Wanted: Service Development Consultant Needed for VILLAS.COM

[steveatvillas]

Hello all:

I fully realise that this is basically a Domainer’s forum, but perhaps, amongst you, they are some folks that are in the Developer’s space.

I’d like to put out to tender what I think is a really sweet gig. As many of you now know, I own VILLAS.COM. But what you may not know, even though it’s in my profile, is that I also own VILLAS.EU, .INFO and .PRO and a whole bunch of other dot-whatevers around these key domains. I’ve got trademarks up the wazoo for everything and I have spent the past ten years developing a rock-solid brand. And before you ask, none of them are for sale …unless, of course, you have very, very deep pockets. But really, folks, let’s get off the sales thing for now, as this is not really on my mind

Let’s move on to a positive, pro-active and remunerative scenario.

Having spent some interesting and illuminating times on this, and other, forums, it is abundantly clear to me that I’m not a Domainer, Reseller, Broker, Speculator, Parker or Link Farmer…I’m a Free-Market Developer of a fully functioning website and portal. I’m looking for an individual, team or company who can share my vision and help me accomplish my objectives.

I’ve been conducting a thorough analysis of visitor traffic, and market conditions applicable, to VILLAS.COM. I positioned V.C to be a site/portal for very high-end real estate and a concomitant lifestyle. This, as well as publishing to a fine-art level, is my business world, and I work comfortably in it. Cool!

Well, turns out NOT cool. My original business plan was incorrect. The overwhelming market response is telling me that V.C wants to be about holidays, vacations, rentals for same, airline tix, car rentals, posh tours, cheap as sh*t ratty little apartments 10 miles from the beach to $10k a day hotel rooms and infinite-luxury villas overlooking Cannes, tourist info, etc., etc.

V.C has legs, and I’m ready to run with it. And, I need some help. Here’s what I want to do, and what I’m doing.

We have now migrated all of the content off VILLAS.COM to VILLAS.EU, http://www.villas.eu. VILLAS.EU will be where I continue to present very high end of property purchase and lifestyle.

I am now starting the due diligence to make VILLAS.COM one of the be-all and end-all portals for the travel and destination industry. Go ahead…OVT it. Google it. Yahoo! & MSN & Alta Vista it. URLTrend it. Keyword it. Alexa it. Do-whatever-you-want to it. V.C is a King Kong.

And, brethren and bretheren-ettes, I need some help.

Do you have the chops?

Do you have the talent?

Do you have the connections?

Do you have the vision?

I’m looking for a solid Resume of repeatable and professional SUCCESS in site monetization and development, preferably in the travel and destination industry, not guesswork. I want the end result to be a fully functioning dBase driven portal and a revenue generating monster, not just a PPC or PPL link farm. I need someone who shares my clear understanding of international mores and cultural differences, who knows the turf. Show me what you’ve done…not what you want to do….failure is not an option. I’ll be expecting a full business plan with an accurate financial analysis, after we ink a deal. I’m talking very fair remuneration (money, moolah, dosh, gelt) for the top dog or dogette (I’m an equal opportunity guy.)

Don’t ask me what I’m paying. You tell me what you’re worth, and how you will add value.

Talk to me. What’s your vision?

It is also only fair that I tell you, up front, that I am a perfectionist. I like to have a good time and an easygoing atmosphere with my workmates, yet I won’t suffer fools. I am a hippie capitalist, that is, I know how to make money but I’m laid back about it. I revel in intelligence with my peers, superiors and colleagues, I demand the very best, and I pay very well, and absolutely on time…if the job is done right.

If you aren’t the one, can you suggest someone who is?

Do you have any other ideas? I will entertain other alternatives if they fit into my game plan.

While you’re at it, please feel free to visit the current version of V.C… http://www.villas.com.

Thanks for reading this.

All the best,

Steve

 

[David G]

....perhaps, amongst you, they are some folks that are in the Developer’s space. I'm also only a Gold member, so if any of you Excluxsive or Platinums could help me out by reposting this thread in your sections, I'd be grateful...

