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Optimizing Lowell.com

I thought I would give an update on the progress of Lowell.com. While I launched the site publicly a couple of weeks ago, I have been working on many content updates, adjustments, and additions to optimize the site for search and to promote stickiness. In the past two weeks, the site’s ranking has grown quite a bit (probably because of the new content), but there is a long way to go until I am satisfied. I am not in a rush to generate advertising revenue, so I don’t plan on soliciting advertisers until I feel the site is ready. Although I have had inquiries, I am planning to wait until I believe the site is optimized and ready to roll.
While I haven’t been able to stick to this religiously, my goal has been to add a page of content just about every day to grow the site. It is much more manageable to build a new page a day rather than becoming overwhelmed by adding many pages at a time. Doing this also gives me time to think about different topics of interest in Lowell that might be searched to help drive traffic to the site. I used Aaron Wall’s Keyword Tool to do the keyword research, and I also used Google News results to help me find other topics of interest. Also, I used the tool to purchase a few domain names of keyword strings that were unregistered – such as FrancisCabotLowell.com, and I forwarded them to appropriate pages within the site (thanks to Rob Grant for that suggestion!)
One thing I am very much against are having user reviews on the site. Although it will presumable increase stickiness and site awareness, I don’t want to have to police user comments. If three people post a negative comment about Joe’s Steakhouse, I don’t want to be responsible for making sure the comments are legit and not Joe’s competitors. I don’t want to deal with the legal liability that a forum/review site could pose – at least not right now. Perhaps when the site has grown it will be an option, but I decided against it for now.
I recently added a news section which uses the WordPress blogging platform. I’ve been told blogs are looked upon favorably by Google, so frequent news updates should help the site with ranking. Last week when I was in Lowell, my fiancee and I were enjoying a coffee at a sidewalk coffee shop and happened to have a nice conversation with the patron at the next table. It turns out he is the band director of the city high school, and the band had just returned home from a competition they won in Virginia. Of course, that was a great story that I blogged about – complete with two YouTube videos. While I won’t become a “source” for most news articles, I will write about the happenings in the city that would be of interest to residents and visitors.
I also added two neat features using feeds from other websites. GasBuddy.com has a feature that allows me to create a page with a feed from their site to offer local gas prices in the city. On the Lowell Gas Prices page, I have the ten least expensive gas stations in Lowell listed, and this is updated daily. Additionally, I used the three day weather forecast from iBegin.com and paired that with a chart of monthly record and average temperatures on the Lowell Weather page. While I have a small weather widget on the home page, I hope to drive some traffic from people looking for weather records or a longer weather forecast for the area.
I met with city officials in Lowell, and they didn’t seem keen on the calendar I envisioned. Since they have been building a main city calendar that will be utilized by non-profits and governmental agencies, they asked me to not list those types of activities on my calendar. Their calendar will have RSS capabilities, so I will link to those instead. Additionally, I will be listing various business events – such as happy hours and live bands at local night clubs. This will enable me to link to the Lowell ticket site as well and hopefully generate revenue that way.
Whenever I visit another website (large or small), I always look for ideas that can be adapted to Lowell.com and eventually Burbank.com and Salinas.com. The goal is to drive traffic to the site, and encourage people to return by giving them a reason to come back (gas prices for example).
I will get into a revenue generation discussion more in a week, but ideally the site will be optimized before I go out and solicit business. When I was in Lowell, there was strong interest from the few business owners I met, and I told them I would be in touch. I want to make sure the product I am offering meets my standards before trying to sell it. I want to give advertisers a reason to advertise on Lowell.com other than the fact that it’s Lowell.com (which isn’t a good reason). I want to be able to say, we are #1 for the term “lowell,” #2 for “lowell restaurants”….etc. We aren’t there yet, but that’s what we are working on at the moment.

Great Coincidence in Lowell

I just had a great tour of the Whistler Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts led by the museum’s curator. As a history buff and art lover, the museum tour was great, and I saw some nice pieces of art, in addition to making a new friend and contact in the process. I am planning to do this type of thing quite a bit to meet people who live in Lowell and to learn about the city of Lowell so I can make the make Lowell.com a useful resource to residents and visitors.
In the process of the museum tour, I met the artist in residence, who is a very friendly lady and a talented painter. After I introduced myself and told her about my website, she let me know she would check it out when she had a chance. She also told me she planned to check out another city .com website for an upcoming visit to her daughter who lives in the midwest. Since she had never been to this city, she wanted to learn about the history and about some of the art related places in the area.
Incidentally, the city where her daughter lives is Nashville, Tennessee, and of course she plans to visit Nashville.com, owned by the Castello Brothers.   What a small world!

Thank You!

Thank you very much to those of you who voted for me in the 2008 Name Intelligence Users Choice Awards. I am very honored to share the award for Best Blog Community with Frank Schilling (SevenMile.com) and Frank Michlick and Adam Strong (DomainNameNews.com). I enjoy sharing my domain investment and development experiences with you, and I am glad you enjoy reading!
The list of 2008 Name Intelligence Users Choice award winners:
Registrar with the Largest Net Gain – GoDaddy
Best Registrar for Resellers – Enom
Outstanding Drop Catcher – NameJet
Outstanding Secondary Market – Sedo
Best Registrar – Moniker
Best Parking Company (tie): Sedo and Parked.com
Best Aftermarket – Afternic
Best Forum – DNForum.com
Best Blog Community (3-way tie): SevenMile.com (Frank Schilling), Elliot’s Blog (Elliot Silver) and Domain Name News (Adam Strong and Frank Michlick).
Best Industry Coverage – DNJournal.com

Registering for Kicks

I know this is contrary to some things I’ve said in the past few weeks, but today I feel like registering a few new domain names. Lately, I’ve felt quite a bit of pressure due to a variety of factors (mainly the launch of a new website), and there’s nothing like finding some nice unregistered names to get me back in the domain spirit!
To find some hidden gold, I am going to start by doing some Google research on new technology trends. I am going to think about ways in which people might go online to search about the new technology, and perhaps buy a domain name or two. I do keyword research when buying domain names in the aftermarket, so why not do some hypothetical keyword research on my own. I will ask myself, “if this thing gets big, how will people search for it?” I don’t necessarily need to rely on what scientists or developers are calling it – more like how people will intuitively search for it.
I really enjoy this aspect of domain investing. In some respects, I felt like I went from a gold miner to a jeweler, as I decided I would be better off developing a few of my domain names rather than relying on the sale of my names to make a living. While some people have the luxury of earning passive PPC revenue, I am more interested in building a business.
Sure it’s difficult and unchartered territory for me, but I am working with a great developer, a few great SEO “advisors,” and I have been receiving amazing advice from people who are already very successful. With guidance from experienced veterans, the development process is much easier. Today, though, I am going back to my roots and going to search for some domain nuggets.

Castello Brothers' Interview

I was away for much of the weekend, so I didn’t have a chance to listen to Ed’s interview with David and Michael Castello until today. The Castellos are two of the smartest guys in the industry, and this is a great interview. As I’ve mentioned many times, David and Michael gave me tons of great advice along the way to developing Lowell.com, and I am grateful to them for their contributions.
I recommend that you take some time to listen to the interview when you have a chance.

Conceptualist: How DNZoom was Built

On Sahar’s Blog today, Sean Stafford writes about how DNZoom came about and how the company is helping domain owners manage their portfolios. Sean discusses how his desire to build a management system for his own domain names led to the creation of an application that can now be used by other professionals in the industry.
DNZoom is now a part of the Bido portfolio, and Sean is at the forefront of the domain industry. Read the full article on Sahar’s Blog.

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