Today is Simply Fresh Cooking’s 3 month blogiversary! Woo hoo!
Yes, those are my site stats below. Am I crazy for sharing them? I don’t know! Either way… take a gander, you know you want to!
You can click on the picture if you need to make it larger.
My desire to start this “Behind the Scenes” project really came about from wanting to know what it’s like for other people who are very new to the food blogging community. I hope the information I share will be of use to someone just starting out or thinking about starting their own food blog.
I’ve searched the web looking for other people’s stories, and to be honest, I’d really like to know what their stats are like and if they’re making any money. Aren’t you a little curious, too?
I first came across Lindsay from Pinch of Yum who has been sharing her info, and her stats are impressive to me, but she’s been at it for a couple of years… much longer than me, so I can’t really compare myself to her success at this stage in my blogging career. However, I was just super excited to find anyone sharing their information at all. I also happened upon Kristen from The Endless Meal. She has just recently started sharing her profits, and she’s doing great things with her blog as well.
I’m not saying this is all about making money for me, and I’m aware that most likely you wouldn’t be able to survive on a food blog’s income if that’s all you had. As a matter of fact, I’ve read that you shouldn’t quit your day job. I think Ree Drummond from The Pioneer Woman is the exception to that rule, as she’s got her own show on the Food Network now. But back to the point, I am looking for this to supplement my husband’s income because I’m not currently able to work outside of the home, so anything helps… but I’m mainly focused on this as a hobby and as a way to share my passion with as many people who are willing to share it with me.
Things I’ve learned:
-Learn how to use your camera and get yourself on food sharing sites!! Excellent food photos are what seem to matter most. If you’re able to get your photos accepted on Food Gawker, you’ll be well on your way to statistics heaven. Food Gawker is the site that gets the most traffic and can bring you the most traffic, so start submitting your photos there. You might see 500-2,000 views just from one submission on Food Gawker!
Here’s a list of other food sharing sites you’ll want to check out:
-Tastespotting
-Tasteologie
-The Hot Plate
-Tasty Kitchen
-Healthy Aperture
-Dessert Stalking
-Gojee
*When submitting your photos to the list of sites above, it can be really time-consuming, but when you’re new you need to get yourself out there as much as you can. I’ve learned that the easiest and fastest way to submit your photos is to open up every site in separate windows so that you have all 7 (or however many sites you wish to submit to) open and ready to go. Then, copy and paste your post link, post title, tags, etc… and go down the list and do them at the same time so you’re not typing everything out for each site (I hope that made sense!).
Really pay attention to the composition of your photos. I happen to like a close up shot of my food pics, but Food Gawker doesn’t seem to. Take multiple photos, and if you don’t get one accepted you can certainly try another. I’ve been known to get 2 of essentially the same photo rejected, but I kept editing and re-submitting, and the 3rd time can sometimes be a charm in this case. Not always though… sometimes I just give up after 2 rejections because I know at that point I haven’t taken enough photos and I’m pretty much out of luck.
Keep trying… because as far as I’m concerned, a post that isn’t on Food Gawker may not get the attention you want it to. I call those “filler posts”. Because although I may have worked really hard on it and think it’s just the best thing since sliced bread, it probably won’t get the amount of views you’d like it to.
Once you get accepted on Food Gawker, it’s definitely a good idea to see if you qualify to do Google Adsense. I waited too long, and I’m sure I could have earned more money last month, but I was unsure how to implement the ads on my site. So, please learn from my mistakes if you want to monetize your blog in the early stages. I’ll talk more about Google Adsense later under the WordPress plugins section.
-Be yourself in your writing and it’ll come more naturally and flow much better. Don’t stress too much about what you’re writing, and just tell the story of your food. Keep it brief, and try to make each post about 400 words. Talk about things like why you love the recipe you just made, how you prepared it, how it tastes, and give some of your personality. Also, try adding in some helpful tips. I used to really stress about my posts, but now I just tell my story, and it seems to happen pretty naturally. I don’t feel that every single post has to be the most amazing thing I’ve ever written. I just do my best, and I’m sure it’ll pay off later on down the road when I’m more comfortable with it.
-Sign up for Pinterest and start pinning your photos. There are other sites, like Stumble Upon for example, but I’m not too familiar with them yet.
