When making your decision, take into consideration certain factors, such as uptime, bandwidth and customer support. Wix offers free web hosting that is both secure and reliable, plus it’s automatically set up once you’ve published your Wix website. In addition, you can buy a domain and create a blog all in one place to bring your site to life. It’s an incredibly simple and efficient way to get your food blog up and running.
03. Design your website
The design of your food blog needs to match your needs and brand. You can either choose from ready-made blog templates, or create your own design from scratch. Let every element of your blog work to enhance your unique brand identity using a defined visual language. Take advantage of different fonts and website color schemes to set the right tone and message.
If you’re looking for design inspiration, take a look at these blog examples to figure out which visuals are best suited to your brand. A healthy foods blog, for instance, might be better represented by leafy illustrations and neutral colors over the neon bright hues more commonly seen in processed food ads. Alternatively, a blog about retro desserts could be nicely paired with a vintage website font. You’ll also want to grab your readers’ attention with mouth watering images. After all, appetite is palpable through the lens.
Another crucial step is creating your own logo. Your logo should positively represent your brand, making it instantly recognizable. Make sure to feature it on your blog as well as across other branding assets, such as your social media channels or your site’s favicon.
Lastly, don’t forget to make your site mobile-friendly. With so many internet users turning to their mobile phones, this has become an essential step of starting a blog. Consider how your website images and text will appear on a smaller screen and how the blog’s navigation experience will accommodate people on-the-go. The transition may sound complicated at first, but all Wix sites are automatically converted into a fully optimized mobile site, making the process incredibly simple.
04. Create amazing content
The heart and soul of a blog is its content. One of the most important things to remember when writing a blog post is to make the content personal and relatable. People turn to blogs to learn new information and to see the world through another lens. If you are posting a new recipe, share with your readers how and why you created this particular recipe. Was it inspired by a specific person or event? Tell a story describing your experience.
At the core of creating amazing content, you’ll also want to consider these other important points:
Develop a content strategy. Determine your core objectives - from driving more traffic to monetizing your blog. In addition, identify who your target market is and what interests them most. Once you establish these two points, you'll be much better equipped to produce articles and recipes that meet your audience's needs.
Make an editorial calendar. An editorial calendar is a very handy management tool for scheduling your blog posts and tracking and measuring progress, especially if you have different authors or contributors involved.
Write original and engaging content. Enhance your blog posts with catchy blog titles, as well as a captivating introduction to hook readers’ attention followed by body text where you’ll showcase the bulk of your knowledge.
Add high quality images. Pictures and videos are one of the most important facets of a food blog and make a greater impact on your readers’ overall engagement. It’s worthwhile to invest some time learning the basics of food photography to maximize the quality and impact of your images. After all, people eat with their eyes first, so the more enticing your pictures, the more successful your blog will be.
05. Optimize for SEO
If you want to drive traffic to your food blog, you’ll need to start thinking about how to make it easy to find on search engines like Google. SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of optimizing websites to help boost their rankings in search results.
To start, you’ll want to do a bit of keyword research with a reliable SEO tool, like Ahrefs or Semrush. Keywords are ideas, topics or phrases that people search for on Google. Try to think of what potential readers might search for when looking for a food blog like yours or a specific recipe on your site. It could be anything from “homemade sourdough bread” to “best restaurant reviews in Chicago,” depending on your content.
Then, you can insert these terms naturally into your writing, especially into headers and subheaders, which is helpful for optimizing your website. You can even try a free tool like Wix SEO, which will create a customized SEO plan for you.
Other SEO blog tips and strategies that can improve your site’s organic performance include:
Writing SEO-friendly alt text for images
Optimizing the metadata with relevant keywords and the correct format, including page title, description and URL
Implementing internal and external linking strategies. This includes linking internally from one article to another and including external links to prominent websites in your niche.
Getting backlinks to your website. This refers to when other websites link to yours. If you are just starting out, try partnering with other bloggers or foodies and asking them to link to your site to build your credibility. As your blog continues to grow, this will happen more naturally.
06. Spread the word
As a blogger, one of your goals is to increase your readership and exposure. Once you’ve established the right direction, you’ll want to get inspiration from others in your field to elevate your own brand. Take some time to research your competitors and browse their social media channels. Pay attention to detail, and learn what they're doing or not doing enough of in order to improve your own blog strategy.
Additionally, there are a few several low-cost and effective ways of promoting your blog. These include:
Social media: With over 3.8 billion social media users around the world, maintaining your presence on various platforms is key to expanding your reach and obtaining readers. Post on social media to announce new blog posts, launch promotional campaigns, and offer a sneak peek into behind-the-scenes activities.
Email newsletters: Email marketing is an effective method for reaching your target market and improving overall reader engagement. Use a weekly newsletter to stay in touch with your audience and keep them up-to-date with relevant happenings. In order to get subscribers, promote your email newsletter using strong CTAs in strategic areas of your blog or social media posts.
Networking: Collaborating with other experts in your field is a great way to position yourself as an authority and expand your reach. One of the most common forms of collaboration is guest posting. This involves writing a post on another person's blog, or vice versa. To build connections with these bloggers, share their posts on social media, leave meaningful comments on their sites, and reach out to them directly.
07. Monetize your blog
There are several ways to monetize your blog and make money doing what you love. Here are some of the most popular strategies:
Affiliate marketing: If you’ve got a substantial following, then you might want to look into affiliate marketing. This consists of a partnership between you and another business in which you agree to recommend their products or services in exchange for a commission. When your readers click on the affiliate link to buy, you’ll earn a percentage of the sale. Amazon Associates, ShareASale and the Wix Affiliate Program are just a few options out there. You can also reach out to brands you love, such as your favorite cookware company, to see if they're interested in a collaboration.
Display ads: One of the easiest ways to make money blogging is to display advertisements on your site. You’ll need to connect your site to an ads platform, such as Google AdSense. This will tailor ads so they’re relevant to your niche.
Start an online store: Consider selling recipes, e-books or branded merchandise on your blog by opening an online store. Write that cookbook you’ve been longing to publish and sell it to your readers to turn your blog into a business of its own. Just be sure to include recipes that aren’t found on your blog so that it has true value.
Sell online courses: Further monetize your expertise by creating and selling an online course. This will not only complement your blog and delight your fans, but it will also reaffirm your authority in your field.
By Talia Cohen
Small Business Expert and Marketing Blogger
By Cecilia Lazzaro Blasbalg
Wix Blog Writer
This article was originally published in Wix Blog.
