I recently started a food related website and was pretty shocked to see the amount of traffic running through the top foodie websites. Not only was I surprised, but I was also very excited to see the large number of potential avenues of making money in the online food world. My own website is much more general in nature because I’ve got a 5-10 year time horizon, but you can get results much quicker if you find a very targeted niche within the foodie world
*Note: The “diet” I’m talking about in this post is not talking about losing weight, although weight loss also has big money making potential.
I’ll discuss some potential target audiences in just a sec, but first let’s take a look at the overall foodie world. OMG, just check out this graph. that should really get your brain ticking!
There are an endless number of topics that you could potentially fit under the ‘foodie’ category, and it’s probably best to narrow down your target audience, especially if this is your first online business. A targeted audience means you’ll be able to reach people faster, and in a more meaningful manner. It also means that you’ll know more specifically what type of content your audience will enjoy, and branding will be easier.
Here’s a few exciting niches to be in within the larger online foodie world.
Not only are there broader trends to tap into, but targeting individual foods can be really interesting. Just think about how many types of wings, pizza, and beer you can write about!
There are just an infinite number of potential search terms that you could target on your website that will attract visitors. In addition to search traffic, the social media world is buzzing around food trends on ALL the popular social media websites.
For example, food is one of the most pinned items on Pinterest, and food photography is very popular among novices as well as experts. In fact, this is a potential niche you could enter, as there are entire online courses on how to improve your food photography skills.
Twitter if full of new, interesting recipes and food news from around the world. And Instagram? there are online businesses that have relied almost entirely on Instagram to build their brand and continue to use this platform to reach millions of people every day.
OK, enough general talk about how exciting the potential is to start an online business related to food and diet.
How To Make Money In The Online World Of Food & Diet
No doubt, this a huge industry and there are plenty of simple business models that you can take advantage of within the online world. Creating an online business is much cheaper than a brick and mortar business business you don’t have rent, don’t need a business license, and many times don’t even need any inventory.
Start A YouTube Channel
YouTube isn’t for everyone, but if you have a camera and a cheerful/unique personality, YouTube food channels are huge. People want free recipes and free instructions for anything and everything. There are multiple recipes for the same dish from different channels, so there’s no need to reinvent the wheel either…although being creative is definitely a way to distinguish yourself from all the other food channels out there.
When ads are displayed on your video, you get paid by Google, so the more views you get the more you make. One secret is consistent uploading. Any successful YouTuber will upload several videos per week, consistently for a year or more. This strategy tends to get you listed in things like “what to watch next” and “recommended for you” placement which gets more views. If your vids are funny or interesting or helpful or insightful or unique and you get likes/subscribes, you make more money.
Success tends to snowball past that. There are many six figure YouTube earners, and you don’t have to be a megastar like Pewdiepie or SMOSH to ‘make it’. Even just a couple hundred thousand subscribers can make a great income for you.
Amazon Or Ebay Store
Though buying and sending actual food items can be tough due to sell-by and expiration dates, remember that you are not limited to perishable items. Things like kitchen gadgets, kitchen decoration, and food photography props also fit under the umbrella of food-related products.
And just because you sell these things doesn’t mean you need to stock inventory (though it does help). You can drop ship items through eBay, or participate in Amazon FBA where you ship items to Amazon warehouses in bulk then Amazon lists them for you on their website.
I personally have bought many food items from Amazon as well, so this is definitely an option. Things like snack bars, cereal, sauces, and canned goods tend to do better because they last longer, but there are going to be special rules to selling these types of things so pay attention!
Create Your Own Info Product
Making your own cookbook these days is relatively simple, and you don’t need a book deal to make income from your cooking skills. In fact, you don’t even need to know how to cook! Any insight you have into special diets could be a potential money making product online.
For example, if you live with a diabetic, you could write an insightful book about how to cook excellent meals that will not wreak havoc on your spouse’s blood sugar levels. Do you have celiac disease combined with an undeniable love of food? Share your knowledge of how to navigate the wide world of delicacies without getting ill.
