How to Start Your Own Thai Food Blog for Income
- Steps to Creating Your Thai Food Blog (this page)
- Choose Your Domain Name
- Your Thai Food Blog Business Hosting
- Choosing a Great WordPress Theme
- The Basics of Thai Food Blogging
- How To Bring Visitors to Your Thai Food Blog
- 25 Solid Thai Food Photography Tips
- Making Money from Your Thai Food Blog
- Creating Food eBooks
- Collecting Email Addresses for Marketing
You must have exceptional web hosting if you want to have a website. You should seriously consider “BlueHost“. We have used them for a decade with great success.
In 2021 and beyond, your website hosting must be fast and resilient. There are bots (computer robots) online that search constantly for openings in the security of websites and if you don’t have a solid host, you can more easily become a victim of these money-robbing bots. They’ll plant malware (bad programs) on your server and run ads to people who visit your website. Not good, right?!
Bluehost is one of the top providers for WordPress and all other website formats. We typically use WordPress for all of our sites and our first move is to get our sites secured on a secure server with Bluehost. The HTTPS:// prefix is a must these days because Google uses it as a ranking signal and will put your website ahead of others without it.
Bluehost can help you with this quickly and have you up and running usually within a few hours. This is the best service we’ve found for beginning sites and we’ve tried so many different web hosting companies.
We decided to become affiliates for Bluehost.com because we have enjoyed their hosting services for over a decade of time. We’ve been extremely satisfied with them, and so we pass on to you our recommendation that you also join them.
There are far too many poor hosting services available online. We receive a commission from Bluehost for referrals from this site. You never pay any more when you click a link here and buy your hosting service at Bluehost, and sometimes during sales, you will even save some money.
If you would, please go there through one of our blue links on the page so we can continue to give you great articles on hosting your food blog, and cooking Thai food! Joy B.
Steps to Creating Your Thai Food Blog
Here is an introduction to showing you what is involved in starting your new Thai food blog, with some links to further information about each topic. Some people see it as easy, and others think it’s a little more involved than they originally thought.
Either way, you CAN make your own blog and you can make some money with it if you stick with it and make it a priority.
Back in 2007 when I started JoysThaiFood.com, if you would have told me how much success I would have with it, I would have laughed. It just didn’t seem like blogging about Thai cuisine I cook could help pay the bills.
Guess what? Thai Food Blogging Works!
At first, I thought there was just way too much competition in food blogs. Then I looked at Thai food blogs – OH MY BUDDHA! There were so many! My husband also thought maybe there was too much competition already, but he encouraged me to continue and do it just for fun for a while and learn how to blog, how to take photos, how to shoot the videos and get them on the website.
I had to learn a few things to get going, but once I figured it out (with his and other people’s help!) I was able to write over 300 posts at my blog.
How to Create Your Thai Food Blog
1. Figure out WHAT you want to blog about. There are many areas or ‘niches’ to choose from in the food blog arena. You could focus on desserts, cookies, a hundred styles of french fries, raw food diets, vegetarian, Paleo diet, meat diet, etc.
The possibilities are endless. The thing about food is, there will almost always be enough people to read your blog because everyone on the planet is eating three times a day and there are so many people reading about how to cook or how to diet.
Though some successful food bloggers do, I wouldn’t suggest you just focus on “food” as a niche. That’s a huge niche and it’s too general. Try to specialize in something. You’ll find it easier to get traffic to your site, and you’ll start to build an audience that is interested in your niche.
2. How much TIME do you want to devote to your food blogging business? If you’re going to blog about Thai food, you might as well get paid for it! How much you make depends pretty directly on how much time you can put toward making your Thai food blog a success.
I’ll tell you right now, blogging for money is not that hard! I did it for a few years and then I got an offer to work with a company that really helped me improve my English. I went to that company about three years ago.
Now I’m ready to really get back into my Thai food blogging this year. Even though there is so much more competition now, we know we can really do well because we’re going to put all our time into it for 2015.
If you are ready to put yourself 100% into it, you CAN make your Thai food blog work. YOU CAN WITHOUT A DOUBT!
