Mini-site experiment

[harkster]

Because of other projects I have been neglecting my mini-site development but stumbled across Drupal at www.Drupal.org while looking for a replacement to Joomla which has such a tough learning curve.
After looking at some of the things others are doing I decided to give it a shot using Drupal at www.DodgeTurbo.us.

In addition to Drupal I use a (free) rss script from www.neoprogrammers.com for building the news feeds.

Drupal +'s -- easy to learn, built in forum, easy to allow registered users to contribute content via 'my blog' should the site take off, easy to create SE friendly URL's and can be installed from cPanel

Drupal -'s -- not a large selection of templates, terms are a bit strange sometimes not as 'rich' as some of the other CMS packages but...

I would like some input from y'all such as good, bad, ugly or who cares or...

This took me about a day to modify a template to my liking and about 3 hours to populate with the current content not counting sitting and thinking time. I will be adding more stuff but the hard part is done. The thing I like about this is that in a flash content can now be added, deleted or moved. Off to submit to SE's and scatter some links about.

 

[DropLister]

I like what youve done, the ad placement is very good.

Best of luck.

 

[globefrog]

Hi Hark,

Mate firstly congrats on giving it a go. Your dodge site looks great and the google adsense codes are blended and placed brilliantly. I really like your style.

I think the simple layout will promote click through once the user has finished reading what your site has to offer, with some SEO promo you will do well here.


Goodluck.

Aaron

 

[NewYorkBum]

At first glance i thought you spent hell of a time to type in all those articles. Only after clicking on some links i got that that's google rss. Nice Job.I tried using google and yahoo rss for mini-site, but it looks ugly. Looks like i will be moving it to drupal too.www.Oceanchange.net

 

[GiddyUp]

i also just found out about Drupal in the latest issue of Practical Web Design - got some great reviews and there is a nice tutorial in there on how to use it - i'll be trying it shortly

 

[ArtfulWebSites]

...

This took me about a day to modify a template to my liking and about 3 hours to populate with the current content not counting sitting and thinking time. I will be adding more stuff but the hard part is done. The thing I like about this is that in a flash content can now be added, deleted or moved. Off to submit to SE's and scatter some links about.

Hark,

You've done a really nice job on that site. It looks very clean and appealing.

I also have decided to slowly migrate from the parking approach of monetizing to mini-sites. I found a service that does all the work for me, and produces some beautiful looking customized sites with my own Google AdSense code.

My 2 mini-sites from PPC-Sites.com are up live now:

ShopsInLasVegas.com
GolfAndBeer.com

And I have a third and fourth on order. PPC-Sites service has been fantastic. :D They turned around each of my first two orders in about 24 hours.

These 2 mini-sites have had more page impressions in less that 2 days than any of the over one hundred sites I have had parked for over 4 MONTHS!! Plus they have been getting clicks. nothing to shout about --- yet.

And now, since they are all mine, and I am not bound by any parking TOS, I am promoting them through all the search engines and directories.

I also have my own Google Analytics code on them, so I can monitor traffic independently of Google AdSense.

They look great, they have content, they have MY Google ads, they are about 500 pages, they are inexpensive to buy, I didn't have to do all the work, and I now have total control over their content and promotion. What more could you ask for??

 

[harkster]

At first glance i thought you spent hell of a time to type in all those articles. Only after clicking on some links i got that that's google rss. Nice Job.I tried using google and yahoo rss for mini-site, but it looks ugly. Looks like i will be moving it to drupal too.www.Oceanchange.net

Thanks for the comments.

The key here is that I used the www.neoprogrammers.com rss script to process the Google feeds. That gives me control. I need to look at the script and modify it to open the links in a new window. The Drupal news 'aggregator' only outputs the headlines with no 'teaser'. Also need to find some nice car pics for 'eye candy'. I have a random image script laying around here somewhere.

BTW I can delete/add/modify a feed in under 5 minutes. They are each a Drupal page.

This is actually my second Drupal site with the new www.rosevillepottery.info being the first.

Google ad placement hint ---- Place your skyscraper ad in a div and float it left or right so the content wraps around the BigG stuff. Sort of like floating an image left or right.

ArtfulWebSites

I hate to admit it but looking at the ppc-sites work had a lot to do with what I ended up doing here.

 

[sdtrader]

I've used several CMS and often tempted to try drupal but have not yet.With your success I am going to give it a try. Thanks for the info about the RSS script.

 

[HeavyDuty]

Very nice site hark, hope ya' make a million! Drupal is a great CMS tool.

