Want to show off your food? Start a food blog with these 5 easy steps to build a memory of all the recipes you create. Share those drool-worthy photos of your food and create a fan base along with it.
Can you cook?! Knowledge of coding or web management expertise is not needed. If you can cook and can take mouth-watering photos, start creating to share it worldwide. Take the step-by-step walk-through to set up your food blog right now!
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Let’s Start A Food Blog
To show off all the delicious food you create, first, we need to build a website. Next, the website needs to be live for the world to see.
For a beginner food blogger, I highly recommend Bluehost to build and grow. It’s effortless to use for beginners and affordable too. The best part is they do all the troubleshooting from behind the scene while you create the flavours to showcase upfront.
The best web hosting for the new bloggers
Bluehost is a well-known reliable web hosting service used by millions worldwide. They offer a wide range of powerful features and add-on products and services to pick and choose from besides having to just host your site.
Easy site setup
With Bluehost, you won’t need any special skills or extra support to set up a website for your food blog. They walk you through the setup process with an easy guide, which makes the whole process go smoothly and effortlessly. If in case, you run into any trouble while setting up, their real-time live chat support is ready to help any time.
Customer support
Although setting up Bluehost is easy, one of the best features they provide is 24/7 customer support. This feature starts at a low entry-level price. They are there to support you whenever in need, from the very beginning.
User-friendly
You do not need any advanced coding experience or knowledge of web management to use the Bluehost service. It is built for novice users. Whether it’s their guided step-by-step set-up process or their seamlessly easy 1-Click WordPress installment, the platform is made effortless for all beginners.
Again if you run into any trouble, just reach out to Bluehost for their customer support to troubleshoot at any time.
What will you call your food blog?
The domain name acts as the name of your blog. It will go in between www. and the .com. For example, let’s say I picked the name look in, my domain will look like www.lookin.com
When choosing a domain name, keep in mind that first impression is still important. To entice potential readers to your site, the name of your blog must sound catchy, attractive, short enough to be meaningful and memorable.
Free domain
Bluehost helps you find an available domain name for your website. They even provide your chosen domain name free for an entire year. This can help eliminate some of the spendings at the beginning of building your food blogging site.
Do you have a domain name in mind? Check to see if it is available.
SSL certificate
Now more than ever, more and more sites are being built for many reasons. A secure sockets layer certificate will indicate whether a site’s identity is authenticated. This lets the site visitors know it is a safe and secure site to access.
With Bluehost, the SSL certificate is provided, which is a must-have for anyone looking into building a website.
Pricing & Plans
Like many other web hosting services, Bluehost prefers an upfront purchase and in full when choosing your plans to set up a site. If in case you are not satisfied with the services offered, you can cancel anytime within the 30-days of your purchase to qualify for a refund (Cost of the domain fee excluded).
Their services are organized into tiers. Each tier offers features that are tailored to your specific needs. If you are unsure which to choose, reach out for a free consultation to help you decide which one is the best fit for you.
Their prices are pretty straightforward. Often go on special deals too which is pretty sweet. Their low entry-level price starts at a month-to-month hosting plan.
Keep in mind that going with a month-to-month plan may add a little extra to your monthly fee. With Bluehost the longer you stay with them the more you save.
NOTE – Bluehost offers the best deal available for the readers of berrychik. No promo code is required. By signing up through the referral links available through this site, you can grab the current best deal to start building your food blog today.
How to start a food blog in 5 easy steps
- Select a hosting plan and term
- Choose a domain name
- Submit user information
- Bluhost cPanel & WordPress
- Setting, Themes & Plugins
1. Shared Hosting Plan and Terms
For novice users, I’d recommend the basic plan to start with. The plan provides a website, 5 email accounts with 100MB of storage. Unmetered bandwidth. One free domain is included for the first year with registration. Free SSL certificate included as well as google my business.
Their other hosting plan; the Plus and the Choice Plus plan offers features like unlimited websites, email accounts, and email storage. Unmetered website space and bandwidth. One free domain registration with unlimited subdomains. Free SSL certificate included with marketing offers and spam experts for one domain.
