Christmas Came Early

October 2nd, 2006 by Chris

Back in July I published one of the most in depth articles I’ve ever written. The article, A Publisher’s Guide to Contextual PPC Ad Optimization, takes a close look at how you can optimize your publishing earnings by tweaking the appearance and placement of ads from Google Adsense, YPN, or the like.

At the end of the article I recommend constant tinkering and monitoring as the best way to increase your earnings, and today I experienced something that really drives that point home.

This year I’ve been working on redesigning most of my content sites (and yes Website Publisher is on my list). The site of the moment is my literature site. The new design went live on most pages (but not all, it is a huge site and the integration is a lot of work) late last night.

When I first launched this site back in 2000 I redesigned it practically every 6 months, but then in 2002 I launched the most recent design and it stayed. Over the years I tweaked the content layout slightly, moving ad placements or adjusting them, but it stayed mostly the same. Most recently I did a few months worth of ad monitoring and tweaking as a foundation for the aforementioned article.

So, because of all my recent tweaking with the ads I thought they were pretty well set and I did not even think that I’d get much of a bump in eCPM with the new design. I was hoping the new design would entice more incoming links, maybe more page views per visit, and would certainly load faster being tableless, but an eCPM increase never crossed my mind.

So I was certainly surprised when checking Adsense this morning to see that the top Adsense leaderboard placement had a CTR double what it normally is, and throughout the day today it has held. Consdering that this is my highest earning ad placement for all my sites it’s like Christmas in October.

You can see the old design here and then compare it to the new design found here.

Not a whole lot has changed, but the little change there is certainly has made a difference. The top leaderboard was always near my horizontal menu, but with it now being directly touching my horizontal menu CTR has shot up. It is only a shift of 50 pixels, but wow, what a difference.

So, take this as inspiration to tweak your own site design.

Forum discussion here.

Posted in: Ad Networks, Website Development by: Chris | 2 Comments »

Brag About Your Content

September 21st, 2006 by Chris

If you read my articles and this blog, or if you know much about me, you know I’m a fan of public domain content, and I am a fan of user submitted content. Specifically I am a fan of using user submitted content to make your site more unique when the base content of your site is not unique (ala public domain).

It used to be that public domain content could still create a unique site, however success breeds imitators and no longer can you expect your site to be unique if you use public domain content. So, in order to make your site unique you should solicit users for their own opinions either through a comments system or forum integration.

There is another hurdle though, and that is avoiding the perception of spam. Lets be honest, public domain content sites, or even unique content sites on some topics, are a dime a dozen. They have gotten incredibly common and many of them are by people who have absolutely no desire (or no clue) to make a long term living with them and instead are just looking for a quick buck. In short, they’re ugly and spammy and they put a foul taste in the mouth of people everywhere.

You can, as I’ve said, use user submitted content to up your unique value, but you can’t always show that content prominently on the first page view. Likewise you cannot put a notice at the top of your site along the lines of “Dear Directory Editor, we are not spam, thanks.” So what do you do?

Brag.

Businesses bragging about their popularity is nothing new, just look at the “billions served” on a McDonalds side. With the Internet it didn’t take long either with most of the early search engines quickly listening their index size on their homepage or Amazon listing the size of their product catalogue. Even now many sites list their number of members, how many orders they have, how many sales they have, or something along those lines.

Why do businesses do this? Well in most cases it is because if people perceive you as being popular they will be more likely to trust you and do business with you (or link to you, or reference you, or not boot you out of their index).

How does this matter for a website publisher with a not-so-unique website? Well look, directory editors are inundated with submissions of turnkey crap content sites with similar or duplicate content. Search engines regularly prune their indexes, manually at times, weeding out duplicate content. You want to be absolutely sure that when a human that has the power to link to you, list you, or kick you out of an index, visits your site that that human gets the impression that you are unique, you are useful, and you deserve to be listed.

So, brag about your content. A site that has done this for awhile and is a good example is SitePoint, not that SitePoint has duplicate content or anything, but by listing their impressive statistics prominently they give an immediate impression of authority and success. Half a million subscribers did they say?

When I recently redesigned one of my public domain content sites, IDDB, I did this as well. This site has been perceived as spam before so now I prominently list that yes, we have 5000 patient comments stored. So that directory editors and everyone else can comfortably include this site as a useful resource.

