Posted in Business - No Comments »
What is a Meatball Sundae?
Meatball Sundae is Seth Godin’s latest attempt at convincing the rest of the world that “Old Media” is dead.
Godin makes the argument (in many of his books) that interrupting people used to be very successful. If you had a well designed ad and a decent product you could market your way to riches by interrupting as many people as possible.
Godin argues we’ve created so much noise we’ve desensitized ourselves to this type of marketing. So much so that we’re spending more money with less customers converted.
Marketers are scrambling to make up the slack. Many have decided New Marketing is the way to advertise. So they pay people to create buzz on blogs and they pull gimmicks to get their commodity product (their meatball) noticed.
Godin argues they’re doomed for failure because their product (the meatball) doesn’t fit with New Marketing (the sundae).
Why is this Important for a Web Developer?
This is good news because you don’t have to align your product/service/company to fit with New Marketing. You can design it with this in mind from day 1.
This means going the extra mile to wow your users. Building excellence into your website from the beginning so users stay and bring others.
As Godin says, give your customers a megaphone then get out of their way.
If you follow Godin’s blog, you may be able to skip this book as there weren’t as many “a-hah” moments as in his previous books (at least for me).
If you haven’t read Permission Marketing, Purple Cow or Free Prize Inside–you’ve got some homework to do.
Posted in Making Money - No Comments »
I signed up for a Yahoo! Publisher account a long time ago and never really gave them a chance due to terrible performance.
At the time I attributed their lack of targeting to being new, it seems not a lot has changed:
I’m willing to let it run for a day or two and see how it performs but I’m not very optimistic about this.
I wonder how Microsoft adCenter will perform if they ever open themselves up to publishers.
Posted in Making Money - 1 Comment »
Right now I’m in an interesting position with MacTips because it’s reached the point where small changes make big impacts.
The site isn’t huge by any means but we’ve reached our first week where traffic hasn’t dipped below 4,000 pageviews per day. I’m that much closer to reaching my short-term goal of 5,000 pageviews per day.
Inconsistent Google AdSense Numbers
I have mixed thoughts about Google AdSense. On one hand it’s nice because it’s guaranteed ad dollars that actually produce a decent amount.
On the other hand my numbers from day to day vary drastically. I can’t specify exact numbers, but eCPM varies by a few dollars every day. I’m not sure if this is normal–but I haven’t seen activity like this previously.
Tweaking Google AdSense
In attempt to bring some stability to my numbers I’ve began tweaking AdSense. I’m doing 2 different things currently with some initial success.
Competitive Ad Filter
The AdSense Competitive Ad Filter allows you to block certain ads from displaying on your site. For the most part this is used for blocking competitor ads, but I’ve also found this useful to block un-related ads.
Google does a good job selecting ads most of the time, but a little help never hurt anyone. In my case it’s actually helped me by bumping my eCPM up $1. I’m not sure how permanent this is however.
Note: I see Google has added a “Ad Review Center”. I just signed up–I’ll let you know how this goes.
Rich Media Ads
The other thing I’ve begun experimenting with is non-text ads. This means images/videos/flash. So far it’s doing OK but nothing amazing.
I’m going to continue tweaking AdSense as small changes like this can produce big results.
Monetizing with T-shirts
I’ve dabbled in affiliate programs but there just aren’t many good Mac related affiliate programs out there. The ones that do exist just haven’t performed very well. Infact they’ve performed awfully.
But part of being a webmaster is continually trying and improving.
I have a hunch that T-shirts will sell better than most affiliate programs I put on my site. The problem is, there aren’t any Mac related t-shirt affiliate programs. I’ve contacted the companies–they’re not interested.
I want to sell their products and they’re not interested, unbelievable!
I’ve decided to create a few t-shirts of my own and see how those sell. I’ve started a contest at MacTips for ideas with mild success.
This whole thing is a big experiment so I’ll be sure to report on my results. Nonetheless it’s not a very big investment with companies like CafePress and Zazzle doing the dirty work.
Continuous Improvement
As the title suggests, improving your site follows the basic steps of:
- Test: No sure if an idea will work? Try it.
- Review: Record and review your results.
- Adjust: Adjust your test trying new ideas.
- Go to #1: Start the whole process again.
Never stop tweaking, never stop trying new things, never stop improving.
Posted in Building Traffic - 1 Comment »
One User Does Make a Difference
I would rather have 1 passionate user than 10 regular users. That 1 passionate user will give more constructive feedback, become more active and tell more people than the 10 regular users ever would.
This seems contrary to popular belief. Building a website one user at a time seems like it would take forever to build momentum.
There’s truths to this, but the overall problem isn’t the time it takes–it’s your attitude.
When you treat your users as a whole instead of individuals they feel unimportant. When they feel unimportant your site lacks feedback from the people you need it from most.
What does this actually mean?
This means when a user takes the time to e-mail you, respond. Thank them for taking the time to contact you and let them know they’re important to you.
