Success doing business online…

// May 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Webmaster tips

I’ve posted about a couple of instances (here and here) where getting work done online has not worked out, however this isn’t always the case.

Recently we needed a logo done for our business so we turned to Digital Point to run a logo design contest. We paid on the high side (compared to other contests) but we ended up getting a number of great entries which we were really happy – it was hard picking a winner!

Note: “high side” for Digital Point was only US$40, compare this with the hundreds we would pay offline or at sites like 99designs.com.

So getting stuff done can work sometimes!

You would think we had a bigger chance of getting burnt on Digital Point compared to Elance, however so far, we’ve only had good experiences on Digital Point, but there are some pretty bad stories so you do need to be careful.

Don’t hurt your users

// May 12th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Webmaster tips

If you have a problem with spam on your site, don’t fix it effecting all your normal users.

I run a number of blogs and forums and I see spam every day – I hate it.

Spam is like graffiti. But if you have a problem with someone painting graphiti on the wall of your house, do you put an 8ft barbed wire fence around your house so no-one can get in? If you own a retail store and you have a shop-lifting issue, do you put a fence around your shop so no-one can get in? No you don’t (well I hope you don’t!).

Another issue faced by people running blogs is the republishing of RSS feeds – people effectively copying your content and putting it on their site. It’s a breach of copyright and is plain and simple content-theft. Don’t effect your real users in addressing the problem.

How NOT to prevent forum spam

Don’t turn off linking!

When I visit forums I hate it when I can’t post a link to something I want to share. I am a legitimate user wanting to post a link to something that I feel is really beneficial to the members of their community (it’s not a link to my own content), but the owner of the forum hasn’t decided new users can’t post links. Argh!

What do I do? I leave and unlikely come back.

The solution, I will keep that for another post! Stay tuned…

How NOT to prevent RSS feed republishing

Don’t change your feed to summary posts. I saw a site do this recently, in fact it actually prompted me to make this post – see I am sick of splogs Copying our Content! @ Web Tools Collection.

I completely sympathize with them but just look at the feedback – and this feedback is from fellow blog owners who are more likely to sympathize than other user types. It’s a bad move!

The solution, well I am going to keep that for another post too!

Other dumb ways of fixing problems

I don’t know the full details of this one so perhaps I’m been harsh, but here’s another over the top response to fixing a problem. Go to this site and tell me what you think – http://developers.phpjunkyard.com/.

A novel way of solving a problem but what about the loss of search engines? How is Google suppose to index your content if it is behind a logon?

Perhaps they have set it up so Google can still access the site but I think the confusion this would cause is still harmful to legitimate users.

Burnt again!

// May 10th, 2009 // No Comments » // Webmaster tips

Earlier this year I posted about how Doing Business online = Getting ripped off, well guess what, it’s happened again, however no loss of money this time.

My wife has an idea for a web site and we used Elance to find a programmer.

We had done the same thing about 12 months ago however the programmer we found just didn’t understand the project so we all agreed to cancel it. As money was still in the Elance escrow system all the money was refunded.

This time we thought we found a great programmer – seemed to understand the project and communicated well through the tendering process. Again we used the Elance escrow system so our money was safe.

Things started well and we even saw proof that the system was coming along, however half way through the 2 week project he stopped communicating with us.

We’ve attempted to contact him several times via Elance’s messaging system however he never responds, this is despite us seeing that he was logging on to Elance and even successfully getting more projects!

We asked if he needed more time, but still no response. It’s been more than a week since we last heard from him and the project should have been delivered by now.

The whole ignoring us is just weird. If he can’t complete the job, just tell us. We’re not going to pay him until the project is delivered and since he has delivered nothing I can’t see how he can claim any of the money in escrow. I have no idea what he hopes to achieve by ignoring us.

We’ve cancelled the project again but need his approval before the money will be refunded from escrow – if he doesn’t approve it with 7 days we then have to get Elance to decide what to do.

So another waste of time which is really dissappointing. We’re going to try Get-a-freelancer next time and hopefully have some better luck!

Win a Flip Mino HD

// February 23rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Webmaster tips

I read a heap of different blogs, all for different reasons.

Some blogs I read for news, some I read for content ideas and others I read just to see the ideas people have used to build their sites.

For me, making websites is easy, marketing them and making them successful is the difficult part. Seeing what other people do really helps to give me ideas for my own projects.

One of the blogs I have been reading for some time is smarterwealth.net, run by another Aussie (Sydney-sider even), Ryan Maclean.

Ryan has tried lots of different things – he seems to be always trying something which I think is extremely important, even though it’s something I don’t do enough!

Some of Ryan’s ideas seem to have worked really well for example giving away free ebooks for subscribing to his RSS, while other ideas to build more community/comments are less successful.

One of the bigger ideas Ryan has had is giving away a brand new Flip Mino HD to one of his readers. The Flip Mino HD is a small pocket-sized video camera commonly used by bloggers to do video posts.

