Food blogging can be a lot of fun, but how can you make your blog stand out from thousands of other competitors and build a loyal readership?
Add a Personal Touch by Customizing Your Blog
Don't use default WordPress or LiveJournal templates. They look boring because everyone has seen them a million times. There are loads of free templates available.
In general, learn the basics of your blog system, especially if using WordPress. Proper configuration can improve appearance, usability, accessibility, security, loading times and search engine visibility and lets you have more control over your blog.
Make a custom header! It can be a logo, a photo or an illustration. Use free stock photos if needed. You may want to include your blog's tagline (you have one, don't you?). Don't make it too big - some people have smaller screens than you do. Also pay attention to typography - fonts like Comic Sans or Times New Roman probably won't work too well.
Widgets and badges are nice, but don't use too many widgets or they can really hinder usability and readability. More than a dozen is definitely too much.
Liven Up Your Recipes and Writing
Try to find your own voice. The difference with food blogs and most cookbooks is that blogs are more conversational - and that is why people enjoy them so much. Think about what could make your writing style unique and compelling.
Always include your opinion about the dish. What use is a recipe if the reader doesn't know whether it is worth making?
You can further liven up your recipes and reviews by including tips and ideas. How do you mince ginger, prevent tears from cutting onions or use up leftover broccoli stems? What may seem obvious to you can really help out someone else.
Out of inspiration? Try a new type of post: for example a guest post, contest, interview or product review. What about letting your father or grandma do a guest post?
Be Clear with Your Instructions
Always include both metric and imperial units. This may be a bit of a hassle and U.S. food bloggers often don't bother, but remember that there are billions of people who are not familiar with ounces, pounds or Fahrenheits.
Explain your terms and ingredients (and link to Wikipedia or other sites) as needed. If you blog in English, your readers may come from all over the world. They may not know "witloof" or "muffuletta" even if you and everyone you know do.
Also, there is no standard for a "can of crushed tomatoes" or a "package of tofu" so remember to define the measurements.
Illustrating your Food Blog with Pictures
Invest in good photos. Photography is a learned skill, but reading others' tips can help a lot. If some photos did not turn out, you can also supplement your own pictures with free stock images.
Compress your photos properly. The JPEG format uses a compression to reduce file size of images. With too little compression pages can take forever to load. On the other hand, too much compression results in ugly pictures.
It is possible to use too many images. That guava may look really lovely, but do the readers need to it from a dozen different directions?
Food Bloggers' Most Common Mistakes
Always have an about page and make your contact information easy to find! What if a journalist wants to interview you, include your recipe in a magazine or if a publisher wants to offer you a book deal? Even if that seems far-fetched, your contact info should be easy to locate.
Answering comments is important. Not every comment needs a response, but even the most wonderful recipe becomes useless if something is unclear to a reader, but you never answer their question.
Food Blogs and Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization or SEO refers to making your blog more easy to find for search engines. This includes the use of suitable keywords, but overdone this can result in keyword stuffing, which hinders readability and looks awkward.
You don't need to know everything about SEO, just try to think which keywords people could use to search for your recipe. So if you are posting a dairy-free corn chowder, remember to also use the words "soup" and perhaps "vegan", if applicable.
Always use the name of the dish in your post title. This not only pleases search engines, but also readers who want to bookmark a recipe for later use.
Also remember to use ALT texts for images. Not only does this improve accessiblity, but it can bring in significant traffic via Google Images and other such search engines.
Join the Conversation