Review Minisite alternatives to parking

[Timmy11B]

I've been working on two hosted minisites as an alternative to traditional parking. Thought I would see what people think of the templates.

Browns Gear - This is a free commercial template that I tweaked to fit the necessary elements. Focus is Cleveland Browns football merchandise.

Big Game Seats - This template was created from scratch. Focus is on sports tickets.

The goal of both is to create hosted pages that incorporate affiliate links, standard size banners, adsense and other features/scripts/feeds/widgets related to the domain keywords.

Any input or advice is appreciated.

 

[whitebark]

You are making a critical mistake - looking for duplicate content as a quick way of finishing these sites. You might get away with it for a while, but they will catch up to you. The market has been undergoing change the past while and duplicate/low quality content sites are already being dropped and I fully expect the next round in google/yahoo/msn's search cleanup will be to go after just these types of sites. They know full well what is duplicate content and what is not.

I started a thread on it in this same forum category. And I'll say the same thing here as I did there - duplicate content is a dead end. Spend the time to create something new and original. The search engines will reward you for it.

 

[barefoottech]

yes Duplicated content can be a problem ,but is still a starting point . Rather just using NO CONTENT on a AD Filled page which does nothing for page ranking at all

 

[unholy1]

Minisites are great as long as they don't rely heavily on Adsense as their major source of revenue. One can never trust Google, they could stop Adsense on such minisites one fine morning with no warning. I'd never take that risk. Minisites which focus on affiliate sales, text links etc may work well with not too much risk.

I'd have to agree that keeping Adsense as the only form of revenue generation would not be the best way to go. As much as I like Adsense since they do generate 30-35% of the revenues I make and is probably the easiest to implement and monitor on each site, I'm still looking for ways to reduce the Adsense rev down to around 20% of the total. On some sites, I've even removed the adsense ads for a few months to test how effective other ads in terms of the revenue generated.

On minisites, I found that Adsense is still the quickest way to monetize. However to maximize the revenue potential other forms of revenue streams have to be put in place. As mentioned by Varon, these may include affiliate sales, text links and others like Amazon (Easy to implement and get sales, but @ 7% share sometimes it's just not worth the ad space) and eBay.

Anyway to answer Timmy11B, the templates look good but there is still the need for content if you intend to keep running the Adsense ads.
If you choose the path of getting your content from article directories or other published sources, you may run into problems of duplicate content. However, as Matt Cutts has indicated some time back, if you put in a full paragraph or two of commentary, it is less likely to be flagged as dupes.
Even better if you allow commentaries from visitors, pretty much like bogs or forums (this would reduce the amount of time you'd have to spend adding commentaries yourself). Each time the Search Bots crawl your site, they see additional content and will update what's already indexed and more likely to improve your site relevancy score and push it up instead of pushing it down or worse de-indexing it.

Keep in mind that the SE's policies and methods change regularly so you need to be aware of what changes they are implementing and keep inline with them.

 

[netmeg]

I have started on some mini sites that integrate AdSense along with affiliate links:

AdvanceCashLoanOnline dot com
FreeYearlyCreditReport dot info
HotelColumbusOhio dot com

Kamloops I like all the content you've incorporated into your sites. Mine are only a week old so I don't have much in the way of original articles, but I plan to update them every week or so.

These look really good, but you are in violation of AdSense TOS with the titles in the boxes above the skyscraper ads - the ONLY text you are allowed to use above those links is "Advertising" or "Sponsored Links".

 

[mrizos]

I've been working on two hosted minisites as an alternative to traditional parking. Thought I would see what people think of the templates.

Browns Gear - This is a free commercial template that I tweaked to fit the necessary elements. Focus is Cleveland Browns football merchandise.

Big Game Seats - This template was created from scratch. Focus is on sports tickets.

The goal of both is to create hosted pages that incorporate affiliate links, standard size banners, adsense and other features/scripts/feeds/widgets related to the domain keywords.

Any input or advice is appreciated.

