Blogging as a Business: 5 Ways to Grow Traffic for Food Bloggers in 2021

In this post, you will learn how to grow your food blog traffic in 2019. Growing blog traffic isn’t easy, but by applying these tips and utilizing the list of submission sites listed below, you will be on your way to steadily increase your traffic.

 

Welcome back to my Blogging as a Business series! This is part two where we will discuss how to grow your blog traffic in 2021. We will specifically be talking about how to grow your food blog traffic since that’s what I focus on.

If you missed part one, we talked about How to Become a Food Blogger in 9 Steps. Once you read that post, head back here to tackle how to grow your traffic!

1. Grow Food Blog Traffic Through Submission Sites

Something I have done to help my page views and exposure grow greatly is utilizing different submission sites for food bloggers. Not only will these sites help build your traffic, but getting accepted on their site also helps with link-building. Link-building helps with SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which we will talk about later in the post. You can also read about link building in this post.

Submission Sites for Food Bloggers:

2. Grow Food Blog Traffic Through Social Media

I love hanging out on Instagram and Facebook, but blogging is my number one priority. Since I don’t OWN those platforms (like I own my website) I try to not get too hung up on them. However, I would be silly to not capitalize on them while they’re around. 😉

You don’t want to spread yourself too thin by joining every platform, which is why I recommend finding one or two social platforms you enjoy and capitalizing on them. I’ve chosen Instagram as my top social platform.

Find Which Platform Your Target Audience Is On

Just because there are a bunch of social media platforms out there, doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be on all of them. Instead, focus on where your readers hang out and tackle those social platforms first.

If your food blog helps teach college kids how to cook, then you better be on Instagram. Are you trying to reach moms with kids heading off to high-school? You should probably hit up Facebook. Understand your audience and potential customers, then go find a social media platform to communicate with them.

Implement Social Sharing On Your Site

Using tools like SumoMe will allow readers to share your content on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, SMS, etc. This then can lead to higher search engine rankings as well as higher social traffic to your blog.

Encourage People to “Share” Instead of “Like”

By having your readers share your blog post, they will be essentially disrupting their friends’ and follower’s newsfeed and displaying your content. This leads to a better chance for other people to read and share your content, thus leading to a higher search engine ranking.

3. Grow Food Blog Traffic Through Pinterest + Tailwind

If you don’t have a Pinterest account you need to create one ASAP. No seriously, open a new tab as you’re reading this and create one and come back to my post.

Pinterest is the top traffic source for my blog followed by SEO, social media, and miscellaneous features. You NEED to be on Pinterest if you’re looking to grow your blog traffic.

Pinterest is technically a search engine and not a social platform. What this means is people treat it more like Google than anything else.

For this reason, you should treat your Pinterest pins the same way you would treat your blog posts. AKA focus on keywords and SEO.

Step One: Sign up for a business account.

Step Two: Create pins using Canva or InDesign.

Step Three: Focus on your pin description. You want to focus on keywords in the description as well as add 3-5 hashtags.

Step Four: Join Tailwind! Tailwind has been major for me. It’s how I grew from 60K monthly visitors to over 800K visitors in less than 6 months. Tailwind is a way to automate your pins. You can also join Tailwind Tribes to help expand your reach. You can read more about it or sign up here.

4. Grow Food Blog Traffic By Focusing on SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Use a Self-Hosted Blog

We tackled this is part one, but buying your own domain name and launching a self-hosted blog is super important. Not only does having .blogspot.com or .wordpress.com at the end of your food blog’s URL make you appear more like an amateur, but you don’t have nearly as much flexibility and options available that you would with a self-hosted blog.

I recommend using SiteGround.They have outstanding customer service and my site hasn’t had any major issues since joining almost 2 years ago.

Focus on Long-Tail Keywords

By focusing on long-tail keywords your site can rank for more specific terms. For example, a recipe like “peanut butter cookies” will be extremely hard to rank #1 on Google. However, if you’re recipe is “Healthy Flourless Protein Peanut Butter Cookies” you have a better chance to rank #1 on that keyword.

