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Wanted: Website Calendar Software

Elliot Silver
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7

I’ve been scouring Google for this, but have yet to come up with exactly what I need for Lowell.com, Burbank.com and Newburyport.com. I figure I will put out this request and hopefully hear from someone who knows of a calendar or who can build something for me inexpensively. I would prefer something “out of the box” though.

Calendar Needs:

1) Small calendar box, just as currently on the home page of the site.

2) When you click on the month or date, you are taken to a page on the site with search friendly (and unique)   URLs, such as http://www.burbank.com/calendar/2009/june or http://www.burbank.com/calendar/2009/may/30

3) All events for the day or month (whichever is clicked) will be listed on the page. So if you click on a specific day, you will arrive at a page with the individual daily events listed, with hyperlinks to take you to individual event listings.

4) Event listings will be indexed with search friendly urls, such as http://www.burbank.com/calendar/2009/summer-water-festival.php .   Meta description and keyword will be search friendly and stay indexed so people can find the event listing even if it already happened.

5) Web based calendar management system – not necessary for people to create their own log-ins unless that’s automatic, easy, or cheap to do.

Please post comments, suggestions, or price quote and I will be in touch.

My Mini Site Experience

Elliot Silver
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8

I have gained some first hand knowledge about mini site development, and I would like to share some of it in case it can be helpfu. Some of this knowledge has been gained from buying mini sites and putting those up, buying mini sites and adding content, and creating my own mini sites; while other information is somewhat obvious.

Domain names that I either own or sold, where I used mini sites include UniqueInk.com, BullRidingHelmet.com, Secaucus.com, FuelAssistance.com, WeddingEntertainment.com, Oenophiles.com, and DebtAssistanceClinic.com – all of which had/have different mini site set-ups.

I found that I had the most success when I purchased mini sites rather than having built them on my own. I was able to enhance the pre-fab sites by adding pages of content based on keyword research within the paramaters of the nice looking design. Not having to fuss with templates and pictures and the initial content saved me a few hours worth of time, and it gave me a great foundation to build out the sites even more.

I’ve discussed strategy to building out mini sites in previous posts, but basically I used the Google keyword tool (and others) to find out what people are looking for related to the topic, and I created pages based on this information.   The pages had limited but adequate information about the topic, and it included Adsense and/or links to the source of the topic. For example, on the page about an outlet mall, I linked to the outlet mall within the text. I also populated the pages with photos from iStockphoto.com, which are cheap and help enhance the appearance of a mini site.

The objective of a mini site is to make money from Adsense or advertising, but it’s also to provide a nice website that is liked/accepted by Google and by visitors. If a visitor leaves the site after 2 seconds, Google may give it a poor quality score, lowering its rankings on the SERPs. Ideally, traffic will grow on a mini site because of the Google rankings, so the lower CTR is hopefully offset by higher traffic. This is important to consider when building pages.

The only time I recommend that inexperienced developers (who have jobs and other family commitments) build their own sites is when they really want a mini site but the quality of the domain name is lacking, and they want to learn about development by practicing. It doesn’t usually make sense to pay $100-1,000 for a mini site on a domain name that isn’t worth that amount, but it has been a great learning experience for me.

Some might argue that UniqueInk.com is more of a brandable name that might not be worth building, however, due to it’s initial launch before I owned it, the site already received enough traffic to justify. Building out a mini site from scratch takes time, but it is a good leaning experience. I will do it again for sure, but I am lucky to be a full time domain investor, so it’s a nice break from my daily routine.

I urge people to only develop mini sites on domain names that are category defining (the exact keyword string) for a term/phrase that is well-searched – especially if it doesn’t already get type in traffic. The point of a mini site is to provide content for people looking for whatever the domain name would imply by getting listed in the search engines. A 3 word long-tail keyword might not get typed in frequently, but when someone types it in to Google, if there’s a site with good information, it will probably rank well and get traffic in that way.

If you build a mini site on a brandable domain name, chances are good that it will have trouble ranking for the exact term you want – especially if there’s any competition, so you will end up spending a lot of time and effort that probably won’t pay off in the end.

There are plenty of mini site options available, and testing is key. Just like you can’t expect to get rich with a newly registered domain name, the same can be said about mini sites. They may enhance the value of a domain name, but execution is key, and you can’t expect a mini site will be a magical solution.

Re-Designed “Mini Site”

Elliot Silver
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24

This morning I mentioned that I was re-designing a mini-site, and I wanted some feedback. I am still working out some errors that I couldn’t see before the site went live, but I would love to hear your thoughts on the new look of UniqueInk.com, a tattoo website.

I am a bit concerned about click throughs because of the layout, but I am more interested in growing the site’s traffic before worrying about making money from Adsense.

If anyone wants to post their tattoos or has any suggestions/ideas for the site, please let me know.   I used Mike’s design for this site with a bunch of customizations that I made.

Building Out A Mini Site

Elliot Silver
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4

I haven’t started re-designing UniqueInk.com yet, a site about unique tattoos and body art, but I am really excited about how it’s going to look when finished because I received the design template last night. I know the age old (and proven theory) is that design doesn’t matter when it comes to generating revenue, but I am going to put the theory to a test.

