How to Build a Recipe Website
Creating your own web page can be very exciting, and a recipe theme is a classic choice. You will never run out of new material to post, and your family and friends will love participating in your "research." Keep in mind that there are many steps between deciding to start your own web page and passing out the URL to friends and family. Luckily, webpage creation is no longer the sole territory of technology students. With a little help along the way, your recipe web page will be ready to go.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Choose a name for your website. You will want something that is easy to remember so your readers will be able to track you down if they forget to bookmark your page. You will also want a name that clearly explains the purpose of your website to avoid confusion for first-time viewers. If your recipe website has a sub-niche, such as vegetarian recipes or low-fat recipes, you might want to somehow include this in the title, too.
-
2
Register your domain name. The most popular place to do this is GoDaddy.com, but there are many other options available to you. This will cost a small amount, so be sure to have a credit or debit card handy.
-
-
3
Buy hosting. You can usually do this with the same company you bought your domain name with. Prices will vary depending on how much bandwidth you want. In the beginning, the cheapest package will probably get you by, but as your website grows and your traffic increases you might consider getting a more expensive package. Some sites offer free hosting, but this is usually in exchange for ads being placed on your web page.
-
4
Collect as many recipes as you can before officially launching your web page. Scour recipe books, bug your friends, family, friend's families and co-workers. Offer them credit or links to their own web pages if they have them. You can also post on recipe forums or other online communities, asking for recipes. Not only will this ensure that you have plenty of recipes for your website, it will spread the word about your new project. People will already have incentive to give it a visit or tell their friends about it if they know one of their recipes will be featured.
-
5
Design your web page. You can either do this from scratch if you are competent in HTML, or you can find a publishing application to guide you through the process, such as WordPress, which provides over a thousand themes and can be customized any way you wish. Stuck on a color scheme? Try incorporating some red into your design. The color red subconsciously makes people think about food. Don't get caught up with all the graphics and plugins available. Remember that simpler is always better. The more bells and whistles you employ, the slower the page will load for your visitors. You will want a design that is simple, fresh, clean and inviting. You will also want all your recipes well-organized and easy to find.
-
6
Consider monetizing your website. The most common way to do this is by placing ads in the sidebars. Popular advertisers are Google Adsense, YPN or Chitika. As your website grows in reliability and popularity, you might get direct offers from businesses for advertisements. You can also use Amazon's Associates program to display recommended recipe books or kitchen appliances. If a viewer buys something you recommended, you will get a percentage of the sales.
-
7
Tell everyone your website is ready and waiting for them. Be sure to contact anyone who volunteered a recipe for you, with a link specifically to their contribution. You might also consider keeping an open invitation on your front page for more recipes along with your email address. Either way you will want to grow your recipe database so that your website will be a resource people come back to time and time again.
-
1
