How to Become a Food Blogger and Get Paid
Looking to monetize your food blog? You’ve come to the right place. We’ll give you a detailed guide on how to make money as a food blogger.
You’re passionate about food, and you want to share your culinary experiences with the rest of the world. Food blogging enables you to do just that. Besides being immensely fulfilling, did you also know it can help you rake in big bucks?
That’s right – many food bloggers are rolling in it. Take Pinch of Yum as an example. Her culinary tutorials earn her approximately $20K every month.
With BlurBay, you, too, can join the lineup of world-class cooking influencers, and learn how to become a food blogger and get paid.
Best Ways – How to Become a Food Blogger and Get Paid
A great thing about food blogging is that it leaves plenty of room to earn a profit. Whether you’re just starting your culinary venture or have an established social media presence, these six strategies will help you monetize your efforts:
#1 – Partner With BlurBay and Learn How to Become a Paid Food Blogger
Most people go online in their search for stunning food content. If you don’t have a website, you could miss out on numerous opportunities to learn how to become a paid food blogger.
But there’s a flip side. Building and maintaining a professional food blog can cost well over $5,000 per year. If your content doesn’t generate enough traffic to eclipse the price, you’re basically burning a hole in your pocket.
Is there a way to bypass a website without waiving your internet presence? There is – all you need to do is team up with BlurBay.
Here’s how BlurBay works:
- You post a snippet of your food blog (e.g., a video) on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, or any other social network.
- The audience follows the link on the social media that takes them to BlurBay.
- The visitors can check out the rest of your content (not just the preview) at a fair price. Most food bloggers set up a cooking masterclass in the form of a video series.
- BlurBay transfers the money from the sales to your account.
You get to earn money from your culinary posts without a website. Simply post snippets on various networks and let BlurBay seal the deal.
You might be thinking – all this sounds too good to be true. There must be a catch.
Well, there isn’t. BlurBay monetizes your content for you, allowing you to focus on your blog. You don’t have to worry about website maintenance, transactions, and other time-consuming aspects.
All this is available for a 5% commission. There are no hidden fees or subscriptions. It’s just you, a stunning food blog, and BlurBay as an intermediary between you and your audience.
#2 – Set Up Ads
We’ve mentioned Pinch of Yum as perhaps the most famous food blogger in the world. She makes hundreds of thousands per year, but you don’t have to be as prosperous as her to learn how to make money as a food blogger. Even an average content creator makes around $80K, which isn’t too shabby at all.
One of the secrets of their success is paid ads. You dedicate a space on your website that promotes products or services of other brands. The more people who click on the ads, the more profit you generate.
You can take two avenues here: sell ad space yourself or join an ad network.
If you wish to maximize profit, selling ad space yourself is the better option. You get to keep all the money your blog generates because there are no third parties. It’s just you and the company whose offerings you’re promoting.
The downside is that it’s hard to find an enterprise willing to partner with you. In most cases, you’ll need a well-established blog with lots of traffic to attract more businesses. You also have to negotiate the deal yourself, which can be stressful.
A solution comes in the form of ad networks. Services like Google AdSense come to the rescue by finding ads on your behalf. They find brands that could benefit from the traffic attracted by your food blog and highlight their offerings on your page. The network also unlocks tracking tools, so you can see just how much money you earn per click.
The drawback of this method is that the commissions can be quite high. As a result, it may take a while before you make headway with your ads. Google AdSense requires you to modify your website through coding, which can mess up the format of your food blog.
#3 – Sell E-Books
The culinary world allows you to monetize your online presence in a number of ways. If you only like tasting delicious dishes and want to promote them to your audience, write an e-book describing the best meals you’ve had in the last year.
Alternatively, if you have a knack for cooking, why not share all your recipes in a single place? Again, an e-book can be an excellent choice.
Don’t forget to partner with BlurBay if you take this route. Simply post a sneak peek of your book on your blog and let BlurBay take care of the rest. You won’t need to set up a payment system and perform other large-scale changes, saving you a lot of time and money.
#4 – Take Up Affiliate Marketing and Learn How to Become a Paid Food Blogger
Many people conflate affiliate marketing with running paid ads, but the two have a major difference. On the one hand, you make money via ads whenever someone clicks on the ad on your website. On the other hand, you make money via affiliate marketing whenever someone clicks a link in your content.
The key to making the most of your affiliate marketing is to choose a reputable brand. For starters, you want to pick a company from the food industry.
Suppose you post a video of making a lunch that starts with onion cutting. You could leave a link in the description that promotes the knife you used. The link can take them to the knife maker’s website or any other store where they can buy the product.
Another thing you should consider is the company’s track record. Do a quick Google search to see if they’ve worked with other food bloggers. If yes, contact them to see if they pay on time and if they uphold other conditions of your collab.
Once you dial in the perfect partnership, all that remains is for the business to send you a link. Incorporate it seamlessly into your food blog and persuade your audience to click the link. Within just a few months, you may end up making more than 10K$ per month via affiliate marketing only.
