by seekyt
62 replies
Thanks in advance to anyone who can give me some good advice.

My website (signature) compensates people to write articles and bookmark content. If you're familiar with Snipsly, Xomba, or even HubPages, you're familiar with my website.

I just set up a generous referral program, share the majority of revenue with authors, offer do-follow links, have a simple and SEO friendly site, etc.

So now what? The site is 6 months old and has 700 members and 6,000 content pages. It seems to just be stagnating at this number. Some of my members are trying to use those referral links, but not as many as I hoped. I'm trying to rank for a certain relevant keyword, but I fear even this won't be enough.

I've even offered 100% ownership of the site in the JV part of the site in exchange for marketing/advice/a business partner. It doesn't seem to generate much interest.

Do you think my "niche" is too saturated by the 10-20 real competitors I have (5-6 of them are big)? How would you ramp up your numbers if you were in my shoes?
  • Profile picture of the author getsmartt
    OK I would start by posting something over in the JV section if you haven't already.

    Write an ebook about your service, give your readers tips on how to optimize their content for your site, give it away for free everywhere you can.

    Make videos showing people how to use your site, and the results they can get.

    Search for threads, on this and related forums about people wanting to know where to post content, recommend your service and tell them why it is good, better or best.

    Take a look at how View Profile: x3xsolxdierx3x has promoted InfoBarrel in this forum, it is similar in concept to what you are trying to do although a different format.

    James
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      Let me look into your site a bit more, seekyt. What you have accomplished already is certainly nothing to gawk at....in order to receive 700 members, and 6,000 pieces of content, you have to be doing SOMETHING right...

      It has to be a bit frustrating though when everything seems to stagnate and plateau...

      As much as I love the revenue sharing aspects of these sites, it isn't, by any means, the end-all-be-all...in this sense, you have several sites leading the pack that actually give very little in return to content providers....

      The tricky part about this industry, though, is that those major players, by virtue of being first out the gate, are VERY well solidified....we'd have to brainstorm a way to develop and orchestrate a bit of a grassroots movement to get your site more visibility...

      It can certainly be done, and I have a few ideas.

      .....at this stage in the game, in order to effectively 'sell' people on your website, you will really have to make a concerted effort to deconstruct the offerings and business models of your competitors....that's what I did for InfoBarrel, and that's what I'd do for seekyt.

      First step...make some kind of visual illustration/graph that details how exactly your site is BETTER. I can tell you right off the bat, from what I can see already, seekyt has ALOT going for it. HubPages came around very early, but, guess what? You beat them out in both revenue share and referral % offerings....

      You beat out Squidoo and many other sites as well...

      The TRICKY part is gaining the search engine authority, and, unfortunately, that only comes from selling alot of people on the idea of your site, and encouraging and promoting the frequent usage that will gain it high favor in Google.

      (We can keep this thread going and/or talk offline...I may have to call it a night soon though...)
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Thanks guys. x3xsolxdierx3x, I've sent you a PM. I appreciate all the input.
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      Originally Posted by seekyt View Post

      Thanks guys. x3xsolxdierx3x, I've sent you a PM. I appreciate all the input.
      Tyler,

      One thing I've come to realize about these Web 2.0 sites is that MANY people love to join/register for them, yet, few like to take the time to read editorial guidelines and TOS and attempt to completely understand what exactly it is that they will be earning (and how they will be earning it). For the longest time, websites could just say "we share revenue" and get a ton of users. There are two major players right now that I can think of that don't even share how much revenue % they share with writers...

      You would think people would be crazy to submit content to these sites, right? Well, for some reason, people love following others.....their are business models out there that are far superior to HubPages and even Squidoo, however, it was the marketing, branding, and advertising that has really propelled them to the top....plus all the word of mouth spread by those who don't know (or don't care to know) other viable options. Granted, they have great search engine authority and have been around forever, so people just naturally use them (many times, because others use them) and ask few questions....

      Tyler,

      Do you have a pulse on exactly how much some of your writers are earning? One idea I have was something that one of the earliest Web 2.0 rev share site did....they developed "case studies" or "success stories"....I don't care if your site is PR4 or PR8, people want to go where others are earning.

      In fact, most people that register probably won't even have a clue about what it means to have a high Pagerank or greater Google authority....

