Internet Entrepreneurs Blog

Maybe I need to start following my own advice. A couple weeks ago I wrote about finding opportunities in the blogosphere where I referenced a study posted on SEOMoz showing the topical coverage of the top blogs. It turns out that 57% of the top blog are, like this blog, technology related - a crowded marketplace to be sure. I recommended that aspiring internet entrepreneurs focus on building blogs covering subjects that are underrepresented in the blogosphere - things like sports, religion, hobbies, etc.

Yet I myself continue to write daily posts on this tech-related blog. Fortunately I rarely spend more than 30 minutes or so each day writing for the Review App blog and building a base of useful online content is a long term endeavor. But look at it this way: would a venture capitalist be interested in financing yet another tech-related blog? Probably not.

Of course we’ll continue to post here regularly on entrepreneurial and internet related subjects because we think there are plenty of areas still not being covered in the marketplace. At the same time we’ll be investing in our other blogs covering subjects outside of tech and we’ll keep you posted on how those other blogs fare. Stay tuned!

I know I’ve been writing about blogging a lot lately but I truly believe it’s one of the best ways to market your internet business - no matter what your actual business model may be. Today I thought I’d share a tip for bloggers facing writer’s block: Google Alerts. Google Alerts is a free service anyone can sign up for that delivers an daily email digest of the latest news and blog articles containing keywords you specify. So if your website sells toys online you can sign up for a ‘toys’ Google Alert and let Google deliver industry news to you!

Of course if you’ve been reading this blog over the past couple months you know simply re-posting articles on your blog is a bad idea - not only because it’s plagiarism but also because your search rankings could be penalized for duplicate content. Instead, find an interesting article to summarize on your blog, then add your take on it. Readers will appreciate having a source for the latest news while thinking you must read every daily newspaper each morning (how’d he know there was an article in today’s Des Moines Register about toys made from corn?).

Sometimes an article may even spark an original idea you can write about on your blog. These are often the most successful articles from a search perspective and you’ll be amazed how many ideas you’ll get just by skimming the headlines. Even moderately narrow subjects produce dozens of news and blog mentions each day so you’ll almost never run low on inspiration.

Google Alerts is a powerful tool for bloggers looking for interesting daily content. It’s also a great way to keep tabs on your competitors to see what they’re talking about

SEOmoz posted a good article a couple days ago about learning search engine marketing from the top blogs. The post includes some great graphs the author uses to draw conclusions about the current state of blogging in terms of ownership, subject matter, operations, etc. A few charts jumped out at me as screaming opportunity for internet entrepreneurs and I thought I’d share my take.

1. 66% of blogs are ’self owned.’ Perhaps a more accurate title might be ‘privately owned,’ though this is pretty much the same idea. Anyway, the point is that this market isn’t (yet) dominated by large corporate players which is great for folks interested in getting started.

2. 57% of the top blogs are about technology. So for now the geeks dominate but that’s good news - the internet started that way after all and look where it is today! One huge category gap I see on this chart is sports. Unless sports blogs were simply lumped in with another category this is a huge opportunity since sports are, after all, big business. Ditto for all the other categories - technology isn’t the most important thing in most peoples’ lives yet tech blogs currently receive a hugely disproportionate share of visits.

3. 95% of the top blogs originate in the US. So blog reading doesn’t appear to have caught on in other countries yet but clearly the opportunity is massive. Forget about becoming the next Google or eBay in China or India - how about becoming the next Gawker in one of the BRICs?

Opportunity exists nearly everywhere you look on the internet and as an entrepreneur it’s important to filter the good opportunities from the great.

If you’re launching a web-based business on a shoe string budget you probably assume you can’t afford professional design services. And while it’s usually fine to lay out and design version 1.0 of your website yourself, I recommend splurging a bit on your brand identity early on.

Okay, so spending $300 on a logo isn’t exactly splurging but it’s money well spent. At Logoworks (now owned by HP) you can get a logo designed for your business starting at $300 - a steal compared to what it would cost at a typical agency (think thousands of dollars, not hundreds). But beyond just cost savings I’m a big fan of Logoworks for small internet businesses for a number of reasons:

1. The entire process is done online. Who cares if you live in a small town where the closest thing to a graphic artists are the kids in finger painting class - anyone with an internet connection has access to professional logo designers all over the world.

2. Working with Logoworks is great experience for future design relationships. Not only do you get to learn the design lingo (comp, revision, etc.) but working with Logoworks teaches you to articulate your design vision and see it through to completion. Start small so when you’re managing a $5,000 re-design for your site you’ll have the confidence to make it a success.

3. A clean logo is a solid design foundation for your site. If you are planning on designing your first website yourself it’s helpful to at least have a good starting point with your logo. Get ideas for color combinations, fonts, and overall style and you’ll be on your way!

