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Day 20 - Part II - Where Else to Host QUALITY Content
By Mike Mindel | August 20, 2007
This content is summarised from Day 20 - On My Command - Give Hugs, presented by Ed Dale.
Moving On From Tumblr
Back in Day 16 we talked about posting to Tumblr.
The aim was to put up quality content and using our social bookmarking be able to get good rankings in Google over time.
That worked a little TOO well.
I (Ed) want to apologise to the folks at Tumblr.
If you look at it from their perspective, thousands upon thousands of people started putting up Tumblr blogs.
Unfortunately, a few, and only a few people didn’t listent to the great content edict and thought it was a new goldrush.
The crimes:
- Not putting anything of any worth on the Tumblr blogs.
- Just putting up spammy links.
- Entering them into social bookmarks in large groups and causing chaos.
Tumblr is NOT the holy grail.
It can’t cure the sick, and heal the ill.
We love the interface. It’s so easy and refreshing to use.
But anything else will do.
Make sure you read Tip #12 - It’s the Process NOT the Platform so you really, really get this.
So we don’t have a repeat with what happened with Tumblr I’m only going to mention a few alternative content plaforms now.
If I pick any other single property, tens of thousands of you will flock to that property and we’ll have another Tumblr on our hands.
So the alternative is to list a whole bunch of alternative web 2.0 properties so you can spread your QUALITY content out.
Make Sure You Deliver QUALITY Content
Have we said this enough?
How do we know it’s quality content?
The answer is simple.
If you stumbled on your own site would you be happier than when you arrived?
If someone else stumbled on to your site would they be happier?
Let’s Give it a go. Lets Stumble
How cool is this? You know those magnetic words you put on fridges.
Well this is social magnetic fridge.
Love it.
Here’s my go
Was social magnetic fridge great content?
Sure was. Not actual text. But a great little fun application. Still content.
Will I stumble it?
Yip.
Was that spam?
Hell no.
Let’s do another
Courtroom Quotations.
For those who can’t quite read the text it says:
The quotations are taken from official court records across the nation, showing how funny and embarrassing it is that that recorders operate at all times in courts of law, so that even the slightest inadvertence is preserved for posterity.
Here’s a couple of examples from the page:
Funny. Next.
Loving it.
Consider it well Stumbl’d.
(I believe Ed found something about cleaning ladies which he liked - ask Ed)
Don’t Host On Your Own Domain
A few people say this is the ultimate flaw in the Thirty Day Challenge process. You should only work with stuff on your site and own server.
This is rubbish.
We’re in the Testing Phase
Why go to all the effort and expense of setting up your own site when you don’t even know if the market is worthwile yet.
The fact that people are making money is a bonus.
It’s the American Idol approach to market research.
That’s all we’re doing here folks.
We’re at the TESTING stage.
If you set up your own domain, site and blog, then what wasted effort. You don’t know if that keyword will pay off or not.
By the end of the week you will.
But I’m not going to tell you to spend money before you need to spend it.
It’s completely wrong to tell people to spend their own money when they don’t even know if it’s worth spending it yet.
You Need A Web of Sites You Own and Those You Don’t
If Google doesn’t like your site and thats all you got then you’re gone. Game over.
They may decide they don’t like a sales page. It’s penalized.
Google can dance - all round your head.
Thats why the people who advise you that the Thirty Day Challenge doesn’t work - you need your own site.
They’ve got it wrong.
Even when we’re involved in projects making hundreds of thousands a month we have a combination of sites. There’s common sense involved here folks.
No one thing should be giving you more than 10% of your traffic. No more than 10% of your profits should come from one client.
Same here.
These black and white pronouncements are not helpful and worse, problematic.
Problems With Your Own Domain
Could you do your own site?
No. Yo can’t just create your own site. If you start a domain today this process would not work.
Google views your new site as ugly.
It’s just the facts.
We will develop our own site, don’t you worry.
But at the appropriate time. When we know its worth spending the time.
All we are doing is making sure we can get the traffic and testing the conversion.
Lifespan Is Important
All of these properties need to have a lifespan with Google.
This is why your own sites won’t do it.
The Alternatives to Tumblr
Here’s a list of alternatives to Tumblr:
Just click on the images to open up a new tab in your browser.
Blogger
.
WordPress
HubPages
Squidoo
There are dozens more…
List Your Results on the Forum
Try different sites and list your results on the forum.
All these sites have the same characteristics.
- They allow user generated content
- They allow you to post tags
We Have a Great Opportunity
You’ll start to realise it’s not about the site.
The sites are interchangable.
The winner is not the person who plants the flag.
If you think that going out there and getting your team of $1/hr programmers to snap up all the kewords robot style.
It’s not about that.
Which is why we have such an opportunity here.
We have an advantage over the spammers who go after the keywords and throw up pages all over the place.
It takes work. It takes effort, care and feeding.
The spammers can’t care and feed. They’re after quick arbitrage.
This isn’t about arbitrage.
This is about setting up a sustainable, ecological, environmentally moral business. That’s what its all about.
It Must Be Fresh Content
You can’t use the same article everywhere.
So don’t post the same content to WordPress as to Ezine Articles. But in Ezine Articles point back to your main content site e.g. WordPress.
If Google sees the same content, it will just display one of those. Why does it want two?
The Rules
- Make sure it’s great content
- Keyword (umbrella phrase) goes in the headline, first paragraph, end of content
- Be creative about working the words in. Make it readable! It must make sense, not gibberish.
- Only ask 4 or 5 people to social bookmark.
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Topics: Daily Summaries |
August 21st, 2007 at 1:10 am
[…] Day 20 - Part II - Where Else to Host QUALITY Content […]
August 21st, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Mike, you must be psychic!
Again, you answered another question - this time about domains and our own site. It really helps me understand using web2.0 is a wonderful way to test our keyword concept for both popularity and conversion, before we invest a lot of time and money on a weak performing subject.
Thanks for keeping us focused and on task,
Sunny
August 24th, 2007 at 8:36 am
I was so pleased to read your comments on hosting versus hosted sites as I now feel I made the right decision. I have been told that I will get nowhere with having a blogspot site and that I should have started out with my own domain. I did have my own domain but chose blogger on the basis it was far more likely to get indexed more quickly. I wanted to get myself and blog known a little before moving on to my next projects; which I am ready to do now; 6 months or so down the track.
I am now going to remove the duplicate content I have created by importing my blog into a hosted wordpress site though. Thanks for explaining why this is necessary.
August 25th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Hi, I am catching up and understanding because of the great combination of teachers you have Ed, Dan,rob,Mike and Caro are all people whio have provided ideas or explanations that have turned on the light for me thanks again
Regards
MikeB
August 26th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
[…] First of all I went to Wordpress, one of the platforms Ed mentioned in Day 20 and I mentioned in Tip #17- Decent List of Free Content Platforms. […]
August 31st, 2007 at 5:39 pm
[…] Day 20 - Part II - Where Else to Host QUALITY Content […]