Ultimate Food Blog Guide - Blog With Ben
Ultimate Food Blog Guide - Blog With Ben
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INTRODUCTION
I am not a lawyer or an accountant. Any legal or financial advice that I give is my opinion based on my own experience. You should
always seek the advice of a professional before acting on something that I have published or recommended. Any amount of earnings
disclosed in this guide should not be considered average.
Please understand that there are some links contained in this guide that I may benefit from financially.
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own opinion of that material.
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the author. All trademarks and registered trademarks appearing in this guide are the property of their respective owners.
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I. Getting Started 06
Decide on a Niche 07
Table of Contents
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V. Creating Content 30
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I. GETTING STARTED
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DECIDE ON A NICHE
IDENTIFY YOUR INTERESTS AND PASSIONS
While you have a lot to choose from as your blog’s main focus “niche”,
I always suggest narrow but deep. That means, choose a very specific
niche that will resonate with as large a group as possible. Then, within
that niche, you’ll go deep—creating lots of content and answering as
much as you can within that specific topic. Over time, with consistent
and quality content, your blog can become the authority (or expert) in
that area.
So, which niche should you choose? Start thinking about what
excites you about food. Is cooking with fresh vegetables your thing?
Do you know more than others about how to prepare different cuts of
meat?
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DECIDE ON A NICHE
The niche you choose should be in line with your passions. If
talking about Mediterranean cooking methods makes you
giddy, share your knowledge with the world! The happier
your topic makes you, the easier it will be for you to manage
your blog and keep it fresh with new content. Narrowing
your niche will also help with SEO rankings as the focus of
your blog will be more easily identifiable by search engines.
TIPS FOR
CHOOSING A NICHE
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IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET
AUDIENCE
After you choose the main
focus of your blog, you’ll want to
decide which audience you’d
like to reach. The more specific
your niche, the easier it will be
for you to understand your
audience. A loyal fan base is the
key to long term success, so you
want to target followers you feel
good about engaging with as
much as possible.
TIPS
✓ Create a sample persona (use this
free tool to create your sample
persona)
✓ Use Google Analytics Audience
Overview to gain a better
understanding of your audience
✓ Monitor your social activity and look
at the profiles of your biggest fans
✓ Use Facebook Insights to narrow
down your audience
✓ Use Twitter Analytics to determine
top followers
✓ Ask for audience feedback via email
✓ Talk to your social followers
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CHOOSE A
CATCHY TITLE
Select a name for your food blog that points to its focus and
resonates with your target audience. This will be the domain name
or URL that seekers type in to find your blog, so it should be
relatively short and easy to spell.
What makes a
Tips
catchy title?
This depends on your brand voice (aka
the way you write) and your target • Search online to make
audience. Will your blog’s brand be sure it’s available
playful, fun, and encouraging? Will it • Use shorter words
be focused on sophisticated, high-end
• Easy to spell
cuisine? A title that is attention-
• Attention grabbing
getting will make your blog stand out.
Conduct an online search to ensure • Use keywords if you can
that it is unique. Note that if you want • Be unique
to build a business or earn money • Make sure your title
from your blog, you must purchase resonates with your
the domain you choose. audience
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YO U R F O U N D AT I O N
WORDPRESS
& BLUEHOST
S TA R T S H E R E
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BLUEHOST + WORDPRESS
Before visitors can see your blog on I’ve been using and recommending
the internet, you need a web hosting Bluehost for years and truly believe
company to help you put that they are one of the best web hosts
information onto the web. That's for WordPress bloggers. WordPress
what Bluehost does. Just like if you even recommends them! So, to get
were to start a business downtown, started, tell them Blog With Ben
you would rent office space. When sent you and take advantage of this
you start a blog online, you need exclusive offer for WordPress
somewhere to store all your words, bloggers. Only $2.95 per month!
photos, and information that make
up your blog. Bluehost is like a Disclosure: I’m an aff iliate for
storage shed for your information. Bluehost and I’ll earn a commission
When someone types in the web if you decide to make a purchase.
address to access your blog, Bluehost Thanks for your support! You’re
provides all the data their computer helping me keep my blog up and
will need to display your website. running and provide for my family!
