Here it is, over three and a half years ahead of schedule: my London 2012 Olympics site. It’s far from being done but it’s done enough to get it out into Google’s radar. All of the links should work, most of the pages are up and I mainly have some content writing work to do along with the creation of a few tools to help people plan their Olympics trip.
Timing
I believe that Google gives preference to older sites so getting my Olympics site online over three years early has been done specifically to start the ‘aging’ process for Google. I expect a lot of sites on this subject to be launched and getting in early will, I hope, give me a bit of an advantage down the road.
Search Engine Optimisation
Everything is always an experiement with me. I have hunches about what works and what doesn’t as far as Google goes. As I’ve said before, I think domain name keywords are huge, and think I’ve got a pretty good domain for that purpose. It’s sort of crap for type in or word of mouth traffic because the hyphens and word order can confuse things, but my main goal is to get traffic through Google.
I’ve paid pretty close attention to optimising for my main keywords across the entire site using H1 and H2 title tags, page titles, page descriptions and meta tags but I plan to do more optimising of the in page content. Some of my pages don’t even have content yet so I will attempt to cram keywords in and optimise as much as possible. I don’t want to go crazy with the keyword placement but I will cram a few more in than I normally do and see how it works.
I’ve added a few inbound links, one from a quality living in London type site, and the rest from my own sites, including Travoholic.com which always seems to get my new sites ranked quickly. If I find London or Olympics related sites that appeal, I will propose three way link swaps with any of my other sites. I have a few ideas of my sleeve for resources that will hopefully get me some natural inbound links.
Competition
I can’t compete with the official Olympics sites, nor do I want to. I do want to be the highest ranking unofficial type Olympics site, however. There are a few unofficial sites out there but I think I can out do them and that’s the goal. As I see it, Google’s front page is currently up for grabs for the major keywords and I aim to be somewhere on that page.
Niche
I’m not interested in reporting daily Olympics news or even in posting a medal count once the Olympics are underway. My aim is to educate Olympics visitors about London so that their experience in the city during the Games is as good as it can be. I want to be a resource for practical planning: accommodation, transportation, venue location, dates and timing of the events.
Minimal Work
My goal is to finish building the site within a couple of weeks and then continue to update it from time to time when more information about venues, tickets, event times etc comes available. I expect to have it complete well before the Games start and then I’m going to mostly leave it to fend for itself with minor updates here and there. Like I said, I have no interest in being an up to the minute news source. There are plenty of major players already doing that and I plan to be spending my time enjoying the Games rather than at my computer.
Monetising
It seems like a lot of people are attempting to cash in on accommodation during the Olympics. There are already a bunch of homestay type sites up that will eventually match homeowners with people looking for temporary rentals. I’m not sure how I could make that work for me but even if I can become affiliated with these sites, I could potentially make some money. Adsense is obviously prominent at the moment but I’ll keep my options open. I will also have hostel and hotel affiliates and there are lots of tourism-related affiliate offers out there for London.
I just wanted to give you all a glimpse into what I’ve been working on and the sorts of things I’m thinking about. I think starting a site for a one-time event can be a bit risky because once it’s over, there’s very little interest. But if the event is big enough and I can earn enough leading up and during it, then it will be worthwhile. I’m not sure yet what that amount will be but I am at least hoping to earn enough to cover my own London 2012 Olympics trip including loads of tickets, accommodation and plenty of party money.
Any feedback on the site keeping in mind that I’ve still got a lot of work to do? Would any of you ever consider building a site for a one-time only event?
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