Buy domain. Develop. Then what?
As domainers turn to development to monetize their domains, they may be discouraged to find the revenue on their developed sites not meeting expectations. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as developing mini-sites or full-fledged web sites, launching them, and letting the checks roll in.
That’s when search engine optimization (SEO) comes into the picture. I’ve always been turned off by the SEO business because it seems so hocus-pocus. Companies ask you to trust them to get you higher in the search engines and ask you to write them a big check. They tell you “we’ll tweak your pages and submit your site to directories”, but they don’t tell you much else.
But search engine optimization companies are becoming more modular. Consider HubShout, which offers three SEO packages with clearly defined activities. HubShout audits your site, creates content, submits articles, creates and distributes widgets, leverages social networking sites, and issues keyword friendly press releases on your behalf. Each package clearly states what you get.
I’ve been playing around with a free trial to HubShout’s Search Ranking Tracker. This tool tracks where your web site ranks in Google for terms you select. Unlike a number of other services, it tracks your rank on a daily basis.
But should you outsource your SEO? My take is “no” for mini-sites, but “yes” for full-fledged web sites. The cost of hiring a good SEO service is too much for mini-sites that you hope to make $100 or so off of each month. But if you are developing a major site or selling products, it makes sense to focus on what you do well and outsource the rest to experts.
Michael Castello says
Developing sites and SEO go hand and hand. Once developed use search engine placement to move visitors to your site. Once there, if they like what they see they will be back, and most likely by direct navigation, that is, IF your domain name is memorable.
Also, a booked marked page still bypasses the search engines and is also considered direct navigation.
GregB says
I would start with the SEO before I develop the site. The state of the website when the search engines see it for the 1st time is very important. Leaving the SEO stuff until after is a big mistake IMO.
Of course, this only applies to newly registered sites and since most good names were registered years ago the above advice is probably not applicable but still it is worth mentioning.
mountaingoat says
Have you or your readers come across an introductory/how-to SEO book or comprehensive website that you would recommend for newbies? Thanks.
jp says
I agree with you Andrew, Paying for SEO doesn’t really make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Nothing like paying bid dollars for SEO, then a week later google changes their formula, leaving you SOL. Anyone know of an SEO company that gives a guarantee against this particular situation?
GregB says
If they do they are crazy since it wouldn’t really be their fault or else they’d give a worthless guarantee.
I did a fair amount of SEO up until a year ago but I ended up not making any money because I don’t have the heart to fleece people which is more or less what most of the SEO companies do.
Over the last 3 years I’ve been involved with Nutch – an open source search engine – and one of the things that working with the code does is put you in touch with all the factors that could possibly affect ranking and how to spot the people gaming the system.
What it comes down to is that there is no amount of money that will buy a 5-10 year old link let alone a 5 year old link from a reputable site. I tired of explaining to clients that they had better operate on a 5 year plan when most clients want rankings within weeks.
If you want rankings within weeks you have to be resigned to paying big bucks for the privilege of getting banned in 3 months. I had clients offer 10,000 dollars but I would have felt a thief taking it knowing what the end result would be and the clients that plan 5 years in advance are few and far between.
I did well but I find the whole thing distasteful so now I buy domains and build sites, get them ranking decently without buying any links or even trying to get links and then sell the site to an end user. It may take me 3 hours to set the site up and a few more hours over the next 6 months but I don’t feel like I’m ripping people off if I sell them “denverhomesales.com” with Google rankings for $1000 whereas I felt unclean taking that $1000 for 6 hours work when I knew that the benefits would be short lived.
Now my advice is to use WordPress, set the permalinks properly and wait.
GregB says
Sorry, I forgot to recommend the best source which is “do a search for Google patents, find them and read them”.
James says
Nice article. I’ll check Hubshout out.
GregB – How do you set the permalinks properly as there are quite a few options (actually i’m a little concerned about how mine are setup.)
GregB says
The permalinks? Well it depends on what your site is doing – if you can avoid duplicate post titles then just “/%postname%/”. The simpler the better.
What you really want is to avoid looking like a blog (to a robotic search engine), and nothing says “blog” more than dates in the URL.
If I’m getting really serious I’ll even go through the code and change all the css class IDs and names to ones that reflect what my target is. No “narrow_column” or “post” for my class names, name them synonyms of your target keywords – I’ve noticed a few times where all sites using a certain CMS or blog software all take a dive in the rankings at the same time so I go out of my way to avoid the stock CSS class names – that is pushing the limit of SEO paranoia but illustrates the extent that I’ll go to to try and look like a handbuilt site.
