A growing trend in food blogging is recipe videos, which can help increase time-on-site, get you featured positions in search engines and makes your content more easily shareable.
In fact, schema requirements for recipes have recently been updated to include video, and the top recipe plugins have already implemented in. While you won' be penalized for not having it in the near future, the trend is likely to move towards video being a ranking factor over the next few years.
Should you invest in video?
If you're just starting out, put it off for a year. The learning curve is too steep an you need to master the basics of food blogging before moving onto more advanced features.
Videos are a lot of work - the investment in equipment (camera, lighting, software) is not insignificant. It's an entirely new skillset that gets layered on top of your recipe posts - adding time and energy to the post that can be cumbersome and unnecessary.
And not every recipe post needs a video to go with it. Some recipes simply aren't popular enough and aren't worth the investment.
If you're already making income from food blogging however, adding videos to your top performing recipes can give them that extra push to do even better. It's a skill that can be very valuable to brand partnerships and sponsored content.
A Billable Skill
Video is a compelling medium, which can be a good source of extra income from brand sponsorships. Not all brands will value it the same, or be willing to pay for it, but video can be worth an additional $500-$1000.
Done-For-You Video Services
A number of food bloggers who've invested the time into developing skills for for video development, and equipment, offer their services for food bloggers who aren't ready to make the leap.
- RealFoodRealDeals
- Tournadough Alli Video Productions
- HotAndHealthyMamas Recipe Video Service
- CreateKidsClub Video Services
- RadRecipeVideos
Courses for Food Videos
We've had food bloggers recommend the following video courses:
- Show me the Yummy Workshop (paid + other content)
- Brooke Lark's Youtube (free + foodie bootcamp)
- Brooke Lark's Crash Courses (paid)
Here's a few great free videos:
Gear for Recipe Videos
There are lots of different tutorials for different gear you can use for recipe videos, so start with the Food Blogger Pro Recipe Video Gear article and the courses in the links above.
Software for editing Recipe Videos
The two primary pieces of video editing software are Adobe Premier Pro and Final Cut Pro. They both have a roughly equal featureset, but do some things slightly different.
Adobe Premiere Pro starts at $20.99/month, while Final Cut Pro is a one-time $399 fee. That means it would take about 19 months for Final Cut Pro to pay for itself.
Either one will work, and your choice will probably depend on your peer group or the how-tos you happen to fall across.
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