The "great content" conundrum

[dbtbandit67]

I get extremely annoyed every time I read "write great content" as a response to every seo/mini-site dilemma posted on here.

Nobody wanted to get into the mini-site business so they can spend hours writing content to receive $2 off Adsense if that. So let's just be honest here. And don't you think that people that had a genuine and constant passion for their content would be posting on forums that catered to their content? Look to the top left corner of your screen gentlemen.

Namepros - Buy, Sell, Discover Domain Names

It's my guess that the vast majority of posters on this forum that build mini-sites do so because they want to make money off Adsense and other programs but not at the expense of spending all their time writing content nobody will read for very little if any Adsense revenue. So let's stop pretending like we're real end users and let's start being honest with each other.

After we setup our mini-sites we want them to make money on a regular basis without having to spend 8 hours/day writing content for it. It's everyone's dream come true on here to own 300 domains each making $2/day at a small expense to your money or time. Maybe that's not possible but don't tell everyone that spending 8 hours/day on original content will be worth your time in Adsense clicks.

 

[dbtbandit67]

monetizing a domain isn't a problem if it's a great domain that gets type-in traffic (popular keyword.com) but it is in most other cases

i dont mind losing battles, i just want us to start being honest with each other

 

[matt_bodis]

Website development is good considering you go all out and develop big websites. Keep focused on one or two domains and keep developing / updating those.

It is better to stay focused than to all of a sudden spring into action and try to develop hundreds. That is just something I learned through experience a while ago.

On a technical side, if you develop a lot of mini sites, and they are all hosted on the same server or network, once you reach a certain number for Google on a single server, every single site pointed to the server will drop significantly in rankings in Google. When I mean significantly, it is almost as if they'd get de-index. They are in their "spam" bucket at that point.

Bing will de-index it completely.

And the only one that will still keep it somewhere in the rankings is Yahoo. But since Yahoo is merging with Bing and using Bing algorithms, it will not be what it is today in half a year or so once the merger goes through.

Development is good if constantly developing / updated a few core domains. Otherwise, parking would be the better option.

Mass developing mini-sites to search engines like Google would be considered spam. Knowing Google and some of their employees, they like only two things: fully developed websites or parked pages. They don't like this in-between mini-site development. That's one of the reasons they got rid of MFA and web farm sites (aside from the obvious reason). They view it as an unnecessary intermediate site between what the user is searching for and where the user should be. They don't like it, and I doubt they ever will.

 

[doggyowner]

On a technical side, if you develop a lot of mini sites, and they are all hosted on the same server or network, once you reach a certain number for Google on a single server, every single site pointed to the server will drop significantly in rankings in Google.

Interesting. How many sites on the same server are we talking about here? I am curious to know. Cheers.

 

[enlytend]

cfguru's got it right.

Website development is good considering you go all out and develop big websites. Keep focused on one or two domains and keep developing / updating those.

They don't have to be massive sites, but quality counts, and that's why the phrase "good content" keeps coming up.

On a technical side, if you develop a lot of mini sites, and they are all hosted on the same server or network, once you reach a certain number for Google on a single server, every single site pointed to the server will drop significantly in rankings in Google. When I mean significantly, it is almost as if they'd get de-index. They are in their "spam" bucket at that point.

Especially if you link them all together. Just sharing an IP isn't a problem, otherwise no sites on shared hosting plans would ever rank - it's when they can "footprint" a bunch of related, low-quality sites.

Sorry to say it, but aside from parking, there really IS no free lunch. If you want sites that do well, you need to put a little effort in.

 

[matt_bodis]

Well, it is hard to say. Most parking companies are in the tank by Google / Bing.

I have a feeling once it reaches around 5,000 - 15,000 domains per ip, something starts to happen. Not sure if it is related to Google/Bing just banning based on IP, or they compare content of all domains on that IP.

They always recommend using dedicated servers though. It is okay to host many of your sites on 1 dedicated box. They are against web farms, so if they see 10,000 domains on 1 box, they'll know something is not right.

 

[dbtbandit67]

Sorry to say it, but aside from parking, there really IS no free lunch. If you want sites that do well, you need to put a little effort in.

You think I was asking for a free lunch? I was not.

