So, You Want to be a [Food] Blogger, eh?

I suppose, as Restaurant Widow nears its second birthday, it's time to provide a tutorial on food blogging.  I've received numerous emails asking for blogging advice, so I thought I would put some suggestions out there, which you can take or leave as you see fit; I've been working on this for a week or so, but I am sure as soon as I publish it I will remember tons of things I should have said.  So it goes. These are, of course, my own personal opinions, based upon my own personal taste.  Here and here are a few other opinions to peruse, in case you don't agree with me.

1. First and foremost, think: do I have enough ideas to sustain this endeavor?  You must think constantly about food.  I constantly think about food, have dreams in which solutions to cooking problems and recipes and ideas reveal themselves to me, I think about shopping for food, sourcing out new ingredients, eating new things and in new places, strolling the farmer's markets, and even I am sometimes challenged to come up with content.  And sometimes what I do come up with seems uninspired.
2. Who is your audience?  The real world, or the on line world?  This is where my opinion differs from many other people who have offered food blogging advice.  I write primarily for people who live in or are traveling or moving to Columbus and Central Ohio, who aren't writing food blogs.  For this reason, I don't really participate in online foodblogging events - I did when I first started, but my average reader has no idea what "Is My Blog Burning" means.  When I first began reading food blogs, I found online events rather confusing.  Because most of my readers are probably not avid food blog readers, I have made the decision to focus on my own content and things happening in and around Columbus, and less on the online foodblogging community. 
3. Do you have the commitment to write on a regular basis?  Set a goal for how many posts you would like to write in a week, and then stick with it.  Pretend it's a "real" job; show up every day.  Most people will stop writing altogether after a few months, or even sooner.  If you are going to be gone for a length of time, your top post should tell people how long you are going to absent, and maybe why: "Dear faithful readers, I am taking a sojourn to study ice temperatures in Antarctica, and wireless access can be spotty at best, and until Typepad introduces moblogging via Morse Code, I will not be able to update.  Furthermore, I don't think you want to hear about how many times I have eaten seal.  I plan to be back in May, when I will resume blogging.  In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite posts from the past."  Now the reader won't have to keep checking in, getting depressed there's no new content on their favorite site.
4. Do you have a shtick?  Do you have to?  Some people cook through cookbooks, for example.  I hardly ever cook with a cookbook, so that wouldn't really be my thing.  A few people have e-mailed to suggest I get a shtick, but I like to be diverse.  And I like to think my thing is focusing on Columbus food, restaurants, and agriculture.  It can be hard to do some of that in the wintertime, but I like to focus on produce, especially in the summertime.  You might want to think of some sort of platform to jump from, just so you can maintain focus. 
5. Beware of free software.  I know a lot of people disagree with me, but I really think it's worth the cost - sometimes very low - to pay for your blogging platform.  I am especially fond of my service, Typepad, which has rarely been down, has never minded when I have (vastly) exceed my bandwidth, and is very quick-loading.  I will not knock other specific services, but I find many of the free services are incredibly slow-loading.  There are some websites I have just resigned to quit reading, because they loaded so slowly and would sometimes not load at all.  Others seem to always have broken feeds, bizarre looking layouts, etc.  I just tend to believe people who are charging you something have more motivation to provide a good and consistent product. 
6. Buy a domain name.  This not only eliminates confusion, but it allows you to tell people about yourself if you so choose.  It's so much easier to say "oh, I have a site where I write about food.  It's Restaurant Widow dot com," then saying, well, if you Google me, you can find it, or do you have a pen?  It's ht tp//lisacooksthingsallday.freeblogsoftware-lisacooks.us.com.  Besides which, you can then get cool business cards or Moo cards with your website address.  I have no idea how a domain name affects traffic, because I bought my domain name months before I published my website, but it seems so much easier, and it shows you are serious.  It also helps to establish your identity.
