I wish I had some magic secrets or shortcuts to share, but the truth is that food blogging is hard work. I receive questions about the subject fairly often, so I sat down to compile my best tips for food bloggers and ended up with an even twenty. You’ll be more likely to develop a successful food blog if you follow these guidelines.
1. Be authentic.
Post about what you love and produce the best content you possibly can.
2. Don’t give up.
Blog growth is slow at first and gains momentum as time goes on, assuming that you stick with it and do your best.
3. Post original content.
If visitors like what you do, they will keep coming back for more.
4. Show your personality!
Enthusiasm is infectious, so don’t be afraid to show it. One of the coolest things about blogging is that you can connect with people who share your undying love for, say, avocado on toast.
5. Make friends and help each other.
In fancier terms, connect and cultivate friendships with other bloggers who share your interests. Leave thoughtful comments on their blogs, chat with them on social media and promote their content.
6. Make yourself accessible.
Be present and responsive on social media as best you can.
7. Keep your site design clean and easy to navigate.
Clutter detracts from your content.
8. Make it easy for visitors to follow your blog.
Place links to RSS/email subscription and social media prominently on each page.
9. Make it easy to comment on your blog.
No CAPTCHAs or required logins, please. Find a way to let your commenters know that they are appreciated, whether that’s by emailing them privately, responding to their comment publicly or by commenting on their blogs.
10. Make it easy to share your content.
Provide social media sharing buttons at the end of each post. Say thank you when others promote your work.
11. Post fantastic recipes only.
You don’t want visitors to invest their time and ingredients into a recipe and end up disappointed, right? Better to let the blog go quiet for a few days than to post a recipe you can’t stand behind.
12. Cite your sources.
Always. Not cool: reposting recipes verbatim, posting other bloggers’ photos without permission. Cool: original recipes, sharing links to your inspiration, linking to further resources on the subject at hand.
13. Don’t sell out.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try to make money off your blog, but don’t align yourself with a brand or project that isn’t a good fit. You are the company you keep. Focus on producing your best content and building your audience and the opportunities will come.
14. Post on a regular basis.
Whether that’s every day, once a week or once every other week, don’t let your blog look abandoned.
15. Get your own domain name.
If you want your blog to be taken seriously, just do it. You can buy a domain name for less than twenty dollars a year through GoDaddy.
16. Build a self-hosted wordpress blog.
That is, if you want full control over your design and content and plenty of room to grow. If you don’t know how to do these things, pay someone good to do it for you or shower your geeky friend with homemade cookies until he agrees. Find a step-by-step guide (and food blog design and web hosting tips) here.
17. Learn about search engine optimization.
SEO isn’t black magic; it’s about making your quality content findable. It’s important to understand and implement the basics. Here is Google’s SEO starter guide [PDF] and ZipList’s SEO tips for food bloggers [PDF].
18. Submit your posts to recipe submission sites.
It’s a great way to get new visitors to your blog. I submit my posts to Foodgawker, Tastespotting, Tasteologie and Finding Vegan (when applicable). Keep a text file that contains the submission information so it’s easy to copy and paste it onto each site. If your photo is rejected the first time around, edit it or choose a different photo and resubmit.
19. Learn how to take appetizing photos.
People are much more likely to want to eat, make, share and pin your recipes when they are presented alongside appealing photos. Find my food photography tips and equipment recommendations here.
20. Do what your mama told you.
This should go without saying, but be nice, be constructive, be respectful, be appreciative, be humble. Work hard.
Questions? Feel free to leave them in the comments section below. And for more food blogging tips, check out the following resources:
- My Food Photography Tips for Food Bloggers
- My Guide to How to Start a Food Blog
- Wooden Spoons Kitchen’s Blog
- David Lebovitz’s Tips for Food Blogging
- Joy the Baker’s Real Talk Blog Tips
- Eat the Love’s Food Blogging 101
- The Hungry Australian’s Tips for Food Bloggers
- Just Cook NYC’s Recipe Writing Cheat Sheet
- A Brief History of Food Blogs by Saveur
- Food Blog Alliance
- Pro Food Blogger
- SEO Moz’ 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic
22 Comments
These are great tips Kate, thanks for taking the time to share them! I need to do a better job tackling SEO…it can be overwhelming sometimes.
Thanks for all the great information! Two girlfriends and I just got a food blog started last month, and it can be so overwhelming. So nice to find this kind of info from people who have been there! :)
Thank you for this, I needed it! It seems like the blogging world is overwhelming, so this helps break it down!
You’re welcome, Abby. I’m so glad you found it helpful.
Thanks Kate, these are some great tips. Appreciate you spending the time to put this list together and share with us :)
All great tips. Original content & great photography is so important, at least that’s what I care about when I look at other people’s food blogs. I need to be better with comments & SEO for sure!
This is so great! Thank you Kate! I absolutely love your blog and appreciate you sharing these tips – yay!
Such great tips!
Great post! Thanks for sharing! Your blog is a favorite of mine!
Thank you, Maria! I’m really happy to hear that.
Such great advice, Kate – love all of the articles you shared as well. Can’t wait to dig in!
Thanks so much for this. I’ll be spending time looking at all the links as well. Having just started my food blog, this is extremely helpful!
You’re welcome, Nikki. I’m so glad you found it helpful.
Awesome tips, I agree completely…especially with number 1!!
Great tips for any newbie blogger. Thanks for sharing your wisdom. :)
I just stumbled upon your blog looking for food blogging tips. This is a great post. Thanks for sharing!
Can I add, make it easy to print out a recipe. It frustrates me to no end to find a recipe I really like the looks of, but there isn’t any easy way to print it out without all the extra stuff down the sidebars of a blog. I know there are sites I can copy the link into and then print from there (like Printfriendly), but in reality, chances are I’m not going to take that step.
Great point, Laura! Thanks for chiming in.
“And then blog gods from the heavens above, thanked you for writing this post.” (Lol).
I’m so new to blogging and have so much to learn. I feel like such a moron, at times. Thanks again.
Hi Kate, thank you so much for all your great advice! If you have a chance to check out my new blog, I would love that. Also, what is that delicious-looking stuff in the photo with the title of this post? Is it lemon curd?
Thank you, Becky! Your blog looks lovely. The photo is of my meyer lemon and blood orange curd.
Thanks for the tips Kate, really useful as a new blogger! Love your recipes, recently went vegetarian for a month and they were such an inspiration!
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