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Archive for the ‘Experience’ Category

Add Ads Now or Later?

A question I get a lot and that is even debated around the interent is when to add ads to your site. Obviously everybody has their own opinion, but let me tell you why those with the opinion to add ads later is worthless.

There are numerous arguments for both sides, but the one I like to use is that people can’t complain about something they have never experienced.

There are many stories of successful ventures, companies, or whatever that eventually needed to throw up ads. Customers obviously complained about this because now they had to deal with all these advertisements.

If readers experience your site with ads from the beginning, then they know what to expect and won’t be surprised. Again, you can’t complain if you never experienced it another way.

Proponents in favor of adding ads later in your site’s life say that you should focus on customer experience and building your content and readership before jumping into the world of advertisements.

I see a couple problems with this:

  • You are throwing away money. For every visitors with no ads is wasted money. Time is money; visitors is money.
  • My previous argument – can’t complain about something never experienced. How will your current visitors feel about the new “ad” experience?

Now I do need to ad a disclaimer to this. Less is more. Do not bombard your visitors with ads, and make sure they are quality ads. Avoid pop-ups and other intrusive campaigns. Less is more.

Importance of Developing a Network

Wow… what a start to 2009. Two of my sites went down due to database errors, and nobody is around to help… right?

To most people doing business online seems like a isolated position, but, for the most part, that couldn’t be further away from the truth. In fact, many of the top online businessmen are there because they developed a solid network.

Back to my database errors. I was in the process of updating all my sites to wordpress 2.7, but instead I copied over one wrong config file and suddenly everything went crazy. Sites were down here and there. Being the holiday time, professional support was obviously hard to come by.

Luckily, I have developed a network of other online peers who were able to bail me out of my situation. Once the site went down, I sent an email to all of them. Within 15 minutes, I had people who were more than willing to help me out.

Again, many people often compare computers to anti-social. We work online so we could avoid human interaction; however, while it may be email or telephone, this is still interaction. Without a strong network, being successful at anyting you do online would be quite a hill to climb.

Besides tech support, networks can help you market stuff, bounce ideas off each other, and even create new partnerships you may have not done one your own.

How to Build a Network

The way I started my network was by contacting other people running blogs or businesses within my own niche. The Wild Investor was my first site and it was a finance site, so I found other people in the same market and simple emailed them. The more we email each other, the better relationship that will be built.

Bottom Line: Whether you want to believe it or not, you don’t know everything. I may be good at picking stocks, but I might not know everything about working with databases and building sites. With a strong network, you don’t have to know everything. Your peers are there to help you.

There is No Right Way

Whenever I tell people that I am making money off sites that I have created, their first response is how is it done and can they do it? While obviously anybody can do it, not everybody is willing to put in the time to see it through.

About a year ago I was telling one of my friends about The Wild Investor, and just like everybody else he wanted to have a stab at it. Since we were both huge sports’ fans, I recommended that maybe we should start a sports’ blog. I would buy the domain, create the site, and then together we would write the articles and market the site. He was on board and we set our profit distribution ratio (which you should always do before starting a partnership).

It was barely a month before his article creation diminished to nearly 0 and his marketing was nonexistent. While I can’t say I didn’t see this coming, it proved my point that there are no true step by step formulas to creating a successful online venture, rather it depends more on the person using them.

Sure, we can have our usual steps, but just like any formula there are always tweaks that need to be done. The main problem my friend was having is that he lacked the creativity it takes to make money online. Although I told him the steps that needed to be done to help market and create articles, that is all he would do. There was no “big picture” for him. It was just do this, that, and the other, and it should all work out. Whether I am marketing a financial site or a sport site, there are obviously going to be adjustments in schemes that need to be done.

Bottom Line: While you can be given the steps, tools, and knowledge, it is up to your to decide how to properly use them. I can give you 8 steps to start your online venture or 5 steps to dominate your niche, but it is up to your to figure out how to make these steps work best for your specific niche.

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