-Keep an eye on your stats! Ok, so we’ve had what I would consider a little bit of success for a new food blog and we really love watching our stats go up. We are total page refreshers. I won’t even try to lie. The only thing I regret is that we didn’t actually have Google Analytics implemented on the site right away. We made the mistake of not using it until very recently, so we’re pretty bummed that we aren’t able to tell how many visitors we’ve had from the very beginning. So do that ASAP! Even if you are the type to rarely check your stats, it’s still good to know where you’re at and if your site is continuously growing.
-Add in some “You may also like” posts at the end of each post. I didn’t do this in the beginning and this is a mistake. If you don’t give them a reason to stay on your site, they won’t. If you do this you’ll see your pageview average rise immediately.
-Blogging is a lonely world when you’re a newbie… as you sit and type away at your computer all by your lonesome. I can see that people are on my site, but are they reading my blog posts? Who knows? I know they’re not commenting much. I’m assuming that’s something that will just take some time. Meanwhile, let’s just keep on keepin’ on!
How I learned about food photography:
Photography is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I have a new respect for beautiful photos of any kind. Whether it’s food, people, or scenery.
I’m such a perfectionist in general, and have become very frustrated when I couldn’t get the shot I wanted. However, it has become much easier over the past couple of weeks. My skills improved literally overnight thanks to Pinch of Yum’s Tasty Food Photography eBook.
Here’s what happened: I got the eBook one day, read it, and then the next day I tested out what I had learned. I was thinking, okay I think I’ve finally figured out how to take “Food Gawker worthy” photos, and guess what happened??
The 5 recipes I made that week all got accepted on Food Gawker, and I can guarantee that would NOT have happened without Pinch of Yum’s eBook. I saw a major elevation in my stats and had my busiest week thus far. It was very hard to get photos accepted before this, and I had to put a lot more effort into taking pictures, too.
I’ll keep you updated on my progress with learning photography, but for the time being I wish I could go back and re-cook everything I made before I bought this eBook and do this poor delicious food some justice.
The before pics kinda make me cringe….
Before Tasty Food Photography eBook
After Tasty Food Photography eBook
Before Tasty Food Photography eBook
After Tasty Food Photography eBook
Before Tasty Food Photography eBook
After Tasty Food Photography eBook
I’m embarrassed and proud of myself at the same time! 
It’s still going to take a lot of practice to develop an eye for it, but I’m definitely moving in the right direction.
Want to purchase Tasty Food Photography eBook and improve your photos overnight like I did? Do it here…
The week before I purchased Tasty Food Photography eBook…
The week after…
Not too bad, eh? The proof is in the puddin’ people!
Useful WordPress plugins:
My blog is powered by WordPress, and the plugins are what I use to build my website, make it run better, and be more interactive for the reader. I’m not very computer literate, but I got the best advice from my web host in the beginning which was, “whatever you need there’s probably a plugin for it”. This has been very true. While it’s all been a lot of trial and error, I believe that if I can do it, you can do it, too. It’s been a lot of hard work and research, but I feel like I can probably figure out most things on my own now, and I’ve gotten pretty comfortable with doing things. I certainly can’t write code… yet. Who knows what could happen in the future though.
Akismet- Protects your blog from comment and trackback spam, even while you’re catching your zzz’s… which is a very good thing!
All in one SEO Pack- Really important and helpful for getting picked up by Google. I don’t want to take the time to learn search engine optimization, so I let plugins like this do the work for me.
Easy Recipe- If you look at one of my recipes you’ll see that it’s in a box. That’s because of this plugin. What’s great about it is it’s formatted just how Google likes it! Also, If you’ve ever wondered how people get their pictures by their recipes in Google… well, this will do it for you. It’s not guaranteed, but it’s been happening more often than not for me.
Awesome Ads- This one makes it easy to show Google Adsense ads in your posts if you can’t figure out how to implement the code.
Google Analytics for WordPress- This is all you need to get Google Analytics up and running so you can sit back and watch the people flock to your site (hopefully).
nrelate Most Popular- This is what I use to show off my most popular recipes. You should see it on the right sidebar. I’m also earning a little money for advertising.
After the Deadline- Spell check! I still like to run everything through a Word document to double check everything. I save all my posts in there anyway… just in case!
Fast Secure Contact Form- This gives your readers an easy way to contact you. Look at my “contact us” page.
Font- I waited too long to get this one. WordPress doesn’t automatically come with different font types, which is absurd to me, but then I found this plugin and was happy again!
