The Uber-Blog Project

About the Project.

The idea is that several experienced webmasters combine their knowledge and experience to create the perfect blog.

This will be an ongoing project from domain selection to design, post style to linking and promotion to... well, everything really.

As we reach each point in the process a decision will be made on the best course of action either by poll or by responses to posts. Experiences and personal opinions will be used to decide the best course of action.

Each member involved in the process will have a share in any profit through supplying content and posts with their links. So, if we have three members in the team, we could post three times a week, with the links for each member in their respective posts. The blog can be loaded up with “backdated” posts also, supplying a kick-start. In this case the posts can be created and evenly shared to include the links of each member.

The process will be as open as possible so that forum members can read the opinions and actions taken in an effort to share some knowledge in the form of tutorials and “best practice”.

The stages of building the site will be as follows...

1. Choosing profitable content - Straight and Twink
2. Domain registration
3. Hosting
4. Software
5. Add-ons and Plug-ins
6. Design
7. Layout
8. Posting style
9. Linking
10. Promotion

Ultimately, this is an experiment to see if the knowledge of several of us combined can create something approaching the "perfect" blog.

For example, I might be good at writing content, but someone else knows how and where to generate traffic. You might be great at graphics, but fall down at layout. If each of us brings our best to the blog, in theory it should generate higher traffic, greater following, more interest and bigger profits for all involved.
In addition to that, it provides GWW members with an insight into what works best in each area.

If you'd like to be involved, please show your interest in the following discussions.

Current Members taking part
Conran - Straight Cock
Luke -

(if you're starting a blog using this forum for info and want to take part, add a post and state your blog and we'll add you as a participant above)

So the first step in this process is choosing the right content to promote.

It needs to be in high demand and there needs to be plenty of it to hand because there could very well be six or seven of us all using content from this niche.

From research on my own blogs and the click through rates of banners, I would personally suggest Twinks, Foreskin or Straight Guys. In my experience, these are generating higher traffic than other niches.

If we go for Twinks or Straight Guys there should be more than enough sponsor content to go around, whereas Foreskin is harder to find.

Of course, I could be wrong, so what do you think is a popular niche we could focus on?

I am in! I am happy with either twink or straight guy as the chosen niche. And I am happy to provide a blogging domain, hosting and anything else that goes along with this project.

Excellent!

So that's two votes for Straight or Twink. Out of the two I would choose straight, but that's because I have links to B8M8 for traffic, and I already have sponsors in mind.

Anyone else have an opinion on this?

And Luke, any chance of editing the main thread as we go through the stages? Maybe just crossing out each stage or adding a note on what was decided? I had a look but I don't think I can edit it myself.

Oh great, mod rights and I already messed it up!
Sorry Luke, I hit Edit instead of quote and somehow deleted your last post! :mpr:

So, to recap what I just deleted (I'm such a plonker).
You said about having our own domains to make it easier to keep track of things.

I guess working on our own domains is wise from that perspective. I was just hoping those involved would benefit more if we were all promoting and working on the same blog.

I was also considering starting off on a Blogger domain. I've found it really helped me to start on a blogger domain, write ten or so posts, then register a new domain and post a link from blogger to the new site.

So I think I'll start one later on the straight guys niche.

And sorry again for deleting your post! I really don't know what's wrong with me today.

hehe...no worries about the delete.

Yeah so lets get this started - who else is in?

wow its sounds interesting :)

I've been offering to do the same thing on one of my multi niche blogs. Let friends that I trust post content with their link codes. So far no one has done anything.

Count me in! I'd love to see how this works and try something different.

this is cool and great :)

very nice, I can't wait to see

I'm very interested in watching this unfold. This will be a great tool for newbies and pros alike.

Thought it was about time I posted my start up.

So here it is - Straight Cock
I'm going for a fee Blogger site for now, simply because I have found it easier to find followers, and then transfer the blog to a paid domain.
However, from experience I would suggest that if you do this yourself, do not import or try to divert anything.
When you move, just add a post explaining the move and start with new posts on the new paid domain.

Any one else wanting to add to this? If you're starting out then tell us what you're doing.

Next up we'll be moving on to Hosting.

As no one is adding their link just yet, I'll move on to Domain and Hosting.

There are conflicting opinions on domain names. Some say a hyphen (-) is bad, others say it doesn't make any difference. Some say you should go for .co.uk if you're in the UK, others say it makes no difference. I've done all of the above in various projects large and small, and I have found that it doesn't really make a lot of difference. Google even states that a hyphen won't harm you, but that it might help if the words used make more sense if one is used.

Perhaps more importantly, make sure your desired domain name cannot be assumed to be something else. For example, .mensexchange.com could be Mens Exchange or Men Sex Change. How does Google know other than by extensive crawling of content? And even when all the content you add is filtered, it could still be confusing.
In such a case, Google would suggest Mens-Exchange.com. The hyphens don't harm you, and it actually makes the intent much clearer.