If you want to put in eight to ten hours a day, five to six days per week, you can make a living from your food blogging. I really feel strongly about that. This is what is necessary. There are things to learn, sure, but the things you need to learn are not like learning brain surgery!
3. Choose a DOMAIN NAME. You know, like “JoysThaiFood.com” is our domain name? Choose a domain name that is short, and describes what your blog is about. Try to stay under around 15 characters. Probably you should just stick with the .com extension like everyone else.
If you want more extensive information about choosing your food blog domain – click here. Here are some good examples. Some of these might be available!
Possible Food Blog Names
- bananadietrecipes.com
- rawfoodmonk.com
- bananamonk.com
- carbfreediet.com
- jessicasasianfusion.com
Make sure your domain name is available. You can use this free tool to try domain names below:
Enter it below like (yournamefoodblog.com; tinasfoodblog.com; foodblogging247.com)
NOTE – if you find a domain name you like and want to make sure you can buy it before someone else does you can skip ahead to go get your hosting account at Bluehost.com here. They even give you a FREE DOMAIN NAME. If you don’t know anything about hosting, go over here and read this.
There are steps to help you complete buying your domain name and getting hosting all on one page. Come back here when you’re ready to keep reading – there is more!
4. Get your HOSTING ACCOUNT. This sounds complicated, and yeah, it is a little bit, but it’s nothing too big for you. We made very clear step-by-step instructions to walk you through getting your domain and your hosting at Bluehost.com. Click here to read it.
5. INSTALL WORDPRESS. WordPress is a content management system that helps your blog. It contains everything you need to blog once you have the previous steps completed. Once you have your domain name and hosting account, you can install WordPress in a couple of clicks on your Bluehost account.
If you already went to the links in item #4. above, you’ve found that the same article covers installing WordPress.
6. CHOOSE A THEME for your Thai food blog. WordPress offers a free selection of basic themes that you might start using. A much better idea is to buy a premium theme that is geared toward food blogging. We created a page just focused on choosing a theme for your food blog. Click here to see it.
7. CUSTOMIZE YOUR BLOG. Now you have everything in place and you have to make your Thai food blog yours. You will probably want to either create yourself or have created for you, a header image which is nice to look at and which will set the mood for your blog.
Everything you do for your blog, think about branding it as a unique food blog that people need to return to. If you cannot already create excellent graphics, hire someone to do it. If you want a reference, we know a guy in the Philippines that does my husband’s book covers. He’s very good, cheap, and easy to work with.
Or, choose your own, there are many graphic designers all over freelance.com. You just post your project up there and freelance web graphics designers bid on it.
SUMMARY
As you can see, the physical part of creating your blog is not difficult. Not only that, but the next part – actually blogging, is also NOT DIFFICULT! You can do it!
Choosing a Domain Name for Your Thai Food Blog
First things, first. You can get a FREE DOMAIN NAME with your web hosting sign-up for just under $4 per month – HERE.
Important Criteria in Choosing Your Food Blog Domain Name
A domain name is simply the address you use in your web browser. Our domain is “JoysThaiFood.com”. Domains can have extensions (TLD’s) like .com, .net, .org, and now some new ones like .guru, .academy, and scores more.
Choosing a domain name is an important step, but it is one you can probably accomplish in just an hour or maybe a couple of days. Don’t agonize over the name you choose for your blog, but do give it some thought.
Some Basic Considerations for Choosing a Thai Food Domain Name:
- choose a domain name that is short – under around 15 characters
- it should describe what your blog is about in just a couple of words
- don’t use dashes
- don’t use numbers
- use the .com TLD because everyone else is still using it
- make sure your domain name is available.
There was in the past some research to suggest that buying your domain name for more than one year means something in the Google search algorithms. The theory behind it is that Google will take the domain more seriously if it is registered for multiple years.
I think there are many other considerations that are of much higher importance, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to register your domain name for at least three years if you’re going to dedicate yourself 100% to your new food blogging business.
NOTE – if you find a Thai food domain name you like and want to make sure you can buy it before someone else does you can skip ahead to go get your hosting account at Bluehost.com here. They even give you a FREE DOMAIN NAME. If you don’t know anything about hosting, go over here and read this. There are steps to help you complete buying your domain name and getting hosting all on one page. Come back here when you’re ready to keep reading – there is more!
