Recipe Website not getting any organic search traffic

Hi there,

1). Do you have a Google search console account to check the visibility and indexation status of your website? If not, set it up. Besides that, install Yoast (for wordpress) and create sitemaps. Submit your sitemaps to Google.

2). Why did you migrate? I really like to old name though . You can let Google know by redirecting (301) old pages to the new pages. Now both are live and you have duplicate content issues.

Moreover, start reading here: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
Goodluck!

A few things. First, your content on the first site is hidden behind a signup. Google cannot see any of the recipes, nor can anyone else. They have to join the site. That greatly hurts your chances of ranking.

Second, I wouldn't bother worrying about search engine traffic. You are wasting your time. There are tons of recipe sites out there already. Unless you have deep pockets, you are unlikely to compete against them anytime in the next 3-4 years without spending some serious cash.

Where you can compete is on social media, and that is where I would focus.

If you are going to continue to worry about search traffic, ignore the advice above. Yoast and submitting a sitemap are not going to get you anywhere near competing with all the other recipe sites out there.

I would start by coming up with some kind of organization for your site. Your individual recipes are never going to rank without some clear kind of hierarchy. Your search thing is okay for visitors, but search engines cannot use that. So there is nothing for them to index for something like say chicken recipes.

I would recommend doing some research about silos. That is how you want to organize your site.

Also, why in the hell are there categories of fashion, travelling, and food in the categories? Get rid of that kind of junk.

Then I would start dropping some money on links. Get into the major paid directories. Start paying to have some of your recipes published on major cooking and related online websites with links back to your site.

Start with a budget of $3-4k per month if you want to compete with the major recipe sites out there.

Or, like I said, just forget SEO and focus on Facebook and Pinterest, which is what I would do.

I was once in the recipe niche, it's brutal on the SERPs and not easy to monetize.

There really isn't much difference between your 1st site and 2nd. I see you are using Yoast. At least your SEO and keywords should be ok, albeit you're using the main ones for your niche and some hidden goodies in the longtail keywords.

I think your biggest problem is duplicate content. In most cases Google doesn't like that. I see over 2,500 others have also gotten the Haintheme and you gone along with the Chow theme as well.

You are going to have to re-word some of the text on your new site along with adding much more. Google likes relevant content. Use your blog to add new content regularly. Be sure to have plenty... I mean a lot, of backlinks from relevant sources with an even spread of anchor text back to your site. Promoting a website for Adsense benefits is not a specialty of mine.

That's just a start. Good luck.

LastWarrior

I've got experience in this market and honestly I would give up on the serps - it's hard work for very little reward. Your time would be better spent on paid advertising and content marketing.

Before you do though I notice your images are also on foodnessgracious.com are you using stock photography?

People are rightly very protective of their own images and the last thing you want is to start to get some momentum and be got with a copyright claim.

Either way you'll be better off using your own photos.