If you’re like me, you have lots of ideas for information products that you’ll eventually create and sell. I continually update lists of potential products, and for the best candidates I create folders and Word documents with ideas for developing and selling the product.
As many of you know, I’ve been a full-time freelance writer since 1994. My most recent information product is Intelligent Productivity for Freelance Writers: Manage Your Time, Make More Money, and Get More Enjoyment from Life, which I launched in early March.
There’s a good chance I’ll eventually teach workshops where I share my writing productivity techniques. And of course, when I do that I’ll also create a product from the workshop — a workbook and audios or perhaps videos.
So shortly after I launched IPFW, I also set up a site just for the workshops.
Why and How I Created FreelanceWritingWorkshops.com
#1. I wanted a separate website that can get its own Google juice and draw traffic.
Intelligent Productivity for Freelance Writers has its own website and sales page, but freelance writing is a very competitive niche. Thousand of writers have blogs, many of them quite good with a lot of traffic. Having a second site with tightly targeted keywords makes sense as method to reach more people.
#2. I chose a domain name with important keywords.
The domain contains three important keywords: freelance-writing-workshops. I used my Google Adwords account to research good keywords, and then I bought the domain for a few bucks at 1and1.
Search engines give significant weight to keywords in domain names. I think this is the main factor for my results, which I discuss below.
#3. I wrote a post that’s rich in keywords.
You’ll note that I use important keywords in my post, and that I mention states in the western United States. This increases the possibility of getting longtail traffic from someone looking for a writing seminar in Arizona, for example.
#4. I plug both my writing ebooks.
If someone finds the site, there’s a good chance they’ll click on the sales pages for one or both of my two ebooks.
#5. I can eventually sell a workshop product on the site.
A sales page would be much longer than the current post and would likely help pull in more search engine traffic. Plus I could direct traffic to the site from other sites and through word of mouth.
The Results
Traffic has been minimal so far. However, I a few people have clicked over to my ebooks.
The site has a Google Page rank of 1, which is a good start.
Putting “freelance writing workshops” in the three main search engines (without the quote marks) gives:
- #5 on page 2 of Google
- #5 on page 1 of Yahoo
- #1 on page 1 of Bing
Why You Should Do the Same
One of the key factors for SEO is the length of time you’ve owned a domain. Having a site up, even if it only has a bit of content, can help you in search engine results down the road when you decide to make the site a higher priority and put up more content and get back links to it.
Why You Shouldn’t Do the Same
There’s a strong argument in favor of having your products and services as subdomains or pages of your main flagship domain. That way all the information helps build the page rank and authority of your flagship domain.
For the most part I plan to have my future products as part of my flagship websites: here at Selling Information Products Online and over at Intelligent Productivity. But in some instances, like the case here, I’ll also have separate sites pushing specific products. (Important: If you do the same, make sure you write different sales pages for each site so you don’t get penalized for duplicate content.)
My Other Domains
I have 14 websites. A half-dozen are these small sites with keyword-rich domain names that are important for products I’ll create in the future, most of them related to my other main site — Intelligent Productivity.
Your thoughts and suggestions? What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of this strategy?
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey John,
I have something like 32 different domains/blogs. Most are idle doing nothing, but a lot still bring some traffic just by being domain name rich, etc and make some affiliate sales, etc.
I like the buy it, before you need it domain name idea. I think I’ll go buy 3 or 4 I have on my mind today.
Brandon
TheInfoPreneur´s last blog ..Make Money Fast-er – Speeding Up Your Velocity
Brandon, you and I think a lot alike. I own probably 70-80 domains right now.
I am getting ready to launch a product that is niche-related to my main domain and I continue to struggle with the idea of whether or not to put it on it’s own domain or as a subdomain of my current site.
I just don’t know which way is best. I’ve read so much conflicting advice. I have to decide soon though. Maybe I’ll just draw my choice out of a hat. LOL
Joella, I’d put it on a subdomain of your own site so you can take advantage of the authority and ranking your site already has.
If you have a situation like I do with Freelance Writing Workshops, consider having a separate domain also. If nothing else, you can direct people over to the product page on your main domain.
Hi John,
That’s a good idea to plan for the future, but with all the ideas swimming around in my head I would spending a lot of money on domain names alone. I like the fact though that you’ve created folders for each idea and if you’ve come to the conclusion that they are viable and will be a great product that is when you need to looking into setting up the website.
I’ve not heard of creating the sub domain for your products on your main site but that actually makes a lot more sense if the niche is in fact related. Will have to keep that in mind for the future.
Anna
Anna Haller´s last blog ..Do you wANT to succeed
Anna, glad the post stimulated some thinking.
If I find a great domain name I tend to buy first and analyze later. It’s only 7 bucks or so, and I’ve had a few good ones slip away while I decided to think about it for a few days.
Still, you have to be careful to not be buying domains all the time.
Hey John,
I really like the ‘planning ahead’ style you are describing, and I think that many people who sell info products could definitely benefit from this. I also like that you are thinking in multiple formats – audio, text, etc.
It seems like that would allow you more income paths as some people like one more than another. Do you find that those kind of presentations are more popular in video format?
Have a great day!
mark´s last blog ..How Change Can Happen to You
Mark, I haven’t yet done any work with video, although I plan to do so in the future. I definitely think that most workshop products should have a video component, and I understand it’s fairly easy to isolate the audio from video and use it to create mp3s.
John,
This is some really great advice here mate. I am a firm believer in the buy now ask questions later mentality when looking at domains. I have over 50 but only 20 are active, the rest just sit there in case I ever want to use them, I still load WP and give the page some substance so that Google can index them and start the slow process of improving their PR with time. I have sites like imaproblogger.com not that I think I will EVER do anything with it LOL
This lesson also ties in with the importance of giving yourself something solid to work from, can’t remember poist name but I think you spoke on this before.
I am writing a post atm about my struggles to complete my ebook and will link to this post because it relates.
Thanks John
Alex@Keyword Research Blogger´s last blog ..Why Keyword Optimization is so Important The Show and Tell
Hello Alex. I’d greatly appreciate the link!
Just be careful with all those domains with Wordpress on them. You’ll need to update Wordpress and any plugins to minimize the probability you’ll get hacked. A hacker could get into one of your sites you forgot about, and then wind up infecting your main site.
What kind of domains do you buy (.com, .net, .info, .us, etc.)? Also, I have noticed that domains with hyphens separating the words are a lot easier to get.
Ken Shoufer´s last blog ..Sisar Canyon
Ken, .com is best, but .net is fine, especially if you find a domain name you like — SellingInformationProducts.net, for example.
Hyphens are easier to get. The one downside is that it’s harder to tell someone your domain name, but I think that’s fairly minor. Others vehemently disagree and won’t use hyphens.
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