Why
did I Make Search Engine Sites?
I am
fascinated by search engines. I can build a site about search engines only
because I am extremely interested in them. Reflecting back upon my decisions, I
would probably be more successful today if I would have picked just a specific
engine (most likely Google) or a specific type and expanded from there.
My general
rule of thumb is to search for what you want to promote, using your favorite
search engine. Click on the first listing. If it is not good enough, then you
should be there. If they know more than you, learn from them. If you devote
yourself to becoming a guru on a topic that you already love, there is no
reason that you cannot eventually be the first listing. You are only limited by
your own courage, creativity, and efforts.
You cannot
learn too much about something that interests you. If someone wanted to make a
network of local sites, I would tell them to research Craigslist. You need to
know what worked and where your topic has been to be able to do well with it
going forward.
Tragedy
of the Commons & Being Worthy of a
Subscription
The Tragedy of the Commons is a story
based upon farmers sharing a plot of land, with each owning a few too many cows. As the land exceeds its usable
capacity, each farmer fights back by adding a few more cows. Eventually the
land is destroyed.
Nothing of value can be universally accessible and free. Since it costs virtually nothing to create information (or have a
machine generate code for you), a lot is lost on the web if we trust everything
we read.
As more and
more information is created, more and more unoriginal information is
duplicated. It gets to the point where sorting through the mess becomes more
The solution
to the information overload problem is to be so remarkable and interesting that
you capture the attention of the audience. RSS and newsreaders (such as
Bloglines, Google Reader, and FeedDemon) make it easy for people to subscribe
to select news channels or websites while blocking out redundant or useless noise.
If you cover a
news topic that is saturated, you may want to use a news reader to help you
organize your news and get the scoop on the latest news as it happens.
The people who
are subscribing to RSS feeds are also the most likely to be people who comment
on the contents of those sites, and write other sites that can link at your
site. If you can figure out a way to get those people to desire to give you
their attention, you quickly and cheaply reach the most influential voices.
If you did not own your site, is there any reason you
would want to visit it multiple times each week? If you figure
out how to make that answer “yes,” then
you are ahead of over 95% of competing webmasters.
In most
industries, many people will fail, or barely get by, while a few successful
voices make themselves heard above the rest. Those people who gain many
subscribers and have other people talking about them will be successful.
Competitive markets are largely a game of mindshare. Ultimately, search engines
follow people.
Controlling
Costs and Leveraging Exposure
If you have a
high attention portion of your site that is hard to monetize you can still
leverage the value and trust associated with that section of your site without
offending your regular readers.
Some search algorithms
heavily weigh domain related authority scores. If you find yourself in a
position of great authority, but fear losing your market position by placing
too many ads or too much lower quality content in your main channel, then you
can create a static part of the site of lower quality that is more aggressively
monetized while still keeping your high authority channel noise free. Some
content management systems also allow you to change page layouts based on
content age, such that you can monetize archive content more aggressively than
new content.
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