      If you develop "case studies" and hit up bloggers with your numbers you can really turn alot of eyes to your site regardless of how many users, pieces of content you have....
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      • Profile picture of the author goindeep
        Go niche.



        Simple as that.

        Dont be afraid of niche, embrace it. As a new business, you need to carve your market out in the beginning. Who cares if you only offer articles on womens issues or gay and lesbian or travel or food or books or movies.

        Start small then expand.

        Trust me

        Now the reality, reality is you wont do this. Sad but i cant honestly see you rewinding and changing some things.

        You need to JV, you need some strong marketers to write an ebook about how other marketers can make money ujsing your site.
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        • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
          Exactly what I will be discussing with Tyler

          (Tyler, I'll be away for a better part of the day, but I'll get back to you this evening EST....)

          Originally Posted by Andrei Rotariu View Post

          Go niche.



          Simple as that.

          Dont be afraid of niche, embrace it. As a new business, you need to carve your market out in the beginning. Who cares if you only offer articles on womens issues or gay and lesbian or travel or food or books or movies.

          Start small then expand.

          Trust me

          Now the reality, reality is you wont do this. Sad but i cant honestly see you rewinding and changing some things.

          You need to JV, you need some strong marketers to write an ebook about how other marketers can make money ujsing your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Very interesting stuff Howie and Andrei. I have been tracking every page of the site since day one. I know what earns, and what doesn't. I could write a 1,000 page manifesto on it. Sometimes I send out tips and tricks emails, but they have a very low open rate - something I suspect is common with email "marketing."

    I have a few ideas I'd like to implement that might take me a while to design, test and build, but would be cornerstone to member success.

    One of the best things about Seekyt right now is that it has started to become social. Although 80% of everything submitted is just a bookmark, most things get voted on and a lot of things are commented on. My site members have become friends and even know each other now on other sites (competitor sites). Of course, they all have a lot of nice things to say about Seekyt - some even saying how excited they are to be the "first members" of a site that they "know will be big" in the next year. I'm just trying to live up to those expectations. If I had just one powerful member refer a bunch of people, and those people referred too, etc., the site would be up off the ground in no time. Getting there is half the battle though.

    Two or three members, who know absolutely minimal about off-page SEO were very excited to find their Seekyt articles (and even bookmarks!) at the top position in Google, less than a week after they published them. Now, I don't know much about their niche or competition, but it was nice to see this enthusiasm. In early October through early November, 85% of all traffic was from the search engines, and my site was doing phenomenally well. November 13th, 75% of those search engine results disappeared. If you saw the graph in my Webmaster Tools account, I'm sure even you would feel as sick as I did.

    I've asked for a "reconsideration" request, and have done everything I can to ensure nothing illegal or questionable is going on. At the same time, while I have considered getting rid of the social bookmarking aspect of my site in favor of only having unique articles, I'm sure I'd lose my existing customer base. So, more than money, or dramatic site changes, I'm simply more interested in exploding the numbers - members, referrals, content, search engine traffic, etc. That's why I'm really grateful to get input from you guys. I know a lot about the industry that I'm competing in, but I try to do things for my customers, not for (or against) my competitors - so getting input and advice from seasoned veterans of sites like these is priceless.
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      Seekyt, you've really peaked my curiosity here. Had I had the startup capital (and time), I'd love to start a site like this, however, the next big thing has been to literally help other sites build and develop themselves. While revenue share from my submitted content (along with other monetization methods typically) are a small motivator for me, there are several other motivating factors involved in my drive to help the 'little guys' emerge in this industry.

      1) I've said it is a very crowded industry, and, for the most part, that is true. There are definitely ALOT of sites all vying to do something similar, with similar business models and offerings. At the top of the game are sites like Squidoo, eHow, HubPages, Suite101, etc. The place where emerging as an authority site becomes a little less is daunting is when you effectively identify the shortcomings/weaknesses of those sites.

      I can tell you right now, 2 of the previous 4 sites don't even share with writers how their earnings are distributed. Right there, Seekyt has a leg up on them simply because they are transparent. There is absolutely nothing in Google Adsense's TOS that forbids a Web 2.0 property from revealing how much revenue is shared. While tens of thousands of people worldwide have joined these sites, few seem to ever question just exactly how revenue is shared and to what extent....

