If you love to cook and want to share your experience with the whole world, be sure to start your own blog. Today blogging is not just a hobby, but also the main source of income for creative people. Let’s figure out how to start a cooking blog and become another great Gordon Ramsay.
Step 1. Decide on the concept
Novice bloggers often hear that there are too many cooking blogs. Well, there is a grain of truth: there are a lot of blogs. But there are too few good ones as well.
YouTube is full of culinary bloggers who simply copy each other’s content. Some give no feedback to the audience at all.
Therefore, find your niche and become the best in it. First, determine what you do best. Are you baking cakes and decorating them fantastically? Do you know cheeses and types of wine? Do you adore meat and know a thousand and one recipes? Or can you become the best at vegan cooking blogging?
Don’t worry that if you have a highly specialized blog, you will lose your audience. Often such channels have a circle of permanent loyal viewers, and this is more valuable for a blogger.
Think about what you are missing. If you often unsuccessfully search for some kind of content, maybe it’s time to create it yourself?
Step 2. Think over the presentation
YouTube is a very competitive space where you just have to stand out from others to win the viewer. Even the craziest idea will have subscribers who will like it.
Give up the idea of creating another channel with monotonous recipes. For example, the Feast of Fiction channel recreates recipes from movies, TV series, and video games. And the guys at Epic Meal Time are making super-duper mega-calorie blowout meals.
Try to replicate this effect – make each video not just an instruction, but a small interesting movie.
Step 3. Make the frame look appetizing
You need to grab the viewer’s attention right away. Choose the most eye-catching plates, forks, pans, pots, napkins, etc. which will make your home more beautiful and attractive.
Think about the background and objects that will fall into the frame beside the food itself. Give the viewer a mouth-watering shot right from the start.
Shoot your actions overhead. The most “delicious” and popular video recipes are shot from top to bottom. These videos quickly engage and retain the viewer’s attention. At these moments, viewers seem to forget about everything and just fascinatingly watch how the chocolate softly envelops the cake, even without a sound. This angle gives the impression that they are directly involved in the preparation of the dish.
Step 4. Choose shooting gear
Gear&equipment have paramount importance for any blogger. The easiest way is to record video on two cameras at once: one for a mid-shot, where you, your hands, all the ingredients are visible, the second is for a close-up with the food only.
We advise you to shoot with a laptop webcam using a webcam recorder, a phone with a good resolution, and a wide-angle camera. Yes, there is a lot of hassle, but the picture will be worth it.
In addition to a camera, you will need a lavalier microphone to record your voice without unnecessary noise. In addition to a camera, you will need a lavalier microphone and a voice generator to record your voice without unnecessary noise.
Also, take care of the lighting for cooking videos. If you have large windows in your kitchen and shoot recipes during the day, you may not need extra light. Alternatively, you can use home lamps with warm white light.
Step 5. Don’t skip editing
Don’t make your video tiring long. During editing, speed up or cut out processes that don’t require special attention, such as shredding vegetables for 10 minutes at a healthy cooking blog. That’s the not main point.
Add transitions between frames, sign the names of ingredients on the screen, use color correction to make the video as “tasty” as possible. Use iMovie, if you’re an Apple lover or any user-friendly editing software for Windows.
Final step. Monetization
There are several ways to make money on YouTube. First, use direct video ads. For YouTubers, this is one of the main ways to profit. The advertiser asks the author of the video to tell about the product and pays money for it. The sum depends on the number of subscribers, views, and the topic of the channel.
Second, integrate Google AdSense contextual advertising. These are advertisements before the main YouTube video. Advertisers place them through the Google Adsense ad network, and YouTube decides what to show to viewers. They must watch the ad to the end or at least 30 seconds for the blogger to receive a reward.
You can also carry out streams with donations. So you can also communicate with subscribers.
Once your channel is up and running, launch your merch. In the souvenirs section on the channel, you can sell products with the channel’s symbols. Just like the Hell’s Kitchen show did.
Final thoughts or How to hit your highest
● Chat with other bloggers. When you have a cooking video blog, you don’t have a boss or mentor to guide you. But other bloggers are usually ready to help or suggest something.
● Improve quality. Strive for the best technology and software. This will allow you to get a better picture.
● Post content regularly. To get into YouTube’s recommendation systems, you need to upload videos all the time. The more you upload, the faster you accumulate statistics that you can analyze.
● Be in touch. Don’t forget to respond to comments and questions from subscribers.
● Keep track of what’s relevant. You don’t need to blindly follow trends, but it is important to watch what content is interesting to viewers. For example, themed recipes before the holidays (New Year, St. Valentine’s Day) are relevant in culinary blogs, because people make up the menu in advance.
By the way, always explore updated tips for cooking bloggers. This will help not to scour a ton of information on the Internet.
● Offer cooperation. In the first stages, it’s important to offer your services to potential advertisers yourself. Choose brands that are related to your blog topic and whose product can be advertised natively.
Potential advertisers may not be from the food industry. It could even be a pretty simple TikTok parent influencer who’ll trigger moms to come to your cooking blog.
● Ignore negative information. Often people say that there is no chance to get the upper hand on YouTube. Just ignore such comments and try not to be guided by them. It’s important to keep working, even if at first you spin wheels. The blog is developing gradually, so you need to be ready to wait and keep investing in it.
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