The more I do blog consulting for a living, the more I am convinced that blogs are, in many ways, a key ingredient in the recipe for a successful small business nowadays. Blogs accomplish so much more than static sites ever could, and they do it so easily.
Natural chef Sue Bette offers personal chef services, and knew a blog would be the perfect vehicle for engaging with others about great, healthy food. Her new business blog is Feelgood Eats, is starting out strong with some great recipes and cookbook recommendations. The synchronicity of this could not have been more perfect, since I’ve just started eating a more healthy diet that has less meat and dairy.
One aspect of working with Sue on this project that was a lot of fun was working on the print style sheets. I won’t bore you with the technical details, but if you were to print out a post, you will find it comes out nicely formatted for the printed page.
As a new blogger and business owner, Sue doesn’t have time to slog through the blog learning curve — she has a business to run! So I handled a lot of the technical details and helped her out with her content strategy. She now has a professional blog design, a FeedBurner feed, Akismet API key for the Akismet spam protection plugin, and a host of other vital plugins installed and configured. She will not need to make a bunch of mistakes and she will not wonder if she is making the right decisions regarding her blog. She has a mentor who can offer the kind of personalized guidance that will never be found on a how-to blog. She can show the world her passion for “feelgood eats” and not worry about blogging. She can demonstrate her knowledge about food and bring in business, and that’s really what it’s all about.
So, if you like food 
I invite you to check out Feelgood eats. I know a number of my readers are food bloggers and food lovers, so any link and social media love you would care to show Sue would be greatly appreciated to help her new blog take off.
Hi Michael, as a “foodie” myself, I had to take a look at Sue’s new blog, she has quite a bit of content which is always a great start and… I really like the layout of how the posts are summarized with the title and a brief sentence or two, kind of like the front page of a newspaper.
As you wrote… blogs are definitely part of the recipe for success in any business these days. It’s hard to imagine any biz without an active blog. What a natural and very human way to enagage and stay in touch with clients.
Instead of talking at our customers, we now have an easy to use, affordable platform to talk with them! Isn’t technology wonderful? Have a great day…
THAT is a great looking blog Michael. And what a smart idea to make it print ready for printing the recipes.
I can definitely use this blog right now. I’ve become the world’s most uncreative cook ever. Maybe I’ll start by making one great thing a week… we’ll see if that actually happens – I love the idea of it though!
@ marti – Yes, it really is hard to imagine a small business or a company that wouldn’t want a blog. It’s like saying to people: “you’re not important to me, I don’t have anything worth sharing with you, and I’m not going to talk to you or listen to you.”
Ouch!
@ Christine – Thank you! Time for something besides Mac ‘n’ Cheese from a box! (Just for the record, I love mac ‘n’ cheese, but I like it homemade with Vermont cheddar and bacon. Well, that’s not very healthy, is it? Oh well!)
I was looking for a nice blog written by a professional that provides recipes. Thanks.