HOW TO START A FOOD BLOG FOR FREE

Transcription

1 HOW TO START A FOOD BLOG FOR FREE Why a Blog? 1. INTRODUCTION Blogging can be incredibly valuable to a variety of people and for a variety of reasons. You can benefit personally, professionally, and financially from blogging. Here are 10 reasons why YOU should start blogging immediately: 1. Blogging creates opportunities you never thought possible 2. It helps you improve existing skills and develop new ones 3. Blogging can actually be therapeutic 4. It is a great way to make new friends and relationships 5. Blogging can generate significant income for you 6. It is a great way to share your talents with others 7. Blogging can be used to stay in touch with friends and family 8. Blogging can be done when and where you choose 9. You can get started for free! 10. And you can get free stuff! Don t procrastinate. This e-book will show you how to get started for free in as little as 15 minutes. Join the 20 million other bloggers who have discovered that Blogging is Good for You. Why Start a Food Blog? Everybody must eat. Food is a passion for millions of people. It is an easy way to get started in the blogging world because there are 450 million inquiries about food every day! I am sure you have old family recipes or recipes you found in old Family Circle magazines that you love. Now you have a way to share those recipes and get paid for it. You don t need thousands of recipes, just a few, and we will show you how to create your own collection of favorite recipes to share. One more secret. was created to drive traffic to food blogger sites. We have some amazing tools just for you and it is all free! We will show you how to get started quickly.

2 Decide What Your End Goal Is Now that you have committed to starting a food blog, you must decide what you want to accomplish. Do you just want to share some recipes with friends and family? Or do you want to rule the food blogging world? If you want a money-making project, then you should continue with Chapters 2-3. This is where we show you a more professional option. It costs a little bit up-front (about $3 a month), but it puts you in a position to make money right from the start. If this is just a way to share recipes with family and friends, then you should jump to Chapter 4. This is where we show you how to get started for free. Whichever option you choose, you can always switch over to the other one later, but it will save you considerable time and hassle if you make that decision now. MyRecipeMagic has worked with hundreds of food blogs that make anywhere between $100 and $60,000 a month. We can show you what they are doing to generate this income and we can help you do the same. You just have to decide if you are willing to make the necessary commitment. How to Use This Book This e-book is designed to walk you through the set-up and launch of a simple blog. We show you two options: 1. Using Wordpress ($3/month) and 2. Using Blogger (free). Chapters 2-3 show you how to get started using the Wordpress platform. Chapters 4-6 show you how to get started using the Blogger platform. Chapters 7-12 are additional steps that relate to both platforms. If you want more information about the pros and cons of each platform check out these articles: Wordpress-vs-blogger: which one is better-pros and cons Bloggingwizard.com: Wordpress-vs-blogger We are not recommending one over the other. It just depends on what your objectives are for your blog. Once you have decided which platform is right for you, just go to the corresponding chapters and follow

3 the easy step-by-step instructions. You could have your blog up and running in under 15 minutes! Then, continue with Chapters 7-9 to finish the process and complete your first post. Don t forget, is a great resource to help you get started and make your blog very successful. any questions or comments to info@myrecipemagic.com and we will get back to you quickly.

4 2. GETTING STARTED ON WORDPRESS How to Start Congratulations! You have decided to move forward with your very own food blog! The first step is to decide on a name. You might think that you can do this later, but you are much better off to start here and build your blog around the name. So, grab a pen and paper or your computer and start a list of potential names. Write down keywords that reflect the message you want to portray. Then go to a thesaurus and look for variations on those keywords. Next go to this link and plug in your keywords to see what comes up Ask friends to brainstorm with you. It can be really fun. Hopefully you will find the perfect name, but sometimes nothing seems to fit. If that happens narrow the list down to 3 or 4 of your favorites and then poll your friends to see which one they like the best. A couple of things to remember are: Your name will be used as a domain name also, so keep it as short as you can. You want your name to draw attention and be easy to remember. Humor is always a good attention grabber and a good play on words can be funny, plus easy to remember. Once you have chosen a name, type it into a Google search. If nothing crazy comes up, then you have yourself a name! The next thing you will need is a WordPress site and a place to host it. There are many hosting companies that can help you. We suggest Bluehost because they are inexpensive (as little as $2.95 per month) and they have great support (this is critical). We started working with Bluehost many years ago as they attended one of our Build Your Blog Conferences. They are a solid company that works with millions of websites. They have simplified the process of setting up a site (how I wish we would have had this to start with back in 2011)! To get started, Click on this link to sign up. Their Basic plan normally cost $7.99 a month, but if you sign up through this link it is only $2.95 per month. They make you pay for 3 years but it s worth the investment.

