I've been bouncing this idea around for a while but I'm not sure what direction to take it, or if even to start it. I appreciate your input and experiences. I already have a decent website/blog about home/decorating/shopping topics and was thinking to create a spin-off site focusing more on kitchens/food/recipes and such. Creating a site that is too generalized (like my current home site) means that my following isn't loyal enough and it's impossible to please everyone all the time. Getting traffic is made a little easier though. I was thinking about putting the focus on the recipe/cooking part of the site as my wife is a fantastic cook and wants to be a part of the website. I wanted to photograph and film all the meals we make so we can have pictures and video instructions accompany the recipes. My concern is that even with this approach and high quality (old) recipes this website will have little innovation and therefore few people will want to visit/participate/subscribe making it a huge waste of resources (as it would be an expensive project to get going). Another twist is to focus on recipes that GUYS can use, little or no baking, pastas, salads, grill, etc... but keep it simple, fast and good. As a guy however I know that a simple recipe/cooking site isn't going to get me coming back. Any Ideas? Has anyone had success with a recipe/cooking/kitchen site and would like to share some advice? PMs welcome. Pete
Honestly I think your video's is a pretty good idea. There are lotso f recipe sites out there and I think might set you apart from the others. Another thing you might consider is that I came across a recipe site one time that focused on recipe's from popular restaurants such as Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Chili's, etc. The recipe's were usually posted by previous workers who have worked there. You might be able to take those recipe's and actually make a video of them and palce them on your own website. I'm not sure how companies would feel about this, but that website is still up and running and they are the ones that leaked the information!
PHPGator, I see your point. I guess my concerns were that I'd never be able to create as much content as sites like foodnetwork.com and other giants... but I guess that's a whole other ballgame, after all I never would have started my home/furniture website if I compared it to HGTV.com and others. I like the "famous recipe" suggestion, a lot of people look for those restaurant recipes online so that might work really well. Has anyone else tried something similar? How about marketing your own cookbook or cook-ebook on the website?
One suggestion I can give is to absolutely, under no condition, advertise simple meals as being "for guys". As a girl, I like simple meals. I'm eating a grilled cheese sandwich as I speak. My boyfriend, on the other hand, loves to cook, and where I'll make mashed potatoes for dinner he'll have made a 3-course 5-star meal. However, I think publishing a cookbook and selling it would work well. If you have a community of recipe submitters, eventually having the best recipes put together and published in an actual paper book could earn you quite a good wad of cash. You really risk alienating members of both genders with a gender-specific section.
I get your point and agree with you about alienating people with gender specific recipes. On the other hand, being a guy and living as a bachelor and husband... I can say that most guys *I* hung out with weren't too big on cooking unless it was in front of a BBQ. In fact I'd rather go hungry than cook something (including a sandwich)... But I agree with you, it's a personal thing and I should avoid labeling it as guy/gal or other. I was originally thinking about turning it into a sort of "cooking club". Some basic content would be made public to entice people to join while the bulk of content was "member only". I also wanted membership to include a DVD mailed monthly to your home address with full videos of all the month's recipes and some extras... yearly cookbook and DVD, etc... for a monthly fee. I'm always torn between making something "free access", "ad supported" or "members only" because I like to think of the Internet as a medium for exchanging ideas and information. On the other hand, it's business and by paying for something people are getting higher quality content. Tough one. Thanks for the help by the way, some great points/ideas!
I don't think it is about quantity as much as it is about quality... you know what i've had problems finding on the net? A good recipe for wild birds such as pheasant and quail. We've tried several different methods of cooking these animals and they always come out dry and not very good flavor. I would imagine something like that would be pretty useful... especially if it was done in video format since most guys, such as myself, can't simply take a recipe and throw it all together and make it come out like it was supposed to.
Funny you mention that as I was looking for some wild game recipes not long ago myself. (couldn't find any good ones) Good point, quality and a focus on the harder to find stuff can beat the big guys. Any thoughts on the membership vs. free issue?
A friend of mine is a well-respected nutritionist. He was recently recruited by a recipes site to provide nutritional info on their recipes. I thought that was kind of a cool idea. My buddy charges a lot, but I bet you could find a newb nutritionist to do it for peanuts.
Bedago, good idea. I think I heard/saw that some places provide basic info based on the ingredients that are used in the recipe... if you weigh them accurately then you should be able to calculate things like calories, fat, etc... or at least I *think* it's possible. I'll have to look into it.