I own http://www.free-recipes.co.uk/ which has recently been updated to run through a CMS (WordPress) rather than a semi static 11,000 odd pages (was a nightmare to administer)!! Currently got around 35,000 recipes and working on getting it to 100,000 (would be there now but WordPress is struggling with 35K posts, so stopped adding them). The main income from the site is from AdSense through around 6,000 impressions a day which works out around $20 a day. Also has a set of Amazon affiliate stores like http://www.free-recipes.co.uk/kitchen-appliances/ which at first did quite well, at it's peak the site was making over $80 a day from Amazon and AdSense because those store brought in an extra 6k-10k visitors a day (most from Google). Since Google hates thin affiliate sites it penalised the Amazon stores and now they see a trickle of traffic and probably make a couple of dollars a day through Amazon! I've not really put a great deal of effort into the site and know I'm wasting an opportunity, so looking for ways to monetize the traffic better, maybe even do something big with the site. I used to run an ecommerce site and that level of traffic results in around £80,000 in sales (£25K profit) a year so comparatively speaking (about £3.5K profit from AdSense) so can do much better. Just started (few days ago) adding recipe ebooks to the site, (added 2 so far, can probably get to 20) but don't expect that to make much money, but it will be all automated so not going to take up much time. So looking for ideas of what to do with this site next? I would consider selling products, the Amazon stores proved the site can make a lot of product sales, not just recipe books, but gourmet food, kitchen appliances and even vacuum cleaners My sites (not just this one) has sold over $400,000 worth of Amazon products (a lot of them from this site) since March 2005, but that only made me $32K since the affiliate % from Amazon is low (4-10%). So selling something direct could work quite well as long as the markup is good. Looking for ideas. David Law
Good to know it's not only me that can't think of what to do with this site next Have managed to double my AdSense CTR this month (last week anyway) by better placed ads and removing ad borders, so making a little more cash, but still not getting the most out of this traffic. David Law
I guess just try other affiliates (take a look at CJ.com) and sell cooking products. Looks like you got the traffic, and you're making some income already. Just build on it. Oh, and by the way, could I ask where you got the recipes from originally? I'm looking to add some to a new community site in development (not directly cooking related, more money-saving). Please PM me if you want to chat about it
Thanks for the input. I got the recipes online (using Google as always) in a bunch of different formats, after a little processing put them into a MySQL database and voila a big website filled with recipes. Originally had 11,000 recipes in static HTML files I added almost by hand, now that was a pain! My 16 year old son (eldest of three lads) used the same concept with a different source of recipes and created http://www.free-recipe.co.uk/ (so I own free-recipeS.co.uk and he owns free-recipe.co.uk ) I think he has 5,000 recipes, so not hard to find them (I have about 200K in different formats, pain to get them in a working format). Wish I had a Dad or someone to copy money making ideas from when I was 16: I worked as a civil engineers assistant on a road project (part of the A38 in Nottinghamshire) 60 hrs a week for £55, all three of my kids have multiple websites on my server for free, free SEO advice, free SEO and AdSense themes, free links (PR6 for http://www.warcraft-world.co.uk/, eldest sons again and he's done no link building!), everything is free (I should charge them a monthly fee ). David Law
Just think that one day they will be making so much money from sites you helped them create that they will be able to pay for you when you retire. Why don't you run a competition for people to vote for the best recipes and then make your own recipe book that you can sell in hard copy and ebook style. Also have a look around in places like www.globalsources.com for some products you can purchase at wholesale rates. I think that way, even though you will have more risk, your Profit Margin should be a lot better. I hope I gave you something to think about. Regards, Jared.
LOL, I find my youngest son the most encouraging. He's 11 and a very good artist, asked me to buying him a graphics tablet and started showing me £50 models online. They were low quality, so got him to look again and he found a really good one for £180, but he wanted to pay me back from his websites income and from sales when he starts selling his images, you have to be proud of something like that, especially for an 11 year old One of his latest creations with his new graphics tablet- Sorry it's a bit big, he did it for another forum to show his work. That's not a bad idea, might use that when I get all the recipes added (there's a lot of sections missing right now). Thanks, will take a look at what they can supply when I get some time. I am coming to the conclusion to make the most of this traffic I'm going to have to sell real products. David Law
Wow you're 11 year old is very talented. Well done for helping him in what he wants to do. I'm sure it will pay off like he says!
Having some server problems, looking into it now. First problem with this server since I got it about 4 months ago (100% up time until today ) David Law
David I have unique ideas for promoting a recipe site. But it takes time to do the thing but after wards you would be unique from other sites. Hope fully it will effect your CTR ROI and your lead marketing. If your interested I could forward you how to promote your recipe site. "NO its I don't want money" I just share the method. But of course you would have to do some work to promote it. No working = No Income! Good luck by the way contact me via pm
Amazes me near enough every day with what he can draw! His Mum has artistic abilities as well and so they do a lot of stuff together, he's got that good I can't tell the difference between their work now! His elder brothers (and me for that matter) are about as artistic as a broken toaster Trying to get him to make me some stuff, was working on images for a WordPress theme at http://www.ultimate100.net/ (test site), was to be a rough drawn version of the theme (like the header you see now) and then a full colour version, but he's young so not rushing him to get it done. Quite funny seeing an 11 year old come up with ideas to make money, this week he's made a start on a "how to" type art book (how to draw manga pictures) and a comic, apparently have to buy some comic book creating software next week as a trial version of some software runs out then . David Law
I think it is great that you are purchasing him the things he needs to improve his talent. I think that as long as you can afford it you can never buy him too much stuff (as long as it will be used to further his talent). So much better than buying him a Playstation or Xbox. Also Global Sources is great, but only buy the stuff when it is on special (Just a bit of advice) and ask if you can get a sample first. Some of the supliers are slow to respond to emails so you may need to splash out and call them yourself. I saw and electric pepper mill which I was tempted to buy a while back, which might suit your site.