Ayesha S

Made my own food recipe site

My Own Lane • Trabajador autónomo

Jan 2026 - Present • 5 mos

I built a custom recipe blog from scratch, focused entirely on air fryer seafood recipes, and grew it using real keyword research rather than guesswork. Every article on the site was planned around search intent — I looked at what people were actually typing into Google, checked what was already ranking, and identified gaps I could fill better than the existing competition. The site now has around 50 original recipe articles, each built around a primary keyword with supporting long-tail variations woven naturally into the content. I didn't just stuff keywords in — I structured every piece with proper on-page SEO: optimized meta titles, meta descriptions, clear H2/H3 hierarchy, and internal linking between related recipes so Google (and readers) can navigate the site logically. One of the biggest parts of this project was building a pillar-cluster internal linking architecture. I created one main pillar guide page, several category hub pages, and dozens of individual recipe articles, all interlinked with a clear relationship map — so authority flows properly through the site instead of every page existing in isolation. This kind of structural SEO work is something most content writers skip entirely, but it's a big part of why pages actually start ranking and staying ranked. Because of this approach, several articles on the site have started showing up in Google's search results for their target keywords, without relying on paid ads or shortcuts. It's been a genuinely rewarding project — I started it because I wanted a real example of what I could build, not just write, and it's taught me a lot about how Google actually evaluates recipe and food content (things like content structure, mobile-first formatting, and schema-friendly layout). I'm planning to eventually grow this site further and potentially sell it, but more importantly, it's proof that I don't just write content — I think about strategy, structure, and long-term SEO performance from the ground up. This i