The following article is a guest post by my friend and fellow domain blogger Morgan Linton. Morgan is the publisher of Domainvestors.tv as well as author of Domain Flipping available at DNFlipping.com.

With blogs being used more and more for the creation of MiniSites it is important to understand some simple things you can do to improve the SEO of your blog. Many people think that SEO is a dark art that can only be done by “the experts.” While there are some advanced techniques that can help – there are some quick and easily ways you can improve your SEO literally overnight!

Follow the three steps below and your blog will be on the SEO fast-track before you know it:

1)  Change your Permalinks to include your post title – if you’re using Wordpress you can do this by selecting “Custom Structure” in the Permalink Settings and changing it to: /%postname%/

2)  Put your best keywords in your title. Many people miss the importance of the “Blog Title”. Use a tool like the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to find the keywords with the best search volume related to your niche and put them in your title. Another great way to get good ideas for you title is do a Google search for the keywords you’d like to rank well for and see what the top results are using in their title tag!

3)  Make it easy for people to share your posts through social media. There are some great plugins out there that make it easy for anyone reading your blog to share your posts through Twitter, Digg, Stumbleupon, etc. The more people linking to your site, the more relevant search engines will find your content and the higher your blog will rank!

That’s it! These are three quick and easy ways to improve your Blog’s SEO – so easy in fact you can do it today. So if you haven’t done any of these steps, take twenty minutes out of your day and improve your SEO!

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The big news of the week is Rick Latona shutting down AEIOU.com, because, and I quote, “The reality is there is no money in web design. It’s hard. The customers are hard to please. The margins are slim and frankly, there are bigger fish to fry”. Rick is not the first one to walk away from mini-site development. SiteGraduate.com did the same either late last year or early this year, basically for the same reasons.

Although I don’t completely disagree with Rick, I’d still like to offer my services to the domain community.

Here are a handful of mini-site examples that my team has completed.

Pricing and what is included: (Content written in the United States)

$149 – WordPress install, theme, custom header, seo plugins, adsense, banners and 5 unique articles 250-300 words each.

$179 – Same as above with some minor link building and directory listings.

$299 – Same as above with an additional 11 articles. Use these articles to post one every month giving yourself a year of steady unique content.

For any orders of 10 or more I can offer a slight discount.

Honestly, I’m not trying to compete with any of the existing mini-site companies such as DomainMassDevelopment.com or MiniSites.com. If you are already using their services then please continue. I have not re-invented the wheel here. I strongly believe that I can put out a good looking, high quality content site that, with some work on your end, will do very well. When I say work on your end, I mean it. Content should be added at least once per month if not more often and you will have to work to sell ad space, links and so forth. If you need the help, I will be more than happy to teach you how to monetize your website.

One extra personal touch that I can offer is that if you are not familiar with WordPress, I can personally walk you through adding links and making minor additions to the mini-site. There is no need to pay me for a two minute change, I’d rather you be empowered to do it yourself.

If you are interested in my services please use the contact form to open communications. I look forward to earning your business.

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I get this question often: Patrick, how do you sell ad space?

This information can be applied to blogs, mini-sites or fully developed websites.

With my site’s popularity and traffic, I get several email inquires every week about ad availability. It took a lot of work to get to this point. The most important thing is building traffic. I wrote an article about Free Traffic back in May I suggest reading.

Now, once upon a time my blog was new and I did not get these emails. I had to proactively seek out new advertisers. I’ve come up with a few questions that hopefully cover everything you need to know.

Where do I find potential advertisers?
Visit similar sites/blogs and see who is advertising there. This was the FIRST thing I did.

Follow the events in your specific industry. Those events have sponsors and they pay big bucks. Chances are if they are willing to spend $25,000 on a 2-3 day event, you will have a good chance of gaining their business. On the flip side, those events have advertisers paying them, so they too need to advertise their event.

If you are not familiar with all of the different companies in your industry use the search engines. Search your industry keywords. Not only reach out to the standard search results but more so the sponsored links which are above the regular results and on the right hand side.

How do I set my ad prices?
Find out what similar sites/blogs are charging and stay in that neighborhood. Make sure your traffic stats match up to those comparable sites.

