This is a guest post from: Mariana Ashley

Are you aspiring to be the next Bobby Flay or Rachel Ray? Have you dreamed of starting a cooking blog to share your passion with the world? Creating a fantastic food blog can get you one step closer to the professional industry. Even if you aren’t planning on being the next Food Network star, starting a cooking blog can be a great way to share your recipes with your families and friends.  You can also keep track of your successes and failures, as well as your progress over time. Whether or not you want this blog to attract thousands of readers, there are certain elements that can set your site apart from others. Adding these key elements can also be helpful for you and your family as well. If you cook on a regular basis, your thorough blog will help you keep track of which recipes should be used again! The key elements are listed and described below.

Availability of Ingredients

Whether you are using a family recipe, a recipe from a professional cookbook, or even a recipe you came up with five minutes ago, discussing the availability of recipe ingredients is essential. If a blog reader is looking for a fast dish to try, they probably won’t want to spend time going to five different markets looking for ingredients. If your recipe, for example, calls for exotic peppers or hard to find cheeses, make sure you let your readers know! It may help to establish a scale for each recipe you discuss. If most of the dish ingredients are available at your local grocery store, you can mark the ingredient availability at 10. For example, if you are using one of Bobby Flay’s Mexican cookbook recipes, which requires exotic peppers not readily available in a local supermarket,  you may want to rate the ingredient availability level a bit lower at 6 or 7.

Recipe Difficulty

This is another essential element you should discuss in your blog. What skill levels are required for the recipe in question? Does one need to be a master chef to create the dish? Can a novice cook recreate the dish without much unease? You could use a scale for this as well, or you can just discuss general difficulty in each blog entry.

Health Benefits/Drawbacks

Due to a growing emphasis on healthy eating habits in the media, many Americans are looking for healthier food options. If you’re recipe incorporates a lot of fatty ingredients, you may want to offer substitutes for those with high cholesterol or high blood sugar. If these healthier ingredients may jeopardize your recipe, at least let readers know that the recipe may not be for someone on a strict diet! You may want to say, “This dish is absolutely delicious! Unfortunately, it does come with a hefty calorie count, so make sure you cook healthy the rest of the week!”

Make it Personal

Most readers like to read what your husband/wife/significant other/friends thought of the dish you made. Incorporating personal stories or tribulations about your cooking experiences can make your blog more enjoyable to follow!

PICTURES PICTURES PICTURES!

Pictures of your dishes are a MUST for any cooking blog. Readers want to see what their dish should look like! It may be helpful to take pictures of the dish at different stages. For example, if you are making devil’s food cake, try to take pictures of the ingredients, the batter, and the final product!

author:

Mariana Ashley is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about online college. She loves receiving reader feedback, which can be directed to mariana.ashley031 @gmail.com.

Working virtually is the next best thing that happened to us after the Fire and the Wheel. Working seamlessly, across boundaries, round the clock is the new way to work. Have you tried this way of working yet? I know your blogging entails working on the web for yourself. However, I am talking about “’team work” and “collaboration”. Work gets faster online and your daily work is devoid of the usual time wasters like unnecessary breaks, meetings and doing personal chores for your boss. Here are three free tools you can use for online collaboration:

Skype: Often stated, more often used, Skype has proven to be an almost default VoIP system for individual business owners, self-employed professionals and certainly for telecommuters. It not only allows for simple Instant messaging, but also brings in screen sharing, voice calling and file sharing – all of it simultaneously. Anyone with a computer and Internet connection can literally talk to anyone across the world and that’s the first thing your business will need.

Google Documents: It has already been discussed but Google Docs is proving to be indispensible right now with the possibility of collaborating online completely. When I need to collaborate with someone, I just open a spreadsheet and start creating sheets based on the projects we are working on. Any edits done on any page within is reflected and saved immediately. Google Docs has two advantages primarily – live collaboration and independence from computer systems since it is all web-based.

LogMeIn: Often times, you will need to access your co-workers’ computers, or remote servers to getwork done. Since it is a virtual we are talking about, we need to factor in the possibility of seamless location independence and constant travel. If that’s the case, we will need a way to access computers within the network of our workers. One nifty way of doing it is to use LogMeIn and access any computer from anywhere in the world. Remote access is an integral part of online collaboration.

Which of these tools have you used yet? Have you found any of them really good to work with? Are there any more tools you might know about?

While affiliate marketing is really easy to get into; it’s incredibly tough to battle it out with the super affiliates minting dollars each day. On the Internet, there is just one problem: You have no way to know what kind of information can help you and what kind can ruin you. You have no way to know whom to trust and whom not to. Too many affiliates have been ripped off and here are a few things these so called guru’s never tell you:

You have to work very hard: Most of information products out there written by so called “gurus” have an increasingly sickening stance of making it all seem easier than it really is. They like to attract our vanity by telling us that it is easy and that you can be up and running in a few days or even hours from now. Nothing happens in a few hours or even days. Business always takes time to take off. Quick cash is certainly a possibility but it isn’t really business, it’s self-employment.

Push button systems rarely work: “Try this for the next 6 months and you will never have to work again”, “ Here, push these buttons and go check your bank account”, “ All you need is to buy this and you will richer than you ever thought”.  These statements are marketing hype; you will never be able to get close to what is being promised and by the time you realize that, either you lost money or time or both. It’s not push button systems or turnkey systems that work; it’s your hardwork, sound business systems and commitment over long periods of time that do.

Affiliate marketing is still small game: Inspite of all the brauhaha about affiliate marketing, it isn’t even the big game. In fact, you are talking pennies and a few dollars here. The real game, the factory where the real money is made is in “product creation”. When you make products or sell products, that’s when the real moolah is made. Don’t you believe that? Why don’t you go ask that guy who sold you the last ebook you purchased?

Get out of the self-damaging trap of affiliate riches without putting in any hard work. Even if you decide to get started with it, understand that it is only the beginning of your journey and that you have to climb to another level of entrepreneurship – the real one where you create products or services and sell them.

Earning money online has multiple spin-offs: you can not only quit your corporate job and fire your boss but also be able to work from home, be your own boss, enjoy flexible timings, shoulder more responsibility( because you are on your own) and be able to work more (because you can earn as much as you want). You could be location independent and travel anywhere you want; you can still earn your money from wherever you fancy. Obviously then, doubling the amount of work you do each day would allow you to double your money, wouldn’t it? Here’s how you can go about it:

Take an office, away from home: It’s counter-intuitive, isn’t it? I have been harping about the benefits of self-employment and web-working but still recommend an office? Wouldn’t it be expensive? No, it wouldn’t be. When you work from home, there are lots of distractions that actually hamper your productivity. You might tend to doze off mid-work, take really long breaks, watch TV, visit friends or do nothing at all. As if that wasn’t enough, you might be asked to take care of kids, supervise household work, etc. Moreover, the isolation can kill you if you are the people person types.

Avoid answering-phone calls: Next to checking emails and browsing the Internet, answering phone calls is the biggest culprit when it comes to wasting your time. Tell you what? Just shut the damned thing off. It isn’t easy; I take a lot of criticism for this. However, people around you and those close to you must learn to understand your need to work hard. You are not working in corporate cubicles anymore where your salary is fixed and you could take any number of tea/coffee-cigarette breaks. If they understand you, they will call you later.

Work in Spurts and Work long: One of the secrets of working hard and working really long is to work in spurts. Work for an hour and then take 10 minute break. Force yourself to get back to work again and continue the cycle until you are satisfied with the amount of work you do per day. Working in one hour spurts allows you to work quickly, keeps you balanced, causes much less stress and gets more done.

Have you taken your new office, cut your phone off or started working in spurts already?

“Nice guys finish last”. Have you heard this statement before? Do you agree with it? Most people don’t. If you have been listening to your mother (not that she is wrong; it’s just that she is too nice to ask you to be something else and moreover, she doesn’t blog. Does she?)  Or your aunt (you shouldn’t be listening to her at all!); chances are that you have been told to be good to everyone around. Be meek, don’t be aggressive because you will only invite trouble; you should be nice to even those who aren’t nice to you. Did you know how this is hurting your blogging efforts? Read on:

No opportunities come to those who are meek: Being meek is living in suppression. When you are sweet, cute or meek you don’t get any opportunities. Chances are that you never initiate a dialogue with your peers online to fetch some Joint Ventures, you never thought of asking any of your fellow bloggers for a guest posting opportunity.

Nice guys are trampled on: It’s easy on the Internet to get trampled (digitally, of course). The concept of survival of fittest is everywhere you care to see. Have you ever been trampled, attacked or flamed on the forums? Did you ever get negative, spiteful, comments filled with disgust and hatred? If you don’t respond to these attacks strongly enough, can you guess where you are likely to be? If you are meek, your posts will also reflect that. No one wants politically correct, diplomatic, nice posts. Your readers want a piece of you; your opinion. They want drama, style and substance. Being nice is far from all that glitz, isn’t it?

Being nice is being stupid: I vehemently oppose any school of thought that would ask you to be nice. There is no need to suck up to people. You should be polite and be approachable, yes; but being nice to the extent that people ride on you, take you for granted, use you and manipulate you for their own use is strictly prohibited. Your online life, blogging efforts, Internet related businesses are all extensions of you and your attitude shows up everywhere.

Beware of how nice you want to be, and act.What do you think?

