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Recipe website

by Emp
9 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi I'm looking to start a recipe website. So basically I'll find recipes and re-write some of them on my site

Regardless of how much you rewrite, there's always lots of similar words like "a table spoon of sugar" or "3 eggs whisked together", you know and other similar phrases.

I'm thinking google will not see this as original content? And I won't get good rankings? How then can I build a seo friendly / healthy recipe website?

Most recipe sites out there I'm sure have a lot of copied content too? I don't think every recipe is original.

Thanks
#recipe #website
  • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
    You're right to suspect that it's hard to rank for this kind of content. Originality is not a big thing for Google, but there's more authoritative sites that have very similar recipes. Everything you write may end up in supplemental index unless you can come up with some kind of strategy to combat that.

    I know couple of guys who started what's basically a recipe website. They did it several years ago when internet wasn't this congested with copies of the same, and chose to do it in their small native market and in their native language. In addition to being early enough their main trick was to make the site user edited. At the moment they boast 50k+ recipes and 70k+ user accounts, and have one of the largest local media companies as a majority shareholder.

    Just an example of what it takes to compete and succeed in that space. I'd only start if I had a couple of really good coders and a time machine, excellent traffic strategy and content that sells itself, or burning desire and ambition to be a food blogger no matter if it resulted in financial gain.
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    • Profile picture of the author Emp
      Thanks.. hmm but if i copy good content, then drive traffic via ads (e.g. fb). And I target specially my local market.

      Do you think its viable?

      Originally Posted by nettiapina View Post

      You're right to suspect that it's hard to rank for this kind of content. Originality is not a big thing for Google, but there's more authoritative sites that have very similar recipes. Everything you write may end up in supplemental index unless you can come up with some kind of strategy to combat that.

      I know couple of guys who started what's basically a recipe website. They did it several years ago when internet wasn't this congested with copies of the same, and chose to do it in their small native market and in their native language. In addition to being early enough their main trick was to make the site user edited. At the moment they boast 50k+ recipes and 70k+ user accounts, and have one of the largest local media companies as a majority shareholder.

      Just an example of what it takes to compete and succeed in that space. I'd only start if I had a couple of really good coders and a time machine, excellent traffic strategy and content that sells itself, or burning desire and ambition to be a food blogger no matter if it resulted in financial gain.
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      • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
        Originally Posted by Emp View Post

        Do you think its viable?
        Sorry, but there's not enough data here to really say anything. Depends on what you mean by local, and if you're targeting a language too, and if that language happens to be one of the major languages, and what kind of competition are you facing in that market.

        Driving traffic would be a good initial strategy, but your product has to be top notch for that to translate to SEO success. Those visitors would have to backlink you. Traffic in itself isn't a SEO factor.
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  • Profile picture of the author tzman
    It's hard to drive traffic from search engines with those type of sites, but you can always use pinterest to drive good traffic to your site.When you get traffic then your can rank your site trough social networks by allowing people to share and like your website content.
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    • Profile picture of the author DABK
      If you end up doing, make sure people vote and give stars to your recipes... I often look for recipes online and if there are no stars, I don't even notice it... less than 4 stars, though, I don't care to try it.

      1 tsp of sugar, is indeed repeated on all those sites. Want to make yours stand out? Before you get to 1tsp of sugar, you write a bit about your day prior to starting cooking...

      Like:

      Felt like something new today. Didn't have grandma's gnochi with Bolognese sauce in a while, so, that's going to be what's for dinner. In the meantime, I feel like something sweet and, looking through my notes, came upon this sugary heaven: bird's milk.

      Here's the recipe

      1 tbs sugar


      Now, you've got a lot of content that's not like anyone else's... Yes, Google looks at individual words but I'm betting it knows all pies and cakes require sugar and cooking involves a lot of tsb, TBS and oz and pinches, so I don't think it pays that much attention to those words.

      By the way, some 20 years ago, Bon Apetit, an American cooking monthly, ran contests... Original recipes only. They considered a recipe to be original if it had 2 ingredients different from anyone elses...

      So, if you took your grandma's apple pie recipe and replaced sugar with honey and vanila extract with cinnamon, and kept everything else, you could enter and expect to win, if the palates of the judges thought your new 2 ingredients were tastier than anyone else's 2 new ingredients.
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    • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
      Originally Posted by tzman View Post

      It's hard to drive traffic from search engines with those type of sites, but you can always use pinterest to drive good traffic to your site.
      That's not a bad idea. I'm not sure how popular Pinterest really is, but it's visual as opposed to pure text search. I know a bunch of ladies who've done really well on Pinterest, but their core product is wedding design, and one of them is a semi-professional photographer.

      Of course, there's the obvious downside: you'd need some excellent photos of the final product.
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  • Profile picture of the author AntonioSeegars1
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    • Profile picture of the author DABK
      No, not correct to assume that.

      It's correct to assume that Google doesn't care if it's copied info that's already on other sites.

      What Google cares about has to do with who has more links, then who has better links, the OP or the other people.

      Originally Posted by AntonioSeegars1 View Post

      Your are corrent to assume that Google won't like your site since you are copying information that is already on other sites that also have more authority than yours does. One thing that you can do to makeup for this, is to focus on using longtail keywords that people use when they are talking about the recipes that you are posting. If the other sites aren't using these, it will be easy for you to rank high in search engines for these keywords.
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  • Profile picture of the author TheWriteOne
    You got it right,

    "Regardless of how much you rewrite, there's always lots of similar words like "a table spoon of sugar" or "3 eggs whisked together", you know and other similar phrases."

    No matter how hard you rephrase it, it will be the same.

    but the fact is its hard to make traffic from search engines with those type. try to use social media like Pinterest to create a good traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mary Popowa
    1. Find a popular keyword / phrase for your recepies, ex: 20 delishious deserts with Coconut sugar ( both Coconut and sugar are very popular ones)

    2. Go on fiverr, odesk...etc and post a request something like "I need 20 original recepies with original photos for deserts made with Coconut sugar, I will pay $5-10 per recepie"

    3. Outsource here or on fiverr, odesk..etc who will combine for you, proofread, made as kindle e-book .

    4. Upload on kindle.

    Now ... you don't have to compete with gazillions, you just need to drive traffic to your kindle ebook, its get so much easier.
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