Finally I have completed the e-book “WordPress for Websites”. With over 60 screen captures and 90 pages, it was a big undertaking and so I have not had time to post lately.
Basically it documents how I build out my domains and does so assuming the reader knows nothing about HTML or WordPress. Managing the mini-sites with WordPress Mu is amazing because I only have to manage and update one copy of software no matter how many domains I have built out on.
Not all domains should be built out but most can and probably should be. After the initial investment putting together 5-10 pages of content and tweaking the ads, the maintenance is minimal and the beauty of it all is you can control the content and ads to suit the visitors you are getting.
I have found it especially useful where the domain term is ambiguous. For example, lets say you owned Painting.com and you parked the domain. The parking company puts up ads for house painters, car painters, art supplies, art museums and so on. If I am a visitor looking for art supplies, this is not going to encourage me to click on that specific ad hidden among irrelevant ads.
Creating a mini-site allows you to build pages dedicated to each topic. This forces an investment of time on the part of the visitor which will make them more likely to click on a link than to exit the site altogether. Perhaps parking companies will become more sophisticated over time and help parse out domain names with multiple meanings but for now they do a poor job.
Not sure what a person may be looking for? Search on Google for “painting”. Google invests a lot of money and time in trying to meet their visitors expectations. At the end of the first search page, you will find a list of related terms as below:
Searches related to: painting
painting rooms painting house oil painting painting interior
painting a bedroom painting for kids painting techniques paintings for sale
You could easily dedicate a single page to each of these with associated ads. In effect you leverage the expertise of a company like Google to do your research for you and believe me, they do a far better job than any parking company.
The downside to doing mini-sites is that you have to supply your own ads. You do not have the parking companies vision across many parked domains but in many ways, no two domains are the same so that broad vision is not as powerful as you might think at first.
Build up your own knowledge of the ads that work and the ads that pay out well as you tweak your mini-sites. You have far more control and can optimize specifically for each domain down to each page on that domain mini-site.
One other advantage is that you begin to accumulate data helping you decide which domains may be worth building out to full websites. Not only that, but you also have data supporting the topics that should be covered and the types of ads that will work. You will also have data on your visitors including nationality, income class, education etc.
I have one domain which was receiving traffic from two distinct geographical locations and each one was looking for something very different from the other. By splitting the traffic by geographical IP, I was able to optimize pages specifically for each demographic. The result was an increase in income and a lot less email from visitors.
The e-book documents these efforts in a stepwise manner and also covers the basics of adding advertising and the basics of SEO in WordPress. The steps are designed to minimize maintenance which was one of my goals but retaining the flexibility to change content, appearance and ads.
There is a money back guarantee if the book doesn’t meet your expectations but I hope that for those of you who do decide to invest in it, it will prove valuable.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice post there you “speak” from experience.
Great WORK
In your ebook, are you talking mainly about wordpress mu or wordpress?
Thanks for the question. Both share 99% of code so I use WordPress to lay down the basics of the program as well as show how to adapt from a blog to a website for most of the book. Then I show how to apply this to WordPress MU. This includes the quirks of themes and plugins in WP MU, how to set up multiple websites etc.
If you are already familiar with WordPress, a lot of the book may be familiar but there are tricks to optimize as a website and not a blog. Perhaps I should think about a smaller version just covering WP MU for those already familiar with WordPress?
Does your book outline how to install WordPress MU on a VPS and how does that differ from using Fantastisco installations of WordPress?
Cheers!
It does cover a manual install which is what you want. You need to create the database yourself whereas Fantastico or other scripts will do this for you. The database manual creation is described in the book. I can’t cover all the possible tools so I give a MySQL example. If you can’t get it working for some reason, remember there is a 100% refund on the price for up to 60 days after purchase. If you do have questions, email me and I will try to help you through it.
I am looking to develop some of my parked domains and have basic computer skills. Would your book be helpful to me? Would you know how WordPress compares to Xsite pro?
They are a different animals. WordPress is free software that is updated by the WordPress community and with add-ons that provide different functionality. This means it is constantly upgraded for security, for functionality and there are many free themes to change the look of your websites. My book shows you how to change it from blogging software to traditional website software and some tricks to optimize your site
Xsitepro is a web building script that is more limited and may work for you but unlike WordPress, it is not free and upgrades are not free. WordPress MU allows you to manage many websites from one piece of software which Xsitepro does not. This is really important when it comes to managing multiple sites because you would have to upgrade each site separately with xsitepro. With WordPress MU you do it once.
So in summary, WordPress is free, more powerful and more flexible than Xsitepro. Xsitepro is good for a simple site or couple of sites.
This site is build on WordPress for example. I will provide updates to the book too to cover future versions. A new version of WP just came out and i am rewriting the book to cover the new interface. That will be provided shortly to everyone who has bought the book. Again no obligation. Doesn’t work for you, then get your refund and try xsitepro.
You can see the WordPress website (default as blogging software) at http://wordpress.org/about/