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By
Ron Jackson
The roots of Site
Graduate's mass development service can be
traced to a book called Domain
Graduate that was written by one of the
company's Co-Founders, Sean Stafford. The book
was designed to give newcomers to the domain business a
guide for profitably growing their portfolios.
Stafford decided to tackle one of the most vexing
problems faced by domain portfolio owners - how to get
multiple domains developed without paying an arm and a
leg in the process. His vision was to put together an
offering that would keep the development
process efficient, be optimized for multiple revenue
streams and built on open-source platforms.
While talking with Stafford in
the interview below we learned that while maintaining
SiteGraduate's original minisite foundation the company
has also
expanded its range of services to include custom full
scale development.
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Sean
Stafford
Site Graduate.com
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DN
Journal: Give us some details about your
specific program – how you attack the problem of
developing multiple sites at an affordable cost?
Site Graduate: We
began Site Graduate as a platform to leverage SEO best
practices through custom content, link building, XML
sitemaps, clean URLs and search-compliant code. Since we
launched at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Conference in
November, the service has evolved to offer more custom
solutions, in addition to our optimized mini-sites.
Working with domain portfolio holders, we create custom
designs for the verticals they specialize in and then
work with them to scale the structure across their
portfolio. Since we install the custom sites on
domainers' own servers, they maintain complete
control over the sites, the code and the revenue
streams; many site owners have even successfully sold
their sites at a profit after just a few months of
growth. For example see the FuelAssistance.com
press
release.
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Screenshot
from the SiteGraduate.com
Home Page |
With our new focus on custom
solutions in just the past month, we have
shifted to provide quotes based on what
domainers need for their particular portfolio,
whether it's a custom geo-directory, a magazine
site or an e-Commerce platform.
While we still offer optimized mini-sites, we
are now in a position to offer custom designs,
unique content, complete domainer control of ad
inventory and site development that extends beyond
what any automated platform is capable of in
terms of long-term potential. Our new model aims
to help |
| domainers create real
destination sites and businesses, rather
than relying solely upon CPC or affiliate
revenue. |
What separates Site Graduate from
competing services is that we work from the mindset of
web developers, rather than any extended parking model:
each of our sites has 100% unique, researched
content that is optimized for search and readability.
Since we work on open-source platforms, we can integrate
virtually any type of 3rd party widget, including local
weather, relevant advertising and dynamic content which
supplements our core content base.
DN Journal: The #1
question on domain owner’s minds will be, will this
service make more money for me than parking the same
domains? Since this is a new category, with many of the
service providers having been open less than a year,
there is not yet a long track record for comparing
results, but based on what you currently know, how do
you answer this question from your customers?
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Site
Graduate: Each site we build is
positioned for long-term traffic growth and is
flexible enough to allow multiple revenue
streams, ranging from Adsense to
affiliate ads to direct advertising.
With some of the new
geo-domains we are developing, site owners will
be able to work directly with local businesses
to offer custom sponsorship placements and
solutions that goes well beyond just selling
clicks. In our mini-sites, we aim for a 12-month
ROI based on our basic package, and only work
with solid, keyword-rich domains that we believe
are best positioned to realize this goal; our
background research into the niche helps us
determine which sites are well suited to meet
these goals.
From our experience, we
have been able to meet or exceed this goal on
keyword-rich domains (even when factoring in
baseline parking revenue.) We're excited about
the prospects of our new custom sites bringing
in “real” revenue streams for our clients,
which go far beyond what a basic site can
obtain. |
SiteGraduate.com's
Sean Stafford
Speaking at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Down Under
conference in Australia (November 2008). |
DN Journal:
Many developers say there are additional benefits,
beyond immediate monetization, to moving beyond the
parking page. For example, more “curb appeal” for
potential buyers, less likelihood of inadvertent
trademark infringement (from ads served by the PPC
company), etc. What do you see as the added benefits of
following at least a minimal development strategy?
Site Graduate:
Domains are, at their core, brands that can be developed
into real businesses. Moving beyond parking is about a
lot more than just increasing CPC income: building out
keyword-rich domains, on an optimized platform, creates
the potential to develop real revenue-generating
businesses based upon those sites.
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Having a category defining name opens
doors, as many domain owners will attest to,
and can help a domain owner to gain a foothold
in a competitive niche. The costs of building a
brand from scratch are enormous; domains
provide a path of least resistance to making
connections (and ultimately, a solid revenue
stream) within a variety of industries, whether
it is travel, consumer products or
entertainment. |
DN Journal:
Parking is a well established industry with many major
players. Your service category is the new kid on the
block. How do you see the equilibrium between these two
sectors (parking and mass site development) changing
over the next couple of years – do they both hold
their own, does the balance of power shift, etc?
Site
Graduate: Parking services meet an important
need in the market, and will continue to evolve over the
coming years by offering more options for domain owners
to monetize their traffic. Given our custom approach to
site development, we believe Site Graduate has
differentiated itself from feed providers in terms of
what we can deliver over the long-run, but I believe
that parking company models will evolve to give domain
owners more control over their sites.
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Click
any of the links in this table to
learn about the mass website development
services provided by other companies
featured in this DN Journal Cover
Story. |
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