5 There are 3 Choices for Packages: Basic, Plus, and Prime The economic way is the Basic plan, which should meet your needs as you start. You can change plans later if you need to (like if you grow too big too fast). But, if you want a bit more support and features, the PRIME plan has the best value. The extras include: domain privacy, SiteBackup Pro, and SpamExperts. And if you want to run more than one blog, you can host it on your same Bluehost account for no additional cost (except for the extra domain.) Click SELECT on your preferred plan to move to the next step. Now the fun part. If you are ready to find a domain, enter your preferred domain name and click Next. If you already have a domain, you can use the second option.

6 Enter your account information and select the hosting package you would like. There are some additional options that increase the security of your site, but they are not needed at this time. Submit your choice.

7 The next thing you will need to do is set up a password. Make sure you record this somewhere and make it secure (we suggest at least 10 characters long and nonsensical). This will be used to access your website, so make it hard to figure out, but easy for you to remember. Next, you will need to pick a theme. You can use one of the default themes Bluehost provides or if you want to use a different theme, we explain how to do that in the next chapter. Click on any theme. You can change it later, so pick something to get started. You are now officially a blogger! Keep going and we will show you how to customize your blog and how to get that first recipe on your site.

8 3. ADDING CONTENT In this chapter we will show you how to add a header, logo, and recipe posts. You will need to review Chapters 8-11 to complete this part, so go ahead and do that first. Go to Bluehost.com and login with your newly created URL information to finish setting up your site. Once logged in you will see this page - click on Log in to WordPress. Select the Business option.

9 Then enter the title for your site and the Tag line or brief description. Press Next Step. Launch your site to get WordPress set up and your site all configured (I like the way Bluehost has this all automated for you).

10 Then select the layout for your site (you can skip this if you want because we can change it later). You can set up a simple contact page (which is a nice feature) and that will be done! Or skip it if you want to. You can also skip the WooCommerce setup because we can do that later.

11 You should be set up and ready to add the header image. Start on this page and click either the Appearance then Customize menus or just on the Customize your site button. title. This takes you to the layout editor. Click on the edit pencil by the

12 Click the box to remove the title display and the next box to display the tagline. Then click on the select logo button. Then you have to select an image for your media library. This is where all your images are stored. Click the Select Files button and find your header image (that is covered in Chapter 9) or drag it to this spot.

13 Now press the Select button to put the image in your header. Press Publish and you are all done! You now have a header image installed and ready to go!

14 Creating a Recipe Post Your recipe posts are the most important part of your blog. You should take the time to make sure the information is accurate and attractive. This set of steps shows you how to make a basic recipe post. In our Advanced Course (How to Build a Money-Making Blog in 21 Days) we walk you through all the content ideas that will make your post very readable and SEO optimized. If you need additional ideas, you should review other successful food blogger sites for better layouts and content designs. To get started, open your blog in the admin area then click on Posts and click on the Add New button. Create a title for the recipe then put in a description for the recipe. It is a really good idea to tell a story with your posts if you can. Things like we always had this recipe at Thanksgiving.. Anything you can do to bring your readers into your world and give them a reason to come back. We ll insert an image using the Add Media button.

15 First, Upload the image file of the recipe and click on Insert into post. This places the image in your recipe post. Just a note on images. You don t need a fancy camera. New cell phones have high resolution cameras on them and that will work to get started. It helps to do some research on how to take better food pictures because the image is what will draw readers to your site. We cover the best sizes, formats, and other ideas for images in our Advanced Course. You can also find a lot of information on line or attend a class at a blogging conference for more information. After the image, add the ingredients and directions. This will give you a basic recipe post. Just push the Publish button and you are live.

16 You will want to add a number of things to the post to increase interest and make it more SEO attractive. We cover many more aspects of creating money making content in our Next Steps Course (Getting Viewers and Making Money). After publishing your post, you should have a working version of your food blog. Now just start adding recipes, consistently, to begin the journey of a food post. There is so much more that can be done, and we will help you grow quickly. Take our Next Steps Course and gain the advantage. We hope you are excited enough to continue your journey with us.

