Searching for answers online can be overwhelming with the amount of information out there. Instead of looking for it, ask yourself these 10 questions. The answers you find can help launch your new food blog in no time.
It’s the kind of job I’d describe as a finger-licking, lip-numbing, flavour-smashing experience. Food blogging is just a delicious journey. But as with all jobs, the ingredients to successfully become a food blogger, do not always cut out to be a piece of cake.
Do you have what it takes to become a successful food blogger? Read on…
This post contains affiliate links. This means if you make a purchase through one of the affiliate links, I'll earn some coffee money with no extra cost to you. I am more of a hot cocoa fan, so I promise to enjoy a cup while creating more helpful content for you guys. Thank you for your support!
Becoming a food blogger, ask yourself these 10 questions
Blogging is not something that would succeed overnight or within a few days or weeks. It takes a lot of your time and effort to pull off a successful blog over time.
It’s a long journey. So pack up some delicious snacks for the ride. It can be an exciting experience for novices to step into the world of food blogging but at the same time, it can be equally frustrating to want to learn everything so fast in order to execute your incredible ideas.
I’ve been there, done that!
With an overwhelming amount of information brewing online, it is difficult to say what you are really looking for in order to become a successful food blogger. Asking the right questions can make a big difference in saving your time and effort.
Grab your FREE checklist here, to answer the 10 questions before becoming a food blogger.
Here is a list of 10 powerful questions to ask yourself before taking the next step. These questions can help build a stronger foundation to create your very own food blog.
1. Why blog?
The very first question to consider is why? More specifically why a food blog? Is it to express your creativity, to educate others or to make an earning? What’s your story?
A food blog can be used to promote a brand, build awareness, showcase skills, products and/or services.
It’s important to understand the true purpose because it will play a significant role in all the decisions making going forward on your food blog.
Once you got that one figured, let’s move on to what variety of food are you going to be more inspiring to blog about. Let’s find a niche!
2. what’s your Niche?
Niche means a topic you focus more on your blog. In this case, the subject focused is food since it is a food blog. However, at one point or another, even a food blogger must niche it down to a more specific topic to focus on. It’s basically what you will mainly speak of on your food blog.
In my opinion, following a broader subject, like food, is better than struggling to find a more specific niche at first. It will eventually come to you as you become a more regular blogger. The more content you create, the easier it gets to niche it down.
Why look for a niche within a niche?
While a blogger can blog about anything in general, it helps to stand out of the crowd if you can be more specific and show off your expertise on a chosen specific market.
For example,
Tom has an interest in fashion. The topic is too broad so he decided to niche it down to follow socks. More specifically, he covers socks made for infants.
This strategic step made it easier for him to distinguish the wants and needs of those who would be interested in infant socks. He soon became an expert at the topic and was able to successfully serve the customers better than the competitors who target a much greater sock audience.
If you need help in picking a niche in food blogging, ask yourself: What type of recipes do you often create? If you look back, have you received more compliments on the type of food you cook? Would the type of food make a difference or stand out from the crowd of other food bloggers?
READ - The 14 must-have FREE WordPress plugins for food bloggers. Increase your website's overall health and appearance with FREE WordPress plugins. Essential for bloggers of all niches.
The next step is to strategize your unique approach to the audience.
3. will it be unique?
No matter the topic you choose, there will always be competition rising from every corner you turn.
What can you do differently?
Find your style!
Every food blogger has a style of his/her own when it comes to their audience. That’s part of what makes you unique from the rest of the food bloggers.
It can be the writing style, setting the tone of colours or the creative use of the images, graphics and designs. It can also be the way you approach an audience or how you express an idea.
That unique persona is the spread on your food blog. Sprinkle some of that everywhere you go and the audience will love and follow you.
Speaking of which… What type of readers will you be targeting?
4. To whom will you be writting?
The targeted audiences are the people who would be interested in viewing, reading, and following your work. In time, they eventually will become your subscribers.
So, understanding who your true audiences are can really help build a stronger fan base from the start. Find out their gender, age group, location, hobbies and interests.
Building an audience is a must from the start. By knowing them well, it is easier to identify what they expect of you. You can figure out the type of content to write, when to post, how to set the tone, improve the readability over time, and most importantly, how you can get them to keep coming back to your food blog again and again.
This brings us to our next question, how much time will you set aside for work
Grab your FREE checklist here, to answer the 10 questions before becoming a food blogger.
5. how often to post?
The top sites and food bloggers publish at least one post a day. On average at least 7-10 posts a week and sometimes even more.
Keep in mind that they may have hired creative writers, skilled photographers and get other bits of help and assistance to stay on top of everything.
As a beginner food blogger, with limited resources and time, providing quality content is the key and then comes the level of consistency. So pick whether you will publish a post daily, every other day, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.
The answer can help you understand how serious you are about blogging. Will it be like a hobby? Work as a part-time thing or as a full-timer. Some go beyond and work on it day and night to achieve their dreams.
If you are not sure, start with publishing one piece of content every other week. Each post must consist of some valuable information to your readers that would make them want to stick around your blog, share your content and keep coming back for more.
When you get the hang of it, go for publishing one every week. Slowly increase the frequency of publishing to daily. Keeping in mind the quality of work is just as important as consistency.