 

[hitchhiker]

should put together a tutorial on this, I'll pay for it!

 

[dianniemo]

google ad code

Google ad placement hint ---- Place your skyscraper ad in a div and float it left or right so the content wraps around the BigG stuff. Sort of like floating an image left or right.

Hark, I know enough html to be dangerous and to edit my code. Would you mind sharing the code to do this...say float the adsense left?

I've been wondering how to wrap the ads, it looks really good!

And so does your Dodge mini-site! Very appealing!

Smiles across the miles,
Di

 

[harkster]

Hark, I know enough html to be dangerous and to edit my code. Would you mind sharing the code to do this...say float the adsense left?

Here ya go.

<div [B]style="float: left; margin-right: 10px;"[/B]>
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";
google_ad_width = 120;
google_ad_height = 600;
google_ad_format = "120x600_as";
google_ad_type = "text_image";
google_ad_channel = "";
google_color_border = "ffffea";
google_color_bg = "ffffea";
google_color_link = "993300";
google_color_text = "000000";
google_color_url = "993300";
//--></script>
<script type="text/javascript"
  src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>
</div>

The important stuff is in bold. To float right:
<div style="float: right; margin-left: 10px;">

I use this a lot. Will work (most of the time) inside a div as well as in a table cell. Can sometimes act up.

Just had a situation where the text extended outside the container div so just changed the container div to a single cell table and all is now fine. I guess what I am saying is sometimes you need to 'fiddle' with it as is the case with a lot of the tableless layout stuff.

So for that case instead of :
<div><div>google stuff</div>bunch of text or whatever</div>
I used:
<table><tr><td><div>google stuff</div>bunch of text or whatever</td></tr></table>

 

[vinodkv]

wow your work is very smart, you done it very cool, you are a great person, not all others, they are Parking there website for money...

vinodkv

 

[iMODO Man]

These 2 mini-sites have had more page impressions in less that 2 days than any of the over one hundred sites I have had parked for over 4 MONTHS!!

Artful why am i seeing your identical posts over and over all across the boards about this company...? I dont see how your benefitting. Am i missing something folks?

And being that both the sites you mention have just a single page indexed, perhaps it might be simply your identical ad messages across the domain forums thats giving you the pv's :/

 

[ArtfulWebSites]

Artful why am i seeing your identical posts over and over all across the boards about this company...? I dont see how your benefitting. Am i missing something folks?

And being that both the sites you mention have just a single page indexed, perhaps it might be simply your identical ad messages across the domain forums thats giving you the pv's :/

Chuck,

I guess it is just that I have been so excited to find something that actually produces results after trying 5 months of parking at different parking services, I just felt I had to share that experience with the community. It's like I have to "shout it from the rooftops"! And, I hope that other people in the Domainer community will benefit from this as well. In all the reading I have been doing in the forum, it seems more people have become disillusioned with parking, and were looking for other alternatives. I think I have found it, so I am passing it on.

Yes, I do benefit by putting the links to my sites in the posts, and yes, I think I have stated it in another post, most of the traffic right now is coming from the forum, but I am starting to see increasing "direct" and Google referrers. Bear in mind the sites are only 7 days old, and my submissions to over 200 SEs and directories has taken place over just the past 5 days.

Plus, these guys at PPC-Sites have performed admirably, quickly, and with such great looking sites. They even implemented a couple of my suggestions. All this is so much better than several other services I have tried lately.

If you look through the 3 threads here that refer to PPC-Sites, you will find many other satisfied customers.

I will state it again: I have no direct relationship with PPC-Sites. I am just a customer who has been extremely pleased with their service and the results the sites have achieved.

So often today all we here is negative: this is wrong, that doesn't work, this is defective, etc. I think it is refreshing to hear something positive. So often most people seem to have the time to complain, but can't seem to find the time to compliment.

 

[harkster]

Anyone have comments on www.DubaiFestival.info? Don't like as well as the other but it turned out difficult to modify the theme colors so for the most part went with the default.

I think I have figured out how some of these auto update blog type sites are being created. It looks like they are capturing the 'teaser' text from rss feeds, stripping off the links and made to look like a blog post. Just pick out what you want, insert it into the database and walla a self updating blog with ads and BigG loves blogs. Blogs seem to be the quickest way to build PR that I have seen.

Black Hat? If so how long will it take BigG to start banning sites.

 

[globefrog]

Hi again Hark, DubaiFestival is great. It is professional looking yet it still encourages click through. I think the color scheme is fine.

