Domain building experience log

[Ashton]

This is a progress log of my experience in trying to make a passive income from domains and microsites.

I hope it will help new domainers not make the same mistake's I do, and some of the more experienced domainers will provide some sort of advice and direction when I am doing something stupid.


19th August 2010
Completed first beta of http://www.hygienecourses.co.uk - All thoughts are appreciated. £5 commission per course purchase. Will update on google ranking and hits when it gets listed.


August 2010
Purchased the following domains for development (plans on the right):

HannahMontana.co.uk - Hannah Montana blog + gallery, no adverts until success, maybe affiliates to itunes for music, amazon etc.
UsedBikeSales.co.uk - Bike classifieds, completely free to list, no adverts planned.
SiteCreate.co.uk - Info on creating your own website, affiliated with the website builders like webs.com
LuxuryWeekend.co.uk - Luxury weekend reviews, hotels, etc - Affiliates
HygieneCourses.co.uk - Food hygiene courses online.


July 2010
Foolishly over confident in myself I bought buyusedpcs.co.uk off a drop list. I made a very basic and hastily made site, and signed up to affiliate programs, surprise surprise, no traffic, not many google searches. Bad choice. Once burned.


Early 2010
Joined acorndomains as an experienced web designer, tired of earning <£50k a year and wanting to have some passive income. I initially joined tempted to offer my design services to gain experience.
Gradually got hooked to the ideas behind domaining and that led me to start spending my time on researching and creating sites


All thoughts on what I am currently doing and any advice is really appreciated. If the admin would prefer I kept this off the forum let me know, better than me asking for a website review on every site I complete I thought

 

[rob]

Good info - will be nice to follow progress - keep it updated!

 

[springer]

Your Hygiene Courses site is nice and clean, although I would add a logo instead of the tightly spaced text at the top.

I am sure it is something you considered before your purchased the domain, but I would think carefully before investing, and quite possibly wasting, time on Hannah Montana. I doubt Disney would be too impressed you making money from their intellectual property.

Look forward to further updates Ashton.

 

[Ashton]

Good info - will be nice to follow progress - keep it updated!

I intend to

Your Hygiene Courses site is nice and clean, although I would add a logo instead of the tightly spaced text at the top.

I am sure it is something you considered before your purchased the domain, but I would think carefully before investing, and quite possibly wasting, time on Hannah Montana. I doubt Disney would be too impressed you making money from their intellectual property.

Look forward to further updates Ashton.

The text is for SEO purposes, although currently its only h2 and h3 so I could add a logo.

Regarding Hannah Montana, it wll be a fansite. It will have similarities to: http://www.hannahmontanazone.com but be targeted at a UK audience.

At the end of the day, I will be earning them money (Branded products, DVD's and music) and promoting their show.

Unfortunately it has been the last Hannah Montana series... so unsure how long it will last.

Thanks for your reply

 

[accelerator]

Food hygeine site is nice and clear. On a page like:

http://hygienecourses.co.uk/food-hygiene/

The click here for more info button is a little far down the page and could be given more contrast.

Rgds

 

[Ashton]

Today I am redesigning hygienecourses.

I will make a design that will get picked up by some of the showcases and hopefully improve its ranking considerably. (Its currently page 10 on google for hygiene courses haha)

New design will have some elements of the old and some entirely new bits

Thanks for the suggestion about the buttons, they are all being changed in the new design to a slightly more square look, with a better hover.

 

[accelerator]

Thanks for the suggestion about the buttons, they are all being changed in the new design to a slightly more square look, with a better hover.

I was thinking a better colour ... my favourite is orange.

Rgds

 

[Ashton]

Green is associated with hygiene, that was the idea.

Once you see the new design it hopefully will sway you

 

[theonemanyuri]

Good work mate. Couple of thoughts:

- On mouse over, 'supervising' says manufacturing certificates
- The footer is offset to the left on my display, would look cleaner in the centre

But it looks smart apart from those small things. I agree green is a suitable colour for food and hygiene, not too intrusive on a site where your going to be reading alot either

 

[Ashton]

Good work mate. Couple of thoughts:

- On mouse over, 'supervising' says manufacturing certificates
- The footer is offset to the left on my display, would look cleaner in the centre

But it looks smart apart from those small things. I agree green is a suitable colour for food and hygiene, not too intrusive on a site where your going to be reading alot either

Sorted both in new design, but thanks for the feedback

 

[Ashton]

After a long day the new design is live on:

Hygiene Courses

Still more to do, but its a good start.

Edit: Might not look right in IE, I did it on my macbook and can't test, though I will do tomorrow.

 

[Ashton]

Site has just been indexed by google again, no backlinks just SEO coding and its number 4 on google uk for "hygiene courses"

However I am scrapping the URL for one with more exact searches, live and learn eh.

 

[Rob_F]

Green is associated with hygiene

Is it? I would have thought white coupled with a fresh, light blue myself.

Interesting thread.

- Rob

 

[Ashton]

Is it? I would have thought white coupled with a fresh, light blue myself.

Interesting thread.

- Rob

Well the food standards agency use green themselves

foodhygienecourses.org.uk still not indexed, which isn't very good!

Will post some more updates later

 

[Oceanic]

Good thread, I will be keen to see how you progress as I am in a similar position. I want to try and get my adsense earnings up to about £20 a day so that I can live in the tropics in the winter without having to do to much work!

 

[Ashton]

Thanks.

Today I sold one of my domains I bought for £150 for £300... no biggy but all profit is good profit eh?

Oh and food hygiene courses got index on google... low... bummer, will have to get some links in. I am tidying up the design for some web design showcases.

 

[stender]

Well done. How did you sell the domain?

 

[Ashton]

Well done. How did you sell the domain?

Email direct to the companies for it. I chose email since the target market was web professionals who deal with email all the time No letters were sent and had quite a bit of interest back.

 

[Ashton]

Food hygiene courses got picked up by a few showcases, needs to get indexed and some weight rolling in.

So busy at the moment, can't say I have a lot of time to be spent developing the other domains I have... client work, own work, domain trading... bleurgh.

 

[mibut]

With http://www.hygienecourses.co.uk you have a decent design and not much else.
meta Title and description need changing.Don't need domain name in there, use course as well as courses, basic,safety, etc... (google adwords keyword checker put food hygiene as search term click exacts and local search) Make sure whatever words/phrases used on in meta are also used on the page.
Home page you have same content as on individual pages and titles all link to home page# instead of individual pages
Individual pages need unique content and also hide the affiliate links.
Check out google adwords keyword checker for ideas for other page titles.