(Tuesday, March 31st, 2009)
I had some difficulty after moving my WordPress web sites to a new host. It was impossible to have the WordPress auto-update feature working: I could not get WordPress to udpate the plugins or itself. Apparently, it failed when trying to FTP the code.
Solution was easy enough, even though I had to find the exact place where it was trying: Give write access to the root directory of the web site.
(Saturday, March 28th, 2009)
I have been amazed at the number of tutorials and how-to guides that exist on the Internet. You could drown into them… So, I decided to try and sort it out for you. Here are Photo-related How-To Guides selected for the choice they offer.
There are certainly others. Feel free to mention them in the comments; Quite often, the best ones are the unkown ones.
(Thursday, March 26th, 2009)
Being the first to break a story is often quite positive for your web site or your blog. Let’s just take the exampl eof my own YLovePhoto.com web site. A few days ago I happened to be among the first two or three web sites in the world to have early information about the arrival of the Canon EOS 500D camera (eagerly expected SLR camera for the most cost conscious photographers).
Even if I happened to be blogging two posts about this issue around 3am, this had a quite positive impact on the activity. It brought a sudden doubling of the usual visits (from 500+ daily visits to a peak of 1100+ visits).
Canon EOS 500D impact on YLovePhoto.com visits
This is exactly what must be reproduced quite regularly in order to both attract new visitors and keep the old ones interested. Most of the increases of this web site visits in the past year have been related to the coverage of news events, photo fairs and camera launches. Even if the web site is not news only (it has plenty of other issues that I hope will glue the visitors and keep them returning), it’s clear that the impact of newsworthy posts is huge.
(Thursday, March 26th, 2009)
Why should you? To stop spam. It doesn’t even reduce it, use an automatic filter like Akismet. To show off a lot of reader names/pseudos. Forget this useless pride.
Even the slightest hassle significantly reduces the number of comments. And registration is often too much or too complicated, except for the extremely motivated readers.
So, go and uncheck the registration pre-requirement. This should quickly increase your comments from the tiniest of traffics.
This is a lesson I taught myself. When I removed pre-registration from comments of Roumazeilles.net and YLovePhoto.com, comment count shot through the roof. Sure! Some of them were quite lame, but it also allowed a lot more people to express themselves and it led to a very significant participation (even from people who would normally only stop by for a second or two).
(Friday, March 20th, 2009)
So, as suggested, you used Yahoo! Answers to grab the attention of Yahoo! users (and Yahoo! search engine) and of people who have questions to ask. So, you thought that this was the end of it? Of course not. Even if Yahoo! has a great legion of followers (specially in the USA and in the less-geeky public), they are not the only place where you can go and quick attention to your great new web site. There are actually plenty of other locations on the web where people go to ask questions and get answers. You will be able to use the same tactics to spread knowledge and knowledge about your site.
I would not suggest to spend a lot of time on each everyone of these. The important thing is to make sure that you observe the results. Google Analytics will have no difficulty allowing you to count the visits coming from these web site (referals) after you start answering a few questions. Be sure to test most of them, but also make sure that you do not spend time on these which will bring you only a couple of visits. I would even suggest creating an spreadsheet to count the questions you answer, your answers that are highlighted by the web site and the number of visits you get (raw data is needed if you attack a large list like that; Don’t count on your memory and your feelings about the quality of this one or that one).
(Thursday, March 19th, 2009)
As I wrote last week, it is important to have a publication schedule, either explicit for your readers or in your own personal agenda. Visitors will implicitly recognize your reliability.
But do not set too high a target. Start with a simple goal that you can reach very easily no matter what can happen elsewhere. For example, say, one post per week. Then, stick to it for 5-7 weeks.
Only when you are confident that you can easily accelerate, you can decide if you want to up the ante at 2 posts per week. In the mean time, you will have been able to prepare a real content schedule (”What will I publish next month and the month after that?”) and to prove that this is sustainable (So many blog/site projects fail just because they took too much energy to maintain and visitors hate a site whose post rate slows down).
