aeiou.com is now live. Mini-sites done the right way, here's why...
POSTED BY Rick Latona IN Web Sites

We've been building, SEO optimizing and marketing our domains as mini-sites for a couple of years now. I hate parking and most of you know this.

When we build a site we put custom written content on it and then do link building on the domain so that Google  and the other major search engines will feel it is relevant. The end-result is that the names get listed in the search engines and have rankings that continue to improve.

What we've put together is a simple formula and an asembly line process that can quickly and cheaply allow us to take any domain, slap a simple design on it, 5 pages of custom text, and a day of intense link building all at an affordable price.

Because we use separate experts for each task and pump out hundreds of sites per week we are able to offer this service to you, the domainer, for $250 or less per name. It's totally worth it. The names not only make more money but are worth more money.

To hell with parking. Check out my new www.aeiou.com, fill out the form to request information and we'll tell you more.

  • http://www.geobroker.com MarkP

    Great idea, I was just reading the post on NamePros a few minutes ago.

  • http://www.domainsugar.com Germ

    Love the name.

  • http://www.domainbell.com Patricia Kaehler (DomainBELL)

    Sounds great... Something that's needed for sure...

    I agree - GREAT domain name AEIOU.com

    Can we see samples of the completed mini sites ??

    I'll go peep - there might be some over there already...

    ~DomainBELL (Patricia)

  • http://www.domainnamenews.com/domain-development/rick-latona-releases-new-mini-site-service/1890 Rick Latona Releases New Mini-Site Service | Domain Name News

    [...] Rick Latona has announced the opening of aeiou.com, an alternative to traditional domain parking. [...]

  • http://www.italiangrandmother.com Nick

    Great idea, sorely needed...

  • http://www.domainadminister.net Brian

    I 100% agree with you on this Rick. Parking sucks even for some of the direct navigation names. SEO and real effort is the only way a site can gain it's true value, Value can come in many ways from amount of back links, link partners, link pop., etc... There are many names out there that have great SEO potential and especially for some compounded word .coms. Your aeiou program reminds me what I wanted to try with HalfPark.com based on a idea of mini sites (with my domains) gaining SEO. For $250 per name, I'll have to look in to it.

  • Leigh Ann Barrick

    Get Ready Rick.
    I'm going to send you some development work.

  • http://www.bauerfund.org Arbus

    I like this domain service concept. I think I will check it out. Thanks.

  • http://www.student.com Jeff Edelman

    Great idea. Good luck with this, Rick. At some point fairly soon, I am going to want to start developing some other names that we own for sure.

  • http://www.domaininv.com Marlon Phillips

    Can we see some samples along with revenue #'s ?

  • http://DNBlogger.com RKB

    Good idea Rick.

    Can people add more pages to the sites themselves via some in-built admin panel etc?

    Also what kind of domain names should be used for this:

    - generic high traffic only?
    - long-tail generics?
    - long-tail geos?
    - any domain even if it receives no traffic?

    It will help people plan better so that they get better ROI.

    Thanks.

  • Spike

    What domains would be good for this service? High traffic, high-paying .com keywords?

  • http://nigro.us john n.

    Sounds like a great product. I saw the thread on namepros and checked the site out, but was hesitant at first. Now that you posted it on your blog, I realize it is your company. Your reputation and history in this business sold the service for me.

    I really do not have the time to build my own sites and market them, so this product seems perfect. Even though I am sure I could build a comparable site and market it, it would take me a full day or 2 to build and market the mini-site, and that time is worth a hell of a lot more than $250. I was actually about to buy xsitepro2 based on all the good things I hear about it, but even with a tool like that it would take me a day or 2 per site.

    I think I will only consider developing my own site now if it is on a topic that I am actually interested in.

    I think it also makes the domain name itself alot easier to sell.

  • http://www.namer.ca namer

    very nice and simple to the point design and convincing offer, however i must disagree with the name aeiou.com name, some of the commenters suggested this is a "great name", "i love the name" , as much as i like to salute the name, please enlighten me what is so great about the name?? is there a meaning to it that im missing?
    i find it name hard to remember, it is just five meaningless letters slapped together, and its not 3, or 4 for, its five of them. It is great IF the intent is to stay low profile, but is that the intent?
    Again great news about this service, im sure it will motivate other domainers to develop and at the same time offers them great alternative to parking, etc...
    keep pumping them out

  • http://Bahamasaccounting.com Zap

    I used AEIOU to build my site (bahamasaccounting.com) last week. It looks good and was finished very quickly! I will be using them again!

  • http://www.junch.com Peter

    namer, I am guessing that English isn't your native language? If it were, A-E-I-O-U would be instantly recognisable as the order the five vowels are always spoken in. As a kid you would hear those five letters, in that order, again and again. So yes, for many across the world, it is a great domain.

