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How to Start a Blog

If you clicked this page, you are thinking about starting your own blog. Let me guess: you are too scared to start. But let me tell you, after I’ve started my food blog a few months ago, my only regret was: why didn’t I do it before? If you are waiting for a sign, here is it. Start right now and you will be rewarded.

 

A quick 6-step guide on how to start your blog, covering domain name and hosting, WordPress themes, content, investment, promotion and monetization.

 

First of all, let me tell you what you can achieve:

  • Become a famous blogger with millions of page views
  • Make your living from the work you truly enjoy
  • Get a book deal
  • Get gigs through your blog (photography, public events, writing for magazines, etc. Possibilities are countless)

And here is what to expect:

  • You will learn a lot on your way

    Starting a blog can be frustrating. Just imagine: you know a little bit about the job you have to do but you have no idea how to operate it. It’s like being an intern without supervisors. You obviously have to learn in the process. The more you know about blogging, the more successful you can become. Don’t think that you have to learn all this blogging things before you actually start a blog. The sooner you start, the better. You can always correct your mistakes and master your craft, whatever it is: photography, writing, cooking or breeding corgies. Don’t procrastinate and start right now. If you are a tech savvy person, congratulations! Otherwise, you will have to solve a lot of tech related issues.

    If you start a food blog, you will be interested in the community website Food Blogger Pro which shares tips and tricks from the insiders and has amazing video tutorials on how to start a successful blog. I have a Food Blogger Pro Membership Coupon for you! It’s been extremely useful for me, since there is a community forum and you can ask any questions related to food blogging and get an answer from your peers or field experts. I was able to grow my traffic from 5,000 monthly page views to 90,000 in less than a year thanks to Food Blogger Pro! The only thing I regret is that I didn’t join earlier. They have a limited enrollment open every couple of months, but you can sign up for the waiting list right now! That way you will receive an email announcement when they reopen.

  • Edit: The next enrollment period is scheduled for late April 2019!
  • If you want your blog to be known, you have to engage in the blogging community in your niche, be present on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and find time to write posts consistently. It’s better to write one post per week, than to write ten posts every day and then be silent for a month.
  • You have to make some investments

For a food blog for example they include a good digital camera (it’s a must for high quality pictures), a hosting plan and an available domain name, as well as ingredients, props, etc. If you want to minimize these investments, I will tell you how in 6 short steps:

Step 1. Domain name and hosting.

I did some research before starting my blog and I found that Domain.com is the cheapest domain name registrar and it offers web hosting plans for pennies. They have really affordable prices, their customer support is actually helpful and you can create multiple emails for your site. It’s easy to use for those who are not so much into tech stuff (like me) and you can install WordPress on your site right away. Don’t forget to choose your blog name!

Step 2. WordPress Themes

There is a great variety of themes for WordPress. Which one to choose, depends on your idea for a perfect website design. One of the cheapest options is to install one of the Elegant themes, which are cheaper than the premium ones and look pretty good. However, I personally recommend to spend a bit more money on Clean Food, the theme I’m using. It couldn’t be more worth the money and the support is just amazing!

Step 3. Content

You obviously have to fill your new site with some content before you officially go online and tell everybody that you’ve started a blog. Make it easy to navigate, explore different plugins available for WordPress, fill in the “About” page and write some posts. Start to think about how to find your niche and stand out of the crowd of other blogs in your field.

You want Google to easily find your recipes, as it is one of the most common ways to drive traffic to your food blog. The best recipe plugin that exists today is WP Ultimate Recipe. It’s user-friendly, looks beautiful and it makes it super easy to rank well in Google search. Besides, it has the most amazing and the fastest customer support ever!

Step 4. Invest in a digital camera.

As mentioned above for a food blog you need a camera to take pictures. I, for an example, had one before I started blogging and it came in quite handy for me. I use a Canon EOS Rebel T6 Digital SLR Camera with18-55mm Lens. It’s not expensive and if you know a bit how to use manual settings, you can get pretty good results with it. Of course, later on you can invest in better equipment with money generated by your blogging.

If you are a newbie in food photography, sign up for my Online Food Photography Course. Learn how to create amazing food photos with video tutorials, teaching composition, styling, light, editing and so much more!

Step 5. Promotion

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest… They will drive up the traffic to your blog, so don’t neglect social media, especially in the beginning. Promote your blog on Bloglovin, Tumblr, Flickr, Reddit, submit it to directory sites like Alltop and ask your friends to help you promoting it for you.

The most important source of traffic for many food bloggers is Pinterest. Set up your account, create some boards and start pinning. Join as many group boards as possible as they will be mainly driving traffic to your site in the beginning. You want to invest in a good pin scheduling tool to be able to pin at times, when your audience is most engaged. The best pin scheduling tool out there is Tailwind. It’s very affordable and it’s been a life saver for me, since most of my readers come from Pinterest. My traffic from Pinterest nearly quadrupled since I started to use it.  You can start scheduling pins for free and if you like the tool (and I’m sure you will!), use this link to get a free $15 credit!

It’s important to make it easy for your readers to share your content across different social media platforms. I use a WordPress plugin Social Warfare, which is one of the best out there. It allows you to customize your social sharing buttons, choose a Pinterest image and has much more awesome features. It loads fast, it looks good and it’s responsive no matte what screen size your blog is viewed on!

One I figured out how to use Facebook to drive traffic to my blog, it started to take off. I joined as many Facebook groups as I could, and started to share my recipes there. There are groups created by food bloggers to promote each other’s content. They’ve been a huge help!

Step 6. Monetization

It might take some time until you start getting money from your blog. One of the best ways to get passive income from your blog is to use affiliate links. What you can do from the beginning is to join affiliate programs, for example Amazon Associates, Share a Sale, ad networks like AdSense and Gourmet Ads or/and find a sponsor for your web site and get paid for your great content.

That’s how to start your blog from a scratch in a nutshell. It’s not easy, it’s time-consuming, it’s tiring but at the same time it’s incredibly rewarding and fulfilling work! I wish you good luck in starting your blog and remember: persistence is a key to success!

Cheers,

Elena

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