Research the cost of your potential advertisers using AdWords. Find out what they would pay per click for their ads to show in the search engines. Take that cost per click and multiply it by the amount of click through traffic you can provide with one of your banners. If you do not have ads up I suggest putting a test banner up and see what your results are after 30 days. OpenX is a good tool to track and control your banners. This formula is not an exact science and may not work for all keywords.

My site is so new, why would someone want to advertise with me?
I answer that question with a question: what makes you different? Have a plan. Explain to your potential advertisers that you are going to do X Y Z to build traffic and why you are different. Don’t be afraid to tell them you are new and working towards greater goals. Use being new as an advantage. When I started, I explained to potential advertisers that readers will see my perspective coming into an industry as a newcomer. Everyone has their own views, that’s what makes you different.

My site/blog theme just isn’t that good and I don’t have money to change it.
Again, don’t be afraid to explain that you are new and working your way towards great things. Explain that you plan on taking your first few ad sales to upgrading the overall look and feel of the site. Make sure to follow up with the changes if you tell them you are doing this.

Some good tips…

• Pick up the phone and call potential advertisers. It is a lot easier for someone to say no through email.
• Talk to the boss. Try to cut out the marketing reps. In most cases they need to get approval from the boss.
• Once your ads sell out start a waiting list.
• Offer discounts for prepaid ads. Sell your ads in one year increments if possible. Doing this also protects you from my fun fact below.

Fun Fact: The first cut businesses make during down times is their advertising budget.

I can honestly say to you that I am practicing what I preach because I have done and continue to do everything you read in this post. These tips have allowed me to turn my blog into what it is today.

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Please make your own conclusion to which is better, direct or paid traffic.

Columbus.com will be the example domain name used for this post.  Why Columbus? Because I randomly picked it from a list of the most populated cities in the United States of which Columbus Ohio is ranked 15th and the domain name was not developed.

In using Columbus.com as the example domain name, we will use a sales price of $250,000. Some will say this is high and some will say low, but for this example just work with me please. Compete.com shows the city domain name receiving 3,321 unique/total visits for the month of July. This also happens to be the domains greatest traffic month over the last 12 months.

Based on the sales price and probable type in traffic, lets figure out how much we are paying per visit over the course of twelve months. 3,321 visits per month x 12 months = 39,852 yearly visits divided into the sales price of $250,000 means you are paying approximately $6.27 per visitor. Using this model shows us any type in traffic past the first year would be free.

Now let’s say I’m able to purchase an alternative extension, for example a .me, Columbus.me for $750 and then I also buy my traffic. Using some of the possible local keywords (events, shopping, real estate, lawn care, doctors and auto repair) I can buy visitors using Google AdWords at the average rate of $1.91 each. Using this information I can buy the same 39,852 (12 months worth of visitors) + $750 domain purchase for $76,867.

As I said before, I’ll leave the conclusions up to you. Here are just a few that you may have.

1. Going with Columbus.me leaves $173,133 to spend on development, print advertising, office space, employees and other operating expenses for the first year of business.
2. Take the money saved by buying the alternate extension version and buy a Ferrari
3. This is crazy, no way can you start a major development project without the dot com!

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Inspired by my recent Geo development plans I wanted to share my personal thought process when creating an online business. Take notice of the phrase “online business”, not website.

So what is the first step?

Step one for me, is setting my first year goals and determining how I am going to achieve them. Using TampaBay.tv as the example, I begin with research. I need to know the ad rates not only for similar websites but print, television and radio. I need this information to set my pricing and create my sales presentation. Once I’ve finished the research, I take my goal ($xxx,xxx) divided by the ad rates and that tells me how many ads I can offer. I then want to develop my site around the money, making sure not to alienate my site visitors with tons of ads.

Take this same advice for mini-sites. Write the articles around the products you intend to link. Research the products first, determine what you want to sell on your mini-site and then start writing.

Tip: If you do not have the time to do the research yourself hire a virtual assistant. Their fees range anywhere from $5-$35 an hour or you can pay per job. This is how I was able to get the research done for TampaBay.tv.

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