How to be a Food Blogger

Eat Good Food and Maybe Get Paid

One of the most common questions I get as The Tipsy Housewife is “How can I become a food blogger?”

Actually the most common question I get is “What does it MEAN to be a food blogger or an influencer?”

This can be a very complicated and difficult thing to try to explain to people not in the business.

For example, try explaining this to your 80+ year old Grandmother…

Actually my Grandma seems to understand it better than a lot of younger people!

But I do also get asked about how to be a food blogger and that’s a better question to address for search engine optimization. If you want to know what that means then it sounds like you want to know how to be a food blogger!

I decided to write a blog post about it since food is such an important shared experience. I think anyone who has recipes or dishes they love should be able to have a blogging platform to talk about them, whether it’s as a hobby or as a job.

How Do You Start a Food Blog?

The first step is deciding what kind of food blog theme and content you want to make.

If you love cooking and creating new recipes, like I do, then you can begin recording some of your favorite recipes so that you’ll have a decent collection to start with when you launch your site.

If you love to travel and try new foods at different restaurants, like I also do, then you should start taking notes and pictures of what you’re eating.

You might want to practice your food photography skills as well. High-quality images can make a big difference, especially in the food industry. You can have the best original recipes on the planet but if they look like s*%^ then no one is going to want to make them.

While you don’t have to know who your ideal audience will be, it can be helpful to have a niche in mind.

There is already a lot of high-quality content online so if you’re just starting your food blogging journey it’s a good idea to have some kind of angle to help you appeal to specific people. It can be better to be your ideal audience’s favorite recipe blog that they check every day than to have ten times as many people visit your site occasionally.

For me, it’s modern updates on classic recipes delivered in a casual, buzzy manner from my perspective as a midwestern lady from a loving Polish family.

For you it could be vegan recipes or camping food or kid friendly recipes. The possibilities are limitless!

Once you know what you want to blog about, you should start writing a few posts so that you’ll have at least a little backlog of content to provide consistent updates early on. 

As far as setting up your website, blogging platforms like Wordpress and Squarespace have made it relatively easy for even us less technologically advanced creators to put ourselves out there.

They can make it easy to find a reliable web host and choose from the hosting plans to figure out what price range works for you.

It can be easy to get carried away with catchy domain names for your site, but you should look at the available name options and find one that makes sense for you and is unique but also easy to remember.

It’s going to be harder to switch domain names once you’ve built an audience so it’s worth putting some thought into it early on. Feel free to check out other recipe blogs for inspiration.

If you’re having trouble, however, there’s no shame in getting some help getting started, either from a paid freelancer or a tech savvy friend or family member.

How Do Food Bloggers Make Money?

The most common question I get once I’ve explained what being a food blogger means is “do you get paid for that?”

Not exactly the most polite question to ask someone you just met, but the short answer is YES, I do get paid. 

How I get paid is a much more complicated answer. Actually, it’s a few different answers. 

Before we get into that, I just want to make it clear that it’s totally fine if you want to start a hobby blog as a creative outlet.

I’m very fortunate to be in the situation I am in, but while I can offer lots of tips for food bloggers, there will always be an element of luck and chance.

Even if you’re making top-notch content day after day, it might not be enough to live on so it’s important that you’re doing it because you love it or you’ll run into content burnout very quickly.

That being said, here are some monetization opportunities you can consider if you’re looking to turn high-quality content into high-dollary… money.

Brand Partnerships

There are many ways a food blogger or an influencer makes money. One of the main monetization strategies is by working with brands for sponsored posts. 

Brands may reach out to collaborate with you once you have a successful food blog with a decent following and good engagement, meaning people read, like, and comment on what you share on your site and social media.

You can also reach out to brands on your own. 

These are typically brands that fit your niche. For The Tipsy Housewife, that would obviously be food or alcohol.

As a blogger or influencer, you can also pitch brands that you may find yourself using often or that your followers would be in the target audience for and interested in learning about.

Brands work with bloggers and influencers to show how “real people” use their products and real life recommendations. There are also influencer agencies you can join that facilitate in connecting bloggers to brands.

Another way food bloggers and influencers get paid is by working with restaurants who want to capitalize on that “word of mouth” business. 

Influencers and bloggers can get invited to places and, in exchange for a meal or for cocktails, you are encouraged to post about it if you like it. 

Many bloggers and influencers also collaborate with restaurants and bars to organize and host influencer dinners, for a fee, where they invite their influencer friends to try out a place and if they like it, they will post about it.

Partnered content creation is another way of being compensated in the industry.

I sometimes get asked to create content by brands for their social media and their website. 

I create recipes, photograph the entire process, edit photos, and share these with brands who are looking for content for their various media outlets.

Other times I simply photograph how I would use the product in real life and then the brand uses those photos for their own accounts.

