June 09, 2007
Getting Targeted Traffic
If you have been following this blog, one of the constant things I emphasize is the importance of outstanding, original content to bring in targeted traffic which will make your website idea successful.
If you think of a unique website idea you really have something special. However, since most website ideas have already been done, you’ll need to find a way for people to find you. The great thing about the web is your website can be about the same topic as hundreds or thousands of other websites still be extremely successful.
The secret is to see what your competitors are doing and do it better. If you analyze your competition, you will see that most will be lacking great content. An excellent example of a site attacking its competition in a very competitive market with outstanding content is this loans website.
They definitely have the right formula as they build relevant content about personal loans, secured loans and many other topics. As this site adds more and more loan related content, they will begin to get a continual stream of targeted visitors looking for various type of personal loans. They also put easy links to all the social media websites on each article which is a great idea and a topic I will discuss in the future.
Whether you have a loan site or some other website idea in a highly competitive area, if you can make your site the destination on the web for information about your product it will be very successful. It amazes me how many webmasters build websites with all kinds of bells and whistles but forget the most important thing – Great Content.
Posted by Idea Man at 07:57 PM | Comments (0)
April 21, 2007
Contextual Links
I recently found a website with the best website idea I have come across in a long time. Webmasters with commercial websites are always looking for new ways to make money on their websites. Until now, unless you sold a great product or service, your best money making option is Google Adsense. In case you don't know, Google Adsense ads are those annoying ads in boxes you see all over the web on commercial websites.
Unfortunately, Adsense is pretty much the only game in town so they have been abusing their publishers by consistently lowering payouts. This makes the stockholders of Google happy because of record profits, but Google is not building any goodwill among their publishers. What goes around, comes around, Google.
This new website idea I found, LinkXL, is a new concept in website advertising that is going to turn website advertising and marketing upside down with their contextual link ads. This spunky website will not be making Google and their fat cat stock holders very happy.
LinkXL offers webmasters an automated way to sell monthly contextual links on their current web pages. The unique thing about LinkXL's concept is that standard HTML text links are created for advertisers, on the fly, in the middle of current content of established web pages. Their slogan is "Real Links, Real Time" - clever.
This new concept helps both the publisher and the advertiser tremendously. Since the advertiser gets a regular HTML contextual link, they will get click through traffic in addition to page popularity. Publishers, on the other hand, are able to sell contextual links on their entire website.
This means, if your website has 1,000 pages and you sell an average of one contextual link ad on each page for $10 per month, you will make $6,000 extra per month (LinkXL does a 60% - 40% split with their publishers).
Since I have a few commercial websites with tons of content I immediately signed up for LinkXL's beta program that will start in a week or two. LinkXL also will let me continue to run Adsense and use their service at the same time so everything I make will be icing on the cake. Whether you are an advertiser, publisher, or both, I would recommend you check LinkXL out. They truly have a revolutionary website idea.
Posted by Idea Man at 03:01 PM | Comments (4)
February 25, 2007
How to save on loans
We're always thinking about where we want to live next, or what car we want to drive next. It's fun to dream. But then the time comes to actually move or make a big purchase and it's a good idea to figure out the best way to borrow and save at the same time.
I came upon this site that shows you how to determine what a mortgage will cost you in the short and long term so that you can make intelligent decisions. This site has a cool flash applet that allows you to calculate a monthly mortgage for any home price, factoring in interest rates and the number of years for the mortgage. It's amazing to see the difference in total payment in a 15-year and a 30-year mortgage for one house! This monthly mortgage calculator is really worth checking out.
Now if you want a loan for a car, a boat or anything else, these loan calculators are extremely helpful. Again, you plug in different values and see how much you will have to pay, when you take into account the interest rate, term and closing cost. We realized that we really can afford a boat, so now I can't wait until summer.
Posted by Idea Man at 12:53 PM | Comments (1)
January 11, 2007
Great job: designer
My friend Vicki has a great eye when it comes to design. I have called her to my house and asked for advice and she always comes up with some fabulous ideas, and they are not always difficult to accomplish. She can turn a boring bachelor pad into a slick living space, and a cluttered house filled with kids' toys into an organized, comfortable home.
She has always been into fashion, too, cutting pictures out of magazines and trying out new styles.
Now that her kids are in school, she is considering going back to school herself to get a more formal education about design. I have seen some interior design schools featured on the Web and she is trying to find a way to make it work out for her schedule. She would love to have a career in the field that she has always been passionate about.
She's also interested in fashion design schools. She could use this training to work with a designer or as a personal consultant. Hopefully she won't be so busy that she can't help an old friend with some design tips.
Posted by Idea Man at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)
December 23, 2006
Santa Tracker
For several years NORAD has been tracking Santa live as he makes his way around the world.
Don’t believe? See for yourself with the NORAD Santa Tracking System.
Ho Ho Ho
Posted by Idea Man at 03:21 PM | Comments (1)
December 12, 2006
Data is Power
Google continues to amaze me with the new data they keep adding to their search. Their latest product Google Patent Search lets users search the U.S. Patent database. If you ever used the .gov patent search you will know it is extremely clumsy to use.
True to Google form, the Google Patent Search is fun and user friendly. You can find lots of Google’s other products and website ideas here. It seems that soon Google will control most data, I had a college professor that once said, “data is power.” This is something for us all to keep an eye on in the future.
Posted by Idea Man at 10:36 AM | Comments (0)