As I rework or redesign my other similar sites I plan on doing the same thing, and of course I recommend you do it as well. If your site has some nice vital statistics (obviously a brand new site isn’t going to benefit from this), then list them, and list them prominently. Reassure your visitors and everyone else that clicking to your site was not a mistake.

Posted in: Website Management by: Chris | 2 Comments »

Soliciting Investors

September 18th, 2006 by Chris

I may be starting a new business and am actually open to the idea with partnering with someone on this. So if you have money and wish to invest in a new business, ask me. I’m not looking for money because I have none, regardless at least 50% of the money invested will be mine personally, but this is something where more money would be beneficial.

$10k would be the absolute minimum I would consider for this project, which has a 6 figure budget. Ideally investments of $20k-$50k would be better, but I would also accept a single partner with say a $100k investment.

The business is entirely unsexy, not Internet related. Manufacturing, yup, I said manufacturing. Returns should be about 100% though. If you’re interested PM me in the forums here.

Posted in: General by: Chris | No Comments »

My New Site: Universal Wedding Registry

September 7th, 2006 by Chris

A while back I wrote a post called “Rolling the Dice” in which I described how I was going to try for greater success by aiming for sites with very high possible incomes.

The first such site is done, and I’m going to tell you all about it.

I thought up Universal Wedding Registry back in 2001 I think after seeing something on TV that piqued my interest and with the knowledge that weddings are huge business. I dinked around with the idea until 2003 then sort of abandoned it for other projects.

Then fast forward to this year and I’m trying to invest more in my business and so I hired someone to revamp the site and build it like it should have been done to begin with.

This site is relatively unique in the content site world because it is a service site, the rarest kind of content site. It does not provide information in any form, nor does it sell anything, it simply features some clever programming that makes it easy for people to do something they might want to do, namely run a wedding registry that is independent of any single merchant. Service based content sites can be extremely profitable if you hit with the right service.

How this site works is simple, the users add products to their registry, and if I have an affiliate relationship with the merchant the link is changed into an affiliate link. Then when their friends or family visit the site and make the purchase, I get credit. Imagine 5-10% commission on every gift bought for a wedding.

At the time I first launched this site there was not any competition, at least that I knew of. Since then I’ve realized my idea is not so unique and there are a dozen competing sites. That is all right though, I’ve got my promotional skills and a pretty good domain, and the site literally is fully automated. Other than adding new merchant links, I do nothing.

Ideally the site will be uber-successful and bought by one of those giant wedding companies.

Of course it isn’t without its downsides. For instance if a family member does not use the Internet then they will not be able to use the registry, so if Grandma isn’t online the happy couple might be reluctant to use my service. This of course will gradually fade as more people get online.

If it works out I plan on porting the coding over to a baby registry site, or a generic wish list type of site.

I do not tell you all of this so that you too run out and build a wedding registry site. Rather I thought I’d shed a little light on my thought and development process in hopes to provide inspiration in a non-competing field.

Oh, and if any of you are tying the knot soon… why not give it a whirl, and please be sure to send me any feedback you may have.

Posted in: General by: Chris | 4 Comments »

A Tool for Website Shopping

August 29th, 2006 by Chris

Shopping for websites to buy is often an exercise in futility. If it isn’t a myspace resource site, a funny videos site, or a turnkey duplicate content site, it is hard to find. The number of genuine unique content sites that having staying power beyond a current fad and have real palpable traffic are few and far between. I suppose that that means that the webmasters of such sites simply realize their long term profit potential and so do not sell.

So I really like any tool that makes weeding through the drudge easier.

One such tool is Bizmp.com, they take sites for sale listings from all over the Internet and aggregate them at one source. They even endeavor to list the Alexa rating of the domain for sale. It isn’t a perfect system though, they’re missing the all important price and revenue information, which you can find on the listing, but it is something I’d like to see on the browse pages.

In any case, check it out and add it to your bookmarks.

Posted in: General by: Chris | 2 Comments »

SitePoint, Lawsuits, and Internet Accessibility

August 28th, 2006 by Chris

So why did SitePoint ask me to stop blogging, stop writing a book for them, and stop moderating their forums? Well I asked them when they did it if it was because of my beliefs or because of something I said and they said no.

