Food Blogger Pro: A Review

If you love food and blogging, there's no better time to be a food blogger, especially with the popularity of Pinterest and Instagram.  However, food blogging is different than other types of blogging.  If you need help learning how to start and grow your food blogging site, Food Blogger Pro may be just the help you need.

What Do You Get with a Food Blogger Pro Membership?

Included in your monthly membership are an active forum, videos, live events, and a blog. The membership site promises that the combination of the three will equip you to be able to learn all of the following:

• The best tools for starting a food blog
• How to take beautiful photos with artificial light
• How to increase traffic with easy SEO tips
• The tools you'll want to create viral food videos
• The best way to structure your blog’s permalinks
• How to set up branded short URLs
• Generating income from eBooks
• The best way to set up giveaways
• Creating and submitting a sitemap
• What FTP is and how to use it
• How to optimize your images
• How Google Webmaster Tools can improve your SEO
• The right way to use anchor text in links
• The most important tools in Photoshop
• How to set up a branded email address
• Backing up your site so you don’t lose content
• Adjusting manual settings on your camera How to set up a caching plugin and CDN
• The best way to use affiliate marketing
• Using Photoshop to enhance your images 
• Photo editing workflow tips and tricks

Forum

On the forum, you're free to ask questions and seek advice from others.  The topics on the forum include the following:

• General Discussion
• Getting Started
• Building Traffic
• Food Photography
• Photo Editing
• Social Media
• Essential Tools
• Generating Income
• Creating an eBook
• Essential Plugins
• Guidelines and How-tos

There is also a section to introduce yourself, connect with and support other members, and to have your photos critiqued.

The forums appear fairly active, with several posts and discussions posted every day.  Another way to utilize the forum is to read through the archives, as there is valuable information in old threads such as how to set up a recipe directory on your blog and how to drive more traffic from Pinterest.

And while many people have been tempted to join Food Blogger Pro, skim through as much of the instructional material and videos as they can, and then cancel, you'll definitely lose the community forum features if you do this. Ongoing support seems to be one of the main reasons people join this site. Keep that in mind if you are one that does better with a team. You'll likely not want to cancel for this reason.

Live Events

Have you ever wanted to see your favorite food blogger in action? They frequently offer experts to come on and share tips, answer questions, and demonstrate the skills that have elevated them to pro status. These live events are only available to Food Blogger Pro members and are one of the favorite features of the site.

Videos

The videos are an important learning tool and make the membership worthwhile, at least for a few months.  Topics range from generating income to social media to building traffic to food photography.  Each topic has several short videos.  For instance, the building traffic section has 35 short videos.  The food photography section has a total of 32 short videos ranging from using a DSLR camera to how to use lighting to composition. And, one exciting addition to this latest revamp includes an entire section on creating those viral Facebook recipe videos like Tasty does. (That alone seems worth the price of membership!) Over 300 videos are included with your membership. They can be watched in ANY order. 

Blog

Finally, the blog has some useful content, but honestly, of the three, the blog is the least useful.  Since the blog is also free for anyone to view (even non-members) most of the tips and tricks that would make Food Blogger Pro most useful aren't revealed here. But there are some great interviews, a few trend pieces (such as what Pinterest is love in June) and some promotional news items you won't want to miss. 

How Much is Membership?

A monthly subscription to Food Blogger Pro is $29, though you can save by buying a year at a time. (You can also cancel at any time if you are not happy with your membership.) Note that enrollment isn't always open. They only allow certain times during the year for membership sign ups. Although if you have ever been a member in the past, you can renew your membership outside of open enrollment. If you are new to the site, however, you must wait for enrollment to open again.

ENROLLMENT IS NOW OPEN! Sign up before June 27th to get into this enrollment period!

Have you used Food Blogger Pro before?  Would you recommend it?