Affiliate Programs for Webmasters Top 48 Hours - Generating Website Traffic with Sub-domains

Sub-domains are websites that are located within a directory of your main site and have their own domain name. Because they use the same resources as the main website, they are normally much cheaper than getting another hosting account. Their low cost and flexibility make sub-domains a great device for directing traffic to your site Êwithout breaking the bank.

*Sub-domains as Portal Sites* One of the best uses of sub-domains is portal websites. Portal websites are sites that link to your main website and have a similar theme. Basically, they provide another portal, or doorway, for visitors and search engines to get to your main website.

Since creating content for a website takes time, often webmasters simply modify the existing text of the main site and reuse it on the portal site. It is important that the content is not exactly the same and the portals do not just redirect to the main site. Otherwise, search engines may not index them.

*More Portals, More Visitors* Portal websites can be submitted
to the search engines just like your main site. If your website
is doing alright in the search engines, then imagine having five
more websites out there for the spiders to find. Five more
listings means that Web surfers have five times as many ways to
find your network of websites.

*Search Engines and Links* More and more search engine
algorithms take into consideration the number and ranking of
sites that link to you. By linking your sub-domains to your main
site and to each other, the ranking of all of your sites is
improved.

*Banner Exchange Programs* Banner exchange programs allow
members to share advertising space on each other’s websites.
They are a great way to generate traffic to your website, but
you may not want to clutter your main site with ads. Portal
websites provide a good place to test different programs and
direct the resulting traffic to your main site.

*Alternative Markets* Search engine spiders will pick up on
content variations among your websites. Subtle differences could
place a site in a category that you had not thought of and open
up an entirely new base of visitors and/or customers.

*Product and Service Specialization* Your main website may have
dozens of different products and services. This is great for
your business, but generality can hurt your ranking in the
search engines. Using sub-domains to create sites that
specialize in one product or service increases your keyword
density and improves your ranking. Plus, many consumers would
prefer to work with a specialized business than a one-stop shop.
(You can still link to your main site with all of your
products.)

About the author:
Sarah Coles is a webmaster and content developer for
Jumpline.com Web Hosting, a budget host offering 6 websites for
as low as $14.95/mo.