Let’s be honest — blogging takes a lot of time and energy. There’s recipe development and testing, blog posts to write, social media posts to create, food to photograph, taxes to do, videos to film and edit, and tech to manage, just to name a few of the many hats food bloggers wear.

It can sometimes feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done, but it can feel so rewarding to put the work in and watch your blog grow over time.

If you’re in the phase of juggling your blog with a full-time job, these tips might help you learn how to manage it all just a bit more effectively.

1. Use tools to make your life easier.

When it comes to blogging, there is a lot of information to keep track of. You have to plan out your content calendar, organize your expenses, create beautiful pins for Pinterest, and more. I’m getting a headache just thinking about it all!

Here are a few tools that can help keep you organized and working towards your goals:

Tailwind

Tailwind is a great tool with many useful features (including Ghostwriter AI and Smart.bio) but for the purposes of this post, we love using this tool to schedule posts on Pinterest and Instagram in advance. When you’re juggling a full-time job and your food blog, it can feel like you have to be on all the time. Scheduling your posts ahead of time allows you to stay consistent with your posts (a huge key to success early on) without constantly being on your phone or computer.

Hot tip: If you don’t have the budget to pay for Tailwind yet, you can schedule Facebook and Instagram posts in advance (for free) using Meta Business Suite!

Asana

Asana is a project management tool that works really well for bloggers. It helps you manage blog posts, social media scheduling, and other administrative tasks.

It’s easy to schedule out your content calendar on Asana, and you can shift blog posts around as needed if life gets in the way.

We also really love InfluenceKit and CoSchedule. They all have different features, so be sure to shop around and evaluate which one will work best for your workflow.

Grammarly

I don’t know about you, but I don’t personally have anyone else proofreading my blog posts. And writing posts at 11pm on a Thursday night inevitably leads to many spelling mistakes… anyone else with me?

But that’s where Grammarly comes in.

You can install the Grammarly browser extension for free, and it will automatically check the grammar and spelling of all your blog posts. Yes, please!

Canva

One of the most important tasks when blogging is sharing your content on social media, and Canva helps you create amazing graphics to do just that—no graphic design experience required.

We actually make the graphics for our blog posts here on Food Blogger Pro in Canva! It’s a really versatile platform, and they have tons of templates you can choose from if you’re just getting started.

One of our favorite time-saving features within Canva is the “Duplicate page” option that allows you to… duplicate an existing page! This makes it super quick and easy to create pins, blog post images, etc. once you’ve created a template that you like. No need to reinvent the wheel every time you create content! We’re all about working smarter, not harder.

2. Batch related tasks together.

There are so many tasks involved when it comes to blogging.

You have to brainstorm content ideas, do keyword research, shoot photos, respond to comments… the list goes on and on.

But that’s where content batching comes in! Instead of jumping around from task to task, focus on working on only one area at a time.

Spend a few hours filming three YouTube videos or writing four blog posts for the month. Test several recipes all in one go. Draft and schedule email newsletters to send out every Friday. And during that time, really focus on the task at hand. Don’t let yourself peek at your email inbox or post on Instagram Stories, and I guarantee your productivity (and stress level!) will improve.

If you’re really serious about getting organized, try blocking off your time with Google Calendar! Set up recurring events so you know that every Friday, you’ve got a few hours set aside for filming or that Mondays are your day to test out new recipes. I don’t know about you, but it really puts my mind at ease to know I have my work lined up for me ahead of time.

Here’s an overview of what a few nights a week could look like when task batching:

Of course, getting organized is great, but the one thing we absolutely want to avoid is burnout. That’s why we have to be very mindful about how we approach our working habits. That’s where The Pomodoro Technique comes in. You might be thinking to yourself, “Pomo-what?’ but don’t worry — the technique is super easy to implement and could greatly benefit your mental well-being in the long run.

Simply put, The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method that involves breaking work into 25-minute focus periods, separated by 5-minute breaks. So once you’ve got your task lined up for yourself, set a 25-minute timer and when it goes off, STOP WORKING. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Stop what you’re doing and take that 5-minute break! Then, rinse and repeat.

Ultimately, your main goal should be streamlining your process when working on your blog. By doing so, you will end up creating even more content in the long run!

