Will This Hurt?

[Charles Harper]

Hello:

I would like to take my site down:

Diet Information - Dieting for the Right Reasons - Free diet and weight loss articles and tips. Lose weight fast and burn fat.

and all my other affiliate marketing sites just like it to put them under one 'super site'.

I would put all of these sites under sub directories with Home | Hershey Business Directory - Hershey Area Online.

That way I can concentrate on one business. I would also take all of the various and sundry items off my hard drive and put them under this site.

I am doing this because I am going to focus on my local market now.

Also, I want to change my article marketing links to go to Hershey Area Online even if it is going to be a subdirectory of my site. Will it matter if I begin to drive article marketing traffic to these subdirectories to buy affiliate products?

I think I have another question also. If someone goes let's say to the diet page which is going to be under hersheyareaonline.com/diet, will the visit register as being to Hershey Area Online? In other words, if traffic goes to these sub directories, will my Alexa rating for Hershey Area Online go up?

Your advice is appreciated.

Depending on your answer, I may have found a use for all of the digital dust on my hard drive!

Charles

[Sami]

Hi Charles

Gone are the days of directory sites. They no longer work.

So my strongest recommendation is that you do not bung them all together. About the only possible benefit may be improved alexa ranking but you will undoubtedbly lose sales ... people like to deal with experts not with sites that sell anything and everything.

Given the choice to browse around the site by going to the home page etc they will and the ore choice they have the more they have to think about all the diverse and sitracting stuff ... "a confused mind never buys", as they say.

As for your digital dust, we all have that ... we all gather rubbish and junk during out learning curve. Bt you don't see ANY online success who has a directory site selling their digital dust, do you! Write it all off as the cost of learning.

Just concentrate on the most promising site you have, make it a success and then go from there.

As for what to do with all the various sites that's easy. Pick the most promising and leave it out of the consideration. As for the rest, ask this question for every other one:

Is this site getting good traffic or at least making money from a small amount of traffic?

If yes, either sell the site (sitepoint.com, forums.digitalpoint.com, warriors too if they have section of selling sites) or ...

point it to a "parking" site which will give you a truly passive income from the traffic even if you're not making any money from the traffic! Try sedo.com or domainsponsor.com

If you have no traffic to that site then just forget about it. I know, I know. You worked hard to get it set up and add content etc. But without traffic you haven't even reached the starting line! Don't waste more good time after bad.

That leaves you with just one main site ... go for it and ride it for all you can. Become an authority in your niche and then decide what next.

Good luck
Sami

[Monetize]

I agree with Sami - keep your niche sites separate and
don't lump everything together on one site.

Regarding the city directory, do not place all your eggs
in this one. Especially if you don't control the domain,
the hosting, the design, etc. If the company should
happen to go under, you're stuck with nada.

Try to setup something similar yourself or hire someone
to do this for you as those monthly fees add up quick.
You're paying $60/month for a site consisting of frame
work. You can easily do this yourself for free.

[Charles Harper]

Sami and Monetize:

Yes. I am in agreement with you both I think.

Thanks for taking the time to set me straight.

Embarrasing to have been at this since November of 07 and still making basic mistakes.

Charles

[Keith Boisvert]

Originally Posted by Charles Harper

Sami and Monetize:

Yes. I am in agreement with you both I think.

Thanks for taking the time to set me straight.

Embarrasing to have been at this since November of 07 and still making basic mistakes.

Charles

Charles, don't worry about making mistakes. The more you make, the quicker you will find success!

As for your sites, have you thought about just keeping things as is, but maybe putting a banner ad on your local directory pointing customers towards your aff products? Let's say on your diet/fitness directory pages, have a small banner for yor diet products.

This way you can have the best of both words. I don't think the added traffic your aff sites will bring would be significant enough to really add more value to your directory as they really are not targeted visitors. I suppose "stats" wise it looks ok when you are trying to sell ad space, but you would really know that its not targeted traffic.

Know what I mean? You can still really concentrate on the directory. If the diet site is supporting itself plus a little, use the money it generates and have someone else write articles and such with that money for promotion. Little to no effort on your part.

keith

[Charles Harper]

Originally Posted by Keith Boisvert

Charles, don't worry about making mistakes. The more you make, the quicker you will find success!

As for your sites, have you thought about just keeping things as is, but maybe putting a banner ad on your local directory pointing customers towards your aff products? Let's say on your diet/fitness directory pages, have a small banner for yor diet products.

This way you can have the best of both words. I don't think the added traffic your aff sites will bring would be significant enough to really add more value to your directory as they really are not targeted visitors. I suppose "stats" wise it looks ok when you are trying to sell ad space, but you would really know that its not targeted traffic.

Know what I mean? You can still really concentrate on the directory. If the diet site is supporting itself plus a little, use the money it generates and have someone else write articles and such with that money for promotion. Little to no effort on your part.

keith

Hey Keith:

Very good advice, Keith. That is the most sensible and will fit when I make the jump to Revolution.

That seems to be the most sensible thing to do. I really just want to set it up and leave it and focus on my consulting business. I don't want to abandon it though.

Charles

[sparrow]

Charles here is another thing to consider, if you have a old site, I recommend you never get rid of it unless you are going to sell it.

One of the first sites I ever built was on a free website.

When I finally moved it to a paid host, this free website was getting traffic so I just placed some words that my site had moved to a new url.

This was 1995, today this website still sends me 10-20 visitors every day.

I have done nothing for this site in over 10 years and it still sends me people.

Ed