Food blogging is a tough gig. While it often starts out of a desire to share your great recipes with friends and family, it can quickly turn into an all-consuming second job. Personally, I always feel like I can't keep up my pace. As soon as I post a new recipe, it's time to promote it all over social media, and when my shares are just about done, it's time for a new post.

Whether you are a personal blog, a small business, or just someone who enjoys to keep their Instagram looking fresh, these photo editing apps can truly take your feed to a new level.

Hold on--there are HOW many blogs? According to our pals at Food Bloggers Central, over 227 million. Don't get too scared by that figure. Remember that only a portion of that total number are food blogs and a smaller chunk are bloggers who write in your same language and/or niche. Still, as every blogger knows, it's a saturated market.

I just got back from a quick trip to visit a friend who just moved to Stockholm. When I say that I bought my tickets just days before leaving, I'm not exaggerating. My month was hectic, filled with Chicory-related events or family functions. I was drained. So I skipped town for the long weekend. And, while I expected it would be nice to see a friend and do some traveling, I was surprised to find that the greatest vacation of all was from my blog.

Living two lives (one as a blogger, the other as a startup marketer) helps me to question both roles constantly. Blogging informs my work marketing Chicory to bloggers in countless ways--from knowing what's an appropriate RPM for a blog of a certain size, to understanding the ins and outs of Wordpress. Lately, I've allowed my worlds to inform each other in the opposite direction.

If you host your blog on Wordpress you know that plugins are king. There are OVER 46,000 of them to choose from. Guys, that’s crazy. I can barely choose what I want to order for dinner from Seamless. So, let's declutter and come to some decisions together. I’m here to give you the five plugins that you should definitely have running on your site that'll give the most valuable experience to your readers. 

If Instagram is any indication, bloggers already know that it's fun to join in on all of those "National This-and-That Day" hashtags. Oh, it's National Ice Cream Day? Pull that Chipwich recipe out of your archives and post on social for a few extra likes from new folks.

Usually our round ups are a collection of articles discussing all different timely topics, but moving forward, we figured it might be more useful for us to collect relevant articles on a single topic. This week, we're focusing on Instagram! Want to become an Instagram superstar? The articles below offer guidance on anything from analytics tools, new features, and growth in order to help food bloggers master and keep up with the quickly growing social network.

At Chicory, we know that recipe designers and food bloggers wear a lot of hats--chef, nutrition guru, writer and photographer! Expertise in any one of those is impressive enough, but in addition to all four, you're expected to be experts in tech as well? 

In the words of food blogger extraordinaire, Lindsay Ostrom from Pinch of Yum, a great food photo should “pop off the page at people and inspire them to engage somehow with your content.” As a foodie and avid baker that relies on food blogs for recipes, I always gravitate towards pictures that I find enticing...photos that make me say “I NEED to try that now.”

A few weeks ago we sent out a request to our over 700 blogging partners asking for pitches for our blog or permission to interview them on a topic about which they had experience or expertise. Today we're thrilled to present this interview with Maggie Zhu of Omnivore's Cookbook all about her experience with hiring a virtual assistant (VA) and building out a team to help grow her site.

Hello again! It's time for another round up. This time around, we're sharing our favorite resources about email. You know, that thing that stresses you out constantly, but is actually an incredibly important tool for marketing, networking, and getting s#!t done. 

I am a podcast maniac. With a New York City commute that racks up to about two hours spent riding a train every day, I've learned that the most efficient use of my time ends up being learning by listening to podcasts. My favorite shows run the gamut from comedy to interview shows, but I've also tried out tons of foodie or blogger-specific shows too.

Lots of tech experts have poo-pooed traditional SEO in recent years. The argument being that SEO practices are largely outdated and that other elements will begin to affect site traffic in the coming years. Rather than getting the perfect keywords set up, experts have recommended that bloggers focus on other things like site speed or mobile friendliness since those are the factors Google's prioritizing for search results.

We're thrilled today to share our new partnership news. Chicory has partnered with Mediavine, a publisher network that helps bloggers (in particular, food bloggers) optimize the advertising space on their sites. Chicory will be included in their suite of advertising products, enabling hundreds of bloggers to activate Chicory on their sites seamlessly and effectively. 

Hey, bloggers! We know that you often look for ways to describe how Chicory works to your readers. After all, more readers clicking and ordering groceries means more earnings for you and your site! Many of you intuitively understand the product, but when it comes down to telling others, that can be tricky! We offer lots of different features that can take some time to discover. Below you'll find an outline of the basics and some answers to users' frequently asked questions. Feel free to link your readers to these explanations or borrow the language for your own blog. 

Let’s talk a bit about the history of recipes. Before the internet, giant corporations like Hearst, Meredith and Time Inc. dominated the food media space. They had incredible magazines with a massive number of readers that generated so much money. We’ve all heard stories about the swanky parties or lengthy, indulgent business lunches. That was back in traditional media’s golden days.

For some, blogging is a hobby. For others, blogging is a full-time job. Either way, it takes some serious effort to keep your blog looking clean, produce interesting content, and share your dishes and thoughts with the world. Wouldn’t it be great to make some part of that equation a little bit easier?