Celebrating Five Years: The Dynamic World and Essential Tasks of a Full-Time Food Blogger

Today marks a truly special milestone, and while you might be accustomed to mouth-watering recipes, this post takes a different turn. Five years ago, in 2014, I embarked on an adventure that would completely redefine my life: I launched this very blog. It’s astounding to reflect on how much has changed in half a decade, not just professionally, but personally.

Stepping into the world of entrepreneurship has been an extraordinary journey. My life today bears little resemblance to what it was just five years ago, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. This anniversary isn’t just a celebration of time; it’s a testament to passion, perseverance, and the incredible evolution of a dream into a thriving career.

If you’re new to my corner of the internet, or simply curious about my entrepreneurial journey, I highly recommend reading Life as Entrepreneurs: Our Story. It provides a deeper dive into how both my husband and I successfully transitioned to being 100% self-employed, each building our own business. It’s a story of calculated risks, unwavering dedication, and the relentless pursuit of a life lived on our own terms.

For those who have been following along, you might enjoy revisiting my past blog anniversary recaps:

• 20 Things I Learned in My First Year of Food Blogging
• Build Your Bite Turns 2
• 3 Years

To commemorate this special fifth anniversary, I wanted to pull back the curtain and share an in-depth look at what the “job description” of a full-time food blogger truly entails. Blogging, especially food blogging, is often a misunderstood profession. In a world where digital careers are still relatively new, it’s common for people to view it as a mere hobby rather than a legitimate, demanding business.

When I tell people I’m a blogger, I sometimes observe a slight hesitation or an assumption that it’s just something I “play around” with in my spare time. However, the reality is far more complex and rewarding. This isn’t just a passion project; it’s my full-time career, a registered corporation with real profits, real costs, and, yes, real taxes paid every single month.

My decision to leave a conventional career path, specifically accounting, was met with skepticism. Why would I walk away from a “sure thing” – a well-established and respected profession – to pursue something so unconventional? The primary concern for many was the financial uncertainty. They saw me abandoning a stable income to “play around” with a blog.

Five years on, that decision has been profoundly validated. I can confidently say that my earnings from this blog now meet and often exceed the average accountant’s salary in the United States. This wasn’t an overnight success; it was a journey paved with immense hard work, moments of self-doubt, and an unyielding commitment to keep trying, learning, and evolving. It’s a testament to the power of persistence and believing in an unconventional path.

This amazing career I’ve built from the ground up could fully support my family, if necessary, allowing us to live solely on the income from this blog for roughly half the year. In fact, if my husband didn’t genuinely love his own successful business, he would happily embrace being a stay-at-home dad. However, since he’s also incredibly fortunate to have built a business he adores, he contributes to our family finances for 6-8 months out of the year. For the remaining months, he truly excels as a stay-at-home dad, which, in turn, allows me to dedicate even more time to growing my business.

So, if you’ve ever found yourself wondering, “What exactly does a food blogger do?” or thought about the day-to-day operations behind those enticing Pinterest recipes, then keep reading! Every time you click on a mouthwatering image on Pinterest, chances are you’ve landed on a food blogger’s carefully crafted website. Here’s a comprehensive look at the intricate ins and outs of this dynamic profession, detailing what occupies my time on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

The Multifaceted Role of a Full-Time Food Blogger

1. Website Maintenance and Development

Building a blog from scratch is an extensive undertaking, far beyond merely picking a domain name and installing WordPress. It involves countless hours of research, learning, and troubleshooting. I vividly recall spending entire days trying to master one small technical tweak, only to move immediately to the next challenge once it was solved.

The work doesn’t stop once the site is live. Websites demand constant maintenance, updates, and optimization. Recently, I’ve dedicated significant effort to improving page speed, which is a critical ranking factor for search engines. This includes optimizing images, minifying code, and leveraging caching solutions. Furthermore, securing reliable hosting is paramount; in five years, I’ve transitioned through three different hosts to ensure my website remains fast, secure, and always accessible on the internet, all for a monthly fee. This ongoing technical work ensures the foundation of the business is robust and user-friendly.

2. Keyword Research and Content Strategy

The days of simply having a spontaneous recipe idea and creating it are rare for a professional food blogger. Instead, before I even consider stepping into the kitchen, a significant amount of time is dedicated to strategic planning. This involves extensive keyword research using specialized software to identify monthly search volumes, keyword difficulty, and overall search intent. I also dive deep into my Google Analytics to understand which existing posts are performing well, and how I can expand upon those topics or create similar, high-demand recipes.

This meticulous research ensures that every new recipe has the best possible chance of being discovered by readers. I maintain a running spreadsheet on my cloud drive, logging potential recipe ideas based on optimal search volume, keyword difficulty, and audience interest. Factors like seasonality, ensuring a balanced mix of timely holiday content and timeless, evergreen recipes, are also crucial considerations in my content strategy. This ensures a steady flow of relevant and searchable content throughout the year.