17 Get Started on Blogger.com 4. CREATING YOUR BLOG ON BLOGGER This is an easy 3 step process. Just follow the steps and in about 15 minutes you are set up. Step 1. Get a Gmail account (if you already have one you are halfway done, so skip to Step 2). a. At the URL prompt, type gmail.com b. Then click on the Create an Account button c. When you see this page, fill out the information and press Next You now have a gmail account. That was easy! Step 2. Create Your Login to Blogger by typing google.blogger.com in the URL line. Then click on Create Your Blog, and select your google gmail account (unless you are already signed in).

18 You will need a profile, so just create a simple one. Click on the Create a limited profile button. Just type the name you want to be known as when you comment or post a recipe. Then press Continue to Blogger. On this page, click Create New Blog

19 Then, using the name you created in the previous section, type the blog name and the URL. You may have to change the URL a little to get one that isn t already used. You can see that I added 101 to the end of my URL to get one that had not been used. Once you get a valid name, choose any theme (we can change it later) and click on Create Blog. You will be asked to Find a domain name. Just click on No thanks. We can do that later. They will want to charge you $15 to register a name. Step 3. Sit back and relax. You now have a working blog!

20 5. CREATING A THEME How to Start Now that you have created your blog you need to design it. Think of it like building a house. You have the structure, but the inside is blank. You need to decide what you want your layout to look like. Once you have that done you can choose a template that delivers what you want. It is like doing the interior design of your house. To choose a layout, go to as many blogs as you can, and find the one that appeals to you the most. Remember, you are a food blog so certain layouts work better than others for sharing recipes. Here are 5 examples that we like: Now you can find the template that gives you the layout you want. There are thousands of free templates that have been created, but for now, just use one that is offered by blogger. If you want to look at more options in the future here are two good sources: Installing Your Template Here s how to install a Blogger template. 1.Log in to Blogger, and on your Blogger Dashboard, click the Theme link.

21 2. Scroll down on that page and you will see a choice of themes that are available. 3. Choose the theme that reflects, most closely, the layout that you like and right click on it. A preview of what your blog will look like comes up.

22 4. If that looks good, then click on the Apply to Blog button. 5. Now click on the Customize button to make any changes that you want. 6. Now click on the options in the upper left-hand corner to get the exact look and feel that you want. 7. When you are finished click on View Blog in the upper right-hand corner.

23 You will now see what your blog looks like. The next step is adding content. That is covered in Chapter 6.

24 6. CONTENT AND FORMATTING In this chapter we will show you how to add a header, logo, and recipe posts. You will need to review Chapters 8-11 to complete this part, so go ahead and do that first. Creating a Logo Your Logo can be part of the Header and used for many other branding opportunities. We show you how to create one in Chapter 9. Once it is created you can save it on your computer and then upload it to your blog when prompted. Create a Header With a header image you can finish your header on your new site. In Blogger, click on the layout editor and then edit your header layout. In the edit window, click the option to display the description after the image. Then choose the image you created for your header.

25 Add a short description in the Blog Description field for your site and click the Save button. This is your Tagline. You now have a header image installed and ready to go! Instead of just accepting the default color patterns, you might want to select your own set of colors. As you review sites for layout, also review their colors. Then just pick your colors using the Colorpick Eyedropper tool explained in Chapter 8

26 Creating a Recipe Post Your recipe posts are the most important part of your blog. You should take the time to make sure the information is accurate and attractive. This set of steps shows you how to make a basic recipe post. In our Advanced Course (How to Build a Money-Making Blog in 21 Days) we walk you through all the content ideas that will make your post very readable and SEO optimized. If you need additional ideas, you should review other successful food blogger sites for better layouts and content designs. To get started, open your blog in the posts area and click on the New Post button. Create a title for the recipe then put in a description and insert an image for the recipe (click the image icon). It is a really good idea to tell a story with your posts if you can. Things like we always had this recipe at Thanksgiving... Anything you can do to bring your readers into your world and give them a reason to come back.

27 Just a note on images. You don t need a fancy camera. New cell phones have high resolution cameras on them and that will work to get started. It helps to do some research on how to take better food pictures because the image is what will draw readers to your site. We cover the best sizes, formats, and other ideas for images in our Advanced Course. You can also find a lot of information on line or attend a class at a blogging conference for more training. Click the Choose files button and find your image of a recipe. After the image, add the ingredients and directions. This will give you a basic recipe post. Just push the Publish button and you are live. You will want to add some things to the post to increase interest and make it more SEO attractive. We cover many more aspects of creating money making content in our Advanced Course.