    As for the offer, well it depends greatly on what the 'marketing process' is, which isn't made clear. The site itself and content is probably worth $100, so I'd hope to get a good amount of SEO for the remainder! The advantage you have of course is the respect and admiration of thousands of domainers, so you can of course charge a premium. Could turn into a nice little sideline =0)

  • http://GeoOwners.com Tim Davids

    uoiea.com would have been better...what were you thinking man!

  • http://uglypeople.com Anunt Patel

    aeiou.com -- very nice domain name

    Rick, you might want to go ahead and purchase minisites.com for only $18k ... pocket change for you!!!

    Good Luck with aeiou.com

  • http://www.namer.ca namer

    Peter, thanks for the explanation, as a kid i've never participated in the A-E-I-O-U ritual, learned English later on, so this explains it, im sure many will find this helpful too, thanks

  • http://www.ricklatona.com/2008/08/04/aeioucom-frequently-asked-questions/ aeiou.com Frequently Asked Questions

    [...] « aeiou.com is now live. Mini-sites done the right way, here’s why… [...]

  • http://www.InvestInURLs.com Domain Investor

    Rick,

    There are some good questions raised by Marlon and RKB.

    I am especially interested in knowing about a Content management system so that domainers can continue to build upon your "jump start" service and change/add content and meta data. Without it, it seems like it would hand-cuff it's potential. This is especially true for non-geographical domains where competition is greater. TownHomes.net doesn't have the chance to compete in the SERPs as a four-page site or receive near the SERP traffic for it's relevant KW/KPs that BahamasAccounting.com would. Granted Bahamas is small, I know, but I do I think that one of your pre-packaged sites would also do well in mid-sized markets such as Chicago (ex" ChicagoAccounting.com) – especially if the owner could add content and manipulate the meta data.

    To add to PETER's concern about online marketing... I did a few searches for "BahamasAccounting.com" in Google and didn't come up with very many instances. (I tried "Townhomes.net" but Google returned a bunch of geo and word-string domains that ended in "Townhomes.net). ZAP did say that it had just been built last week, so maybe any link-building your team did hasn't been indexed by the search engines yet, however, the question that PETER asks about what marketing efforts (PR, link-building, basic submissions, etc) does beg to be answered. Mind you, for $250 I'm not expecting a full-bore online marketing campaign or fully developed site...just a few a metrics of what to expect. 10 links? 100? CMS? yea or nay.

    Like a few others in this string, I am very anxious to engage AEIOU.com, but just waiting for a little clarification.

    Thanks again for pushing the industry in the direction it needs to go.

    Jay Lohmann
    Invest In Domains
    http://www.InvestInURLs.com

  • http://www.bigticketdomains.com/forum/ Kevin

    I've been working on a variety of site development concepts this past year for my own portfolio and a handful of clients. Several dev systems we've created and tested have worked great as I expected, a few have not. Development is going to be the primary choice ahead for domainers soon and many who have had the lazy man's way to riches experience with domains are in for a big surprise when the parking page industry leaves town, which many are expecting to begin happening in 2009. It's going to be a whole new dynamic. For those who have already seen Google's writing on the wall and plunged into developing, the rewards will be immense.

    I think it's important to recognize though, that development and then growing and marketing web sites, even on a small scale, is a very complex and challenging process. Anyone who tells you its easy and quick to develop a profitable small site network is blowing smoke up your ass. It's 24/7 work and there is no way around it. You can't just snap your fingers and have a skyscraper appear. I've spent an entire year writing and coding software, testing software, re-writing software, testing again, buidling advertiser network relationships, customizing servers, and on and on. What originally looked so simple to many of us who have led the charge into developing, has become a major industry wide group of projects that every day gets improved and tweaked. All of us are trying to figure out ways to automate, ways to innovate, ways to manage, ways to handle the development of thousands of sites at once. It's real pioneering and then some. LOL

    The most important thing I've learned is you've got to go beyond a few pages if you plan on getting any serious cash flows and SE benefits from mini sites. Don't get me wrong, you can make money with small sites, especially on sites with no prior traffic or revs, but it is a limited cash stream if all you plan on doing is a few pages on a site and it's possible to get deindexed also if you don't grow it further. I know of 2 big name companies that have had this happen to their entire site network because all their mini sites looked exactly the same and had limited content.

    So mini sites are a good start, but definitely know you'll need a long term growth plan for your domain developments if your objective is generating lots of cash flow in the future. It's time to invest the money you've made from being a domainer into building sites to protect your wealth going forward.

    Rick, myself and a few others pioneering innovative development concepts have had the experience of being web site operators long before becoming domainers, so that decade of developer, operations and management knowledge is a valuable asset to have with the exciting dynamics and challenges ahead for our industry.

    Kevin
    Kevin@BigTicketDomains.com
    http://www.BigTicketDomains.com

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