Learn how to build an engaging and profitable blog with our free guide.
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A blog is an easy and inexpensive way to attract an audience, build your reputation and trust with your fans or customers, and express yourself or your brand. A blog can help grow your online presence and engage with your target audience, while also finding ways to monetize your blog content.
To illustrate how to create a blog, this guide includes information specific to food blogging, but the information can be applied to any type of business, brand, or passion. You’ll learn key steps in blogging like how to blog, establish a publishing schedule, find your voice, promote your business, and monetize your audience.
Choose your blogging platform
Choosing a blogging platform is the first step toward creating a blog. A platform is the tool you’ll use to publish your blog posts online. There are many free and low-cost blogging platforms, each with a variety of design templates that offer different layouts that let you mix text and images, choose a color palette, select a font that suits your style, and edit and upload photos. You’ll also be able to categorize and tag your posts to direct readers to related information within your blog. Additionally, a blogging platform will track the traffic to your site so you can see what type of content is resonating with your audience.
See our favorite blog website examples
Identify your voice and topic
Even more critical than finding the proper framework, you must find your voice and identify the topic and goals of your blog. What are you passionate about? What interests do you have that you want to share with the online world? What is your blog doing for your business or personal brand? Are you writing to share your knowledge or update customers on products and news?
Your overarching blog topic should be specific enough that you are able to fill a niche or respond to an audience need. You should have enough expertise about your topic that you’ll come across as an authority when writing posts and answering your readers’ questions. This is the place for you to carve out your little corner of the Internet, so that people will find you when searching for your topic.
Once you’ve decided on a topic, start planning out your first 5-10 posts. You should keep your post lengths manageable without being too brief, so you’re able to fully articulate your thoughts and deliver your message. Start drafting posts to get an idea of how long one post will take you. Use that to plan out how often you can update your blog. You’ll want to set a consistent blogging schedule, so your readers can anticipate when to expect new content from you.
Before launching any blog, it’s important to do the research that will set you up for success. Understanding where, how, and when to post your blog is the first step in establishing your online identity.
Learn more about writing and publishing a blog
Monetize your blog
It might not happen overnight, but you can turn your blog into a money-making enterprise. There are a number of ways to monetize a blog, the most direct of which is running ads and using affiliate links. With a service like Google AdSense, you can get up and running with targeted ads that will start earning you money. You can also join affiliate programs, through which you can earn a commission on the products and services you mention in your blog posts.
But before you start blog writing or take any steps toward monetizing your blog, it’s important to define your target audience: Who are your readers and what do they enjoy? Why do they come to your blog? Where do they live? How old are they? Answering these questions will not only narrow the demographics of your targeted advertising and guide your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts; it will also help you find your voice and guide the types of content you create.
The more readers you attract, the more you’ll be able to earn from your blog. One of the most effective ways to draw attention is with SEO. Squarespace includes built-in SEO tools that can help you update items like page titles and descriptions to raise your blog’s position in search results. Other tools like the Google Search Console are also useful in discovering the best ways to boost the visibility of your blog.
Optimizing your blog for search engines is part of the process, but so is self-promotion. To gain the largest audience, you’ll need to promote your blog on social media and in person. Monetizing your blog requires creating content that attracts your audience’s attention and encourages click-throughs to achieve your goals.
Read more about ways to monetize your blog
Blog for your business
There are a number of reasons to create a business blog. For example, a home chef can start a blog to share a love of tacos or another hobby or passion. The owner of a small food business can reap the benefits of blogging when adding posts to an existing website. Regularly updating pages on your site can help drive more traffic, which can lead to revenue generation. Blogging for your business shouldn’t include directly selling to your audience; instead, your blog is a place to tell your story, promote your brand, and connect with your audience without overt sales pitches or ads.
A blog can also be a revenue source in and of itself. With Squarespace Member Sites, for example, you could sell subscriptions to your content. Consider: If you offer a mix of free and paid content, would your customers pay to read the posts you place behind a paywall? There are a number of membership models that allow flexibility in how you charge your audience, including one-time payments and recurring fee schedules.
Whether you are adding a free or paid blog to your site (or a mix of the two), it’s important that readers can find it. You will need to take care to integrate your blog section to your site’s navigation so that it stands out and isn’t buried behind other pages. Make it easy for your readers to find your new content.
Starting a food blog
No matter the target of your passion or the product you’re selling, the steps required to create a blog and the considerations you must make along the way are largely the same. We’ll use the example of the home chef or owner of a small food business to illustrate how to start a food blog, but the steps outlined here apply to any aspiring blogger, regardless of the topic.
Your first consideration should be the type of template to use for your food blog. Every blog platform offers a variety of templates. Some platforms allow more visual elements on the page and others are more text-heavy. Decide how many photos you might want to typically include in your blog posts. For example, when blogging about a new taco recipe, you might want to feature an image for each step of the recipe. Another option would be to include fewer visuals—perhaps a photo of the ingredients at the top and a photo of the finished dish at the bottom of the post. Deciding on the amount, size, and placement of the visuals on your blog will go a long way in helping you choose the right template for your needs.
Other design elements can also help you craft a visual identity for your brand, including font and color selection. You’ll want to ensure that any images and videos you include correspond with your text so that readers can follow and be invested in your story.
That said, before readers can follow your story, they’ll need to find it first. There are many tips and tricks you can use to help your writing stand out online. An effective way to attract attention to your blog is to use catchy headlines to hook readers and encourage click-throughs.
Get useful tips for starting your food blog
Turn your blog into a newsletter
Once you’ve launched your blog, a companion newsletter can be an effective tool to engage your readers and point them to your blog. An email newsletter will reach your readers directly in their inbox, where most people tend to visit daily. There are a variety of tools you can use to collect email addresses to build a mailing list for your newsletter.
As with creating a blog, designing a newsletter can be done easily and effectively by choosing the right template and adding elements to your chosen layout. To start, you’ll need to find a look and feel for your newsletter that’s consistent with your blog and brand. In addition, there are email marketing best practices to follow that will give your newsletter the best chances for success, including analytics to track opens, click-throughs, and shares.