When a user makes a suggestion, actually consider it. Not every suggestion is a gold mine, but often users suggest things you will never consider.
When a user complains, listen and listen well. This is your chance to really win over a user. Instead of blowing them off–consider it from their point of view. Do they have a valid point? If so, let them know. If not, try to resolve the situation the best you can. If you put your best foot forward the user will notice.
User Complaints Hurt my Ego
A while back I was designing a new front page for MacTips. I wanted new users to be able to find popular content easily.
Right after launching the new page I got this e-mail:
I just went to your site and I absolutely despise your new setup. It makes me want to stop looking at the site, which is exactly what I (and probably countless others) am going to do. The format is so complicated that I can’t find the actual tips without reading about a thousand different links that all look the same. You over-structured to the point that the site is rendered useless and defunct. I hope you realize you immense mistake and how inviting simplicity can be. People looking for the kinds of tips that your site offers are now especially disinclined to view your site. Good luck!
Re-reading this still makes me cringe–but it shouldn’t. I worked very hard on the new front page and I thought it was great. But after considering it from his point of view–he was exactly right.
I tried to fit so much information on the page, I made it all useless. Not only did I change it back, but I started removing unnecessary information from the rest of the site. As a result the site is much easier to navigate and looks a lot cleaner. I still have some things to change, but I’m headed in the right direction now.
That user did me a huge favor. Dozens of users were probably thinking the exact same thing, and would have never returned without telling me. He took the time to e-mail me. Not only was I able to improve the site for the whole community, but I gained a loyal user in the process
Why Did You Unsubscribe?
You can also be more proactive in communicating with your users. The e-mail list does fairly well at MacTips with over 500 subscribers. This number is growing by about 15 users every day.
Of these 500 subscribers, only 1 has unsubscribed. That’s not a bad ratio–but I wanted to know why, so I e-mailed him:
Hi “rew”,
I’m the webmaster of MacTips.org. Recently you subscribed to MacTips and then unsubscribed.
I was curious why? This is in no way an e-mail to try and get you to re-subscribe.
You are my first and only unsubscriber and I was just curious why? If there’s something I can do to keep users I’d like to do it, hopefully you shedding some light can help that.
If you don’t want to answer, then please don’t. You’ll never hear from me again–I was just curious if it was something specific that I could address.
Thanks,
Brad
I was very careful to let the user know he wouldn’t hear from me again if he didn’t want to. Because he unsubscribed I assumed he didn’t want to hear from MacTips again.
I was surprised by his reply:
I didn’t mean to unsubscribe I was wondering why I hadn’t received any tips. Please go ahead and subscribe me again. Thanks.
Had he not accidentally unsubscribed, I would have listened to what he had to say to prevent future users from unsubscribing.
Instead I was able to gain another subscriber and maintain my 500/0 record. 
Hard Work Pays Off
Building a successful website is not easy, but it’s not rocket science either. Knowing that your users are your livelihood should always keep things in check for you. Treat them with respect and as individuals and you will be surprised by their response.
Posted in Web Development - No Comments »
I’ve long searched for a service that helps you discover new artists. There have been a few attempts at this in the past. Last.fm was my favorite for a while and they do a pretty good job.
Recently I came across TheSixtyOne, a Digg like rating system for songs.
Initially I liked the idea, but calling it a “Digg-like” site actually cheapens the experience. TheSixtyOne goes so much further in to music exploration I immediately signed up.
I hardly ever sign up for a site immediately. If you want my e-mail address you’re going to have to work for it or really wow me.
Instantly I fell in love with TheSixtyOne. It uses a little Flash, a little AJAX but uses them in appropriate ways. It manages to continue playing songs through page loads, a great feature.
It also allows you to build a queue of songs to play, effectively making TheSixtyOne a media player.
I’ve already found a few new artists I really like, on Last.fm I’d find one or two per session max.
I even went to purchase a song through Amazon but abandoned ship after realizing Amazon makes you download their software, yuck.
The last concept I find interesting is the idea of points. You can bump songs or artists but it costs points. You get points for logging in, and I assume other routine tasks like writing comments.
This means you only bump artists you really really like because you only have a certain number of points.
I’m still sorting through the site, there seems to be a lot here–but so far I love the idea and the implementation.
Posted in Web Analytics - 2 Comments »
Crazy Egg is one of those services that somehow slipped under my radar. Initially I passed this off as yet another poor attempt at visualizing your visitors–boy was I wrong.
I signed up for an invitation for this service way back in 2006 and it just recently crossed my path again.
Crazy Egg does a remarkable job visualizing your visitors for you. It’s all done in a Flash interface that works very well together.
They have a couple different views–link overview, heatmap and confetti.
The link overview gives you details on how many clicks each link received and where the users came from (Google, Direct, etc…).
The heatmap is my favorite and is shown below. This is the first time I’ve seen a heatmap pulled off this well.
