Internet Entrepreneurs Blog

Not just anyone can be a successful data rancher. Like meat-space ranching, data ranching requires a passion for your product. That means if you’re gathering information about mountain biking, you’ll be much more successful you’re a mountain biker yourself. You’ll know what types of information your readers and contributors are looking for and you’ll be able to seed, feed, and weed much more effectively than if you were an outsider.

Ask a rancher why he does what he does and rarely will the answer be about money. It’s usually a love for the outdoors or a passion for animals that gets folks into the business. Do ranchers go into ranching because cattle futures are set to rise on the market? Nope. They do it because they love it.

In keeping with the data ranch metaphor, it’s important to remember that you can’t grow your website without doing a little seeding, feeding, and weeding. Today I’ll talk about the importance of seeding your data ranch and how it is critical to kick-starting any online endeavor.

The first mistake many website creators make is expecting contributors to show up just because a website exists. Set up a forum with an appropriate subject heading and people will just flock, right? Wrong. Without content your potential members will be gone before they even arrive.

For some it may be tempting to “seed” their new website with questions to stimulate conversation among passers-by but I’m here to tell you from my experience this doesn’t work. In fact the ratio of useful information to “seed questions” should be at least 5 to 1 in the early days of your ranch and even more if you want to grow quickly. We’ve all seen websites that have extensive FAQ sections but the key here is that all those questions have answers!

Once you’ve seeded your data ranch with useful information about your subject it’s important to leave the door open to additional information and feedback from your users. This means turning comments on in your blog software, enabling user reviews, and giving members maximum control over forum posts. In fact I recommend allowing anonymous submissions early on to encourage content growth