Case Study Friday: Computer.asia

This week’s Case Study Friday features a great one word domain ending in an alternate TLD: Computer.asia. This computer site was submitted by Chris so let’s see if we can all give him some feedback on what he was done with the site so far and hopefully also give him some tips for improving the site.

To make things flow a little better I thought I would put some of my thoughts in bullet point form and then please chime in via the comments:

- I would try to stay away from dynamic looking URL’s like this: http://www.computer.asia/page.php?page=about as much as possible especially for static pages like an about page.

- Consider separating the TOS onto its own page instead of merging it onto the about page.

- The web 2.0 drop shadow is all the rage of course but spending the money to do a professional looking logo would be well worth the effort I think and the enhanced branding could go a long way to make sure users remember to type in computer.asia instead of computer.com the next time they want to visit the site.

- I really like the star ratings as it adds a nice level of interactivity as well as a value add to what is just a news aggregator essentially. That being said, it looks to me like every single article is rated 5 stars so there could be an issue there.

- I really do like the overall nice clean look of the site. The colors are great and I think its just the right approach for a computer news oriented site. With the addition of a professional logo and some buttons then it could look even better (I especially like the cool transparent effect for the login box when you click on “Login” on the top right).

- I keep thinking that there should be a test link to “Home” to the left of the “Published News” button.

- The site has 100 pages indexed in Yahoo and 522 links according to Yahoo Site Explorer as well as a PR of 3 so there is definitely some link building done so far which is very good to see. The one downside that I can see just from looking at the site’s link profile is that it appears that most of the links are domaining related links. This is not that bad because the computer niche and the domaining niche are semi related in that they are both in the “tech” family tree (although very distantly related cousins at best ). The potential downside to this domaining heavy link profile is that there could be some kind of filter that is tripped that discount the site links and in turn rankings to some degree but that is just my paranoid speculation. There is absolutely nothing wrong with getting a couple or ten domaining related links for a non domaining niche site but when almost all of the links are domaining related then there could be a problem.

- There is a lot of white space underneath the comment section of individual article pages like this: http://www.computer.asia/story.php?title=singapore-gets-google-street-view-finally – rather than have all of that wasted white space it would be better to show things like related articles, products to buy, advertisements, anything at all really.

- I really like that this site has a lot of different social media type features to stimulate people to interact with the site and leave comments, reviews, star ratings, tags, etc. One potential downside is that in order to do any of these things a user must first create an account. Making people create an account before allowing them to comment will dramatically cut down on spam but it will also cut down on good comments as well as some people just do not want to create an account for whatever reason. One thing to consider would be to either open up the participation for non members or think of some different ways to inventivize people to become members like offering a members only newsletter or offering a point ranking system for members to compete against each other in some way, etc.

- The site should have more original content. It seems like most, if not all, of the content in the site are news feeds. The content is certainly relevant to the Asian computer market, but original analysis and articles would help with the search engine traffic.

- You probably shouldn’t show navigation to categories with no content. It’s disconcerting to check out a link from the menu and just get a blank page to appear.

- One really little thing I noticed that I like is the back-to-top button in the footer. It’s nice to have that little button to save my fingers from more scrolling

What do YOU think?

Case Study Friday: SimpleBabyNecessities.com

This week’s Case Study Friday features a baby cribs website submitted by Greg who is one of our readers: SimpleBabyNecessities.com.

(Notice the juicy anchor text for the above link that I am giving the site because A. I think its a well done and trustworthy site about baby cribs and B. Maybe this will incentive YOU to contact us and submit any sites that you want reviewed for a future Case Study Friday – we currently have a backlog of 5 sites to review for the next 5 weeks but if you submit a decent site then we will be happy to work it into the lineup).

OK, let’s just jump right into this case study and as always please participate by leaving your own input in the comments below.

I want to be sure to not just list of the things I like and don’t like about the site but also to make sure to give Greg some really practical action steps that he can maybe consider. That being said, here are some pros and cons for SimpleBabyNecessities.com and then I will give some recommended steps to take to make the site even better.

PROS

#1 For a site that is just over a year old (it appears the domain name was registered on 10/16/08) and that is not an exact match domain or even a keyword rich domain then to rank on page #4 in Google for the sites main keyword of “baby cribs” is not too shabby at all given that “baby cribs” is searched an average of 90,500 times per month in Google (exact match).

Granted, the competition is not overly fierce as the CPC is only $1.21 but it can certainly be a chore to try and get a big product site like this ranked.

(The site is also ranked on page 1 in position #10 for the secondary keyword phrase of “convertible cribs” and although “convertible cribs” only gets searched a relatively low 9,900 times with a CPC of $1.17 it is still a very nice phrase to rank for).

#2 Although I am not too familiar with Volusion, the shopping cart software that powers his product pages, I think that the individual product pages look professional and have nice big product images which is something shoppers want to see.

#3 The left hand navigation bar does a nice job of being user friendly while still making sure to be SEO friendly at the same time because of the strong internal anchor text.

