.tv Mini-Sites feedback please

[discovernow]

I have not gone in this direction really yet, except for 1 name at AEIOU and some at Whypark.com However, after reading DNJournal.com cover story for March, I was curious what experience people have had at the following companies below and how would you rate them overall from best to worst:

AEIOU.com



WannaDevelop.com

DevHub.com



Why Park.com

SiteGraduate.com


Tinbu.com



Thanks, Jim

 

[localexperts]

Jim,

I worked with Brian Benko (NoParking.com) when I was at Respond (he partnered with us). Brian was very effective in certain categories generating leads for local businesses. If you are considering building out a geo or local category, I would see what NoParking.com has to offer. Brian has launched sites like Landscaper.com with his product. IMHO that site is pretty effective for lead generation and monetizing traffic.

George

 

[discovernow]

Jim,

I worked with Brian Benko (NoParking.com) when I was at Respond (he partnered with us). Brian was very effective in certain categories generating leads for local businesses. If you are considering building out a geo or local category, I would see what NoParking.com has to offer. Brian has launched sites like Landscaper.com with his product. IMHO that site is pretty effective for lead generation and monetizing traffic.

George

George,

Thanks for your feedback. By the way, what is the ballpark cost to have a site developed like Landscaper.com with Noparking.com

Thanks, Jim

 

[jeffoverman]

i have great things on tinbu and site graduate.

site graduate are great programers and wordpress developers plus i use them...highly recommend them and they are doing customization stuff.

tinbu has a unqiue concept and great for your users imo. i havent used them yet but i see myself using them on more high end sites i plan do in the future.

as far as other companies goes-i cant really comment on and havent used them.

its good to have 3 to 4 great coders on things and dont rely on any one company. that being said, i give site graduate a great rating. i think we all been burned by web firms, i know i had over the years and with me its 2 firms. a recent project i did i was very disappointed on.

good luck jim...

 

[Argos]

i have great things on tinbu and site graduate.
...
site graduate are great programers and wordpress developers plus i use them...highly recommend them and they are doing customization stuff.
...

Jeff, I am curious about SiteGraduate, do you have any examples of mini sites developed by them ?
Thanks !

 

[jeffoverman]

hi,

i will send you a pm...

does anyone else have any feedback on the other companies?

Jeff, I am curious about SiteGraduate, do you have any examples of mini sites developed by them ?
Thanks !

 

[localexperts]

George,

Thanks for your feedback. By the way, what is the ballpark cost to have a site developed like Landscaper.com with Noparking.com

Thanks, Jim

Jim. I'm not sure of their pricing. Brian bought leads from us, I never used his service. Those sites, while more than parking pages and mini-site builders - are not terribly difficult to build.

A search page for the directory, advertiser signup form, and a generic content page. Change a config file or database table, dump in a new CSS and img directory and bam - and you can launch a new site in minutes.

 

[boboski]

I'm happy with ParkingRevolution.com

www.ScubaDivingChannel.tv

 

[discovernow]

Looks like another one just came out; MiniSites.com. It seems like many new companies are jumping on the "mini site" bandwagon.

Thanks, JIm

 

[localexperts]

Looks like another one just came out; MiniSites.com. It seems like many new companies are jumping on the "mini site" bandwagon.

Thanks, JIm

The problem with all these sites IMHO is the following.

A parked page, with very limited content or with links being the primary content produces really high CTR rates.

A page with content, while more content is spidered produces significantly lower CTR rates.

One piece of data, you can see my traffic on quantcast - we do around 150K uniques a month. Our adsense payment for Feb is $1500. In Jan we got $2000. That is all our sites. Why? Because we have alot of content. Our CTR on Ad Words is significantly less than 1%. All this, after a major project last winter to give AdWords better placement which doubled our earnings.

That is why I sour on AdWords as the only monetization model for sites with real content.

So while more traffic might come to the site, the total revenue outcome could be neutral.

For a owner who wants to provide a directory of companies, advertisers, etc - I'm not sure if the mini site solution is the way to go.

I'm coming to realize that a Wordpress site, combined with a mini-directory site might yield the best of both worlds. The ability to produce, manage, and disseminate alot of content, with the focus to sell advertisers a directory that provides value to their business.

One more datapoint, my former company which had 500K uniques a month - our AdSense check was around $3K-$5K. I"ve never gotten anything close to $10K check from AdSense in my life.

 

[TLDnetworks]

George,

Thanks for your feedback. By the way, what is the ballpark cost to have a site developed like Landscaper.com with Noparking.com

Thanks, Jim

To my knowledge, Brian does not really have a pay service, rather partnership programs. He's highly selective and focuses on premium .com names that would justify a large ROI. Not 100% positive on this, but doubt he'd be interested in any other domain extensions...

I'm coming to realize that a Wordpress site, combined with a mini-directory site might yield the best of both worlds. The ability to produce, manage, and disseminate alot of content, with the focus to sell advertisers a directory that provides value to their business.