What I am asking is for people to stop suggesting to write content for 8 hours/day in exchange for $2 in Adsense clicks if that. Even if you looked for other ways to develop mini-sites that didn't consist of writing content for 8 hours/day in exchange for $2 in Adsense, it's still a lot of hard work. Nobody is asking for a free lunch here.

As far as your great content suggestion goes, I would like you to show us one or several of your sites that are performing profitably because of your suggestion. I'd also like you to mention how much time you spend on average per day compared to its revenue day.

The same challenge goes out to anyone else that's going to suggest "write great content [and that's it]" on this thread. Back it up.

 

[enlytend]

As far as your great content suggestion goes, I would like you to show us one or several of your sites that are performing profitably because of your suggestion..

Sorry but I don't discuss my sites or post URL's. However I did post a CJ screenshot in this thread in the context of affiliate programs vs adsense.

Not sure what you mean by

. I'd also like you to mention how much time you spend on average per day compared to its revenue day.

??? Revenue day???

Once a site is launched,what I do and how much time I spend depends on the type of site. Some I write a blog post every week or two. Others I update a few times a year. If I have an idea for a new article / page for one of my sites, I run with it. If the site has products, I review product inventory about once a month. I keep my eyes and ears open (and have Google alerts set) so I can spot opportunities to cash in on trends that relate to my sites and provide timely content if something comes up.

It's not so much about spending hours writing content or writing pulitzer prize quality content as it is about creating "money" content.

I spend minimal time building links - they happen by themselves.

Using unique content for spider bait and link bait is classic SEO. Making smart content choices will drive revenue as well. If you're spending hours and hours on content and only earning $2/day it sounds like you need to find out WHY you're only making that low amount (poor conversions / low CTR? no traffic?) and take steps to address it.

If I suggest content in a thread as the answer to a problem, it's because I know it's relatively simple and it works. I'm a "pay it forward" kind of person - people helped *me* when I was getting started, and I want to see others succeeed. My advice - take it or leave it. And best of luck to you with your sites, whatever you choose to do.

 

[doggyowner]

Well, it is hard to say. Most parking companies are in the tank by Google / Bing.

I have a feeling once it reaches around 5,000 - 15,000 domains per ip, something starts to happen. Not sure if it is related to Google/Bing just banning based on IP, or they compare content of all domains on that IP.

They always recommend using dedicated servers though. It is okay to host many of your sites on 1 dedicated box. They are against web farms, so if they see 10,000 domains on 1 box, they'll know something is not right.

That's really interesting to know and thank you for sharing!

 

[Datalife]

My 2 cents

Let me just say that even if you all dream of having 300 mini sites making $2 a day off Adsense....

In my experience it won't turn out like that. $2 a day is a lot of money, which means a lot of clicks. Some fairly big websites only make $2-3 a day....and they get thousands of visitors a month.

UNLESS you have very high paying keyword domains...blah blah...it will be impossible to make "$2 a day" - let alone $1 a day from each mini site.

I also notice a trend these days....casual surfers are no longer so click happy IF they notice the site is a half baked site. A low quality site may cause people running away within a few seconds of opening the page. And I'm one of those "quality over quantity" type of guys....

So I believe, it's either a good, well developed site, or a plain parked domain....no in-betweens

 

[dbtbandit67]

i dont buy this idea that all you need is great content and that's it (unless you own a great domain that gets type-in traffic) because w/ all the competition out there, there needs to be some way that you market your site

and that's just as much of what this thread is about. if you're going to suggest great content, give your other marketing/promotion suggestions. because to say "write it and they will come" to me, is misleading

 

[enlytend]

and that's just as much of what this thread is about. if you're going to suggest great content, give your other marketing/promotion suggestions. because to say "write it and they will come" to me, is misleading

Why do you have such a hard time believing that?

1) Create decent, unique content. If it's a very competitive topic, either go after long-tail topics your competitors are missing, give yours a different "spin", say something controversial or just do it better.

2) Search engines index your content.

3) Someone doing a search finds your page. If they think it's really good, maybe they'll (social) bookmark it, tweet about it, tell a friend, join your mailing list or link to it from their blog or web site.

4) Rinse and repeat.