4. Branding is important on day one. The Logoworks process is fairly quick (about a week or so) which means you’ll have your branding in place on day one of your launch. The sooner you can start building meaningful and memorable impressions of your brand, the more successful your business will be in the long run. Don’t put off your online branding for cost or timing reasons - it’s one of the most important first steps you’ll take.

5. The logo creation process is very well organized. There is detailed information at Logoworks.com so you can understand the entire process beforehand and it’s always easy to find out what’s next. Communcation with the team has been excellent in our experience and it’s one of Logoworks’ biggest strengths.

I realize this may read like some kind of infomercial for Logoworks but they’re honestly one of the cheapest, quickest, easiest services out there for web entrepreneurs looking for a simple word mark. Check them out for your next project!

We’re always on the lookout for website acquisitions that could fit the Review App model and there are a couple sites we use to find websites for sale. Buying a website can give entrepreneurs a huge jumpstart in building an online business but it’s important to first consider what you need. Some sites for sale offer a large registered user base while others offers may boast significant pageviews. Still others may offer large amounts of original content or design. Again, just keep in mind what your business needs most from an acquisition.

Sitepoint.com has listings for hundreds of ‘for sale’ websites but it’s often difficult to separate the scams from the legitimate opportunities. I recommend sticking with the Premium Web Sites for Sale category if you’re serious about getting started - and keep in mind you usually get what you pay for. eBay also lists websites for sale but the quality of the listings seems to be far lower than those on Sitepoint. Sitepoint offers more verification services as well so you know you’re dealing with legitimate sellers - check to see if your seller has been ‘Site Access Verified’ and ‘Telephone Verified’ before bidding.

Buying a website can be a risky transaction so be sure to do as much due diligence as possible. Also consider how you’ll raise the value of the site - improved marketing to grow pageviews, placing more display ads on the site, etc. The real estate market may be in the tank these days but flipping websites can be a lucrative side business if you know what to look for!

At the Atlanta Online Marketing Summit earlier this week one of the panelists mentioned that the biggest mistake companies and individuals often make in starting a new blog is not doing enough prep work. Specifically prep work includes researching existing blogs within your intended niche or industry and joining the conversation before striking off on your own.

After a recent move to a new city I searched (briefly) for local blogs to get a feel for the city and to keep up on local politics and events but I couldn’t find any. I found it odd that my city didn’t have any bloggers so I decided to start my own blog which I kept up for about a month. Then I started getting pings from other local bloggers that I didn’t even know existed! It turned out there WERE in fact others blogging about my city and they were actually doing a great job. Needless to say that killed my interest in keeping up my own blog and today I’ve abandoned the project entirely. A little extra research could have saved me time and energy.

Once you’ve found other blogs related to your niche or industry it’s a good idea to get involved by commenting on said blogs. It’s a great way to introduce yourself to fellow bloggers and it helps you begin to shape the online conversation. In some cases you may even find others commenting on your comments, giving your valuable market intelligence on your potential audience.

Think about starting a new blog this way: It’s kinda like going to a dinner party where you don’t know the guests. The best thing to do first is to approach a group conversation and to observe - see what kinds of things the guests are talking about and note the tone. Next, try to politely join the conversation - offer agreement with a speaker or ask a question. After you’ve been a part of the conversation for a bit it’s possible to take the discussion in a different direction or to offer a different perspective - but only after you’ve completed the first two steps.

Nope, blogging isn’t rocket science, it’s just a different way of communicating. Use the lessons you learned about conversing in the real world to make your online communications a success!

Okay, I admit it - I haven’t been following my own advice over the past two weeks. Back in May I talked about the power of blogging as a marketing tool and I said it’s a good idea to post every week day. My record for the last 10 business days? About 6/10, my worst performance on a blog yet. For that I apologize to my loyal readers

Yesterday I attended the panel discussion at the Online Marketing Summit here in Atlanta and the panelists all agreed that a blog is an important tool for providing industry/niche thought leadership, generating sales leads, and keeping your website content fresh and relevant. One panelist mentioned how at times it might seem like a blog isn’t effective when posts attract few (or no) comments but it’s important to keep the flow of information going for the reasons mentioned above. Just the motivation I needed, perhaps this will help you too!

Of course one way to understand how many readers your blog has on a daily basis is to use an analytics package for your site. It’s also important to track subscribers who may view your content in an RSS reader and I recommend the free Feedburner service (though it’s been a bit unreliable this week for some reason). But comments aren’t everything and you can’t expect to have hundreds of blog readers at launch. Determine the goal of your blog and try to measure your blog’s performance against the metrics that matter to you and your business.

