Recipe Site ... New site, It Exists, Questions about SEO, eBooks, List Buidling & More (super newb)

1 replies
Hello Warriors!

I “think” I belong here. First post. It's a doozy!

I’ve been lurking for about a month. It’s time to post! It seems that in order of priority, priority one is to “get started” and have quality content that you care about. CHECK!

I have built my site and added content. It’s a low carb/sugar free recipe site. It is firmly “rolling” (see signature). The site is 100% me, from the design, to the infrastructure displaying the recipes, every word, photograph and ingredient used … all mine. I’ve done some basic SEO and have started reaching into the social networks.

It seems priority two is … build a list. I have started to build a list through MailChimp. My site is less than 30 days old, and without really trying, I’ve amassed about 80 total strangers (mostly women between 35-45) with an open rate of about 70%. I’ve gotten about 7000 unique visits to the site since I’ve started. I have NO idea if these are good numbers, or if I should be sweating …

I have ZERO advertising or affiliate links or relationships, but I designed the system to accommodate them. Any recipe line can have a link easily added to go to specialty products. I can also insert anything I want into the template, itself. It’s my site, from the ground up … I can do what I want with it (provided I’ve got the technical savvy … which … I might and I might not). The site has a good deal of intelligence built into it.

I feel very good about what I’ve started and I do have a long term vision. The ultimate goal is to write and sell my own cookbooks, display targeted ads and to include affiliate links within the recipes. It’s VERY important to me that people feel there is quality experience, a positive pulse in the site, and that they are getting exception value in their every interaction with my website and it’s various extensions (RSS feeds, social networks, etc).

Currently, I’m starting to realize how much work this really is! Writing, promoting, cooking, photographing, photoshopping, researching topics to discuss, coding, checking nutrition for the recipes, etc. … it’s a lot. In my spare time, I’m researching website promotion, SEO, affiliate marking schemes, ebook publication, etc. I’m feeling understaffed and overwhelmed with severe information overload. I’m starting to lose track of my priorities.

Short term goal is to have 100 recipes within the next 2 months. I also plan to redesign the template to something more friendly and warm. This one was built to help me build the information infrastructure and to get it started. A “pretty” one … is forthcoming. I want all of this to coincide with a free eBook (50 super low carb, clean whole, nutritious recipes, shopping lists, meal plans, links to more info and my uber-inspirational story!). This was originally intended to be used to encourage sign ups. HOWEVER, it seems reasonable that the book could be sent out into the world, to be “sold” … purely in an effort to gain traffic for the site. For example, I could sell it for $x.xx and take on some affiliates who sell it for a 100% profit. I make nothing and only keep name recognition and the traffic it generates. In 3 to 6 months time, I stop the sales of the book and then use it for new registrations to the site.

What would you do in this situation? Sell it as an eBook on Amazon Kindle? Use affiliates here? How do I start? Ultimately, I do plan to use it as a way to encourage registration.

Also, I’m finding myself confused on the whole “keywords” topic. I’m not sure I understand how/why to pick keywords or how to get “ranked” for them. I’m very strongly considering outsourcing someone to help build backlinks and work with me on exception SEO. What other tasks might you recommend I outsource?

Longer term vision is for more rock solid and substantial cookbooks. 3, in particular. This is a good 18 months away, though. By then, I’ll have upwards of 500 free recipes on the site, and 70 to 80 blog posts. Hopefully, I'll have a very strong list by then, as well.

Again, it’s VERY important to me to maintain a high quality experience for people. I never want them to feel like they’re being sold something. This is why I’ve got no ads or links on the site, yet. I’m happy to wait a few months to start layering this stuff in. I want to encourage registration and fear turning people away because of ads or too much of a push to buy something. However, I suspect there will be strong opinions on this topic, and I'm eager to hear them.

If I had to boil this email down into 3 questions, they would be:

  1. Do I belong here?
  2. I really need to step back and focus on a clearer set of priorities and plan of attack. In the past week, I’ve been doing a lot of “shooting in the dark”. No idea if I’ve been successful. I need more focus and more confidence that it’s a focus on the tasks with the greatest impact. I’m hopeful that some of you have seen something like what I’ve put together and are familiar with this stage in the game. What would you do, from here?
  3. Did I show everyone my cards? Was that dumb? It seems like there’s a lot of sharing and I could genuinely use the help.
Sorry for the long post. As you can see … I like to write!

Which way is up? :confused:

DJ
#buidling #ebooks #exists #list #newb #questions #recipe #seo #site #super
  • Profile picture of the author luvtrees
    Your site looks great. Don't get all hung up about monetizing your site, you need to do it if the site is going to be sustainable.

    You should build relationships with other food bloggers, then you can promote each other and you can even do guest posts. Do this by commenting on other popular blogs in the low carb niche.

    Use the food blog aggregators like Foodbuzz.com to promote your posts. Set up a Pinterest profile as well, post all your stuff on your Pinterest profile.

    Also, offer your cookbooks, when you are ready, on CreateSpace.com and Kindle.
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