Artful: Mate im with you 100% on PPC-Sites.com those guys are awesome. A friend has has domains built with them and they performed beyond expectations. I have 5 sites on order with these guys and look forward to getting them shortly.


Cheers,
Aaron

 

[whitebark]

hark like what you are doing. Nice simple small sites with room to grow.

As for PPC-Sites.com - wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. Duplicate content banning just waiting to happen. They don't even format the text to look appealing - lazy if you ask me as it just looks sloppy. Nobody is going to read text that looks like a page long paragraph. They can dress it up with new graphics, layouts and color schemes but it still comes across as an Adsense eyesore...

Compared to what hark is accomplishing - it shows that a bit of hard work pays dividends.

My two cents.

edit - the dubai website is a bit plain - especially compared to your first outing. BTW I like drupal as well for some uses, but prefer PN for my CMS of choice.

 

[ArtfulWebSites]

Hi again Hark, DubaiFestival is great. It is professional looking yet it still encourages click through. I think the color scheme is fine.

Artful: Mate im with you 100% on PPC-Sites.com those guys are awesome. A friend has has domains built with them and they performed beyond expectations. I have 5 sites on order with these guys and look forward to getting them shortly.


Cheers,
Aaron

Aaron,

Glad you agree and that your friend has found success. I wish you luck on your 5 sites.

Will you let us know, once you get them live, how they perform? Were they formerly parked? If so, it will be interesting to see if your comparison of results is similar to mine.

Good luck paisano.

 

[iMODO Man]

^^^^^^ Agreed ^^^^^^ (with Whitebark) lol ... youre fast Artful

 

[highlifelight]

I'm still really new, and I have already learned that parking (by itself) seems to be a losing proposition. This mini-site development is fantastic, hark!

Now, if only somebody would be generous enough to post a short tutorial...

:lol:

Edit: I found at least one good article on creating sites like this, if anybody is interested.

http://www.netbusinessblog.com/2007/01/09/building-a-niche-minisite/

It does however leave out any rss replication from applicable news sources, which I think makes hark's work stand out. Has anybody messed with zFeeder for this purpose? It seems to be a lightweight option for this purpose.

http://zvonnews.sourceforge.net/

 

[NameClerk]

As for PPC-Sites.com - wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. Duplicate content banning just waiting to happen.

If you feel these sites would be hit with a duplicate content ban, don't you think Hark's sites would be as well? Certainly, Hark's sites aren't the only ones using those RSS feeds?

Nice work Hark.

-Bill

 

[Shorty]

If you feel these sites would be hit with a duplicate content ban, don't you think Hark's sites would be as well? Certainly, Hark's sites aren't the only ones using those RSS feeds?

Exactly. All mini sites duplicate content and they all run the risk of being banned by search engines for it, or at least shunted down the rankings for it. The trick is to have a niche site where there is so little competition in the search engines that it appears near the top regardless.

I've not used PPC-Sites myself, but some of their stuff i've seen is quite impressive and worth the money. Having that many pages indexed is going to look good for you anyway, whether copied or not.

 

[whitebark]

If you feel these sites would be hit with a duplicate content ban, don't you think Hark's sites would be as well? Certainly, Hark's sites aren't the only ones using those RSS feeds?

Nice work Hark.

-Bill

It's not the rss feeds that are the problem it is the canned and copied text copy taken directly from article submission websites. Who knows how many websites are already using it? Google's last two updates have been detrimental to duplicate content websites. There is nothing suggesting that they will not continue to penalize them by burying them in the supplemental results or as I have seen first-hand - dropped all together.

And on top of that - it still looks like an Adsense eyesore. They are not very usable for the visitor. Many studies have been conducted on how people read text on the Internet and the way they have lazily formatted the text copy guarantees low readership and low user satisfaction.

It is far better to spend some money getting someone to write you three or four pages of content or just do it yourself. Your SERPs will increase, you avoid any chance of duplicate content penalties including being dropped, and you increase the usability of the site for any visitor.

As long as hark doesn't fall into the trap of copy-pasting already used text, he is on the right track.

 

[enlytend]

I'm with Whitebark on this ...

Per this frequently-ignored quote from the Adsense program policies:

No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant.

A big gray area to be sure, but to me it's always seemed wise to keep pages from looking like they were built to display the ads (regardless of one's actual agenda ) and always offering some unique value for the visitor. I would personally stay away from anything, no matter how well-intentioned, that promotes itself as building sites strictly for Adsense revenue.

Hark, both sites look good, nice ad blending especially on the one site. Good luck with them .