
Food blogging can be a very lucrative business. Pinch of Yum is a food blog that was founded in 2009. Today, it generates over $90,000 in revenue every month.
While the earning potential for food bloggers is huge, so is the competition. If you want to stand out in this saturated niche, you should learn from other successful food blogs.
Related Posts:
List of the Top Food Blogs on the Internet Today
Here are 10 of the best food blogs and the strategies that made them stand out.
1. The Recipe Critic
The Recipe Critic is a blog that offers a variety of recipes that the author, Alyssa Rivers, has tested herself. The recipes aren’t her own, but she has taken the time to find ones that her family will approve of.
The format of the blog is easy to follow. Above the fold, the blog has a Reader’s Choice recipe and shop category. The posts in each of these categories are broken down into three columns. Further down the blog, the content is broken down into four columns. Alyssa has shared over 1,500 different recipes, including meats, casseroles and salads. Alyssa accepts contributions from other chefs and shares their recipes on her blog.
The blog receives over 7 million monthly page views and 4.4 million unique monthly readers.
2. Skinnytaste
Skinnytaste is a healthy food recipe blog with over 1,200 unique recipe reviews. Most of the recipes are meatloafs, soups and other healthy cuisines. However, the author has shared recipes for crepes and a few other healthy desserts as well.
The blog has a full-length post at the top, followed by a series of two columns below the fold to fit in content to feature more blog posts. The menu bar organizes categories to help readers find what they need, including meal plans, recipes for people following special diets and success stories.
The website ranks for 360,000 keywords, including some very broad terms such as “bagel.” According to an analysis of their backlinks, they seem to have an effective linkbaiting strategy with their content.
3. Chef in Training
Chef in Training is a blog by Nikki, a stay at home mom that tests her recipes on her kids. She shares recipes for a variety of different types of cuisines, but seems to be most partial towards Mexican and Italian dishes.
Chef in Training has a similar format to Skinnytaste and The Recipe Critic. Nikki has a longer post at the top of her blog, followed by a multi-column series of recipes below the fold. She has a top menu that provides information about the blog, as well a sidebar menu that allows readers to find content on specific types of recipes they are interested in.
Chef in Training ranks for over 108,000 keywords. Since they focus on a lot of family recipes, they rank for those types of terms, as well as many terms related to alfredo.
4. Cookies & Cups
Cookies & Cups is a blog specifically for dessert recipes. The blog does have a section for dinners, but the vast majority of the posts are for sugary sweets.
As with the other blogs on this list, Cookies & Cups has a multi-column layout for its posts. However, it has a slightly different approach. At first glance, all the posts are images. The user has to hover their mouse over them to see the title of the article. This is an interesting way to boost user engagement.
Cookies & Cups has a very active social media presence. The site has over 2.5 million Facebook fans and 11,000 Twitter followers.
Cookies & Cups also has great rankings with Google, as it ranks for over 108,000 keywords. Most of the keywords it ranks for are related to desserts. However, it also ranks for other terms, such as “crock pot mac n cheese” and “crack chicken.”
5. Veg Recipes of India
Veg Recipes of India is a novel recipe blog concept. It focuses exclusively on vegan recipes from the Far East.
The blog has similar, but slightly different pattern to most other recipe blogs. The main page features abridged versions of the two most recent posts. As you scroll down the blog, the remaining posts are organized in a two-column format.
6. Raks Kitchen
Raks Kitchen is the brainchild of Rajeswari Vijayanand, a recipe blogger from Singapore. She shares a variety of Eastern dishes, which all seem to be vegetarian-based.
The blog has a two-column layout. The background and general template are not as aesthetically appealing as most of the others, but the site is clearly popular because it has around two million social media followers. This suggests that the layout was likely chosen for the demographic she writes for in Asia, although 34% of Rajeswari’s readers are from the United States.
7. The Kitchn
The Kitchn is a more general site that covers recipes, wellness and cultural issues. It also breaks from the template that the other posts use. Most of the posts are displayed in a single column, although some featured posts are organized alongside each other.
While a lot of the content is not related to food these days, the site still ranks well for a variety of food related terms. Keywords that The Kitchn ranks for include:
- Lentils
- Scallions
- Frittata
- Pho
- How to cook quinoa
The Kitchn ranks for over 2.2 million keywords, which is largely attributed to its solid linkbuilding strategy. It has links from over 25,000 domains.
8. Manjula’s Kitchen
Manjula’s Kitchen is run by a San Francisco based blogger that covers a wide range of Eastern foods. She has a top menu that links to a variety of recipes categories, including snacks, appetizers, desserts, lentils, vegan dishes and breads.
Manjula has an extended excerpt of her most recent post above the fold. The lower section of the blog has a three column layout with images of meals, linked to their corresponding recipes. The title is displayed below the image, but is truncated to provide space for other recipes.
Manjula has over 3,000 indexed pages of content, but isn’t quite as prolific of a blogger anymore. She currently publishes three posts a month. However, the site still has strong engagement ratios and a great social media presence. Over 1.7 million people like the blog on Facebook.
9. 100 Days of Real Food
100 Days of Real Food is a blog dedicated to people that want to eliminate processed food from their diet. In addition to having a number of recipes for foods that don’t contain processed ingredients, it also has information for people that need help finding real food at Walmart and their local grocery store.
The top menu has links to recipes and meal plans for people getting started on their diet free of processed foods. The footer of the blog has a more extended menu, which also features the blogger’s shop and speaking arrangements.
The front page of the website is organized into four columns. It also has a link to a page of blog articles, where the articles are organized in a single column.
10. Café Delights
Café Delights is a blog for balanced foodies – that is people that want to prepare cuisines that are both healthy and tasty. The aesthetic appeal to the blog is also unique.
The blog has two menus at the top of the site. The first provides some general information about the blog. The second is a list of linked images to certain recipes, including salads, dinners and seasonal dishes.
The menus are the main thing that differentiate the layout of the blog from others on this list. After them, the blog shows a large image with an excerpt of the most recent posts. Under that post, the rest of the blog is organized into two-columns of recipe blog posts.
How to Start Your Own Food Blog
Are you ready to start your own food blog? You can launch it in the next hour! All you need to do is choose a domain, find hosting and begin creating content.
If you are looking for a hosting provider, I would recommend Bluehost. We have a great relationship with them, so we were able to negotiate a deal that offers our reader’s a 60% discount and a free domain.
You just need to click the image below to sign up!
To learn more about the blog setup and content creation process, be sure to visit our main page tutorial at blogging.org.
6
Wait! Don't forget to check out these related articles: