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Johnny's Ramblings In the Crosshairs A Word from Our Sponsor Coders Corner Scumbag of the Week |
Issue # 209 (02-13-2004)
Changing the Internet, One Thing at a Time |
| In the Crosshairs |
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I'm putting the finishing touches on a few things that will change the world (well, my world anyway...). This week, I'll introduce them to you in brief, and then as we move forward, we can delve more deeply into them in the forums. For now, just get your brain cells activated, and start mulling over these ideas...
One of the more shocking things we saw from our survey was that only 48% of you track the Return On Investment (ROI) of your marketing and advertising campaigns. Furthermore, only about 35% of you that do, do so with some sort of tracking software or service. The rest are relying on Web server log files to see which of your campaigns are sending you traffic. Based on only that, there's no way that you can tell who's sending business as well as traffic. So, we're preparing to launch the VirtualPromote ROI Tracking service next month. Currently in beta testing, the ROI Tracker will allow you to figure out how much traffic your various marketing endeavors are sending you, what the traffic they send you does (Are they just coming and going? Are they getting to your contact page? Are they actually reading your material?), and whether that traffic is spending money on your site. Every JimWorld member will be able to use this service free, to track one marketing campaign. If you want to track more, you'll need to upgrade your memberhip to "Premium" status. For now, we don't want you to do that. Just get into the ROI Tracker system (use your normal JimWorld.com login and password) to set up your campaign, and start tracking. We'll be taking feedback in the forums on how to improve the system, and hopefully, we'll help you see which marketing efforts of yours are paying for themselves and which ones are wasting your money. Visit http://www.jimworld.com/roi/ for more information on the service and to get things set up. Pay Per Click Search Engines are nearly as common today as celebrity fan sites. As with most businesses, they fall into a few basic categories... the Giants, the ones who wish they were Giants, and the ones who can't get out of their own way. The PPC model is simple: let Web site owners choose their keywords and their position for those keywords (for a fee), and let the visitors see the "cream of the crop" when they search. Win-Win, right ? In theory, yes, but with the oversaturation of this market, the quality and targeting of the search traffic has dwindled to a point where a large percentage of people are either afraid to use PPC or are unwilling to test the waters. We aim to change that perception, and redefine PPC with the OpenPPC Project. This initiative aims to drill down the quality issues by creating thousands of smaller, industry focused (niche) PPC search engines out of a single system. The initiative takes the business plan of the PPC world (auction-style keyword selection) and the lessons learned from DMOZ ("expert" category editors), and aims to give everyone what they want, in a way that was previously unavailable. Our editors will be, unlike at DMOZ, motivated and active (because they'll be paid for their efforts, based on their efforts). Our advertisers will receive extremely targeted traffic, because all leads will be double qualified (searching on a specific search phrase, from an industry-specific search portal), and the Internet as a whole will be a better place. That's the goal, anyway. Check out http://www.openppc.net for more details on how the system works. We're taking applications for Category Operator positions for the next few weeks, in preparation for an April 2 launch date. You'll notice a new forum at JimWorld.com devoted solely to OpenPPC. Feel free to pop-in and ask questions. http://www.jimworld.com/apps/webmaster.forums/action::topiclist/forum::openppc/ Are you sick of "Search as Usual?" Me too. Every search engine is the same, just with a different face, and slightly different results. Yes, there have been some nifty innovations here and there (The Eurekster Engine comes to mind: http://www.eurekster.com/), but by and large, it's the same old, same old. There are a gazillion pages of information on the Internet, a gazillion searchers trying to find needles in the haystack, and a gazillion Webmasters wondering what they have to do to get their needle to prick more people. Well, I don't have the solution, but I do have an idea, and maybe as a group we can answer a lot of questions and maybe even do something really special. Let's, as a group, build The Ultimate Search Engine. Before we start, we have to think about what that means. What would the ultimate search engine be like? Well, for starters, it would have a good name. One that, unlike Eurekster, you can actually spell. Well, how about ultimatesearchengine.com? Works for me, and I already own the name. Secondly, it should aim to make the site submission and ranking process one that is easy to understand, is clear and unwavering as to how it works, and is one that SEOs and the general Webmaster can understand and get their brains wrapped around. From the searcher's point of view, it's got to be easier to find things. Specifically, if I'm in the middle of working on a new Web design, and I forgot the syntax for an obscure DHTML command, I should be able to search for "GetElementByID" and get back a set of code samples and tutorials, and not 1,000 pages that use that function in their own scripting. In short, it's got to have some intelligence, some way of learning the searcher, and some way for the searcher to tell the engine more specifically what they want (without being arcane), so that they don't waste a bunch of time searching, and searching, and then searching again. Finally, it's got to have a business plan so that it can sustain itself. I have a decent framework of ideas on how to accomplish all of these goals (or at least begin to address them) as well as how to stick by my secondary goal set which is to make the system open source, use open source systems to develop it, and to open the development to all of you experts and observers here at JimWorld. Stay tuned for a new forum at JimWorld dedicated to the beginnings of this project, to gather your ideas, insights, and expertise, and to get some coding volunteers to make this a reality (and to scare the pants off the other engines someday). In the meantime, start dreaming and putting together your Ultimate Search Engine Wish List. |
Read the In the Crosshairs section from the Last Issue or in the Following Issue
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