3. Marketing & Promotion: Amplifying Reach

This is arguably where a food blogger spends the majority of their time on a daily and weekly basis. It’s often said that blogging is 20% content creation and 80% promotion, and I’ve found this to be incredibly accurate. You can create the most innovative and delicious recipe in the world, but if it isn’t effectively promoted, it will never reach its intended audience.

My weekly promotional activities for both new and evergreen recipes are multifaceted:

• Facebook: Actively posting recipe links, engaging with my community, and sharing engaging recipe videos to capture attention.
• Instagram: Beyond just sharing beautiful food photos, I utilize Instagram stories for behind-the-scenes glimpses, interactive polls, and quick recipe highlights to connect with followers in real-time.
• Pinterest: Pinterest is a powerhouse for food bloggers. While I’ve outsourced daily pinning to a dedicated expert, I’m still responsible for all new pin creation. Some weeks, I design and create 2-3 new, visually appealing pin graphics every single day. This constant experimentation helps me understand what resonates with users, what trends are emerging, and where I need to focus my visual marketing efforts.
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization): This forms a massive part of my promotional strategy. By meticulously adhering to Google’s guidelines and best practices, I aim to rank highly in search results, ensuring my recipes are discovered by a wider audience actively looking for specific dishes. This will be expanded upon further below.
• Email List: While I admit this is an area I’m continuously working to improve, many bloggers achieve incredible success through their email subscribers. It’s a direct line to your most engaged audience, offering immense potential for community building and content distribution.

4. Recipe Testing and Development

This is often the *only* aspect of a food blogger’s job that most people imagine! While some recipes miraculously come together perfectly on the first try, many require several rounds of meticulous testing and refinement before they are deemed “just right” and ready for their photoshoot. Each ingredient measurement, cooking time, and technique is carefully evaluated and adjusted to ensure consistent, delicious, and repeatable results for my readers.

I take immense pride in the fact that every single recipe featured on this blog – a collection of approximately 300 unique creations – has been developed, tested, and perfected by me personally. This rigorous process is fundamental to building trust with my audience and maintaining the high quality they expect from my content.

5. Photography and Editing: Visual Storytelling

My love for photography predates my blogging career, even before I owned a professional DSLR camera. It’s a skill that, like any other, improves dramatically with practice. After five years and literally hundreds of photoshoots every week, my food photography skills have evolved significantly.

I currently use a Nikon D750, a far cry from the entry-level models I started with. This journey has involved mastering complex techniques such as artificial lighting, composing aesthetically pleasing shots of even “ugly” food, and learning to shoot entirely in manual mode for complete creative control. For an average recipe, I might take 50-70 raw photos. From these, I meticulously select just 6-10 for the final post, each one carefully edited and resized using Adobe Lightroom – a tool I absolutely adore for its power and flexibility – before being uploaded to the blog. These visuals are critical for captivating readers and conveying the appeal of a dish.

6. Writing Posts: Crafting Engaging Narratives

While the recipe creation and photography are enjoyable, the actual writing of blog posts is, admittedly, my least favorite part of the job. It’s a delicate balance of providing helpful information, engaging storytelling, and rigorous optimization. Crafting compelling content that is both appealing to readers and search engine friendly, all while avoiding repetitive adjectives like “delicious” countless times, is a constant challenge.

Every post I write has numerous components that need careful attention: clear H2 and H3 headers for readability, a structured recipe card for easy printing and scaling, strategic keyword placement throughout the text, internal links to other relevant recipes, and an engaging introduction and conclusion. Beyond the words, I also focus on user experience, ensuring the post flows logically and answers common reader questions, making it a valuable resource.

7. SEO – Search Engine Optimization: The Path to Discovery

SEO is the cornerstone of driving organic traffic to my recipes. It encompasses a range of practices, both on a post-by-post basis and across the entire website, all aimed at optimizing for Google and other search engines. The ultimate goal is simple: when someone searches for “best stir fry sauce,” I want them to land directly on my highly-rated stir fry sauce recipe.

This involves several key areas:

• On-Page SEO: This includes strategic keyword integration in titles, headings, and body text, crafting compelling meta descriptions, ensuring proper alt tags for images, and structuring content with appropriate headings (`
  

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• Technical SEO: This focuses on the website’s backend health, including optimizing page speed, ensuring mobile-friendliness, implementing schema markup (especially for recipe cards to get rich snippets in search results), and maintaining a clear site architecture.
• Content Quality: Google prioritizes helpful, unique, and comprehensive content. Longer, more detailed posts that genuinely answer user queries and provide value tend to rank higher.
• Backlinks: Earning links from other reputable websites signals to Google that my content is trustworthy and authoritative, boosting its ranking potential.

