HOW TO START A FOOD BLOG...
- Before you dive in, take the time to think it through and undertake some research. Scour the Internet and learn what’s out there. What style of blog are you drawn to? Look at the design, the writing, the photography, and the general content of other blogs.
- Consider the audience you would like to reach out to. Will you limit your blog to local content? Or will you tailor it to appeal to a wider audience across the globe?
- Pinpoint (and streamline) your niche. What will you write about? Recipes? Restaurant reviews? Healthy food and cooking? Chefs? Kitchen gadgets? Cookbooks? Keep it simple and try not to cover too many topics. And bear in mind that your blog will take on a life of its own in the fullness of time.
- What name will you give to your blog? This is an important point, because you will need to secure a matching domain name, and might like to register a business name, with that name (particularly if you plan to monetise your blog). Check to see that there isn’t already a blog or business registered with the same name. Keep the title short, if possible. Something unique, snappy and memorable. Build your brand around the title of your blog.
- Find a reliable, reasonably priced web host. This is effectively the storage space on a server, where your blog will ‘live’.
- Choose your blogging platform. WordPress is the most popular and offers ‘bells and whistles’ that many of the other platforms don’t have.
- Now comes the fun part: designing your blog. If you are not the creative type, you could hire a designer. That said, many of the platforms offer simple designs with drop and drag function – making it easy to create a good-looking site. Give some thought to the pages/tabs on your blog. Include a ‘Home’ page for your blog posts, and an ‘About’ page, which is a static page on which you tell the story of who you are.
- Link your blog to social media accounts with the same name. Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook etc and enable social media sharing on your blog. Set up a Google account, including Google analytics, Feedburner and Webmaster Tools. You want the world to find you!
- Schedule your content and ensure that you are posting regularly. And now, start blogging!
- One last thing. Before you hit the publish button, read and re-read what you have written. Check for typos, consistency and a smooth writing style. If you have included links in a post, check that they work. If you have adapted a recipe, attribution is important. You don’t want to be stealing someone else’s work. Finally, have fun!