Day Trip Media: Cheap Caravans Site Upgraded And Relaunched

Tuesday, 22 April 2008

Cheap Caravans Site Upgraded And Relaunched

As a part of the ongoing eBay partner network upgrade, I've finally got my new and improved caravan site uploaded and running. There were some heart attacks along the way, like when the hosting company decided to make my account extra secure without telling me and render the BANS CMS inoperable. But that aside, I'm quite pleased with the work done as it's pretty much trebled the size of the original site and added a lot more focused affiliate click-through opportunities as well as fresh, self updating content.

I decided the new domain I'd bought for the site (and to help quality score issues when I got a new Google Adwords account set up) would be more search engine friendly than the old one, so I've put a permanent redirect on the old domain to the new one. Hopefully the newly found rankings and page rank the old site had picked up will transfer in time to the new domain. And if it doesn't thanks to it's new domain and improved content, Adwords likes the site again.

All this and no mention of the domain, well, here it is - Cheap Caravan Holidays And Hire. Ok, so it's not the best looking site out there, but it does what it says on the tin, and so far the old one has made some nice sales to swell the coffers. I'm hoping this new incarnation will improve on that vastly. I was quiet pleased as I've pretty much got to grips with templates for the CMS, and of course, I can use them again for other projects. The old version of the site was very table heavy, but I've been able to do this version table free. It's almost done, I've just got a few more Adwords campaigns to set up for it to tide it over the next few months.

Next up, I will be working on upgrading a smaller site of mine about vintage guitars, but as of yet I can't decide whether to stick it on a new domain or to just shut the site down for a day and do a complete overhaul and upgrade that way. I should probably get a new domain, as Adwords fell out of love with the site previously, and I wouldn't want that to happen again with my shiny new site.

Posted by Dio Bach at 22:25

2 Comments:

David Fiske said...: Have you had a lot of success with BANS? It looks like a capable script but to date I've yet to be convinced of it's earning ability.; 23 April 2008 09:53
Dio Bach said...: Not major success, but every site I've made with it turns a profit. I'd make a lot with just affiliate products I realise, but these are so simple to set up, add additional content and then add affiliate banners etc - that for me it's a lot less hassle. This new version has some nice features like built in link cloaking as well. A more advanced affiliate than me would probably pass it over due to the lowish commissions, but it works fine for me.; 23 April 2008 11:02