Welcome to the newly redesigned Avocado Pesto. For those of you who’ve already forgotten what the old one looked like, here’s a refresher:
Hopefully we can all agree that this new design and template is an improvement?
I started my little food blog at the end of 2010, mostly as a way to share recipes and my love of cooking with my family and friends. Little did I know that a love of cooking is only a minor component of actually running a food blog.
With time I realized that aside from preparing and documenting the recipe there also comes food set up/styling, photography, photo editing, story writing, post formatting, and social media marketing. All these steps for every single recipe! Oh, and to top it all off food photography is fussy enough to always demand natural light – good luck finding some of that on a weekday evening during the winter.
So much more goes into food blogging than I initially thought. My first order of business was to improve upon my photography skills. Out with the canon point and shoot and in with my first canon DSLR. Over the course of the last year my photos have gone from this:
to this
and for that I have to thank my Canon XSi, 50 mm prime lens and Light Room.
However, it doesn’t end at photography. With the new blog I want to roll out some new initiatives:
Things to Expect From the New Avocado Pesto
More D
While the old blog was generally run only by me, I’m bringing in an extra set of hands for this new one. Without further adieu I present D to you.
Boyfriend, roommate, recipe tester, dish washer, technical consultant, designer, proofreader, D is the one that made the transition from a wordpress.com blog possible. He charges a fixed rate of 2 peanut butter graham cracker balls per hour, but he’s worth it. While his role used to be more passive, in this new blog he will be actively contributing monthly traffic update posts along with monthly monetary tracking posts (once we get there).
Greater nutritional focus
Along with (sometimes) witty banter and recipes with (hopefully) drool worthy photos, I am looking to start including nutritional information. At the very least including calories per serving.
More vegan and vegetarian recipes
Recently I have started reading food based books including the Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Dirty Life and Tomatoland. I am making bold moves in changing my diet to incorporate better quality products and eliminate the most unhealthy ones (corn fed beef for example). Without going full on vegan I have started to cook less with animal products and have been trying to create recipes that eliminate them all together. So you will see new blogging categories for vegan and vegetarian recipes to feature these recipes exclusively. I am determined to show that vegan and vegetarian does not mean having to gnaw on celery sticks all day. Healthy food can also be full of deep intricate flavors that will leave you wanting more.
Providing dietary restriction recipes such as gluten free and dairy free
I want to appeal to readers with eating restrictions and therefore have created the dairy free and gluten free sections. Though you do need to be more creative with these restrictions you still can have your gratins, pasta dishes and baked goods and I want to show you how.
Stronger outreach and new marketing techniques
Lastly, with an improved blog comes improved social media and marketing. One of the major features I am looking to implement in the upcoming months is instructional cooking videos so you can follow along with me. These will be featured on my shared Youtube page (which features both food and travel videos alike). I’ve also beefed up my social media to include some new channels, which I am listing below (some of these are shared with my travel blog):
- Follow Me On Twitter
- Follow Me On Stumble Upon
- Like Me On Facebook
- Watch Me On Youtube
- Pin Me On Pinterest
- See Me On SmugMug
- Friend Me On Google +
- Subscribe Via Feedburner
Without further adieu, I present to you the improved Avocado Pesto food blog and hope that you will continue to follow along because it’s you the readers that I do this for and it truly makes my day any time I receive a comment or feedback from any one of you.
Dewi says
Beautiful design, wonderful recipes, and gorgeous photographs.
Vicky says
Thank you so much! I’m so flattered!
jean/alan says
Wow says it all!!!
Vicky says
Aww thanks!
Tessa says
I really like your new layout and I think that moving from a wordpress.com site to a .com site was a smart move. I did a similar thing last year with a blogspot and I have been happy with that decision ever since. Nice job on your new website!
Vicky says
Thanks! I regret not doing so sooner!
Ana_ILTdP says
Nice new webpage!! I like it 🙂
It’s really great to see evolution of pictures, isn’t it?
I am eager too see next entries with your new ideas of Avocado Pesto v 2.0 😉
And welcome to D!!
Vicky says
Thanks! Yes it has been so rewarding to actually see my photos improve with time and start getting accepted to foodgawker and tastespotting! Hoping to make my first cooking video soon!
Claudia @ Experiments and Temptations says
Vicky, I am jealous. My goal is to do all of what this post talks about, and you are SO right. So much more work than you’d imagined. I think I’m going to have to keep reviewing your before and after pictures above to remind myself to keep going. And figure out how the HECK to get natural light in a dark, dark kitchen. Sigh.
Vicky says
Claudia thanks so much for taking the time to comment. Do not lose hope! It definitely takes time but as you can see from my before and after photos it is absolutely possible to drastically improve your food photography. Before I started the blog I had no experience with photography whatsoever and had no idea what aperature, shutter speed, ISO, shooting in raw mode meant at all – but with time I’ve started to learn more and more about photography and just stick with it and you will definitely get better. I know all about not having natural light in a dark kitchen – all my dishes I end up carrying out to the balcony in order to try to take a decent photo! In the near future I’m going to start writing posts geared towards helping other food bloggers and reveal my own tips and tricks so stay tuned! Thanks for reading
Marie@Not Enough Cinnamon says
Hi Vicky! I don’t really know how your blog was before, but it looks great now! It’s funny to see I’m not the only one getting help from the boyfriend, they can be very useful sometimes hahaha. And I totally relate, loving food is definitively not enough to run a successful blog! But it’s really an enriching experience, and so far I’ve been loving it. Your goals sound perfect to me, I wish you all the best! And I’ll be checking your blog on a regular basis!! Take care. Marie.
Vicky says
Thanks Marie! Yes the boyfriends really do come in handy! Thanks for reading! In the future I’m going to write more posts about the nature of food blogging and reveal some of my own tips and tricks along with monthly tracking reports in case you’re interested! Though it is time consuming I have definitely enjoyed running a food blog and acquiring/improving all the skills that come with it!