Community Management

Community Management is yet another way that influencers make money. 

Many influencers curate or manage other accounts, meaning they may create content, manage posts, and encourage engagement.

Another part of this is using analytics to optimize posts for the businesses. 

Managing a social media platform could be a full-time job. Many businesses recognize that social media channels can be the lifeblood of their business, but simply do not have the time to manage it. Thatés why they pay people like me to do it for them.

Then, of course, there are ads like the ones you might notice around this page.

Display Ads

If you’re capable of selling and placing your own ads, then you probably don’t need to be reading this article. For the rest of us, you’re going to need an ad service.

I work with a great service called Mediavine that sells display ads to companies that want to advertise on sites like mine.

I’m able to work with them to earn money delivering recipes and other articles to you while making sure that the ads aren’t too overwhelming.

Many others use Google AdSense.

You can research to find your own preferred option.

Affiliate Marketing

You can think of affiliate marketing and affiliate links as sort of like a digital version of a sales commission in retail.

If I’m discussing a product I used for a recipe then I might include an affiliate link for a reader to purchase that product.

If the reader clicks the link and makes a purchase then the store, let’s say Amazon for example, pays me a small percentage of that purchase.

The buyer does not pay anything extra. If you do decide to use affiliate marketing to make money, it’s very important to have a disclosure statement near the link so readers understand that you will benefit from the purchase and trust in food blogging is maintained.

As with brand deals, I would never have an affiliate partnership for a product I didn’t believe in, but it’s still better for readers to understand that I will benefit if they buy the product so they can take that into consideration and know there might be a little bit of unconscious bias, even if I do my best to be objective.

These are just some of the ways a food blogger or influencer can monetize their accounts. 

There are other ways and different opportunities for every niche, like fashion, mom blogs, travel, and more.

Do Food Bloggers Eat & Drink Everything They Post?

Whether or not a food blogger eats everything depends on who they are and what they’re posting.

I am The Tipsy Housewife, so for me, yes I mostly drink every alcoholic beverage I post LOL!

But as far as eating, usually the answer is no, I do not eat everything. 

For example, many times when you are invited to restaurants, they provide full size meals to take food photos, but each influencer is only given a tasting of each thing so that you have room to try everything.

Other times, you are invited to restaurants to try their food along with other influencers and several of you share one dinner. 

It is difficult when something is really delicious and you can’t indulge because you know you have several more courses to get through. 

Also, you always have to save room for wine!

As far as the recipes I make myself, I would never want to cook something just to take pretty pictures and then throw it in the trash!

Mr. Tipsy and I will eat what I cook or I’ll share it with friends and family. If there are leftovers to eat for a future meal, that’s just a bonus!

Do Food Bloggers Post About Everything They Try?

The answer is a firm NO! 

I get sent lots of things to try that I frankly just don’t like.

I have gone to restaurants and food-related events and not had a great experience and do not feel comfortable recommending it to my followers. 

This isn’t true for all bloggers and influencers but it is the policy that Tipsy follows. 

The Tipsy Housewife is not a food critic, so while I have opinions about food I eat and products I try, I always try to highlight the great things about them. 

If there is something I don’t like I adhere to the old saying that “if you don’t have anything nice to say it’s better to say nothing at all.” 

I feel that this works well for The Tipsy Housewife, as it means my followers know that they are being told the truth about a product or a business that I really believe in.

How Do Food Bloggers Grow Their Audience?

The hardest part of becoming a successful food blogger may very well be building and maintaining an audience.

You could be the best cook and writer in the world and still struggle to find an audience. It’s a big internet out there filled with many talented people.

One method that can be helpful early on is to work together with other food bloggers so you can promote each other’s posts on social media channels.

You could even ask one of your fellow bloggers who is further along on their blogging journey if they’d be willing to let you write a guest post with a link back to your recipe blog.

You can also use Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, to try to have your site show up earlier in search engine rankings for relevant topics.

This is a topic with its own industry attached, so there’s a lot more to learning it than I can explain in this article, but it’s generally a matter of learning the types of writing and keywords that the Google algorithm prefers.

By optimizing your blog content for search engines you can maximize your “organic traffic,” which is the term for blog traffic you don’t have to pay for. That could also include the audience you gain from your social media strategies.

Just be sure that when you’re optimizing articles for an SEO-friendly website you’re still prioritizing high-quality posts and original content that human readers will enjoy. Algorithms aren’t going to be the ones eating your recipes or checking out the restaurants you recommend!

You can use Google Analytics and similar analytics tools to see how your site performs in the search engine rankings. Many successful food bloggers will pay someone to handle that kind of stuff once they’re able to.

