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If you love to cook or find the best new restaurants and want to share your love of food with others, a food blog gives you a place online to create a community of like-minded foodies where you can share your passion and prove your expertise.
Read on to learn some best practices for writing a food blog and earning money with it.
Choosing a blog layout
Most blog platforms offer a variety of templates that will lend your food blog a professional and unique look without you entering a single line of code. After selecting a platform, your first order of business is to choose a template. Squarespace offers templates and groups them into categories, including various templates specifically for a food blog. Within each template, you have flexibility for how you want individual blog posts to be arranged with text, subheads, and images.
While some blog templates allow for many visual elements on the page, others are more text-heavy. The one you choose will depend on the type of content you'll be creating. A food blogger might want to include enticing photos that illustrate recipe steps as well as the mouthwatering finished product. Determining the amount and type of visual elements you want to use will help you choose the right template.
In addition to considering the ratio of text to images, there are specific page elements to keep in mind when choosing a blog template.
Byline. You don’t need a byline for each post if you are the only author of your blog, but it’s useful if you have multiple contributors. Some templates also let you include an author image and bio.
Sidebar. Do you want space next to each blog post where you can display your bio, location, social media accounts, newsletter sign-up, and more? These items can be helpful but take up space that might otherwise be devoted to large images, so consider your priorities carefully.
Footer. Similar to a sidebar but located at the bottom of the page, this is the place to include a newsletter sign-up area, links to related blog posts, or provide navigation aids.
Photo galleries. A gallery of photos can provide visual interest for some of your blog posts. This can be especially effective on food blogs when you want to highlight the details of a beautiful dish or meal.
Ecommerce tools. If you want to sell a product or service through your blog, then a website template with ecommerce tools will let your website double as an online store where you can make it easy for customers to read your blog and shop your products.
Creating a visual identity for your brand
There’s more to designing a blog than choosing the right template. You’ll also want to take a step back and think about the larger visual identity of your brand. This can include your logo, color palette, font selection, and imagery. Taken together, these elements communicate your brand to your readers or customers. When creating a food blog, your visual identity should be compatible with the type of food you’re presenting or your personality. For example, if your focus is comfort food, you might want to choose a casual, conversational voice for your blog, as well as warm and inviting colors and imagery.
If you already own a business, then it’s important to ensure that the visual identity of your blog matches your existing brand and you aren’t mixing and matching different logos, colors, and fonts that could cause brand confusion. Your brand’s mission—and the way you present it—must be clear and consistent.
Using catchy headlines to hook readers
There are some proven ways to attract attention and stand out on the internet. Readers won’t appear just because you’ve created an engaging blog with a thoughtful design and consistent messaging. Your writing must immediately captivate visitors to your blog, whether they have found you via a search engine or followed a link from your social media accounts.
When someone visits your blog, what are the first words they’ll see? It’s likely to be the largest words on your page, typically the headlines of your most recent blog posts. A catchy headline that surprises or intrigues a reader is far more effective than a subdued headline that doesn’t convey excitement.
When writing for the web, it’s best to lead with the most important information right at the top. If you take too long to get to the point of a blog post, most readers will lose interest and click away. The first paragraph should reside under a catchy headline and explain right away what the post is about and why someone should read it.