Remember, the more specific your keyword, the less amount of competition. This will definitely improve your food blog SEO.

Optimize Your Images

Make sure that your photos have your keywords in it for both the title tag and the alternate tag sections.

Make sure that your image files aren’t large, which can ultimately slow down your site and increase page load times which can hurt your SEO. I recommend using TinyPNG or TinyJPG to make image files smaller without losing any quality.

Make Sure Your Keywords are in H1, H2, and H3 Tags

Google’s search engine spiders are specifically looking for your keywords in your title and h2/h3 headings in your blog post. These title tags have a positive impact on your SEO and reader readability if done properly.

Use Your Keywords at Least 4-5 Times Per Post

Keywords make it possible for people to find your site on search engines. That’s why it’s important that your blog posts have the keyword you want to rank for at least 4-5 times.

Link to Other Authority Sites in Your Blog Posts

Linking out to authority sites makes your blog seem more trustworthy in the eyes of Google and other search engines.

Use the WordPress SEO by Yoast Plugin

If you have a WordPress food blog then this plugin is a must. WordPress SEO by Yoast ensures that your website and every single post and page you publish can be found on Google or any other search engine. This truly is the best plugin to help you maximize your website’s SEO potential.

Write Guest Posts

Guest blogging on other people’s websites can help build your brand awareness while also bringing visitors to your site and improve SEO. It’s honestly just a great way to get your name out there.

Guests posting on other websites also helps build your SEO through link building. Earning links to your site builds your site’s authority in search engines. Read about link building here.

5. Grow Food Blog Traffic By Focusing On Photography

Master Your Food Photography Skills

By learning how to take beautiful food photos, you can drastically improve the shareability and exposure of your recipes. This is especially true on Pinterest!

There are some phenomenal courses on Food Blogger Pro to improve your photography as well.

Learn How To Edit Photos in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop

I use the photography plan from adobe because it’s only $9.99 a month. It has lightroom and photoshop which are the two I most frequently use.

If you’re a student, you can also sign up for Adobe’s Student Plan and receive the entire adobe suite for $19.99 a month. Seriously such a killer deal.

It’s so much easier and convenient when you have photos on your computer. Editing takes half the time (or less) than it did when I was getting headaches from staring at my phone all day trying to edit hundreds of tiny photos.

5 Ways to Grow Traffic for Food Bloggers in 2019

Was this post helpful? Let me know in the comments, share this post on Pinterest, or share this post on Instagram

See you next week for part three of Blogging as a Business where we’ll focus on monetization!

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35 Comments

  1. I’m just starting out and your tips are very helpful, especially the one about Yoast. I would’ve never known. Thanks for being so generous.

    1. So glad they were helpful! I have a more in-depth video over on my youtube channel if you’re interested 🙂 Just search “hello spoonful” and my channel will come up. Good luck on your blogging journey!

  2. Hi, I’m Anwitasinha. While reading your article I got so many new and useful, knowledgeable things to implement and earn. Thanks for sharing this article and we always looking for your coming article to read. Keep sharing

  3. Great food blog submission site. Thanks for sharing this
    information. I really like this post.

  4. I FINALLY got a photo approved and published on Foodgawker about 8 hours ago! I was super excited except I literally have only gotten 4 visitors on my site from Foodgawker one of which was me and another was my best friend. Is this normal? I’m quite disappointed…

  5. This was super helpful, although my blog isn’t just food, it definitely helped me! I’m bookmarking this for when I need to refresh my memory again!

  6. I could definitely have used these tips when I ran a health and fitness blog; I’d aggressively market my posts all over my Facebook feed to no avail with every new one I had. I personally found that link parties drive more traffic, too

  7. I’ve finally decided to put a stop to all this procrastination and just set up my food blog.. Well sorta.. its up and coming i promise! lol and these tips were so helpful.. Thanks xx

  8. Although I don’t have a food blog these are extremely helpful tips. One that really stood out is guest blogging. I want to get into that. Do you have any suggestions with a DIY type of blog when it comes to guest blogging? Good article you have.

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