7. To picture or not to picture?  I have been known to have the attention span of a butterfly.  I also like pretty things.  For this reason, I would recommend putting some (decent) pictures on your site.  When I look back on my first year and a half of pictures, I could roll around laughing at myself, but we all learn and grow and find we can do things we never thought we could.  These days, you can buy a perfectly decent camera for under $200, and with the right lighting, produce a decent picture.  I don't think it's always necessary to have pictures in your post, but a few never hurt.  I always skim through the pictures first and if something looks good I'll read the article. 
8. What about a picture of yourself?  The Amateur Gourmet (whose duck and bagel-stabbing self portrait banner is quite funny) insisted this was necessary, but I think one of the best (and worst) things about the internet can be the sense of anonymity.  I don't really want people to know what I look like.  Of course, there are restaurants where I know everyone, but I wouldn't consider criticizing them, for the most part.  I like to think I present a good impression of myself through words, and friends tell me reading my website is just like talking to me, so I hope I do a pretty good job of it.  I ran into a friend and former Giant Clothing Retailer co-worker the other day, who I haven't seen for quite some time, and he said "do you have a food blog?  With pictures and the writing sounds just like you?"  Yes, I suppose I do.  I've created myself with words - who needs pictures?  Some people, who shall remain nameless, have head shots - literally, like Glamour Shots - on their website.  That kind of stuff cracks me up.  It seems there's just no way to make it seem natural.  If I can ever convince Natalie Dee to put glasses on one of her girl cartoons and let me use it, I might put that up as my picture.  Until then, you'll just have to use your imagination. 
9. Put up a bio!  Tell a little about yourself, your gender, where you live, what you do, etc.  And your name.  It's rare that I enjoy reading things where I can't figure out anything about the person.  They call themselves Banana, and don't say where they live, what they do, or why they are writing about food.  It's weird (I'm sorry if there are really any people out there using the handle "Banana," I didn't mean to target you, it's just the first word I thought of.  Because I am currently eating a banana.)
10. Do you have enough time? Of course, if you have decided to only post once a week, or once a month, this won't really be an issue for you, but the truth is, writing takes time.  Shopping, cooking and eating take time.  I am fortunate enough to have a job which affords me lots of free time to devote to my writing, without interfering with work.  I probably wouldn't have been able to do this if were still chained to a desk, Big Brother monitoring my every keystroke.
11. Make your site look interesting.  You don't need to know a lot of code to do this; you can pick out a good template from your hosting service, design your own, or get someone to do it for you.     
12. Don't be discouraged if you don't get a ton of comments.  I think people would be surprised by my readership based solely on the number of comments I receive, which is pretty low, but I've learned to accept that. 
13. Get a good stat counter.  This can clue you in to the people who read your website.  For example, I know most of my readers view my site with Windows XP on high resolution screens, with IE 6 or 7.  That tells me what systems I should use to test how my website looks.  You should always try to test your website on a Mac and  PC, on different resolutions, just to see how different operating systems affect your design.  I personally use StatCounter.com, which is pretty reliable, although I've noticed it can sometimes leave out people using free wireless connections; it doesn't count all of my page hits, for example, when I am sitting in a coffee shop.
14. To advertise or not to advertise.  This can be a slippery slope.  You will probably not make a  ton of money, ever, from your website.  Personally, I don't mind some tasteful advertisements; I'm not really happy with my Google adsense, but they only pay you once you receive $100 in revenue, and right now I have about $90, so I'm going to keep it until I have reached $100.  One thing I personally can't stand is a Google ad pasted into every post.  I would like to see more people purchasing through Amazon and other affiliates, because then I wouldn't feel like my readers were being subjected to things they didn't want to see, but to things which were more relevant, such as my favorite cookbooks from Amazon.  Since I pay for all of my meals and gadgets out of my own pocket, I am in favor of trying to generate some money, which I always put back into the website in some way. 
15. Get a gym membership.  Since you will consider it your duty to consume everything that comes your way, you might pack on a few pounds.  Be prepared.

Well, I hope I've given you some practical advice for becoming a food blogger.  Now get out there and start eating!