Building a TCM Food Website From Zero β Month 1
π Key Takeaways
- What's next (Month 2) β Dietary changes show measurable improvements within this timeframe according to TCM clinical experience.
- Start today β Choose one recommended food from this article and incorporate it into your next meal. TCM food therapy works through consistent, small daily choices.
- Evidence-based TCM β Modern research increasingly validates traditional dietary approaches for measurable health improvements.
- Evidence-based TCM β Modern research increasingly validates traditional dietary approaches for measurable health improvements.
June 27, 2026 Β· Transparent Build Log
Five weeks ago I launched tcmplate.com β a reference site for traditional Chinese medicine food therapy. No marketing budget. No existing audience. Just a VPS and a lot of content. Here's the honest data for the first full week of tracking (June 20β27, 2026).
The Numbers
| Metric | This Week | Last Week |
|---|
| Unique visitors (non-bot) | 1,911 | 1,084 |
| Pinterest pins | 151 | β |
| Gumroad revenue | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Amazon clicks | 1 (test page) | β |
| Google clicks | 0 | 0 |
What "1,911 visitors" actually means
The nginx log counts every request. After filtering crawlers, the real number is closer to 30β40 humans per day. Most land on the homepage and leave. This is normal for a site with zero backlinks and DA 0.
What I built
- 405 ingredient profiles in Chinese with herbal properties and classical references
- 18 English blog posts on yang deficiency, summer cooling foods, TCM principles
- German and Spanish translations for every English post
- 12 English herb encyclopedia pages with classical citations (Shennong Bencao Jing, Bencao Gangmu)
- AI food therapy consultation β 56 assessments served this week
- Automated Pinterest β 30 pins/day, now with CTA-optimized descriptions
What's next (Month 2)
- Wikipedia citations from herb encyclopedia pages
- Weekly articles syndicated to Substack via RSS
- Cold outreach to TCM school faculty for byline articles
- Reddit community participation