closed EbonyKids.com

[Nexus]

Just "black" or "black things". Usually describes whatever word it follows. Could be "negros, negro, negra, negras" depending on whether the word its describing is masculine, feminine, and whether it is plural.

~ Nexus

 

[TheBansche]

I hear you guys on this tip-toeing around acceptable descriptions of "black folks." When I initially designed the site, I wanted the content to be as race-neutral as possible, but with a few extra tidbits of black history thrown in so that my daughter (who lives with her latina mother in California, speaks fluent Spanish, goes to a predominantly white/latino school, and still ISN'T EXACTLY SURE who Martin Luther King was) could learn a little more about the other half of her heritage. Even the site's slogan, "The Dream Continues," was supposed to be race-neutral.

That said, I was getting CRUCIFIED by the search bots, so I had to start strategicly dropping "Black Children" and "Children of color" around the site in case people searched on those terms. My biggest challenge right now is figuring out what terms will get me better placement on the search engines. I know this is the wrong forum to ask this, but how do I do that? How do I find the right terms and where do I drop them to get better placement?

I think traffic must be a significant contributing factor to domain value, so this isn't TOTALLY off topic, but I still feel bad asking in the appraisal forum.

 

[netau]

Hi Thebansche

Have you tried

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

for search term popularity

 

[Drewbert]

I'd steer clear of using "ebony" and "kids" in the same domain. That's getting too close to "ebony teens"

"teens" especially is a term that's got too many porn sites related to it to be safely used for a mainstream site.

Try "youth" and "children".

blackyouth.com and blackchildren.com would be far better (IMHO).

negro is widely used in Spanish, but here in Mexico at least, more likely to be about colours of other things rather than people. Moreno (brown) is more likely to be used for people-colour.

 

[Biggie]

Originally posted by TheBansche
I hear you guys on this tip-toeing around acceptable descriptions of "black folks." When I initially designed the site, I wanted the content to be as race-neutral as possible, but with a few extra tidbits of black history thrown in so that my daughter (who lives with her latina mother in California, speaks fluent Spanish, goes to a predominantly white/latino school, and still ISN'T EXACTLY SURE who Martin Luther King was) could learn a little more about the other half of her heritage. Even the site's slogan, "The Dream Continues," was supposed to be race-neutral.

That said, I was getting CRUCIFIED by the search bots, so I had to start strategicly dropping "Black Children" and "Children of color" around the site in case people searched on those terms. My biggest challenge right now is figuring out what terms will get me better placement on the search engines. I know this is the wrong forum to ask this, but how do I do that? How do I find the right terms and where do I drop them to get better placement?

I think traffic must be a significant contributing factor to domain value, so this isn't TOTALLY off topic, but I still feel bad asking in the appraisal forum.

One thing about seo-bots, they are not prejudiced.

Just figure out what your content will be,and try to expound on that. When you set up you meta tags, be sure to set one tag as
meta description =content. It is a good idea to make some of the keywords in your content "bold face".

Also, if you haven't tried this , use "submit wolf 5.0"

 

[Nexus]

My suggestion:

1. Use Overture's suggestion tool to grab a starting point for finding your competitors. Type in "black children" and "black kids" and look at the returns... "black children" seems to return groups with the biggest numbers
2. Looking at the results.
3. Considering the results... you may want to position the site's verbage to say it is an "online magazine" and you might consider mentioning "biracial" as well. Also, some of the things people seem interested in seeing are: "activities", "poems", "hair styles", "pictures/art", "photos" and "books". Sprinkle these words and content throughout your website, and feature some of these things in prominent ways as much as is possible.

I understand your intent about having it be "race neutral" or maybe "accessible" for children of all colors by not focusing too much, but I feel you might be doing that at the sacrifice of your core audience. As "EbonyKids.com" I think you're really trying to make the site something that fosters pride and encourages kids to explore those "roots". I think if done well, and you don't sound like you are addressing ONLY black kids (but instead sharing with kids in general with the subject), it will work out. The more distinctive (and not homogenized and universal) you make your presentation of information, the more you'll endear and attract all kinds of folk. I agree that you shouldn't portray a "warped" perspective of the world though. It would be nice to put the sites focus at times in the context of a world with many different colors. Along with hair styles (like I mentioned above), it might be interesting to show pictures of all the tones generally thought of as "black", and handle it from an easily digestable and entertaining format for kids.

Also, after you've determined some nice keywords, like "black children", go to Google, and see who pops up first. Use a tool like Keyword Density Analyzer ( http://www.keyworddensity.com/ ) to measure the "density" of the terms used on their pages. Work to get your "density" to match. Also, note how many people link to these websites by typing "link:" into Google's search box, and pasting their address after it.

Also, figure out a scheme to get related websites to link to your website. Lots of ways to do that with private sites.

Best,
~ Nexus

 

[TheBansche]

Gentlemen,

Thank you for all your information and advice. It's been IMMENSELY valuable.

 

[NamePopper.com]

This has certainly turned into an interesting thread.

Kudos to everybody for participating - and sharing thoughts and ideas.