5 Tips for Starting a Profitable Food Blog in 2020

If you are someone who has a passion and a talent for making great-tasting food — or better yet, photographing it –, it might be a good idea to start a profitable food blog in 2019.

Food blogs have become universally popular with avid foodies, casual cooks, and even pros that make meals at home from scratch.

An increasing number of these people take to Google daily to search for popular recipes, cooking tips, and restaurant recommendations. Being one of the first sites to appear in their search engines can quickly increase recognisability and SEO.

A review or tip you share has the potential to impact millions of people, while a recipe idea could end up being made in homes across the world. Aside from the opportunity for monetary profit, becoming a resource for a loyal audience should be incentive enough to create a blog of your own. Below are five helpful tips for starting a profitable food blog in 2019:

1. Find The Right Site For You

There are several options when it comes to setting up your own website.

You can use sites such as WordPress, Blogger, or Wix. All of these offer adaptable sites that you can design however you like. First, you will need to pay for web hosting, and if you want to appear professional, you will also need to buy your domain name.

Watch some video tutorials of the sites being made up and decide for yourself which blog site you would like to go for,

2. Create a Range Of Content

Unless you are going to focus your attention solely on restaurant reviews or recipes, your blog will need to provide a range of different content. Variety is the spice of life, and it is best to provide your readers with a varied mix of articles to keep them coming back for more.

Designate a section for savory recipes where you share your twists on classics such as spaghetti bolognese, lamb koftas, or even a chicken alfredo, like this one. Each recipe will need to be accompanied by professional looking photos for the blog post. Images should be shot at the different stages, and recipes should be shot when the dish is finished.

Creating visually appealing content like cakes and other colourful desserts can also become your most popular posts. Photographs of stunning creations will stand out, break up written text, and make your website more navigable.

To appeal to a wider range of readers, articles should be precise, easy to read, and include internal and external links.

3. Schedule Your Posts

After you have created different recipes, reviews, and tips, it may be tempting to upload all of your posts to your site all at once, but hold off from doing this.

Instead, add one-post-per-day so that you can start to receive a steady flow of visitors to your website each day. If you add all of your posts at once, initial visitors will come, but are unlikely to return just to view the same content over again.

You can set up your blog so that it automatically shares any queued posts that you have already written. That way, you won’t have to spend all of your free time manually posting content.

4. Build a Social Media Following

If you’re not already on social media, create accounts on all of the major networks (Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter), so that you can share your blog posts with a wider audience. Build up your following on these sites by posting regularly.

Remember to use appropriate hashtags that accurately reflect your niche(s), and occasionally share content to sites like Facebook that are unrelated to your blog content. Doing this will help attract new readers from outside of your niche, in turn building your following.

Instagram and Pinterest are particularly good for when it comes to food blogging, as they are both very visual mediums.

5. Monetize Your Content

Once you establish a reasonable readership, it may be possible for you to monetize your blog, i.e. earning an income from your content!

A chance to make extra income is always a great incentive, but monetizing your blog will take skill, caution, and patience.

There are a number of routes that you can take in order to start making a profit from your content.

Firstly, there is the straightforward advertising approach. You could sell advertising space on your blog and earn money based on people clicking on the ads (click throughs). To do this, however, you will need a sizeable amount of regular traffic (or readers) to visit your site daily.

Secondly, you could try your hand at affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing consists of posting links to products in your blog posts, photos, or other written text. For each click through that yields a purchase, you will earn a percentage of the cut. This method requires less work, but also a sizeable daily and monthly readership.

Lastly, you could get paid outright by brands or companies. In recent years, many brands have recognised the importance of including influencer marketing in their outreach and PR strategies. If they find that your blog niche and style is a good fit for their audience, they could pay you to write reviews or features on their products or services. This method requires a sizeable social media following as well as high monthly readership.

Now that you have some helpful tips at your fingertips, you’ll be well on your way to starting a profitable food blog in 2019.