I am sure the forum would also be 'grateful' if you would do it yourself instead of looking for a freebie. What with the high value of that name and your business experience surprised you do not want to pay the small fee to upgrade your membership here rather than want us to post it free :crutch:

 

[falian]

Message me at [email protected] for more info as i mgiht be interested.

and if villas.com is so big why isn't it on the front page of google for villas?

 

[sundaybluez]

Hello Steve,

I had a good long look at the website Villa.com.
I have a concrete plan chalked out in my mind. If permitted i can put
fwd a detailed report(doc) on to that later along with its development cycle/phases
if things work out further.

Something about me in short :
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- A young web professional
- Started career as a developer.
- Having experince on domain development as had the opportunity to work under a quality webmaster/domain developer.
- Involved in development/planning of some quality domains.

I dont know whether we work together on not but some of my sugesstions if that can be of any help to you

- Your website has content but not been handelled properly for a larger reach.
You are Can have a good SE ranking if you do that.

- Try to have content in root.
No : http://www.villas.com/design+decor/design+decor.html
Just to have high keyword density that is not right & also gives a wrong impression.

Simple urls always do better for both SE & common users(easy to remember).

- Make things look bigger then what they are, currently its exactly the opposite.

- Change the website design/layout it looks an 80's design.
Perhaps a kind of ameture look, but it wont help here for this domain/website.

Try using some other colors the current color combo is dull.


Have a nice day.


Regards,
Nilesh Vaidya
+91.9819109300

Yahoo : [email protected]
MSN : [email protected]

 

[steveatvillas]

Hello Steve,

I had a good long look at the website Villa.com.
I have a concrete plan chalked out in my mind. If permitted i can put
fwd a detailed report(doc) on to that later along with its development cycle/phases if things work out further.

I dont know whether we work together on not but some of my sugesstions if that can be of any help to you

- Your website has content but not been handelled properly for a larger reach.

- Try to have content in root.
No : http://www.villas.com/design+decor/design+decor.html

Simple urls always do better for both SE & common users(easy to remember).

- Change the website design/layout it looks an 80's design.
Perhaps a kind of ameture look, but it wont help here for this domain/website.

Try using some other colors the current color combo is dull.


Have a nice day.


Regards,
Nilesh Vaidya

Nilesh:

I like your username. It is a cold, rainy Sunday morning here in Spain and I have the bluez!

Thanks so much for your very observant comments, they have been well received. Let me explain a few things about the current version of Villas.com, then we can move on...

1. Your comment about the "look and feel" of this site is spot on! But there is a reason my friend. Yes, the look is a bit "stodgy" and old fashioned, on purpose: You see, the folks who have the funds necessary to buy these properties are, indeed, stodgy and old fashioned! I built the site for my target market, not for what I wanted...basic marketing.

2. I admit that having looked at our colour choice for several months now, I am getting bored with it. The original idea was to colour-key each section of the site, with the background, rollovers, etc.

2. Before migrating to the web, I published a magazine for the same target audience...the 2% of the world who buy and sell multi-million Euro (pound or dollar) homes. The mag had a classic and simple look and feel, and it worked very well indeed. And "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

3. Your idea of imbedding content in the URL is very clever. But we felt that the core URL http://VILLAS.COM accomplished the task, and the sub URL's reflect our organisational hierarchy and with our tracking software, it is easier to identify the page visited. Moreover, if you look at a PHP driven site, how descriptive is a generated PHP URL?

4. SE's return results with the page <title> as the header in the search results. That's where we imbedded content for each static page, as well in the <meta name=description> tags. I didn't bother with keywords except on our index page.

5. After only 2 months on line, we were happy to see that the SE's had indexed each of our pages, and each of the PDF's associated with each page. We are now getting URL referrals from minute content I didn't even remember was in the text. That is, of course, except GOOGLE. We have fluctuated from 500 search results to 70 in the last week, depending on which of Google's data centres you access. It's the Google dance!

