Blogger Resources

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN BLOG?

(don’t worry, it’s easy)

Recently, blogging has become an obsession of mine. I constantly pick and pick at my website, and I love it! If you feel like this is something you would like to pursue, here are a few tips to get your own blog started.

Getting Started

Starting a blog is easy. Keeping up with it and driving traffic to your blog is the hard part. Let’s start with the easy stuff…

Step 1: Find an Available Website Address (Domain Name) and Place to Host Your Awesome New Website

First, you will need a unique domain name and a place to host your website. Brainstorm a bunch of ideas and search your ideas online to see if your domain is available. Bluehost is a great place to get started. Many popular blogs host their blog here, including Pinch of Yum. This host is affordable, reliable and provides professional customer service. You can see if your domain name is available on Bluehost and if you decide to host your blog with them, your domain name is free! If you don’t feel like Bluehost is the right place for you, try GoDaddy instead.

Step 2: Choose a Practically Fool-Proof Blog Software to Use and Install It

After you find your domain name and find a place to host your blog, you’re ready to choose your blog software. This software provides a user-friendly interface for you to add posts, edit pages and make your website spectacular. I use WordPress myself and I love it. Many bloggers also use Blogger for their software. Whichever software you decide to use, you will then have to install it on your host site. Follow the directions on the software website to complete installation. Once installation is complete, you’re ready to start creating the design of your website.

Step 3: Choose a Template to Make Your Blog Visually Appealing

WordPress offers a ton of free themes to use as a webpage template. If you’d like to upgrade to a premium theme, Pinch of Yum recommends the following sites:

The Thesis Theme – This is the theme that she uses.
Elegant Themes – This is a cheaper option.
WooThemes – Another great site to check out premium themes.

These companies will customize a website just for you! There are also plenty of free and customizable themes embedded into WordPress or Blogger.

Step 4: Pimp Your Blog and Post

Now that you have your domain, host, software and theme picked out, it’s time to customize your site and start posting! I hope this wee tutorial helps you create the website of your dreams. Feel free to ask me any questions you may have and I will do my best to answer them. Happy blogging!

Driving Traffic to Your Food Blog

Driving traffic to your food blog is probably the most difficult part of blogging. This takes hard work and dedication and most importantly, time.

My top three tips:

Be Social – Use sites like Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. Update these sites often especially when you add a new post on your food blog.
Share the Love – Post comments on your favorite food blogs regularly. Get the word out about your blog! Make sure to reference these blogs on your site as well.
Be mindful of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – The Platinum SEO plug-in (see below) for WordPress is a great tool to help you achieve a higher ranking search engine result and spread the word about your blog!

My Favorite WordPress Plugins

Online Backup for WordPress - Can you imagine losing your blog? Either can I so to prevent that nightmare from ever happening, I use this online backup tool.

ZipList- Creates a recipe format that is easy to use and offers a print option for your web guests.

Platinum SEO Pack – Offers complete onside SEO solution for your WordPress blog.

Jetpack for WordPress – See how your blog is doing on the world wide web. Jetpack offers stats, graphs and includes Akismet, which is a net for spam comments.

Relevanssi – Unlike the default WordPress search results, this plugin makes your search results super accurate. It’s really handy if you have a blog full of recipes like I do.

There are loads and loads of helpful plugins on WordPress. If you think of something you would like to do on your site, chances are there is a plug-in to accommodate that idea. Simply search for key words on the plug-in dashboard.