CONS

#1 I think we can all agree that the domain name chosen could certainly have been a little better. As you know I am a huge fan of exact match domains but in this case I doubt that Greg has the budget to go out and purchase Cribs.com or BabyCribs.com so I understand the brandable domain approach (after all that is what I am doing with my website CreditCardChaser.com that was previously featured in a Case Study Friday since I do not have the budget to buy a CreditCards.com but at least my domain is a keyword rich domain that contains my main keyword phrase in the domain).

That being said, I would have liked to see a shorter keyword rich domain that contains the sites main keywords – i.e. BabyCribsLLLL.com or BabyCribLLLL.com and does not have any long and potentially hard to spell words like “necessities”. In other words, if there is going to be a long and hard to spell word in your domain then it really should only be there because it is a part of your target keyword phrase.

It is worth noting here that maybe Greg has plans to move beyond just selling baby cribs and would like to offer all kinds of baby products – if that is the case then maybe it would even be a better idea to choose a very short brandable domain that does not contain the scope limiting words “crib” or “cribs” but just the word “baby” – i.e. BabyLLLL.com etc.

2. It a very very very good idea for e commerce sites to have as many trust building and credibility boosting symbols as possible on the site and while the site does have some of these symbols down towards the bottom of the site in the footer (Google Checkout logo, credit card logos, PayPal logo, “Privacy Guaranteed” logo, etc.) at least some of these logos should be moved above the fold and into a much more prominent location.

3. The individual product pages do a really nice job of showing a strikeout price/sale price, upselling a mattress, and showing related products but (prepare yourself because many may not like this suggestion) I think that the site could benefit from taking a Buy.com approach by not only doing all of the things I just mentioned but also showing competitors prices (with an affiliate link of course) and maybe even Adsense ads ONLY at the very bottom of the page.

I will be the first to admit that I am definitely not a fan of Google Adsense in most scenarios but I think that Buy.com has a nice approach to product pages (and I am sure that they have tested this to death) and that is that for any admittedly “second string” player (AKA anyone who’s name does not rhyme with “Swamazon”) then it makes a lot of sense to monetize not only the people who will click on your product and add it to your shopping cart and buy from you but to ALSO monetize the people who scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and choose to look elsewhere (likely on Amazon.com).

After all, if those people are going to leave by either hitting the back button or by clicking on an Amazon.com affiliate link/Google Adsense ad then as the site owner you want them to at least make you a small amount of money by clicking away on one of your affiliate links or Adsense ads rather than leaving your site and not making you a dime.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

#1 Consider optimizing the monetization of the product pages by using the Buy.com approach outlined above.

#2 Weigh the benefits of sticking with the same domain name vs. moving the site (and 301 redirecting everything) to a new keyword rich domain name.

#3 Move the credibility boosting symbols up from the footer to somewhere above the fold (or copy the symbols and have them visible in both the footer and at the top of the page).

OK, don’t be shy so let’s all pitch in with some advice for Greg. What are your recommendations for SimpleBabyNecessities.com?

Submit Your Site to be Reviewed for Case Study Friday!

Are you developing a website and want to get some feedback from John and me and all of the Domain Superstar members? In previous posts in our Case Study Friday series we reviewed a couple of sites that John and I have been working on although our goal is to review many different sites from either Domain Superstar readers or just any old site that catches our eye really.

Many of the Domain Superstar readers are expert developers and Internet marketers and have a lot of experience in turning domain names into fully functional websites that generate significant cash flow so if you submit your site for review then you may just find an idea or two from John or I and especially from our readers via the comments section that will end up making you quite a nice sum of money.

The only requirement is that your site actually has to be functional (please don’t just send in a domain name and ask us for ideas ) so go ahead and CONTACT US to submit your website(s) for a potential review in an upcoming Case Study Friday post!

PS “Show Offs” and “Noobs” alike are welcome to submit any site they want so don’t be shy!

Case Study Friday: Versailles.com

For the third installment of Case Study Friday, we’re going to look at one of Joel and my newer acquisitions, Versailles.com. Weeks one and two focused on CreditCardChaser.com, one of Joel’s finance-related sites. The posts generated a lot of discussion.

Versailles.com is in the early stages of development, but we’re very excited about the possibilities the site offers. Neither Joel nor I have a lot of experience developing geos, but we both thought this would be a good domain to dip into the geo market with.

Domain Strengths
We grabbed this domain for a variety of reasons, but here’s some of the strengths we see in the domain:

• 301,000 exact monthly searches (strong type-in potential)
• Huge tourist destination – over 2 million visitors to Versailles, France a year.
• TON of potential advertisers between hotels, tours companies, restaurants, etc.
• I’m a huge francophile

Potential Drawbacks
Although we obviously think Versailles.com is a great domain, there are a couple potential drawbacks or risks that we are attempting to solve.

• English or French? – Only 60,000 of the 301,000 monthly searches are from the US. Many are from tourist across the world, and many others are from French citizens. Should we concentrate our initial development efforts in English or French? Either way we could be losing some potential traffic.
• Tourist Location vs Local Portal – Many geos are developed as portals for a specific location and the content of the site is geared towards getting repeat visitors from people in a particular city. Since Versailles is a huge tourist destination, we need to appeal to tourist as well as locals.