One of the things we learned a few years back is that turning viewers into users is pretty important in growing an online business. As anyone who runs a forum-based website knows it can be frustrating to see so many “lurkers” who simply read the online conversations taking place without ever contributing. On the revenue path, a vistitor usually needs to become a user before they can become a customer - any webmaster’s ultimate goal.

Here are three things you can do to graduate your visitors to users:

1. Offer something of value for free. Some sites promise free stickers in the mail if you sign up for an account, others dangle email coupons for subscribers to newsletter lists. Review App gives registered users access to online features like wish lists and the ability to post photos. Users won’t sign up just to be on your email list - give them a reason to take the next step.

2. Hold out your best content for registered users. This is similar to the idea of offering something of value mentioned above but it can oftentimes have a much larger impact. For example, on one of our web projects we routinely saw about 200 users sign up for accounts each month to access online “members only” features like those above. We then decided to make a key piece of information on our site - directions to bike trails - available only to registered users. We instantly went from 200 registrations a month to 2,000 and today the site is registering more than 100 folks PER DAY! Since the information left off is minor in relation to the other content available our search engine-visible content is  affected very little.

3. Make it easy to sign up for an account. You’ve seen it before - a sign up form that scrolls for pages and pages just to get a free account. Some sites may even require a credit card to start a “free trial” while other sites’ sign up forms are choked with marketing offers for seemingly unrelated items. The shorter your member sign up form, the more likely folks will get through it and become users of your site - so keep it simple! Review App new user forms ask for 2 things: an email address and a screen name - that’s it.

Giving your visitors a reason to become users and making it easy for them to do so is a great way to improve the number of folks entering your transaction funnel. Take a look at your site and see what you can do to increase your user base!

It was all over the news last week - ex-Googlers launched a “Google-killer” search engine that was going to blow away the competition. Morning news shows picked up the story and curious netizens (myself included) flocked to the site causing it to overload in the surge. Co-workers at companies around the country stated “we need to optimize for Cuil” (seriously). So what’s the deal?

From a marketing and online traffic perspective Cuil is mostly a disaster (see the visitor estimate chart from Alexa above). Cuil did a great job generated buzz and PR but clearly people came, they saw, and they never returned. Surely the folks at Cuil expected the launch to kick start their site’s growth but when your product isn’t quite ready for prime time this strategy can backfire.

So what did Cuil do wrong? Here’s are my thoughts:

• Over-promised and under-delivered. The promise was the Cuil answered search queries better, faster, and more thoroughly than existing search engines. Based on my (and others’) tests it failed on all three fronts. Some searches returned zero results where other search engines return thousands; other queries returned strange and irrelevant listings at the top for simple keywords. On top of it all, Cuil was painfully SLOOOOW on launch day.
• Unprepared for launch. Clearly Cuil wasn’t prepared for the curious users who flocked to the site on the first day and this meant the site was slow or unable to load entirely. Bad first impression for customers who may never return.
• Terrible name. Come on - if you can’t afford “cool.com” then pick another name. I won’t remember how to spell your brand, I’m not sure how to say it, and I don’t understand what it even means. Seriously horrible branding.
• Unconventional layout. Yep, there’s a reason search engine listings aren’t laid out “magazine-style.” When folks are searching they’re usually in a hurry to get somewhere else and they’re not interested in curling up on the couch and perusing the listings before going to an actual website. Give users the relevant information with a minimal amount of scrolling and eye movement and they’ll appreciate your service (and perhaps return). The thumbnail photos are terrible as well and most don’t always come from the website that’s being listed. The WORST search engine user experience I’ve seen yet.

Those are the big problems, each one pretty much a company-killer in its own right. Of course time will tell if I’m right to pronounce Cuil dead on arrival - anyone want to take bets on how long it takes?

On the web, more than most other places, appearances really do matter. My friend Joe likes to say that in most cases websites “give the appearance of a successful business” even when very little business is being done. Just because a site has a shopping cart doesn’t mean anyone’s buying but you’d never know that unless you were the webmaster behind the curtain.

Unless you’re a natural at graphic design and layout, it’s generally best to find someone to help you give your website a professional appearance. Admittedly we hadn’t taken this approach ourselves until recently and I still prefer to build out new sites on my own before hiring a web designer. Once a site has proven itself to be viable and capable of returning a design investment I’m more than willing to take the plunge.

This site was designed by the guys at 45royale and obviously it rocks. The design is professional but not because it’s overly designed; rather it’s clean, easy to use, and consistent. Exhibit Instinct designed our site at Unity3.com and was able to give the e-commerce site a lifestyle look and feel that has suppliers knocking down our door to get placement (just remember what I said about the appearance of business though ). We’re in the process of giving our other sites a professional facelift and we’ll certainly keep you posted on the results in terms of increases in visits, conversions, pageviews, etc.