Promoting your site has also been discussed on this forum ad nauseum - build links or advertise. For link building - social bookmarks, blog comments, etc. But don't just run around and spam your links - get involved in the communities. But this takes time and doesn't scale well to hundreds of sites on different topics (see "Advertising" below).

Or ask relevant sites to link to you - most of those emails will go in the trash, but you increase your odds if your site reallly DOES benefit their visitors (like ... I don't know ... "useful content" maybe?) or if you offer them something in return like maybe some content for their site. That's how you get links that people trust and quality traffic.

Advertising - PPC advertising (but don't try using PPC to promote an Adsense site!), buying links (in high-quality directories - don't bother with the dime-a-dozen link farms), buying tweets, social bookmarks, buying text or banner ad space, paying someone to build quailty links for you. All cost money, some more than others.

You can buy all the advertising in the world, but if your site doesn't have anything worthwhile to deliver nobody will click/buy/whatever and you're throwing your money down the drain.

Which is why it all comes back to ... content .

 

[dbtbandit67]

do you personally use the marketing techniques that you've outlined or for the most part do you just focus on good content?

---------- Post added at 03:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:39 AM ----------

if i went on and followed your suggestions i'd like to think that writing content for 8 hours/day for the sake of having a "constantly updated" site (according to Google) isn't required for it all to be worth your time

i'd like to think you can write at your disposal and there would still be indexing/marketing/adsense benefits to it

 

[marynorth21]

May I ask if these parked domains earns more money than those with content?

 

[dbtbandit67]

i'd also like to point that that pay-per-click advertising may be worth it if it draws recurring visitors due to updated content (which doesn't necessarily have to be your own

May I ask if these parked domains earns more money than those with content?

typically: yes.

however, you need to own domains that are actually good enough to get type-in or "passive traffic" which are typically keyword.com

which goes back to the main portion of this forum filled with people that love to scan lists all day and spend lots of money on domains.

i do not enjoy either which is the reason why i'm on the traffic/monetization portion to begin with.

if you do not own expensive non-hyphenated keyword.com that gets loads of traffic on their own, you can still make money with adsense sites with content. i'd prefer to own tons of domains in the prior but i only have a passion for the latter.

 

[enlytend]

do you personally use the marketing techniques that you've outlined or for the most part do you just focus on good content?

I do some social marketing and occasionally run a PPC campaign. Writing the content and let it do it's thing is slower but overall less time consuming.

i'd like to think you can write at your disposal and there would still be indexing/marketing/adsense benefits to it

There are. The only case where you'd need to write content all the time is if you have a time-critical subject that changes a lot - news, sports, celebrity gossip, that sort of thing. The more "evergreen" your topic, the longer you can let it go. No need to freshen it up daily or even weekly.

Spend more time planning and less time actually developing content. Here's an example:

A while back I started a small site on what was then a hot new type of consumer product (still is, but not with the "buzz" it had back then). I'm more into the affiliate thing than adsense, but I noticed the most popular item of this type had no affiliate program. The company WAS advertising with Adwords (and in the media) and aggressively bidding a lot of keywords. They had a lot of #1-2 spots.

Guess what? When there's no affiliate program for something, you'll find there are few to no reviews of it either. Sad but true . People were looking for reviews. So I wrote a review. And right underneath it, I compared it to two similar products which did have affiliate programs. I put one discreet block of adsense down the side of my page, which brought in the ads for the popular product.

Content brought in visitors looking for reviews of widget brand A and comparisons of other brands to brand A because nobody else was talking about brand A! These were people trying to make a purchasing decision. They read the review* and looked at the comparison chart. If they thought brand b or c would be better or do just as well for a cheaper price, I was likely to get a sale (avg. $10/sale). If they preferred brand a, there were those convenient ads at around $1.50-$2 / click.

Did really well until they wised up and started an affiliate program, then everyone else jumped on the bandwagon :D, but by that time the buzz was falling off that entire genre and prices had dropped dramatically.

SMART content. USEFUL content. Not lots of content, not hours writing content, not thousands of random, garbagey links.

*BTW, if you do a review be HONEST. Don't treat your visitors like fools. Don't lie about a product. Don't take s*** and try to sell it as a rose - if it stinks say it stinks and say why it stinks. You maintain your credibility, you sleep better knowing that you did the right thing, and oddly enough, people will often buy it anyway!