Do you want to learn how to start a food blog and make money online? Personally, I consider myself a food enthusiast, someone who enjoys eating good food from all around the world.
I also enjoy reading cookbooks as a side hobby and thoroughly enjoy preparing food for my family.
I thought about starting a food blog, but I figured why not teach people how to make money blogging regardless of their niche?
In this article, you will learn how to start a food blog and how to eventually create a full-time income to replace your regular day job.
Once you become a popular food blogger, restaurants might even offer you free food just to promote their restaurant.
Talking about food makes me hungry, so let’s just get started before I decide to go eat instead of writing this article.
If you read this article and takes action, you should have enough knowledge and a solid foundation.
How To Start A Food Blog
Note: Please read the entire article including the bonus tips down below before getting started!
There are many people like myself who love to try different recipes and the internet is the perfect source. If you want to share your findings and knowledge with others, there are two options for you.
- You can hire a website designer to create your blog for you at a cost.
- Conversely, you can do it by yourself with my recommended platform (Wealthy Affiliate). It’s absolutely free to start with basic training to help people with zero knowledge when it comes to website design and coding.
I recommend doing it by yourself and here’s the reason why:
You give a poor man a fish and you feed him for a day. You teach him to fish and you give him an occupation that will feed him for a lifetime.
Basic Steps To Start Your Food Blog
Before you can start blogging, you will need to have a blog. My blog is powered by WordPress, one of the most well-known platforms on the market.
WordPress is absolutely free, but you do need to pay for website hosting services.
Step #1. Sign up for Wealthy Affiliate and Build Your Website
Wealthy Affiliate offers three levels of membership. One is absolutely free with limited access, but you still get to create up to two websites (subdomain) and it includes website hosting.
The other is a premium membership ($49.00/month) which gives you full access to the platform with my favorite, Jaaxy Keyword Research Tool.
The last and final membership level was recently introduced, known as the premium plus for $99.00/month.
Your first month as a premium member will only cost you $19.00 as an introductory rate.
If you like to learn more about the difference between the membership levels, please check out my full Wealthy Affiliate Review.
Step #2. Purchase and Register Your Own Domain (Optional, but Recommended)
First, let me explain what a subdomain and a regular domain is:
- A subdomain is a subdivision of a regular domain. For example, https://money.smartaffiliatehub.com would be a subdomain. It ranks independently and is treated as a separate website. (You can’t register for Google AdSense with a subdomain and you don’t actually own a subdomain)
- A regular domain is a property that you own for as long as you pay for it annually. For example, https://smartaffiliatehub.com/ is a regular domain.
The free membership on Wealthy Affiliate doesn’t allow you to purchase and register your own domain, so you can skip this step and build your website first.
You can always transfer your website to your own domain at a later date (when you decide to upgrade to their premium membership).
If you are serious about making money online with your food blog, you can register for the premium membership ($49.00/month).
The domain names will vary in prices ranging from $13.00-$16.00 per year.
Some website hosting services will provide you with a free domain with a marked-up hosting cost.
After your first year, your renewal fee will increase dramatically.— The reason why I recommend Wealthy Affiliate is because their pricing will not increase on you!
Step #3. Install Plugins (Optional, but Recommended)
WordPress gives you access to many plugins to optimize your website. However, you don’t get to download anything unless you have the business plan which costs $25.00/month.
The same applies to Wealthy Affiliate, but let’s say you want to stick with the free membership for now. Your websites will come with pre-loaded plugins such as:
- All-In-One SEO: It features XML Sitemaps to direct search engine robots to crawl your website for faster indexing. SEO Meta Title, Tags, and Descriptions are done for you. This is a must-have tool for all bloggers.
- EWWW Image Optimizer: Reduce file sizes for images to decrease loading time for your website.
You won’t be able to install more unless you sign up for the premium membership ($49.00/month).
*Note: There are food plugins available such as WP Ultimate Recipe
Step #4. Start Blogging
By now, you should have your food blog set up, so you can start blogging.
However, starting is good, but you will need to keep going if you hope to one day earn a full-time income. That’s why I’m going to throw in some additional tips to help you out.
Bonus Tips To Running A Successful Food Blog
Tip #1. Choose What Type Of Food You’re Most Interested In (Your Niche)
Open notepad and brainstorm by writing a few ideas that relate to food and choose which one you’re most interested in.
Here are some examples: Organic, Low Carb, Low Calories For Weight Loss, etc.
Tip #2. Choose A Blog Name Based On Your Niche
Your blog’s name is your brand and also the very first impression for your readers. You want a name that is relevant to your niche.
For example, if I choose to write about Organic food recipes. I would try to purchase a domain name like this: https://EatHealthyEatOrganic.com
Also, make sure it’s a name that is easy to remember. You don’t want to include numbers and dash lines if you don’t have to!
Most people judge a website by its name similar to how most people judge a book by its cover.
Tip #3. Purchase Your Own Domain Name As Well As Website Hosting Service
If you are a premium member of Wealthy Affiliate, you don’t have to worry about website hosting services, but you should still purchase your own domain name.
It’s okay to have a subdomain name, but it doesn’t look very professional. That’s why big companies like Apple use their own domain name. Let’s compare! Which one looks more credible to you?
https://apple.com or https://apple.siterubix.com
*You also have full control over your domain name because you own it. A sub domain name can be deleted at any time without warning.
Tip #4. Add Food Recipes
A food blog means nothing if you don’t have recipes to share. My recommendation is to include photos for every step as well as easy to understand instructions.
If I were to start a food blog, I would document and take photos of food that I cook and share it with my readers.— You should add videos as well!
Tip #5. Create An Email List
The money is on the list and I recommend starting this immediately after launching your blog.
Learn how to build an email list by clicking here. The purpose of an email list is to be able to contact your readers and remind them that you have a new recipe published.
Apart from reminding your readers of your latest food recipe, you can also recommend products such as kitchenware and if they buy it, you earn a commission.
Tip #6. Promote Your Blog
As a new blogger, you’re not going to get a lot of traffic coming from the search engines, so you should due diligence by promoting your blog on your own.
You should create Social Media Accounts for your food blog such as Facebook, Pinterest, Google Plus, Twitter, etc.
Besides sharing your articles on Social Media, you can also network with people who are interested in your food recipe(s).
This will help you develop a readership that is more than happy to share your articles with their friends.
If their friends enjoy it, they might share it with their friends as well. Do you see where this is leading? Endless traffic!
Are You Ready To Start Your Food Blog?
Learn the business model that has helped me earn money online. Enjoy the freedom of doing what you like while earning money from home.
Wealthy Affiliate is not only a web hosting provider. They are my source of information, a place where I learned how to make money online through blogging and affiliate marketing.
This is not a get-rich-quick scheme, it doesn’t exist. You will eventually make money if you are willing to sacrifice a few hours out of the week from watching television to create a successful online business.
Do you still read books to find food recipes? If you do, please share which one you read!
Hopefully, this article was helpful to you. If you find it helpful, please do me a favor and share it with your peers via Social Media. I welcome all feedback!
If you have something to add to this article or if you have questions, comments, or concerns. Please don’t hesitate to leave a comment in the comment section below. Cheers!
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