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BENEFITS OF
WORDPRESS + BLUEHOST
Bluehost has been recommended by WordPress.org since
2005. By partnering with Bluehost, you receive all the power
of WordPress along with innovative plugins, themes, and
seamless 3rd party integrations. These features are what
make Bluehost the best place to build, grow, and manage a
beautiful WordPress website.
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II. DESIGN & BUILD
YOUR FOOD BLOG
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INSTALL RECOMMENDED
PLUGINS
Now that you’ve created a solid Luckily, I’ve created a list of each
foundation with Bluehost and plugin you should install. That
WordPress, it’s time to start way you can easily use it as a
building your blog. One of the reference as you’re watching my
first things I always do when food blog video tutorial. Either
starting a blog is install plugins. way, here are the
recommended plugins.
If you’re new to the idea of
plugins, WordPress plugins are I should also add that the
bits of software that can be plugins on this list have been
uploaded to your blog. Their tested and all work seamlessly
p u r p o s e i s to ex te n d a n d with the Kale WordPress theme
expand the functionality of your and one another. Plus, they’re
Wo rd Pre s s s i te . T h e re a re all f ree and will help you
literally thousands of plugins to become a better blogger.
choose from.
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instructions
RECOMMENDED PLUGINS
GOOGLE DOC
Below is a free Google doc I created that lists all of
the recommended plugins for starting a WordPress
food blog. Enjoy!
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INSTALL THE KALE
WORDPRESS THEME
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The right WordPress theme can go a long way in your blog’s success and
this portion of the guide will show you how to turn a boring layout into a
sleek, innovative, and mobile responsive design with the FREE Kale
WordPress theme. There is also a PRO version of the Kale theme that has
more features. Click on the first screenshot to watch the video tutorial.
3. In the search bar, make sure 4. Preview, if you’d like, and then
keyword is selected, and type click the Install button.
Kale.
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CONFIGURE PLUGINS AND
INSTALL KALE CHILD THEME
Next, it’s time to configure your I should also mention that you
plugins and install your child have some options when it
theme. Both of these tasks have comes to how you create your
multiple steps within them, so child theme. If you don’t want to
instead of outlining each task use the plugin in this video, you
step-by-step in this guide, I can manually create it. However,
recommend that you watch the that’s a bit advanced and I
above video tutorial that walks recommend using the plugin if
you through the process. you’re just starting out.
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It’s time to start designing your blog and piecing everything together!
I’ve outlined the most important parts of this process below. Click on
each screenshot to watch the tutorial and start designing your blog!
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III. EMAIL
MARKETING SETUP
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GETTING STARTED WITH
EMAIL MARKETING
An email list is the foundation tutorial. Well, that’s because
for any successful blogger, AWeber wasn’t free when I
e s p e c i a l l y w h e n yo u c a n created that video.
leverage that list through a
service like AWeber. However, you can now get
started with AWeber and start
However, building that email growing your email list for
list also takes work and, all too FREE NO CREDIT CARD
often, seems kind of random. REQUIRED AND NO TIME
The good news is that you LIMIT.
don't have to rely on luck to
gain new subscribers. I personally use AWeber for
Blog With Ben and have been
With the right steps, you can a very satisfied customer for
actually build up your email many years.
subscribers fast and start
moving towards earning a
passive income.
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AWEBER STEP-BY-
STEP VIDEO TUTORIAL
Below, you’ll find a step-by-step video tutorial I created that
shows you how to implement an email marketing strategy
on your food blog using AWeber.
FREE VIDEO
Learn how to set up and build
your email list with AWeber in
this step-by-step video tutorial.
Additionally, you’ll learn how to
set up a professional email
marketing journey that is
designed to not only grow your
audience but help you earn a
passive income online. FREE EBOOK
Get all the tools and
resources you need to
become an email
marketing pro in no time.
Download your free copy!
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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN IN THE
AWEBER VIDEO TUTORIAL
Email marketing can be intimidating when you’re just starting out. At
least it was for me! That’s why I’m including this AWeber step-by-step
video with your food blog guide. Email marketing and blogging go
hand-in-hand. Together, they’ll help you become an online success!
