Seeking "Must Do" Advice for starting a new website

[JBacchi]

I'm launching a new website within the month. The site will start out as an information/how-to site and may eventually turn into small sales related to the how-tos. I'm considering a brick and mortar and this new website would be the site for the B&M if I go that route. If I don't go B&M, then I plan to build the site and income from Adsense, small sales and then sell the site sometime down the road.

So, would like some advice along the lines of things I must do and things you wish you had done had you known what you know now but you're too far down the road to turn back now, particularly with SEO in mind.

Thanks

[tstolber]

Firstly, and with respect, it sounds like you should know your end goal before launching and research the competition in the area. On the lines of what I know now - most of that is - I should have planned more thoroughly, been more focused and specific.

There are many things you would want to do differently to a site to meet one of the end goals you have mentioned above.

Of course, there are all the generic things you could look at too but it sounds like you need to make a plan and build your site towards and end goal.

[joshz]

http://static.googleusercontent.com/...rter-guide.pdf

[EGOL]

If I could go back about ten years, I would like to have a good content management system and a plan for the content that would be developed. I know how I would plan it if I was doing things over again... but you know how unexpected things divert you?

[JBacchi]

I agree on the CMS and I'm going to use WP. I'm trying to decide on having the capability to have videos on the site vs. youtube. Whether I want to have social content linked to the site, for example, FB posts, tweets. I'm not a big fan of trying to get traffic with social media. To me, SOME is fleeting - as soon as you stop, so does the traffic. Would rather spend the time developing killer content. I think this time around I'm going to mix up long and short pages.

I've made an outline of the major content topics and working on tree diagram of how to set up navigation with those in mind. Also trying to figure out how to blend in Adsense better than just sticking it off to the side.

Agree on the unexpected...right now I'm focused, but I'm passionate enough about the subject to get ADD pretty quickly. hahaha

[joshz]

If you're going to go with a CMS I would go with Joomla. The features you're describing are available easily via 3rd party components for Joomal. I think you'll see a greater benefit (from an admin side) with a more complex CMS.

You can try a demo at Joomla.org

[EGOL]

I'm trying to decide on having the capability to have videos on the site vs. youtube.

I use YouTube and place a link to the relevant page on my site at the top of the description. I get some traffic from them.

Also, YouTube is the second busiest search engine on the web. My videos rank well in their search and that increases the views. In addition, my videos show in the Google SERPs.

Nobody knows for sure how google values a website that is connected to a busy YouTube channel but I don't think that it will hurt a bit.

Whether I want to have social content linked to the site, for example, FB posts, tweets. I'm not a big fan of trying to get traffic with social media. To me, SOME is fleeting - as soon as you stop, so does the traffic. Would rather spend the time developing killer content. I think this time around I'm going to mix up long and short pages.

I agree 100% with content vs. cultivating social every day. However, you can have your content feed sent out via twitter every day and posted to a FB page without any additional work from you. Lots of people will say it is a lazy way to get traffic. I think that this is similar to having it emailed or sent out through RSS. People can subscribe if they want and many of them will and visit your site from your automated tweets, etc.

I've made an outline of the major content topics and working on tree diagram of how to set up navigation with those in mind. Also trying to figure out how to blend in Adsense better than just sticking it off to the side.

Adsense for search does great for me. Also, link units make as much on many of my pages as text/display units. Don't underestimate them.

Also, try rotating your colors to see what yields the best. I started out with ffffee as background and then ran tests with a large number of colors over millions of impressions. I learned that ffffee was the worst performer of any of the colors tested... eeeeee and eeffee and fffff as background worked best.

ADD

lol.... I know all about that.

[JBacchi]

Great points EGOL. Thanks.

Adsense for search does great for me. Also, link units make as much on many of my pages as text/display units. Don't underestimate them.

Also, try rotating your colors to see what yields the best. I started out with ffffee as background and then ran tests with a large number of colors over millions of impressions. I learned that ffffee was the worst performer of any of the colors tested... eeeeee and eeffee and fffff as background worked best.

I had never thought about colors! What a lightbulb moment. I'll add for Search, too. Forgot about that. I don't know if coincidence or what, but the other day I got a survey from G about Adsense. I gave them some feedback they might not have wanted to hear. My Adsense income dropped like a rock. hahaha Could be the time of the year since I have a health site, but seemed like too much of a coincidence.

[EGOL]

If I have a 300x250 ad space, I place it in a table that is at least 320x270. That table has a very light color background and a one pixel-wide very light gray border. The title line is a subdued blue such as 0033cc... the URL is 008800... and the text is a few shades of gray lighter than the text in my content. If my content text is 000000 then the ad text might be 444444.

The light background, very thin and very light border and light text allows eyes to flow into the ad instead of bouncing them off. (background colors eeeeee, eeffee and ffffff work well on my sites - for a border I use cccccc)

There should be at least two blank lines above and below any ad unit. This enables an ad with subdued color to stand out.

Place your ads in server-side includes and write a perl program to change the background colors of the ads hourly with a cron job. This reduces the ad blindness of returning visitors. You can also do something similar with php and a time variable. (If you do this use channels for different color backgrounds to test which colors have the highest yield with your visitors).

Design your site to have columns that are at least 170 wide (for the skyscraper ads) and 320 wide (for the 300x250 ads). These are ads formats with very high yield. Set them to display image ads and text ads so that those formats compete.

A column on the left side of the page with an ad at the top can be a fantastic producer. This is where visitor eyeheat is the highest. Search box works best for me in the top banner on the right side. Text link ads work best in a table with a light grey border and light color background immediately above or below an <h1> title line.

The above is what has worked for me testing the colors over millions of impressions and testing some pages in up to 15 different formats.

[Test-ok]

How are you planning on having a B&M for a how too place? That was the first thing that hit me. Who would use it or visit it?

I would also consider keeping it sectioned for categories, keep it wide open so you can add what ever's needed so you don't have to update the structure, perhaps dividing it by Industries, then you can add different industries as needed.
It's tough to come back after the fact.
Interesting concept though.

[EGOL]

How are you planning on having a B&M for a how too place?

If you have a local B&M that sells any type of hobby, craft, gardening, plumbing, woodworking or other type of product that requires skill and knowledge then the "How To Do It" site will attract the links needed to kill your competitors in local and even national rankings.

Test... you can do this with beads, seeds and weed.

Better get busy on your site.

[Glenn Kilpatric]

I certainly agree with the CMS comment. I started one site in HTML about 8 years ago. I never envisaged it being a large site. But over the years I added more and more pages. It became a nightmare to crosslink articles etc.

I eventually switched to wp. It took me several months to transfer the content and go live. when I went live I lost ground due to not haveing all the 301's tied up perfectly.

Bet advice I could give is go for a cms, and at least have some plan of what you want and where you will be at in a few years time. A CMs makes sense for so many reasons. It makes for very easy work of highlighting significant content and internal linking structures. I would have no problem in recomending wp to you.

[KernelPanic]

If this is a hobby, have fun, if it's a business the most important thing you can do to start is keyword research and competitor analysis. I know this sounds like a no-brainer but you honestly can't do too much of it. Get an estimate that you're very comfortable with of how much it's going to cost you in hours to dominate the industry for your demographic. If this takes you a day to do, you have not done enough. No offense meant here, but consider getting an independent analysis from an SEO that you trust to verify your findings.

CMS: If you need a robust back end that tracks your inventory, gives discount pricing, calculates shipping and does 10 gazillion other things, use Joomla. If you need only a simple shopping cart go with WP IMO.


Good luck!