Archive for the ‘Minisites’ Category

There are many many different ways to create a ministe or a website in general. Some people go the extra mile and complete code a CMS(Content Management System). There are always pros and cons when it comes to how you develop a website. You have to look at your end game you want to achieve with the website itself.

Trying to figure out what type of minisite you want to develop really comes from the name itself. Will you be selling a product? Will you be pitching a product? Will it be an informational site? Will it be a blog? Yes those are questions you must ask yourself when starting the creation part of the website itself.

There are a couple of common ways pay develop they ministes. The most common way is to use a CMS. Using a CMS is probably, IMO, the best way to create a ministe. You can use any of the major CMS like Joomla, Wordpress, or Drupal. Those are just a few of the more popular ones but there are TONS of them out there. My favorite is Wordpress.

You can do pretty much anything you want with Wordpress. Yes it is generally looked at as blogging software but you can do pretty much anything with it that you want with ease. Everything from a simple blog to an eCommerce site can be achieve with wordpress with ease. Not to mention the amount of help and extensions of the product is insane. On top of being able to pretty much create anything you want it is extremely easy to update. This alone is a huge plus for most people because you do not have to know or deal with any type of coding. Just log in and update what you want through the control panel. Minisites.com uses wordpress to create their minisites for their clients. Just have a look at what they have done and that is only the surface of what can be achieved.

The next most common way to see people develop minisites is with coding of HTML/CSS design. This is more of a technical approach to things. The cool thing about this method is that it gives you complete control of EVERYTHING that is involved with the website itself. If you know how to write scripts design HTML/CSS then you might want to try and develop sites this way. There are two things about this method that hold people that back. The first is simply the technical aspect of trying to create the site, something that wordpress or another CMS is packaged with. The other being that updating the sites can somewhat of a headache because you have to do all the formatting and inserting straight in to the code.

So if you are just getting in to developing your domains as ministes i highly recommend using wordpress. Not only is it easy to create the site itself but it allows you do what other tasks other than worry about coding one page at a time. On top of that you can create just about any type of site you need. If you do not feel like creating the sites yourself go ahead and give Minisites.com or DomainMassDevelopment.com an email. They both use wordpress as the CMS and offer great support to their customers.

Its no secret that people in the domain industry are turning to domain development to earn a bit of extra cash over the parking alternative. Not only does development allow you more control over your property but it also can increase the value of your domain name. This is usually done in the form of a minisite that is optimized to receive natural traffic from search engines.

In reality you can develop whatever domain name you want and then hope and pray that it gets traffic. Well there are a couple of things that you can look for in a domain name to better your chances at getting the traffic that you want.

1. Domain keywords. You want to check out the keywords in your domain name and find out the search volume for the exact keywords in your domain name. You can easily do this with the Google Keyword Tool. Anything over 5k exact global search is probably worth your while. Though i can tell you that domains with less than that can usually receive just enough traffic if developed correctly. Why is this important? Ultimately the keywords are what is going to help you in the search engines. Now by providing information on what those keywords are on your site, it will allow the site to gain ground as an authority in the searches eyes.

2. Related Keywords. I think this is something quite a few people over look when they are developing their minisites. I can not tell you how many times i visit a basic minisite and they have tabs that say “Home, Books, Information”. Well those tabs to other pages can be your best friend. Instead of naming the tab “books” name it “Miniature Horse Books”. That in return will let search engines know what is on that page along with making that tab more appealing to the user of the site. Just like in the first paragraph you need look up the searches for these keywords to make sure they are worthwhile keywords.

3. Search Results. In my opinion this will tell you how populated the niche is. There are two things i check in this area to make sure i can do what i want to do. First thing i will do is type in my keywords with quotes around them. This will give me EXACT results to what i looking for. If it returns less that 100,000 results in google, you can be almost certain that you can dominate this area. Especially if you have the exact match. The next thing is i do the search without the quotes. This will allow me to see a broad competition along with more advertisers, if any.

4. PPC and Affiliate Programs. I always check in to the PPC for the exact term to make sure that it is worth my while to put the time and money in to creating a profitable site. This will show you the amount of competition in the area along with allowing you to gauge the amount of ROI you can expect from PPC alone. Affiliate programs are a must to check in to if you are going to monetize your sites in more than one way. Picking a domain name that is targeted with affiliate programs is usually a good sign because it means that there is money to be made.

5. Extension. I really do not think this is a HUGE thing at all but there are some rules that i have made for myself. I generally do not develop any ccTLD besides .us. The only gTLDs that i do develop are .com, .org, and .net. I avoid developing .infos simply because i really do not like them. Though i have in the past and had great results, they really have little resell value beside the fact of the site itself. These are just my preferences but i want everyone to know that extension has very little to do with the success of your ministe.

There are more things to look out for but if you have a good domain that fits these things you should be all set and ready to go. There are people that more in to detail and selective about what domains the develop and there are people that look for less. If you have anything to add go ahead or if you have a question feel free to ask.