How To Start A Food Blog And Make Money Online?

Do you want to dive into the world of food blogging, launch your food-themed blog, and monetize it to passive income? Starting a blog requires some initial work and effort before you start making some income off of it. Though it takes effort, the steps to create and launch and your own food blog are reasonably easy. Even if you are not a technically inclined person, it will not take much to set the whole thing up. 

Let us take you through the steps on how you can create, run, and monetize your food blog. There are some simple steps that you can action and implement, which help you in being effective and creative. 

1. Choose the niche you are targeting.
2. Purchase a domain and reliable hosting and use WordPress platform.
3. Explore the use of plugins for your website.
4. Use a more visual approach to your blog for the food you post.
5. Take advantage of the rich snippet functionality.
6. Increase and manage your outreach through social media.
7. Find ways to make money through the launched blog.

We have seen a rough overview of what is to be done. Now let us dive a little deeper and study it in detail. 

Step 1 – Choose The Niche You Are Targeting In Food

Food blogging or vlogging is an already existing space and done to death space on the internet. When you enter a crowded space, you must do something different to make room for yourself. The same is with blogging. 

If you wish to excel and  carve a position out for yourself to be noticed and be popular, you must make sure you have a niche. The niche can be anything in terms of cuisine, diet, culture, etc. It is only important that you have a passion for and understanding of the food you choose as a niche. If you are not knowledgeable about it, it will flop. Let us look at some niche topics that you can apply to your blog and start creating relevant content. 

• Vegan, vegetarian or eggetarian food 
• Budget recipes or food that you can make from limited items in your fridge
• Baking is a niche that never gets old because it is prone to constant innovation in terms of technique
• Healthy yet fun makeover recipes for kids
• Gluten less, sugar-free, low carb or no carb dishes
• Minimum ingredient recipes
• Recipes for your pet
• Pre and post work out snacks
• Fusion food – combining two cuisines and innovating recipes of your own

Once you finalize and decide on the topic, you want to go with, and you can start curating content in that direction and, of course, trying out the dishes yourself. 

Step 2 – Purchase A Domain Name, Reliable Web Hosting And Use WordPress

Why do we recommend to choose WordPress? It is an open-source, easy to navigate platform to do a basic set up and start blogging. It is one of the most liked and popular hosting platforms in the world due to its ease of access. WordPress enables you to quite simply launch your website for the blog with no extra costs and over a period of time to start making money as well. 

To use the WordPress platform, you will need to buy a domain name. It will give you available names for the websites and recommendations as well based on the keywords or sample you out in. You can follow these quick steps with iPage Webhosting to get started.

• iPage is the best web hosting for beginners and it will prompt you to automatically install and setup the WordPress site for you.
• It allows you to purchase and host the domain on WordPress, so everything is linked to a single platform.
• Installs SSL certificates for free and get you acquainted with its setup tools. 
• There is live chat support on the website to guide you at every step, or you can submit a ticket for any assistance you need.

Step 3 – Explore The Use Of Plugins For Your Blog Site

Food blogs have a major concern with the kind of themes you select. Normal bloggers can have regular themes, but food-based blog themes are different in nature. They are not in your usual format, and one may have the option of requiring a plugin as well. 

Either you can select an inbuilt food theme for your blog, so the template has a space for your recipe. Or you can install a plugin called WordPress default plugins, which allow the usage of keeping your recipes in a proper format, making them the centre of the article. Most food bloggers opt for the later. 

Let us look at the characteristics of both the options.

Food blog themes – they are super easy to apply and start working on, but their functionality has restrictions as built-in features allow less flexibility to your blog. 

Normal themes with a food plugin – these are a little more complicated to configure than their counterpart option. Mainly because it involves putting together different parts like a jigsaw puzzle to see the whole picture, yet, it is said to be more flexible and tweakable in nature. 