3. Connect with other bloggers.

Working at home on your blog week after week can start to feel isolating. At the same time, many of us don’t have any people in our personal lives who understand our blogging struggles.

Luckily, many other bloggers are experiencing the same thing, and it can be so powerful to connect with others in your niche (especially others who are still aspiring to become full-time bloggers).

Here are a few simple ways to connect with other bloggers:

• Comment on their latest Instagram and blog posts
• Attend a blogging conference (even virtually!)
• Join a blogging-specific Facebook group
• Find a local blogger meetup group
• Collaborate and troubleshoot with other bloggers who are working towards similar goals (like we do every day in the Food Blogger Pro Forum)

4. Don’t compare yourself to full-time bloggers.

But, while you’re connecting with fellow bloggers, it’s really important to make sure you’re not comparing yourself to bloggers who do this for a living.

Full-time bloggers are able to devote 40+ hours a week to their blogs (even more if they have a team working for them), and that really adds up over time! Many of these bloggers have also been doing this for a long time. Don’t compare apples to oranges.

While you can get inspired by these full-time bloggers and learn a lot from them, don’t let yourself feel jealous of their posting frequency or website design.

Give yourself grace and be content with where you are at in your journey. If your goal is to ultimately work full-time on your blog one day, take it one step at a time and actively work towards that goal without comparing yourself to others.

5. Don’t spread yourself too thin.

As a content creator, it can be a slippery slope to posting every new recipe on 75 different platforms. You might feel obligated to post your recipes not only on your blog, but also on Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook, Bluesky, YouTube, email — you get the idea.

But, especially if you’re balancing a full-time job with your food blog, you must avoid the temptation to spread yourself too thin. If you post on every platform, you will be an expert on none. If you’re forcing yourself to churn out content to share on every single social media channel, it’s just not possible to produce the highest quality content or to nail down a platform-specific strategy.

So, what should you do? Pick one (maybe two) channels. How to choose? Where do you enjoy spending your time? What comes naturally to you? Do you love to film videos? Consider YouTube or TikTok. Prefer writing? Maybe email is more your speed.

Whatever it is, pick a platform and then get really good at it. You absolutely do not need to post on every platform to see success, so don’t put pressure on yourself to do so!

Want to hear more about food blogging with a full-time job? Here are some of our favorite podcast episodes on the subject:

• Balancing a Full-time Job and Your Food Blog with Vincent DelGiudice
• Blogging with a Full-Time Job – How Focusing on SEO Led to $2,000 Monthly Earnings with Cree Carraway
• Blogging with a Full-Time Job – Optimizing Your Time with David Crowley
• 5 Tips for Growing Your Blog with a Full-Time Job with Shweta Garg
• How Eric King Took easygayoven Full-Time by Diversifying His Income Streams

We’d love to hear your thoughts and tips! Do you run a blog while working a full-time job? What are some strategies that you use to balance both?

The post 5 Tips for Growing a Blog While Working Full-Time appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.

But we can change that! Making small tweaks to our routines in the kitchen to reduce our food waste is one of the simplest ways we can diminish our negative impact on the environment.

So…. what exactly is food waste?

Food waste is food that is safe to eat but is instead discarded during retail or once it has been purchased.   

Food waste fast facts:

• Food waste is responsible for ~25% of the world’s freshwater use.
• 40% of the food produced, processed, and transported in the U.S. ends up in our landfills.
• In developed countries, about 50% of all food waste happens in our homes.
• 90 billion meals worth of food goes to waste every year in the U.S.

Clearly, food waste is a BIG problem on a global scale. By starting to acknowledge and address our food waste at home, we can save money, reduce our reliance on landfills, and decrease our contribution to methane emissions. 

What are some of the biggest sources of food waste for food bloggers?

Food waste occurs along the entire spectrum of the food chain. Food is wasted during production, storage, transportation, retail, and in the home. As food bloggers, we can do our part to reduce the environmental impact of food production by buying local and creating recipes that use less meat, for example, but we can also change our behaviors during our recipe development process to reduce waste.

Because it’s our job to create recipes and share food content, it is natural that food bloggers would be prone to higher amounts of food waste than the average home cook. The sheer frequency with which food bloggers prepare meals and test recipes means that we are more likely to produce more waste.

