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Nov 07

Testing out the waters, the Pikachu way

Doodling, Feed the Spiders, Fishbait, Heavy construction, Inorganic agriculture, Internet Marketing, Milking horny guys, Mind over Pixels, Moniez, Noobs, RGBhat, Social abuse, Techniques, Web 2.0 Cutesy Bullshit, WebWriMo challenge No Comments »

All affiliates, at least the advanced ones, test out many micro niches at any given time. If I, for example were to consider the pokemon niche, I would do some keyword research, and come up with a good keyword list, that includes both competitive and untapped keywords.

Then, I would buy a few domains, preferrably with those keywords in them. Pokemon have lots of products, so I would go the tangible product way, setting up 10-20 Mcjiffy ebay stores. If one of the domains got some traffic, I would switch it to ppc ads just to get an idea of the bids, as well as the advertised websites.

I would also set up around 10 splogs, to test out the keyword list. And a picture gallery, as well as a video gallery filled with youtubes.

I would social bookmark all of those sites, and see which social bookmarking site performs better for the niche.

After a timeframe that gives me significant statistical data, I would print out every bit of info I had gathered, lay them all out on a table, and start brainstorming on possible utilization avenues.

Maybe the video blog performed well? Maybe I got 2 keywords that brought in lots of traffic, something like “pokemon teddy bear”? Maybe the niche needs more boobs? Or less boobs?

Simple questions really. Then I would use my experience to see what I could make on each category, with which engine, and which tools.

I have made for example, a successful anime pic gallery in the past. I used the Gallery2 engine. I already have a folder with the engine, templates and useful plugins. Cool, that is one project on the list.

I have also made a successful anime adwords campaign in the past, with deceptive ad copy. Kids are much easier to deceive… Great, that means I can do the same and get lots of cheap traffic.

Where to send it though… Hmm. I scour the CPA networks, and find 2 lead offers related to pokemon or kids. Cool. So the second project has the title “Adwords campaign, with deceitful ad copy sending traffic to a thin pokemon site, filled with the CPA I found”.

I saw that Adsense performed poorly, so I decide to leave it out of the deal.

Then I do some different kind of thinking. I have never done it before, but I know that avatar sites work well. Why not niche avatar sites then? That is my 3rd new project. Will need some research, checking out the other sites, and finding the script for the job. I will also think about bundling the avatars on torrents and uploading them, putting the site info in the torrent file. The latter is a technique that I know it works.

This process, gives me:

  • A keyword list to focus on.
  • Keyword rich domains to play with.
  • Indexed domains to play with.
  • Domains with relevant traffic.
  • 2 tried and tested methods to make money.
  • A brand new project to keep me from falling asleep from boredom.
  • About a month’s worth of data to extrapolate information.
  • Worthless sites, that can be splogged for linkjuice poured into the performing ones.

Cool. We have work to do. Pika?

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Popularity: 19% [?]

written by Glowleaf \\ tags: , , , , , ,

Nov 03

PhpFox, an out of the box social network

Cybertowns, Doodling, Heavy construction, Mind over Pixels, Social abuse, Web 2.0 Cutesy Bullshit, WebWriMo challenge 6 Comments »

I have gotten a lot of experience lately using PhpFox, so I will continue my earlier post on PhpFox SEO, and do a full review.

  • As I said already, the default installation sucks for SEO, but the pages get easily indexed. You have to keep in mind that the engine is huge, the empty installation is 2500 files alone.
  • RSS feeds are not validated, and cannot be feedburned. They do work on readers though.
  • Sitemaps are text based, and cannot be submitted to Google Webmaster Tools.
  • Meta descriptions are all duplicate…
  • Internal url structure gives you this ugly thing: http://www.simeioseis.gr/blog/view/id_2/title_/

But, if we ignore the SEO issues (honestly I had no trouble ranking the site), we are left with a very powerful tool.

The built in features are amazing.

  • Video module allows you to embed, share, rate, feature videos, and lets members comment on the video page.
  • Gallery can automatically watermark, slideshow, rate, comment and show thumbnails for browsing.
  • Events mod allows you to set up happenings related to your niche, festivals etc.
  • Forum despite being too empty featured, it works fine. I will elaborate on that on the next PhpFox post.
  • Blogs are crap.
  • Polls are fun.
  • Classifieds is useful for any community.
  • Pm system simply works.
  • Groups can keep subniches busy for a long time.
  • Integrated social buttons are a great feature. If only they were more easily manageable…
  • And there are a million other mods, most paid, to expand its features.

As I was saying, for a newbie webmaster it is a great solution. As soon as you install it, you have a powerful mini myspace in your hands, with many more features than you really need.

I honestly prefer it when compared to Joomla community builder, or any other social script for that matter… You can get most features to work just the way you want them using the mods, and the script itself has more features than you can think of, to keep your members busy and happy.

On a different note, I have noticed a lack of information on social webmasters online. I googled for hours trying to find the info I needed, and I found only bits of segmented information on fora.