BUT, THIS ISN'T SO IMPORTANT ANYMORE!

If you re-read my brief, you see that I am going to completely scrap the existing V.C, and migrate all of the Real Estate and Lifestyle content to another name, VILLAS.EU.... FORGET ABOUT WHAT YOU SEE ON VILLAS.COM TODAY, THIS WILL ALL CHANGE.

I am going to rebuild VILLAS.COM from the ground up for a totally different market segment...TRAVEL and DESTINATION. I envisage that the "new" V.C will be completely different in look and feel...Very state-of-the-art Modern with bright and positive colour scheme, 3-column liquid centre or whatever, PHP/database driven, attention grabbing...yet, very easy to navigate, intuitive content organisation, plenty of banner and column space for high-profile (and high-profit) advertisement, plenty of incentives and giveaways to keep people coming back, super-rich content and choice.

Look at some of the most successful sites today, and they aren't exactly the most aesthetically pleasing, but they do generate immense profits. Rightmove.co.uk, for instance, is very utilitarian looking, but they just took their company public and got almost £500 million in their IPO. And, Google, well the site couldn't have a simpler look.

So, I'm trying to create a team of people, each with their own specific talent, to help me in this project. This includes site design, construction and maintenance, content management, marketeers, salespeople, backroom, customer service, etc.

I've had some great response via PM's from people I met here on DNF when I was beginning my investigation by asking for an appraisal. It's a great thread, if you want to look it up. And it got me in touch with great, talented, people.

I look forward to your thoughts.

It's a huge task, and I'm eager to get started in my team building.

All the best,

Steve

+34 952 884 994 (office 11:00 to 19:00 hrs, GMT + 1:00)

email: [email protected]

 

[David G]

OK Steve, thanks for the nice PM explaining the full situation, which I now understand.

Good luck.

P.S. One SEO improvement I recommend for your index page is to change the title right away. The title tag is of upmost importance in SEO work. 2 of your titles are: <title>VILLAS.COM+Design &amp; D&eacute;cor</title> (what is that?), and the index page: <title>VILLAS.COM+Exceptional Properties &amp; A Privileged Lifestyle.</title>.

It would be best to simplify it with a title of simply "Villas" (Welcome to Villas and villas.com would also be ok to use in your case, though the one word title of Villas is best IMO). Short and well targeted titles I think are better than longer more detailed ones, though many seo experts may not agree with that. I feel it's best to have your url word(s) as your main page title assuming it's a keyword domain.

 

[VioxxLawyers]

Why would you move villas.com to villas.eu? I don't get it.

 

[MediaHound]

Talk to Brian at www.noparking.com

 

[steveatvillas]

Why would you move villas.com to villas.eu? I don't get it.

Well, Kanoodle, it's rather straightforward, when you analyse the market indicators for this particular name. Far and away, the market is perceiving the name "villas" to be about holiday rentals, etc. When I do a google search on the word, there are 70 million results returned. Taking a random sampling of these results, I've found that 95% of the results are for holidays and vacations, NOT real estate for sale, and certainly not high-end real estate.

Same goes with all the ubiquitous keyword utilities floating around out there, free and paid for.

To me it's a no-brainer, and as I also have the .EU extension and the development's already been done, I'm just plugging in the Nameservers of my host, waiting for the SE's to index V.EU whilst rebuilding V.C, sticking a ht.access in the root of V.C, then finally closing and relaunching.

I'm wasting a resource with V.C, and repurposing the existing content to V.EU

Anyway, I'm looking for a team to help me make the transition.

Thanks,

Steve

Talk to Brian at www.noparking.com

Just had a quick look at their site. Man, they sure don't pull any punches and are right upfront about what they will and will not do. My kind of people. Thanks for the lead.

Steve

 

[MediaHound]

welcome
keep us posted