The same would apply to any type of specialized cooking knowledge or insight into unique diets. Food photography, meal prepping, canning, pickling, fermenting, cooking for college kids, cooking in a small kitchen, cooking for large families – these are all potential book topics.
The hard part is not writing the book – the hard part is marketing it and getting traffic to your sales pages. If you do this, you definitely want to create your own website..
Affiliate Marketing (My Top Pick)
I saved the best for last because to me, it’s the most exciting. In fact, it’s the way I build my own businesses, and it’s what I have the most knowledge about and will be able to teach you. Affiliate marketing is great because you don’t have any inventory, and don’t have to deal with customer service. Then, after you build your website and it starts earning income, you’ll be making sales 24/7 and will even be earning money when you sleep.
When I started my first affiliate marketing business in 2010, it was the perfect business model because it was cheap, and allowed for me to make a lot of newbie mistakes without wasting a bunch of money.
For example, the domain I bought only cost $11. This is essentially the “property” of your business. A similar property in the real world would require a bank loan for sure!
The way you make sales in affiliate marketing is by driving traffic to your website from search engines. If you write your own articles, this is basically free as well (just costs your time). Even if you aren’t a great writer now, you can learn to be, and the learning process is free! Grammar errors cost you nothing online. Mistakes in the real world could cost you big time.
The general idea of how this business model works is that your website is like a ‘hub’ of information. Within this information, you’ll have sponsored content, promotions for products, and ads on your website. You sometimes get paid per click, sometimes paid per sale, and that will depend on which companies you work with.
You can learn the basics of how to start your affiliate websites and start working with companies with this online business training center. I credit them with teaching me to how to make a full time income online. Now I work from home managing my affiliate sites, and teaching people how to repeat my success with their own affiliate sites.
Reaching Foodies Online With A Website
When was the last time you saw a sign on a website that said “Closed. We open at 7AM”. Never! that’s because websites never sleep, and that means that your business is operating around the clock and able to make sales all day and night, on holidays, and in millions of cities around the globe.
A website is the most powerful tool that any business can have to grow and reach their target customer base.
The funny thing is that a lot of people think they missed the boat, and that the internet is already saturated with businesses. The truth is however, that there’s never been a better time to start an online business than right now. Here’s why:
For one, building a website is easier than ever. Using something called WordPress, we can build a website in about 60 seconds. Done. No coding required. The heavy lifting is not actually building the site – it’s the content that goes into the website. I’ll talk about how to create content that brings visitors to your website below
Second, there are still HUGE untapped markets of online buyers that will be getting online and making purchases in the coming years. If you’re between the ages of 20 and 50 in the US, you are probably very familiar with online shopping and have wasted a ton of money on Amazon in the past decade.
But what about all those tech savvy teens that are going to be getting credit cards in the next few years? Internet shopping is going to be an integral part of their lives. People are now starting to reserve restaurants online and pay for meals before they arrive, and even do grocery shopping online. Who knows what else will be paid for online in the next year years?
Also consider that as emerging markets and developing countries get easier internet access, they are going to be buying more stuff online as well. Even the older generation is going to get in on this trend as making online purchases becomes easier and easier.
A huge part of tapping into this growing industry is getting your business online right now. It’s not too late. It’s a perfect time to get started, learn how things work, and get ready for a explosive growth over the next few years.
How To Get People On Your Food-Topic Website
Like I mentioned above, building the actual website is pretty easy. There are going to be a few things you’ll have to learn to manage like how to get your logo to look right, or how to create a menu, but it’s all done with drag/drop features and you don’t need to know any code. The real work of having a profitable website about food is getting people onto your website.
One easy method is social media. You can post pictures, articles, and interact with other people that also blog about food. The foodie blogosphere is very friendly, and welcoming to newcomers compared to other industries. Everyone is just looking to share awesome recipes and cooking tips.
But social media only goes so far, and it doesn’t always translate to actual dollars in your bank account. The real secret to getting targeted search engine traffic to your website is keyword research.
