Shares of Demand Media traded on the New York Stock Exchange today for the first time.
In addition to its domain name assets (like Enom and NameJet), DMD generates revenue with Adsense and advertising on its eHow.com website. The company has a proprietary algorithm that can figure out what people are searching for on Google, and it then sources out articles on those topics to its huge team of independent writers. There are either hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of articles.
Pundits have opined that some of the content is bad, while others have speculated that Demand could be impacted if Google changes it’s algorithm to push down the allegedly “spammy” articles. I don’t own stock in DMD and most of the eHow articles aren’t really that competitive to my sites, so that stuff doesn’t really interest me much.
However, I do think there’s a way that domain investors / web developers can tap into Demand Media’s vast knowledge about the wants and needs of Google searches. If we search eHow for articles related to our own topical websites, we can learn what Demand thinks people are looking for, and we can then write better articles or source out better articles.
Here’s an example for you.
I own a dog walking service directory, and in addition to the paid directory listings, I also have a lot of articles that might interest dog walkers or people looking to hire dog walkers. By searching eHow, I can make the assumption that its related articles are things that people are searching for, and my exact match domain name may have more authority if I write more in depth and/or interesting articles. It’s important that you write articles differently than the eHow articles and that they are completely custom.
For instance, it looks like these topics should be covered on my site (in addition to many others):
- How to Start a Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Service
- How to Start a Dog Walking Service
- How to Become a Dog Walker
- How to Walk a Dog in Winter
- How to Walk a Dog in the Snow
- How to Exercise with Dog Walking
- How to Hire a Dog Walker
- How to Interview a Dog Walker
- Many, many more…
Mind you, I already have a number of these articles covered on my site in various forms, but the information provided by eHow can be beneficial to website owners. Maybe you should take a look at eHow and see what information you can glean for your own website.
Thanks for tip…nice think ‘out of box”!
sorry…should be “thinking outside the box”.
And interesting way to read the tracks in the sand, but is this not letting the tail wag the dog when it comes to content?
ehow changed their format. Writers have to submit articles on Demand Studios. In the past, I wrote 22 “how to” articles at eHow on education, traffic fines, making money as a writer, and etc.. The two most popular articles in the bunch – reducing traffic fines and dreams.
In my opinion, Demand Media changed their platform because many articles were making money. They would rather offer writers a one-time payment on articles than for to lose revenue over the life of the article.
For example, the company can offer $15 for an article. If a writer prepared a past article at eHow before the change, they can probably make $30+ in a year on one popular article. If they integrate eHow’s top 5 article template on thehir domains at Why Park, they can probably score more revenue.
Paying out $15 for a article is probably a good strategy to earn more on the article because the writers accept the payment, and then release their right to the article. Whereas, eHow writers retained authorship on past articles.
If an math whiz prepares an Economics tutorial that is downloaded 1000 times for $10, they can make good money. If they sold that tutorial for $500, then they lose out on making future revenue.
In my opinion, the company figured out ways to increase their revenue based on having a large group of independent writers accept a revenue share or to take the article payout.
The articles can push traffic to your website. If you write about domains, link the article to your website (your website as a source). People will type-in “How to sell domain names” or “how to make money selling domain names”. Those articles will show up as in top 3. Another strategy is to write abstracts on books at Shvoong. Write an abstract on a domain book. Link the article to your website.
Your DogWalker.com will benefit from having more “how to” articles. People type-in “how to” on a regular basis just like they do when searching for resume, hotels, and jobs. i.e. Jobs in, hotels in, Resume for, and etc..
The main reason eHow is a good SEO strategy is because the website generates high traffic site (50 Million unique) and they’re well known. Furthermore, they also have a good Google page rank and high Alexa traffic rank.
I would have written more “how to” articles before, but the system had problems uploading them, the wait took too long, and I lost many articles in the submission process. If I could go back, I would have written a 1000 articles. Then, I would have access to those sites to build traffic in many categories. I would buy domain names that target the content – reversing the traffic to and from.
I can write about many different techniques. Why Park is another good platform that is gathering steam. It’s only a matter of time before they will need quality articles from writers. There are many good SEO opportunities, such as using writing platforms to score traffic and to get indexed.
I apologize about the long post. You picked an interesting topic.
Thanks for the article.
@ John – thanks, that was quite informative, as was your original post Elliot!.
@Jason
I’ve been blogging regularly on Huffington Post for four years. How would you suggest I best take advantage of that in driving traffic to my ConGames.net site?