I think they rock, but I have 2 questions:

1. Are you using adwords to send traffic?
2. Do you *guys* think sites like this give you the adsense boot?

 

[barefoottech]

You NEED way more content to satisfy Google's TOS
Get a couple of articles (NOT RSS Feeds) real good old fashioned text
I have been doing Adsense Friendly Minisites to replace a park page for years.some
examples below in signature and at MiniSite.info and equitycredit.info

 

[mrizos]

You NEED way more content to satisfy Google's TOS
Get a couple of articles (NOT RSS Feeds) real good old fashioned text
I have been doing Adsense Friendly Minisites to replace a park page for years.some
examples below in signature and at MiniSite.info and Joomlasites.com.au

Yeah, but are you sending traffic to them?

 

[barefoottech]

I never ever use adwords.
All my minisites make me money and If the articles also gets traffic good for them
Sign of a novice domainer ,scared of losing traffic to other sites from any outgoing links.
NEWSFLASH , visitors to your sites will leave and go elsewhere anyway

 

[Timmy11B]

I think they rock, but I have 2 questions:

1. Are you using adwords to send traffic?
2. Do you *guys* think sites like this give you the adsense boot?

I haven't sent any paid traffic to these sites. Both sites were previously parked and getting type in and natural search traffic.

In regards to #2, would they be booted from adsense due to content quality?

I'll look into adding some additional article content. Any recommendations on good sources/sites for articles?

 

[barefoottech]

In regards to #2, would they be booted from adsense due to content quality?

YES
Most Newcomers to Adsense for Content assume that they can create their own park page using it to replicate a commercial parked page. Parking services use Adsense for DOMAINS which is a different service and has a Different TOS contract. One major difference is the content requirement.

I'll look into adding some additional article content. Any recommendations on good sources/sites for articles?

iSNARE.com

 

[Varon]

Minisites are great as long as they don't rely heavily on Adsense as their major source of revenue. One can never trust Google, they could stop Adsense on such minisites one fine morning with no warning. I'd never take that risk. Minisites which focus on affiliate sales, text links etc may work well with not too much risk.

 

[Kamloops]

I have been using wordpress blogs with good success

Check out gmctopkicks dot com
or snowblowers-reviews dot com

 

[Varon]

I have been using wordpress blogs with good success

Check out gmctopkicks dot com
or snowblowers-reviews dot com

Both those sites are superb. The adsense integration is near perfect. Neat job.

 

[DomainGamer]

I have started on some mini sites that integrate AdSense along with affiliate links:

AdvanceCashLoanOnline dot com
FreeYearlyCreditReport dot info
HotelColumbusOhio dot com

Kamloops I like all the content you've incorporated into your sites. Mine are only a week old so I don't have much in the way of original articles, but I plan to update them every week or so.

 

[Timmy11B]

I've been working on two hosted minisites as an alternative to traditional parking. Thought I would see what people think of the templates.

Browns Gear - This is a free commercial template that I tweaked to fit the necessary elements. Focus is Cleveland Browns football merchandise.

Update: I've taken down my original template and I am now working on a wordpress based site that will focus more on content and affiliates than adsense. Thanks to all for your input.

 

[Kamloops]

Both those sites are superb. The adsense integration is near perfect. Neat job.

The template is free but if anyone is not comfortable with wordpress I can set it all up for you with your content and adsense code and affilatate codes for a small fee.

I have started on some mini sites that integrate AdSense along with affiliate links:

AdvanceCashLoanOnline dot com
FreeYearlyCreditReport dot info
HotelColumbusOhio dot com

Kamloops I like all the content you've incorporated into your sites. Mine are only a week old so I don't have much in the way of original articles, but I plan to update them every week or so.

Thanks , I pay a guy in India to write for me 45 bucks for 10 original articles. 300 words that are optimized for the keyword I give him. The snowblower site is fresh and not much content yet. Nice thing about wordpress google likes them and really indexes them fast sometimes before the site is even close to been complete. The gmc one was on googles first page the same day I started it for search terms like GMC Topkick and GMC Topkick 4x4 and was making a couple bucks a day right away, but then google made some changes and it really dropped in the search results. Not sure why still trying to figure it out.

 

[DomainGamer]

Thanks Netmeg for the info on the skyscraper ads, I have fixed my titles to comply.