How Keyword Research Works
Keyword research is a way to discover what people are already looking for online so you can tailor your content to their needs. Rather than guessing what people want to read and hoping they find your website, you can get insight into the minds of your audience by using a keyword tool.
There are many online tools, and whichever one you use the main things you are looking for are search volume and competition level. You want a high volume of searches, and low competition.
Of course all keywords you find will perfectly fit into one of these categories, but the idea is that this will give you a hint at what you should be writing. The rest can be creative ideas from your mind!
Even if you don’t pay for a fancy keyword tool, Google is your friend and can give you plenty of ideas of what real Google users are searching for.
This is a hugely important method to growing your website traffic quickly and effectively. Many people work on their website for years, generating only a trick of traffic. But by leveraging this bit of knowledge, you can get much faster growth, and run highly effective product promotions on you affiliate website.
5 Ways To Make Money From Your Food-Topic Website
Affiliate Promotions
The main way that I make money with my websites is through affiliate promotions. After I start generating some traffic to my site, I sign up for affiliate programs from different companies related to the topic I’ve chosen.
An affiliate program is essentially a freelance advertising agreement. I am free to build my website however I choose and get traffic any way I want, and any sales that I make from that traffic can earn me a commission.
For example, I could write a review of the new Vitamix juicer. If it’s a positive review and I link to Amazon, I can make between 4%-15% of the sales price. Other companies may pay up to 75% of the sales price! There are many food-related choices, including meal kit affiliate programs.
It allows me a lot of creative freedom to choose how I run promotions, generate traffic, and publish articles to my website. I don’t have to stock any product inventory, and can promote products from multiple companies on the same website.
Learn How To Start Your Own Affiliate Website Here
Display Ads
Another VERY easy way to make money is with something called ‘display ads’. The are the Google sponsored ads that you see on a lot of foodie websites, and there’s a reason that everyone uses them: they are easy to install and very low maintenance.
You can see my recent food searches, a website I visited, and that I’m thinking about buying the 2016 Chevy Colorado. Google is smart! (*If your browser is running an ad blocker you won’t see the image above)
The other good thing is that you don’t have to run any promotions, so you can focus on the content that you want to write, rather than the content you think will make you money.
However, the downside is that they don’t pay very much. You need a ton of traffic to make good money with these. Just keep in mind that some ads are good for making money, but too many can hurt the user experience.
Create And Sell Your Own Info Product
Thought it will take some time to write and publish, selling your own info product on your website is also an option. What better way to make sales than to do your own marketing? You can make use of free search engine traffic through keyword research, or even place paid ads on Facebook, Google, or Bing.
A great tactic to making sales of a book is to write extensively on the topic of the book and publish this content on your website for free. People land on your website to read free information, then get interested in the paid content.
You can sell your product through a vendor like JVZoo or ebook publisher like Amazon, or sell it directly through your website.
Selling Your Website
Websites are hot commodities online for folks looking for passive income. In fact, a website will usually fetch between 10x and 35x monthly earnings depending on growth stats and how long the website has been earning.
So if your website is earning $1,000 per month steadily, you could sell it for over $20,000 cash! Websites typically sell pretty fast because there aren’t a lot of good money-making websites out there compared to the number of buyers.
Flipping websites can be immensely profitable if you can develop a good strategy to get them earning smaller income like $500-$2,000 per month. That way you don’t have to grow it into a huge money making monster but can still profit big!
Can I Make My Website About Something Else?
Maybe you read all this stuff and are now thinking that you don’t want to research and write about food related topics. That’s OK! These same strategies work for virtually any topic you can think of including computers, fitness, yoga, fashion, video games, home improvement, animals, and family.
The world of online business is full of a massive amount of opportunities for every type of person out there. No matter what your interests are, there’s a group of people out there just like you. And like any group of people, the have money to spend on the things they love. That’s a money-making opportunity for YOU, as long as you have the right knowledge of how to build a proper online business!
