Using video to establish your authority as a food blogger

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Golden saffron, crimson tomatoes, and deep indigo eggplants create a palette comparable to anything Da Vinci ever worked with. And who can resist the temptation of a textured chocolate mousse? With all of the visual allure to be found in the kitchen, adding richly colored photographs to your food blog is a no-brainer.

But why stop there?

There’s a music in the sizzling of garlic and the chop-chop-chop of a steel knife on a wooden cutting board. There’s sensuality in the kneading of dough. Those other sensory experiences of cooking are often the very details that draw would-be cooks into the kitchen.

If you love to cook, there’s a good chance someone in your life gave you an opportunity to experience it. Maybe a Southern grandma taught you how to bake up flaky buttermilk biscuits and let you mix the ingredients together with your fingertips when you were a child. Or it could be that an on-air personality like the Barefoot Contessa made the careful preparation of goat cheese tarts look like a spiritual calling.

Using videos on your food blog will help your visitors experience posts in an entirely new way, and like that time spent in the kitchen with granny (or Ina Garten), allowing visitors to actually see you prepare a recipe will go a long way towards establishing your authority with them.

It’s not necessary to publish a video with each post that you create if you don’t have the time or the inclination. Start small and see what happens. We’ve got a few ideas to inspire you.

Create a short video that introduces you.

While your writing definitely helps readers get a sense of who you are as a person, brains can process visual information 60,000 times faster than text. A video introduction is an easy opportunity to experiment with video and see where it takes you. Best of all, it doesn’t need to be lengthy to be engaging. In fact, studies indicate that most people stop watching videos at about sixty seconds. You can handle sixty seconds in front of the camera, right?

Demonstrate a tricky technique.

If you’re reading your comments section, you’ve probably found questions about complicated steps in preparing certain dishes. Bearing in mind the sixty second rule, create a short video showing readers exactly how to handle those trickier techniques. You don’t have to prepare the entire recipe in front of the camera, just that one step that trips readers up every time.

Show viewers the value of a product you use.

Many bloggers have been able to create a revenue by using corporate sponsors’ products in blog posts. Take it up a notch by demonstrating the value of those products. Your viewers and your sponsors will thank you.

Investing a little of your time and blog space to short videos has the potential to boost your search engine results and extend your social media reach. Once they’re there, you’ll likely discover that visitors stay longer and be more engaged as well.