How to create a food blog in 7 steps

Starting a food blog makes sense.  Everyone has to eat, right?  Plus you are making food every day so all you need to do is write about it, take a few photos and you have an instant way to make money.  Right?

Well, truth is, it isn’t that simple.  It doesn’t have to super complicated but there’s a bit of preparation and planning involved when you want to start a food blog.  As a digital marketing blogger who also has her own food blog, I thought I’d walk you through that process of how to create a food blog.

Let’s start with ‘why’

I can hear the ‘glass half full’ people right now – why bother starting a food blog when there’s so many already out there?  And you can definitely use that argument to convince yourself against starting your own.

But let’s think of it another way.  There are thousands of food blogs and some of them make very good money at it. A lot more make some money, even enough to be a successful side hustle. So it remains a very viable business idea among the many options now available.

Not only that but if you have a passion for food, there’s no reason not to share it with the world. You have your own unique voice, experience and tastes and you can fill a niche with yourself that could be just what someone needs.

But how do you decide on what food blog to start?

Step 1 – Choose your niche

You can call it a niche (and say that however you like) or you can call it a type of food blog.  But the concept is the same – every successful food blog has some kind of angle, theme or slant to what they do.

There are five general types of food blogs:

• Recipe blogs – focus mostly on recipes and often on specific types such as vegan or Mexican inspired dishes
• Cooking blogs – a bit more general that include recipes, tips, equipment reviews and more
• Food tasting blogs – a bit like the old food critic, people go out and try dishes then write reviews
• Food review blog – this is more focused on reviewing things from equipment to subscription boxes to the latest ingredients
• Healthy eating blogs – these focus on all things about a particular healthy eating niche such as gluten-free or keto.  Could also work for cuisine blogs such as Italian or Chinese

A niche could take this one step further.  So you could decide to have a vegan cooking blog that includes reviews of the latest gadgets to help prepare vegan food as well as recipes and tips on eating vegan.  

Step 2 – Decide on what types of posts you’ll create

The next step is to get some ideas about the types of post you’ll create.  Now, this doesn’t have to be exhaustive and can change over time.  But you’ll want to get 2-3 types of content that you focus on the most so you aren’t trying to master all kinds of things.  Examples of some of the types of blog posts can include:

• Recipes posts – just the recipe, usually with some additional information, sometimes a little background on the recipe.  Tend to be shorter posts but very shareable and can be used in…
• Roundup posts – a collection of information on a theme, such as cocktail recipes featuring cucumber or different things to do with pumpkin.  These can also be non-recipe roundups such as the best vegan cookbooks
• Informative or info posts – these are more of a teaching style that looks at a particular topic but doesn’t always include actual recipes.  It could be something like how to cook sous vide, how to make freezer smoothie packs or how to use sage in different ways
• Product reviews – these can be a review of a single product or a series of similar products to help people make informed decisions about something they might want for the kitchen

Step 3 – Decide how you’ll make money

There’s nothing wrong with blogging as a hobby but for most of us, we want to make some money from it, even if it is just to cover the costs of running a blog.

So in the early stages of planning, it is worth understanding the different routes to making money and which ones you can focus on to start with. You may want to do a few things but always keep an eye on how much time you have.

• Affiliate marketing – those product reviews can include affiliate links that mean if someone buys the product, you make a commission payment. This is a popular route for food bloggers and there are lots of programs to join including Amazon
• Sponsored post – this is where you partner with a brand to promote their product or service and receive payment for it. You’ll need a bit of audience to make these worthwhile at first in most cases
• Digital products – creating your own cookbook or other digital products like eBooks, meal planners or shopping printables is something you can definitely start doing from the beginning
• Recipe creation services – if you love making recipes and have a good handle on your food photography skills, you can use this as a paid service, either directly with clients or as packs you sell under different licenses such as PLR or semi-exclusive content

Step 4 – Decide on your platform

Once you know what kind of content, for what audience and what type of posts you’ll be making, you can start creating content.

Of course, you need a website first!

This means choosing a content management system, the biggest of which is WordPress. That’s my favourite and the blog you are viewing right now is also running on it. In fact, over one-third of the world’s websites use WordPress.

You do need a domain and hosting for it. My favourite is Lyrical Host as they have various plans, monthly payment options and are amazingly helpful.

You can also use other platforms such as Squarespace, Wiz, Weebly and more. I don’t have much experience with them so I can’t comment.

Step 5 – Creating the basics of your website

Now there’s plenty of information out there on how to start a blog so I won’t go into all the details. But there are a couple of things you need that are specific to a food blog and you’ll want to decide on these before you start.

Top of the list is a recipe plugin. There are three main ones – Tasty Recipes, WP Recipe Maker and Create from Mediavine as well as others I don’t know. Any of these three will do a great job. On my food blog, Pesto & Margaritas, I’m moving from Tasty Recipes to Create. Nothing wrong with the first but I use the Create cards for other things and it works out better to have everything on the same system.

You’ll also want a system to get nutrition information if you plan to make recipe posts. Again, Create does this automatically and so does WPRM but Tasty Links requires a separate plugin called Nutrifox to do this.

Step 6 – Choose your promotion platforms

Creating content is one thing but in the early days, no one will know unless you tell them. That means promotion and that starts with Pinterest.

Pinterest is a visual search engine and food is a huge niche on it. People go there every day to get recipes and food ideas so you need to promote your content there. You can check out my beginner’s guide to what Pinterest is and why you need it here.

Other social media platforms include a Facebook Page, a Facebook Group, Instagram and Twitter. LinkedIn isn’t much for food unless you are promoting recipe creation services. Plus there are other platforms such as TikTok if you plan to get into video creation.

Speaking of video creation, if you do take your photography to the next level, you’ll probably want to start a YouTube channel for your blog too.

Step 7 – Start creating your content!

Now you have the planning in place, you are ready to start creating your first blog post! Publish your posts as soon as they are ready, don’t wait until you have 5 or 10 posts. Start with the promotion routes you’ve chosen and get into good routines with your content planning, creation and promotion.

Building your business

There are other areas you’ll want to learn such as search engine optimization and email marketing, where you build an email list by providing a freebie in return for an email address.  But get these foundational steps in place and you’ll have a great start.  Plus there is lots of ways to get help with these from Yoast SEO, the plugin that helps with SEO through to the best email marketing software.

Then in no time, you’ll have a food blog with great content and a steady plan. After that, the sky’s the limit!

Angela

Angela is a blogger, content writer and Pinterest manager who chats about digital marketing topics over at Skylark Virtual Services. She also has her own food blog, Pesto & Margaritas.