Co-founded by Rick Latona, one of the most prominent domainers, AEIOU is one of the first companies to specialize in offering domain development services to domain name owners.

UPDATE (2010): There is No Money in Mini Web Design – AEIOU Closes Shop

In contrast to development solutions which offer a free publishing platform to develop domains, AEIOU actually develops the domain’s website for customers for a fee.

AEIOU is basically a website design company which is targeted at domainers with quality keyword domains which may be developed into a website in order to gain high search engine rankings and more traffic. In its website, it is clearly stated that “We develop domain names” and that AEIOU provides “Domain Development by Domainers”.

Products

For a few hundred bucks or less, this domain development company will create a unique website and logo for clients together with custom written articles to complement the domain name. There are presently 2 products offered by AEIOU:

(1) The 1 Pager- a single custom designed landing page with unique content and targeted advertising

What You Get

1. 1 Pager Design & Optimization
2. 100% Unique Content
3. Search Marketing Campaign

Pricing

• 1+ sites, $135
• 3+ sites, $125
• 10+ sites, $105
• 20+ sites, $90

(2) The Rapid Mini Site- a custom designed website with 5 pages of unique content and targeted advertising

What you get

1. Website Design & Optimization
2. 5 Pages of Unique Content
3. Search Engine Marketing Campaign
4. Hosting Included

Pricing

• 1+ sites, $250 each
• 3+ sites, $225 each
• 10+ sites, $205 each
• 25+ sites, $175 each

Services

In addition to the 2 domain development products, AEIOU also offers 4 related services:

• Content Writing: Custom written articles at US$0.05 per word or below.
• Search Engine Optimization: Keyword research, Basic layout optimization, Keyword optimization
• Link Building: US$125 per day or less which includes Social Bookmarking, Article Marketing, Blog Commenting, Forum Posting, Directory Posting
• Website Development: Custom development of sites larger than the 5 page Rapid Minisite.

Comments

The interesting feature from AEIOU’s packages is that they provide a Search Engine Marketing Campaign as well to assist client domains and websites in gaining search engine traffic. Depending on what is actually offered here, this may be a key differentiator for this company.

Regardless of their site design qualities, if they are able to produce meaningful results from their Search Marketing activities for customer sites, then the cost will certainly be worth it.

Effective Search Engine Marketing (SEM) will make a significant impact on the success of any site. AEIOU appreciates this fact and includes a SEM campaign as part of its product packages but it is not clear what is provided exactly. If we refer to their ‘Services’ section, one day of link building will already cost US$125, so it’s unlikely that the $135 1-Pager or the $250 Raid Mini site will have a full day of link building priced in.

The best way of assessing the effectiveness of the sites they build, will be to take a look at some of their portfolio and analyze their respective search engine rankings. Alternatively, just jump in and try a few domains with them and let the results speak for themselves.

Company Info

• Company: AEIOU.com
• Founders: Rick Latona (Veteran Domainer) and Ryan Steel (SEO Expert)
• URL: http://www.aeiou.com
• Case Studies: http://aeiou.com/category/case-studies/
• In the News: DNJournal AEIOU Interview
• Contact: http://aeiou.com/contact-us/

UPDATE (2010): There is No Money in Mini Web Design – AEIOU Closes Shop