However there is speculation that it was done because of my stance in the thread about Target.com being sued over web accessibility. I am proud of that stance and while this is certainly old news I feel that, considering how I was slandered on so many blogs, my blog should say something about it. In any case this type of controversial post should drive traffic. In some of these blogs others obviously follow my leanings, but far too many are of the politically correct socialist ilk.

I am a business man. I am a capitalist. I am a libertarian. I believe that the best way to contribute to the world is to be productive. I believe in personal responsibility, it is you, not the government, and certainly not a third party, that is ultimately responsible for your own well being.

The issue that was at hand was that a blind man in California, who was the head of a blind advocacy group and so we can then infer he was involved with issues affecting the blind, was upset because he could not buy socks at Target.com. He then entered “negotiations” with Target and when those failed, he sued them.

My problems with this are many.

For one, the modern world, and especially the US, is lawsuit happy. We need tort reform and we need it now. In other countries, in Europe, they have reforms such as loser-pays and things are much better.

For two, they didn’t say what the negotiations were for, but I can read between the lines. What could they possibly be negotiating? The changes Target would need to make would be fairly easy, why not just do them? Perhaps could he have been trying to blackmail them into payment, or asking for something beyond what was necessary to make the site accessible? I think the answer is obvious, for why else would they have months long negotiation?

Finally, the plaintiff took the path of most resistance on purpose.

Handicapped people are not normal, they have handicaps. This would seem like an obvious observation and yet people, like socialist Bruce Lawson Has taken that quote out of context multiple times in a vain effort to apparently provoke people to his way of thinking. He also said in his blog how he is disabled, which in my opinion makes it obvious why he would overreact. Disabled people have it rough, there is no denying that, and he’s probably so used to fighting and defending that he sees enemies where there are none. He thinks I’m trying to classify the disabled as second class citizens and so he’s gotten all riled up about this.

The fact is, disabled people have disabilities, that is the definition of the world. They cannot do everything a normal person can do. That is a fact. Even with all the accessibility enhancements currently available there is not parity. Considering this I do not think it is too much to ask for a disabled person to use the path of least resistance. If there are steps and a ramp, the wheelchair bound individual should use the ramp. Saying this is not prejudice, it is not discrimination, it is merely a statement of fact followed up by a plea for the use of common sense.

Like I said, this Target guy used the path of most resistance. He could have shopped at Target’s accessible stores. He could have used another accessible website, like Walmart, to get the exact same thing or nearly the exact same thing. He could have even used Amazon.com which mirrors all of Target’s online inventory. He could have called Target for assistance and ordered by phone. He could have bought his socks by a variety of means and yet he chose not to.

I also see this as punishing Target for being accessible in other ways. If Target did not have a website they would not be sued. Having a website makes their company accessible to people who are completely immobile and cannot leave the house. However making this website for such disabled people to use then opens them up to a lawsuit by other people who could use a Target store?

Finally I am against this because I am against the government or the courts interfering in business. The markets work, let them. For instance this plaintiff, as the head of a blind advocacy group, as someone with obvious connections, could have put out a press release, launched a boycott, tried to get his story put on one of those investigative news stories. This would have had a greater financial impact on Target than his lawsuit. It would have raised blind awareness among the entire country. It would have spurred Target to make changes quickly, but… alas… he wouldn’t have gotten a fat check.

Additionally, by not embracing the blind, Target is losing out on sales, and that money is an additional motivational factor.

Is a blind person immune to greed? Is it wrong to question his motives because he is disabled? I do not think so.

I also take exception to so many people saying Target discriminates and then drawing inappropriate analogies to racism or other forms of discrimination. As someone said in one of the blogs I linked to, what Target did is not discrimination by any definition of the word. Target doesn’t turn away the blind, they just do not fully accommodate them.

Target should have an accessible website. Businesses should do their best to accommodate all people. Not because they fear being sued, but because it is just good business. However if a business fails to do this the place to try it is in the court of public opinion. If you hurt their bottom line they will change, and if you don’t seek a monetary reward when doing it then no one like me will be out there questioning your motives.

I stand by these statements and my viewpoint. I do not agree with those who have a zealous need for universal equality and sacrifice common sense to get it. Web standards and accessibility are good, but not to be sued over. If you need something, take the easiest path to get it.