How to reduce food waste in your home kitchen

Plan, plan, plan.

While it may seem basic, meal planning and shopping from a grocery list is critical in reducing the amount of excess food that enters your home. Include quantities of items needed on your grocery list to avoid overbuying, and always check your pantry, fridge, and freezer first before heading to the grocery store!

When determining which recipes you develop any given week, try to make recipes with similar ingredient lists so you can avoid wasting any surplus ingredients. Need inspiration for a new recipe? Pay close attention to the ingredients you already have on hand that need to be used up before they go bad. If foods are nearing the end of their shelf life, plan a recipe around them, or store them in the freezer for later use!

Rethink the way you grocery shop. 

Buy ugly

Consider buying the “ugly” produce the next time you hit the grocery store or farmers market. Misshapen apples, potatoes with blemishes, or an orange that’s “too small” – all of these items might be rejected by a grocery store because they don’t meet their standards (not because they’re unfit to eat). 

Companies like Imperfect Foods and Hungry Harvest are also great options for grocery delivery of foods that might otherwise be wasted. 

Shop from the bulk bins

Shop from bulk bins at the store for nuts, seeds, whole grains, and fried fruits at the grocery store (this Bulk Finder tells you where you can find these in stores near you) to reduce packaging and to buy exactly the amount you need in your recipe so none goes to waste.

Don’t sleep on frozen produce

Consider buying frozen fruits/vegetables for recipes when possible – frozen food is much less likely to be wasted, since it doesn’t go bad as quickly as fresh produce.

Fun fact: frozen food is often more nutritious, since it is frozen immediately after harvesting, which helps to preserve the vitamins and minerals. 

Revamp your storage strategies.

Did you know that the best by/sell by/use by dates have nothing to do with the safety of the food? These labels often lead to unnecessary food waste, because consumers are unaware of the true meaning of the labels.

A “Best if Used By/Before” date indicates when a product will be of best flavor or quality.  It is not a purchase or safety date.

A “Sell-By” date tells the store how long to display the product for sale for inventory management.  It is not a safety date. 

A “Use-By” date is the last date recommended for the use of the product while at peak quality. It is not a safety date except for when used on infant formula […].

With an exception of infant formula […], if the date passes during home storage, a product should still be safe and wholesome if handled properly until the time spoilage is evident.

– The U.S. Department of Agriculture

Another easy way to reduce food waste in your kitchen is to follow the “First In First Out” strategy by organizing your fridge and pantry so that the oldest foods are placed in the front and newer foods are at the back. 

This helps ensure that you use the older ingredients first, before they might spoil. Properly labeling and dating all foods stored in the freezer and/or leftovers in the refrigerator can also avoid unnecessary waste!

If you do notice that a piece of produce is aging or starting to spoil, remove it ASAP to use it, compost it, or freeze it. Why? Decaying produce emits a gas that can speed-up the ripening of produce nearby! 

P.S. This fruit and vegetable storage guide is a handy tool to help increase the lifespan of your produce. 

Put down the peeler

When it comes time to cook all of the delicious recipes you’ve developed, there are a few simple tweaks you can make when preparing produce to reduce food waste:

• Instead of “snapping” each asparagus stalk, feel the stalk to find where it becomes tender and cut there – you’ll waste much less!
• Remove JUST the core of tomatoes and strawberries, rather than cutting off the whole top.
• Freeze ginger root so it doesn’t go bad – you can grate it right out of the freezer! 
• Don’t peel carrots, cucumbers, potatoes, eggplant, zucchini, plums, or apples. Use a coconut fiber vegetable scrubber instead and then eat the peels (Bonus: they’re a great source of fiber). 
• Similarly, broccoli stalks, parsley stems, beet tops, kale stems, and celery leaves, are all edible portions of vegetables that are too often discarded. There are tons of delicious recipes out there featuring these ingredients!
• Save your vegetable scraps (i.e. those asparagus bottoms, carrot peels, leek or fennel tops, parsley stems, mushroom stems, onion skins, etc) for a homemade vegetable stock.

Nobody’s perfect…

If you’ve done your best to reduce food waste every step of the way but still have leftover food – don’t toss it in the garbage bin! Have you tried composting?

