Maybe you’re a novice looking to learn through trial and error, like Julie Powell. Or maybe your loved ones are constantly begging you to make (or share) your latest recipe.
Whether you’re a beginner or a bona fide expert, you may have thought about starting a food blog to share your culinary exploits — and you’ve stumbled into the right place!
You may be able to julienne like a champ, but knowing how to wield a knife won’t help you set up your blog.
Some folks start food blogging just to document and share their experiments (and recipe successes), while others aim to make it a career. For some, the only aim is to integrate food blogging into their existing business’ marketing.
Regardless of your goals, these steps will get your food blog up, running, and ready for you to start writing!
And that’s why we’re here.
You bake a cake from scratch, but not a blog
Over at Feast Design Co., we’ve worked with tons of food bloggers over the years. That, combined with our design and technical background, has given us a keen insight on how to get started and do it right.
Some of our themes are offered through StudioPress, and we’re excited to share our tips and tricks here, too.
Our goal is to make sure you focus on the parts of food blogging you’re passionate about, regardless of your WordPress savvy. Here are four important factors to consider …
1. Home is where the domain is.
Carving out your space on the internet all starts with a name — and a domain.
If you’re stuck on what the name of your site should be, don’t stress! Smashing Magazine has fantastic insight on creating a killer domain name …
- Make it short
- Make it catchy and memorable
- It should be easy to pronounce
- It should be easy to spell
- It shouldn’t be too similar to competing domain names
- Never violate someone else’s trademark
Once you’ve got your name plotted out, use one of the StudioPress trusted registrars to register it.
Congratulations! Your food blog now has it’s own home on the internet!
2. Choose a dependable web host.
When looking for a web host, you want to vet just a few things: speed, reliability, bandwidth, and support.
Speed is important because you want your site to load fast. Loading time can have a huge impact on your blog’s success. According to this infographic from Kissmetrics, 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less — and they’ll abandon the endeavor if it takes longer than that. Your hosting needs to be tip-top to make sure your site loads fast enough to keep those visitors.
Reliability is obvious — you need a web host that’s going to keep your site up on the regs!
When it comes to bandwidth, your site needs to be able to handle transferring your site’s information to your audience — even if you have a lot of traffic.
And support always comes in handy, so you know you never have to field technical issues on your own, and you have a technical expert in your corner.
And lucky you — all StudioPress Sites are hosted for you on their WordPress-optimized infrastructure. You need a trusted partner to keep your site running smoothly and securely, which is exactly what StudioPress offers.
3. Make your blog look as good as your food.
You’re putting the work into making these recipes tasty and gorgeous, and your food blog should be just as delectable as the content it publishes. Picking a beautiful and effective theme is a crucial element of blog setup!
That’s why we’ve created themes like Foodie Pro, which provides a recipe index, adjustable font and color options in the Customizer, and easy-to-use widgets.
Your theme should not only be aesthetically pleasing, but super simple to use. Even if you’re totally green, setting up your theme to resemble the demo shouldn’t take hours and hours of time.
What’s more, the developer who makes a premium theme should offer technical support and tutorials on how to get your site set up just the way you like.
4. Choose and install a recipe plugin.
Sure, you could just type your recipes into a WordPress post and publish them.
If you’re putting in this much effort into making your food blog something special, don’t you want to display them with a little more finesse?
A recipe plugin can format your carefully crafted creations with a little more flair … and add a polished feel to your content.
Our pick is the Cookbook plugin from WP Site Care. Each recipe plugin available is a little bit different, so be sure to compare features and make sure you pick the one that best suits your needs.
No matter which plugin you choose, all of these options will help you organize, showcase, and share your recipes in style.
Time to start writing …
Now the blogging begins!
You’ve set up your home on the internet, and it’s time to get started. Remember to take it easy, stay calm, and take action.
Happy publishing!
—
P.S. Want to cook up your own food blog right now? Get a taste of StudioPress Sites.