Here’s a quick snapshot of what you’ll learn in my AWeber tutorial. Click
each screenshot to jump to a particular part of the video tutorial.
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B LO G M O N E T I Z AT I O N
When it comes to monetizing your blog, you have multiple ways to go
about it. However, from my personal experience, I’ve found the most
success with affiliate marketing. Now, that’s not to say that you
shouldn’t pursue other forms of monetization. But, for this guide, I’m
going to show you how to implement affiliate marketing strategies so
that you can start to monetize your blog.
As I said, there are other revenue streams to look into like creating a
digital product and selling it, running ads, offering 1-on-1 coaching
sessions, freelancing, etc. The list goes on and on. However, affiliate
marketing has helped me earn thousands of dollars per month and I
don’t even have a physical product to sell. Affiliate marketing really has
changed my life in a positive way (see below)!
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AFFILIATE MARKETING
There’s obviously more that goes into the process (which I cover
in the food blog YouTube tutorial, but at its core, those are the
three main steps to start earning passive income on your blog
with affiliate marketing.
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QUICK TIP: JOIN
AFFILIATE NETWORKS
Affiliate networks are great because they offer a platform that
allows merchants and publishers to discover one another. If
you’re new to the concept, merchants are companies that
offer affiliate programs, and publishers are affiliate marketers
(a.k.a. you) who promote these companies on their site. The
affiliate network acts as an intermediate between the two,
which lets merchants reach a larger audience and offers
affiliates the opportunity to earn a share of the sale.
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V. CREATING
CONTENT
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A D D I N G C O N T E N T T O Y O U R PA G E S
Now it’s time to add content to your pages, and the first page is
your “About” page. This is one of the most important and highly
visited pages of your blog because it’s where most of your readers
will start out when they first visit your blog. This is your chance to
make a great first impression and let them know what you and
your blog are all about.
ABOUT
PAGE
CONTACT HI!
PAGE
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When it comes to creating content, the new WordPress editor gives you
so much control and flexibility with the new content block feature. Feel
free to test drive the new editing experience here before you start
building. Either way, the new editor will streamline your content creation
process and save you a ton of time! Click on the first screenshot to
watch the video tutorial.
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ADDING CONTENT TO
THE ABOUT PAGE
Now that you’ve added all of the content to your About page, there
are a few more things I recommend doing before you publish it.
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ADDING A FORM TO THE
CONTACT PAGE
Next, it’s time to add a contact form to your “Contact” page. This is a great way to
open a line of communication up with your audience. Click on the first
screenshot to watch the video tutorial.
1. Access the WPForms Plugin 4. Add the Form Shortcode to the Page
Configure your form’s settings and Click the Preview button to preview your changes
and click the Update button to make them live.
fields within the backend of the plugin.
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Now that you’ve configured and customized your blog, you can
start adding actual blog post content. And for this particular food
blog, your blog posts and recipes are one and the same, meaning
your blog posts are your recipes.
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How to Create a Blog Post
that Contains a Recipe
Alright, now it’s time to start publishing your own original content. This is when
you officially become a blogger! Very exciting! So, let’s add your very first blog
post recipe. Click on the first screenshot to watch the video tutorial.
1. Add a new post by selecting 2. The post editor is just like the page
+New>Post. editor.
3. Add your post title where it 4. Start typing your intro content.
says Add Title.
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How to Create a Blog Post
that Contains a Recipe
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In this portion of the guide, I’m going to show you how to create a recipe
index page so that you can have a place to store and display all of your
recipes. Your recipe index page will help your readers browse and find
specific recipes that you’ve posted on your blog because we’ll be storing
them all in one centralized location.
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How to Create a
Recipe Index Page
Click on the first screenshot to watch the video tutorial.
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VI. CONFIGURE
THE HOMEPAGE
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In this section of the guide, I’m going to break down how to configure your
homepage into four sections. There are obviously more steps within each of
these sections, but these are the main points of focus for configuring your
homepage.
