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Dog Walker Directory Site Launch

Elliot Silver
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45

DogWalker.comMy wife and I live in New York City with our 2 year old dog, Lucy, and on occasion, we need to use the services of a dog walker. We are fortunate to live in a large apartment building because it’s easy to find a dog walker via word of mouth, since there are so many dog owners in the building.

However, there are many people who don’t necessarily have dog walker contacts, and they rely on sites like Craigslist to find dog walkers and companies who offer dog walking services in addition to other pet-related services. There are only a couple of websites that cater specifically to connecting dog owners and dog walkers.

With dog walkers earning up to $20 per dog for a 15 minute walk (sometimes even more), I believe there is a big reason why dog walkers should advertise, and with the launch of my latest targeted website, they have a place to advertise by city. With a whole lot of help of my from designer, Mike McAlister of Six One Five Design, I launched DogWalker.com, a domain name I recently acquired.

As with every website launch, there are still a few issues to fix. Some of the search functionality isn’t working as well as we’d like, and I need to get advertisers to fill the directory! This is the launch of my first automated directory, and I am eager to see if this will take off, since I have a few other names that would do well with this set up.

Here are a couple of pages you can visit to see how things will look:

I have a thousand DogWalker.com magnets, and I will be paying a graduate student to hand them out in a few parks in NYC on the next few weekends. I figure if dog owners are visiting the site, dog walkers will want to advertise. I also plan to email dog walkers to let them know about the new site and hopefully sign up some advertisers. Perhaps local pet stores will permit me to leave magnets at their register. The beauty is that the marketing of the site should remain fairly inexpensive.

When you have a moment, please have a look at the site and let me know if you find any glitches. Any suggestions/recommendations on improving search functionality and SEO would be appreciated. I am considering adding a autocomplete search feature to help direct visitors to the correct city listing pages.

Next up… DogTrainer.com 🙂

Garry Chernoff Launches eCommerce Sites

Elliot Silver
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11

I saw this press release today and wanted to pass the information along to my readers.   Garry Chernoff owns one of the best portfolios of generic domain names (as you will see below), and he is a pioneer in the domain investment industry. I hope he will share the results from these development efforts.

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Penticton, B.C., Canada (PRWEB) November 19, 2009 — Canadian based NetIncome Ventures, an established domain investment and web development company founded and headed by serial entrepreneur Garry Chernoff has publicly launched dozens of shopping websites earlier this week just in time for the holiday shopping season. The e-commerce websites include HockeyJerseys.com, BabyMonitors.com, FaxMachines.com and dozens more of niche specific e-commerce shops featuring hundreds of thousands of products.

Garry’s vision for the websites into 2010 and beyond is to become leaders in their respective niches by featuring a complete product catalog where each and every visitor can research and purchase exactly what they are looking for in one place and for the most affordable prices around. NetIncome Ventures has already teamed up with leading retailers and includes products from Buy.com, Boscov’s, OnlineSports.com, Fans Edge, ShoppersChoice.com, The Shopping Channel, Overstock.com, NBC Universal Store, Autogeek.com and hundreds of other strategic partners and popular internet based discount stores.

NetIncome Ventures Inc currently owns thousands of targeted and category leading keyword domain names such as BridalShop.com, Beads.com, CellShop.com, MensWear.com, Replica.com, Runners.com, SportsGear.com, Veils.com, etc. and plans to develop and launch at least a few hundred more e-commerce shops by March of 2010. Mike Cohen of WannaDevelop.com and NYC based Logiko group have been coordinating all web development and marketing efforts for NetIncome Ventures newly launched shopping e-businesses.

“We have put in a lot of time and effort into these websites the past few month’s and with Garry Chernoff’s guidance and vision from day one we have been able to accomplish a truly great thing here with this week’s launch and mass deployment of dozens of category specific websites on targeted keyword domains that can now serve visitors from across the globe as a one stop shop featuring product catalogs of up-to 100,000 or even more relevant and unique items on each and every website.”

SEO Question: Indexing Website Search Results

Elliot Silver
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14

I have a search engine optimization question, and I couldn’t find it elsewhere. I know there are a number of pro SEOs who read my blog during some free time, and I am hoping someone can provide some feedback/advice for a site I am currently developing.

I am building a search based directory right now, and people can search for providers by city/state or zip code, which will yield the results pages, some of which will hopefully be filled with my advertisers. Since the pages will only technically exist when people search for them, will they be indexed in Google? If I create a site map with text links to all US cities, states, will that be sufficient?