Composting is the process of recycling food scraps and yard waste by letting them decompose into a mixture that is nutrient-rich. The composted material can eventually be added back into the soil to help the soil retain moisture and reduce the need for chemical fertilizers! 

By composting at home, you are keeping those leftover food scraps out of landfills. This helps to reduce methane emissions and your carbon footprint. When it comes to food-related items, you can compost fruits and vegetables, eggshells, coffee grounds, coffee filters, tea bags, and nut shells.

Curious to learn more about composting? This step-by-step guide to composting at home has everything you need to get started! 

Donating leftover food is also a much better option than throwing it away. Organizations like Rescuing Leftover Cuisine can pick up excess food and deliver it to their network of local non-profits. 

If you have excess canned or other non-perishable foods, check out Feeding America’s website to find a Food Bank near you. 

We’d love to know! Have you found any strategies for reducing food waste during the recipe development process? Share your tips!

The post How to Reduce Food Waste as a Food Blogger appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.

“Virtual assistant” can mean a lot of different things. You might be looking for a generalized VA to manage emails, schedule your calendar, and handle other administrative tasks. Or perhaps a more specialized VA (think social media manager or email marketing manager) is a better fit.

If done strategically, hiring a virtual assistant can take certain tasks off of your plate and allow you to focus on the responsibilities that you enjoy, and that benefit your business, the most.

If you think you might be ready to hire a new team member, we’ve put together a handy, step-by-step guide to get you started!

1. Brainstorm the tasks that you want to outsource.

The first, and perhaps most important, step to building your team is determining what parts of your job you need, or want, someone else to do. Ask yourself these questions:

• What parts of my job drain me?
• What aspects of this job do I dislike?
• What are my weaknesses? Could someone else perform certain tasks better than I can?
• What’s keeping me from doing the parts of this job that I enjoy?

If there are certain responsibilities that keep popping up as you answer these questions, those are the tasks you should consider outsourcing. 

You may find that the tasks fall into a similar skill set and could be handled by one hire. Conversely, you might have a list that reflects several totally different skill sets, in which case you could consider hiring several different part-time virtual assistants.

Need some inspiration for tasks to hire out?

• Social media scheduling
• Photography or videography for your blog or for sharing on social media
• Responding to social media comments or emails
• Adding data fields to old recipe cards
• Categorizing recipe posts
• Drafting email newsletter broadcasts or sequences
• Keyword research
• SEO optimization for older blog posts
• Graphic design for holiday gift guides, Pinterest pins, or your website
• Recipe testing

2. Determine your budget and how you will compensate your team member.

Once you’ve figured out what tasks you’re going to ask your virtual assistant to complete, the next step is to set your budget. In general, the more specialized the skill set you’re hiring for, the higher the hourly rate will be. Upwork provides a handy chart with the breakdown of the hourly rate you can expect to pay for various types of virtual assistants. 

There are two main approaches to paying a part-time virtual assistant: by hour or by task. For example, if you’re looking for someone to complete a one-off task (i.e. categorizing your blog archives or photographing a certain set of recipes), paying a set-rate for the task might be a better option than an hourly rate, since you’ll have an exact number to budget for from the get-go.

3. Develop an onboarding process.

That’s right — before you’ve even hired your new team member, it is critical that you think through your onboarding process to make it as seamless as possible for you and your new virtual assistant. 

The next time you complete the tasks that you’re planning to outsource, create thorough process documents that explain everything someone completing that task for the first time would need to know. We at Food Blogger Pro love Loom and Google Documents for this! 

Taking the time to get an onboarding process in place now will make training new employees much easier and more efficient later.

4. Draft a job description.

Now it’s time to write your job description. The more specific the job description, the better! Specifics will help ensure that your applicants are the best match for the position you’re filling.

Consider including:

• A brief description of your brand, blog, or company
• The qualifications and experience needed for the role
• Expectations and responsibilities:
  1. Tasks or deliverables 
  2. Hours/week or hours/month
  3. Time period (until no longer needed, 3-months, a year)
  4. Availability 
• Compensation
• Job status (employee vs. contractor)

5. Post the job listing online!

You’re officially ready to share your job listing with the world! Sharing the job listing with the people who already follow you and know your brand is a great place to start. Post the job listing on your social media accounts and blog, and include the job listing in your email newsletter!

