At SXSW, you'll find big-name CEOs, musicians, geek gods, and writers for some of the most well-known food blogs in the country. On the last day of the interactive portion of SXSW (aka spring break for geeks), I attended a panel titled, "The Secrets of Successful Food Blogging," moderated by Rachel Kramer Bussel of Cupcakes Take the Cake. The panelists were Zach Brooks of Midtown Lunch, Cathy Erway of Not Eating Out in New York,
Kalyn Denny of Kalyn's Kitchen, and Addie Broyles of Relish Austin.

I (and what seemed to be about 75 percent of the audience) was hoping to take away a few nuggets of invaluable wisdom that would make this blog much, much better than it is. For me, this didn't happen.

The diverse group of bloggers presented a very informative and fun look at how to start writing your own food blog. Kalyn stressed the importance of quality over quantity, saying that she never posts disaster recipes. Instead, she only posts the highest-quality recipes and pictures about three times per week. On the other hand, Cathy of Not Eating Out in New York said that, like me, she doesn't mind posting "disaster in the kitchen" recipes, and Zach of Midtown Lunch said that he posts five to six times per day!

The bloggers also covered the importance of SEO (search engine optimization) and expressed their differing opinions on how many ads are too many. If you've never written a food blog (or any blog, for that matter), these are very helpful hints to get you started. The problem is that I started writing this blog over a year and a half ago and was hoping for something a little more advanced.

Toward the end of the hour-long panel, I started to realize that the real secret to successful food blogging isn't to "use this lens" or "write about food news, not recipes!" There are no advanced tips that everyone except me knows. Instead, the real secret is something that every panelist mentioned and something that I already know: Practice makes perfect.

To learn more about the panelists, please visit:

• Cupcakes Take the Cake

• Not Eating Out in New York

• Midtown Lunch

• Kalyn's Kitchen

• Relish Austin