Learn how to start a food blog and start making money from your food blog! This guide will walk you through step-by-step.
This post may contain affiliate links.Please read mydisclosurefor more info.
Start A Food Blog
Do you love to cook and love to read food blogs?
Have you ever daydreamed about sharing your recipes online?
If you have, today is your day to start a food blog.
There are people out there who would love your recipes. It will be so satisfying the first time someone writes to you saying they tried your lemon blueberry muffins recipe and LOVED IT!
Let’s jump in and talk about how to start a food blog, so we can make this happen for you:
What Should I Name My Food Blog?
A very fun step is coming up with your food blog name!
You might have an idea already in mind or you might be wondering what should I name my food blog?
Let’s look at some food blog names for ideas:
How to Start a Food Blog: Choose a Food Blog Name
There are a few ways you could go with food blog names.
Some food bloggers use their own name in their blog name.
When I was brainstorming names for my local catering business, nothing really stuck. A friend suggested I use my own name. To be honest I felt kind of shy about using my own name but after trying out other business names and not liking them, I decided to go with Suchot’s Kitchen.
So using your own name for your food blog might be for you or might not.
Other food blog names give you an idea of the kind of food you can expect from the blog. Paleo Running Momma is an example of this type of food blog name.
Another type of food blog name is to use something cute and enticing. Oh She Glows is one such name. It doesn’t necessarily tell you it’s a food blog, but it does hint at health, which is the style of cooking she creates. The Pioneer Woman and Fit Men Cook are other examples.
After brainstorming some ideas, you can check if the food blog names you like are available:
Start a Food Blog: Food Blogging Tips
1. Get a Web Host and Domain Name
You will need to choose a web host for your food blog.
I use Bluehost as my web hosting platform and I love it!
It’s reliable and secure and they are #1 for hosting blogs and websites. Bluehost is also great if you are new to blogging because they have super easy one-click automatic WordPress installation.
They also give you a free domain name when you sign up.
2.Choose a Theme for Your Food Blog
There are many beautiful themes that you can customize so you can make your food blog unique and stand out.
There are so many to choose from but there are two that stand out as great choices for food blogs.
Foodie Pro Theme
Foodie Pro is a gorgeous theme and a favorite of many top food bloggers.
It is a super flexible theme with a minimalist style, clean design, and lots of color and font options.
It is packed with features and will help make your food blog beautiful.
Brunch Pro Theme
Brunch Pro is another great option for food bloggers. It is the little sister of Foodie Pro. Its features include font and color options in the Customizer, a minimalist style, and an improved recipe index.
Both themes are fully mobile responsive – a must these days if you want Google to like your blog!
3. How to Take Gorgeous Food Photos for Your Food Blog
Lindsay from Pinch of Yum is a very successful food blogger.
She started out as an amateur cook and photographer and was excited when she got 50 page views a day.
As she worked on her photography over time her blog grew to over 70,000 page views a day (a day, folks!!)
She wrote an ebook called Tasty Food Photography to teach you everything she learned. She’s so confident you will find so much value in the book that there is even a 30 day money back guarantee.
Lindsay’s book will cover all you need to know about taking (and editing) gorgeous food photos. She covers these topics:
- Technical tips
- Lighting tips
- Composition tips
- Props and set up tips
- Editing tips
- General workflow
Photography in food blogs is so important and I would highly recommend her book! You can grab it HERE.
4. Make Your Food Blog Professional
In my opinion, anybody who writes anything needs Grammarly, and that includes food bloggers!
Grammar matters in resumes and essays, but also in social media and on your blog.
Grammarly is the world’s leading checker of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and plagiarism.
Good writing makes you feel more credible to your readers so it’s pretty darn important. Also, there is a free version! You can get the free version of Grammarly HERE.
5. Get Your Food Blog Noticed and Grow Your Food Blog
Once you have your blog and domain name, I strongly recommend you get Carly Campbell’s Pinteresting Strategies course.
Carly is basically a Pinterest genius.
For those of you who are Pinterest newbs (I was before starting my blog!) it is like an online bulletin board where you save and share posts you like/want to come back to.
But the main thing that bloggers use Pinterest for is to get eyes on your blog posts. Pinterest is a visual search engine, just like Google is the main text search engine.
Pinteresting Strategies is super affordable (so many blogging courses are $300-900+ and this is nowhere near that!) and she shows the exact Pinterest strategy she uses to get over 300,000 pageviews a month. Yup you read that correctly!
She has offered readers of The Curious Frugal $5 off her course, yay! Just enter the code PINNING5 when you are prompted for a coupon here.
6. Recommended Plugins for Food Blogs
A Recipe Plugin
A recipe plugin is essential for your food blog.
It will help display your recipes nicely, allow you to add keywords, cuisine type, and will make your recipe layout look good when your readers print out your recipes.
There are free and paid recipe plugins. I use the free version of WP Recipe Maker and I love it. There is a pro version which has extra features, but I’m happy with the basic version.
I’m a frugal living mom blogger and I share recipes, but I’m not a food blogger so I’m good with free – ha!
A Pinterest Plugin
Once you have started your food blog, Pinterest will help you get more readers.
You want a plugin that will make it easy for readers to share your beautiful food photos.
Two good options are jQuery Pin It Button for Images and Pinterest Pin It Button. I use jQuery Pin It Button on my images so you can check that out if you want to see how it looks on a blog.
These plugins both allow your readers to share images on Pinterest simply by clicking on them.
Make Money With Your Food Blog
Once you have started your food blog, there are two main ways that beginners can make money with a food blog. One is having ads on your site and the other is promoting products that you use/love in your posts.
Make Money With Ads on Your Food Blog
If you’re just starting out, Google Adsense is the way to go for ads because they don’t require any minimum number of pageviews. You won’t make tons of money with Google Adsense but it’s a good place to start.
Once you’re over a certain number of pageviews a month you can apply to other ad networks and they will make you more money – hooray!
One of the top ad networks is Monumetric.
I was excited when I was able to apply to them – and be accepted. You need to have 10,000 pageviews/month before you can apply to Monumetric.
Once you get to that number of pageviews with your blog, I would suggest applying to them right away! The amount you make with be MUCH more than with Adsense! You can apply here.
How to Make Money With Affiliate Products on Your Food Blog
A food blogger tip if you want to make money with affiliate products (spoiler: you do) is to sign up to become an Amazon Affiliate.
We all know how many products there are on Amazon (like, a lot a lot).
In a recipe post it is easy to link to products that relate to your recipe. For example, link to the muffin tins you love to use or the ingredients in your recipe.
To see an example of where I use affiliate links in one of my recipe posts, check out this recipe for healthy single serving banana bread.
Another great affiliate network you can join is ShareASale. They have so many different brands and you could search for kitchenware products to link to once you’re accepted.
Related reading: How to make money with a website without selling anything
Posts That Will Help Grow Your Food Blog:
- SEO help for beginner bloggers (includes a free checklist!)
- Blogging tips for beginners – Don’t make these blogger mistakes
- How to back up your WordPress site without plugins
- Make your website more secure for free
I hope you find these food blogger tips helpful! It really is easy to start a food blog and having a blog has been so rewarding to me.
In just a few simple steps you can start a food blog and share your double chocolate crinkle top cookies with the world!
And send me some of those cookies when you do…lol Or you could tell me about your new food blog when you’ve set it up. I would love to check it out!
Ready to EXPLODE your blog traffic? How to Increase Blog Traffic Fast – 3 Proven Ways (I increased my traffic 300% in 1 month!)
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