I’m sorry guys. I abandoned my food blog. I find it hard to believe that it’s been eight months since I last posted on my blog. It wasn’t intentional. Whenever I write my dogs lay by my feet, and sadly I lost my two Labradors within the space of a couple of weeks – Sasha aged 11 years and Holly who was only 5. I simply lost my motivation to write. I’m sure my fellow dog lovers will understand, but I am conscious of the fact that others have far greater losses to bear – so please accept my apologies.
Our remaining Labrador, Lily, grieved terribly – so we now have a new addition to our family. Meet Frankie
Frankie is a Newfoundland and is now seven months old. She has now grown out of the biting stage and allows me to write while she and Lily lay by my feet. I have so many ideas for my food blog and can’t wait to start blogging again and sharing new recipes with you.
How to relaunch my food blog
Well, this is going to be a learning curve! Fortunately I still have my domain name and my web hosting account is up to date. This is what I have done so far-
- Updated WordPress themes, plugins and widgets
- Installed a WordPress plugin for GDPR cookie consent
- Installed a WordPress plugin to check for broken links
- Updated About Us page
- Read every page on my site and made a list of changes I want to make, this includes photos I want to replace, posts that need updating, and pages that need rethinking.
- Brainstorming – my wife, Jane, and I spent a whole day analysing the site; discussing whether our niche was the right one; deciding the way forward with regard to blog posts, pages, and the recipes we want to share; how to promote the food blog; how to make money from the site; and we then proceeded to make action lists with deadlines.
- Read my emails – yes, I’d even omitted looking at these for eight months!!! There were wasted opportunities and I spent a lot of time responding and apologising.
- Set a date for the relaunch of my food blog for 14thNovember 2018
Is there anything I’ve forgotten?
What’s New with my Food Blog?
- I intend writing on topical issues concerning food e.g. Brexit, Obesity and Austerity. I will of course continue to write on issues that I feel strongly about and just pop into my head.
- New recipes – these will include ones that have been handed down to me, recipes I have tried and liked (with credit being given to the originator), as well as ones that I have developed. I’m so happy to be back in the Kitchen experimenting with new ideas.
- I’ve started to include videos in my recipes for those who prefer to actually see how to cook specific dishes.
- We are currently working on an eBook that will be free to our email subscribers. And we have plans for more.
- Social Media – we are trying to our heads around this! We will continue with Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest and have just started using Instagram and LinkedIn. We will post new videos to YouTube. Any tips would be welcome as I think our daughters get a little frustrated with us contacting them at university for help! Only the other day one of my daughters FaceTimed Jane only to get a view of her ear – she thought it was a phone call and her ear obscured the camera.
If there is anything you would like to see on my food blog please let me know. Also, if there is a particular recipe you would like I will do my best to find one for you. Thank you for your patience and I look forward to blogging and sharing recipes.