Amazon Switches from Google to MSN for Alexa, A9, and Amazon search.

May 1st, 2006 by Chris

CNET Reports that Amazon.com has dropped it’s Google partnership for it’s search features at it’s various web properties like A9.com and Alexa.com.

People have speculated that this is in response to Google supposedly encroaching on Amazon’s turf with book search. Personally I doubt it. Amazon may have started as a book store but books aren’t its only product line anymore, far from it. It could be that Amazon is upset about Froogle, but then again Froogle has been around for quite awhile now.

More likely I think this is a result of Amazon launching it’s own new ad network like Google Adsense, Amazon-Sense if you will. As you may or may not know Amazon has experimented with featuring Adsense ad’s in various searches & product listings. I’m willing to bet that their agreement with Google accounts provides the search results for free or a mere nominal fee in exchange for the ad placement, it is a typical agreement for Google to make. Without the ad placement Amazon MSN simply probably offered Amazon a better deal, since they’re the ones playing catch-up in marketshare.

Consequently, A9 is looking pretty good if you ask me.

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization by: Chris | 1 Comment »

To Paginate, or Not to Paginate

April 19th, 2006 by Chris

When creating a new article driven site a website publisher often must decide if they will paginate their articles, that is cut them up into multiple pages, or to simply have longer one page articles. This issue is complicated if you’re coding your own CMS as adding page capabilities adds one more degree of complexity to the process.

In general, as evidenced by this site, I am in favor of taking long articles and making them multipage, there are quite a few reasons for my opinion.

The most obvious benefit is that you’re increasing the number of pages in your site, which should increase your traffic. It is not the same to search engines if you have all the content on one page, or if you split it up, so the traffic gained from each method will not be equivalent.

If you have a one page article with 3 meatball recipes, say Swedish, BBQ, and Italian, you will certainly be listed on searches related to all three. However, by paginating your articles you can target each section with it’s own unique title tag, and of course the title tag is the most important onpage factor for SEO so that alone should up your rankings for each section of content within the article. So your rankings for the individual recipes should improve. You can of course also target other things based on section, such as meta tags and header tags.

To get the full benefit from pagination it is important that you use meaningful identifiers to create the navigation between pages. This means not using page numbers or generic “next page” text as the anchor text for your navigation links. You’ll want to use keyword rich anchor text describing each section (look at an article on this site for an example). An article’s subpages might not get many incoming links, so it is important that the links they do get have good anchor text.

Another benefit is increasing pageviews. If you have CPM based advertising running then the number of pageviews per visitor can have a large affect on your earnings. If a visitor is reading an article and if it only takes them one page to read that article then you’ll receive less total pageviews from this visitor than if the article was divided into multiple pages. If your site currently has long one page articles, even turning them into 2 page articles could possibly nearly double your existing impressions. That could really boost your bottom line.

One final reason to do this is that it also helps CPC advertising. CPC advertising works best when it is near navigation, by placing pagination navigation at the bottom of your article pages you’ll increase the CTR of any CPC ads, like Google Adsense, at the bottom of your pages.

Finally, I once read a study many years ago (say 4ish) about how users do not like to scroll. So supposedly multipage articles enhance the user experience as well.

I’m not saying that all articles should be multipage, afterall some are just too short. But in general I like to paginate anything longer than 2 screen heights, and I recommend you do the same.

Posted in: Website Management by: Chris | 7 Comments »

.EU Domains Live… with a Hitch

April 10th, 2006 by Chris

Bob Parson’s blog has a nice post about problems with the .EU domain name landrush.

Not since .com has there been a potentially more lucrative TLD released. When I heard about it visions of buying some lucrative domain like sex.eu popped into my head. However I figured that I wasn’t European and it just wasn’t right… plus there would only be a minute chance of me getting something good anyways.

However, it looks like some companies gamed the system by setting up fake registrars and buying domains for themselves. This was really underhanded and I wish I knew what company it was so I could not do business with them.

For instance, I recently figured out (as far as I can tell anyways) that Dotster.com was taking names searched for on their site and registering them on behalf of speculators (or sending the good ones to speculators… not exactly sure how it worked). So you could search for a site in the morning, and later in the day some company in South Africa has registered it already. Thats just not right, like employees of an affiliate network using inside data to help them publish their own sites on weekends (a recent scandal at CJ).