28 After publishing your post, you should have a working version of your food blog. Now just start adding recipes, consistently, to begin the journey of a food post. There is so much more that can be done, and we will help you grow quickly. Take our Next Steps Course (Getting Viewers and Making Money) and gain the advantage. We hope you are excited enough to continue your journey with us. This is what our blog looks like so far. Yours will look much better because it is the colors you want and the theme you like.

29 7. SELECTING A COLOR SCHEMA Instead of just accepting the default color patterns, you might want to select your own set of colors. It might seem like a daunting task, but you can find a color pattern from another site that you like and make yours similar. As you review sites for layout, also review their colors. Then just pick your colors using the Colorpick Eyedropper tool. Colors on the computer all have a unique number assigned. For example, white is FFFFFF, black is and teal is Finding the number for the color is easy. The Colorpick Eyedropper tool shows you any color on any screen. Follow the steps below and then save your color numbers to use in the future. Step 1. Search for Colorpick Eyedropper and then click on the link. You will need to be in the Chrome browser. Step 2. Then click on Add to Chrome in the popup window.

30 Step 3. Click on Add Extension Step 4. Now you have the extension added. Go to the page where you found the colors you like and click on the extension to reveal the box. Then move the + cursor to the color you want and it will show up in the box. Gather all the color numbers you need and save them for later.

31 8. CREATING A HEADER AND A LOGO Creating a Logo There are many ways to create your own logo. You can: Pay a graphic artist to do it ($250 or more) Send it out to a $99 logo site ($99) Outsource it to Fiverr.com (less than $99) Do your own with Picmonkey or Canva. (free) Keeping with the idea of an inexpensive website, here is a free way to create a professional looking logo, quickly - using Canva. Canva has a free version with enough features to get it done. Just follow these steps. Step 1: Go to Canva.com and sign up for their free version. Start by clicking on the Small Business button. Then you can use your gmail account to sign up. Step 2: When you are logged in, select the Find Template menu item and click on the Logos from the list.

32 Step 3: Find a logo template you like. Click on it. Then click on Use this Template Step 4: Click on the words in the template and change them to your own. Then click on the color button.

33 Step 5: You will see the color pallet displayed. Click on the + sign and it will show a color wheel. You will see a place at the bottom to enter your color number (the one you found before). You can enter the number and it will change the words to your color choice. Step 6: Do the same thing for the outside circle (or whatever template you choose). Step 7: Then change the name of the logo file by clicking on the name and typing your own file name in there.

34 Step 8: Now you just download the file to your computer. Make sure it is a.jpg or a.png - they work best. You now have a professional logo. For free! In our Advanced Course we show you some other tricks to make your logo even better. Creating a Header To give your blog a uniform look, we need to create a header. This will show up on the top of every page and give your site the look and feel that you want. We will go through the basic steps of creating a header which you can enhance later. First, you need to create a header image to be used for your system (don t worry, you can change this later). There are many tools to create a header image. Canva can be used, Picmoney.com has a free 7-day trial or

35 Gimp is free (downloaded on your computer). We ll show you how to do it with PicMonkey. Go to picmonkey.com and click on the Design button. Then we will create an image the right size. Click on the Crop button and set the size of the image as 750 x 90 as shown below. You can create a different size if you want. This size fits the theme we chose. So, like we said, you can change the theme and image any time you would like. This is just to get started. After you click on the Apply button to save the empty box, select the Canvas color box and click the Transparent box. This will allow your image to show the background of whatever page you place it on. Then click Apply.

36 Next, we will add the title for your site. Click on the text (Tt) button and select a font you like. Then click on the Add Text button. The text field will show up (quite small) on your box. Expand the text field and type the title to your blog, leaving about 20% of the box empty, as shown below. Next, set the color of your text using the color numbers you chose earlier. Highlight the text and change the number in the text box on the right. Add the logo you created to the left of the title. You made need to resize the image to fit in the header image by dragging the corner of the image down to the size you need.

37 Almost done. Now just click on the Export button on the top menu. (Note, if you haven t started the free trial, this is where they will get your info to start the trial). Now, choose a name for the header image and either Export the file or download it to your computer. That s it. You have a header image! With a header image you can finish your header on your new site.

