If you’ve considered creating a recipe blog as a way to make money, check out these tips from Amy Nash, creator of the successful food blog: House of Nash Eats. She discusses how she makes money primarily through pageviews (and about her first big search engine smash hit). Amy’s favorite thing about what she does is the flexibility it allows her to care for her two young children while still working on her blog part-time. Her success story and encouragement for others to start their own recipe blog might be just the encouragement you need to make money as the next successful recipe blog.
Amy Nash from House of Nash Eats
I am not personally a food blogger (not yet anyway — it’s tempting), so for my information, I interviewed super-successful food blogger Amy Nash from House of Nash Eats.
You can see the Instagram Live Interview of Amy here.
How do you make money with a recipe blog?
For a lot of food bloggers, including Amy, they make money primarily made through ads and pageviews. She promotes her blog primarily through Pinterest and other social media, but a lot of her page views come from being highly ranked on search engines, such as Google.
Great content ranks higher on SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Amy’s income went up significantly when one of her posts (about royal icing) became one of the top results of Google. Her page views skyrocketed, as did her ad revenue.
Amy credits the success of that post to her approachability and honesty about NOT being an expert. Rather than trying to wow with perfectly iced cookies, she thoroughly answered the questions she (and other online searchers) had about the process of making royal icing. She simplified and de-mystified the process, which readers appreciated and identified with. Google recognized that readers were finding her information helpful and rewarded it with a high rank. She says, “Google saw it as different and pushed it. And it went viral for me. My voice was different from everything else out there.”
Tool for SEO Optimization: Keywords Everywhere
To help find what online users are searching for, she uses a keyword optimizer, such as Chrome plug-in Keywords Everywhere. She starts by searching a recipe type and finding what related questions pop up.
Ways that food bloggers make money:
- Display Ads Using an ad network like Google AdSense, Mediavine, etc.
- Selling Digital products (e.g. Courses and eBooks)
- Brand Partnerships (sponsored posts)
- Affiliate Marketing — promoting the products and services of other companies
- Create a YouTube Channel.
- Utilize Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and other social media to drive traffic to your blog.
Brand Partnerships
Amy has worked with brands but limits those as brands have more strict requirements as to when and how much she posts, which limits her freedom and flexibility.
How much money can you make with a recipe blog?
Many food bloggers make 6 figures ($100,000+) and BEYOND, even if they’re only working part-time. Food blogging is one of the most successful types of blogs because of its high shareability and pageviews.
How much does Amy from House of Nash Eats make?
A LOT. Although Amy didn’t name a specific figure, Amy did say she makes MORE than she would have if she were a partner at a law firm (the law was her previous career) — which is a lot. She said she knows this because her husband is a law firm partner and she officially makes more than him! And her blog is just over four years old. SO incredible!
Another Recipe Blogger making $400,000+ — Lindsey and Bjork from PinchofYum
Lindsey and Bjork from PinchofYum published their first income report back in September 2011 when they made $21.97. By November 2017, their MONTHLY income (net of expenses) was $38,184. If that monthly amount held for a year, their income would be well over $400,000 for that year. They stopped published their income reports years ago, but their business and income have increased significantly since then.
How many hours a week does it take to make money with a recipe blog?
Amy currently works about 20 hours per week, although she said her recipe blog could fill all of her time if she wanted it to.
She was consistent about posting twice a week as she started building traffic and blog posts, but now she has a lot of flexibility. If she doesn’t feel like creating a new post that week, she doesn’t, and her blog still generates passive income.
The flexibility of a recipe blog
Amy loves the flexibility of her career as a food blogger gives to care for her two young children. She said, “I set my own schedule and I do what I want to when I want to. If I don’t post–I don’t post. I’m not accountable unless I’m working with a brand.”
And considering she’s earning over 6 figures working part-time, her rate per hour is pretty incredible.
How to Get Started with a Recipe Blog
Amy followed the course from Food Blogger Pro. She said it walked her through the process step-by-step.
Different Blog Topic?
If you’re considering starting a blog, but aren’t in the food category, I recommend the blogging course I took: Launch Your Blog (affiliate link).
Some helpful tips to help your Recipe Blog actually MAKE MONEY!
Pick a topic you’re passionate about — that is meaningful for you.
Whether it’s a recipe blog or not, pick a topic that you’re passionate about. Amy says she loves making and photographing food so much, she would do it for free. Readers pick up on your passion for topics. Another bonus from having her food blog is Amy’s daughters can see she’s doing something that she is truly passionate about. She says her children tell everyone about their mom’s recipe blog career because they’re so proud of her.
Encouragement for YOU to start a Recipe Blog
Amy’s encouraging advice to people thinking about starting their own recipe blog: “You can start a blog and make it profitable and it would totally work. There is room for more food bloggers.”
When Amy first starting blogging, she thought it’d be great if she could make $1,000-$2,000 a month that could be spent on travel (her other passion). When her income hit the 6-figure mark and then later passed her up husband’s law partner income, she was enthralled.
Outsource the parts of the recipe blog that you don’t love
As soon as Amy was making any money, she hired her first contractor: a virtual assistant to help with the more monotonous parts of the process. She says if she did it all over again, she would hire help sooner because she could have grown faster.
Amy now has three virtual assistants that do everything from administrative work to managing her Facebook page (although Amy still drops in to respond to comments). She loves the feel-good bonus of providing paid work for other moms who are able to balance work and care for children. She said, “That makes me feel really good that I can help other stay-at-home moms bring income into their families.”
What parts of the blogging process can / should you outsource?
Outsource whatever you don’t love so you can focus on what you DO love. Because that’s where your personality and passion will shine through and that’s where you’ll find success — in doing what you actually really enjoy.
Can you hire a food photographer?
Amy loves creating the recipe and loves food photography, so she does that part herself. Some food bloggers love to create recipes. but they don’t love to photograph them, so they’ll hire people to do that for them. Amy doesn’t like creating videos (“Can I do it? Yes? Do I want to–no. It stresses me out”), so she has someone else do that for her.
Why YOU can succeed and make money with a recipe blog
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by many recipe blogs already out there already, Amy has this advice:
“I totally understand (but) you will have a different audience than these other people. You will reach people in different ways.”
“If you’re feeling intimated and overwhelmed, you don’t have to be the same as them. Your unique perspective will come through and it will resonate with people where other things won’t resonate. So I say just go for it!”
QUESTIONS?