http://ideacrunch.com Traffic and content strategies for NEW domain names. Fri, 19 Dec 2008 04:54:35 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Big news! I'm posting something finally here -- it's been a while. Still thinking about what put here and I think I've figured it out... Every domain you develop must have a reason to exist -- a purpose in life. It takes energy to give a site "life" though, ideas, ... http://ideacrunch.com/2008/12/18/this-just-in/ If you DO plan to develop your domain, then run out and sign-up with Twitter using the domain as the Twitter username. This will strengthen your brand and it costs nothing! It doesn't even have to be a Twitter-centric application like Foamee. Have a Twitter account gives you another possible traffic ... http://ideacrunch.com/2008/09/16/strengthen-your-brand/ No question that Wordpress PHP template tags and functions make it easy to construct great user interfaces. But if you'd like to do some of the traditionally back-end functions like Creating Posts or Deleting Posts from the front end, you'll quickly hit the wall... Probably the most popular example of this ... http://ideacrunch.com/2008/09/12/wordpress-front-end-the-back-end/ Well, you can't really HIDE a website, but you can redirect users to a safe page that's away from your work-in-progress. The Members Only Wordpress plugin can help. This plugin redirects unregistered users to the log-in page -OR- to any page you choose. At LowStart.com, I've chosen to redirect users to ... http://ideacrunch.com/2008/09/12/hide-your-site-during-development/ Give your visitors the chance to contribute on the very first page they see... That's what I'm doing at UseTemplates.com, a site I created for me to keep track of all the themes and templates I run across while browsing the Net. Directly on the home page, users can now ... http://ideacrunch.com/2008/09/09/let-your-visitors-speak/ When you register a new domain, it's important to gauge its traffic for yourself -- don't rely on others' estimates or statistics. Also, you don't want it resolving to an auto-parked page with your registrar. Oh, and you want some content there for the accidental visitor and the Google bot ... http://ideacrunch.com/2008/09/03/quick-content-for-new-domains/ Optimize! I wrote earlier about McJiffy, the free eBay store script -- no database required, awesome! -- and now I'm actually seeing traffic from Google. I stood up a site for buying hand bags, shoulder bags and purses. These are the searches I'm seeing from Google: chloe baby silverado, chalkware blackamore,Elliott ... http://ideacrunch.com/2008/09/02/crappy-site-gets-google-traffic/ The trick to finding a unique theme for your new blog is to NOT look for them. If you run Wordpress, don't search Google for "Wordpress Themes", you'll get the same old themes everyone else is using. Instead, look for free HTML/CSS templates, then convert them to blog themes. Today, I've ... http://ideacrunch.com/2008/08/28/how-to-find-unique-blog-themes/ When you DO find that perfect theme for your new domain, keep track of it in a gallery! Create content whenever possible and use a domain to match. This also has the benefit of keeping YOU more organized. You can simply use Wordpress for this and a gallery theme. I've started ... http://ideacrunch.com/2008/08/28/build-a-gallery-of-your-themes/ McJiffy EASy is an open-source PHP script for running an eBay store using the eBay affiliate program, the eBay Partner Network. The nice thing about McJiffy is that NO database is required. Setup is sweet and easy. Caching is in place to speed up category searches. I've got a few of ... http://ideacrunch.com/2008/08/27/mcjiffy-ebay-stores/