A few years ago, when dynamic, interactive websites were not as common as they are now, we decided to showcase our database skills by setting up a simple demonstration website that would allow site visitors to edit the content online. Looking around for some suitable application I hit on my small collection of recipes that I’d been emailing to friends, and the Archetype recipe database was born.

I created two versions — the “play” versions, that visitors could edit, and a live uneditable version that contained myoriginal recipes. I’ve since found it a genuinely useful application — when I find a recipe in a magazine or on a website that I particularly like, I add it to the website and I can then easily find it again, no matter where I am.

But rather embarrassingly, it seems a lot of other people find it useful too. Our website is supposed to promote our web design services, but the recipe pages have become by far the most popular on the site — without bringing in hordes of prospects eager for us to make them a dynamic website too! Looking at the stats for search terms used to find our site is revealing:

sauce beurre citron 133 5.7 %
sauce pour poisson 121 5.2 %
tartiflette 72 3.1 %
tartiflette recipe 32 1.3 %
recette croustillon 27 1.1 %
pitta bread 20 0.8 %
pitta bread recipe 20 0.8 %
brochette de gambas 20 0.8 %
sauce citron beurre 20 0.8 %
recette sauce beurre citron 18 0.7 %
sauce mandarine 17 0.7 %
orange sauce for duck 16 0.6 %
pintade aux choux 16 0.6 %

… and so it goes on. I’m sure it can’t do our site much good in the search engines, in terms of ranking highly for web design!

But perhaps I should see this as an opportunity. When I realised how popular these pages were, I thought I might as well put some Amazon ads on them, but those have earned me about one cookbook every three years. Now I’ve decided to try putting Google AdSense ads on them — we’ll see if those do any better. So it’s turned out to be a useful space for experimentation with revenue models, and it helps me get aninsight into the economics of web publishing.

More generally, looking at the terms people use to find your site can be a useful exercise. It may alert you to new services you could offer them, if they are searching for products and services related to your business, but which you don’t currently offer. Hmm, on this evidence maybe we should start bottling and selling lemon butter sauce …