You can also post on job boards, like Upwork or LinkedIn. Lots of Food Blogger Pro members have had success looking for VAs on the Food Blogger Pro Forum, in the Food Bloggers Virtual Assistants Facebook Group, or on Tastemaker Conference’s Freelance + Jobs page!

Lastly, don’t underestimate the power of word of mouth. Talk about your job listing with other food bloggers, friends, and family members! You never know where you’ll find the perfect match for your position.

6. Interview potential applicants.

While not always necessary, we recommend conducting interviews with your top applicants. They can be short and informal, but will ultimately help you select the best candidate for the job, and the best fit for collaborating with you!

Try to ask all applicants the same set of predetermined questions to keep the interview and decision-making process as fair as possible.

7. Hire your virtual assistant!

Congratulations! You did it. Now use all of your newfound spare time to grow your business (and maybe relax a little bit, too!). 

P.S. Here are a few other hiring resources we wanted to share!

• How To Hire A Good Virtual Assistant (The Ultimate Guide) – EmilyPerron.com
• How To Use Your Zone Of Genius To Hire The Best Freelancers – EmilyPerron.com
• Running Your Food Blog Like A Business – Food Blogger Pro
• How much does it cost to hire a virtual assistant? – Upwork
• The Food Blogger Pro Podcast Episode 246: Hiring – Building a Better Team with Moses Balian
• The Food Blogger Pro Podcast Episode 286: Build Your Team – How to Write an Eye-Catching Job Listing and Hire the Right People with Emily Perron
• Five Tasks Every Food Blogger Should Outsource to a VA – Dianne Jacob

Have you ever hired a Virtual Assistant for your blog? Any tips to share?

The post Tips for Hiring a Virtual Assistant as a Food Blogger appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.

Can you imagine if you woke up tomorrow, typed in the URL of your blog, pressed return, and saw a white screen? Then, in a moment of panic you looked in your computer’s photos folder, only to find that your pictures were missing as well? It’s rare, but it happens. Hence the reason for a blog backup!

Most people have a general concept of backing up, but we’ve found that more often than not people haven’t thoroughly backed up their computer and their blog.

If you’re a blogger (or wanting to become one), it’s vital that you properly protect your business (i.e. your computer and your blog)

Here are four ways you should be backing up your computer and your blog.

1. Computer-to-External Hard Drive Backup

All computer hard drives will eventually fail. It’s not a matter of if, but when. That’s why you need to make sure to have a backup that runs from your computer to an external hard drive. That way, when your computer’s hard drive fails, you’ll have all of your important files ready to be restored.

You need two things in order to set this up:

1. An external hard drive (like this one)
2. Backup software that runs on your computer

The external hard drive should be two times the size of your computer’s hard drive. This gives you plenty of space to keep multiple versions of the backup. For instance, if you have a 1TB hard drive then you should buy a 2TB external hard drive.

Both Windows and Apple computers come with backup software already installed. Windows calls their program Backup and Restore and Apple calls their program Time Machine.

After purchasing your external hard drive, you should read through the instructions provided by Windows or Apple to make sure that you correctly setup the software to backup to the external hard drive.

2. Computer-to-Cloud Backup

The computer-to-external hard drive backup offers a way to quickly and easily access your files if your computer’s hard drive dies. But what happens if your computer and your external hard drive go missing? If you don’t have a computer to cloud backup then all of your data will be gone forever.

Nerd Note: “The cloud” is really just a group of off-site computers. So, when we say “the cloud,” we’re talking about working with a company that has a room full of computers (servers and hard drives) where your information is securely stored.

With a computer-to-cloud backup, you install a program that periodically scans your computer and backs up any new files or files that have been updated. Cloud-based backup programs come at a cost, but it’s well worth it. We use (and love) Backblaze, but another popular cloud-based backup solution is Carbonite.

Here’s a screenshot of Backblaze when it has just finished a backup:

After you sign up for Backblaze or Carbonite, you’ll need to install the software on your computer. These are both “set it and forget” type programs, so after setting them up you can rest in peace knowing that your computer will be constantly backing up to the cloud.