#5 – Take Advantage of Brand Deals
If your food blog starts taking off, bigger brands are going to come sniffing. They’re not looking to buy your blog – thankfully – but they are looking to use it as a way to make some money for themselves.
That’s good news for you because that money-making relationship goes two ways. If you want to learn how to make money as a food blogger, this is an effective tactic.
Here’s how it works.
A brand looking for a built-in audience notices that your blog is gaining traction. They want to appeal to that audience, so they’ll come to you and ask you if you can incorporate one of their products into a recipe. You can say “yes” or “no” – you’re not obligated to work with the brand. But if you decide to go ahead, you get to charge them for placing their products in your recipes.
Plus, you’ll probably get some ingredients for free.
So, it’s a win-win. You learn how to make money being a food blogger and the brand gets to advertise itself via your blog.
The trick here is that you can’t be inauthentic. When you set up a brand deal, you have to be open with your audience about it. If you just start using ingredients all from one brand out of the blue – with no explanation as to why – your audience will notice something is fishy. Get ahead of that by telling your readers about the brand deal. Label the specific post as “sponsored” so the audience knows there’s a touch of advertising in there. And wherever you can, explain why the brand you’re working with is actually worth their time by showing them how you can create amazing food with their products.
The money-making possibilities here are endless. And sites like BlurBay can help with your own pay-per-view screening videos.
If your blog takes off, you could easily make thousands of dollars per deal.
#6 – Sell Recipe Licenses
Some of the brands that may come sniffing around your blog may not be interested in striking deals for sponsored content. They have something else in mind – the recipes themselves.
In some cases, a larger blog might want to use one of your recipes rather than coming up with something themselves. Or you may find brands that love how you’ve incorporated their ingredients in your recipes and want to share that recipe with their audience.
Again, this is an opportunity for you to make money.
Rather than just saying “Go ahead,” remember that you own the recipe. Yes, it’s publicly available on your blog. But for another company to claim some form of ownership over it, they have to pony up some dough.
We find that licensing recipes for between $50 and $100 per year is a good approach. The price isn’t so massive that a brand instantly dismisses it. Plus, as you add more recipes, you create more opportunities for licensing, which could lead to your recipes themselves becoming strong earners for your growing blog.
Just one word of warning – always consult with a lawyer when striking these agreements. You don’t want to find yourself accidentally licensing a recipe out forever when you intend to only license it for a small period.
#7 – Consider Freelance Work
While some companies may want to license the recipes that they see on your blog, others may want you to create exclusive content for them.
Don’t dismiss this idea out of hand.
While freelancing may feel like you’re “taking away” content from your blog, the reality is that you’re simply adapting your style to fit someone else’s. Best of all – you get paid for it.
The following are a handful of freelancing opportunities you may wish to seek out:
- Creating white-label recipes for other people’s blogs or even for major food companies.
- Styling, presenting, and photographing food.
- Testing recipes – or even selling your own – to cookbook writers.
- Developing menus for restaurants and catering companies.
The key here is to identify what talents you have (besides cooking) and use those as a way to make money on top of whatever your blog makes.
Of course, you may have noticed something about this strategy – you’re not making money from the blog itself.
Except, that’s not always the case. For instance, we’ve found that you can often strike up deals with other food bloggers in which you provide a recipe and can point people to your own blog to find more. So, you’re indirectly making money from your freelancing, on top of the money you get paid by other companies, because you’re drawing traffic to your blog.
And once that traffic is there, you make money using the other strategies on this list.
#8 – Start Selling Merchandise
Who said there’s only one way to make money as a food blogger (posting content)? Those people have clearly never heard about merchandise.
If YouTubers and TikTokers can rake in cash this way, why shouldn’t you follow suit? The options are endless:
- T-shirts with the name of your food blog or culinary-themed jokes and sayings
- Knives with a custom-made engraved handle
- Pots and pans with your initials
Buying merch allows your fans to express their gratitude for your tutorials and culinary insights. Just keep in mind that offering merch from the get-go might not be a good idea. Wait until you have a loyal base to target more people with your products. Otherwise, you may be perceived as nothing but a salesperson who only uses their blog to make money.
#9 – Develop Membership Tiers
If you’re still wondering how to become a food blogger and get paid, consider membership tiers. Once you have an audience, you essentially have a community of people that love your content.
That’s great – it’s an opportunity for you to do more.
The odds are high that most of the members of that community are happy to just visit your blog, pick up some recipes, and go their own ways. Make sure they’re always being served with that content to keep them coming back, as you can get revenue from traffic through advertising and affiliate marketing.
However, a percentage of that audience may want more, which is where membership tiers come into play. You can create courses and membership perks that will encourage people to sign up and pay actual money for the content you create.
How?