I will try to gather up as much as I can in these posts, with a focus on Phpfox, because the script simply works.

Monetizing your community is not always easy. PhpFox was initially built to host dating communities with paypal subscription, the features are wired in and enabled by default. One way is subscription based, but I was always a freebie fan. Monetize with ads.

PhpFox has 5 ad spots by default, a top right small banner, a wide skyscraper, a large leaderboard footer, a large box for the homepage and profile pages, and a rather useless logout large box.

I found out that PhpFox generates A LOT of pageviews. No, I mean A LOT. A TON. On my community, the total visitor count up to now is 5k, and the pageviews are 340k. That is a lot.

Make sure to get either the footer banner or the header, a cpm ad to utilize the pageviews. I use Adbrite, but there are other networks as well. I mention those banner spots, because they can be seen in every page.

As for the rather useless logout banner, a pathetic attempt at “exit traffic monetization”, I suggest that you do not put an ad, and rather put in a banner for a site you own that is of general interest. Seems to work better. It will get few views anyway.

You can also throw up a quick McJiffy eBay store at another domain, and link to it from your forum, products within the niche of course. Put it up on a sticky, link it, and forget about it. Might work, might not, who cares.

A fantastic feature of PhpFox is that every module allows the users to add content.  That is great, because those few who contribute to the community, will contribute a lot, and the engine lets them do that in many ways. My members already created groups, quizzes, uploaded videos and started threads for introduction and site features discussion.

A serious lack is the forum module. It works fine, but is too basic. Vbulletin has upped the standards so much, that any other forum engine seems like it came from 1996. The best way to fix this is to install Lightweight, a forum mod that does the job. It has many useless features, ironically making it less of a lightweight, but it works, and keeps the ball rolling with ease.

I also worked on a sister site, a music concert related site with a friend. There, we wanted to utilize the events mod, and thankfully found the Aitoc advanced events mod, which pimps out the events module. Actually, it simply replaces it, you install the new and disable the old. The module adds images to your events, adds recurring events functionality, removes the requirement for “address” so you can schedule online events.

A google maps box shows below the event page, showing the address, which is amazingly recognizable automatically! It allows the members to opt in for event change notifications, and also invite not only their friends but any other member to the event.

The point here is that you can use Phpfox for almost any social site you can possibly think of. The blogging platform kinda sucks though… Increased features on blogging would really make this engine a must.

Well, this is my PhpFox review, after having created a community with it. I will post soon some technical issues with Phpfox, as well as some modification information that I think some people will find useful.

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written by Glowleaf \\ tags: , , , , ,

Oct 15

Multiplying like rabbits

Cybertowns, Doodling, Fire and Forget, Heavy construction, Inorganic agriculture, Mind over Pixels, RGBhat, Social abuse, Web 2.0 Cutesy Bullshit No Comments »

Communities are the ultimate blackhat

Let me say that again:

Communities are the ultimate blackhat

What does blackhat mean?

Mainly automation, and content generation, all while exploiting a bug or two.

What do communities give you?

Content generation, niche spread, news discussion, and automation.

The only thing that is missing from a community to become a blackhat tool, are the exploits. Having a community on a niche, means that you automatically have, buyers, sellers, news topic discussion, content, and the member’s sites to link to you, all in the same niche.

Where am I going with this?

  • Do you need more visitors? Tell your members, or better yet train them, to social bookmark the content that is uploaded on the community.
  • Do you need incoming links? Tell your members, or better yet train them, to ask for links, to put the link in their sigs on the fora they frequent, or if they have sites, link to the community.
  • Do you need buyers? Use the mailing list!
  • Do you need content? Have a contest!
  • Do you need more members? Tell them to invite their friends.

If you take the time, to build and grow even a small community on a niche, you are alone no more. You can simply ask for something, or at least provide an incentive, monetary or simply e-peen, and the members will make it happen. This does not mean that you should lay on your ass and wait for results, but if you are creative, and focus the community’s attention to what you want, you will wake up the next day and find it right there.

You can work to generate one great piece of linkbait for example, or you can work harder, to create a tool and a platform for creative people to generate linkbait all day for years.

You think linkbait is hard? Ok, stick with content then. A content driven community dishes out more content than what you could ever generate yourself, without outsourcing the load.

I am amazed by the results of my newest project. 30 members, just 30, have already uploaded content, sparked up the forum, created 2 groups in hi5 and facebook, created 2 groups in my site, created a banner that they have on their sig in fora, linked to the site from their blogs, blogged about the community, started a buzz in various relevant fora, and invited 3 members.

Before you say that 30 members is nothing, bear in mind that the community is nichy niche. It is about a particular thing, on a small country, in a non english language. The maximum members available in the whole country are around 3000. So I am at a 1% coverage.

You can do the same. Work on gathering the critical mass for a community to thrive, and you are in for more mouths than you can feed.

Think bunnies. Think orgies.