Maybe even food bloggers like me…

Once you start getting readers, you want them to keep coming back as you release updates. You can do this by having them follow you on social platforms like Facebook and Instagram and by maintaining an email list.

Let readers know that they can subscribe to your email list and they’ll be notified when you have new updates. You can even create exclusive content just for subscribers in your email newsletters.

You can send email newsletters a couple times a week or a couple times a month based on what you think your audience would like.

There are plugins for food blogs that can help you optimize your content for search engines and manage your subscribers, social media strategy, and editorial schedule.

Just be sure not to use too many plugins since they can slow down your blog and a fast-loading website is vital for positive user experience and SEO. Ask your fellow food bloggers for tool recommendations so you can learn what works for them.

At the end of the day, just remember high-quality content is the most important piece of the puzzle.

Do You Have Fun as a Food Blogger?

Of course it’s fun! But it’s not the kind of fun you think it is. 

Despite what it looks like at times, I am not living a life of leisure. It might be a more flexible schedule than some jobs but I am sent a decent amount of products to try and I work with several brands.

Trying these products in my REAL LIFE takes a lot of strategy and planning. 

When I do test out products or create content I have to be thoughtful about how and when I am using it. 

Many things come into play. Seasonality is a great example.

I am sent fall products and menu items to try in the middle of summer. This is to allow me time to try it, photograph it, edit it, create captions or blog posts about it, hashtag it, tag it, and get approval from the companies I am working with to post it.

Making a posting schedule, or creating an editorial calendar, is a whole different layer of strategy.

I have to analyze the who, what, when, and where of how my followers engage on my various social media accounts and blogs. 

For example, I typically can’t post a picture of a boozy beverage at 7:30 am on a Monday when people are going to work and not yet thinking about drinks. But I am also not going to post it at 7:00PM on a weekday when a lot of my followers who have kids are doing baths and bedtimes.

Optimizing my posts is something that takes a lot of planning and thoughtfulness.

Representing products that fit my niche is also something I have to be mindful of.

I get a lot of exciting opportunities that might be outside my focused niche.

For example, I was asked to test out water that had electrolytes.

Now if you know anything about Tipsy, you know I am not a gym rat so before saying yes, I had to strategize how I could make this brand work with the Tipsy brand.

I couldn’t very well promote it by saying I like to replenish after a jog….

Not believable!

So I have to be creative about how I really would use a product in my real life and if I can’t think of a way, I have to say no and this is lost income. 

In the long term, however, it can help maintain the Tipsy brand and trust with my readers, so it would be even worse to say “yes’ to every product and lose followers cause I seem like a sellout.

By the way, I was actually able to work with the water company in the end because I needed a filtered water to freeze my herbs for my cocktails so it worked out perfectly!

Whether youére a jogger or a drinker, you need water!

I also get to try lots of fun places and meet lots of great people. Those are some of my favorite things about being in the business.

That being said, while it may look like I am wining and dining all around town, a lot goes on behind the scenes. 

What you don’t see is having to take 345 pictures of a dish before you can dig into it or the part where I am analyzing the menu and talking to the owner or the chef so that I know everything about how it’s prepared so that I tell the right story. 

You don’t see the part of when I have to go through hundreds of pictures, pick out the good ones, and then spend hours editing the photos so that it highlights the food in the best way possible.  

Most of the time I also have to make live stories about my daily life while doing all these other things.  

Then there are captions to write, businesses to tag, hashtags to research and then engage with the HUNDREDS of people who like the pictures and ask questions.  

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE all of this, but it’s a lot more than me showing up to a restaurant, snapping a couple of pics and uploading it to Instagram.

There are also media kits you have to update, writing pitches, writing contracts, follow-up, writing blog posts, search engine optimization, posting to Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and more, all of which require very different types of writing. 

Not to mention that I also write a monthly food column for a local newspaper! Phew! 

But I love it all!

Do You Ever Get Tired Of Being a Food Blogger?

Short answer: No. I love everything about it!

There are days I get frustrated, like when I put my blood, sweat, and tears into a post and NO ONE likes it.

Or when I think I wrote thirty niche hashtags, hit post, and realize it was 31 and Instagram deletes it and I have to write them all over again. 

Or when I work my a$$ off on a blog post and I get 30 visitors. 

But after all the planning and work I put in, I feel as if I get so much more OUT of it. 

I have met so many great people in real life and on the internet. I have had so many excellent opportunities to try so many new things and get paid to do it!

Most of all, there is nothing more thrilling than creating a recipe and seeing others make it and share the results with you! 

I love the idea of helping people live their best life and create meals for their family.

It’s really exciting to see others share their food narratives, so I hope these recommendations for food bloggers might encourage you to start your blogging journey.

It won’t always be easy, but there is a real joy in making the type of content you love and seeing others love it as well.

Happy bloggin’!