Subscribe to Comments Reloaded- When people comment on your posts, this gives them the option to subscribe when anyone comments on that post. Or they can choose to get updates only for replies on their comment.
Social Sharing Toolkit- This one may be the most important because you want people to be able to share your content on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Therefore, helping your site grow.
If you’re like me, the idea of plugins sound great, but you do still have to configure each and every one of them. It can be a bit of a learning process in the beginning, but it’s worth it when you see your progress and start gaining confidence in your abilities.
How much $$ I’ve earned so far:
I’ll give you the numbers from my March 9th start date through the end of May. I’m holding back my June numbers for now until I have the results for the whole month, but I’m pleased so far with how things are going.
nRelate- $4.35
Google Adsense- $3.84
Amazon Affiliates- $3.53
Total- $11.72
WOW, right?! It’s pathetic, I know. But I’m pretty giddy about it anyway! It’ll be good to see how Google Adsense does for a full month. I have also just become a publisher with Foodie Blogroll, and looking forward to seeing what kind of opportunities they have to offer.
My favorite search term so far:
you+will+sh@!+bricks
Dear person that typed this into Google and found me,
If you’re reading this, you really made me LOL!
Love,
Rachael
—> You can’t make this stuff up!
If you’re still with me, I appreciate you being here and reading the first edition of “Behind the Scenes of a New Food Blogger”. I hope I’ve answered some questions about what it’s like to be a new blogger.
Please feel free to ask me anything or just let me know what you think… I’m lonely!
Rachael xoxo
I think this is soooooo good. Awesome job Rachel. I love the photos now very impressive . Proud of you.
HBD to Bill.
Hi Harry,
Nice to hear from you! I really appreciate that coming from you! I’ll tell Bill you said Happy Bday.
Congrats on launching your new site! It’s very, very informative and should prove to be helpful to those food bloggers out there. Way to go!!!!
Thanks!!
Rachael,
Thank you so much for sharing all your information with us other bloggers! Your numbers are really impressive for only just starting blogging. I can’t wait to see how they grow over the next few months.
And $11.74 is definitely not pathetic. You should have seen how much I earned the first moth with google ads … Less than $3 lol.
Btw I think you’ve convinced me to pick up Pinch of Yum’s book
I’m glad you liked the article Kristen! I should have mentioned that I technically do this full-time, which could have an impact on my numbers being so high in such a short amount of time. I’ve put quite a bit of effort into learning how to do this, and I just love it!! Hope you like Lindsay’s eBook, although I love your pictures quite a bit already. I do <3 your site quite a bit!!
Stay in touch GF!
Interesting article, thanks for writing it. I stumbled across your blog from TasteSpotting (those bomb pop drinks looked too yummy!!!). I have often thought of food blogging but for now, I’ll just enjoy the work of others. Good luck!!
Thanks Jennifer! I’m glad you enjoyed it. Someday maybe you’ll decide to go for it! If I can do it, anyone can!
What a fantastic, informative post! Very impressive stats for a blog that’s only 3 months old, congrats! I don’t pay nearly enough attention to my stats…must work on that. I was a bit disheartened after having my first few submissions to Food Gawker and Tastespotting rejected so stopped trying for a while but after a recent successful submission I’ve been encouraged to dedicate more time to getting featured on those sites. It clearly works for you! Thanks for sharing all these tips which are equally as helpful for those who have been blogging for a while as they are for newcomers.
Thanks so much, and I’m glad you liked it! I wholeheartedly believe that Food Gawker and the other sites like that are the key to bringing more traffic while you’re first getting started!
Having had a closer look at my stats yesterday I wholeheartedly agree! Just got notified that Dessert Stalking accepted a recent submission too – fingers crossed it’s a sign of more to come!
That’s so awesome! I looked at your site, and it looks like you should have been submitting photos for quite a while now! You go gf!
Hi. Thank you for this brave, bold post. People have been asking me to start a food blog and it just seems more than I could manage! Do you recommend WordPress? How do you get the plugins? Again, many thanks. Hope to see you in cyberspace!
You’re very welcome! I think you should give it a try! You can set it all up for free and would have nothing to lose. You could just start slow and see what you have time for. I love WordPress!! It’s such a great platform for blogging, and there are thousands of free plugins… I haven’t paid for one yet! They’re right on your dashboard where you manage all the behind the scenes stuff. Please let me know if you decide to give it a go, and if you have any questions about anything… I’m here to help!