Blogging consistently, trying to get in a lot of traffic, maintaining the quality of the content, building your network – it’s a never ending process. While you are doing everything you can to prime your efforts online, you could do a lot offline too. How about doing a few things on the weekends so increase your popularity and your traffic? Could you influence others and be well-known in the area of your residence? You very well could, if you do the following:

1. Start an offline group for bloggers: Go to meetup.com and start an offline group related to your niche in your locality. For instance, if you blog on “self-development”, it would be an amazing idea to start a community based on that. It is an easy way for you demonstrate your skills as a leader and organizer. Additionally, you will be able to meet new people Interested in your niche. Not to mention, they will all check your blog out regularly.
2. Create Buzz: There are a lot of other ways you can make people stand-up and take notice. If you have the budget, you could promote or sponsor an event related to your niche; you could do charity and offer some services for the needy. If you have an appetite for adventure or if you wish to be a little more aggressive, you could rally for a good cause. You might even consider involving others to rally, rebel, and support or endorse a cause.
3. The 2-page Provoking Brochure: You could think of this Interesting Idea I was thinking about (not all niches might work or be suitable for this). Publish a 2 page flyer or brochure with a write-up to communicate to your potential readers about something you are passionate about (but related to your niche). If you have a blog on “earning money online”, you could think about writing something on the lines of “living your dream”. If you have a blog on “going green”, you could have a lot of passion poured into a write-up talking about “why go green?”

What else can you think of to do offline so as to push your efforts even further when it comes to market your blog, build a brand for it, bring traffic to it and get you noticed?

It happened to me and I am sure it has happened to a lot of bloggers out there; work days go really slow and most of the days turn out to be unproductive. Work barely gets done and just has a way to pile up. You have thought of writing posts and you didn’t; you thought of contacting all those fellow bloggers for guest blogging opportunities and you didn’t; you thought of Online Marketing 101 and you could barely scratch off your to-do list on that front. Just how on earth can you get anything done, ever? Pay heed:

Train yourself to be ruthless and selfish with your time

There are distractions galore – people wanting to call you and talk to you; little activities that need time; family and friends demanding time; co-workers demanding time for little tea-cigarette breaks and much more.  Leave your number open and you get calls. Be visible on IM and you get pings. Don’t make yourself so vulnerable to others’ demands. Everything can wait for the weekend. Be selfish about your time and guard it with your life. Make that To-do list and aim to strike off every entry on that list. Do this every day for the next 21 days and you will see miracles happening.

Need speed and efficiency? Then do it more often

When I first started out writing, I had difficulty in putting a 500 word post together in less than 2 hours. Today, if need be, I could whip one out in less than 20 minutes (with research and proof-reading). How did that come about? Simple! I just did it more often. I write so much in a day that writing is really something I could do if you kicked me and woke me up in the middle of the night. Not only is my writing fast now, it is also engaging and informative. A lot of research goes into each piece I write and finally, it also brings in results.

Being Popular or Nice is not being rich

Well, some people are nice and popular along with being rich. But we are not those “some people”. We are ordinary mortals and we need to really work hard for our living. Now, I talk about this because when you wish to be efficient, it would mean that you are being tough on others too. Your loved ones will be asked to stay away; your friends will barely get the time from you; your clients will somewhat hate you for being so clinical about work (possible). If you choose to be efficient, forget about being nice.

Have you faced this before? Did you ever try to do things faster or more efficiently than you ever did? Have you ascertained the benefits of getting more out of less? What’s your opinion on being fast and efficient?

An unlikely match –a pickup artist and a blogger; a pick-u p artist is one who spends all his time and energy on picking up women for dating and a blogger is one who relentless writes/blogs about topics pertinent to their niche for various reasons. What can possibly be in common between these two different groups of people? A lot, if you ask me. Let me explain:

A true pick-up artist is outright crazy; an incorrigible risk-taker: The thing about these guys is that they are really crazy. They would do things normal guys can only either dream of or scoff at – either ways, the pick-up artist goes home with the girl. Why does he do that? That’s because a pick-up artist does things without any regard to results. He does things fearlessly and he often goes after women knowing very well that he might even fail (he doesn’t give a damn about that). The winning streak, the passion and the need to be with women or pick them up all the time keeps this guy going. Are there any lessons for bloggers? Blog on regardless; don’t worry about whose toes you are stepping on; keep at it no matter what and in time, you should succeed.

It’s an art to pick women up and a pick-up artist is prepared to learn: How many bloggers do you know who are willing to learn new things? Some do; some don’t. Most pick-up artists however, are always prepared to learn new ways of doing things. They read up on other artists’ field reports, new ways of picking women up, what works and what doesn’t, etc. Their willingness to learn and implement their new-found knowledge immediately is their key to success.