3. Blog Backup to Cloud

Think of the time and energy you’ve put into building your blog. We’re guessing it is hundreds and hundreds, and maybe even thousands, of hours. The scary thing is that blogs are fragile structures. One line of bad code can cause your entire site to go completely blank.

Not only can a coding mistake cause your site to crash, but there’s also the reality that hackers are consistently trying to maneuver their way into sites across the internet.

It’s important for these backups to be stored with a third party company, not the same company that hosts your website. There are stories of people losing their website and backups because they were stored in the same place. You don’t want to be one of those people, so make sure your backups are not with your hosting company.

There are different backup options available, but we’d recommend using a plugin that you pay for. We use (and love) a plugin called VaultPress (for WordPress). It’s actually created by the same company that created WordPress. The entry level plan is $5/month.

Here’s a screenshot of the “real time” backups running on Pinch of Yum:

4. Google Workspace Backup

Along with many other businesses, we use Google Workspace all the time. Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs… you name it, we use it. But have you ever thought about backing up your Google Workspace?

That’s right — recovering your files and information from Google Workspace due to accidental or malicious data loss (like ransomware) is up to you.

We use Backupify at Pinch of Yum and Food Blogger Pro to protect our cloud data. It provides automatic backups three times a day, or on demand for everything in the Google Workspace, and allows you to easily restore any lost data. This is also a “set it and forget it” product, which you already know we love.

Bonus: Blog to Computer

Okay. We’ll admit it. This one is a bit obsessive. Occasionally (about once a week) we’ll download a complete backup of the blog and store it locally on a computer.

The only time that this would be needed would be if someone with bad intentions was able to get access to the blog and VaultPress and wipe them both out. The chances of this happening are really slim, but, as we’ve learned before, stuff like this happens.

The process is really easy. If you use VaultPress you just need to login to your account and click the “Download” button.

VaultPress will prepare your backup and then email you once it’s ready to download. After downloading the backup, you can store it on your computer in a folder called “Blog Backup” or something similar.

Rest Easy

If you’ve implemented these backup processes then you can rest easy knowing that your computer and your blog are thoroughly backed up. Congrats!

Now we’re curious — what is your current setup for backing up your blog and computer? Has this post inspired you to implement a new system?!

The post 4 Ways to Backup Your Computer and Blog appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.

It’s not too surprising –– you know that phrase, “You eat with your eyes”? Great photos are an essential part of any successful food blog, so it makes sense that bloggers are concerned with making sure that the photos on their sites are on their sites are the right size for their posts, Google, and site speed.

Image size may seem like a simple enough topic, but it’s actually a bit more nuanced than you may think!

So let’s dive into the beautiful world of food photo sizing.

Why should you care about photo size?

Food blogs are typically pretty photo-heavy –– we want to show off the textures, colors, and experience of our recipes through the photos we add to our blog posts. Photos are great for readers, as they’ll know what to expect if they make the recipe, and you can easily share your photos on social media to help you get even more readers to your site.

That said, you want to make sure that your images aren’t too big or too small –– either case will create issues for your readers, your site speed, and search results.

And an important distinction before we unpack that, when we say “image size,” we’re talking about:

• The file size –– in kb (i.e. 700kb)
• The dimensions –– in pixels (i.e. 600px X 900px –– where the first number is the width and the second is the height)

Images that are too big

Let’s talk about images that are too big in file size first.

You know when your internet is slow and every site you try to visit takes for-ev-er to load? Super frustrating, right?

Your readers may have a slower internet connection than you, and if your image file size is too big, it’s going to require more resources to load when someone visits your site. Add in the other elements that are trying to load on your site –– like ads, your text, your theme, your colors, and your fonts –– and it can take a really long time to fully load your page!

47% of readers across the web expect a page to load in 2 seconds or less, and 40% of people leave a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load, so it’s incredibly important to do what you can in order to decrease your site loading times –– paying attention to image file size is an easy way to do that!

Now let’s talk about images that are too large dimension-wise.

The dimensions of your image can impact the file size of that image; if you’re exporting an image from your editing program that’s 3000px X 4500px, your file size will most likely be much larger than an image that’s exported at 1200px X 1800px.

Images that are too small

Lucky news: an image that has a small file size is actually a good thing. Faster is always better, and images that have small file sizes will load faster than those with larger file sizes.