      On top of that, with exclusion given to the sites that mysteriously distribute revenue as part of a "secret algorithm", I can tell you already that Seekyt's revenue share arrangement is already superior. Your referral incentivization could actually be the most lucrative I've seen online thusfar.....most give writer's nothing for referring other members. Squidoo gives like $5 when a writer you refer writes a certain amount of lenses (or something like that). Needless to say, with tons of referrals, I haven't earned a dime from their referral program. I see earning from Seekyt's ref program as being a real possibility....

      ....to diverge a bit, one thing I would STRONGLY consider doing is somehow develop great success stories and try hard to broadcast them. People go where others earn money....the difficult thing is trying to continually motivate people to provide the content that will be a collective driving force behind the site's authority and favor in Google. Getting a site like this going is no easy task, that's for sure....but, what you have done already is really quite impressive....

      Via PM, If you are interested, I can revisit some of the things I have done for InfoBarrel. I see no reason why they can't work for Seekyt....

      At this time, if we can gain Seekyt the momentum, it could very well be a top ranked site in the world. When a loyal collective userbase is leveraged, you will see that the Squidoos, eHows, etc of the world are amongst some of the highest alexa ranked sites.

      If you don't mind me asking, how long have you been working on Seekyt, Tyler? Have you gained the attention of any bloggers? Links to posts?
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    I haven't gained the attention of any of the "important" bloggers out there yet (i.e. no movers and shakers in the industry) . Seekyt has been around for 6 months and 1 day. The site has only been what it is today for around 6 weeks - before that, it was a cheesy Pligg social bookmarking site. That's something I'm proud to not be anymore.

    Many of my members tweet about Seekyt, use their custom feeds to auto post to digg, and some have made blog posts about how great Seekyt is - but none of those articles are on high traffic blogs or websites. That's something I'm trying to figure out how to approach. It's not like Seekyt has the potential to be on Mashable (yet).

    The unique thing about my referral program is that you can refer members in many different ways. Obviously, you can share the regular referral url - refer them to the homepage or registration page of the site. But you can add your referral URL to the end of ANY Seekyt URL and be credited with the referral if the user signs up during that visit (or within 30 days if they don't clear the cookie). HubPages has something similar, but the underscore and redirect makes that URL invalid on a lot of systems. My system uses regular URL slashes with no redirect. That means, you have the incentive to share not only your own content, but everyone's content too. 25% on everything is generous, and the person I was taking advice from before told me it was suicide. I think otherwise - the better the incentive, the better off I'll be in the long run.

    A huge majority of my members came to Seekyt from HubPages. I caused a stir on HubPages in March with my "how to make $1,000 in a month with 10 hubs" series - something that took a lot of work, caused controversy, but ended up with me having a follower base of 300 loyal fans. I have since had to delete those articles because they violate the "NEW" HubPages TOS about backlinks.

    Now, I am stuck wondering whether to turn Seekyt into the type of Authority InfoBarrel is. I can stop the social bookmarking or make the rules more strict, require people to comment before they can post, hold their first 10 posts for moderation, etc. A lot of people use Seekyt to bookmark their articles on other sites. I think I'd lose a lot of people if I stopped the bookmarking function. However, Snipsly seems to get by (even though it's not real bookmarking). My bookmarking even scrapes images from the URL like Digg does for thumbnails. It automatically embeds videos if the person is linking directly to a video. It allows image uploads and links, and rich content. It's great for articles AND bookmarks.

    I just need to get the buzz required to gain attention. For me, it's easier said than done. I've resorted to bookmarking and article marketing to try and rank for a relevant keyword. All my efforts are paying off in Bing, and seem to be doing nothing in Google.

    At this point, though, I'm really considering making Seekyt more exclusive - potentially, weeding out the ability to bookmark so often, and maybe even focusing just on articles.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
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    • Profile picture of the author Devid Farah
      Have you considered that maybe some people are not aware of how good the referral benefits are?

      I see references to it in the FAQ and in the description at the top of the page, but let’s be honest here, many people don’t read those sorts of things.