It’s better to start slow and keep it slow but predictable, than to start fast and stall later.
(Monday, March 16th, 2009)
…all the services able to do statistical analysis for your web site and it contains the excellent Google Analytics of course.
Stop!
Since when did Microsoft recommend products from its arch-rival, Google? Well, just since they decided to close their own solution known up to now as ‘adCenter Analytics Beta‘.
So, there is only time to arbitrate between the excellent products of web site statistical analysis not sold by Microsoft, but nicely recommended by Microsoft:
Auriq Systems (RTmetrics)
Digital River (Fireclick)
Foviance (WebAbacus)
Lyris (ClickTracks)
Unica (Affinium NetInsight)
Urchin Software from Google
(Thursday, March 12th, 2009)
Some web sites may be competing with you for the same public; But you should not ignore them. Your visitors are not exclusive. They go as easily to their sites as to yours, and it does not reduce your readership. So, there is no reason to avoid writing about a competitor’s post. On the contrary, they may even reciprocate!
(Saturday, March 7th, 2009)
I love the 15 Didier Grossemy Golden Business Rules I found first on Wired How-To. Not because they are original or counter-intuitive. But merely because they are right.
Moreover they can be translated into rules for your web site design and development.
| 1. It is 5 times easier to sell something else to your existing customers than to get a new customer. | Try and keep your visitors interested. Why not offer them a list “related links” to orient them to another page of your web site? |
| 2. If you have an established business 70% of your advertising money should be spent on re-selling to your existing customers. | Do your advertising on-site, not only outside. |
| 3. Where possible only sell to people who want what you have | Check your stats. You will discover directions where your site is already cruising. Try re-inforcing these items with related posts. |
| 4. If you need to get new customers, by far the best (and cheapest) way is to offer a free sample of your product or service. | Free downloads, samples, catalogs, free images, free videos. Everything is good here. |
| 5. When promoting your products find the “right appeal”. | Make your page a little more than “the same old info”, bring some appeal. |
| 6. The more information you give in your ads, the more you’ll sell. | What’s true of ads is also true of your content: In Google, the page title must be meaningful, the keywords must be meaningful. |
| 7. Research clearly shows that ads that look like editorial articles get 500% more readership than ads that obviously look like ads. | Don’t think ads, think content. Content is king on the web. Images maybe good, but you need text content. |
| 8. Never ever run any advertisement without monitoring the response. | Get an account at Google Analytics, now! Start tracking within an hour. |
| 9. Monitor everything you do to promote your business. | Get an account at Google Analytics, now! Start tracking within an hour. |
| 10. Don’t try to be creative or original. | It’s fair to copy all the ideas of the web sites competing with yours. Just don’t steal contents, but visit all of them again and again. |
| 11. Use benefit headlines in all your ads. | Give visitors a reason to come to your web site. |
| 12. Client testimonials increase credibility – and sales. | Setup and open comments on your blog or web site. |
| 13. Test every ad, sales letter or marketing campaign before betting your house (or your business future) on it. | Google AdWords and most Internet ads start at a very low price. Test first on a small amount, check the results, then go forward if it is worth it. |
| 14. Don’t listen to opinions and advice from well meaning friends, family and business associates. | Look for the experts. They are easier to find on the Internet than in the real life. Look for provable web experience. |
| 15. Need more help? Contact us | Need more help? Contact me. |
(Thursday, March 5th, 2009)
How well I could write if I were not here! - by Esther_G
Your regular visitors perceive very acutely any break in the time coherence of your web site (if you do not post your articles in a manner appearing more or less predictible like in a daily or weekly newspaper). But we all go though productivity ups and downs.
In recognition that not all of our articles need to be posted within the hour, use your “energetic” or “inspired” days to run ahead of your preset schedule and preempt the days when you will not be available to write.
You can even use the features for scheduled publication integrated in tools like WordPress. I do it a lot alternating between background articles (timeless like the one you read right now) and posts that are heavily newsworthy.
For example, this specific post was prepared and shceduled for post nearly exactly 2 months in advance.
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Latest update: 9-jul-09
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