Where does one start with a new domain?

Got an idea .. want to do it right...

[shri]

Hi everyone,

I wish to start a website which is basically a "Top Sites" type site for Asian/Indian websites.

Got the domain name and printed the t-shirts. Now I need to figure out how to create the site and avoid the mistakes I've made with my first sites.

The basic keyword I would like to optimise for would be "Indian websites" or "Indian sites".

My first question is ... what comes first? The content or the themes or the keyword optimisation? Do I build the site from ground up with cloaking? Do I build different entry pages for the various search engines?

(I've read most of the posts and the quarterly reports.. which I'm afraid have left me confused and without a formula!)

Regards,
Shri

[NFFC]

>... what comes first? The content or the themes or the keyword optimisation?

The way I do it is to identify the keywords/phrases being used to find similar sites, extract the theme and then build matching content. Theme the site, focus the pages.

[eljefe3]

Shri,

Greetings from South-East Asia. With such a huge base of websites and websurfers (Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka etc.) I believe that your first priority would be to develop serious content for India ( a huge region Perhaps starting out for a large state in India would be beneficial?). I believe that you will be competing against the major Indian portals (and International portals for that matter) for traffic and so content is the key to developing your traffic, advertising and sales. After content, link popularity, themes etc. will fall into place.

[shri]

eljefe, I already have a 'content' site with about 1.1 million pageviews a month. This is my second venture.

With regards to the first one, I messed it up horribly with Altavista banning me due to multiple domains pointing to the same site... and the new yahoo algorithm virtually dropping the listing from the search. The content and 'forum model' saved my butt. Just want to make sure I avoid these mistakes the second time over :)

NFCC, any good resources on how one themes a site? Is it done by similar sites linking into yours or is it more involved? Any good resources? I am following Brett's tutorial right now.. but it does not have a lot on themes, just basic optimization.

[NFFC]

First port of call should be Analysis and Dissection of the Theme Based Search Engine [searchengineworld.com] by you know who!

There have been some good posts here re: themes, use the search facility and have a read through.

[shri]

Thanks... No idea how I missed it.