This is a little guide for beginner food bloggers on what to make sure to include when setting up your website. Most of this stuff is quite basic and easy to do.
If you still need to set up your food blog with a .com and WordPress, then head over to my post with the step by step guide: How To Start A Food Blog.
1. A Header With Character
Create a header for your blog that has some character to it. The header is the first thing people see when visiting your blog. So your header plays an important role in telling people what your blog is about. You really on have 5-10 seconds to catch peoples’ interest.
Most new bloggers will just use a standard font to write out their blog name in their header. It doesn’t cost a lot to get a header designed for you, and it makes a big impact on the look and feel of your site.
GET YOUR OWN FOR $10
You can get a header and logo design from my shop starting from $10.
Here are some I have designed for other people:
2. Say What Your Blog is About, Quickly
As I said above, you really only have 5-10 seconds to capture peoples’ interest when they land on your page. So you should have a tagline, one line that describes why your blog is different than everyone else’s. “Traditional Candy Making Recipes”, “Indian Recipes Cooked in Colorado”, “Veggie Delights for The Family”.
This tagline should be included in your header design. That way people know straight away what your blog is about, and why they should stay.
3. Create a Menu Page – It Will Be Your Most Popular Page
Food bloggers should try and avoid treating their blog as a blog.
The posts you create, the recipe posts, are evergreen content. This means that they will be valuable and useful to people even after a few years after you post them. But you need to give people a way of finding these old posts.
This is where an index page comes in, or as I like to call it a Menu Page. This is a page where people can search, and filter through your recipes. Kind of like Pinterest. Visitors can click on “Desserts” and will be shown all of your dessert recipes.
Creating an index page is quite easy to do. There are a few filter plugins that make it easy to build an index page, such as this filter plugin (I use this one, and it costs $18) or there is this plugin (free).
4. Make Your Recipes Easy To Follow
Get a recipe card on your blog posts. This is a section on the blog post that clearly lists out the ingredients and step by step instructions – just like the examples below. Use a plugin such as the Yumprint Recipe Card to do this. A recipe card also makes it easy for people to print out your recipes in a simple to follow way.
5. A Quick “About Me”
Add a quick “About Me” section at the top of your sidebar. This helps new visitors know who you are and what your blog is about straight away. Yes you’ll have a more in depth About page, but you need a quick snippet in the sidebar.
6. Social Buttons
You want to have your social media buttons near the top of your website, so people can follow your accounts easily. Some good places to have them are either under the About Me section at the top of the sidebar. Or have them in your menu bar if possible
7. Show Off Your Most Popular Posts
Make it a case to show off your most popular posts and recipes. Your best posts can turn people who stumble onto your food blog into loyal followers. Some places to highlight your most popular posts include: at the top of your blog on the homepage, and or in the sidebar.
Those are the 7 most important things you need to have on your food blog. Get all of those up on your food blog, and your readers will have a easy time visiting your website.
- Check out my list of the best food blog WordPress themes
- For more food blogging posts such as photography tips and logo ideas, check out the sections on my homepage.
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