Have you ever wondered how food bloggers make money? Whether you’re a food blogger looking to make some extra money from their blog, or just someone curious about how the industry works, here are eight ways food bloggers make money, either from their blogs, social media or other creative outlets.
Food bloggers especially seem to get flack for making money from or having ads on their blogs.
In particular, people seem to hate the fact recipes usually have some copy before them (typically covering hints and tips such as what substitutions can be made in the recipe and whether or not the dish can be frozen) which means you need to scroll for maybe five seconds before getting to the recipe you searched for.
This extra text helps with SEO, provides useful information about the recipe and is also additional space for ads if a blogger is choosing to run them. Most food bloggers provide a jump to recipe button too so it can be skipped if the reader would prefer.
However, people don’t seem to give food bloggers much credit for the amount of effort that goes into each and every post. From testing the recipe until it’s perfect, to photographing it, writing the instructions and then working on SEO so people can actually find it, it’s several jobs in one. And that doesn’t even begin to cover video or social media. This is then free at the point of service, other than scrolling past an ad or two.
So, if you’re not happy to scroll, please go out and buy a recipe book!
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Here are eight ways food bloggers make money.
8 Ways Food Bloggers Make Money
Sponsored Posts
Sponsored posts are one way for food bloggers to make money.
They usually involve the food blogger working with a brand, where the brand will provide the ingredients and the blogger will turn them into a dish to help inspire their readers to do the same. In turn, this can drive sales of a particular product or generally raising brand awareness.
Alternatively, the blogger may review certain products or a food-related service.
As well as being provided with ingredients or a product, most bloggers would also charge a fee for this type of post.
As I mentioned before, recipe creation requires a lot of time, energy and skill as does taking quality photographs and maintaining an online presence.
In addition to the fee for creating the post, food bloggers will sometimes charge an additional fee for sharing the post on social media or they may include social shares as part of a package price. What each blogger charges will depend on their traffic, social media following and sometimes other metrics such as Domain Authority or Domain Ranking.
Here is an example of a sponsored post my lovely friend Paula did with Opies: Steak and Pickled Walnut Pasties.
Ways Food Bloggers Make Money: Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is another type of advertising whereby bloggers will use a specific link or discount code that is linked to them. When a reader uses this link to make a purchase, the blogger will make a small commission.
How much money they earn will depend on the brand. For example, with Amazon, it’s likely the food blogger will only earn a few pence for each item purchased.
When recommending something such as a food subscription service, they could earn as much as £20 for each referral.
Affiliate marketing is a popular way for food bloggers to make money because once the links are added to a post, you don’t have to do much else. However, it does pay to find the best affiliates for food bloggers, to begin with, do some research and come up with an overall affiliate strategy.
Here are some quick affiliate tips for food bloggers.
- Use long links for affiliates as these typically get more clicks. For example ‘Try this delicious cheesecake from BeautifulCheesecakes.com’ is far more likely to convert than simply putting ‘Click here.
- Using Google Analytics, take a closer look at your best performing posts and start adding affiliates from there, working backwards until you’ve covered all your old posts.
- Affiliates work better in posts where your audience is already primed to buy something. For example, links in a review post will convert better than links in a fun story about how you burnt last nights dinner.
Recipe Creation
As I’ve mentioned before, recipe creation is quite a skill and many bloggers will work with brands to help create content for the brand’s own website and social channels.
Brands like to use bloggers for this as they may not have enough work to pay someone in-house to do it and using freelancers and bloggers means they can choose people who have experience or specialise in different areas of the food industry.
For this type of work, food bloggers may charge a day rate where they go to the brand and work with them on recipe creation and photography for one day only. Alternatively, the blogger may work from their own home and charge accordingly for the hours worked.
Related Post: How Do Travel Bloggers Make Money
Freelance Writing / Photography
When I’m having a quiet month on the blogging front, I try to pick up extra freelance writing work. As most bloggers enjoy writing, this can be a great way to make money either as an ongoing partnership or for occasional one-off pieces.
There are lots of places online you can find freelance writing work, including Fiverr, Upwork, People Per Hour and LinkedIn. You could also try searching the hashtag #bloggerswanted or #bloggersrequired on Twitter to find more opportunities there.
Bloggers who are stretched for time may also pay other bloggers to create content for them.
Food bloggers that are skilled at photography could also consider selling their images. There are lots of things to consider here, such as whether a website is looking for exclusivity rights to your image. Typically each selling platform will take a cut of your sales but it can still be a great way to make some money from images you have.
Ways Food Bloggers Make Money: Blog Advertising
In-content ads are one of the easiest ways food bloggers make money, because once they are set up you, don’t really need to do anything.
How much you can make from ads will usually depend on how much traffic you have and typically ad networks that require higher metrics will have better-paying ads.
Here are some examples of ad networks food bloggers can use to make money.
Bloggers with under 10k Page views – Google Adsense
Bloggers with 10K to 50k Page views – Ezoic or Monumetric
Blogger with over 50k Sessions – Mediavine
Social Media Ads and Reviews
While the majority of food bloggers have a website, there are some that just have social media. However, that doesn’t mean they can’t make money.
Food bloggers can earn money for reviews and ads on their social media as well as their blogs. This could be advertising a new product, reviewing a service or meal out or even just a general shoutout.
The amount of money earned from this can vary hugely and is usually dependent on a combination of niche, number of followers and engagement rates.
Youtube Ads
Many food bloggers run a Youtube channel alongside their blog and this can be a great way to monetize their content and recipes.
There are some requirements needed before you can start making money from Youtube. These include the following:
- The food blogger should live in a country where the YouTube Partner Programme is available.
- They need to have 4,000 valid public watch hours which have been accrued in the last year.
- Have over 1,000 subscribers to their channel.
- They will need to have a linked Adsense account.
Youtube definitely takes some work before you can start earning from it but it can potentially be a great long term strategy for making money as a food blogger.
Ways Food Bloggers Make Money: Brand Ambassador
Another of the ways food bloggers make money is by being a brand ambassador. This role can entail a multitude of tasks, from creating recipes and promoting the brand on social media, to speaking at or attending events.
One of the great things about being a brand ambassador is that it brings regular work over a longer time period, such as six months or a year. As professional food bloggers are often completely freelance and self-employed, working with a brand on an ongoing basis is often a much-coveted opportunity.
Even when a brand collaboration such as this has ended, it can still help bring in future work as it’s great to have previous high-profile or well know brands in your portfolio.
There we have it, eight ways food bloggers make money. Have I missed anything? Are there any other ways food bloggers make money? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
