How To Start A Food Blog From Scratch In 2023

Today, you will learn all about how to start a food blog from scratch in under 30 minutes! Blogging has changed my life and allowed me to make thousands of dollars each month, by sharing content online. If you want to, you can do this too for just a few dollars per month!

Below, I have included discounted pricing negotiated with Siteground so that you can start a food blog for cheap. Act quickly though, because I’m not sure how long these low prices will last! 

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Siteground, and will receive a commission if you sign up through my referral link. This is at no additional cost to you, and you will get great pricing through my link.

Click here to start your food blog on WordPress, then come back and use my super detailed tutorial below to learn how to set up your food blog and finally start your own blogging journey.

If you’re looking to start a food blog for cheap, then choosing Siteground for your hosting needs may be your answer. Siteground works because it is fast, secure, reliable, and has amazing customer support.

Food blogging has been one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life. I’ve been blogging for years now (on various blogs) and I’ve been able to make a consistent monthly income from blogging throughout the years.

I started my food blog by paying $100 for web hosting. With the help of free Pinterest traffic and SEO, I was able to join a highly sort after ad management company called Mediavine within 8 months of starting my food blog. This food blog has been making consistent income since then! 

What’s more, I can work from home, travel or do whatever I want because my work schedule is so flexible. I absolutely love how blogging has given me the financial and time freedom to do as I please.

The awesome thing about this is that anyone can do it too and I was quickly able to make back the money I paid for blog hosting. As you can see, it is well worth it for me to pay for hosting for my food blog and I’m sure you will be able to make your money back quickly as well.

If you’re having doubts know this: There’s no barrier to entry in blogging and there are no limits to how far you can take it! 

When I first started, I thought that the process was super difficult and something I might not be able to manage. However, I’ve since learned that it can be quite easy to create a blog if you have the right resources.

I have no special abilities or knowledge about blogging other than what I teach myself online every day. Therefore, I am convinced that if I can earn money online through my food blog, anyone can do it too!

This blog post will provide you with all the resources you need to start a food blog that you are proud of!

And, the best part is that for a limited time, you can start your blog for as low as $2.99 a month using Siteground (this low price is through my link only)!  I highly recommend signing up for the 12-month hosting plan through Siteground. It’s affordable and you can save a lot of money by signing up for at least 12 months.

Why you should use Siteground to host your food blog

You may be thinking that you can just start on Blogspot, blogger, or WordPress.com for free. But you’ll be making a mistake if you choose any of those options. Here’s why you should start your food blog hosted on WordPress.org and Siteground.

1. Starting your blog with Siteground will ensure that your blog is self-hosted on wordpress.org which will go a long way toward helping you earn money on your blog.
2. Siteground is super EASY to use and set up.
3. Their service is trustworthy and highly recommended in the blogging community.
4. You only need to pay $2.99 a month to start.
5. They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee if they aren’t a great fit for you.
6. WordPress through SiteGround is FREE.
7. You will appear more professional to readers, companies, and brands if you are self-hosted on Siteground rather than on Blogspot.
8. You can start by paying less than $100 for a year but you have the potential to earn thousands of dollars from this small investment.

For all of these reasons, I recommend Siteground web hosting for your food blog fully.

There are many web hosting companies out there, but I believe that Siteground is one of the best places to start your food blog.

Also, please remember if my instructions and guidance do not answer a question that you have, send me an email using my contact page and I will help you out to the best of my ability.

I’d also like to give you some further encouragement. You do not need to know everything or read every single blog post out there before you start your food blog. You just need to start.

Your blog will not be perfect when you start it. That’s just not how it works. This is a journey where you will learn, grow and create something beautiful that you love, that can make you a monthly income.

It is all a learning process. If you’re ready to do this, read the instructions below.

P.S. Before we start, I want to clarify something. I started my blog using Siteground web hosting. They’re one of the cheapest hosts out there and are perfect for you if you want to keep your initial expenses super low.

However, when my blog started to earn more money, I switched over to Bigscoots web hosting. They’re the best website hosting company I’ve used since I started blogging. But Bigscoots costs $35 per month which can be a bit pricy for beginners.

How to start a Food blog on Siteground

Use this link to begin the process of starting your food blog.

Then follow this simple process to set up your blog the right way.

1. Select your hosting plan

Setting up a food blog on Siteground requires you to purchase web hosting for your blog.

Web hosting is simply a space on the internet that you pay for. This ‘space’ allows your blog to be found online. Put simply, it is like a space that you rent to have your blog in, similar to a piece of real estate property for a physical business. But it is way cheaper than renting physical space!

Typically, good web hosting services cost about $10 a month. With Siteground, you can start for only $2.99 per month. (Siteground is currently running a promotion for web hosting for only $1.99 per month right now. This deal may disappear any moment now soon so take advantage asap!