Posted in: General by: Chris | 21 Comments »

Blogging for Dollars

August 26th, 2006 by Chris

The September issue for Business 2.0 has an article called Blogging for Dollars that is a semi-decent introduction to the web publishing industry. However they are slightly guilty of one of my pet peeves, which is referring to any independent content site as a blog. Blogs are relatively new, and content sites existed before that word was coined.

Still no buzz about forums though. I really think large popular forums will be on the buying block just as soon as big media companies become aware of what they are. Unfortunately I don’t think anyone has built up a really big network like Weblogs Inc. had.

On a completely unrelated note, power went out here this morning and armed with my laptop and nothing else to do I wrote 3 articles, one of which I published today called Mob Moderation.

Posted in: General by: Chris | 1 Comment »

Why a keyword rich domain helps

August 8th, 2006 by Chris

Keyword rich domains are often discussed.

Some people say go for branding and make it unique, some people say go for SEO and use keywords, on the SEO side some people say use hyphens, others say don’t.

It is a complicated issue.

However one of the main reasons I often recommend keyword rich domains is because the second most common anchor text that will be used when linking to your site is your domain (site title is first) and as we all know anchor text is vitally important to search engine rankings.

Google’s new Webmaster Tools (see previous blog post), has a feature that reports the most common words found in anchor text when linking to your site.

In viewing it for my literature site I am presented with the following list:

literature
the
network
online
com

The domain is online-literature.com and the name of the site is “The Literature Network.” Can you then see why those words are the most popular words when linking to my site? Consequently I also come up in 3rd place when searching on Google for “literature.” If my domain did not contain “literature” in it then I might not have as high of a ranking on Google as I do. Look at “com” obviously that is from the domain and it is the fifth most common word found in my anchor text.

It is possible to build a successful site with almost any domain, however if you are entering a competitive field and want every possible advantage it is definitely worthwhile to consider using a keyword rich domain, and certainly keyword rich URLs.

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization by: Chris | 3 Comments »

Google Webmaster Central

August 8th, 2006 by Chris

As of last Friday Google has renamed their sitemaps system to Google Webmaster Central. Matt Cutts did a video blog about it.

Google sitemaps had always been a great system, but there was a lot of confusion about it. Most people seemed to think that all it was was a tool to submit an XML sitemap to Google to expedite site crawling, and it does include that, but it also includes so much more.

Even without submitting an actual sitemap you can get crawl stats and information, such as error reports, robots.txt reports, any reports of problems that Google has in crawling your site. You can also get search stats such as the most popular terms used to find your site in Google.

Some new features include the ability to explicity specify if you want Google to use http://www.example.com or just http://example.com when referring to your site. Also new is a feature that reports some penalties if you have them, and otherwise just lets you know if you are or aren’t included in Google’s index. Finally there is a feature to submit a reinclusion request if your site is not listed.

Setting up an XML sitemap might not always be easy, especially for large or complex sites, however setting up Google Webmaster Tools to work with your site and provide all this information is very very easy, and I recommend everyone do it for all of their sites.

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization by: Chris | No Comments »

A Google Myth Busted

August 3rd, 2006 by Chris

The Internet is full of myths about how Google ranks pages. One of my oldest articles written, originally for SitePoint before being published here, was about Google Myths. In this article I dispel the myth about Google giving special bonuses to DMOZ or Yahoo listed sites, outside of the normal bonus the page would get from such a nice incoming link.

Since that time a very similar myth, one believed by many professional SEOs, developed. I’ve always disagreed with it but never had any proof. The theory goes that links from .edu or .gov sites are worth more to Google because they’re seen as special or non-commercial. I disagree with this because it isn’t the type of elegant solution a computer scientist would implement. They have an existing system, PageRank, to judge the quality of each individual page. There is no need for special bonuses for quality sites because if they’re quality sites they’ll have high PageRank anyways. Nevertheless the myth persists.

Today Matt Cutts posted a video Q&A that dispels this myth. Specifically he says they do not have a system to give .gov or .edu sites a special boost, but rather those types of sites just tend to have more PageRank naturally.

There you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth.

The actual quote from the video is:

“..fact we don’t really have much in the way to say “Oh this is a link from the ODP, or .gov, or .edu, so give that some sort of special boost.” Its just those sites tend to have higher PageRank because-because more people link to them and reputable people link to them.”

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization by: Chris | 4 Comments »

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