Starting a food blog is an exciting adventure & it's easy to get distracted with shiny object syndrome with so much to learn. So much to do! But where do you even start?
I asked established 6-figure+ bloggers: What is ONE thing you would do differently if you had to start from the beginning?
A vast majority (surprisingly) shared one answer. Their insight helped me focus on the most impactful tasks and double my traffic in 1 year! Here are the key tools & resources to build a food blog - even if you're a non-techy person (like me!).
Website Setup
Hosting with Fast Speed & Customer Service
I used Bluehost when I first started blogging because it was cheap and it was fine starting out just to get the ball rolling. But I quickly realized no matter how much I tried to "fix" my website, it would always load incredibly slow (which Google hates) and took FOREVER to resolve issues through customer support.
Having a fast-loading website is a non-negotiable nowadays. If your website loads too slowly, or worse - crashes - people quickly lose interest & who knows if they're even coming back.
I eventually switched to BigScoots and I cannot sing their praises high enough! Since switching, my blog speed jumped by 80% according to PageSpeed Insights! (yeahhh, my website was SO slow lolol).
And their customer support goes above and beyond to help non-tech savvy people like me 🙂 They even helped with my GA4 analytics setup when I had questions during the migration!
Theme: SEO-Friendly for Non-Tech Savvy People
Tech is one of the most frustrating parts of running a blog. There's such a learning curve that even the "simplest" task turn into hours of valuable time (and sanity!) - GONE.
To keep things as simple as possible (& retain what little sanity I have left lol), I've been using the Foodie Pro theme through the Feast Plugin. It's made the technical side of running a blog seamless! I - a non-techy person - finished building my website the same day I bought the theme!
AND my favorite part about the Feast Plugin is the SEO component. Skyler, the creator of Feast Design, stays up-to-date with SEO best practices, which he implements through the function and design of the theme. That means when you design your website through the Feast Plugin, it's following Google's best practices on website structure to rank... And that's one less thing to figure out!
SEO: Get Found on Google (& other search engines)
In the blogging communities I'm in, I asked 6-figure+ bloggers what they'd do differently if they had to start from the beginning...
A vast majority said: start SEO sooner.
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is improving your website & its content so search engines (like Google) can find you, rank you in search results, & drive organic traffic to your website. Organic traffic tends to be less volatile than other traffic sources, such as social media. And if you're looking to monetize, ad networks such as Mediavine like this too!
Organic traffic is more predictable, and therefore, less of a risk for them to work with you, so they're also willing to pay a higher RPM. Of course, there are exceptions and many factors taken into account while evaluating RPM, but consistent organic traffic is never a bad idea!
And if you're just starting out, don't worry! You can still be competitive - more on that in a bit! 😉
Cooking with Keywords
I knew very little SEO when I started blogging and it wasn't until Aleka's Cooking with Keywords course that I started to see consistent traffic! Aleka is also a food blogger (so she's in the trenches with us!) and a former teacher who shares so many actionable strategies to build organic traffic, such as:
- Creating recipes/content with high search volume and low competition - that you actually enjoy making
- Outranking the "heavyweights" even as a new blogger
- Updating old posts with keywords to rank even faster
- Leveraging competitors' success to your advantage
Immediately after I implemented what I learned from Cooking with Keywords, I began to rank in the top five search results for multiples posts!
One post I created was brand new. I found a high volume target keyword with low competition using one of the research strategies Aleka shared. Within 1 month of publishing, I ranked top five in search results for the target keyword and now rank in the top 3!
I also tried her strategies updating older content and have outranked NY Times & Bon Appetit!
Her strategies are intense, but SO worth it! Cooking with Keywords definitely helped me learn critical SEO skills specifically for food bloggers and demystified the SEO process with clear strategies.
RankIQ
RankIQ is another popular SEO tool that's especially helpful for new bloggers with a domain authority (DA) below 30.