Images that are exported with dimensions that are too small is the issue here. And to understand that, it’s important to first understand the content width of your blog posts.

When you think of a food blog post, it typically looks like this:

We have a menu bar on top, the content area on one side, and then a sidebar on the other.

That orange chunk –– the content area –– is what we’re talking about right now. That’s where your post, your recipe, and you photos go. Here’s what that looks like on our food blog, Pinch of Yum:

Content area widths differ from theme to theme, but most content widths are anywhere from 600px – 800px, meaning that there are that many pixels to fill width-wise in your blog post.

Typically, you’ll want images to fill that content area, so if your image dimensions are too small, it’ll leave some unwanted white space around your photo.

Not only that, but a lot of screens these days are 4K or retina-ready, meaning that they show twice as many pixels per pixel on the screen in order to deliver crisp, high-quality photos to their users.

If you upload an image that’s only the width of your content area or lower, your image will appear grainy, blurry, and unfocused on those retina screens because they’re expecting more pixels (or a larger image) in that area on the screen.

So we’re after the “Goldilocks” of a food photo –– one that’s not so big that it slows down our sites, but not too small so it still looks nice and crisp.

WordPress and Image srcset

If you’re a WordPress user, your theme will most likely utilize an image attribute called srcset, which helps make your images more responsive.

When you upload an image to WordPress, your site actually creates a bunch of different-sized versions of that image (called thumbnails) for use in different places in your theme.

srcset helps serve the correct image size for the device your reader is using. If your reader is reading your post on an iPhone, there’s no need for your website to serve a giant 1200px image when the screen is only 1125px wide (and when your content width is much smaller than that!).

On Pinch of Yum, srcset creates versions of the same image for screens that are 1200px wide, 200px wide, 600px wide, 768px wide, 1024px wide, and 150px wide:

This is a handy feature that optimizes your images for different devices, but there are still a few different ways that you can optimize your images even further to ensure they load efficiently and still look great.

How big should your images be?

The short answer –– A good rule of thumb is:

• Your image size should be in the 200kb to 300kb range.
• Your images should be 1200px wide (and however tall to maintain the correct aspect ratio).

The longer answer –– There are a lot of different components that impact the size of your images.

First, you need to start out with great photos. If you’re trying to optimize an image that’s too dark or grainy to begin with, no amount of image optimization will make them better.

Once you have a great photo, it’s time to edit. When you’re editing your photos in Photoshop, Lightroom, or another editing software, there are a few different ways you can minimize the file size and optimize the dimensions of your images:

1. Export your image as a JPG

JPG photographs are usually a bit smaller than their PNG cousins, so you’re already reducing your file size by exporting all of your images in this file type!

Nerd Note : JPG is great for photos, and PNG is great for text, line art, drawings, and most logos.

2. Resize your photo to have a width of 1200px

When exporting your photo, you can set the export width to our recommended 1200px, and keep the height “locked” so that it’ll automatically adjust based on the aspect ratio of your image.

If you’re editing an image that’s 3000px X 4500px and you set the export width to 1200px, your editing program can automatically adjust the height to have the same aspect ratio as the original image, 2:3. So your final exported image will be 1200px X 1800px.

3. Adjust the quality setting

Not only can you adjust the height and width of your image, you can also adjust the export quality.

If your export quality is at 100%, that image will export at the largest image size it can for the image’s dimensions. It’ll also be the most crisp image you can export from your editing software.

That said, you can reduce the export quality to make your file size a bit smaller. Of course, reducing the export quality too much may have a negative impact on the look of your image, but you may find that there isn’t a huge visual difference between exporting the image at 70% quality and 100% quality.

We recommend experimenting here and seeing what works for your photo style. Once you find a quality that works for your style, you typically won’t need to change it moving forward.

4. Keep an eye on the file size

After your image is exported with 1200px width and at a decreased quality, check the file size. Is it in the 200kb to 300kb range?

It may not be! And that’s because whatever is in the image itself can also impact the file size.

If your photo has a ton of texture and detail, it might need to be exported at a higher quality in order to look its best. And as we know, higher quality = larger file size.

So the tl;dr here is to find a quality setting that results in files sizes in the 200kb to 300kb range, as it’ll work for most of your photos, but definitely keep photo quality in mind and adjust as necessary in those one-off instances.