6. Where to Promote?
Finding ways to show off your creative content is as important as researching to create the content. The way you promote can make a big difference in attracting the right type of audience. This way everyone can know of your blog, follow your content and become your true fan.
The basic form of promoting is letting your friends and family know first. Next, let your loved ones share the content. This in turn travels word of mouth from person to person attracting new eyes to your blog.
Then there are major social media platforms to look into, like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram. Each platform has its own style, reach, and audience to attract.
Start with what you already know first and then work your way up to other platforms. Each platform comes with its own algorithm to stay on top. Just make sure to adopt an approach that fits you and stay consistent.
Other ways to promote…
Also, there are PPC (pay-per-click), paid campaigns and highly targeted paid ads as well. All of which can help attract new audiences locally or globally.
Don’t forget to check out other sources besides word of mouth, social media and paid campaigns to promote. Bloggers also reach out to reputable content discovery platforms like BuzzFeed, Huffington Post and Taboola to promote as well. It’s a great way to attract new audiences.
Scheme a well-planned marketing strategy and stick to it from the beginning to promote your work in order to capture the right audience. Utilizing these strategies will not only attract new sets of eyes but also retain a regular stream of readers coming your way.
But wait, what will you call your food blog? Need a domain?
7. what is domain?
The domain name you pick will act as the name of your blog. It will go between www. and the .com. For example, I picked out the name look in so my domain name will look like > www.lookin.com
What will you name your food blog? Keeping in mind that first impression of how your blog name sound and mean is an extremely important step to entice potential readers.
The name must be short enough, attractive, catchy but also memorable. Think of it as a way to describe your food blog in one word or with a short phrase. Choosing a good domain name is a very significant step in creating your site so choose wisely.
In case you needed help in deciding a name, there are free and paid domain name generators you can look into. Suggest a few words and it will help generate unique names along with the domain extension for you to pick. This way you can try thousands of combinations to see what works well for your blog.
8. Choose an Extention?
Have you thought of what comes after your domain name? Will it be a .ca .net or .org.
Yes! That can be chosen too.
The most widely used extension out there is the .com, but you may use .me .co and much more choices to choose from.
But wait,
What if a domain name is unavailable?
If the chosen name of your choice is not showing up as available. Don’t give up so soon just yet…
Try these few little tricks listed below, to see whether the name can be available before moving on to another name.
- Use the same domain name but with a different domain extension. For example, instead of lookinside.com try lookinside.net or .me instead.
- If you didn’t like the sound of changing the domain extension, add dashes. For example, instead of lookinside.com try look-inside.com
- Use other small words in between, behind or in front of your domain name. For example, instead of lookinside.com try lookinsidethe.com tolookinside.com or lookinginside.com
So now, we got most of the answers figured out of the 10 questions to ask. The next big question is where will you build your food blog on? Have you looked into a host yet?
9. which web hosting service?
There are various web hosting services ready to help you get your website up and running in no time. With that step set-up and out of the way, you can get on with creating the most beautiful blog.
But, one of the 10 critical questions to ask is, will your food blog be created on a free platform or a self-hosted one.
If you prefer not to spend or if you like to see where this blogging journey takes you, there are platforms like Blogger, Wix, and Squarespace to try.
Running a blog would be free, though the features are very limited. There isn’t much space to customize or personalize to your taste. With less control over your blog, limited memory space, and bandwidth, it can get difficult to manage a food blog the way you like.
Free OR Paid ?
However, if this is for the long run, I’d highly recommend that you build your blog on a self-hosted web service. With self-host, you will be able to control how your food blog looks and feels to the public. You are able to customize with attractive theme designs, colours, best securities, spam alerts and other powerful features that are great for any blogger.
Every web hosting service out there offers a wealth of powerful features besides having to just host a site. All of which can help build and grow your food blog further. However, finding the right one can be terrifying.
Is it reliable? Affordable? Inquire on what each hosting service is offering. Some offer free domain names. Is it SSL secured? Does it have a drag and drop building feature? How user-friendly is it? Is there backup services available?
I have been using Bluehost since the beginning of my blogging journey. I highly recommend it for those who are looking into a web hosting service.
Why you should use Bluehost for your food blogging?
- They offer a wide range of affordable web hosting plans to choose from.
- Provides marketing offers and excellent security protection features.
- The user interface is super simple to use.
- One of the most recomended web hosting service by WordPress.
- Set-up is super easy with their 1-click WordPress installation.
- FREE SSL certificates, email FTP, and more.
- FREE domain name for an year.
- 24/7 support by WordPress experts.
- 30 days money back guarantee.
10. are you ready?! It’s time!
Let’s say you did your research, sweat through the sleepless nights and finally answered all the questions. What now?
I trust that answering these 10 questions helped you see the importance in blogging. Keeping a note of it can help you carve your food blog to success.
Let’s start the journey!
For beginners and for in-between-ers, Bluehost provides all the resources one would need to begin growing an online presence. With their affordable pricing and plans, building a website got that much easier.
Final Word
The amount of resources out there can get overwhelming when you are learning how to start a blog at first. To clarify your true motives and to plan a strategy for success, ask yourself these 10 valid questions to help you become a food blogger.
Grab your FREE checklist here, to answer the 10 questions before becoming a food blogger.
What you've been cooking today? Create a delicious meal to enjoy while planing a food blogging strategy. Pick a recipe from the collection.