Here are some facts to be aware of before you dive in:

1. In order to get a super low price for web hosting and accommodate a growing blog, you should choose the Start-Up Plan for $2.99 per month through my link (due upfront in full) if you signup for 12 months. If you’re not sure if you’ll stick to food blogging, I would sign up for the 12-month plan. This would cost you roughly $60 for the year. (P.S. I spent $100 on my web hosting package for the first year in order to start my food blog. I now make anywhere from $2000 to $6000 monthly from ads and affiliates on my food blog every month. And, as you can see in the screenshot above, to date, I’ve earned a total of $115,764.18 in total from ads for an initial $100 investment! It’s safe to say it was well worth the $100 I paid for hosting when I started!

2. Pick a domain name

A domain name is a web address that helps people find you on the internet. It is basically the name of your blog. For example, my domain name for this blog is ohsoblogger.com

Choose a name you like and can grow with. Some people choose their first and last name which is great.

Since you’re creating a food blog, you can go ahead and choose a domain name with the topic you want to blog about. For example, if you want to start a vegan food blog, you can use a domain name like veganfoodie.com.

Once you’ve decided on a domain name that you really like and can grow with, click on this link to see if it’s available through Siteground.

Note, a domain name via Siteground is usually $17.99 per year. Sometimes they offer deals where you can get it for free, but these deals aren’t always available.

Then click the blue button that says ‘proceed ‘ to get to the next step (as shown in the image above).

3. Fill in billing and payment information

• Fill in your billing and login information
• Fill in your payment information
  
• Confirm you’ve read the terms of service and privacy policy

Then click the blue ‘pay now’ button to purchase your affordable web hosting plan.

4. Install WordPress on Siteground

You can have the lovely customer agents at Siteground do this for you if you’re nervous about doing it yourself. 

Or, I can help you along by showing you the easy process of setting up a WordPress food blog with SiteGround with the steps below.

Open up two tabs for this step: One tab with this blog post and the other with your Siteground setup page.

After you complete your domain name and web hosting purchase, you’ll be taken to a page that looks like this. You’ll also be sent an email with login details as well as your receipt in your inbox.

Click on Proceed to the customer area and log in.

Siteground may send you another email to verify your domain name. Go to your inbox and verify.

Click the ‘Set up site’ button to continue setting up your website/food blog.

You’ll be taken to a page that looks like this:

Select ‘existing domain’ if you already have a domain name. Also, input the domain name that you own and click continue.

You’ll be taken to the Add New Website Page where you will select ‘Start New Website’.

Next, in Choose Application select WordPress. Also, set up login details for your blog. You’ll need this email and password to log into the admin area of your food blog if you don’t want to do so via your Siteground cpanel or backend. 

• Email Address: This is the email address you’ll be using to log into the backend of your food blog.
• Password: Choose an admin password. You will use this when you log into the backend of your blog. This password is super important! So keep it safe.
  

Click continue. You’ll be taken to another page where you click on Finish and wait while WordPress is being installed and your blog is being created!

In minutes, your new food blog/website will be ready.

Now you can log in to your food blog’s admin area by clicking ‘websites’ in the top left-hand corner of your screen. Then selecting WordPress Admin. You will be redirected directing into the backend of your blog where you can start designing your food blog just the way you like it!

Beyond starting the food blog 

A few more steps you should follow to fully set up your food blog:

• Use this video tutorial to set up a FREE SSL Certificate for your blog with Siteground
• Learn how to add a theme to your blog. WordPress.org which you’ve already installed in previous steps, has hundreds of great FREE themes to choose from.
• Learn how to add some plugins to your blog. I’ll show you how to do this right here as well as a list of my top recommend plugins for your food blog.
• Learn how to publish a blog post or page on your blog
• Video of how to install and use a recipe card plugin (very important for food bloggers!)
• You need a good camera or a phone with a great camera. Your photos should be nice, but if you don’t have amazing photography skills from the beginning this is not an issue. Many food bloggers including myself start out with ugly photos. You will improve as you take more and more food photos for your blog. 
• How to install google analytics (Important to track your blog’s growth)
• Where to Design a blog logo for super cheap

I’ll also share a few more important blog setup tips with you as well.

Once you’re done with the setup, it’s time to start creating and sharing delicious recipes, taking amazing photos, and promoting your blog so that readers can make and enjoy your recipes while you make some money!

I recommend that you start by adding about 5 – 10 recipes to your blog as soon as possible (i.e. within the first month). Then I highly recommend you take this comprehensive Pinterest marketing course to learn how to generate free traffic to your food blog from Pinterest and read ways to monetize a food blog here. 

The more traffic you receive the faster you can join an ad network to start earning money!

The very first blog I started failed. I didn’t know what I was doing and there were no guides like this at the time… that I knew of anyway.

My second blog made only $56 in its first month. It worked for me because I found amazing free information like this guide to teach me important aspects of blogging.

Since then, I’ve gone on to start 3 other blogs and I’ve received as much as $10,000 per month from one of my blogs. It’s possible for you to do this too! Want to learn how? Sign up for my free email course to learn how to start and tips and tricks to make food blogging work for you!