Their Pro plan has even more amazing perks. The pro plan includes everything mentioned above and high performance. Domain privacy, free dedicated IP with premium SSL certificate. SpamExperts for 2 domains and the CodeGuard basic included for the entire term.
If you are unsure which hosting plan to go with, reach out to Bluehost for a free consultation to help you decide which one is the best fit for you.
2. Domain Name
Type in your chosen domain name to check availability. If available, submit to continue to the next step. You can always skip this step for later too.
What if the name you chose is unavailable? Don’t give up so soon just yet…
Try the tricks below first to see whether the name can be available before moving on to another name.
- Using the same domain name with a different domain extension. For example, instead of lookin.com try lookin.net or .me instead.
- If you did not like the idea of changing the domain extension, go with dashes. For example, instead of lookin.com try look-in.com.
- If the above two did not go well, use other small words in between, behind or in front of the domain name. For example, instead of lookin.com try lookinside.com, lookingin.com, or tolookin.com.
3. Submit Information
Complete filling out the personal information, package information, package extras you prefer and the payment information then submit to complete the process.
As the process is being complete, you will shortly receive an email from Bluehost with the purchase order details and other important information. Soon after you will obtain the log-in details for the Bluehost control panel (cPanel).
4. Bluehose cPanel & WordPress
The Bluehost control panel (cPanel) is where you can manage your account details, billing information, manage your emails, get support and do other things.
After logging in to the Bluehost control panel, scroll down to find the website section and select to install WordPress.
Enter the necessary details to continue to the next step. It should take you straight to the WordPress login details towards the end.
Log in to WordPress to view the WP admin dashboard. From here you can control, edit, create and publish your content, comments, manage plugins, settings and other things.
Now that the Bluehost and the WordPress are set up, you are all ready to start customizing the appearance of your website to make your food blog look enticing for potential readers.
6. Settings, Themes & plugins
On the WordPress admin dashboard, hover your mouse over to the list on the left side panel to view the hidden dropdown list. From you are able to control your website settings, install layouts of food blog themes, and manage new and installed plugins.
Setting
From the left panel, select settings to customize your website details. Make changes from general information to your writing/reading settings.
Go to permalink Settings to choose how you like your links to be shown. If you are not sure go with the post name as the common settings. Keep in mind to save changes as you go.
Themes
To customize the appearance of your food blog, hover over to the Appearance section from the WP admin dashboard. Select themes to search for a theme for your blog.
There are free and premium theme layouts to choose from to make your website look the way you want. If you are selective, there are ways to customize a theme that fits your blog. If you are unhappy with the theme layout, you can always change it to one that you like as you grow your blog.
Plugins
Plugins are like apps on your phone. Install them to customize, perform better or improve a site. Select Plugins from the left side panel of your WP admin dashboard.
On the top of the window, select add new to view the plugins window. From there you can search for any plugins you desire. There are plugins for just about anything and everything, both free and paid.
READ 14 Essential WordPress FREE plugins every food blogger must-have when starting a beginner food blog.
Most plugins need to be activated after installation to start working. You can manage all your installed plugins from your WordPress dashboard.
I have about 20ish overall plugins to keep my site running smoothly and attractively. Bigger sites have over 35, close to 50 at least.
Only install the one you really need. Before doing so, research to find out if it is compatible with your current theme and other plugins. Keep in mind, the plugins can slow down a site so install with caution.
If you have been keeping up with the 5 easy steps above, you successfully finalized the setup process of your food blog. Now your website is ready to start creating.
You did it. Congrats!
You can now log in to your WordPress admin dashboard to start creating and publishing.
Check out the 14 must-have FREE WP plugins to help maintain your food blog.
If you are still not sure whether food blogging is right for you? Ask yourself these 10 essential questions to help clarify your next step. The answers to these top 10 questions can help build your food blog stronger from the start.
Let’s get started!
Food blogging is the kind of job that provides a finger-licking, lip-numbing, flavour-smashing experience. It takes time to build a successful blog but the journey is berry-delicious, trust me.
With the help of Bluehost and 1-click WordPress installment, setting up a food blog got much easier than ever. Grab your free domain today and start building a food blog worth drooling.