You must have exceptional web hosting if you want to have a website. You should seriously consider “BlueHost“. We have used them for a decade with great joy!
We decided to become affiliates for Bluehost.com because we have enjoyed their hosting services over a decade of time. We’ve been extremely satisfied with them, and so we pass on to you our recommendation that you also join them.
There are far too many poor hosting services available online. We receive a commission from Bluehost for referrals from this site. If you would, please go there through one of our blue links on the page so we can continue to give you great articles on hosting your food blog, and cooking Thai food!
Thai Food Blog Hosting
If you are considering creating a Thai food blog to make some extra money from, you’re going to have to consider which hosting company to use. I know you know nothing about hosting. Back in 1998, we chose Godaddy hosting for lack of a good alternative.
We thought it was great. MY HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED! Godaddy is horrible today, and the good news is – there are a couple awesome alternatives.
Food blog hosting for beginners that are just getting started is a no-brainer. Bluehost.com is the best hosting company to start with. There’s nobody better geared toward helping newbies get started Thai food blogging.
So the GOOD NEWS IS – BLUEHOST is offering deep discounts on hosting – it’s now less than $5 per month and you get their STELLAR customer support services.
There are dozens of companies that offer web hosting for Thai food and other blogs. There is no reason to go research them, we’ve been keeping up with web hosting for fifteen years now and we know the two best companies for beginners and moderately advanced food bloggers!
If you’re just getting started – use Bluehost. Hands down, it can’t be beaten.
If you’re well into blogging and you have over 500 people to your food blog every day and they’re looking at a thousand or thousands of pages each day, you can either stay at Bluehost – which can definitely handle the traffic, or you might want something a little more advanced. Knownhost.com is the next step after Bluehost.
So, decide where you’re at in the food blogging world – and choose one or the other below. Both have solid hosting plans and delivery. Both are top rated among online bloggers all over the globe. Both have absolutely unbeatable customer service. Both are VERY affordable, depending what you need.
Choose a hosting company to handle your food blog needs and find out more:
Choose a WordPress Theme for Your Thai Food Blog Business
There are free WordPress themes available for you as a Thai food blogger. When you login to your WordPress account you can go to Appearance | Themes and choose one of those.
NOTE – If you don’t have Blog Hosting – you must get that first before you do anything with WordPress. We strongly recommend you go straight to BlueHost.com and get their $3.95 per month hosting account for your website.
OK! You have your web hosting account and ready to go!
Tips to Help You Pick a WordPress Theme
Why is it usually a better idea to buy a premium theme?
1. These themes are a top priority for the developers because maintaining them, updating them for customers makes good business sense. Free themes are often left to fall apart as developers have no time to keep them updated.
2. They are full of some great functionality that free themes never have. Especially recently, there are some absolutely amazing themes in terms of how they can empower you as a food blogger.
But guess what? We use a free theme for most of our websites.
Which are the Best Themes?
These are the themes that we have researched and that have our strongest recommendation. There are dozens of themes that claim to be appropriate for food blogs. We chose based on a number of characteristics.
We looked at the demo. We looked at the functionality. We looked at Mobile Usability – responsiveness. We looked at the price. We looked at the developers and other themes they’ve done. We searched the web to see if anyone was loudly claiming anything negative about the themes or the developer.
Some of these themes we have used in the past (Thesis, Enfold, and some of WooThemes themes).
The Best Free Thai Food Blog Theme?
1. Colormag. Currently, we are using this WordPress theme by ThemeGrill for almost all of our websites. It’s easy, it’s nice-looking. It’s simple. It’s fast. It is easily customizable. And get this, we only have the free version! If you want to get the fully-functional Colormag upgrade, it’s $59 here.
Keep Going! There is more to learn…
4. The Basics of Thai Food Blogging
5. How To Bring Visitors to Your Thai Food Blog
6. 25 Solid Thai Food Photography Tips
7. Making Money from Your Thai Food Blog
9. Collecting Email Addresses for Marketing