Current Development
Versailles.com is using a modified WooThemes theme. Since Versailles is such a huge tourist destination, we tried to pick a theme that can really showcase a lot of pictures. Flickr has been a great resource, where we’ve found thousands of free Versailles pictures available for commercial use

Our plan is to initially concentrate on cranking out very high quality original content for Versailles tours and Versailles hotels, then to move on to other content, keeping an eye on our traffic to see what sources are bringing in most of our traffic. Once we’ve built up out traffic, our monetization strategy is advertising on a yet-to-be-determined platform.

So that’s our plan in a nutshell. How would you develop it? What are your thoughts on the domain? Feel free to unload with both barrels…all feedback is welcome!

Case Study Friday: Credit Card Chaser Part 2

Last week, in our inaugural CreditCardChaser.com. Today, I’m going to pick up where he left off and provide some insight into the technical aspects of the site and the “Chaser” tool.

As Joel mentioned last week, Credit Card Chaser is built on top of Wordpress and uses a modified WooThemes theme. However, the “Chaser” itself is completely custom.

The front-end is built using the fabulous JQuery UI javascript library. I’ve sang the praises of JQuery before, but this was my first project using the newer UI library. JQuery UI provides simple and powerful methods for implementing all sorts of eye-candy, including drag-and-drop, tabs, accordions, and animations, making it a breeze to implement some really fancy user interfaces.

Joel and I played around with a lot of the different JQuery animation effects on the credit card results page, but in the end opted to simply hide and show cards based on the criteria chosen by the user. We found that trying to animate a large number of cards at the same time when showing or hiding a lot of cards tended to be distracting as well as sometimes bogging down the browser.

The back-end of the Chaser is custom PHP. This code takes care of loading and displaying the correct cards on the initial load of the results page. Joel also needed a way to manage his inventory of credit cards, so I developed an administrative application using CakePHP, which allows Joel to easily add, edit, or delete credit cards from the application, as well as allowing him to assign categories and other attributes to the cards. CakePHP makes it very easy to set up a quick application like this and gives Joel a good way to securely and easily edit the credit cards on the site.

Well, that’s the architecture of CreditCardChaser.com in a nutshell. While I understand that not all of the domainers who read this blog are programmers or technical, I hope some of the stuff I’ve talked about has piqued your interest and given you an idea of some of what’s out there. Next week, we’ll be back with another case study. If you have any suggestions or ideas of what you’d like us to talk about next, let us know in the comments!

Case Study Friday: CreditCardChaser.com

Since it seems all the rage for domainers to talk about web development and SEO – with “talk” being the key word I thought it might be a fun thing to do to dedicate Fridays (or at least most Fridays) to do case studies of different development and SEO projects that either John or I have been doing or that we have noticed others doing. (If you like this idea then let us know in the comments below).

For today let’s take a look at a domain that I own that admittedly is not an exact match keyword domain name or a geo domain name as are most of my domains but is rather a brandable domain name: CreditCardChaser.com. The site is of course geared around helping people compare credit cards and “chase” down the best credit card offers.

While this site has been up for a little while with some basic content up I just recently decided to really put some time and effort into attempting to make this a great web property. In order to do this I enlisted the help of John to lend his coding genius to designing the “Chaser” tool that would actually compare the credit cards. I also used our Domain Superstar resident expert graphic designer Rachel to design a custom logo and to design some custom images for the tool interface.

If you look at the site carefully you will notice that it is built on a WordPress backend with a customized version of the “The Station” theme from Woo Themes as well as of course some heavy customizations added outside of WordPress.

A few of the things that I wanted to concentrate on to start the site off right was to slowly but surely add a lot of high quality unique content to the site. The site currently has around 200 pages of high quality credit card content on the site with many more articles on the way. My goal is to publish somewhere around 10-15 new pages and 5-10 new posts every week making sure that they are very high quality and of course unique.

While the site is still very new and I have only begun to really market the site by getting the name of the site out there with many of the top bloggers in the personal finance space the site does already have a little over 2,000 backlinks in Yahoo which is a good start. Most of the backlinks so far are of low to medium quality but with time the site will begin to attract some very high quality links.

The main attraction of the site is of course the very cool looking interface for “chasing” down and comparing credit cards but it is bolstered by its strong content as well in areas like the credit card FAQ section of the site (There are 20+ FAQ’s published as of the time of this post but I have 160 FAQ’s in total scheduled out to be published over the course of the next 3 or 4 months).

I have a lot of other ideas for the site as the site is far from finished but the “Chaser” tool works great and is a hopefully very informative and helpful aid for people looking to compare credit cards and find the one that will best meet their needs. Look for a “Case Study Friday” post in the future from John as he discusses some of the techniques that he used to develop the credit card finding tool on CreditCardChaser.com.

So, now is your chance to skewer the site if you do not like something about it or praise the site if you think that it is looking good so far. What say you?