      Maybe in the description at the top, put this information in bold and have it link to another page which describes the referral process in detail – benefits, how to refer someone under your name, etc.
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      • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
        Originally Posted by Devid Farah View Post

        Have you considered that maybe some people are not aware of how good the referral benefits are? I see references to it in the FAQ and in the description at the top of the page, but let's be honest here, many people don't read those sorts of things. Maybe in the description at the top, put this information in bold and have it link to another page which describes the referral process in detail - benefits, how to refer someone under your name, etc.
        Tyler,

        I think your referral benefits could be your "gold" here. They are certainly a bit different than anything I've seen online. The difficulty, now, is matching that up with a high authority/high PR website. With analysis of Seekyt in relationship to the rest of the industry, here are what I see:

        1) You have a very transparent platform. Everything people need to know about revenue share is written out in black and white. You aren't trying to pull the wool over people's eyes. Unfortunately, even some of the most highly ranked websites don't share either how much revenue they share with writers, nor do they share the way in which it is distributed.

        2) Your referral incentive is superior to just about any other site I've seen. Perhaps, part of your 'marketing' could be to say "5% more revenue share than HubPages, and 15% more referral rev share"?....I'm brainstorming here....

        ...one downside behind trying to get a low PR/authority site off the ground is that MANY people will come, expect incredible results nearly instantaneously, and leave just as fast as they came. This is why these sites typically can have tens of thousands of users, with only a small handful really even contributing. It can be frustrating and tedious for a site owner, as I'm sure it is for you....

        .....I would really try to carve out success stories from users. This is what InfoBarrel has been doing. Even though it's a PR4 site, you already have people saying they are earning $10-$20-$50+ a day....they have created a blog to highlight these site achievements.

        Unfortunately, I have my doubts, founded on research, that some of the leading sites in this industry even created PURE case studies, without somekind of artificial inflating of earnings, somehow. There is one site in particular that, even though I can't PROVE it per se definitively, I do think the case studies that they generated early on in their growth were a result of inconsistent applications of revenue share. (Given some people a higher revenue share than others, just so they can earn more, and be used as a case study....)

        So, doing this all in an ethically and morally sound way is VERY difficult in an industry dominated by a mafia type mentality that is willing to bend rules, lie and steal. I know I speak in vague generalities here, and I apologize...it would require a 10 page essay to explain WHY exactly I believe this industry is filled with some seriously shady characters...

        And, some of these sites are amongst the highest ranked in the world...

        Beyond money, you can see why I have an intense motivation and desire to see a site like Seekyt succeed.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Thanks Devid. I do have a page about the referral program, as well as a link in the sidebar and footer. I think I will move that to the header. Thanks for the idea.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    I think what I will do is create a success story page, and give users the incentive of having a link to their site or profile if they contribute a success story. Not just money, but different types of success stories.

    I think I need to develop my own case study, perhaps a 10 page report detailing how users use Seekyt, why it is different than other sites, why it is better than other sites, and how it will get even better with time. Perhaps I will include future projections, tips and tricks, etc. to make it more interesting.

    I'm also thinking I might want to get a press release written (or write it myself?) and distributed once I have the modeling complete. Maybe the press release could highlight some of the unique features or simplicity of Seekyt in contrast to others. I'll have to research that a bit more deeply, or maybe hire a professional that I find is highly recommended.

    My Goal for Seekyt, simplified: 100 members or 100,000 members, the site is simple, free and generous. One person I know, who had his chance at entering as a major player in this game, started off offering 100% revenue sharing. Once the site received tons of traffic, members, and content, he dropped revenue sharing and made it impossible for users to remove their content. The end result - he might have made a few bucks, but his reputation is ruined.

    I don't want to try and put other people out of business in the long run, as much as I want to establish Seekyt as a great alternative or supplemental site. The unique features we have, and the community we have so far, already make us stand out. So, in essence, you have the exact motivation and vision that I have for the future of Seekyt.com.
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      If people are 'sold' on the Seekyt site and brand, you really shouldn't have to give people much of an incentive....a link to their site is fine, but not sure I'd venture into giving anything else as an incentive just to write a success story. Of course, in order for someone to write one.....they have to actually be 'succeeding' in a manner that will attract alot of other dedicated users....

      I've found that alot of very ambitious Web 2.0 rev share startup companies usually are only a 1-3 person thing, typically operating out of a single office space (or dorm room, if that). For all the ideas you, I, or anyone could have, there's always limited manpower in which to implement them. InfoBarrel is running into this, but they are also doing a fairly decent job at leveraging their brand and community. I wouldn't say it's "taking advantage of people", however, if you can effectively influence and lead people, you can get them to do a tremendous amount of good for your site (and business), and you return payment could be the actual community itself....the sense of worth and purpose towards pursuing a collective goal.