Click on each screenshot to jump to that specific part of the YouTube food
blog tutorial. This will allow you to go step-by-step and quickly configure your
homepage.
3. Configure your footer and add 4. Optional blog feed edits and
multiple columns. customization.
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VII. KALE THEME
AND SEO TIPS
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Tip 1. Change the
Font Size
As amazing as our finished blog looks, a frequently asked question I
get is how do I change the font size throughout the blog. Some
people think it’s too small, and I can understand that. So, if you want
to enlarge the font size throughout the blog. Follow these steps.
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Tip 2. Allow Search
Engines to Crawl
Yo u r B l o g
Alright, we’re almost there! Your 1. Visit Your Settings
blog is a few minutes away from In your WordPress dashboard, go to
launching. Before we finish up, Settings>Reading.
there are a few tips that I want to
share with you. The first has to do
with SEO. By default, WordPress
hides your blog from the search
engines. That’s because your blog
isn’t optimized for the search
engines when you’re just starting
2. Configure Search Engine
to build it. Visibility
Uncheck the box next to Discourage search
However, now that you have a
engines from indexing this site.
search engine friendly blog that is
structured correctly and has
content, you’re ready for the search
engine bots to crawl your site. So,
one way to let the search engines
know that your blog is ready can
be configured in your WordPress
dashboard. See steps one and two.
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If you’re unfamiliar with what a sitemap is, it’s basically an easy way for you to
inform search engines about pages on your site that are available for
crawling. A sitemap is a file where you can list the web pages of your site to
tell Google and other search engines about the organization of your site
content. Search engine web crawlers like Googlebot read this file to crawl
your blog. Click on the first screenshot to watch the video tutorial.
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T i p 3 . S u b m i t Yo u r
Sitemap to Google
Next, it’s time to submit the sitemap to the search engines. This process is
different for each search engine, but the most common search engine by far
is Google, and the way to notify Google is through the Google Search
Console.
Please note that there are multiple steps within each of the steps below.
That’s why I created an additional step-by-step tutorial that walks you
through the process of verifying your site with Google. Once you’ve verified
your site, you can submit your sitemap.
1. Sign up for a free Google Search 3. Back at your blog, access your sitemap in
Console account. the Yoast SEO Features tab - Click on the
Question Mark Icon to access the URL of
your sitemap. Then, click on See the XML
sitemap link.
2. Verify your site with Google by 4. Copy the sitemap URL in your browser.
watching this tutorial. That is the URL of your sitemap you’ll use
in Google Search Console.
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T i p 3 . S u b m i t Yo u r
Sitemap to Google
You’re almost done. Just a few more steps!
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Tip 4. Create a
Privacy Policy Page
This is an aspect of having a blog that can sometimes get overlooked, but with the recent changes to
the European privacy laws, it’s extremely important that you have a privacy policy page on your blog.
I want to clarify that the following information should not be perceived as legal advice. I’m not a
lawyer and by no means should this tutorial be used as any type of legal consultation. I recommend
that you reach out to a legal professional if you have any questions or concerns when it comes to
how to move forward with your blog’s privacy policy page.
Additionally, if you have the budget for it, I highly recommend using a service like TermsFeed and
their Privacy Policy Generator. This way you can be sure that you’re adhering to the current online
privacy laws.
With that being said, the new WordPress update makes it super simple to get started with your
privacy policy page. All websites on the internet should have a privacy policy page. It protects your
business from legal issues and also helps build consumer trust.
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VIII. Secure and
Launch Your Blog
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Here we are, it's finally time to launch your blog! This is it. The
moment you’ve been waiting for. It’s time to show the world
what you’ve been working on and it’s time for you to shine!
2. Check to make
sure your FREE SSL
certificate is in place
and that it’s turned
on. Go to your
Bluehost Portal>My
Sites>Manage
Site>Security>Secu
1. In your WordPress rity Certificate.
Dashboard, click Coming
Soon Active>Launch Your
Site. This removes the
Coming Soon page and
makes your blog viewable for
everyone!
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IX. KALE HELP
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LY R A T H E M E S H E L P
DOCUMENTATION FOR KALE
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