Making a Domain earn £1 a week

[dougs]

yahoo ads

If you need to be able to play with yahoo ads pm me and I can show you and give you the suitabel intro's

Doug

 

[miked]

I try to, the content is some from wikipedia and some from inside my head (be scared). I like cars/sports so tend to stick to cars and sports at the moment.

This is very interesting. I've always understood that content is king and that the key to any site, mini or otherwise, is high quality original content. However, Ratboy seems to be having success with content partially or fully from Wikipedia (well done on your success, Ratboy!). I, on the other hand, have tried to come up with quality original content and seem to be having less success.

Of course I accept that there are other factors at play here like site design and backlinks, but what do you all think? Is it no longer the case that content is the most important part of what we're doing? Is it possible to be less fanatical about quality original content if other factors are in place?

It'd be interesting to hear everyone's thoughts: I know that when I was just starting to get to grips with SEO this was just the sort of thing I'd have been interested in learning about.

Also, I'd welcome any constructive criticism on the sites in my signature, if any of you have any thoughts. They were started as a result of reading this topic and I'm having fun trying to put what I've learned on this excellent thread into practice.

Cheers,
Mike.

 

[ScottJ]

Lets go on the assumption that taking content form wiki or other sources works fine and that you don't worry about dup content and create 50 mini sites that make £1+ a week each.

This may or may not only work for a short period of time, what if Google improve their targetting of duplicate content and those 50 mini sites don't hold enough unique text and all get thrown out even for long tail terms - that is a clearly possible risk.

So imo, better for the long term to get good quality content.
Why is content king? because it can also aid you in getting some natural links if you text is informative, applicable and unique.

 

[BFTUK]

Lets go on the assumption that taking content form wiki or other sources works fine and that you don't worry about dup content and create 50 mini sites that make £1+ a week each.

This may or may not only work for a short period of time, what if Google improve their targetting of duplicate content and those 50 mini sites don't hold enough unique text and all get thrown out even for long tail terms - that is a clearly possible risk.

So imo, better for the long term to get good quality content.
Why is content king? because it can also aid you in getting some natural links if you text is informative, applicable and unique.

I'd also be concerned about the potential longterm damage to a domain by using duplicate content, much like the effects a domain can suffer if they linked to a site that is banned from Google.

So if the worst happened and your 50 mini sites received a hit after an update you may also find the domains penalised so even adding unique content might not save them.

 

[Munders]

This looks like a really good thread, just for what I'm after as its a start in the right direction.

 

[senty4love]

Cms or wordpress for mini sites

I have followd this thread and I want to make a minisite..but not sure what should I use ...any csm or editor like dreamwear or Coffeecup..or use wordpress...
is there any guide on how to make a minisite? i am totally newbie for websites

 

[Admin]

I have followd this thread and I want to make a minisite..but not sure what should I use ...any csm or editor like dreamwear or Coffeecup..or use wordpress...
is there any guide on how to make a minisite? i am totally newbie for websites

Use wordpress, it will give you a site framework to work with until you gain more experience.

 

[mally]

Anyone got a standard wordpress theme that we could use and find useful? a demo would be great!

 

[GreyWing]

Guys if I haven't tried Wordpress but if you can get your heads around joomla it is well worth taking the time to fire it up.

I have just got up boxer ////////////// puppy ////// .co.uk live, it took me around 30 minutes and looks half decent. This was kind of a test site for me, my first real one using Joomla 1.5.

Very easy to update and has decent auto urls based on the page. A magic backend to the thing and version 1.5 makes everything a lot easier.

It's a pig to learn and I am no where near mastering it, But it's cracking and with a huge number of free templates out there for it, very easy to customize.

Saying it's a pig too learn maybe a mistake in your case, it may be easier for you to use as you say you have no experience of websites. For me I had to unlearn most of what I had learned in Dreamweaver. In many ways it's like someone who has never used a computer before finding it easier to use an apple Mac compared to someone who is switching from Microsoft Windows.

Plus Search engines also seem to love it

 

[senty4love]

Use wordpress, it will give you a site framework to work with until you gain more experience.

Thanks..i think i will start with wordpress...and after i get some experience, i will try my hand on joomla....Heck,,,its really time consuming to learn all these things..

Also i want to know about hosting..I read somewhere that if your site is targetiing UK then its best to use uk hosting....It means i have two hosts, one for uk sites and one for others...i heard that Bluehost is best hosting option..but not sure about UK hosting..i started domain reg with Heartinternet (thanks for this forum to let me know this reg)...so what will be the best option for Uk hosting? Heart seems little bit expensive...but i guess they have good rep...

 

[melat0nin]

First minisite

Hi all

I've been following this thread with great interest over the past few days, and I've created my first minisite:

http://www.scottishrealestate.co.uk

Let me know what you think. I put too much work into it (the graph and whatnot) but since it's my first I don't mind too much. I'm slowly getting into the minisite frame of mind (after designing many bigger sites) so it'll take some adjusting to just throw something together! I plan to stick with the same template though (pending any suggestions) so I should be able to crank them out.

Any ideas/suggestions/constructive criticism would be welcome!

 

[retired_member16]

A nice example of a mini-site.

However, the mortgage calc and 'ten most expensive towns' have a large chunk missing in IE6.

Also I think that Google only allow 3 ads per page - I cant remember, worth checking though.

 

[grantw]

Nice site, as above - I think you're only allowed 3 ad blocks and 1 link unit per page tho.

Grant

 

[melat0nin]

A nice example of a mini-site.

However, the mortgage calc and 'ten most expensive towns' have a large chuck missing in IE6.

Also I think that Google only allow 3 ads per page - I cant remember, woth checking though.

Thanks for the appraisal! I was under the impression that one could have 3 ad units and 3 link units, but i'll remove a link unit until I can confirm that.

That's a bugger about IE6 -- I code to standards, and as ever, IE wrecks everything. 7 works okay, but I'll have to work out something for 6. Thanks for the heads-up!

Grant -- thanks for the heads-up, I will check it out and get a definitive answer

 

[grantw]

I could be wrong as they seem to change the rules quite often.

Grant

 

[melat0nin]

Looks like 3 link units are allowed, in addition to 3 ad units:

https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=15943&topic=8425

"Can I place more than one link unit on a page?

Yes, you may place up to three link units on a page, in addition to the three standard ad units and two search boxes that you are permitted to display. Just make sure that the page complies with our programme policies."

 

[retired_member3]

the mortgage calculator is a good idea. users love little gimmicks like that and your more likely to get return traffic or bookmarking if you have a decent one.

 

[ScottJ]

Great mini site Laurence, looks like you did spend a good bit of time on it, nicely done.

 

[mat]

Nice clean professional looking mini site there!

 

[melat0nin]

Thanks guys, much appreciated. I am currently using the same template for another minisite, which I'm researching the content for just now. Should have it up this evening.

I'll be very interested to see how well these sites get on in Google/MSN etc -- part of me is still slightly incredulous about this making any money, and I'll be very chuffed if it works! Here's hoping my topics are decent enough!