Posted in: Website Management by: Chris | 4 Comments »

Optimizing for a Question

April 3rd, 2006 by Chris

You do not need to dominate generic keywords to have a successful website. The website simply has to make more money than you put into it (or more than what your time is worth if all you put into it is time). A website that only makes $100 a month is successful if it requires no ongoing work.

So, that being said, it might make sense to aim low with a website. Yes, I said it, aim low.

To use an example, with a new site on debt consolidation you’d face tremendous competition when optimizing for the obvious keywords of “debt consolidation.” Now sure, the payoff if you were successful could be huge, but your chances of success are awfully slim. So instead, optimize for a less popular keyword with less competition. The overall traffic ceiling of your site will be lower, but you’ll get more traffic as #1 on an obscure term than #234 on a popular term.

So, what keywords do you want to optimize for? Well, what about questions?

Not everyone conducts Boolean searches on search engines, some simply type in a question such as “How do I fry bacon?” and expect the search engine to spit out an answer. The people who do this tend to be less Internet savvy (the same type of people who are more apt to click on ads, a good demographic to attract). So consider optimizing for questions or similar phrases instead of keywords.

The simplest way to do this is in naming your articles or content pages. People will most often link to a page using it’s title, and by titling your articles as questions you’ll assuredly get that text in it’s title tags, anchor text, and any applicable H header tags.

Aiming low like this isn’t going to give you the #1 site in your niche, but it can still be very profitable.

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

Confessions of a Workaholic Webmaster

March 25th, 2006 by Mook

Hello everyone! I figured I’d take a break from writing about business and focus on a topic I don’t normally share with anyone, except my inner circle of peers; my personal life as a webmaster. This is a true rarity, so don’t expect many more of these types of blogs from me.

When I woke up today, something felt different. Perhaps it was because today was another birthday of mine, but being a non-birthday celebrator, it’s just another work day for me. I purposely work 7 days a week, and about 12-14 hours a day whether I have to or not. I’m a firm believer that keeping myself on this routine keeps me sharp, so I don’t lose focus of my primary objectives.

As I sit here reflecting on my life and career as a webmaster, I’ve noticed that I truly am a workaholic. It’s one of the first times I’m actually coming to terms with it, because I’ve always said “I’ll never become one of those”. The trouble that I’m having with it, is the fact that people become workaholics whether they want to or not. I think it’s because they get so used to working on one goal, that even after they’ve accomplished it, it just becomes an addiction of some sort. Kind of like an excessive gambler who has won the WSOP, but continues until the day he dies to keep trying to win, over and over. It stops being about fame and money, but starts becoming a personal goal. I feel like that’s the situation I’m in right now. Although I’m still considered young (mid 20′s), I feel pretty old, and wise beyond my years. I’ve also accomplished almost all of my career goals years ago, yet, here I sit by my computer, speaking to project managers, programmers, designers, and other webmasters about upcoming projects.

Why do I do this? Hell, I made my first million dollars back in the Adult arena before I turned 21. As a kid I said “after my first million, I’m going to travel the world and take a break”. That was years ago, and still, the only world I’ve traveled was the one that makes up the internet. Even to this day, and it’s kind of strange to say it, but I know for a fact that within the next five years, I will be making over 8-figures a year, every year, for a very very long time, and that’s without any new projects starting from today. Why don’t I walk away from it? I think I’m just so wrapped up in this awesome career that I feel I can’t leave. I feel like I have a duty to myself, and the community to keep at it and share my wealth of information with other people.

Many of my peers have asked “why don’t you make an ebook, or charge for information to other webmaster?”. My answer is simple. I see it as “paying it forward”. When I was a newbie, I got tons of help from people online for free. Hell, it’s what keeps forums so much fun to go on. I see it like this. If someone takes my advice, uses it, accomplishes their goals, and makes money practicing it, all I want in return is for them to pass it on to their peers for free. Don’t make an ebook and sell out like so many con-artists do on here. That’s the quick buck way of ruining your reputation. Instead, focus on topics that aren’t geared towards webmasters, and stop crapping where you eat, by compiling other people’s ideas and selling it as the million dollar idea to financial freedom. It bothers me when people regurgitate other people’s advice and sell it in a $39.95 one time fee ebook that does nada for anyone.

With that said, I desperately want to share my sites with people. Especially the nay sayers that trash me on forums when I share a screen shot. Whenever that happens I really want to come on, list 10 of my sites and say “LOOK YOU BASTARD, HERE’S YOUR PROOF!”, but then this annoying voice inside my head (could also be caused from too much caffiene) convinces me otherwise, and instead I just let it go.

