Business of Blogging Articles

How to Correctly Attribute a Recipe

Emily
by Emily on Jan 26, 2023 in , ,

As food bloggers and recipe developers, inspiration for recipes can come from many different places. Your grandmother’s famous pound cake, a new product at the grocery store, your local Italian restaurant, and yes, other published recipes can all get your creative cooking juices flowing. 

There are lots of food blogs and cookbooks out in the world, and it’s only natural that you take inspiration from them. Whether you need a little guidance on the process for a complicated baking technique, or want to riff on a unique flavor combination in someone else’s recipe, recipe adaption can come in many different forms.

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Tips for Hiring a Virtual Assistant as a Food Blogger

Emily
by Emily on Oct 27, 2022 in ,

When you are ready to start growing your business, you will inevitably encounter the need to hire some help and build a team. For a food creator, hiring a virtual assistant (or VA) can be a great place to start. 

“Virtual assistant” can mean a lot of different things. You might be looking for a generalized VA to manage emails, schedule your calendar, and handle other administrative tasks. Or perhaps a more specialized VA could be a better fit (think social media manager or email marketing manager)?

If done strategically, hiring a virtual assistant to add to your team can take certain tasks off of your plate and allow you to focus on the responsibilities that you enjoy, and that benefit your business the most.

If you think you might be ready to hire a new team member, we’ve put together a handy, step-by-step guide to get started!

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3 Tips to Improve Your Blog’s Web Accessibility

Emily
by Emily on Jul 14, 2022 in

Did you know that more than 96% of all websites are not accessible to users with disabilities? As food bloggers, it’s so important that we make our websites and recipes accessible and that we share content that everyone, including those with disabilities, can enjoy.

Who benefits from website accessibility? LOTS of your readers. One in four U.S. adults in the U.S. live with a disability, so this list could be a mile long, but a few examples include:

  • People with visual impairments who may require a screen reader
  • People with limited hand motor skills, arthritis, or other mobility issues that make using a keyboard or mouse difficult
  • People with color blindness
  • Non-English speakers who use translation services
  • People with epilepsy who might be triggered by a bright screen, motion, or flashing images

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6 Strategies for Negotiating Sponsored Content Contracts

Emily
by Emily on Jun 2, 2022 in ,

If you’ve ever had a paid partnership with a brand, you know that contracts come with the territory. And if you haven’t done any sponsored content yet, now is the time to brush up on your negotiating skills and contract terminology. 

We’ve reviewed the MAGIC Framework for negotiating with brands in the past, but we wanted to dive deeper into the most common areas for negotiation within contracts.

I know, I know, I can almost hear the snores through the computer screen. But learning the language of contracts can empower you to be a much stronger negotiator and can mean a difference of thousands of dollars in payment.

We’ve broken down six clauses of a sponsored content contract that often lead to negotiations between a brand and a content creator. Within each section, we’ll chat about the most important things to look out for and prioritize. Let’s dig in!

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The ‘MAGIC’ Framework for Negotiating with Brands

Alexa @ FBP
by Alexa @ FBP on May 5, 2022 in ,
a photo of a woman drizzling oil into a jar and the title of this blog post, 'The MAGIC Framework for negotiating with brands'

Working with brands on sponsored content is one of the most popular ways that food bloggers, influencers, and content creators can monetize their online businesses.

That said, when it comes time to negotiate your rate and your work with a brand, it can get a little intimidating and complicated.

But knowing what to expect by doing some work ahead of time can help you feel more comfortable and confident when you get to the negotiations.

Allow us to introduce to you the concept of MAGIC, a framework created by our Legal Expert, Danielle Liss from Businessese, in our Negotiating with Brands Quick Win lesson available to all Food Blogger Pro Members.

This framework will help you approach negotiating with brands as a collaboration-based exercise, versus one rooted in conflict. It’ll help you identify and articulate what both sides want in a sponsored partnership so that both you and the brand are happy with the contracted work.

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How to Protect the Content You Create Online

Alexa @ FBP
by Alexa @ FBP on Dec 2, 2021 in
a photo of rainbow spring rolls and the title of this article, 'How to Protect the Content You Create Online'

As food bloggers and food content creators, we spend a lot of the time on the photographs, recipes, blog posts, and videos we produce.

So what can we do to protect that content that we create?

You’ve probably heard terms like “Privacy Policy,” “Terms of Service,” “Disclaimers,” and “DMCAs” before, but do you understand their purposes and if / why you need them for your own content?

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How We Made Our First $100 from Food Blogging

Alexa @ FBP
by Alexa @ FBP on Nov 11, 2021 in ,
a photo of a desk with a computer, keyboard, mouse, and notebook with the title of this article, 'How we made our first $100 from food blogging'

We have a bit of a different blog post for you today! And it’s all about how we made our very first $100 from food blogging.

Who is this “we,” you ask? The Food Blogger Pro community and the team here behind Food Blogger Pro and our sister companies.

We say it a lot, but every food blogging journey is different, and it’s really hard to compare one blogger’s story to another.

We all have different responsibilities in addition to trying to grow our food blogs. Some of us have full-time jobs. Others have kids or pets or other family obligations. We live in different countries where we rent or own our own houses. Some bloggers work on their blogs on the weekends, while others can spend a bit more time producing content.

That’s why it’s impossible to compare the growth of one blog to another; there is so much happening behind-the-scenes that impacts the way and the speed at which a blog grows.

So why are we talking about how we’ve made our first $100 today? To show you just some of the ways that bloggers have made it work.

Your first $100 is a huge milestone, and there are so many different ways you can achieve it. Here are just a few ideas:

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Running Your Food Blog Like a Business

Alexa @ FBP
by Alexa @ FBP on May 6, 2021 in
a picture of pasta salad and the title of this blog post, 'Running Your Food Blog like a Business'

If you’ve started your blog from scratch, you’re a CEO. Did you know that?

It’s one of those things that’s kind of obvious, but we don’t think about it much because it’s… intimidating? Scary? Official? All of the above?

But it’s true. And you’ve probably spent countless hours, days, weekends, and years DIYing it all, creating content, photographing recipes, searching for keywords, responding to comments, and sharing your recipes on social media.

And if you’re making money, working with sponsors, running ads, selling products, and/or joining affiliate programs, your blog is a business.

So let me ask you this: are you treating it that way?

To achieve serious blog growth (both in traffic and in income), you should be.

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Things Change, Things Stay the Same

Bjork
by Bjork on Oct 8, 2020 in
A photo of a bundt cake with the title of this article, 'Things Change, Things Stay the Same'

If you’ve been blogging for longer than two days you’ve probably noticed something:

Things change.

This thing works, then it doesn’t. That thing paid really well now pays pennies. This thing doesn’t send you much traffic, then it does.

It’s overwhelming to keep up with it all. I know from experience.

I also know that overwhelm is almost always a negative emotion that breeds inaction, either through giving up (“I’ll do it tomorrow”) or diving head-first into learning but never actually implementing (“I’ll move forward once I understand it a little bit better”).

It can feel like the sky is falling when you build momentum in a certain direction only to have that momentum squashed by a change in the advertising industry (I’m looking at you, banner ads), a change in your ability to connect with fans (I’m looking at you, Facebook), or a change in an algorithm (I’m looking at you, Google).

But it’s also really important to remember that there are things that will always stay the same with blogging or building a presence online.

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