When people ask us about what we do for fun, what are our interests, etc… somehow we always get on the topic of blogging. Why? Because we run a blog here at Boozy Burbs. Of course after we get past the requisite eyes rolls, people become enamored with the idea and begin asking all kinds of questions: How do you blog? Do you make any money?

These posts on how to start a food blog will be broken down into 3 parts. The basics, the technical & marketing and the monetary.  Some steps are obviously more important than others, though we think you should try all these steps as much as possible as described below.

1. Take care of the technical stuff. Come up with a clever name. Register that name in domain name form (its easy and should cost less than $12 for the year). Setup a WordPress.com account or install a copy on your own web host ($10 or less/month) and host it yourself. Find a theme you like and install it. Install some plugins. Setup a Google Analytics account and configure it for our blog so our can keep track of whose coming to your site.

2. Start writing. Find your niche. Make it about whatever area/topic of food you want. Do it as often or as infrequent as you want (we recommend more often if possible). It might help to spend a few brainstorming sessions thinking of ideas to write every few weeks and then write those ideas as you have time. Don’t worry about length and perfection. Give yourself time to find a voice.

3. Take photos. Lots of them. Practice with lighting and angles. People love food porn.

4. Promote your site. Email a link to each post to a group of friends, business colleagues, college roommates, whomever. Share it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or any other site you can. Find other blogs or boards like yours and post the links and solicit feedback. Learn about SEO and make sure you don’t do things to harm your site. If you write about a specific brand, product or company, send them a copy.

5. Grow thick skin. You’ll see many eye rolls (as mentioned earlier) when you tell people about our blog. Be positive and convince people they are missing out on something special.

This is obviously a very high level view on how to get started with food blogging. We’ll get a little more detailed in the next post. Stay tuned for Part II…