38 9. CREATING CONTENT About Page One of the menu items on your blog should be About Me. These pages are almost always one of the most visited pages on any website. They re incredibly important because your audience cares to know who you are and wants to be able to relate to you. They love seeing the face behind the blog. There's no perfect recipe for success, but there are certain elements that all good About Pages share and that you need to consider if you want to write a good one. Here are five pro tips to help you build the best About page you possibly can: Tip #1 Grab their attention One of the best and easiest methods to do this is to open your "About Me" with a strong statement that perfectly captures your attitude and style. Nothing hooks in a reader like a bold, benefitdriven headline. Your readers already know this is your About page they clicked on the link. So instead of repeating that information back at them with a boring About Me header, try opening with something really interesting or unexpected. Another great strategy is to include pictures and videos. Photos add a nice personable touch, and videos bring it even more to life. They also go a long way towards consolidating reader trust. Don't underestimate these humanizing touches. People want to know that there s a human running the site and that the person behind the blog is someone worth paying attention to. Tip #2 Leverage Social Proof Nothing boosts your credibility like a good testimonial or two. As you get comments back on your recipes, be sure to add a few good ones on your about page. Tip #3 Paint an Honest Picture of Yourself A short bio and a nice photograph help your readers connect with the wizard behind the curtain and get a good look at the real you. What you want to communicate to people on your about page isn t

39 just who you are and what you do but WHY you do it. This is a great place to share your values with your customer by elaborating a little on what you believe and why you launched your website in the first place. One popular way of doing this is telling a story your audience can see themselves in. Write the way you talk in plain English. Tip #4 Keep Your Scope Narrow and Relevant Your About me page is NOT your autobiography. There are two important factors, when keeping your message relevant and to the point: know your audience and emphasize your unique selling points. Your unique selling points are what help you drive leads they're the little details that set you apart from your competitors and make you the single, best solution your readers could have stumbled upon. Highlight these points your readers want to hear them! And, of course, knowing your audience is key to any piece of content you publish so don't lose that target just because you're writing an "About Me" page. Address your audience and explain why you and your mission are so important to them. Tip #5 Even though it's called "About Me," it's really about THEM Your "About Me" should build empathy with your customer. It sounds nuts, but your customers are looking to see themselves in your mission statement they want to understand what kind of problems you solve and how they fit into the solutions you offer. Remember this: your readers aren't stumbling onto your site blindly they're coming to you with pain points that you can solve. When they click your About page, they're usually not after your entire back story, what they really want is to know what you have to offer them. They want to know how you can solve their problems. There's multiple solutions for this your credentials might put their mind at ease, or perhaps a story of your greatest success builds their confidence. Others might be inspired by user testimonials.

40 The last, and final trick is to wrap all of these elements up into a simple, minimalist About page your readers don't want to wade through a wall of text just to learn your mission statement. There's no one strategy, but when you write your "About Me" page, address three simple questions: Who? Your About me page needs to tell your readers who you are, and why that matters. What? It's super important that your About page tells your readers exactly what you re about. Why? This can be the most powerful point. If you are creating your blog for reasons that your readers can relate to or share with you, then they will want to follow you. Finally, your About page should be a fluid page. You are always changing so your About page should be updated regularly. Your readers love to hear about your latest achievements and even your failures. Content That Makes Money Images Pictures are everything to food bloggers whether it s for your blog, for Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest. A good picture will make all the difference! There are many good e-books and training classes to help you develop this skill. We highly recommend the Advanced Course offered HERE. It will make ALL the difference. You will get more traffic, companies will reach out to you with offers to work with them, and you could even get offers from companies who want to purchase your pictures (which is another great source of income). For now, you need to just start taking pictures. You will learn a lot from trial and error. As you progress you can acquire better equipment and the more refined skills that make your pictures look professional. SEO The best source of traffic is from search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc.). These are people that are looking for exactly what you have.

41 Once you start your blog you will get many s from companies that claim they can increase your traffic from these sources. This is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization). The truth is, SEO is very complicated, and it changes all the time. Google is constantly changing their criteria for listing articles because they want to stop SEO companies from tricking the system and they really do want to provide high quality links to their users that are exactly what they are looking for. The best strategy for SEO is to create high quality content then make sure it is labeled correctly. Then when the search engine reviews it, they will categorize it correctly and send their users who are looking for that exact recipe, to your site. If a company claims they can get you to the top of Google s list, don t believe them. There are many things out of their control. Those type of claims are not very realistic. The first thing you should do is make sure your post is titled correctly. The second thing is to use those same key words on the title of your image and in the body of your post. It also helps to tell a little bit more about the recipe than just the ingredients and directions. Give a little back ground story. There are many more strategies that can be used to improve your ranking on the search engines. We cover 8 proven methods in our Advanced Course. When you are ready to take that next step Click Here to register. Internal Links The longer a user stays on your site and the more pages they view, the more revenue you can make. Internal links are an important strategy to achieve this. On every single post, include links to other posts that you have written so that readers know what else you have available. You literally have to put it in front of their faces so that they can easily click on it... make it as easy as possible for them. LinkWithin is a great tool to accomplish this strategy. We will show you additional ways to accomplish this in our Next Steps Course. Display Ads Most bloggers hate display ads. They think that it ruins the user experience and slows down their site. We have found that most users are perfectly OK with a limited number of ads. They understand that it takes a

