Any experience with huge news/info sites?

davidle

davidle

New member
Aug 30, 2010
232
5
0
Suppose I have a general travel site where I make money selling plane tickets, hotel tickets, etc. The possible topics are endless and the competition is huge. There are a billion sites that review hotels and restaurants all around the world. How could I possibly compete with them? Well, let's assume I focus on several cities to make things easier on myself. Still, the competition remains endless but so do the potential topics/traffic. Pros and cons, pros and cons. How would you approach content-creation for a generalized site like this without a huge budget, but lots of time?

I'm debating whether I should even bother caring so much about the keywords for each article. Why? Because it takes about as much time to do keyword research as it does to pump out an article or even three articles (each of which will hopefully get some kind of long tail traffic).

So, I'm thinking I may just focus on churning out quality articles FAST and RELATED to a few select cities all across the globe in hopes of 1) getting a shitload of long tail traffic 2) becoming more of an authority site (if I'm writing a shitload, I assume the authority of my site will increase as long as the quality is good and the content goes up).

Is this plan flawed in anyway? Do any of you guys have much experience with news-type sites where you post a lot of content at rapid speed in order to see what sticks/happens? What'd you learn? I could spend three months doing keyword research and have a pile of keywords I'll hopefully rank for, or I could do some general preliminary kw research and start writing now.

I have more experience with smaller sites, but I'm kind of wondering if I can develop a huge content-site, like Breitbart.com/HuffingtonPost but for travel. I want to build something that will last.

On a side note, if any of y'all have any recommendations for a good WP theme for large content sites, let me know. I'm struggling to find something with a decent global navigation menu (and sub-menu) that doesn't look boring and old as fuck.

y64j0.jpg


J8XKR.jpg


twWy3.jpg


28EAj.jpg


L84E8.jpg


XfyC1.jpg


wNlky.jpg


eSMaj.jpg
 


If you could actually produce/acquire all that quality content cost-effectively then sure go for it.

You're basically doing a niche version of Associated Content. Or one of Demand Media's portfolio of sites - perhaps you could try selling your site to them once it gets established?

Oh and
17655722.jpg
 
Just a thought, you can always contact convention and visitors bureaus and have THEM create content about their area for you. They LOVE this stuff. They get to pimp their area, you get fresh QUALITY content.

All you have to do is call, email and ask!
 
Gertex said:
Just a thought, you can always contact convention and visitors bureaus and have THEM create content about their area for you. They LOVE this stuff. They get to pimp their area, you get fresh QUALITY content.

All you have to do is call, email and ask!
Click to expand...

Have you done this?
Usually they will give you a brochure :-)
They won't sit and write for you separately...
 
blogspotter said:
Have you done this?
Usually they will give you a brochure :-)
They won't sit and write for you separately...
Click to expand...

ring ring - "Hi Bumfargle Texas visitor bureau, this is dantex from mycooltravelsite.travel. We're doing a feature on Bumfargle and would love to interview someone at your office about your area. This is a great yadda..."

Close over skype then and pay for audio transcription to text, or start an email conversation. Ask questions about the keywords you are targetting and get good replies.

Repeat for the chamber of commerce, county/economic development corp, local museums, etc.

Am doing this for another site (not travel related though). It's too big of an area to know it all myself, but there are tons of experts. Frame yourself as the prize, act like this is a normal and customary interview, and make them feel unique for getting chosen to get in the media.

You get content and an industry contact.

This is the exact opposite of how cruddy webmasters operate.

(inb4 get a better phone script.)
 
Last edited:
blogspotter said:
Have you done this?
Usually they will give you a brochure :-)
They won't sit and write for you separately...
Click to expand...

I call BS.

Got a blog that I've gotten fresh content for with just that method. You just need to be specific about what you want!

It's their JOB!!!
 
That's a good idea, but might not work since I'll be targetting mostly non-English speaking countries. I'll think about how I could do this, though, as a bunch of people might speak English well enough.

Mostly, I'll be curating content from other places (taking excerpts and stuff) and putting my own spin on it. I can do this fast enough, but I'm still not sure how effective I'll be. I know tons of political and news sites don't seem to give a fuck about keywords, but their content is super high quality. I'd say my content will likely be medium to high quality...more general.

Demand Media focuses on keywords, and they lost 6 million last year...or quarter. Theyre starting to focus on higher quality content. My hope is that I'll rank for travel related keywords if I push out enough content, but, since I won't be targeting a single phrase or term, I'm sort of hoping to rank. I'm willing to try it since I feel I can do it quickly. I'm still not convinced it's advisable.
 
So everybody here basically has small sites that focus on, say, "dog training" rather than general "political" or "travel" sites? For example, how do sites with quality content actually make money before they become huge...sites like Huffington Post or all of those smaller liberal sites. Or here's a general travel site that is generally doing what I'm interested in doing. I can't imagine they're emphasizing keyword research more than quality content: matadornetwork.com
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom