Want to start a food blog without all the guesswork and the confusing steps?
You sure came to the right place!
Have you ever found yourself fantasizing about owning a food blog, and cook, and have fun and make crazy money at the same time?
And then turning it into a full-fledged business?
Sounds too good to be YOUR reality?
Not anymore! Today you will know the exact steps to start your food blog confusion free!
You also might have questions like, “I am NOT a good writer, what do I do?” or “I am not that good of a cook but would still like to start this blog, any suggestions?
The truth is –
Some people are great at writing stuff and others are really good cooks, but you DON’T need to be either to have a successful food blog.
Period!
Just remember,
The only thing that is necessary is a genuine passion in your hobby that will keep you cooking and sharing your experiences with your readers.
So as long as you have that, you’re golden!
Regarding the Growth and Income of your food blog…
Owning a food blog has its own perks, one of it is being the ability to expand your reach more quickly compared to any other niche.
The reason?
The Mighty Pinterest!
Pinterest is a Popular social media which is more of a visual search engine rather than any typical social media.
Pinterest is not focussed on keeping people on their site (or app) for more time, its goal is to provide people the ideas and inspirations they seek on the platform,
In short, it’ll help you get sh*t done!
This is the major reason why a lot of home businesses, shops, blogs, etc rely on Pinterest. Moreover, Pinterest has more than 265 Million monthly active users (at the time of writing) and over 70% of that user base is female!
Which is awesome because having a mostly female audience lets you grow exponentially in niches like DIY, fashion, food, and recipes.
As you can see from the above statistics almost half (43%) of the Pinterest audience is inclined over the “Food and drinks” topic. And 43% of 265 Million is 114 Million.
Which is still a massive number.
This is a major reason why food blogs get the majority of its traffic and income from Pinterest.
And if you’re planning to include your original videos (Which is not at all mandatory for you to make), you can gain more traffic from YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
As I mentioned in one of my last posts, “How to start a YouTube channel successfully“, how video content has more engagement is Facebook and Instagram.
So if you’re going to make videos too, then don’t forget to post it on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram too.
Now let us discuss the money and income part…Fun!
Believe me when I say that food blogs get a ton of traffic from Pinterest, sometimes almost a million a month. Which is more than enough to make a full-time income through just display ads.
Good ad networks like Mediavine have the best RPM (rate per thousand views) with as much as $20 to $30 per thousand page views.
The RPM goes up to $55 during the peak (holiday) seasons.
But Mediavine requires at least 25k sessions for the last 30 days to apply.
So if you’re getting 100,000 page views per month with an RPM of $18, you’ll be making $1800 just through ads.
Moreover, there are a few more ways to monetize your blog. Affiliate marketing and sponsored post are one of them
- I make 60%-80% of my blog income from affiliate marketing with some affiliates paying as much as $250 per sale.
- Michelle from MakingSenseOfCents.com charges over $5000 per sponsored blog post.
Combining all your income sources from our blog, you could be making $5k to $10k or more every month from your blog.
Note: These income figures are not always easy to come by. Like any other business, blogging requires takes significant time and effort to make such income from it passively.
How to PROPERLY start your Food blog
To start your food blog journey the right way, you have to get a self-hosted website in WordPress. There are a lot of WordPress alternatives like Blogger, Squarespace, and Wix that you do not want. They are not that reliable as WordPress.
WordPress is the largest blogging platform on this planet with over 30% of the internet is made up of WordPress.
So to start blogging in the most reliable and safe platform (WordPress y’ all) you have to follow the given steps below-
step #1: Come up with a Dope Blog Name
Choosing a proper blog name is kinda crucial because it’ll stick around as long as your blog exists. So before anything else go grab a pen and paper and get to brainstorming.
A few good ways to get a perfect blog name-
- If you want to name the blog after your name, then go ahead, name it after your name (Example: Julieadams.com)
- Another good strategy to name your blog is using phrases and similar words that sounds good together. For example: ThePennyHoarder, PinchOfYum, EntrepreneurOnFire, GuacTalk, etc.
Have something great in mind? Check below if that domain is available or not-
Step #2: Register for your domain & Buy hosting
If the blog name you chose is available, then claim it with Bluehost before anyone else gets a hold of it.
Although WordPress.org is free, you will need to host your files on a server.If you’re interested in making money from your blog and turning your blog into a thriving business, then paying for a good hosting is a MUST.
Reasons Why You Should Use Bluehost.
- Its’ #1 recommendedweb hosting company by WordPress.org.
- You get aFREE domain namewhen you buy a plan.
- It’s thebest affordable hostingfor total beginners if you are just starting out and have limited resources and experience to invest in anything.
You just need to click onGet Started Nowto chose your plan
Don’t dread in the name of buying something to make some money, it’s just a small investment towards something great.
Step #3: Install WordPress
This might be the easiest step as it takes just one click to complete this step.
Step #4: Get a Good looking theme
Getting a good-looking theme is important especially if you’re in the food niche. One of the main reasons people might remember your blog after visiting once is the quality of content, appearance, and aesthetics of your website.
Having a professional and good-looking theme sends a powerful message to your audience!. So having a good looking theme which is easy to customize is kind of a must.
But, Which is the perfect theme for you?
I always Recommend Studiopress and Divi theme as they are best in their market. I use the premium Studiopress theme, but boy oh boy, Studiopress is damn hard to customize, unlike Divi.
Divi is THE best option for newbie bloggers as they are constantly editing the blog appearance, trying to figure out what is best. Which is possible with Divi’s visual builder option.
Try Divi for free, take a test drive!
Step #5: Get, Set, Launch!
That’s it!
Note: If you want a much detailed guide about starting a blog, then click this link about starting a blog with more elaborate explanations.
Useful tools to grow your Food blog:
Shutterstock: Shutterstock is where you can get premium images for your blog and blog graphics. Shutterstock has a wide range of selections to choose from and millions of photos added every day. But it is not free though. ?
Canva: Canva is my #1 recommended tool for creating blog graphics. And since Pinterest is a visual search engine, creating good quality graphics is essential for the promotion of your food blog.
P.S: It is free to use?
Grammarly: I legit use Grammarly for writing anything. Whether it is a blog or an email or any Facebook post, Grammarly takes care of any grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in real-time, sparing me a lot of embarrassments.
This tool is free to use too.
Social warfare: Social Warfare is a social share plugin. This plugin is the reason why I get a fraction of my blog traffic from Facebook despite not having a significant Facebook presence.
This plugin places a social share button for all major social media platforms (given below) so that your readers can share them if they like which in turn increases your blog traffic even more.
The buttons float within your blog post which provides a more convenient way to share your post. The preview has given below–
This is literally a free traffic strategy without any extra effort, utilize it as much as you can.
What you need to do now…
Starting a blog may sound like a huge business responsibility that might go wrong any moment, right?
No, not really!
You might not have any experience in the blogging area whatsoever, but its learning curve is not that hard once you get the hang of it.
All you have to do is be consistent and relevant and you’ll be eons away from flopping. So just start your blog without thinking about what-ifs and get to work.