The final view is called “Confetti” and is extremely practical. This lets you drill down your clicks based on referrals, browsers, platforms, screen sizes and more. It’s easiest to show you, so I’ve included a screenshot below.
Web analytics are good. This is great!
Crazy Egg does an amazing job of showing you how and where your visitors are clicking.
Why is this useful?
This is useful for a number of reasons.
- Allows me to lay out content more efficiently
- Allows me to see at a glance what copy works and what doesn’t
- Allows me to find best ad placement
- Allows me to remove items that aren’t working and find better alternatives
- Allows me to see what types of users do what, IE “Google” visitors subscribe to the newsletter more
The list goes on and on.
I’ve seen services that try to visualize web visitors in the past and I’ve never seen it done as well as Crazy Egg does it.
Crazy Egg is free to try, I highly recommend giving it a whirl–you won’t regret it.
My one small gripe is I’m not very fond of the name Crazy Egg. I’m thinking that’s the original reason this slipped under my radar. Not very descriptive and not very memorable.
I’ve had to look up the name 3 times just today! Maybe it’s just been a long week, however.
Note: Because I signed up for the invitation I’ve been granted the “Basic” plan. I’m not sure what advanced features are offered here and not on the “Free” plan, but it should be enough to give you an idea of the service.
Posted in Building Traffic - 4 Comments »
You hear it time after time when building a website. Content is King
Why?
Why Unique Content?
Having unique content is key to building a successful website.
- Unique content builds links from trusted sources as an afterthought.
- Unique content makes you the authority source. You’re not regurgitating information.
- Unique content establishes credibility amongst your readers and builds a following.
Why Frequent Content?
- Search engines love frequent content–blogs are preferred often because they’re up-to-date.
- Users love frequent content. When your site is updated on a regular basis, users know when to expect an update–visiting more frequently.
- Frequent content establishes momentum. Momentum is an extremely powerful tool for developing a website.
So what does all this mean?
This means stop focusing on SEO. It’s a small fraction of the big picture. Yes it’s important.
Content is more important. Way more important. 100x more important.
You can have the best SEO’d site in the world–without content it’s useless.
Contrary, you can have the worst SEO’d site in the world, and you’ll probably still rank well if you have golden content.
Obviously there’s exceptions to this. Don’t design in Flash, search engines are still learning how to read this.
Search engines don’t read Javascript very well if at all. Any Javascript is for your users only.
Practical advice
Focus on making your site readable to search engines. This means:
- What your content is about in your title.
- What your content is about again in your header tag.
- Important content up top.
This is more for web accessibility than for SEO, but applies to both.
Then, forget about SEO and focus on content. Content content content content. Unique content. Cutting edge content. Focus on content for users, not search engines. Search engines will follow the users.
Are you sure?
Yes I’m sure. Here’s an example from my current site MacTips.
MacTips has been established for over 2 years now. Just recently it’s begun getting regular content again. I’ve been getting decent search engine traffic for a while, but today the floodgates opened and traffic started pouring in.
This is a direct result of frequent and unique content.
I’ve hit my goal of 5,000 visitors per day 4 months ahead of schedule.
Regular and unique content has brought links from popular sites such as Gizmodo, LifeHacker and TUAW.
Also, a community is starting to develop–which is my #1 goal for MacTips.
This is where building a site gets very exciting. Large enough to make a difference but small enough to grow exponentially.
Conclusion
Focus on your users and you won’t go wrong. Your users give your site life. Without them you have a bunch of pages on a webserver.
With them, you have a vibrant and active community with ideas, expressions and most importantly momentum.
Note: The stats for MacTips are publicly available at http://www.mactips.org/mint/.
Posted in Web Development - No Comments »
If you follow the W3C Standards, your website should look the same on all browser and all platforms.
Anyone whose ever developed a website knows this is often not the case. Different browsers render completely differently let alone different platforms.
There’s never been a suitable solution to this problem, so developers have been forced to keep many different browsers and platforms on hand for testing purposes only.
A few years ago, various services were started to help this problem. Basically taking a screenshot of your website in various browsers and feeding the images back to you.
The problems with this is these services is they often take a very long time or they don’t work at all when there’s a lot of traffic.
You’re also limited because you’re only getting a screenshot. You can’t see how mouse movement effects your design. Hovers, Javascript, pull-downs and other items are limited here.
Recently I discovered a great service called BrowserPool. This service lets you VNC into different platforms and try all the different browsers available. Great idea!
The best part, however–it’s free to try. You’ll only get booted off if a paying customer needs the space.
So far I’ve done lots of testing using BrowserPool and I’m ecstatic I’ve found this service.
My Powerbook died, so I’m waiting for MacWorld 2008 before I upgrade. This allows me to continue developing MacTips on Windows (I know, sac religious) and still make sure everything is compatible for 95% of my users.
If you need this type of service, BrowserPool should certainly be your first choice. Free to try, and 30 Euro’s per month to buy.
Meatball Sundae is Seth Godin’s latest attempt at convincing the rest of the world that “Old Media” is dead.
