Food Blogging Tips: How to Start a Food Blog


Hello lovely readers!

In this entry, I would spoil you some tips and trick on how to start your own food blog. Shortly, I'm going to separate this entry in some posts, the other entries will be about food photography tips because that's like the most frequently asked question to me.

1. Choose your Blogging Platforms!
There are a lot of blogging platforms available online for you to choose like Blogger (blogspot), WordPress, Live Journal and Tumblr. I'm definitely a .blogspot user for my url is eatandtreats.blogspot.com, the reason why I chose Blogger is because I find that it's the easiest, starting from the general settings to the layout. Most people chose to blog on WordPress, I used to own a blog on WordPress and I found out that the layout design of the blog is slightly more simple yet cleaner. But to be honest, the difference is not that insignificant. These blogging platforms are mostly FREE and you don't have to pay for things like bandwidth.

2. You are a FOOD BLOGGER, not a FOOD WRITER!
For this is a tutorial on how to start a FOOD BLOG, then it's clear that you are blogging about food. The idea of blogging to me is a platform for me to share something or to say something. I am a food blogger, not a food writer, so I'm sharing my readers a lot about food and what connects to it in my way of delivery: casual yet informative but also opinionated. My blog shares mostly restaurant reviews, travelling diaries and I am now start expanding it by filling in some recipes and private cooking sessions. Personally, you shouldn't start a food blog because you wanna earn money (unless your main purpose is commercial) or getting free food. Among the journey, they will come with the teritory. What you should have in mind is "because I have already eaten food, that's why I wanna blog about it".

3. Pictures are essential?
In a food blog, I believe so, I think pictures should talk a thousand words, or even touch more than the words themselves. The more they're lost for words, the better. In this case, you're going to need a camera. You don't have to own a thousands of dollars worth of DSLR, just a simple compact camera and a good lighting is fine, but DSLR will definitely resulting better pictures quality for the censors are already different.

Remember this main rule: CAMERA + GOOD LIGHTING are the ultimate best friends.
Here's a picture of the same item I shot one using DSLR and another using compact camera.
The most significant difference is from the bokeh (Depth of Field), DSLR gives a lot better bokeh than compact cameras. I usually use compact cameras for direct uploads to Instagram and DSLR for the blog pictures. More on the tips and trick of food photography on separate posts.

4. Be unique
Call me a freak but you DO need to have something unique to make your food blog stands out, we are not fashion bloggers who tend to be more playful and creative in certain ways, being a food blogger is relatively harder to be exposed unless you have a very decent writing skill or super awesome pictures, but most importantly, find what's unique from you and be yourself. You're starting everything from zero and you are the reason you'll be successful later. (If only you care about the attention and publicity, which I believe most people do)

5. Blogging Tips
- You're a human, not a copyCAT, so do not plagiarize!
Come on, blogging is based on your personal thoughts and opinions, why in the world you need to plagiarize, you'll be seriously embarassed once you found out you're copying everything from a source.

- Be yourself, stand to your opinions about certain things.
Example: You just got back from the restaurants and you just had a bad meal and service, and you're putting on opinions that might be negative and controversial. Stand to your opinions! Just be honest with the words in your blog because that's how you really feel, but do remember to use a more proper approach no matter how negative something is. Generally, being honest is a lot better than overrating certain things when in fact they're not, and you'll probably start losing your readers because your reviews are not honest.

- No music, please.
The moment I am visiting a blog mixed with musics, I'd just direct my mouse pointers to the "x" button on the tab or on the window. Please, I want to enjoy reading the posts, the music can be pretty annoying no matter whoever is singing, especially when it's mixed to the musics you're listening.

I hope these blogging tips can be your guide to start your own food blog, remember, just be yourself, but let certain percentage of yourself to be flexible to the trends and topic.

See you on another blogging tips! Will post them soon!
I know you guys are waiting for the food photography tips more!

Shoo for now!

email: eatandtreatsindo@gmail.com

12 komentar:

  1. Thanks, I just started my food blog. I wish I can be unique. I love your blog. Nice Job!

    Jessica
    www.chewybubble.blogspot.com

    BalasHapus
  2. OMG so agree on the no music part!!! It's annoying as hell!

    nailartoverdose.blogspot.com

    BalasHapus
  3. Agree on the music part!! It always get into my nerves when blogs have that thing on ugh

    BalasHapus
  4. These are so right on spot and great points. I am not a food blogger, but I love food, trying out new restaurants and traveling. I used to live in Jakarta and loved finding out new places to eat because they were so awesome and fun! I miss that about Jakarta.

    BalasHapus
  5. You have great tips and advice here. Blessed!

    BalasHapus
  6. Just a few quick questions about hosting. I’m planning on starting my own pescetarian food blog, and am a bit confused about hosting. I’m leaning toward BlueHost, but I’ve read that you (and several other successful bloggers) switched to Liquid Web after your blogs started to take off and gain more viewers. Why did you decide to switch? How easy was it to switch hosting services? Would you recommend just using Liquid Web from the get-go? I know it’s a bit pricier, but I’m willing to pay for the best. Thanks!
    Regards
    Deep Web

    BalasHapus
  7. First of all thank you so much for this post and really I was looking for the same information from last few days. I want to start my blog and to be very specific I want to start self-hosted word press blog.
    Regards
    Deep Web
    crazyask.com

    BalasHapus
  8. Thanks for your informative article. I am surprised read your post.
    I definitely appreciate this website. Keep it up!
    argumentative essay topics

    BalasHapus
  9. I’m in the process of switching my WordPress blog over to a website and your post is the most helpful I’ve found so far. I had a few questions, but they’ve mostly been answered already in the comments :-) Jane’s tip sounds good about redirecting the admin login to avoid hackers, but what does this mean? How do I do it? I’d be really grateful if you or Jane could explain. I’m sure I could google it, but you make everything sound so clear and easy to follow :-)

    Harold Burton

    BalasHapus
  10. Kate, thanks so much for your lovely compliment and your reply in general – it’s really helpful. I’ve since learned you can pay WordPress.com to transfer all your information over to a new WordPress.org site, so it’s something I’ll definitely consider. Thanks again.
    Joseph Donahue

    BalasHapus
  11. thank you very much for this comprehensive guide. It was really helpful in thinking and creating my blog. The pulgin recommendations have been so helpful! Thanks again and keep up the amazing job you’re doing. It’s inspirational.
    Paul Brown

    BalasHapus