Ok, basically I'm stumped for ideas on what to do with my domain name blueuniverse.co.uk Little bit of History behind the site - Bought in September 2003 - Initially a search directory - Changed to news portal by about October - Featured in magazine in June 2004 - Unique hits reached peak of about 1400 a day by end of June, early August - Downtime with web host caused the site to die pretty much - Since then its slowly been going down from about 800 uniques a day to now, 200 uniques a day. The site is PR6 and has 2000 backlinks going to it. Selling is not an option as this was my first domain and marked my entry into the webmaster world, lol. Anyway, being a news portal isn't really what I want it to be atm as it doesn't generate any substantial income at all via adsense, and there is nothing else on the site that can be sold. Occasionally it gets a bump in unique hits due to the dynamic content, but most users who don't leave only go on to my portal site. I have a few questions regarding your thoughts on it. My budget isn't really that high but I can afford a couple of cheap php scripts. I already have a design lined up to replace the current one which could be altered. I have a few options for its future - Portal site to the rest of my pages + Directs more traffic to inner pages - Doesn't generate much money on site - I have a number of link exchanges going on, doing this and reducing it to one page, would mean losing hundreds, possibly thousands of links. - Carrying on with the news site + I could carry on going to get the keywords I want e.g. breaking news - No money income at all - Change it to a directory (mirroring dmoz content) + Lots of pages and content - Not really unique, no substantial money income - Something else Basically, I'm a bit stumped for ideas on what to do, what are your suggestions, and what does the domain name suggest to you? Sorry for the extremely long post, but I'm a bit stumped for ideas on where to go, I've tried pretty much everything to try and get the current site to be profitable, it just hasn't worked. Thanks
What does the domain name suggest to me? Environmental products. (Keeping the skies nice and blue, or something like that). Anyway, I would check and see if there are any good affiliate programs for environment-friendly products, and turn the site into a review site for those products. I would also keep the other sections at least for a while, but downplay their existance on the home page. (Drop the links to the bottom of the page or something like that). Once you have more backlinks to the new section, and it would no longer matter if some of the old backlinks dropped out, then maybe consider getting rid of some of the old stuff. You could still have a news section for environmental news. So you could gradually move the news in that direction. Same thing for the directory. Phase it into a niche-specific directory. Anyhow, that's what immediately came to my mind.
Thanks for the suggestions. The problem with that though is I'm not sure how long I'd manage to maintain it as environmental products aren't particularly interesting to somebody like me. Personally, I'm more of a web design/webmaster guy. :S
Well I'm afraid 'Blue Universe' doesn't give me the impression thats something to do with a web design / webmaster site. What about a science fiction themed site? e.g. Star Trek, Star wars related website, good for adsence I would of thought, sell videos etc via Amazon. Science fiction forum to bring in traffic. Good money generator I would of thought.
keep it on topic.....do what wwhhomes has done ..and sell ipod from your holiday homes page actually blue universe to me suggests a more Adult content site....hehe...that should keep you busy!
yeah, and my visitors. But on a serious note I do understand that my site title doesn't fit in with that too well, and thats pretty much been part of the problem so far. The site has lacked an identity, as the name is pretty much really just a brandable name. I am fine with the idea of a search directory as it was initially, but its not going to generate me too much money.
GEM, yup, and make £900 in four weeks and it'll remain there until Christmas Day! Blue, directories won't make you any money - think of a theme that you are fairly interested in get adsense and amazon on there with some content, forum, and include a directory relating to the theme.
I'm not particularly interested in environmental products either, but those that are - are buying types. Anyhow, was just a thought, but you'll do better at some sort of niche thing than with a webmaster thing, in my opinion. And I agree with wwhhomes...a directory won't cut it.
Hmm, I know they're pretty congested markets but these are just ideas that it could become - Financial site (credit cards, loans etc., articles) - Web Hosting site (reviews, articles etc.) - Computer reviews - Holidays and travel
just teasing ya I Love the look of your site, and thats whats important. i dont care what anyone does with their sites...adsense and affiliates are going to be here for a while...so make what you can. I have been working on an ipod page for the past 10 days...after seeing yours i need to rebuild mine! grrrrr can you get those pics supplied from amazon- live feed??? GEM
GEM, yeah just sign up as an affiliate and take the images from the Amazon site... All the money I make from ipod amazon and adsense is going back into the site, advertising etc - so it's a good income earner. It only took me 10 minutes to put it together. blue - if your going to go with travel / holidays get something up ASAP - busiest month of the year is January for us companies operating in the travel industry!
Thanks, I'll try and make my decision quickly then I guess, and get to it, whatever my choice is. Get working on making profits ASAP.