So, you want to start a food blog?
Awesome! One of the things I love the most about food blogs is the individuality each blogger brings — no two sites are alike! While the artistic side is highly individual, there are some basics you’ll need to get started in the food blogging world. This page is designed to help give you the resources you need to know how to start a food blog — or any blog! All you really need are the first two: a hosted domain name, and a theme, and you’ll be ready to go!
The best investment you can make, if you’re serious about starting a food blog, is to sign up with Food Blogger Pro. They’ll teach you everything, from setting up a site, to photography, to social media, to giveaways, and everything else you could imagine. Even after having a food blog for a year, I learned SO much from Food Blogger Pro. The videos are perfect, and teach you everything you’ll ever need to know about how to successfully run a food blog.
If you’d rather figure it out on your own, the following is a list of resources and products you’ll likely need to get going!
Domain Name and Hosting
You’ll need to figure out what your name, and therefore your domain name will be. You’ll also need a place to host it! This is one of the most important things you’ll do in launching your blog: your host is like your backbone for the technical side. You can do free hosting through a variety of websites, but they’ll lengthen your URL with their own name (e.g. thekitchenpaper.com would become thekitchenpaper.wordpress.com). In the long run, it’s more professional to have a host where you can use your real domain name. I use BlueHost, and am really happy with them. They have great customer interaction, fabulous prices, extra features, and are just all around reliable. I highly recommend using them!
WordPress Themes
Using WordPress for your blog makes life SO easy. The hardest part is choosing a theme — but once you do, everything already works and looks perfect! It makes your job much easier. There are free and “pro” versions of themes: The advantage to paying for your theme is mostly in the customer support and ease of use. You’ll have access to the developers to help you fix, or change, anything you need to. Buying a theme also means you’ll likely find *exactly* what you want, and it will have many more features! My theme is from StudioPress, and I HIGHLY recommend them! Another great choice for themes is Nimbus Themes. They have a gorgeous food-blog specific theme! Check them out, too!
Monetizing
At some point, you might start considering monetizing your blog. Did you know you can actually make money from blogging? This topic goes VERY deep, but should you ever decide you want to monetize, learn how to do it smartly. This eBook will teach you everything you need to know, from ads to affiliate marketing to sponsored posts to creating your own product! Well worth the $15!
Pinterest is absolutely the best way to promote your food blog these days! I’ve written an entire eBook on how to maximize your use of Pinterest, which you can find here! Most of the important work is on your site, rather than actually on Pinterest, so I’ll walk you through what’s important aesthetically for your site, how to do the technical stuff, and help you make your pictures go viral!
Need more help? Feel free to get in touch — I’m happy to help you out! I do a bit of web design on the side, so if you need a site redesign, I’m open to talking about that in addition to general consulting.