In addition, you could have a boost from Search Engines with the right keyword in your domain. If you have a thick cock blog, you'd benefit from having thick-cock.com much faster than if you had wide-dicks.com simply because thick cock might have a higher search level.
Also, consider how many might simply type in the web address in the hope that the site exists.

In addition, if you intend to have a collection of blogs, having them on a subdomain might also assist in searching. For instance, if you owned cumblogs.com and had related niche blogs on sub-domains, one search of cum blogs could list all of those sub domain blogs.

And on hosting...

Personally, I've used Arvixe for mine (see sig). It's affordable, and "unlimited" (as much as a host can be). I have had a cheap hosting package with them with several blogs on sub domains, so I would recommend this option if you want to have a collection of blogs to run or want to offer friends the opportunity to run a blog (as I have done).

Keeping track of all the sites can be a pain if you have a big collection, whereas having one primary domain and adding niche blogs to sub-domains is easier to manage - and each is recognised by Google as its own site.

Through experience, I would suggest that whatever hosting pan you go for, you check the fine print on bandwidth and storage before you buy.
You don't want to buy hosting and then find out that the first link exchange you had was so good it destroyed your limits within a week!

Anyone else has thoughts on hosting or domains?
Who do you use and why?
What do you think are the most important aspects of choosing hosting?

Hey, Conran, thanks for getting this going. Now that I am back from my mini-holiday, I am going to jump in and get things rolling too.

Its an interesting approach you are taking, getting setup on blogspot then moving to a paid host after a bit. I never thought of doing that and am keen on giving it a try! Thanks for the tip.

As for the domains, I know the whole hyphenated domain chat was brought up previously, I personally prefer no hyphens as its more natural for a person to type in the full domain name without them, plus if you own the hyphenated domain only you may be losing traffic to your non-hyphenated counterpart.

For hosting, I mainly use NationalNet as I have several servers with them. I have tried cheaper hosts in the past and never really had much luck with them. Things would go wrong, like the shared server would crash and not be online for a few days. Or others on the server would be taking too much power or traffic which would mean my sites would be slow. Glad you found a good virtual host and thanks for sharing it.

Hey Luke,

Yes, I neglected to mention the problem with a hyphen in direct input. Thanks for bringing that up. It is important to remember that plenty of guys will just type in a domain name assuming that it exists. This is of course why simple names are worth so much.

I thought about the blogger thing after moving to paid and deactivating the blogs there for risk of duplicate content.

I created a new blog on a sub of my new paid hosting and imported all the content from Blogger, then set up a redirect to go to my new domain.
I did this on several sites, but on one I imported everything to a new sub and didn't divert the blogger blog to it.
But despite the risk of duplicate content, this blog is performing better in traffic than any other.

I've since gone back to blogger and reactivated another, and added a link in the last post advising of the move. Since I did that the traffic to the new one of that niche has risen too.

I can only assume that this is reader reaction to being diverted. I believe Blogger adds a warning that the site is diverting and asks the visitor to agree. Nervous surfers might not.

It seems easier to build a following on Blogger, so I thought it was worth giving that a try and seeing if it gives the new one a boost when it's ready to go.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by conran

Hey Luke,

Yes, I neglected to mention the problem with a hyphen in direct input. Thanks for bringing that up. It is important to remember that plenty of guys will just type in a domain name assuming that it exists. This is of course why simple names are worth so much.

I thought about the blogger thing after moving to paid and deactivating the blogs there for risk of duplicate content.

I created a new blog on a sub of my new paid hosting and imported all the content from Blogger, then set up a redirect to go to my new domain.
I did this on several sites, but on one I imported everything to a new sub and didn't divert the blogger blog to it.
But despite the risk of duplicate content, this blog is performing better in traffic than any other.

I've since gone back to blogger and reactivated another, and added a link in the last post advising of the move. Since I did that the traffic to the new one of that niche has risen too.

I can only assume that this is reader reaction to being diverted. I believe Blogger adds a warning that the site is diverting and asks the visitor to agree. Nervous surfers might not.

It seems easier to build a following on Blogger, so I thought it was worth giving that a try and seeing if it gives the new one a boost when it's ready to go.

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dear conran & luke, you guys are awesome for all this hard work and effort. i am watching, listening and trying to soak all i can. thanks for all your hard work!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chickwoutadick

dear conran & luke, you guys are awesome for all this hard work and effort. i am watching, listening and trying to soak all i can. thanks for all your hard work!!

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I've been a bit lax on this recently haven't I? So busy these days!
I'll try to pop back after I'm done with my workload today and post an update.

Glad you're finding it useful! :icon_smile:

I am just starting to set up my new blog, I have done many sites in the past and doing a blog just fits with what I like to do right now.

• I have the theme and style uploaded

• my chosen niche as well is twink and straight (just a personal favorite of mine, I've always had a soft spot for straight guys)

• speed was very inportant so I placed this on a dedicated server and everything was optimized to reduce download times

• now I am at the stage of formating the page and post structures, and deciding what else aside from content the end user may want/need/desire

I am very glad you choose to discuss this and look foward to where this is going

So guys, any updates on what has been happening with this project?