On this page you will find resources I use currently or plan to use on the blog. See this post on how to start a blog to set up your blog/website.
Resources for food bloggers.
1. Set Up Google Tools
All of these tools are free!
- Google Analytics: helps you track blog traffic. There are wordpress plugins to do this as well.
- Webmaster Tools: Now Called Search Console, makes sure your website is up and running. You can check the console for crawl errors, server errors, searchability etc.
- Feedburner: allows your visitors to subscribe to your posts by RSS or email. There are other tools for WordPress that are customizable ( emails, designs, frequency etc). See the Software and Tools Section.
2. Set up wordpress Plugins
There are a few plugins there are helpful to get
- Akismet: this plugin will filters out spam comments. Believe you me, there are tons of spam comments!
- Easy Recipe or Easy Recipe Plus: This plugin formats your recipes for SEO (search engine optimization). This plugin will help your recipe’s photo you choose in the plugin, show up in the search results.
- Yoast SEO: SEO is complicated and takes up a lot of work. This plugin simplifies most of it. Follow the set up instructions and use features accordingly for better SEO for your posts.
3. Software and Tools
- Email subscription: MadMimi, Mailchimp, Aweber are a few I know of. Several bloggers use one or the other. I still use Feedburner, so I cannot personally compare these.
- Caching to speed up the blog: You can use w3 cache plugin for caching or use Sitelock CDN with bluehost. Sitelock also provides security, monitoring and accelerates website performance. I use Sitelock.
4. Photography
I currently use Canon EOS 6D
with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro . From experience I know that a good quality lens takes the photos from good to wow. You can find a refurbished camera body to save some, and invest in a good lens.
There are several books for reference available like Plate to Pixel, and posts, resources and ebooks on food photography that are helpful as well.
Work in Progress..
Other great Reads:
*** This page has some affiliate links. That means I make a small percentage off sales. I recommend things that I personally Use.
Supriya Kutty
Hey, such a useful piece of information. You have pointed here every small but important point that normally taken for granted. But I like the way you present here. I appreciate your knowledge, one can get a perfect idea from your blog for starting a new blog. Thank you so much.