42 lot of hard work to put together your content and you are giving it to them for free. Just like commercials on network TV, ads are needed to make the business model work. With current ad technologies, like lazy load, you can make sure all of your content loads before any of your ads show up so the user experience is even better. To begin with, you can access ads through AdSense. Here is the link for that process: After you reach a good volume of visitors you will want to upgrade to a more complete Ad Network. We cover the best Ad Networks for food bloggers in our Advance Course. Affiliate Links In simple terms, online affiliate marketing for bloggers means: 1. You write about or advertise a product or service. 2. You link to it with a special tracking link. 3. When your readers click the link and make a purchase, you get a commission on the sale. Imagine you just read the perfect how-to book on cooking gluten free food, and you want to recommend it to others. Write a blog post or newsletter reviewing the book, and link to the book with an Amazon Associates link (see below). If your review convinces a reader to buy, you ll get a piece of that sale! Affiliate marketing happens on a spectrum, from an average Joe sharing a link on his blog or social media to a massive publication making special advertising deals through marketing agencies. So, how can you, as a new blogger, make money from affiliate marketing? A simple way to start affiliate sales is by becoming an Amazon Associate. Because Amazon sells just about anything, this will fit regardless of what product you promote. Plus, if one of your readers clicks on the Amazon link and then buys an entirely different product on Amazon that same day, you get the commission.

43 Whether it s an e-cook book or the best blender for green smoothies, you can make money from Amazon by recommending the resources you love to others. Amazon affiliate sales don t usually bring in a lot of income, because Amazon is known for its low prices, and your cut is typically around only 4%. But it s easy to sign up and get links, and a way to hone your blogging and promotional skills. Similarly, you can join an affiliate marketplace like ClickBank, ShareASale or e-junkie and find a plethora of products to promote. Sponsored Posts Sponsored posts have been around traditional media for a while. For example, if you open a magazine, sponsored content often looks just like an article. You may not even realize that you re reading sponsored material because it s witty, entertaining, educational, and it doesn t have a hard sales pitch. On the web, a sponsored post rests somewhere between a blog post and traditional advertisement. A sponsored post is a lot more educational than a traditional ad and it carries extra weight because it s coming from an influencer. Many brands will pay food bloggers to post a recipe using their ingredients, review cooking gear, or write a post about newly released products. A good source of sponsors for beginners to build up a portfolio and some experience is local businesses. Identify businesses in your niche who are located near you. If they can t afford to pay you, you may want to explore some form of bartering. Once you have some experience under your belt, look at partnering with marketing and PR agencies. Form a good relationship with one (or a few), do consistently excellent work, and then you ll get more work from them in the future. Once you have an established market presence you can sign on with agencies that specialize in providing sponsored posts to you. Also, you can include information about your terms for doing sponsored posts under your About tab. Finally, you can start campaigns to potential brands offering your services.

44 Tips and Tricks There are countless other strategies and programs that you can implement that will help you become a money-making blog. For example: Product Placement Giveaways Traffic Acquisition E-commerce Using Clean Clix Tax write-offs YouTube Data Mining We cover all of these topics and more in our Advanced Class How to Build a Money Making Food Blog. You can check it out and register by Clicking Here.