Step 4 – Use A More Visual Approach To Your Blog For The Food You Post

Your audience cannot realize how your food tastes by reading your blog. They cannot get an insight into how good or bad it is. It is important that they have some visual cues. By showcasing images of your food, you tend to entice the audience and make them attracted to your blog. 

Photos can make things easier in another manner, as well. It helps in realizing how the recipes work and make difficult recipes easier to understand. Pictures and videos make learning new recipes a more fun experience. 

There are some themes that don’t allow the functionality of using pictures and videos. For this purpose, you will have to use a plugin of the Photo Gallery. Photo Gallery platform is powered by a company called WD. This plugin allows galleries that respond well and give you an option to add your albums to the website that you are preparing. 

Step 5 – Take Advantage Of The Rich Snippet Functionality

Search, and snippets are a great deal that goes hand in hand. Snippets attract the user’s attention, and when they land on your page, the click rate of your page improves drastically. These get attached to the meta description of the listing that you have put. Rich snippets become additional information templates that are attached to the meta tags. These methods use rich cards that ensure your site is highlighted on many android and iOS phones. 

To ensure your blog is popular, you can explore the usage of use rich snippets. Rich snippets are excellent for SEO benefits. 

Step 6 – Increase And Manage Your Outreach Through Social Media Marketing

Using social media for marketing is a highly effective strategy. In today’s world, social media and its importance cannot be diminished, and its glamour cannot be taken away. Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram make the base platforms for food bloggers. The reason being is that their image is superlative in terms of foodie lovers and foodie images. There are various ways to increase your outreach and better audience. Let us take a look at some simple steps. 

• On your blog, always add the share buttons for WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to visitors. 
• Make use of Pinterest pins so that you can pin your recipes and interests and helps in the re-pins that you will receive. 
• Be inclusive of an interactive and attractive social media feed that gets linked to your recipe and food blog.

Step 7 – Find Ways To Make Money Through Your Food Blog

People have food blogs for multiple reasons. One of them is to expand their hobby into something more significant and measurable. The second is to monetize their talent. Monetising your food blog can be done in more ways than one, in today’s world where practically, the world lives on digital media. Making money off your blog takes effort and time, but the financial outcome is worth it. 

• Affiliate marketing methods – Affiliate marketing is the way to go if you want to earn good money off your blog. It is the most popular method to collect moolah from featured products. Products, whether recipe books, food merchandise, and food products, approach you to highlight their product on their website. For this, you get paid a commission. 

• Create cookbooks that feature your niche – Cookbooks are in different forms. They can be online cookbooks, video cookbooks, cookbooks on android or iOS applications. You can also sell your cookbooks in a booklet or physical way. Cookbooks can be sold on many E-commerce platforms like Amazon.com. 

• Advertisements, endorsements, and sponsorships – most people opt for ads to be hosted on their websites. They can be put up on your blog as well as a mention or shoutout on Instagram. Shoutouts are a great source of income with great benefits. 

There are several other ways to make money online with a food blog, including:

• Sponsored content: Partner with companies to create sponsored content, such as blog posts or recipe development, that highlight their products or services.
• Product reviews: Review food-related products and charge a fee for the review.
• Online courses or webinars: Create and sell online courses or webinars that teach people how to cook or bake.
• Product sales: Create and sell your own food-related products such as spices, sauces, and baking mixes.
• Consulting or coaching: Offer consulting or coaching services to food-related businesses and individuals.

It’s important to note that, to make money with a food blog, you need to have a significant amount of traffic, a sizeable audience and a strong following. Additionally, it’s important to build a brand that people trust and come back to for inspiration and ideas.

Conclusion

We have given you a lot of insights on your food blog. It is crucial to have a passion and perseverance towards the topics and work that you choose. It helps you to make your blog better and more competent in a cut-throat competition.

Leveraging your talent and making use of the resources that are available to you is an excellent tactic that you have to enforce and stand by. Now that you know how to start a food blog and make money, it’s time to start. 

If there’s anything you think I’ve missed – talk to me in the comments below!

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