What's Your Preferred Site Structure?

[Shannon Tani]

I've been thinking a lot about site structure and was wondering what works best for you. I really prefer static sites because it makes me feel like there's an end (or that there can be). When I've tried doing blogs in the past, I start to lose interest and stop posting, then feel guilty and try to catch back up, and so on.

Love,
Shannon

[Pyramid Linkers]

Blogs with constantly posted content seem to perform best but with the write link structure you can rank anything. In my eyes, there really is no end point. You have to continuously add links and in many cases add content.

[clr06160]

best site structure is totally simple when talking about SEO. You want to put your keywords in the hot areas like upper left and make sure you have written content and images that are attractive. Then, balance it all out in an art form. Many of the best sites are css driven and do not have fancy coding.

[Justin Stowe]

I assume you're just talking about for SEO purposes, right?

I mean- a website with just a squeeze page and a killer backend is a great way to do it if you aren't worried about getting all your traffic from the search engines

[Shannon Tani]

No, I mean what's making you money. :-)

I guess that my preference for static sites is because I started with a static site. I was getting search engine traffic to it within a few days and the traffic just kept growing. Now, it's the only site I have that consistently makes money (about $50-70 in AdSense, but I've recently published books through Amazon that relate and will start advertising through my site after the pages are up). I haven't updated that site in years, though I send newsletters to my email list.

My blogs just never had the same success, so I'd lose interest in them. Perhaps the topics were just too broad for me to really make some noise. I dunno.

Love,
Shannon

[nicholasb]

I like the whole direct response approach, it has made more money the easiest than anything else I have tried. One page one option either opt in or leave, click the button or leave, order or leave.

Of course I do it in a very elegant and helpful way otherwise I wouldn't be making money.

[Justin Stowe]

I definitely think there's merit to Nicholas's system for 2 reasons:

1) I just got one of his WSOs and it's AWESOME

2) The visitor can't get confused.

If you have all kinds of stuff on your site- links to other posts, Adsense, and opt-in form, graphics, etc. then your customer has a LOT going on.

If it's a very simple page where the customer knows their 2 choices, it's much easier for them to make a decision.

[Sheila Dunfrey]

I still prefer the one that is easy to manage and deal with.

[Watchman220]

OTHER.

WordPress as a Content Management System with a static page as the home page...and using the blog as a news page.

Most WordPress themes support this switching now.

Peace.

The Watchman

[Shannon Tani]

Nicholas -- What types of traffic generation do you rely on for your method?

Watchman -- Do you mean that you have a main static site, then something like site.com/blog?

Love,
Shannon

[SeanSupplee]

I am going to have to say blog its the center powerhouse of everything I do.
It builds my list to which I can sell people
It gets traffic from search engines and a number of other places
It provides interaction with people to make new connections
It gets me sales via the posts

To me you cant go wrong with having a solid post as long as you keep updating it. You can write your reviews
make static pages out of the pages tabs
and so much more.

[tlrix]

I also like static websites, but blogs are the way to go if you want something done fast ...

[Rick88]

Wordpress with a theme that allows static pages that look just like a static html. Of course it depends on the person who is building the site. There are tools that make static html pagesthat make it east to do SEO while others use typically the All-In-One SEO plugin for Wordpress.

I prefer the silo structure with Optimize Press Theme.

[Andyhenry]

I think the question has a flaw in it.

The structure of the site is not what drives whether it makes money or not.

It's all just php and html - static, blog, cms, whatever - it all ends up as browser food.

What governs if it will make money is what it's about and how effectively it brings buyers together with what they want.

You can have a static one-page html site that is just a sales letter with a buy button and make much more than a 1000 page blog.

Or you can have a 1000 page blog that makes much more money than a 1 page sales letter.

It's like saying "what is the car to get from A to B" - It depends where A and B are and who's driving the car. If you use the wrong tool for the job you'll get a bad result - the right tool - a good result.

A porsche is bad for off-roading and an Escalade is not so great at handling.


If you made good money with one type of site - it wasn't the mechanism you built it with that made the difference - it was your content and how you marketed it.

The only reason to use a blog or cms is - because it's quicker for some things.

You want a one-page sales site - many people would prefer to make a static html page.

You want a one-page sales letter with the ability to add relevant articles to drive traffic, a built-in rss feed, a way to manage it using a web browser from anywhere in the world, a ton of useful plugins - use a CMS.

A cms won't give you anything you can't do without it but it will tie in, html, php, a database, lots of cool optional and easy to install scripts, and a nice way to manage it without any special tools.

I've made money with all of the listed options and I don't have a preference - it always depends on what the purpose of the site is.

Andy

[Rick88]

Great reply Andy. I have been doing too much SEO lately and was thinking from an SEO point of view.

You do however raise the more important point of it depends on what you are trying to accomplish.