 

[qpPUNISHERqp]

I have started on some mini sites that integrate AdSense along with affiliate links:

AdvanceCashLoanOnline dot com
FreeYearlyCreditReport dot info
HotelColumbusOhio dot com

Kamloops I like all the content you've incorporated into your sites. Mine are only a week old so I don't have much in the way of original articles, but I plan to update them every week or so.

What do you do paste the links in? I have domains parked learning html<<<Newb still! Thanx!

 

[DomainGamer]

Punisher, rephrase your question - I'm not sure what you're asking.

 

[whitebark]

Some good information in this thread for new users or for those looking to try something new with their domains.

Here's my tip: Most of the sites in my sig are new - made in the past seven days or so. I make them 2-10 pages of original text content for the most part and do the most basic seo linking stratedgy to them.

I let these types of new sites run for 2-3 months as is and then gauge how things are working. Are they ranking for the on-topic keywords? What's ctr like? What's the epc like? Any natural backlinks? Etc etc etc. The ones that do well on a number of metrics get more attention- ie - more content pages, tweak the content etc. The ones doing okay get a huge dose of loving, including maybe even a new template, and those that don't do anything usually get left to the wayside till I have time to completely revamp them. Face it - even the best laid plans might not work to your expectations. Be prepared to move on.

Try it - it doesn't take much. Select a nice free template, write your own content, or pay someone to do it. Get a few links to it and sit back and give it a bit to see how it works out. Wash, rinse, repeat.

 

[GILSAN]

Some good information in this thread for new users or for those looking to try something new with their domains.

Here's my tip: Most of the sites in my sig are new - made in the past seven days or so. I make them 2-10 pages of original text content for the most part and do the most basic seo linking stratedgy to them.

I let these types of new sites run for 2-3 months as is and then gauge how things are working. Are they ranking for the on-topic keywords? What's ctr like? What's the epc like? Any natural backlinks? Etc etc etc. The ones that do well on a number of metrics get more attention- ie - more content pages, tweak the content etc. The ones doing okay get a huge dose of loving, including maybe even a new template, and those that don't do anything usually get left to the wayside till I have time to completely revamp them. Face it - even the best laid plans might not work to your expectations. Be prepared to move on.

Try it - it doesn't take much. Select a nice free template, write your own content, or pay someone to do it. Get a few links to it and sit back and give it a bit to see how it works out. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Nice work Roy. Those sites look great. I don't see many other solutions other than what you and many others have suggested.

BTW your "Products" link on your toothwhiteners.ca is not loading. Gives error "The page cannot be found"

GIL

 

[whitebark]

Nice work Roy. Those sites great. I don't see many other solutions other than what you and many others have suggested.

BTW your "Products" link on your toothwhiteners.ca is not loading. Gives error "The page cannot be found"

GIL

Thanks GIL

I've been a bit busy - haven't had time to plug in the affiliate stuff on that page yet. Probably should soon though - that's where the best $ comes from! :hehe:

 

[thebutler]

that theme

Kamloops,

Not sure who might have passed that theme onto you but its the very nicely done doshdosh Prosense theme (just google prosense theme). You can also get it in blue. Its very tweaked for Adsense. It auto loads Adsense blocks. They do ask that you keep their links in the footer. Doshdosh is Canuck so stick up for your fellow canuck!

db

The template is free but if anyone is not comfortable with wordpress I can set it all up for you with your content and adsense code and affilatate codes for a small fee.



Thanks , I pay a guy in India to write for me 45 bucks for 10 original articles. 300 words that are optimized for the keyword I give him. The snowblower site is fresh and not much content yet. Nice thing about wordpress google likes them and really indexes them fast sometimes before the site is even close to been complete. The gmc one was on googles first page the same day I started it for search terms like GMC Topkick and GMC Topkick 4x4 and was making a couple bucks a day right away, but then google made some changes and it really dropped in the search results. Not sure why still trying to figure it out.

 

[Timmy11B]

Quick update: I've reworked the original template (brownsgear .com). I tweaked an existing wordpress theme. I also integrated affiliate datafeeds through GoldenCan. A couple important notes for others doing similar minisites - always include a sitemap and a privacy policy!