Back in 1999 I created a website called MulberryJunction.com. About 4 years later the company closed it’s doors and I took the website down. I had registered the domain name in my name (that was before I knew better and now make sure clients own the domain name) so I continued with ownership. Another website was never developed in its place and over the years I had forgotten about it. I have a large amount of domain names that I have purchased over the years and do not use. If I think of a domain name that might be good in the future I will purchase it.
Anyway…… I was going over my list and realized I had forgotten about MulberryJunction.com. I Googled the domain and there are still traces of the name and mentions of it on other sites. Now I am wondering what to do with it. Even though the domain name has not been used in years, does the age of the name add value to it if I develop a new site and re-launch it?
What is your take on this?
A question was raised on one of the web development forums whether or not it was beneficial to split one website into two. In my opinion there are instances when it is beneficial to split one website into two or even more. By splitting your website you then are in a position to make that website extremely focused. For instance if I have a website that covers hunting in Kentucky and it includes, turkey, deer and duck hunting, there is a definite advantage to making three different sites. Each site is then optimized for the particular type of hunting and broken down so that the keywords and search terms are very exact. Then the only people that will be visiting your site(s) are those looking exactly for “deer hunting” for example. That site can be taken even further and split again into “deer hunting in bow season – kentucky” and “deer hunting in gun season – kentucky”
By focusing your smaller websites to the exact subject your traffic may be lower but your return will be higher because the visitor wants exactly what you offer. The bigger site may look better and may even be easier to maintain but I would rather go to a smaller site that has what I want than to a large site that I have to click several times to find my subject.
If I am splitting a site into smaller niche sites I would probably seriously consider putting each site on a different server so the linking does not raise any red flags. The content should be different enough that there are no indications of questionable linking practices among the smaller sites, but to be safe I would look at distributing them across several different services.
Have you ever done anything like this? If so what kind of success have you had?
Treat each of your webpages as individual websites and watch your presence on the Internet grow. Too often I see websites, especially those of small businesses, that have the same page title for each page as well as repeating meta tag info throughout the site. This is usually done by someone who has developed the site that really hasn’t thought the whole SEO process and layout in advance. I know becauase I was there once as well. My studies of SEO techniques over the past year and a half have shown me some things that work. One of the most important being – treat each individual webpage as an invidiual website.
Even if your website is only 4 or 5 pages you can still optimize it properly and increase the chances of your product or service being found.
- Each page title should be different and relevant to the particular product or service on that page.
- Each page description should also be relevant to that particular page
- Use text based links in your menu as well as footer to link to each page. The text link should be the page product keyword.
- It is not necessary to have inbound links coming to your index page only. If someone links to your site from a site that is about blue widgets, then by all means have that inbound link go to the blue widgets page if possible.
- Set up a blog to support your website and have posting categories that match the individual pages of your website and link to those inner website pages from your blog when appropriate.
While this may seem like basic information it is important to make sure your web presence has a solid foundation and this SEO technique is one of the primary blocks in your foundation.
Have you converted your pages to make them reflect the page subject and individualize them?
After reading a comment on www.AskShane.org about a comment he read on www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog about something he saw that got his thought process going about a place where websites that were either abandoned or almost to that point could be traded to work on got me thinking about something along the same lines. (Damn that was a long run-on sentence wasn’t it. Note to copywriter – don’t write like this……)
Anyway, I have been tossing around an idea in my head for the past couple of months about a “barter for services” site. Basically as I said in my comments on AskShane.org, we all have certain skills we excel at and other that we don’t. In my case I create banner ads and do graphic design in addition to basic website design. One of my better skills I have developed over the past two years is SEO. Most of my websites rank naturally on Googles front page for their primary search terms but I suck at other stuff like site automation and some more advanced backend programming.
If we could barter for services in the MMO and SEO community I believe we could all benefit. After all there is strength in numbers. An example for me is one of my sites is a recruiting site. I would like to have a program designed whereby a user can create an account and then log in and post resume and have the ability to update resume. In return if you have SEO issues I would take on that project for you. Granted your project would be much quicker than mine to complete but I would be willing to take on long term in trade. It is that important to me.
So what is your take on this? Would you be willing to trade or barter for services for the collective good? What is your opinion?
Do you want people to visit your blog? One way to do it is to leave comments on other blogs. Readers of comments on those blogs will hopefully click on your name and visit you. But that will only work if you leave comments that have substance and add to the topic of conversation. Everyone has seen those comments that say something like “nice post” or “I agree totally”. Would you really take time to visit their website or blog? I don’t think so. But a comment that adds to the topic of converstaion or further reinforces the original post might provide enough insight into you as a blogger to make the visitor want to click on your link and visit your site.
Personally if I cant find something substantial to say I won’t leave a comment. In fact I wish there was some kind of plug in that scanned a comment and if wasn’t at least 5 lines long it tossed it out. Quality content is not only important on your blog but on your comments as well. Each comment is really a reflection on you. Do you want to be known as a “lame ass” or someone who knows what they are talking about and contributes to the conversation.