For example, say I am developing LocalPlumber.com, and the results page for Chicago would be found when someone searches, yielding this url: http://www.LocalPlumber.com/?s=Chicago%2C+IL. Would the search result be indexed in Google – and if not, how can I be sure to get it indexed in Google/Yahoo for the keywords?

Thanks if you can help!

My Experience with Forums

Elliot Silver
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8

On two of my more heavily trafficked websites (Burbank.com and TropicalBirds.com), I added forums for people to chat and have discussions. Since the domain names were fairly targeted, I assumed that people would be happy to join and begin interacting, which would help build brand awareness and recognition. I was wrong.

On TropicalBirds.com, I added the forum and paid a company to seed the forum with posts. I also added links to the forum on the sidebar of every page, and in some of the text as well. While the comment seeding initially spurred a bit of discussion on TropicalBirds.com, that didn’t last long. There were heavy periods of quiet, with the occasional sign-up. Not a very good result.

Likewise with Burbank.com, I added links on the home page and side navigation. I also added a “discuss” icon and link on news articles, after I created a topic in the forum. Although there is more traffic to the Burbank.com forum than TropicalBirds.com, there is little discussion.

I had heard spam could be a big issue with a forum, but I don’t really have that problem. I had a bunch of spammy sign-ups with TropicalBirds.com, so I made it so that I need to approve all new members.

Forums can be successful, but those require significant moderation efforts and time to contribute. If you are thinking about adding a forum to your website in order to make it come to life, it could be a waste of time and money if you are committed to running it. Forums can be very good for a developed domain name, but they certainly aren’t a magic bullet.

Increase Readership by Sharing Personal Stories

Elliot Silver
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0

When you are building a website, one thing I think you can do to help build your brand and readership is to share personal stories with your readers. If they have a vested interest in getting to know more about you, they will also probably be more interested in visiting your website and referring it to friends.

This morning I was checking out Kennel.com, a CCIN website. I read the story about David’s first experience with a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Although I couldn’t relate to the death of a dog, I immediately thought about my dog, Lucy.

Yesterday, when my wife and I were walking her off leash in Central Park, she decided to check out an area that was under construction and cordoned off. The area has thick brush, and we couldn’t find her for close to 10 minutes, but it felt like much longer. Eventually, my wife saw a construction worker sitting under a veranda and called down to him to ask if he had seen a dog. He looked behind him, and said, “you mean this one right here?”

Anyhow, if you can write an article or story on your site where readers can relate, they will probably return – and/or comment, which could stimulate further conversation. This is one reason why it’s good to focus on developing websites on domain names with topics of interest to you.

Piece of Advice Before You Develop

Elliot Silver
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10

It’s a beautiful (but cold) Saturday in New York City, and I want to head out, so I will keep this post brief. Before you develop a domain name into a website, you should map out your 3, 6, and 12 month plan for the site. I didn’t do this on a few of my websites, and I am regretting it.

With my geodomain names, I did not build them on a content management system (CMS) like WordPress or Joomla. I didn’t have the expertise and didn’t ask the right questions. I gave direction like I knew exactly what I wanted, and I got exactly what I asked to have built. Basically every time I want to add a page of content, I need to do it in Dreamweaver and then make a few tweaks on other related pages, sitemap, home page…etc. With a CMS like WordPress, it would be automatic. Instead of taking 15 minutes to post an article (not counting the writing part), it takes 5 minutes. My bad. You don’t need to make the same mistake.

You should also think about how often you plan to work on the site and add content or business listings. If you want to be hands-off, you should use a platform that will allow others to add their listings (for a fee or free) where you can simply moderate it. I didn’t do this on my sites, so this is a struggle. I get listing requests practically every day, so it’s a lot of additional work for me. It isn’t difficult, but it can be time consuming.

One reason you need to think about where you will be in a few months and/or even years is that development can be expensive, especially. However, if you go about it the wrong way, it can be even more expensive and anxiety-provoking down the road. I am very thankful this blog was built on WordPress because it’s pretty easy to make changes to design, advertising, and even the SEO is practically done for me with a few plugins.

It’s essential to consider the amount of revenue you can derive from your site when you are making your plans. If you don’t really think people will pay for listings or advertisers won’t pay to be on your site, you should reconsider development. It can be expensive, and if you don’t really have a business plan, it can be a huge waste of money for you.

Because of the lack of knowledge I had when I started, I have to make a decision about whether to use a CMS on my geodomain names and then import all of my content, which will be a tedious and time consuming (expensive) job. Eventually I will get around to doing it, but there are other decisions and ramifications that will result.

The newest site I am working on will be an automated directory and should have limited online involvement from me. I’ve learned my lesson and gained enough knowledge, which I hope can help you as you develop.

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