Hi Rachael,
So love your openness and honesty. Very fresh and charming. I’m preparing to make the leap of faith into creating online income (not around food), and I’ll be happy to share any info with you if you are interested. Last year I did a Chris Farrell course (one of the best) in internet marketing, and his membership site is also great. But it sound like you are on your way. Maybe getting a pro to look at your site and give tips or feedback could help boost your income figures. But who, is the question. Seems like you are getting loads of traffic, but not converting. Anyway, keep at it and it’s great to have you online. BTW, I used your honey roasted almond recipe — tops!! Cheers, Roger (from Chicago but living in Sydney, Australia)
Thanks for Sharing Rachel!! I look forward to exchanging with you in the future!! <3
Same to you Steve! You’ve got a lot of great info on your site and it’s going to be great!!!
Thank you for posting this! My blog has only been public for two months now and my all time views are 2,773…was feeling good about that until I read your stats!!
This is the first time I have ever heard of foodgawker, tastespotting, etc. I definitely need to step up the effort I put into my pictures now! I pretty much shoot all of my pictures in the automatic-no flash mode…oops! I use blogger and haven’t found a fancy way to display my recipes yet.
Do you solely publish recipe posts? So far I have been posting recipes, things that are going on in our lives, information about different toxins hiding in food/house products, etc and am not really sure what direction my blog will take quite yet! Have you ever done blog link-ups or other things like hosting a blogger for a post? It seems like those could be a good way to appeal to new readers, but I’m not really sure how to find newer food bloggers who would be interested in doing something like that with someone who only gets a few hundred views a day (as of very recently).
I saw that you have a ‘giveaways’ link–do people contact you for giveaways or do you contact them?
Sorry for so many questions and the randomness of this comment!! You are just one of the first *new* food bloggers that I have come across that is quickly rising to success. Way to go and keep it up.
Hi Nicole! I’m so happy you’ve reached out to me, and I’m more than happy to help in any way I can!
Obviously, the food sharing sites are really important. I think it would take years to get to where I’m at now without them! Photography is really, really tough, but that eBook is what helped me soooo much!! If you want to get yourself on the fast track to decent stats you just have to buckle down and learn your camera settings… along with a few tips and tricks.
Next, I think it’s fine to post about anything you want as long as people seem interested in it. Are you blogging for your friends or are you blogging for many people to see? I think that’s important to keep in mind. Some of the population might not want to hear some personal things until they get to know you a little better and you’ve built a following. But that’s just my opinion. My blog actually started out with a totally different direction and I’ve simplified it in the last several months. But to answer your question, I do generally like to keep it strictly about the food and I’m pretty lighthearted… but if you can educate people in some way, I think that’s fantastic!!!
I haven’t been approached to do guest blogging yet, so I’m not really sure how it works. I’ve been thinking about asking some of the new friends I’ve made to see if they’d be willing to though. I’d be more than happy to talk about doing a guest blog post with you to maybe help drive more traffic to you!
I’ve only done one giveaway so far and it’s a product that a friend of mine makes. I know that in the beginning you do have to purchase the products yourself if you’d like to do giveaways for your readers… but once you start getting noticed more, companies will begin approaching you! I’m still waiting for that to happen! I’ve been thinking about just asking companies myself for a product to use as a giveaway on my site. The worst thing that could happen is they say NO, right?!
Thanks again for your response! I’d like to check out your site if you don’t mind sharing the link in a reply to this comment… or you can email it to me directly at rachael@simplyfreshcooking.com. Good luck to you and please don’t hesitate to ask anything that’s on your mind!
Rachael,
Wow–thank you so much for your quick and long response! You are so sweet for being so helpful.
I am going to start figuring out my camera settings, think I might check out that ebook!
I’m mostly blogging for my friends and family, but also hoping that audience will expand. I am nervous about turning some readers away when I do the ‘educational’ posts, and try to keep them lighthearted, but I really want people to know how scary toxins in our food are. Before I stumbled across food blogs, I had no idea that what I eat could directly lead to cancer, or help prevent it. So I guess I’m trying to find the balance between posting healthy yummy recipes, informing people about what’s really in food and what it does to our bodies, and still sharing enough about me so readers see the person behind the blog (and I am a writer at heart, so I just enjoy doing ‘life’ posts).
