This is a collection of useful resources for anyone wanting to start a food blog or already has one and wants some from tips from a fellow food blogger.
Disclaimer: Some of the links below are affiliate links and I will earn a commission if you purchase through those links. I only recommend those that I use myself.
Starting a Food Blog – Website Resources
DOMAIN HOSTING
Once you have decided on a name for your blog you need to see if that domain name is available. You can do it here on Bluehost, just enter it in the box that looks like this. (To get to this screen just click on the Get Started now button and choose the Starter Plan.)
Then you will need hosting for your website, this is kind of like renting your space on the internet. I recommend the Starter Plan with Bluehost. (this is who I use)
WORDPRESS THEME
I use and highly recommend WordPress for your website. I use The Genesis Framework, which has a selection of Studiopress Themes to choose from. My site uses their Foodie Pro Theme.
WORDPRESS PLUGINS
These are some really handy plugins for your WordPress website;
Simple Recipe Pro – This is the WordPress plugin I use to enter my recipes. Displays all recipes the same and has the option to add nutritional data.
Akismet – this blocks spamming comments
Yoast SEO – this makes SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) a breeze!
Wordfence – website security, my site was hacked and my most popular recipe was redirecting to a site in Singapore, Wordfence fixed the problem and protects against future hacks. Very important plugin!
BACKUP
ManageWP for website backup. This is a really affordable backup option for your website, they even offer a free version with monthly backups, or you can pay as little as $2 per month for more regular backups.
Backblaze for computer backup. Computers are probably more likely to crash than a website and unless you are really consistent with backing up on to hard drives, this is an excellent automatic backup of everything on your computer’s hard drive.
EMAIL DATABASE
Mailchimp is the email marketing software I use to send each new blog posts via email. You can set it up as an RSS-to-Email campaign, meaning every time you write a new post, Mailchimp will automatically email it out to your subscribers. Steps to set this up can be found here.
Driving Traffic to your Blog
Boardbooster for Pinterest – a pin scheduling tool for bloggers. This allows me to just spend a few hours a week scheduling all my Pinterest pins and then Boardbooster will pin them throughout the week.
Foodgawker – one of the biggest food photo submission sites. This is great for driving traffic to your blog and also really great when you first start out as they give you feed back on your photos when they aren’t accepted.
Tasteologie – a really easy food sharing website with no restrictions, you just upload your image and recipe link.
Google Plus – easy to share your latest posts.
Yummly – as with Google Plus, really easy to share latest posts and have them shared with Yummly users.
Stumbleupon – another really easy sharing site.
Monetising your Blog
ADVERTISING
Gourmet Ads – The Gourmet Ads network is made up of food and cooking sites and blogs, making it a prefect starting point for placing ads on your food blog. There is no minimum number of views per month and it’s free to join. Find out more here.