Brandon and his team put together keywords in various niches (food blogging being one of them) that are high volume and low competition. Keywords get removed from the library after multiple reports have been run, so you gotta be quick before relevant keywords disappear from the library!
RankIQ is helpful with:
- Saving time from doing manual SEO research
- Finding high search volume content ideas you can rank for (specifically for bloggers with a DA below 30)
- Optimizing old content with their optimization tool
If you're unsure whether Cooking with Keywords or RankIQ is a better fit, here's how I'd compare them.
- Cooking with Keywords teaches the core principals and skills of SEO, which are vital if you want to create a long-term sustainable blog with consistent traffic.
- RankIQ saves tons of time by cutting a lot of the manual work & is a great resource to begin ranking while you're still building your SEO skills. It also provides a keyword library with content ideas you may have never thought of.
Boost Traffic with Social Media
Organic traffic is a tried & true stream of traffic, but it's important not to put all your eggs in one basket! Diversify your traffic sources so if you take a traffic hit from one source, you still have other streams to help you stay course.
Facebook Groups
Two ways I use Facebook groups is to...
Build Backlinks & Increase Domain Authority
I do this by submitting my recipes to recipe roundup groups (just search in Facebook "recipe roundups" & there should be a few that come up). Other bloggers request certain types of recipes or content to include in their posts & if yours gets included, you get a backlink with more potential passive traffic & a higher DA (domain authority)!
Share Recipes with Target Audience
Join Facebook groups where your target audience is hanging out & share recipes that would be helpful for them. I post to a few once a week & I get a huge spike in traffic for a few days, but it's important to choose quality groups.
I try to find groups with at least 50k members with quality engagement, such as people commenting, tagging others, & asking questions. Read through the groups' rules also to make sure it's okay to share recipes, not all allow it.
Google Web Stories
This has been a hit or miss for some people, but it's been a saving grace for me! When I've had organic traffic drop, my web stories have skyrocketed. The Google fairies are weird that way.
For every blog post, create AT LEAST one web story - but I'm rooting for you to do more!
The quickest way to crank out web stories is to create a template & save it in drafts. That way, you just duplicate it & drop in your content - no need to start from scratch each time!
Make sure to link to your post in EVERY slide. If you see one of your web stories take off, duplicate it, then change some of the text & images a bit - BOOM. You just doubled your content in a couple of minutes!
Even if you don't have tons of content, there's creative ways to get around it 😉 Here's my streamlined process to create web stories.
Short Form Video
It's pretty much the standard now to create short form videos for recipes. Luckily, Youtube Shorts, Instagram Reels, & Tiktok all have the same video format so you can easily post the same video across all platforms!
And don't forget to add it to your own blog too in the recipe card! Repurpose your content (and all your hard work).
Create a Workflow
Creating a blog post template has been SUCH a time saver. Often times, it feels like there's SO much to do & it can get overwhelming - BUT that's why it's important to create a workflow.
Save your brain power to execute, instead of trying figuring out "wait - how am I supposed to do this again??"
I use the same blog post structure for each of my posts, which helps streamline the process crank out more content WAY more efficiently! This Chicken Adobo recipe is an example of how I structure my posts.
I have a blog post template saved in my drafts. When I'm ready to create a post, I just duplicate it using the Yoast Duplicate Plugin, then I just pop in the information in each section! Then, once the post is published:
- Rate Your Recipe: Yessss, you can and should rate your own recipe!
- Backlink to Relevant Posts: Go to 3-5 of your relevant blog posts & link to your new blog post. This will help give that new post an extra boost!
- Create at Least 1 Web Story: Create a web story template so you can quickly crank them out!
- Share to Facebook Groups: Get your delicious recipe in front of people who are ready to dive in!
I do this for EVERY new or updated blog post.
You can grab my detailed Blog Post Checklist here to streamline your process & make sure you're not missing any crucial steps (like properly formatting your photos!):
Forever rooting for you! You got this 😉
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