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written by Glowleaf \\ tags: , ,

Oct 11

Phpfox, not too SEO foxy

Cybertowns, Doodling, Heavy construction, Noobs, Web 2.0 Cutesy Bullshit 8 Comments »

I have been using a Phpfox installation to create a niche community. Mind you, this is not a full fledged review, just some notes.

Well, in summary, Phpfox sucks for SEO.

  • There are no url rewrites, and messing around with the code is bound to break something.
  • The sitemap generated is great for text only sitemaps, but you cannot generate an xml one.
  • The internal urls forbid you from linking to any single file in the domain, practically the rewrites hijack anything to a useless page not found.
  • The rss feeds it generates are not validated in any standard. They do work with rss readers though, but you simply cannot burn them.

Of course, I did not expect the script to be a breeze like wordpress, but some seo options would be nice. The pages do seem to get indexed though, they are just not seo optimized.

To its defense, Phpfox is a beauty to work with.

The installation is simple and fast. As soon as you are done, you have a mini Myspace in your hands. The default options are enough to run the majority of social sites, complete with a forum, PM, announcements, chat, polls, blog pages, member search and both video and image galleries.

Every hardcore webbuilder like me will want to hack it to death, but for a newbie, its amazing. The adminpanel gives you somewhat easy and almost complete control over everything, with no technical skills required.

There are some way better options, but if you want a “right off the box” social site, Phpfox is your friend. And get ready to dish out 500$-1000$ for modding it.

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written by Glowleaf \\ tags: , ,

Sep 29

Just get it up there

Cybertowns, Doodling, Heavy construction, Termite snacks, Web 2.0 Cutesy Bullshit 5 Comments »

I am working on a new project of mine, one that involves a community, and user generated content.

I was working out the quirks in PhpFox, changing the little things that I don’t like, moving things around, etc.

The project is still in very early stages, there is only the basic logo, useless links everywhere. A single, but huge page of content from me as a sample for the members. There is a faq, but no step by step guide on how to use the site’s features.

I still have plugin integrations, code tweaks, sql optimization. It still has a months worth of work left.

Late at night, I got bored of webdesign. I was looking at the site, trying to be objective. Looking at it from the visitor’s point of view.

And then a thought dawned on me. I will launch it now.

Why wait? The basic structure is there, the usability exists. I will never be pleased with the site anyway, I am going to edit and move stuff around forever. So, why not launch it?

So I did. I wrote a nice submission on social bookmarking sites, hit publish, and went to bed.

I woke up to find the community alive. Of course, not huge, but its there. Its something, where there was nothing before. And they liked it :)

So, where am I going with this?

People are shy. And people are shy to publish their creations. It takes guts to hit that publish button, really. As soon as you publish anything, it becomes prey to everyone around, judging it, and in turn, judging you.

That is where the fear comes from. I believe that a man pours a tiny bit of his soul into his creations. And by looking at those creations, you see the true self of that man. (replace man with woman if it suits you, I am not sexist)

Everyone unconsciously knows that. People will judge you by what you create.

I was lurking in an amateur writer’s forum a while ago, and I read something that gave me a little shock. They were having a huge thread, on publishing, agents, problems, rejections, experiences etc.

And one guy wrote, that a writer sometimes writes for himself, that his writings are for his eyes only. They are his little children, his fragile creations, and he fears that if another human lays eyes on them, he will stain them forever. Beautiful, ain’t it?

Well, no. That guy is a pure pussy. Chicken. COWARD. I don’t care if he is at the same level as Dickens or Tolkien. Not having the guts to publish his writings, makes him useless. If you want to write for yourself, write a journal. Don’t pretend that you are a writer, hang out in real or virtual writer’s joints, and talk about writing, when no one has ever seen your work because you are too afraid to hear their comments.

Have you seen the movie “Knocked up”, where the guys are working months on creating a website about which movies have which actresses boobs showing? They delay, working on perfecting it every day. They learn something valuable in that movie, when they log on one day, and find “MrSkin”, a cooler, sleeker, and active website with the same idea as them.

MrSkin had the balls to hit the publish button.

Every human, has a different way of experiencing things, a different worldview. I watch an action movie at the cinema and notice the guns and the computers/gadgets. The guy next to me sees only the actresses ass. The girl on the other side checks out her shoes, ignoring the huge explosion that fills the screen.

Everything you make, everything you create, will touch people in a different way. Some will be offended, some will admire you, some will learn from you. Most will misunderstand you. Readers of my Anarchy Online post found it refreshing! I never expected that someone would find that refreshing, but they did. Great! It touched them in a different way. My goal was to “teach”, to share a worldview. But the world is a huge place, with an endless variety of people. Each and every one of them will have a slightly different opinion on every creation they lay their eyes on.

But you must not be afraid of that. Sure, your fellow webmasters will find the template ugly. Visitors will think you are cool. Newbies will learn something.

But in order for those things to happen, you have to hit the damn publish button.

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written by Glowleaf \\ tags: , ,

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