5. Use a compression plugin on your site

Last but not least, you can compress your images after they’ve been optimized! We like, use, and recommend a plugin called ShortPixel for that.

There are two really compelling reasons to use a compression plugin on your site:

1. They use custom algorithms that help reduce the image size significantly more than the ways we chatted about above.
2. They optimize all of the thumbnails that WordPress automatically generates (aka. those other sizes of the same image!).

If you’re a Food Blogger Pro member, you can head on over to our course that walks you through setting up and using this plugin.

Putting it All Together

Now, I know you may be saying, “Okay, Alexa, this is all fine and dandy. But you’ve just given me a lot of information to digest, and I need a quick checklist to help me make it all happen!”

Your wish is my command. Download this free PDF and keep it handy whenever you’re editing and uploading images for your blog posts!

Now we’re excited to hear from you: Is there anything that surprised you about image sizing? Anything you still have a question about? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Best Photo Size for a Food Blog appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.

Call me crazy, but I found it really interesting.

There were two things I noticed when working on computers:

1. People would almost always have a random array of files and folders on their desktop.
2. People would almost always say something along the lines of “please don’t judge my messy desktop.”

So, while people usually didn’t have an organized desktop, they realized that they probably should.

The good news is that it’s not that hard! Here’s how:

1. Use Bartender

http://www.macbartender.com/

I use Bartender to hide different menu bar icons.

This is especially useful when I’m recording screencast and want to hide the clock and other icons that might be distracting (like the battery icon, CrashPlan, or Dropbox).

2. Hide the Dock and use Alfred

https://www.alfredapp.com/

I’m all about that bass screen real estate.

One of the ways that I open up more screen real estate on my monitor is by hiding the dock and using Alfred to programs. It also helps to give the desktop a really clean and oranized look.

Hiding the Dock

Open System Preferences and select Dock. Check the Automatically hide and show the Dock option.

Using Alfred

(Video from the post 7 awesome apps we’re using to build Pinch of Yum and Food Blogger Pro.)

3. Put Files and Folders into Documents, Pictures, Movies, or Music Folders

I know, I know…

It’s really obvious. Take the files and folders that are on your desktop and put them into the Documents, Pictures, Movies, or Music folders. Easier said than done though, huh?

What about you?

Do you agree that your desktop should be cleared off every day? Any other tips or advice you’d give to others that are trying keep it neat? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

The post How to have an organized desktop appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.

Easier said than done, eh?

Today I’m sharing a tip for keeping your Gmail inbox neat.

My personal goal is to “do email” once a day. When I login to my email account I try and work all the way through my inbox until it’s completely empty.

This process works great until I find an email that I can’t respond to. Maybe I don’t have the information I need, maybe I don’t have enough time, or maybe it would make more sent to respond to someone a little bit later on in the week.

Regardless of the reason, an email that’s left in the inbox results in a disappointing scenario: an almost empty inbox. I’m not sure about you, but I hate that feeling.

Okay, you’re right…hate is a strong word. Let’s go with “really, really dislike that feeling.”

I also find that sometimes I check that same email multiple times if it just sits in my inbox, resulting in wasted time and brain power.

So what’s the solution?

Boomerang

After doing some research I found the best way to deal with the issue was to use a Gmail app called Boomerang.

There are lots of different ways to use Boomerang, but the feature I use the most is the reminders feature.

Check out this video to see how I use the app:

My (new and improved) email workflow

1. Open email once a day.
2. Unsubscribe from unnecessary marketing emails.
3. Archive emails that do not need to be read.
4. Forward messages that need to be sent on.
5. Respond to short emails and customer support inquires.
6. Respond to longer emails (if there’s time).
7. Boomerang emails that I can’t respond to yet.
8. Do a happy dance once my inbox is empty.

Boomerang works for regular Gmail accounts as well as branded Google Apps accounts.

If you’re not a Food Blogger Pro member you should be. You can learn more by visiting the home page.

How about you?

What’s your email workflow? Are you able to respond to emails once a day? Do you try and get to “inbox zero”?

The post How to Keep your Gmail Inbox Neat Using Boomerang appeared first on Food Blogger Pro.