Serving the same content in your membership tiers as you serve in your blog won’t cut it. People won’t have a reason to sign up because they can get what they’re buying for free. Instead, consider a three-tiered setup like the one below:
- Tier One – Curated meal plans (including incorporating dietary restrictions) for the member based on your recipes.
- Tier Two – Curated meal plans and access to a video or course that shows the member how to do something specific, such as making different types of sauces from scratch.
- Tier Three – Curated meals, exclusive videos, and something like a webinar or monthly live chat that serves as a classroom session for members.
The idea here is that each tier offers exclusive content – with each building up from the other – that some members of your community want but can’t already find on your blog. Of course, this is just an example. The content you currently provide will dictate what you can deem as “exclusive.” But if you get this right, your blog can become a stable source of monthly income, assuming you’re willing to put in a little more work.
#10 – Go Live
Live streaming is a go-to method to entertain audiences. However, aren’t they usually used by gamers and singers?
Yes, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for those who want to learn how to make money being a food blogger.
By starting a live stream, you can both increase viewer engagement and make money. How? By utilizing the built-in monetization tactics of your social media.
TikTok is an excellent example. You can go live any time you want to teach your followers a recipe or talk about a dish you just ate. Once you do so, they can reward you with Live Gifts if they consider your content memorable. Afterward, redeem these gifts to earn real-life money.
Instagram is another example. The principle is pretty much the same, but this network uses a different currency. When you go live, your followers can buy Badges, which can later be converted to funds. Whenever someone purchases a Badge, a heart appears next to their name so you can thank them.
#11 – Build an App and Learn How to Make Money Being a Food Blogger
You have a blog, you may have an e-book and even a set of membership tiers. The next step is simple – make your content mobile.
According to Statista, about 60% of people already use their phones to browse the web. So, you can safely assume that about two-thirds of your existing audience would be happy to have a mobile app that allows them to navigate through your recipes faster than a website would. The app also gives you opportunities to create more interactive or exclusive content for mobile uses – a great selling point once you start charging.
As for how you make money from the app, you have several options:
- Off Fees – Users pay a single fee – say $10 – for lifetime access to the app. This is fine, but it likely means the app won’t offer too much more than your blog already does.
- Recurring Payments – You make the app available for a monthly fee, similar to membership tiers, with the caveat being that you need to constantly add fresh content to justify the fee.
- Freemium – You make the app available for free, with a catch. The app contains ads from other companies, which is where you make your money.
All are viable revenue-driving options, though which suits your blog best depends on the type of content you produce. For instance, those who focus solely on recipes will likely make the most from the one-off or recurring models. They’re not offering anything that user can’t get from their blog. They’re simply making it more convenient to access the content.
Those who have membership tiers, or are thinking of introducing exclusive content behind paywalls, can use the recurring model. The app then becomes a place where users who are willing to pay can get content they won’t find on your blog.
There’s just one caveat – mobile apps cost money to make. Clutch, a leading business services marketplace, says its typical users spend between $10,000 and $49,999 to build an app. Cheap – and codeless – options are available through online app builders. However, you’ll likely sacrifice some quality and branding opportunities to keep your costs low.
So, this last option is best for those who’ve already established their food blogs as money-making endeavors. We like to think of it as the next step in taking the blog global, and learning how to become a food blogger and get paid.
Let the Dollars Kick In
Gone are the days when you could only make money as a food influencer by selling cookbooks. While this remains a solid, lucrative alternative, there are better ways to learn how to become a paid food blogger.
Best of all, one doesn’t exclude the rest. You can easily combine the above strategy to diversify your sources of income, increase your potential, and learn how to make money being a food blogger. This way, you won’t keep all your eggs in one basket. You’ll have a safety net (or multiple safety nets) to bounce back in case one funnel fails.
But some money-making tactics are virtually failproof. That’s exactly how most BlurBay users feel.
Life coaches, fitness trainers, fashion models – all these professionals head straight to BlurBay to boost their revenue without creating expensive websites. Hence, they have more time to upload and refine their content, which draws larger audiences to their services.
You can enjoy the same perks and learn how to become a food blogger and get paid. The first step is to visit BlurBay and create your account.
FAQs
Should you start a food blog?
Yes. Starting a food blog is one of the best ways to make money if you’re passionate about food. On average, food bloggers make well over $80,000 per year.
What makes a food blog good?
A high-quality food blog features simple yet powerful writing. Authors often use evocative imagery to help the reader picture the dishes in their minds. They write recipes in bullet points for better readability and use images to make the content more vivid.
How do you start a food blog?
The first step in starting a food blog is to select your niche. Determine whether you’ll focus on Mexican, Italian, Greek, or any other cuisine. From there, start posting your content on social media and team up with BlurBay to bypass website creation.
How do you make money with a food blog?
There are many ways to make money with your food blog. This includes integrating BlurBay into your strategy, running paid ads, and affiliate marketing.
How often should you post as a food blogger?
In general, the more you post as a food blogger, the better. You should update your blog at least two or three times per week.