I would agree and while working on a few WP sites find it to be an increadible piece of software. Coupled with the right templates, which many are becoming more CMS oriented rather than 'blog' oriented, the opportunities to create dynamic sites is increasing. Have you found a directory styled template yet?

 

[localexperts]

I'm considering for landscaper.tv (since we brought up landscaper.com) to launch a wordpress site as the main site. So http://www.landscaper.tv.

then use the subdomain http://directory.landscaper.tv to go to a directory similiar to http://www.termiteinspections.com. Color and brand would match

then use the subdomain http://videos.landscaper.tv to go to a video version of our directories.

then use the subdomain http://advice.landscaper.tv to go to q/a section.

so that site would be wordpress, with our software powering the directory, advice, and other features that I consider "core" to our business.

While I have typically frowed on subdomains in the past. I think 3-5 subdomains is perfectly acceptable if that is needed to fuse together multiple technologies.

Have you found a directory styled template yet?

I have not found a directory, but I have found a GEO Template I like. I'm looking for a template that can be used in coordination with our directory software. I like this template http://www.woothemes.com/demo/?t=28. I'm not sure if it too "groovy" to convert into a professional site or integrate with our stuff.

 

[TLDnetworks]

To my knowledge, Brian does not really have a pay service, rather partnership programs. He's highly selective and focuses on premium .com names that would justify a large ROI. Not 100% positive on this, but doubt he'd be interested in any other domain extensions...

Looks like he has introduced a new service - automated Blog. Completely different than the Landscaper example. And right on the front page;

If you have quality COM, NET, or ORG names please give us a call. At this time we do not work with any other extensions.

I like this template http://www.woothemes.com/demo/?t=28. I'm not sure if it too "groovy" to convert into a professional site or integrate with our stuff.

You might want to take a look at StudioPress.com
Aff Link

OR

iThemes.com
Aff Link

Both have much better CMS style themes and more professional out of the box...

 

[localexperts]

Thanks. I'm thinking about a using a Studio Press template (their Metro theme) for the GEO sites.

I'm not familiar with the iThemes. I will take a look at look.

 

[TLDnetworks]

Studio Press template (their Metro theme)

That's a fantastic news style theme. iThemes will have better CMS styled themes...

 

[joned]

The Branford Magazine theme is a nice free CMS/magazine theme - http://www.wp-themes.der-prinz.com/magazine/

I've used it for one of our client sites and am planning to use it for others - http://www.dianematthews.co.uk/

Haven't tried it with video yet, but the spaces for pics on the homepage could be adapted for smaller versions/thumbnails of videos

HTH

Cheers, Jon

 

[Michael]

Parked pages do generally have a higher CTR because there is nothing to do but click, but they have a number of disadvantages. The biggest issue is that most search engines actively try to keep parked pages out of their index because they don't provide anything useful to visitors. Another major problem is that visitors rarely stick around on, or return to, a parked page. Also, you can't build backlinks to most parked pages because it is against the TOS.

With a well-developed and carefully SEO'ed mini site, you will see an increase in traffic from organic search engine traffic. Your content will naturally draw backlinks, and you can actively build backlinks yourself. Not only that, visitors will stick around longer and come back to your site. Finally, because you are providing valuable leads to advertisers, your chances of getting smart priced are lower. All of these benefits usually offset the lower CTR and actually lead to higher total revenue.

 

[localexperts]

Over time, without a doubt development will generate more revenue. However, does the revenue scale proportional to the amount of content.

Or does a mini site hurt revenue in the short term because it adds content, without adding enough content to offset the CTR drop.

I don't have an answer, because I've never parked or operated a mini site, I simply ponder the question.

 

[garptrader]

The question of the payback on development was one which caused me quite a bit of hesitation for a long time. The answer is a complicated one. Time has a value and learning how to create sites takes time with no immediate payback. If a domain has significant parked traffic because once upon a time it was a well-developed site and has lots of backlinks, minisite development likely will not pay off in the short run. However, a nice keyword-rich domain with minimal parked income is a good candidate for development if the keywords have sufficient search volume (and consequently the development effort can be monetized). Even a 1-3 page minisite will still require some SEO effort and monetization to justify the effort. I'm sure there is a point of diminishing returns to content development and likewise as well to SEO efforts. I have read one should focus on developing quality links related to the content of one's site rather than just seeking hundreds of meaningless links from anybody who will link to your site. So it seems the ideal is a development beyond a minisite which will generate far more traffic but yet is not so massive that one has to hire a team of high-priced programmers and SEO experts to make it happen. I recall reading that the registrant of MyrtleBeach.com makes a $1 million a year net off that site but I'm sure the resources to generate that income stream are far beyond those of the average domainer.

 

[Michael]

Actually, previously developed sites that still show up in search engines are great candidates for mini sites. You can often times create redirects from the pages that are indexed to the new pages on your site, allowing you to maintain your ranking. Also, the backlinks are less likely to disappear if the site stays developed, which makes it easier to hold on to the page rank. The quickest and surest way to lose a backlink is having it go to a parked page.