Learn How To Start An Online Business About YOU
Wealthy Affiliate is an online business training center that focuses on teaching people how to build online business about the things they love. This is the same place where I took my first baby steps into the world of internet based business and I’m still an active member today!
The offer step by step training courses on how to get your first website set up, and how to find a target audience to market products to. They show you with over-the-shoulder videos and written training modules how to attract visitors to your new business, and then make a profit.
Some potential website names. Anything goes!
Since I have been able to achieve such incredible success with their help, now I refer people to their website and also offer my assistance to newbie business owners.
Right now you are able to join with a free membership and start your first website for free as well. You can chat to me in the members area, as well as other members that are currently taking the training. Exchange ideas, see what other people are working on, and grow your businesses together!
The normal price of training and support is $47/month but you can decide later if this is something you want to pursue. First join for free, start your free training, and see what it feels like to be a real online business owner.
–>>Get Your Free Wealthy Affiliate Account Here<<–
Learn How To Start An Online Business About YOU
When I started my first online business, I tried a few things like horse care products, coffee stuff, and even video game plush toys. However, I found that my true interest was talking about cool types of computer software.
In just 2 years I was able to make enough money from my site to quit my job and work from home.
You can do the same thing by starting an online business about something you care about. What’s your passion?
Even if you don’t know that answer right now, the Wealthy Affiliate Online Business Community can help you answer that question.
This is a community of people just like you that are starting businesses in a huge variety of industries, but all following the same reliable training that has produced results for many people before (including myself).
Here’s what you’re going to do inside the community:
- choose a topic for your business
- learn how to rank your website in Google
- find products to promote for your business
- share ideas on how to grow sales and increase earnings
Over time, as you follow the lessons, you’ll learn how to grow your website from the very first page to an true authority on any topic. Some people choose to star ta business as a hobby and supplement their income in the evenings and weekends.
Other people have decided to make big changes in their lives, and created a full time business so they could start working from home.
Whatever you goals are, Wealthy Affiliate can help you achieve them.
Here’s how they (and I) can help you start a successful online business:
- community support, including 24/7 live chat
- two free websites
- 1-on-1 support any business or technical problems you run into
- personalized feedback from peers and professionals
- brainstorming with me, a full time marketer with multiple six figure businesses
Start Your Free Training Right Now!
FAQ
Is it hard to build a website?
Building your basic website is very easy! Adding graphics and learning the interface will have a slight learning curve but all of the lessons come with video training so you can follow along withe the instructor.
Can I change my topic later?
You can build up to 25 websites with your membership, so you can have 25 different topics if you want! However, if you pick a new topic, you will need to purchase a new domain ($11). You should not have more than one topic for a website because it will confuse your visitors.
How much does is cost to run a business?
The one basic thing you need to run your internet based business is a domain name. This costs $11 per year to register. There are many extra things that are optional, but none are required. How much you invest in your business is up to you.
How much does Wealthy Affiliate training cost?
Wealthy Affiliate is free to join, and you are not required to upgrade. If you decide to continue beyond the beginner lessons and maintain access to the support network within the community, the cost is $47/month. They also offer a discount for your first month which means you only pay $19 for the first month of membership.
If Wealthy Affiliate hosts my website am I still the sole owner?
Yes, you own 100% of your website! If decide to leave Wealthy Affiliate at any point you can move your website to a new host.
How long does it take to earn money?
This is a tough question to answer because it’s different for everyone. Some people see earnings in just a few months. Others take more than a year. It really depends on how much time you spend growing your business each day.
How much money can I earn?
This is the cool part – there’s no limit! Because you are building an internet based business, the sky is the limit. There are billions of dollars being spent online every day. All you need to do is find a small slice of the pie and you can be making really good money.
Some people have businesses that earn a modest $30,000-$80,000 per year. Others grow to six figures and beyond. The really hard workers have multi-million dollar internet businesses.
Whoa. Wait a minute. Before you make a million bucks, let’s begin with the first step – creating your FREE Wealthy Affiliate account and starting your free website!
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