When it comes to designing individual sites in your Web Empire, variety is of primary importance. Sites should use a variety of layouts, and use different colors, fonts, etc. Specific design considerations are different for the various types of sites we described earlier.

For your ‘factory’ site, think in terms of one or more databases. Put all of your content into database tables, and plug that information into the individual pages. So, for our site listing various dinosaur species, we might have a database table with these fields:

  • Scientific Name
  • Pronunciation
  • Common Name
  • Meaning of Name
  • Earlier Name(s)
  • Order
  • Suborder
  • Infraorder
  • Family
  • Time Period
  • Location
  • Type (e.g. Duck-billed, carnivore,  etc.)
  • Length
  • Height
  • Weight
  • Description
  • Notes

Not all of these fields would have values for every species, but you would fill in as many as possible. Then parts of this same data could be used on other sites, especially the fields that contain simple data, rather than extensive text. You do not want to use the same description or notes on other sites, but you can include the alternate names and earlier names and size and such from the entry for Tyrannosaurus Rex in a side-bar on your site about Sue, one of the most complete T Rex fossils ever found.

If you can develop several different table with inter-related information, all the better. For each time period, such as the Jurassic, you might have a table listing environmental conditions on different continents at that time, or plant species found at various localities during that period. Then, whenever you mention a dinosaur is associated with a particular time period, you can include a side-bar about what that time period was like in the area that dinosaur was found.

Your simpler sites, like house sites, can use data from your database tables when appropriate, but otherwise tend to be simpler in design. Page content may be static, with the only use of include functions being for the repetitive header and footer information, and for optional ads and links that will appear or disappear as they are sold.

On your junkier sites, you can use your database information to increase the prevalence of  relevant keywords. For example, your site with text from an old book on dinosaurs could include a sidebar labeled ‘Interesting Dinosaur Facts’ that uses your database to display information on a random species on each page, using a variety of text constructs around the data fields, such as:

The {common name | scientific name} form the {time period} was {height feet tall | weight pounds in weight}.

or

{length} foot long {scientific name} a {type} of dinosaur, roamed {place} in the {time period} period.

Of course, you need to make sure that only records with all the required fields filled are used for your constructs, so they look right.

Of course all of your sites should follow basic good SEO practices such as are described on this, and many other sites. Build a dozen sites in this neighborhood, then move on to the next. If it takes a year per neighborhood, your dinosaur empire will be complete in five years, by which time you should dominate the field. It should only take a few weeks to get the start of your factory site up, though you will continue adding records to the database (and hence, automatically, pages to the site) for several months. You should begin earning a trickle of money by the second month, and by year’s end it should be substantial. If you pick a more profitable topic than dinosaurs, you should be earning a living from your websites by the end of the year, and ready for retirement when your Empire is complete in five years.