Couple questions

[Clintoc]

Of course I bring up these questions right as I notice my first site got out of the google sandbox, but knowing how the process CAN go I am considering getting the jump with my next site (so if I get sandboxed with it, it was in development anyways).

My first niche is one that is really low maintenance, and probably just as low marketability. I do promote some affiliate products on the site, but expect adsense to really be the primary income. I am totally fine with that, I think with as much info that I can plug onto that site, it will serve that purpose well.

Back on the subject... I have probably a dozen ideas for niches in my head, one of which I would really like to start building up (I keep a notepad with ideas on the others, so I don't lose em). But, I have a few questions on it.

1) Should I start with a test blog first, like on Blogger, or just start with a real domain? Im kinda mixed on this. I would love to test the niche and concept before dropping any money, but the thought of building traffic towards this site will prove counter-productive if it does prove lucrative and I need to move base off-site. The cost of domain registry isn't that high of a cost, and I already pay for unlimited hosting service so the only loss would really be in the registry if it fails. But the upside of Blogger is that when I do put the main site together, I can (and will) link to the main site from it.

2) How advantageous is it really to have the keywords in the URL? I should know this answer seeing as my main niche was accidentally (stupidly) more broad than it really should have been (I didn't think long enough on the keywords, although I think I can work around it.) With my next niche, I am really targeting long tail keywords... so much to the point that a URL of Longtailkeywordthatisreallylong.com seems kinda silly to me. I was thinking of a related URL name, but using article marketing to help me really hit this keyword (seeing as there are only 45 or so articles in the "all in" search.) There is a .com and .net of this longtail keyword already (haven't checked the availability of .org yet). What are your thoughts?

I should have mentioned too, I will be doing SEO/Article marketing to promote the site beyond the normal link building process. PPC isnt going to be an option for a few months yet.

 

[Linda Buquet]

1) One of the advantages of blogger is you can point it to your own domain down the road if you want to. (Doublecheck, but last I knew you could.) That said I don't like to invest my time driving traffic to someone else's web property, I'd rather spend the time building traffic to my own site.

2) I think having KW in the URL helps quite a bit - for SEO and also for conversions. You don't need the entire or exact long tail phase, but try to get a couple of the most important root keywords.

 

[djbaxter]

1) Should I start with a test blog first, like on Blogger, or just start with a real domain? Im kinda mixed on this. I would love to test the niche and concept before dropping any money, but the thought of building traffic towards this site will prove counter-productive if it does prove lucrative and I need to move base off-site. The cost of domain registry isn't that high of a cost, and I already pay for unlimited hosting service so the only loss would really be in the registry if it fails. But the upside of Blogger is that when I do put the main site together, I can (and will) link to the main site from it.

As a matter of principle, I don't like giving my content to free hosting sites if I can avoid it. I started my first blog on blogger several yeras ago and when I migrated to WordPress I lost more than a few posts and if memory serves all of the comments. Mind you, I was new to blogging and new to blogging technology and I may well have done something wrong in my attempt to export/import the old posts. Alternatively, it may well be that both Blogger and WordPress have improved the import/export process in the intervening years.

There's also no reason you can have two separate domains, both hosted by you, and interlink them, as long as you don't overdo this.

2) How advantageous is it really to have the keywords in the URL? I should know this answer seeing as my main niche was accidentally (stupidly) more broad than it really should have been (I didn't think long enough on the keywords, although I think I can work around it.) With my next niche, I am really targeting long tail keywords... so much to the point that a URL of Longtailkeywordthatisreallylong.com seems kinda silly to me. I was thinking of a related URL name, but using article marketing to help me really hit this keyword (seeing as there are only 45 or so articles in the "all in" search.) There is a .com and .net of this longtail keyword already (haven't checked the availability of .org yet). What are your thoughts?

Keywords in the domain name do seem to add some SEO benefit (with or without hyphens; stay away from underscores). Whether keywords in the filename (page) add anything from an SEO standpoint is frequently debated but it probably doesn't add a whole lot. Nonetheless, there may still be some advantages, for example with WordPress or Blogger, in using a permalink structure that includes certain long tail search terms. I've always used keywords-derived-from-title for WordPress because I don't think the native URLs are at all SE friendly or human friendly. I'm now (very recently) experimenting with permalinks for forums.

See:

Google - Latest word on dynamic vs. static URLs: Dynamic URLs vs. static URLs, by Juliane Stiller and Kaspar Szymanski, Google Search Quality Team, September 22, 2008

Which web page elements lead to high Google rankings?, 22 May 2007

The German company Sistrix (paper in German) analyzed the web page elements of top ranked pages in Google to find out which elements lead to high Google rankings. They analyzed 10,000 random keywords, and for every keyword, they analyzed the top 100 Google search results.

Which web page elements lead to high Google rankings?

• Websites that use the targeted keyword in the domain name often had high rankings. It might be that these sites get many inbound links with the domain name as the link text.
• Keywords in the file path don't seem to have a positive effect on the Google rankings of the analyzed web sites. Web pages that use very few parameters in the URL (?id=123, etc.) or no parameters at all tend to get higher rankings than URLs that contain many parameters.

...more

 

[Rob_TID]

Whether keywords in the filename (page) add anything from an SEO standpoint is frequently debated but it probably doesn't add a whole lot. Nonetheless, there may still be some advantages, for example with WordPress or Blogger, in using a permalink structure that includes certain long tail search terms. I've always used keywords-derived-from-title for WordPress because I don't think the native URLs are at all SE friendly or human friendly. I'm now (very recently) experimenting with permalinks for forums.

If somebody links to you with the naked link, there is a benefit in having the keyword there.

 

[djbaxter]

If somebody links to you with the naked link, there is a benefit in having the keyword there.

I'm starting a campaign to insist that all links are fully clothed, in compliance with Australia's new campaign to clean up the net.

 

[Clintoc]

I hadn't looked at the long tail keyword that I was thinking of. I looked at the number of posts and such, and that was it. Doing research (market samurai), there really isnt enough traffic on these keywords to be worthwhile... so I will aim for another keyword, but still try to reach that set since it really is specific.

I found another, a little more competition, but I think the keyword in title will give me an edge here.

Thanks for the quick replies. I'll just buy the domain, kinda pointless to debate over $10-$15 vs a free now that I think on it... and honestly, WP has a really great looking theme for the site, something blogger didnt have.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Glad you made the decision to go with your own domain and WP. It's really the best option.