      The 10 page report isn't a bad idea....and, that's something I had recommended that InfoBarrel do. I had recommended that they actually make a report that aggregates a few tips, as well as, their editorial guidelines and TOS. The idea behind that was to develop a bit of a brand loyalty immediately once people join the site....

      Look at some of the biggest sites. They have tens of thousands of members, and a small handful that contribute MOST of the content. People have an inherent drive to feel like they belong, and a free downloadable report, that is automatically delivered to their inboxes upon registration, could be HUGE in developing a degree of return visitors and brand loyalty....especially if they are encouraged to print it out, they'll also have a continually reminder sitting on their desk (unless they throw it out...lol)....the report would obviously have your logo and be co-branded with the site.

      Instead of just joining and leaving, only to never return, although I have yet to officially test this, I do believe that this would give some guidance and a sense of purpose....AS WELL AS, helping to inherently ensure a degree of quality control over the submitted content. Nothing is ever a fail safe guarantee that content submitted will be outstanding, however, a report would give at least some guidance....

      And...certainly, in the report, deconstruct the business models of every site. Don't just tell people success stories, and that its great to contribute content there, but also show WHY they should invest their time there. One thing I have been particularly driven to do online....and I do this with my soldiers, as well....I try to be a good steward of their time. I don't want people just to participate in one site because I say so, but I also like to do the fundamental background research behind WHY they should invest so much time. (reference the chart I made for InfoBarrel...)

      Originally Posted by seekyt View Post

      I think what I will do is create a success story page, and give users the incentive of having a link to their site or profile if they contribute a success story. Not just money, but different types of success stories.

      I think I need to develop my own case study, perhaps a 10 page report detailing how users use Seekyt, why it is different than other sites, why it is better than other sites, and how it will get even better with time. Perhaps I will include future projections, tips and tricks, etc. to make it more interesting.

      I'm also thinking I might want to get a press release written (or write it myself?) and distributed once I have the modeling complete. Maybe the press release could highlight some of the unique features or simplicity of Seekyt in contrast to others. I'll have to research that a bit more deeply, or maybe hire a professional that I find is highly recommended.

      My Goal for Seekyt, simplified: 100 members or 100,000 members, the site is simple, free and generous. One person I know, who had his chance at entering as a major player in this game, started off offering 100% revenue sharing. Once the site received tons of traffic, members, and content, he dropped revenue sharing and made it impossible for users to remove their content. The end result - he might have made a few bucks, but his reputation is ruined.

      I don't want to try and put other people out of business in the long run, as much as I want to establish Seekyt as a great alternative or supplemental site. The unique features we have, and the community we have so far, already make us stand out. So, in essence, you have the exact motivation and vision that I have for the future of Seekyt.com.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    This is all excellent stuff so far. I've sent out an email blast asking for a few "success stories" - though, not just monetary success - made friends, had fun, was surprised, was pleased, etc. I'm going to make a special page on the site for success stories, and also come up with the short report on why Seekyt is great. After that, I will email a copy to existing members, place a direct link in the profile of every member, and perhaps even distribute it on sites like docstoc and scribd.

    If you have any more ideas, I'd love to discuss this further. Keep me posted. In the meantime, I'm going to try and do as much of what we've talked about as I can.
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      Originally Posted by seekyt View Post

      This is all excellent stuff so far. I've sent out an email blast asking for a few "success stories" - though, not just monetary success - made friends, had fun, was surprised, was pleased, etc. I'm going to make a special page on the site for success stories, and also come up with the short report on why Seekyt is great. After that, I will email a copy to existing members, place a direct link in the profile of every member, and perhaps even distribute it on sites like docstoc and scribd.

      If you have any more ideas, I'd love to discuss this further. Keep me posted. In the meantime, I'm going to try and do as much of what we've talked about as I can.
      Tyler,

      Have you ever heard of a website called "KillerStartups"? Have you ever considered submitting your "startup" there? With 200K daily visitors, I'd have to agree with them that it 'could be' really the best opportunity for new startups (outside of Warrior Forum, in some ways) (even though, I know Seekyt isn't exactly NEW, per se)

      There is an entire section dedicated to Web 2.0....

      I can't seem to find pricing though...I believe you can submit a free one, but, at one time, there was additional pricing for EXTRAS that appeared to be very worth it. If you ever do this, I'd be willing to help you with a VERY compelling write-up that could gain Seekyt alot of exposure quite easily....

