Have you ever gazed upon your favourite food blog and thought to yourself “I wish I could do that..”?
Guess what? You can!
For this past year, I was that person who thought those exact words over and over and over again. I poured over all of my favourite bloggers, adoring their photos, eating up their witty banter and trying all of their tasty recipes. Then one day I finally mustered up the courage to take the plunge and start a food blog of my own. Best. Decision. Ever. So, if you always wanted to know how to start a food blog for yourself, this post is for you!
Starting a food blog, or any blog for that matter, is super easy. In fact, I’m about to share with you the three simple steps that I wish I had when I started out. Instead, I floundered around for a few weeks before finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I have learned so much about blogging since start Gluten Free Vegan Pantry that, to me, it only makes sense to share this knowledge with you, my awesome readers, so that your own blogging journey can be just a tad easier.
So, stop stalling and take a leap of faith! With these three simple steps, you can start your food blog in less than 15 minutes!
Disclaimer: Some of the links below are affiliate links and I will earn a commission if you choose to sign up with these links. I personally use all of these brands and recommend them based on my own personal experience and the trust I have in them.
The Three Steps to Starting a Food Blog:
- Domain Name and Web Hosting
- Install WordPress
- Make Your Food Blog beautiful!
1) Domain Name and Web Hosting
This is arguably the most important part – what are you going to call yourself?
Your domain name is the website that people will type in to visit your website. Ours is glutenfreeveganpantry.com (sorry, but you won’t be able to use it for your site ;))
There are many different ways to sign up for domain names. I recommend signing up for your domain name and web hosting at the same time through Dreamhost. Plus, they frequently run promotions where your domain name is free when you sign up for their web hosting – yay!
Dreamhost is awesome and has so many great features included as part of their web hosting:
Head over to Dreamhost, create your account and get started with picking out your domain:
Next, you’ll want to sign up for your plan. I recommend signing up for one-year in advance as you’ll get the best discount. Plus, you have a 97 day money back guarantee with Dreamhost so if you’re truly not happy with them, you can always cancel (but I believe in you and know you won’t give up on your blogging dream!)
One of the things I really love about Dreamhost is that they offer free domain privacy protection – basically, the personal information that you register your website with will not be publicly available.
2) One-Click WordPress Installer
Once you’ve finished registering with Dreamhost, you’ll want to log into your Web Panel to start the One-Click WordPress Installation. WordPress is the blogging platform that many bloggers use to house their websites. With WordPress, you can use all sorts of powerful frameworks and beautiful, functional themes (more on this below).
Navigate over to the Goodies Menu on the left of your Dreamhost Web Panel and select One-Click Installs. This will bring up multiple one-click installs offered through Dreamhost; select WordPress:
Which will then bring up this screen:
Select the domain that you registered for in step 1 of this tutorial from the first drop down box. Leave the other settings as you see above and then click “Install it for me now!”.
Guess what? You. Are. Done!
In about 10-15 minutes you will receive an email from Dreamhost with the final instructions to create an admin name and password, which will then allow you to log into your WordPress blog – whoo-hoo!
3) Make Your Food Blog Beautiful!
As of right now, you are the proud new owner of a food blog! *virtual high five*
You can start telling everyone about all of the delicious recipes you’ve dreamt up over the last little while (promise I’ll be the first to know, k?). Before you get your kitchen too messy, there are a few different ways that you can make your blog the best looking blog it can possibly be:
- The Genesis Framework – this is the current framework that we use here at Gluten Free Vegan Pantry. It’s amazing. It has so many different features that allow you to quickly and easily build amazing looking websites.
- The Foodie Pro Theme by Shay Bocks – this is the current theme that we use. It’s a food bloggers dream, boasting great functionality and features that are perfect for showing off your delicious recipes.
That’s it! How do you feel? Great, right?
I’m so proud of you for taking this first step towards a food blog of your own and can’t wait to see what you come up with. Leave a comment with a link to your new blog so that I can check it out and make all your recipes!
Lots of love & happy eats,
Savanna
Savanna is the photographer, food stylist, head taste-tester and she-brains behind Gluten Free Vegan Pantry. 
I’ve been thinking about starting a vegan lifestyle blog- you know/ food/recipes and product (food/beauty/life) reviews, but I’m just so nervous! any tips on making the leap and finding courage??
Hi Santana! My only advice is to just do it! Even if it ends up not being what you expected, at least you will have tried and will have had fun along the way 🙂
After I initially left a comment I appear to have clicked on the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and from now
on each time a comment is added I recieve four emails with the
exact same comment. There has to be an easy method you are able to remove
me from that service? Appreciate it!
Hi there! There should be a link at the bottom of the emails to unsubscribe from the updates. Sorry for the inconvenience!
My daughter and I started a blog at the beginning of the year. She does “life” stuff, and I do recipes (I have food allergies/sensitivites, to I share recipes for what I make). Ours is not as pretty as yours…yet…but baby steps. 🙂
That sounds like such a great blog partnership that you and your daughter have. I’ll be sure to take a peek at it. Don’t worry about rushing to make everything look “pretty” as you put it – it’s great content and personality that will keep your readers coming back (in my opinion, anyways!) Best of luck with your blog and let me know if you ever have questions about anything!
Hi Savanna,
Thank you so much for this, I have been thinking of nothing else but starting my own vegan blog. I fell in love with vegan cooking last year (thanks to blogs like yours) and it’s become a near obsession. I’ll let you know if I take the plunge!
Hi Erin,
You are so welcome! I remember being in that exact same position. I actually bought my domain name an entire year in advance before I worked up the courage to start blogging. Now, I’m kicking myself for waiting so long – it’s such a fun and rewarding hobby. Let me know if you have any questions – I’d be more than happy to help you out!! 🙂