How to Promote Your Food Blog

How to Promote Your Food Blog

I started my food blog a few years ago.  Initially, I wanted to share my food pics and recipes with other like-minded foodies. Little did I know that my small project would take on an active life of it’s own.

I was a first-timer; I knew little about blogging, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and what type of content I should write to attract readers.  Here is a taste of what I have learned over the past few years to help promote my food blog.

Mistakes

If you’re a first-time blogger (regardless of the subject) be prepared to make plenty of mistakes.  Try to look at these mistakes as learning experiences- I know that may be easier said than done, but remember, this is supposed to be a fun experience. Find a friend with technical expertise- someone who can show you how to post effectively.  This person should be patient, and have the time to walk you through all of the necessary steps to put up an effective post.

Pictures

Pictures are important- especially if you have a food blog.  Most camera phones are adequate, but you can get clearer pictures with an SLR, or a point-and-shoot.  Close up photos that show detail will keep your readers captivated, and on your page longer.  When taking pictures for your blog, remember to make sure that you have adequate lighting, and are holding your hands steady.  A tripod will help ensure that your camera remains stable, and your pictures are crisp and colorful.  Small, portable tripods are available on sites like Amazon.com for $20.00 and less.  I like the pics on wheresq.com

Take as many photos as possible.  Readers love to see pictures of beautiful culinary creations, especially when trying to follow a recipe.

Name Your Images 

Have you ever come across a picture on a site that reads: pic-1?  Google passes right over these non-specific names, and you miss out on valuable SEO.  Be concise when naming your photos.  For example, if you have an image of a chocolate chip cookie, don’t name it chochp.jpeg.  Write it out: chocolatechipcookie.jpeg  All of your images (even on your home page) should be named in this manner so that they are recognized by search engines.

Content

Content is king, especially new content.  Most people that surf the web looking for recipes, food pics or restaurant reviews are in search of fresh reading material.  If you want return visitors, it’s important to have at least two or three new entries every week.  That may sound like a lot, but small, food-related pieces don’t take much time to put together.  Fresh content will keep your regular readers interested, and attract new visitors to your site.

Share the Love

When preparing new blog entries, link to other food blogs that you enjoy- some of my favorites are 101cookbooks.com, smittenkitchen.com, and notwithoutsalt.com.  These blogs are easy to navigate, fun to read, and full of breathtaking photos.

The food-blogging community seems vast, but it really isn’t.  Chances are, if you mention these blogs in your posts, the authors will reciprocate.

Search Engine Optimization

I’ve mentioned this term a few times now.  If you’re not familiar with SEO, here is it’s literal translation:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine‘s “natural” or un-paid (“organic“) search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search,[1] news search and industry-specific vertical search engines. (source Wikipedia.com)

Sounds uber-complicted right?  It can be taxing in the beginning, but once you learn a few tricks, you can maximize your SEO.  SEO techniques are constantly changing, so keep up on the latest techniques by doing your own research.  A few sites that can you help you keep up with SEO are: searchengineland.com, backlinko.com, and htmlgoodies.com.

A few points to remember when optimizing your SEO:

Be as descriptive as possible when naming your photos

Always use your keywords in your title tag.  If you’re writing about vegetable soup, title your post as such.  Use vegetable soup in your meta-description, and throughout your article/recipe as often as possible.

Add Content frequently.  The more frequent you add new articles, the more likely it is that you will keep the readers you have, and attract new ones.  Keep your content as original as possible.

Register your site with Google, Bing, and Yahoo– this will make your site more recognizable and accessible to readers searching for particular content.

Google Analytics

Register with Google Analytics

As far as site-traffic measurement, Google rules all. They have the most effective means of measuring traffic, and can show where your hits originate from.  Google analytics uses a simple measurement scale- 1-10, 10 being the highest rank possible.  It will take a month or so (maybe longer depending on your site content) for Google to pick up, and begin measuring traffic.  Once your page is recognized by Google, you can check your statistics daily.  All of this valuable data can be used to assess which areas need to be concentrated on in order to increase page-views and unique visitors.

Facebook and Twitter

When you add a new post or article to your site, feature it on Facebook and Twitter.  The more friends you have on Facebook, the more visible your post will be, thus increasing traffic.  Twitter is equally effective in promoting articles.  If you’ve come up with the perfect banana bread recipe, you can put it on Twitter like this:  #BananaBread (insert URL) #Baking #Bananas #Desserts.

Don’t’ be overwhelmed by all of the technical information.  If you’re considering becoming a blogger, chances are the topic you’ve chosen interests you.  Write with passion, enthusiasm, and vigor- the rest will take care of itself.