I have debated on retiring from it all, and just going to some secluded beach to sit in the sun and sip on some cold mixed drinks, but I know what will happen. After 3-4 days, I’ll get bored, and my fingers will start to “ghost type” — you know what I’m talking about, that nervous jitter your fingers start doing where they type in the air with no keyboard in sight — and then my internet withdrawal will set in. The truth is, all of this makes me happy, and it’s taken me a long time to figure it out too. For a long long time I’ve considered going back to school and getting a “real job” as my folks used to put it. But reflecting on all of this honestly gives me a smile, and I’m glad the gods of the internet have smiled down on me and helped me in my success. I’m even happier to pass along lots of good information to my fellow webmasters for free.

With that said.. it feels good to let all of this out to all of you reading it. And for those of you who got down to the bottom of this blog, kudos to you for reading my novel! ;)

My name is Jon, and I’m an internet marketing addict.

Posted in: General by: Mook | 11 Comments »

Work on (not in) your business.

March 24th, 2006 by Shawn

It’s time to stop working.

I was having a discussion the other day with a colleague — someone in the website publishing business. He said his projected income for this year is around $50-$60k and we were debating over the point in his business in which he should begin outsourcing the majority of work. He believed that he did not yet make enough money to justify outsourcing — that it would spread his profit margins too thin and he had plenty of time to work himself, so, why not? When he reached over $100k a year, he said he would begin outsourcing.

In contrast, I believe you should begin outsourcing when you’re making $20k a year. Of course, profit margin would be slim to nothing while you’re outsourcing and making $20k a year — but you’ll also grow much, much quicker than the guy doing all the work himself making $50k a year.

So many website publishers on this forum have constantly stated that they have so many ideas but never get around to executing them. There’s a huge reason for this, but it’s not obvious to many: you don’t have enough time. You simply don’t have enough time to create several different profitable websites each month — you have to create the idea, design and code the layout, write the content, perform programming, and market the site.

So get somebody else to do it for you. Maybe a couple of people. Rates are cheap for all skills and labors — designing, content creating, programming, etc. As your sites generate more income, you can hire more talented and more reliable workers. You should use your time creating ideas and managing contractors, not in the trenches.

Posted in: Business Management by: Shawn | 6 Comments »

Zeal.com Closing Down

March 22nd, 2006 by Chris

Zeal.com, a directory owned by Looksmart (see the review I wrote in 2003 here) is closing down as of March 28th as reported by the SE Roundtable.

I never thought they’d actually close down, but Looksmart/Zeal was only ever important thanks to MSN, and MSN stopped using them quite a while ago, so this was inevitable. Also, Zeal’s structure was the least search engine friendly of all the major directories so being listed didn’t even always get you an incoming link.

Mostly Zeal was a haven for spammers. Their largest contributors were a group of Indians who had a whole army of data entry workers adding tens if not hundreds of thousands of links to their own poorly made sites. I cannot help but smile inwardly at the thought of all that work now being wasted for those people.

What state does this leave the directory community? We have Yahoo, which is still a fairly reliable source of traffic depending on the number of listings in your category, but the yearly fee eliminates it from the realm of possibility for many small sites. Then their is DMOZ, which has become a bastion of power abuse & inefficiency.

There was a time when MSN used Looksmart heavily, Google used DMOZ heavily, and Yahoo used their own directory heavily. Now MSN dropped looksmart awhile ago. Google no longer links to its directory in any highly visible location, it used to be a tab at the top of search results like images & news are now. Then Yahoo used to use directory listings as the main feed for their search, no longer.

Of course there are hundreds of small quality directories out there, like what you’ll find at ISEDB, but major ones seem to be going the way of the dinosaur.

Have search engine algorithms progressed to the point that a quality human reviewed directory is no longer needed? Or has the quality, and perhaps more importantly the freshness, of directories slipped so much that they are no longer needed?