Pick-up Artists have a character; a unique sense of style: Take some of the well-known pick-up artists and dating gurus like Ross Jefferies, David De Angelo, Mystery, David Shade, Neil Strauss and Carlos Xumas – what is common apart from the fact that they are all dating gurus and well-known artists? Nothing else! Each of them has a unique approach to dating and wooing women; they have different methods and strategies and all of them are successful. The best thing is that each of these guys is unique and special in their own way, with their own sense of style. Bloggers can learn to do the same. They could strive to bring out a sense of unique style to their blogs.

On a final note, pick-up artists — unlike the Average Frustrated Chump who boasts of no success with women — exude a lot of confidence, play by the numbers and are basically a happier lot than most others. Could a similar approach towards blogging work?

Yet another disaster with a Windows Machine and this time; it hit me right on my stomach. Next week is important for us here at Blogging Elements since Mike and I have been thinking of launching an awesome free report for the blog for the benefit of our readers. Just when I was getting ready for the big week, my laptop crashed again. I have no idea what happened to it since it just won’t start. The most irritating thing about all of this is the unpredictability: just yesterday night, it seemed to be working fine and now it just went belly-up. I have been thinking of the love/hate relationship I seem to be developing towards technology now-a-days. The reasons why I love technology is obvious, but why hate it?

Riding on Unknowns: I have no idea what might happen to the machine I am blogging from, right now. I don’t know what went wrong with the other laptop. I have my files stored in multiple locations thankfully, but how safe and reliable are the USB external hard-drives, online back-up systems and the hard drives on our own machines? Do I really trust these things to keep my files safe? Doing anything online or on computers reminds me so much of the 60 minute( or perhaps more for you?) commute to get to work. What can you predict about your fate on smoke-filled, overcrowded expressways and roads?

Technology is all pervasive: In spite of everything, we still depend on technology for everything. I hate it, but I can’t do without my laptop and the Internet connection. If there was no Windows, Mac or Linux, I wouldn’t be able to work on any computer. If there was no online back-up system, I will need to rely on my HDD ( which can get busted) or my USB external hard-drive which can go kaput or might get stolen. Internet connections can be unreliable but can you imagine e-commerce without it? I can’t breathe if I can’t check my mail.

Working on PC is still the best; cloud computing is still running to catch up: The new laptop I was talking about is a Windows 7 loaded Dell Inspiron. I don’t have Microsoft Office Installed on it. The other laptop (actually an Asus Eee PC 1000H netbook) has Office 2007 loaded on to it. The ease with which I can work on Microsoft word or excel just doesn’t seem to come off on Google Documents or even on OpenOffice. Mircosoft sucks, but I need to live with it.

I hate to do this; I don’t like to depend on anything unreliable. Internet and technology are really moody and cranky. We still learn to live with this bad behavior though and tolerate it all. Have you gone through problems like these? Do your machines trouble you? We would be glad to know.

I was going through the “self-employment” blues the other day and I finally realized that I can’t really do anymore than what I am currently doing to earn more money than what I  can make currently. I then realized that I need to leverage my time somehow. I know that I can’t possibly start a full-fledged brick-and-mortar office, but I can certainly hire telecommuters. I have been in this business for a long time and I know that telecommuting works for me. Here are some smart ways you can channelize your efforts, be productive and earn more money:
Hire a VA: I know I have said this before but I never got around doing it. I couldn’t take it anymore and I really needed some helping hand. I hired a VA and started getting her to work for me. Most of the mundane and repetitive tasks will now be done by her. I could use her to promote all my blogs, upload posts to my existing blogs, upload articles on ezinearticles.com, post on my forums for me and do all those things that take my precious time away from me. In the future, I will even train her (and many more like her) to do keyword research, compile lists of keywords, use tools like word tracker, market samurai, etc. All I need now is a system using which I can deploy work. I will probably just use Google docs for now. I will look at project management systems like bascecamp in the future.
Handle multiple projects: While you take the bulk of your work away and have a VA do it for you, there will be a lot of time on your hands for working on other projects that you have always wanted to do. Start those projects and work on those you are already headlong into. It is here that you will need to master the art of multi-tasking. While managing your virtual employees – such as Virtual Assistants, writers, designers and developers – you will also have to focus on marketing your websites and handling the overall projects.
Guard your time even more ferociously: I have been noticing now for a very long time since I started to be on my own that a lot of people make unreasonable demands of my time. Starting from my personal life (I guess they have a right to do this?) all the to my  professional life – including the innumerable hours spent on things like training, checking emails, meeting on IM or skype, etc. Become ruthless with your time. Don’t let anyone get near you. Lock yourself in a room. Run away to a deserted island. Do whatever works for you.