One of the nice things about working for myself is that if a fun project comes up, I can put other things on the back burner for a day. I have quite a bit of other development work to do, but it’s always fun to work on a fresh project. My interest in re-designing and re-launching the site will help me stay focused and hopefully complete the new site by the end of the day.

When you have a chance, please check out UniqueInk.com to see the “before site,” and when the re-design is finished, I would love your feedback on the look, layout, and design. I will also be happy to report how the site is doing in a few weeks.

Elements of a Successful Geo Website

Elliot Silver
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12

I am frequently asked what it takes to have a successful Geo Website, and I think there are many aspects of this. As far as I am concerned, the number one thing is to have the primary domain name, as it breeds trust, can open doors for advertisers, requires little or no explanation, and it helps with SEO. This said, there are other factors that can contribute to a great Geo Website.

Tourism – People want to learn about many things in a geographical area. Some people are looking to visit and they will want to know   travel information such as hotels, train schedules, flights, museums, activities, and other tourism information. Where it’s possible to do so efficiently and accurately, process tickets and reservations, as this will be “sticky” and bring the visitors back again. Use affiliate relationships where necessary/possible – especially if you can’t do this on your own.

Local business – Many visitors to the website will either live in the area or be looking to move to the area. You should provide local information such as restaurant listings, service companies, and other business information to make it easy for locals to find things. Use your site as a local would – ie searching for a real estate agent or taxi, and make improvements where you need it.

Events – Event listings are great because it’s content that’s given to you by organizations who are acknowledging your site’s reach. This is an opportunity to engage local organizations and businesses to discuss mutually benifical trades. For my sites, I am a media sponsor of a number of local events in each city. It takes time to build supporting pages, but it costs very little and builds your brand. Visitors also come to the site to find this information.

Unique Content – To get better rankings on internal pages, you need to have as much unique content as possible. Long tail keyword SERP position is important, as this will drive non-direct traffic to the site. If a Google-searcher is looking for a park in the region, you should rank in the top 10 for it. Unique content will help boost your rankings. It may cost more, but it’s worth it.

Good Site Architecture – I am not a SEO expert by any stretch, but I know it’s important to set up your site to enable Google, MSN, Yahoo, and other search bots to crawl it. The site should be easy for people to navigate, and it will generally be just as easy for bots to navigate and rank your site. This will help with your site’s SE placement, which will drive traffic. A successful Geo Website can’t rely alone on search engine rankings, nor can it alone rely on direct navigation traffic. Both are possible and likely if you start off on a good footing.

Build Your Brand – With a city .com name, you are already miles ahead of the competition since you essentially own the brand. If you don’t own the city .com name, you need to do whatever it takes to get your brand out there and to build community awareness. If people don’t know about your site, they probably won’t find it.

Photos – People want to see where they are going or moving, so it’s important to have great photographs. To save copyright infringement and legal trouble, I would recommend hiring a photographer from the area for a couple hundred dollars and give a list of photos to take. Make sure you work out the details about ownership of the photographs. I used Craigslist once with success and once with a bad situation (don’t ask). In the end, I found that my photographs and the photographs I had a friend take were best.

Social Media – One of the newest elements of great geo websites is the social media integration, where comments are allowed, people can post links on Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, forums, and other interaction. The more visitors are engaged, the more they will visit the site and advertisers. They will also help you determine what should be added to the site or removed.

When you have a great geodomain website, you own the city virtually. While the city/region might not like it, they realize that they can either become partners or enemies. I have a decent relationship with my two biggest cities, and although we aren’t working hand in hand exactly, we do have a good relationship because they know our goals are aligned.

Based on experience, I wouldn’t recommend meeting with city leaders until your site is launched completely and has a large following. However, I do think that working in conjunction with the city has its advantages and can be beneficial to your site’s success.

I am sure I missed some things here, so please pass along your feedback. The next topic (I think) will be monetization.

Long Tail Keyword Phrase Search Volume Increases

Elliot Silver
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18

I don’t have a lot of long tail keyword domain names, but I do have some, and I really like them. Mike mentioned a statistic today that I think shows why long tail keyword strings .com domain names are valuable and will continue to grow in value – especially with a mini site built on it:

According to a Hitwise survey, “searches of five to more than eight words in length increased 7% from last year.”

This doesn’t necessarily mean that people are typing the full keyword into their browser, where many browsers like Safari automatically add a .com to the end. However, it does mean that when people type a long tail keyword phrase, there will generally be less competition for search results.I don’t advocate buying super long – long-tail keywords 5+, but if that segment is growing, I would bet 3-5 word searches are growing as well.

As I explained to someone who asked about the difference between long and short tail keyword phrases, if you look up the short tail phrase “Counseling Jobs” in Google, you will get 456,000 results. Now, if you look up the longer tail phrase, “Drug Counseling Jobs,” you only get 770 results.

Although a longer tail keyword is searched less times than the short keyword phrase, there is much less SERP competition. If you develop a mini site on your long tail keyword domain name, chances are very good that it will be in the top of the SERP (depending on the actual keywords of course), and if this happens, you are likely to increase your traffic.

Personally, I like the 3 word long-tail keywords best, but this Hitwise survey does seem to indicate that people do actually search for longer tail keyword strings.

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