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

Market Research: Part I – Finding A Niche

March 18th, 2006 by Mook

Market research should be the first step for any webmaster, seasoned or just starting out, when seeking a niche based website to develop. I remember speaking to a fellow webmaster who said something to the tune of “how do I find a new niche, when they are all taken up?”. How can all niches be taken up? If you’re one of those people who think that this question is true, here’s a short excersize for you. Get up, go outside, and just take a look around. The way my mind works (sometimes a bad thing) is I look around at everything, and think to myself, “how can this make me money”. Seriously, look outside or around you and just think about all of the small markets and industries that exist to produce everything around us. For example, if you see trees and plants around outside, there are so many markets for gardening, planting, keeping your lawn green all year-round (although here in NYC lawns are only found in parks), etc. Yes, it’s true, if you made a small content site about lawn care or planting, you certainly won’t make thousands of dollars a month with AdSense or YPN (don’t even think about using a CPM advertiser for that type of site!), but you may make a few hundred at best, because if you think about it, the market for that type of niche isn’t very saturated at all, especially by people that know how to make content sites like yourself.

When most webmasters think of making a content rich site, they think about something they like, such as video games, or Stark Trek, or dogs and cats, who knows, but the bottom line is that the majority of them are left with content rich sites with small amounts of traffic, and even smaller amounts of income coming in from Google or Yahoo. So my advice to those people looking to broaden their income streams and branch out with some new sites, take a look around and pick a few of the millions of niches that exist in your every day life, that you overlook because it doesn’t make cajillions of dollars. Niches are everywhere, it’s just a question of how you open up your eyes and consider the possibilities that exist when you look for one.

As long as you accept that you won’t make $50k a month with your site, but that you’re okay with making say $300 a month per site, what’s stopping you from making 20 more sites just like that one, for all of these sub-niches around, thus increasing your monthly revenue to something like $6k a month. See, volume is the key to real revenue and profit success on the internet.

Not all of us can think of that one golden site idea that will net us millions of dollars each year. Instead, if we want to strike it rich, or at least be a full time webmaster, it’s the volume of smaller, less popular industries and niches that can still help us achieve that big check in the sky that so many people hope for.  So with that said, finding niches is not as tough as you thought it was. Just do your research, and when you come up with a list of say 10 niches from your look outside, start looking them up on the search engines, and ask yourself “can I make at least $XXX each month with this site?”, hell you can set your income goal to $30 a month if you really like, and from there, what’s stopping you from taking that $30, and re-investing it into 5 more domains? This is the “secret” I think to truly making money on the internet, without breaking the bank and allowing yourself to have a long term nest egg of internet income on your side, so that you are free to explore other ventures or hobbies, without the fear or worries of how your site will make money online.

Posted in: General, Generating Revenue, Website Development by: Mook | 9 Comments »

Amazon Experiments in Forums

March 13th, 2006 by Chris

Amazon has launched a new beta feature that creates a forum for individual products thus allowing customers to discuss the product. Sort of like customer reviews 2.0. To see them check out this page and scroll down.

I’ve often preached about the qualities of blogs, and its nice to see big business waking up to their power. Though Amazon’s implementation is a bit off-standard it is still a good step. They realize that allowing customers to discuss their products can only increase sale, it was this same motivation that inspired me to purchase this forum to promote my ecommerce site.

One of my favorite tidbits of advice is that there is no greater partnership than that between a content site and an ecommerce site, and in this case Amazon is following that advice, only they’re including both types of content within the same site. I hope the move is successful for them and that it increases the visibility of forums in the public eye. For anyone who runs a forum out there this is certainly good news.

Posted in: General by: Chris | 4 Comments »

Boost Your Site with Business Listings

March 8th, 2006 by Chris

I just wrote a new article, Using Business Listings to Harness the Power of Local Search, it is about how you can implement a database of small businesses on your site to build traffic by getting listed in local searches.

This trick is so easy and so powerful I really considered not sharing it. I can’t give away all my tricks afterall. But I figured that with everyone moving over from SitePoint I should give them a reward.

It is really quite amazing just what can be accomplished by placing business listings on your website. I would estimate an increase of uniques on the scale of one per every 5 business listings you publish. When you’re publishing thousands of business listings that can be pretty substantial.

Simply putting up a business directory with Adsense ads you could garner as much as $10 a day or more, which isn’t bad at all for a site that requires no updating.

There is of course a risk of too many people following my advice, duplicate content, search engine penalties (such as what happened to AWS sites) and the like. So it might be wise to differentiate your content by taking it a step further and offering reviews. Sure, it might take awhile to build up a sizable library of business reviews, but when you do it will make your site much more likely to survive any backlash targeted towards business listings.

Also in the article is a little mini review of Oddity Software. Oddity Software is a great little company that compiles and sells content databases for website publishers, are very reasonable prices too. When I look through their content listings I get dozens of ideas for new websites. I highly recommend checking them out.

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization, Website Promotion by: Chris | 11 Comments »

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