8. Accounting and Business Management: The CEO Role

Ironically, despite walking away from a career in accounting, the financial management of a business is inescapable when you’re an entrepreneur! I manage all the financial aspects of both my blog and my husband’s business. He, like many creatives, isn’t a “numbers person,” and while some aspects of accounting aren’t my favorite, this type of strategic financial oversight is something I actually enjoy.

Last year, a pivotal decision was hiring a professional accountant for both businesses, which has been truly life-changing. Outsourcing the complexities of expense categorization, tax filings, and the intricate legal side of running a corporation has significantly reduced my stress and freed up valuable time. Even with external help, there are still crucial tasks I handle:

• Financial Tracking: Maintaining detailed spreadsheets to monitor annual growth, which I evaluate and analyze monthly to inform strategic decisions.
• Profit Distribution: Calculating monthly profits to determine our respective payouts, ensuring sustainable growth and fair compensation.
• Bank Account Management: Overseeing four separate bank accounts – a business checking and credit card for each of our two corporations – ensuring funds are allocated correctly.
• Expense Management: Paying credit cards and other non-automated expenses every month.
• Payroll Coordination: Submitting payroll information to our accountant monthly for myself, and twice a month for Robbie.

Meanwhile, my incredible accountant handles:

• Processing our payroll like a “regular” job, with all necessary taxes deducted.
• Filing all required state and federal reports, keeping us compliant.
• Reviewing bank accounts monthly to generate accurate financial statements.
• Categorizing all business expenses for clear financial reporting.
• Preparing all our taxes at year-end, simplifying a historically complex process.

9. Updating and Editing Old Posts: Perpetual Improvement

Contrary to popular belief, publishing a post is never the final step. The digital landscape is constantly evolving, and so must my content. It’s an ongoing, cyclical process of updating, optimizing, and refreshing older content to ensure its continued relevance and performance. I meticulously tweak posts for improved SEO, add more helpful information, enhance readability, and update images or recipe notes as needed. Some of my older posts have undergone more than 20 revisions over the years!

Particularly before each holiday season, I dedicate time to go through my seasonal archives, optimizing them for the anticipated surge in traffic. This proactive approach ensures that my content remains fresh, accurate, and highly visible, maximizing its potential to serve readers and attract new visitors.

10. Creating Video Content: Engaging Audiences Dynamically

Have you ever found yourself mesmerized by a 60-second recipe clip scrolling through your social media feed? Those seemingly short videos are, in fact, the culmination of many hours of filming, editing, and production. Initially, I attempted to create my own recipe videos, but I quickly realized two things: first, I simply didn’t have the consistent time to produce them regularly, and more importantly, despite my best efforts, I genuinely disliked the process and wasn’t particularly skilled at it.

Recognizing the growing importance of video content for audience engagement, I made a strategic decision to invest in professional help. Today, I collaborate with a talented video creator who produces high-quality recipe videos for me every month. This outsourcing allows me to focus on my strengths while ensuring my audience receives diverse, engaging content across multiple formats. It’s an essential part of keeping the blog relevant and reaching new segments of the audience who prefer visual learning.

The Driving Force Behind the Dream

So, there you have it – a comprehensive, though still brief, overview of the demanding yet incredibly rewarding world of a full-time food blogger. I’ve undoubtedly missed a few tasks, as this profession often feels like juggling a million different responsibilities simultaneously!

If someone were to ask me to pinpoint the single most important reason for my success as an entrepreneur, without a moment’s hesitation, I would say my sons. Five years ago, my deepest aspiration was to create a life that allowed me to spend abundant quality time with my children, free from the constraints of a traditional 9-to-5 job. My little family is the “why” behind every effort, every late night, and every challenging moment. They are my unwavering inspiration to persist through the inevitable pitfalls and rollercoaster rides of entrepreneurship.

Crosby, and his little brother (due in February 2020), are and always will be the most important aspects of my life. Their well-being and our family’s future are the core motivators that fuel my drive.

Furthermore, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the massive and indispensable role my husband, Robbie, has played in my success. He was the one who initially encouraged me to start this blog, providing the crucial push I needed. He supported me steadfastly during those early months when the business was actually losing money, and his incredible partnership as a rockstar dad has made it truly possible for me to work from home and build this dream. We operate as a team; I attribute part of his business success to my support, and he does the same for mine. Our mutual encouragement and unwavering support for each other are the bedrock of our entrepreneurial journey.

Food blogging isn’t a career for everyone, but for me, it is absolutely perfect. I am profoundly thankful to have found a career that I genuinely love, one that challenges me daily and allows me to exercise my creativity. And most importantly, my deepest gratitude goes out to all of you – my incredible readers. Your visits to my posts, your shares of my recipes, and your heartwarming messages showing me your creations are what make all of this possible. YOU empower me to continue pursuing this passion, and for that, I am eternally grateful!