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!

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