This afternoon beginning at 12:00pm noon EDT, I am going to do a small experiment, simultaneously blogging here and Tweeting as I build a website on my domain name, AthensVacations.com. Yes, I listed AthensVacations.com for sale a couple of days ago and it hasn’t sold yet, but I am going to build a mini site because it can only enhance the value of the site. I am still willing to sell the domain name and website for now, but will take it off the market when it starts making good Adsense revenue

Just a few things to point out first. 1) I don’t know how long it will take because all of them take different amounts of time. 2) I am using a website template my designer created, which can be purchased by anyone on ThemeForest.net (called Bluelight). 3) The logo graphic was created ahead of time by my designer. 4) When it’s done, it will look similar to TobagoVacations.com – same structure. 5) If you have suggestions for the design, post them here or Tweet them @elliotsblog. 6) I will continue to update this with short updates that can be copied in to Twitter.

If you’re interested in following along with the progress – or if you just want to see how long it takes to build, you can check back here. I will time stamp it as I go…  See you in around 30 minutes!

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12:00pm – Creating an account in my LiquidWeb hosting panel so I can share changes as I update the website. I won’t change the domain’s DNS until I have the first page done.

12:03pm – Setting up the template by adding logo and removing previous art.

12:08pm – Changing some of the text on the home page as well as the meta description and title (for search engines)

12:20pm – Trying to come up with two great descriptive sentences about Athens for the home page. Feel free to assist! On TobagoVacations.com, I have “Imagine yourself sitting on a beautiful sandy beach, with the sun shining down on your face and a gentle breeze blowing through your hair. Enjoy a relaxing vacation in the tropical Caribbean island of Tobago. Your body and soul deserve it.”

12:28pm – Setting up the domain name in Google Analytics, which I will add to the template. It’s important that this code is added to each page or Google will record it as another website. Find/change works well.

12:35pm – Getting Adsense code for the site. I have many different size banners/boxes I need to get. I ordinarily wouldn’t put Adsense up right away on a fully developed website, but I am willing to do it on this mini site to monetize it. Down the road I may establish an affiliate relationship with IAN for hotels/travel.

12:46pm – Now a really fun part – searching iStockphoto.com for great photos of Athens. I am looking for 4 great shots of Athens and its attractions. I want people who visit and have different preferences to relate to at least one photo. When I change the DNS and post the first page, you can let me know if I can do better.

1:15pm – Found a few nice images of Athens. Once I resize and add to the home page, I will change the DNS and get set to upload the first page.

1:30pm – Uploaded the home page and css page (which has the code the site reads to know how things should look). About to change the DNS soon so the page resolves to the new site. Please don’t click the ads

1:40pm – Time for a little break. The DNS has turned over, and AthensVacations.com is now live. In the meantime, please let me know what you think of the home page (small paragraphs, photos, and Adsense placement for starters). I will begin adding content to the other pages when I return…. thanks in advance!

2:15pm – Going to search for hotels in Athens (using Hotels.com and Google) and set the page up like I did with the Tobago site. I will add 3 hotel descriptions that I write, links directly to the hotel websites, and hotel logos. For this, I want to have 1 luxury hotel, a small Athens-unique hotel, and a romantic hotel. This will give more variety and allow the site to cater to different types of visitors.

2:43pm - Apparently there was too many hits coming in or something like that and my blog went down for almost a half hour. It’s back though, and I am back to work

3:30pm – Working on writing a description for 3 hotels in Athens. I don’t really enjoy the copywriting part of this, but unique content is a key factor in getting ranked for longer tail keywords. Sure, I won’t be listed at the top of Google for “Athens hotels” searches, but if I can get listed for a phrase like “contemporary hotel in Athens” or something less competitive, I will be satisfied. I should have this page done very soon.

3:45pm – The Athens Hotel page is now finished. Next, I am going to work on a couple of the forms, privacy, and disclaimer pages. It’s important to remember that Google requires a privacy policy on sites that use Adsense.

4:05pm – Contact form is done and tested. If you use a template, be sure to change the subject so you can distinguish what site someone is referencing (if you have many mini sites). I also uploaded the disclaimer and privacy. An attorney provided me with the disclaimer, which I use on my other sites, and the privacy policy was created using the DMA privacy policy generator.

4:15pm – Time for a break to walk the dog and give her some attention – she’s been very good today!

6:55pm – I took a nap and played with the dog for the past couple of hours. I went out with a couple guys from NameMedia last night and I am still tired I am going to start working again in an hour after dinner because I have a few more pages to build… Attractions, Restaurants, and History. There are also some important development things that I need to do when the content is built. See you in an hour.

8:33pm – Back to work and just searched for photos on iStockPhoto.com (cheap photos with few copyright restrictions). I am also searching for fun things to do in Athens that I would enjoy. Athens Activities page has been completed. I think it’s lacking right now, so I will probably come back to this page and expand.

9:00pm – Simultaneously watching the Pitchmen tribute to Billy Mays, following the Red Sox game and beginning the restaurants page. My struggle with the restaurant page is that I want/need to link to restaurant websites that are bi-lingual with an English site. I am targeting Americans and English speakers with the site, and I want to make sure they are able understand the site where I send them.

9:45pm – Just installed an .htaccess file which provides instructions to browsers (I think). In any case, I did a 301 redirect of AthensVacations.com to www.AthensVacations.com to avoid duplicate indexing. I also created a 404 error page redirect, so if you go to a non existent page, it goes to the home page.

9:55pm – Athens Restaurants page is now finished, but I will probably add another restaurant in a couple of weeks. I also may add a list of “notable restaurants” at the bottom of the page. I will come back to this shortly.

10:15pm – One thing which I will add now – but should be added at the end is a site map. I am going to build a site map at XML-Sitemaps.com, a free sitemap generator. I am going to need to re-do the sitemap once the site is finished. It’s quick and easy to do, and the search engines find it useful.

10:18pm – Speaking of search engines, I am now going to go into my Google Webmaster Tools account and add this website. I will need to add a meta tag so Google knows I own it. Once added and confirmed, I will add the sitemap location so Google can find it quicker and easier. Also, if the site wasn’t listed in Google when I did a search for the exact domain name, I would file a Reconsideration Request, letting Google know I just bought the domain name and developed it.

10:20pm – I am going to go spend some time with my wife and finish up the history page tomorrow. I am not 100% satisfied with the site yet, and I have a few more additions I plan to make, including videos, other activity options, an airport page, and a couple other additions. Stay tuned – and thank you for following this.

I have gained some first hand knowledge about mini site development, and I would like to share some of it in case it can be helpfu. Some of this knowledge has been gained from buying mini sites and putting those up, buying mini sites and adding content, and creating my own mini sites; while other information is somewhat obvious.

Domain names that I either own or sold, where I used mini sites include UniqueInk.com, BullRidingHelmet.com, Secaucus.com, FuelAssistance.com, WeddingEntertainment.com, Oenophiles.com, and DebtAssistanceClinic.com – all of which had/have different mini site set-ups.

I found that I had the most success when I purchased mini sites rather than having built them on my own. I was able to enhance the pre-fab sites by adding pages of content based on keyword research within the paramaters of the nice looking design. Not having to fuss with templates and pictures and the initial content saved me a few hours worth of time, and it gave me a great foundation to build out the sites even more.

I’ve discussed strategy to building out mini sites in previous posts, but basically I used the Google keyword tool (and others) to find out what people are looking for related to the topic, and I created pages based on this information.  The pages had limited but adequate information about the topic, and it included Adsense and/or links to the source of the topic. For example, on the page about an outlet mall, I linked to the outlet mall within the text. I also populated the pages with photos from iStockphoto.com, which are cheap and help enhance the appearance of a mini site.

The objective of a mini site is to make money from Adsense or advertising, but it’s also to provide a nice website that is liked/accepted by Google and by visitors. If a visitor leaves the site after 2 seconds, Google may give it a poor quality score, lowering its rankings on the SERPs. Ideally, traffic will grow on a mini site because of the Google rankings, so the lower CTR is hopefully offset by higher traffic. This is important to consider when building pages.

The only time I recommend that inexperienced developers (who have jobs and other family commitments) build their own sites is when they really want a mini site but the quality of the domain name is lacking, and they want to learn about development by practicing. It doesn’t usually make sense to pay $100-1,000 for a mini site on a domain name that isn’t worth that amount, but it has been a great learning experience for me.

Some might argue that UniqueInk.com is more of a brandable name that might not be worth building, however, due to it’s initial launch before I owned it, the site already received enough traffic to justify. Building out a mini site from scratch takes time, but it is a good leaning experience. I will do it again for sure, but I am lucky to be a full time domain investor, so it’s a nice break from my daily routine.

I urge people to only develop mini sites on domain names that are category defining (the exact keyword string) for a term/phrase that is well-searched – especially if it doesn’t already get type in traffic. The point of a mini site is to provide content for people looking for whatever the domain name would imply by getting listed in the search engines. A 3 word long-tail keyword might not get typed in frequently, but when someone types it in to Google, if there’s a site with good information, it will probably rank well and get traffic in that way.

If you build a mini site on a brandable domain name, chances are good that it will have trouble ranking for the exact term you want – especially if there’s any competition, so you will end up spending a lot of time and effort that probably won’t pay off in the end.

There are plenty of mini site options available, and testing is key. Just like you can’t expect to get rich with a newly registered domain name, the same can be said about mini sites. They may enhance the value of a domain name, but execution is key, and you can’t expect a mini site will be a magical solution.

MiniSites.com to provide website development services to domain name investors.

Washington, D.C. – March 25, 2009 – DN Media Corp. and Telepathy, Inc. announced today the creation of a joint venture called MiniSites.com. The new company provides mini site development services to domain name investors, offering them an affordable alternative to monetize their valuable assets.

“We are thrilled to be partnered with Nat Cohen of Telepathy on this project,” said DN Media co-founder Bogdan Nastea. “Nat has ten years of experience in the domain industry, and he brings an impressive track record of turning domain names into successful businesses.”

MiniSites.com offers three levels of mini site development to accommodate all types of domains and budgets. The Micro, starting at $80, is a one-page site which is ideal for lead generation and affiliate marketing. The Mini, starting at $170, is a five-page site which provides more content to visitors, keeping them engaged and coming back. The Big Mini, starting at $290, takes the Mini to a higher level by offering an advanced link building campaign, as well as a thorough analysis of monetization options.

All packages include a dedicated project manager, unique content written by native English speakers, text logo design, header design, link building campaign, flexible monetization options, targeted keyword research, search engine optimization, and free hosting.

About Telepathy, Inc. – Founded in 1999, Telepathy, Inc. develops online publications. It developed a network of regional guides, anchored by Pennsylvania.com, Maryland.com, and NorthCarolina.com and including Annapolis.com, CollegePark.com and OceanCity.com. Telepathy is experienced in database development and specializes in the dynamic delivery of customized content.

About DN Media Corp. – DN Media Corp. specializes in domain name investing, website design and development, and search engine optimization.