I have thought about contacting companies for giveaways as well–but want to wait until my stats are better! But it seems that giveaways can be an awesome way to gain subscribers.
I’ve seen fashion bloggers and lifestyle bloggers do link-ups, where they all post about a similar topic and then link to each other. I don’t know of many newer food blogs, but maybe we should try something like that if you know of other up and coming healthy food blogs. We can pick a certain food to make, each one of us putting a different spin on it, and then include links to each person’s post. Or something along those lines! What do you think??
My blog is: benandnicoleshea.blogspot.com
You can email me at benandnicoleshea@gmail.com
Please please please feel free to give me some honest critiques if you do check out my blog! I won’t take anything personal, clearly you know what you’re doing.
I’ll be studying up on that ebook and playing with my camera!
I’m so glad you’re going to look into getting that eBook. I don’t know what I would have done without it!
Ya know, when I first began my healthy journey, I started learning about food and what harm they can cause to your body. I don’t think a lot of people are even aware (I know I wasn’t) of the dangers of what they’re putting in their bodies. It’s great that you have such a desire to help inform the world of these things. I would totally keep it up!
Now that you explain link-ups more, I know exactly what you’re talking about! I’ve been seeing that recently on several food blogs and I agree that it’s a great idea! I can check around and see if anyone seems interested in joining us.
I’ll check out your blog this weekend when I get more time… can’t wait! I think it’s funny that you think I clearly know what I’m doing! LOL. I appreciate that, but I feel SO new at this still and have a looooong way to go. I’m in it for the long haul though and really enjoy what I’ve done so far!
I’m super happy to have you as a friend through this journey, and I know we can help each other out a lot! xoxo
Rachel Is The Best!!! <3
Awww, thanks Steve! You’re not so bad yourself!
(I just realized I was logged in as a different admin.. you’re probably like, who the heck is John?! ooops)
I simply want to mention I’m beginner to blogging and site-building and really savored this web-site. Most likely I’m likely to bookmark your blog . You definitely come with impressive stories. Regards for sharing with us your webpage.
You are most certainly NOT crazy for posting your site stats. We are a baby blog as well…one month old, in fact! And your tips and postings are very encouraging and helpful. Keep it up!
Awesome! I’m glad you’re finding these posts useful!!!
Keep up the good work!
It is great to read through this..as a new, first time blogger it is helpful! My biggest hurdle is pictures–especially because most of my cooking is done at night after work. I have to work no the lighting situation. Any tips for how to deal with that? I think I need to get the e-book too–seems like it might be very helpful!
Hi Julia! Thanks for reading! I know a lot of food bloggers struggle with lighting issues… especially the one’s that work during the day. I’ve seen that a lot of them are using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. I don’t have any experience with it whatsoever, but I hear it’s great for editing those dark photos!
Hope that helps!
And yes, I hope you do get the eBook!! It changed my life! Sounds dramatic, but it’s true! I had zero experience with photography, and I’m happy with my progress so far. Also, I hear a ton of bloggers say it’s important to read your camera’s manual. I still have to get that done!
I am a new blogger and your post helped me a lot. I have a question, how can I add the foodgawker badhe to my wordpress site and how to I access the font change plugin? I’ll appreciate your reply.
Thanks,
Soma
Hi there, Soma! I’m happy to help!
Here’s the link/instructions to get the Foodgawker badge on your site… http://foodgawker.com/badges/ (For future reference- I found the link by scrolling down all the way to the bottom on their site. It’s under the “about us” section). The next step is to go to your widget area in your WordPress dashboard. Find the “text” box under available widgets and drag and drop it over to the right sidebar section wherever you’d like it to show up on your site. Next, enter the code into the large box (you can probably leave the title blank for a Foodgawker badge). Don’t forget to click save!
To access the Font plugin click on “plugins” and then “add new”. Next, enter the word “font” into the search plugins box. It should be the first thing that pops up. It currently says “Font – SEE SCREENSHOTS! NEW: upload fonts, change color and size of selected text”. Just click on install now and you’re good to go.
I had to stop using the fonts plugin. A lot of them have been messing the site up bad for me. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything will happen to yours though. I’m going to be upgrading my site soon to the Thesis Theme, and that has built in fonts already. YAY.
I hope this has helped. Let me know if you need anything else, Soma! Thanks for stopping by!
Fabulous