Don says
You can learn almost everything you need to know to be decent at seo online. I have firsthand experience with this method. There are a number of great resources out their that you can get ideas from.
Starting over, I would focus on creating unique content and then work on the seo end, otherwise you are putting the cart before the horse and will have a much harder time.
Too Many Secrets says
Andrew,
There is no hocus-pocus in SEO. There are clear tips and techniques to follow and you’ll be spinning out spider food for the SE’s in no time.
There are some excellent SEO blogs out there.
Aaron’s, Michael’s and Joost’s come to mind.
I think people feel that SEO is some kind of quick fix with results coming in months, when the truth is that it takes about a year to get trust in the SE’s and rank in the top 10.
Patience pays off, but lots of folks just can’t wait. 🙂
– Richard
Too Many Secrets says
@James,
I wrote a post on my blog about how to set up permalinks properly for the SE’s.
It’s a technique that I have used for years and can tell you that it works like a charm.
Myy blog ranken in google in 4 days for the long tail terms, for example.
– Richard
RKB says
Thanks for posting this info.
I went to their site but its little unclear what do they really achieve for your site, except what they will do for your site?
It appears they are confusing the efforts with results.
I will be more interested in finding out that they will guarantee a top place for my keywords, and get me x% more traffic than before etc. I won’t bother what they will do to get additional traffic because its their process. I am only interested in results, not how they achieve those results. Of course they must not violate google TOS:)
Also I don’t see their prices listed on the site for all those packages. I think once you have a package, then prices should be standard. right?
Btw, I enjoy your blog write ups …. thank you.
DNBlogger
GregB says
I sort of apologize in advance for this post – but I was inspired by recent events and I thought I’d start giving some real life examples on how to start a site SEO’d adequately from the very start, which was a few minutes ago.
After Enom.com “stole” my domain and were rude to me even in the face of their own email notification of my payment and my avowal that I had my MasterCard summary in front of my eyes. Both were dated before expiry date. I had autorenew set. They will not release my “dropped” domain because they didn’t credit the money to my account until 3 days later even though it showed on my account page within a second and sent me a receipt and let me buy another domain with some of the money in my balance and even though my credit card WAS on file with them.
Earlier today I notice that this domain goes to their parking site and I get told and I quote “you snooze you lose”, pony up the $160 and be glad we even let you do that (paraphrased). Well, in a rage I start looking for kindred spirits to get together with at “enomsucks.com” but they own it, also .net,org,info,tv,biz – all owned by them.
But evidently they don’t have much confidence in the .me or .us TLD’s so I now own http://enomsucks.me and http://enomsucks.us and I set up brand-new installations of wordpress. So as not to become consumed with bitterness yet wanting the site to rank well ( as I see great potential for a registrar directory site or something ) I decided to make it sort of a guide to working with SEO in mind right from the start.
So this is sort of on topic. I’ll be detailing the methods I’m using as I develop the site. First part is up, each site took under 5 minutes so far and I’ll be detailing the plugins that I’ll be using and demonstrating some SEO methods applied to themes in coming days.
So this is sort of fortuitous in that we can all see how well it all works out, a fortuitous angle to an ugly (for me) incident as I’ve just spent 5 hours clicking on various links to transfer 100 domains away so far.
Andrew says
RKB – as others have posted here, no SEO should guarantee you certain results. If they promise “top 10 rankings”, you should run away.
Frank says
@GregB. Many of these registrars haven’t yet realized that their business is now a commodity. One can’t really expect guys who built their businesses on trademarked typo traffic to have much ethics anyway. It all starts at the top.
I find many of these registrars and their affiliated drop catchers no longer drop “good” domains. SnapN*mes is still holding a domain that I have a trademark application on that they promised to release to me a month back. They caught the drop after the previous guy had the good sense not to renew the domain. And I’ve had the domain on my backorder list for very long time.
I’ll give them a little more time. So far I’ve been dealing with them on a personal level. If nothing happens, I’ll have my lawyers send them a nice letter along with a list of the typo trademarks they’re warehousing and squatting on. I’m sure that will light an immediate fire under these people.
Richard Ball says
FYI, it’s worth noting what Google says about SEO companies in their webmaster central help files:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291
They used to be really harsh, almost equating SEOs with spammers. They’ve since toned down that text. Take what they say with a grain of salt but there’s some useful info there.
Also, for domainers learning about SEO, Aaron Wall’s SEObook.com is a good place to start. Note that he’s included on Frank Schilling’s blogroll (via sevenmile.com).
Website Marketing Solutions says
Choosing a seo company is not an easy selection, however the best ones are the ones that offer you a lot for a good price.