45 10. SETTING UP SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS Social Media is a great source of traffic for food bloggers. There is too much to do all at once. Pick two or three of these options to get started. Here are all the major ones you should eventually set up. MyRecipeMagic (MRM) Yes, we are a bit biased here. But you will find this is a great source for traffic - quickly. Think of it as Pinterest for Recipes. You put your image on MRM and we send millions of recipe lovers to see your image and push them to your site. Your recipes are not competing with the millions of recipes from all the brands, or big corporations. We only have tried and true recipes from bloggers. This is the competitive advantage you get with MRM. It is easy to start and only takes 3 clicks (or less) to get a recipe image loaded for the world to see. MRM does things like Pinterest and Facebook used to do.when you post a recipe, all your followers see all your recipes, all the time. There are a number of sites that get more traffic from MRM than Facebook and it is much easier. Here is a link to the Getting Started video. In our Next Steps Course, we show you secrets, that very few know, that will make MRM a powerful source of traffic. It's like getting in early to Pinterest. You will see great benefits for starting with MRM this early. Pinterest This is probably the largest source of traffic for most food bloggers. It has over 50 million daily searches on everything from pet care to rocket engines to roast beef. There are also a lot of people selling things, all kinds of things. So, it takes some time to learn the tricks and current strategies. When Pinterest started, all you had to do was post your recipe and all your followers would see your new recipes. Now they require you to pay a fee for all your users to see your posts. Don t misunderstand us, it is still a great source of traffic and can be used to send a lot of people your way. You should set up an account and take a few courses on how to use Pinterest to build your following. Here is the link to sign up and start using Pinterest (Click Here).

46 In our Next Steps Course, we show you how use Pinterest better and we will go through some current Pinterest strategies, showing you how to effectively use this massive traffic source. Facebook Facebook has changed. It was a great source for traffic to your food blog and a way to connect to users. Since going public in 2012, they are driven to make profits for their shareholders. In the beginning, you could post your recipe on Facebook and all of your followers would see it. Now you must pay to have everyone see it. For many food bloggers, Facebook traffic is down 70-80%. If you spend a lot of time and money on Facebook, you can build a good following and there are ways to grow your traffic through this social media giant, but it takes time and effort. I would suggest maintaining a simple presence on Facebook and using your time and money to focus on better traffic sources. You can get started on Facebook by following their help section (Click Here). In our Next Steps Course we show you how you can use Facebook to drive traffic and brand your site. Instagram Most people know that Instagram is owned by Facebook. Sharing images of your recipes with your followers is a great way to brand your site, but it is harder to get traffic directly to your blog. You should maintain a presence on Instagram and use this tool to get the word out about your site and things you are doing. Consistently post your recipes here and take some time to build your following. It will pay off in the long run. Twitter To get started on Instagram go to this web page (Click Here). Twitter has a unique place amongst food bloggers. Getting information out about your site is important, but traffic is how you will monetize it. Twitter will help you brand your site and let your followers know what you are doing, but historically it doesn t drive much traffic to

47 your blog. You should maintain a presence on Twitter, but spending too much time may slow your progress to build consistent traffic to your blog. You can get started on Twitter by following their help section (Click Here). In our Next Steps Course we show you how you can use Twitter to take advantage of this unique tool.

48 Why Collect s 11. CAMPAIGNS Are you in this blogging world for the long haul? You really should think about blogging as a marathon and not a sprint. Growing your subscriber list may not have immediate benefits, but in the long run it will become your most valuable tool. The thing about social media and platforms like Pinterest and Facebook is that you don t own those followers. That type of platform can change their algorithms or policies at any moment (they have in the past!) and not let any of your followers see the content you share without you paying. But with , once someone subscribes to your list, you have their address forever. That literally is the most valuable and effective way to reach someone, so it s crucial to start building your list up immediately. What s interesting about blogging is that most of the traffic you get is not coming from your newest posts. In fact, over 80% of traffic, on average, comes from posts over one year old. However, if you are just starting your blog, you need your initial traffic to come from somewhere (until your posts start to gain traction) and subscribers are the perfect way to do that! Follow the steps outlined in the next subheadings to set up an effective capture strategy, find a good management tool, and learn how to run successful campaigns. Capturing s Every site needs a way to capture the s of those that follow them. There are a number of tricks we discuss in the Advanced Course, but we will show you the basic setup for now. You will need to capture s using either, an service provider s instructions, or you can use a Google form and save the s to a google doc. Using a Google doc is a little complicated, but it is free. If you are interested in trying this method, contact us at info@myrecipemagic.com and we will send you an capture form with instructions that you can modify and add to your site. Since most of us want an easy way to do it, I suggest using one of the service providers to do this. The best one we have found is