The competition was marketed as the “easiest Flip Mino HD to win because barely anyone is going to enter” however as a requirement is to blog about it means that as more and more people hear about it the chances of winning are reducing, but you’ve got to be in it to win it right!

To enter all you have to do is sign up for Ryan’s newsletter and post about the competition – which is what I am doing right now.

Check out all the details of how you can enter the Win a Flip Mino HD competition now. Winner announced March 5.

Shoot first, ask questions later

// February 2nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Webmaster tips

This morning I received an email from my hosting providing saying that:

We have received 1 or more complaints regarding prohibited activity originating from your server.

and forwarded on an e-mail from an organisation called “Pirate Reports” who claim to have detected a unlicenced copy of vBulletin running on my server.

The domain name they quoted was the IP address equivialent of my australianwebmaster.com site – so of course it’s not registered, it’s not it’s public address.

In one way it’s nice to know that they to take their licensing seriously and other people aren’t taking advantage of the software when I am paying money for it, however if “Pirate Reports” had actually viewed the site they could have easily seen that the license was valid.

I now have to clear this all up with my host, argh!

Update – When I explained the situation my host apologised as it was pretty obvious it was a temporary cPanel URL. They’ve sorted it all out for me.

GoDaddy Alternatives

// January 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // Webmaster tips

After my last post on GoDaddy marking losing customers I thought I should post some alternative domain name registrars I use.

I use namecheap.com and name.com.

Both are about the same price as GoDaddy and with compariable services EXCEPT namecheap.com and name.com provide privacy protection with the initial fee, unlike GoDaddy where it costs more.

There are namecheap.com coupons which reduces the initial purchase price however renewal coupons ceased some time ago so long term it may be better off going with name.com – or transfer to name.com at renewal time.

Name.com isn’t as sleek as namecheap.com but haven’t had a problem with either of them.

However I have never used the hosting provided by a domain registrar and doubt I ever will – I don’t believe hosting is their core business and therefore question the quality. There are plenty of other hosting providers out there.

A final word on GoDaddy’s marketing … 10 out of 10 for attracting customers, largely due to it’s controversial super bowl commercials which since running them has seen their market share go from 16% to a massive 46%- they now have a massive 28 million domain names under their management.

But I feel that the aggressive marketing to their existing customer base will drive them away. It would be interesting to see the stats one day in the future to see at what rate people move their domains away from them.

Marketing To Lose Customers

// January 16th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Webmaster tips

Marketing is critical to any business, especially on the web.

Just having a site on the internet isn’t good enough – you have to market your site in some way to attract visitors.

Once you attract your visitors you need to turn them in to customers.

Once you have customers you need to turn them in to repeat customers.

Marketing is important in achieving all these things.

I was reading on Brendan Sinclair’s blog (the guy who wrote the SitePoint Web Design book and owns an internet marketing company in Queensland), that like me he’s decided to he wont use GoDaddy again. Several commenters had also come to that decision.

The reason? Their marketing.

The product and the pricing is fine – just the marketing.

The constant e-mails (including trying to sell domain names which are already taken – eg. your surname.com) and the 20 step up-selling check-out process are effectively driving their customers away.

Be careful when implementing agressive marketing – such as pop-ups / pop-unders, high frequency e-mails, deceptive advertising, etc. No-one likes them and more often than not, you will cost yourself customers.

2009 Goals

// January 5th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Webmaster tips

2009 is here and after having a couple of weeks break over the Christmas period I am back in to things.

Why is it that at the beginning of each year it’s natural to reflect on the past year and plan the upcoming year?

For me I feel that my goal for 2009 should be to focus and finish projects off. This is something I really need to concentrate on. I’m the type of person who attempts to juggle too many different projects at once and not actually get anything finished.

I do feel that forcing myself to do more frequent posting on this blog will help me keep on track so perhaps my short term goal should be to post more frequently here? It will allow me to set a goal and then be accountable for it.

What else do I have planned for 2009?

Well I have been thinking about not developing further sites in the webmaster niche. This doesn’t mean that I will discontinue existing sites, I will just experiment with other niches. I think the revenue potential from webmaster sites is fairly limited due to the tech savviness (is that such a word?) of webmasters.

At the moment I’m considering content sites or service web sites…

Content generation seems to be a popular area, whether that be developing sites for yourself or providing article writing services. My current thinking is that it may be too labor intensive for the return but I have heard of people making a full-time income from it. $0.01 to $0.02 per word seems pretty darn cheap to me!

Otherwise I am thinking of “service web sites”, ie sites that provide a service. Ideally these sites should run themselves so once they are developed they generate a re-occurring revenue stream with (ideally) little maintenance. As I build up a portfolio of “service web sites” my revenue should continually increase. Well that’s the theory!

Anyway, I’ll keep you updated!

So here comes 2009!

Welcome

// August 4th, 2008 // Comments Off // Webmaster tips

Welcome to JONO.ME, it’s great to have you here!

I’ve finally decided to create my own personal blog in attempt to motivate myself and keep focused on certain projects. You can find out more about my plans for this blog at the About JONO.ME page.