49 Constant Contact. Their step by step instructions are simple to follow and the tools they provide are clear and concise. You can sign up for a free 60- day trial at this link: Constant Contact. There are other providers (like MailChimp and Feedblitz) that all provide similar steps. If you have problems following their instructions, just send us an and we will help. One caution, as you setup your capture form, the more information you try to capture ( , name, address), the less likely the reader will be to actually give you that data. Keep it to as few items as possible. We suggest just the to start. Managing Your s Once you have your capture setup, then you can start using this as a source for traffic. You can also use this same list if you want to create a newsletter. Newsletters are great tools to help your followers stay in touch with you more than just get an of your recipes. Sending a weekly or monthly newsletter keeps your followers coming back for more. Using an service provider, recipients can automatically opt out of receiving s. Then you can see if you are annoying people with too much information. You should monitor your drop or cancel rate to see if you are losing followers too fast. All of these tools are in the service provider s software. Sending s Everyone wants to know when you have a new recipe posted. You should set up a regular to your followers (daily, every other day or based on your posting schedule). With an service provider, it is very simple. It is all in their campaigns. You can automatically send an to your followers with an image and brief description of the recipe. Check with your provider for step by step instructions on how to do this. You can also set up reminder s, if they don t open an important . Regular s are a great source of traffic. It keeps your faithful followers informed and gives you a place to provide additional services or setup additional revenue generating sources.

50 In our Advanced Course we go into detail on how set up campaigns and how you can benefit from growing a powerful following. There are a few tips and tricks that will make a huge difference in how you handle s.

51 Setting Goals 12. MAKING A PLAN TO SUCCEED Congratulations you are now an official food blogger. You have taken a huge step towards accomplishing the dreams you had for starting a blog. Blogging has some amazing benefits, but it does require effort. The food bloggers that we see achieve big success all have a few things in common. First, they have a plan. Second, they are consistent in executing it. Third, they track their results. To quote Benjamin Franklin If You Fail to Plan, You are Planning to Fail. Making a simple plan is as easy as writing down where you want to be 1 year from now, then breaking down the steps you will need to take to get there. This usually consists of daily, weekly, and monthly actions you will take. The results of these actions can easily be converted into your goals. Your goals need to be SMART Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Time Bound We go into much greater detail on these points in our Advanced Course (go here for more information), but for now just make the effort to write down the specific goals you want to accomplish and a time line to do it. It really will make a difference. A study published in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine illustrates this point - 1,685 participants attended a group weight management class led by nutrition and behavioral counselors approximately once a week for six months. At the beginning of each session the participants weighed-in, reported the number of minutes of physical activity they had done for the week, and reported the number of days they had kept a diet record for the week. The researchers compiled the data collected over the six-month intervention and looked for behaviors associated with successful weight loss. What the data showed was very interesting: The strongest predictor of weight loss over the six-month time period was the number of days per

52 week people kept a diet record. People who wrote down what they ate six or more days per week lost twice as much weight as people who kept track on 1 day or fewer per week. That also applies to the third item, tracking your results. Successful blogging is based on consistently generating good content plus finding strategies that work for you. You need to track your results so you know which strategies are working and which ones are not. Then you can focus more of your efforts on the items that give you the best results. There are many tracking tools available. We have found the best one to be Google Analytics. We also provide a traffic report for MyRecipeMagic that will show you what results you are getting from that source. We cover both these tools, plus more, in our Next Steps Course. For now just keep a record of your results so that you can measure your performance. Expectations Being a food blogger is a little like being a professional athlete. A very small percentage of athletes are blessed with a gift and they can succeed without a lot of effort. Most athletes are successful because they work their tails off. There are a very small number of food blogs who were at the right place at the right time and their creators had a knack for making good content then, shazam! They were over-night successes. You have probably heard all the stories. The truth is, 99% of all successful blogs got there because they worked hard! It doesn t happen over-night either. Growing a successful food blog takes hard work, time, skills (you can learn), and a little luck. The good news is, if you are willing to make the commitment, we will help you through the process and give you the tools, training, and support needed to succeed. We have built successful food blogs and we have helped hundreds more succeed. We would love to help you too. Best Practices We mentioned above that you might need a little bit of luck to succeed. Two things to remember are: The harder you work, the luckier you get - Samuel Goldwyn, and Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity - Roman philosopher Seneca.

53 You provide the hard work. We will help you get prepared, and you are staring opportunity right in the face! Preparation means knowing the things that successful bloggers do and knowing how to do them. Things like: Creating great content Optimizing the blog for search engine traffic Using social media platforms to drive traffic How to monetize your blog How to leverage your contacts There is a lot to cover. We want you to be successful, so we have created a Next Steps Course. It normally costs $99, but if you sign up through the links on this e-book it will only cost $9.95! If you are ready to make this blogging dream a reality it is time to register for this easy course that is designed to make you a successful, money-making blogger. Click here to get all the information. Thank you for letting us walk you through the basics of starting a blog. We hope to see you soon in our Next Steps Course. Until then. Enjoy the Journey!