      "In an industry dominated by revenue sharing websites that fail to be transparent, Seekyt is fast becoming a breath of fresh air for ______ (freelance writers, etc...). With a 65% revenue share and an astounding 25% referrals rev share, this site is beginning to become a formidable opponent of sites like ________, that currently rule this industry...."

      How does that sound?
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      • Profile picture of the author seekyt
        Originally Posted by x3xsolxdierx3x View Post

        Tyler,

        "In an industry dominated by revenue sharing websites that fail to be transparent, Seekyt is fast becoming a breath of fresh air for ______ (freelance writers, etc...). With a 65% revenue share and an astounding 25% referrals rev share, this site is beginning to become a formidable opponent of sites like ________, that currently rule this industry...."

        How does that sound?

        That is outstanding. I'm going to go check out Killer Startups right now and see what I can find.

        EDIT: Looks simple enough. I'll need to come up with 300 characters or less for the "what your site does" field. It doesn't look like they allow a write up, though. I'll check in here later for more updates.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    I submitted the site to KillerStartups. I can't say it was a pleasant experience. After not choosing any of the products and clicking submit, I was directed to a page asking for 99 dollars to have Seekyt reviewed (with no guarantees) in 48 hours. I did not purchase this service, and I did not receive any kind of confirmation that my submission was received. There was no "no thanks" or "skip" button. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. In the mean time, I'm going to try and find some similar sites to submit to.
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      Originally Posted by seekyt View Post

      I submitted the site to KillerStartups. I can't say it was a pleasant experience. After not choosing any of the products and clicking submit, I was directed to a page asking for 99 dollars to have Seekyt reviewed (with no guarantees) in 48 hours. I did not purchase this service, and I did not receive any kind of confirmation that my submission was received. There was no "no thanks" or "skip" button. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. In the mean time, I'm going to try and find some similar sites to submit to.
      Their site much have changed a bit in the last year or so. The process leading to a review and sale seems a bit more tedious than it use to be. From what I remember, there was a way to get a free review, and on the front page, there was a way to get a paid review that carried along with it a few more bells and whistles....marketing of your site/the startup, etc.

      I'd have to see what it is exactly that you are seeing before determining whether it would be worth it or not. One capability it does have is allowing you to gain a great deal of votes and social proof from your community. When people see a 50+ vote startup, amongst a sea of 1 or 0 vote startups, chances are they would gain much more interest....

      I'm sorry that it didn't work out.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    No worries! I read an article about some tips and tricks on getting listed at KillerStartups, and followed some of the advice, which was to submit my site to some other startup websites. Apparently, Killer Startups is more likely to list your content if it is featured elsewhere. I have submitted Seekyt to around 10 new sites today to see if I can get listed somewhere.

    Now, I'm thinking about buying a press release submission package from someone in the warrior special offer thread, or maybe just on Fiverr.. or maybe I'll do it myself. Your compelling write up might be handy just thought I'd throw that out there.

    By the way Howie, I can't wait to see you join over at Seekyt! I was looking at your infobarrel product, and it seems that if I had members such as yourself and Jason, I might have an even better chance.

    I've actually thought of this as a tactic - go to competitor sites, find the top members, try to recruit them, look for congruity across sites' top member lists (i.e. the same "top" or "featured" person on more than one site), try even harder to recruit them to Seekyt. I'm not sure about that though.. I think it might be seen as way too spammy. I think if I get just a few members who appreciate referral programs, the word-of-mouth should happen organically, since top referrers are the ones who usually write articles about a site, or have a list of people who they can influence. The formula for viral success is always 1 person tells 10 people, they all tell 10, etc. I just need to find someone capable or interested!
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      Tyler,

      I can't believe I've responded in detail in this thread, but had yet to sign up for the site (I just did). I'm not just saying this...but, this is seriously one awesome site...I've been using a similar site called InfoPirate. While I do like it there, some of the functionality of Seekyt is really cool.

      I'll be investing a bit of time there, that's for sure! Let's see how far we can take this site

      Are you up for the challenge?

      Originally Posted by seekyt View Post

      No worries! I read an article about some tips and tricks on getting listed at KillerStartups, and followed some of the advice, which was to submit my site to some other startup websites. Apparently, Killer Startups is more likely to list your content if it is featured elsewhere. I have submitted Seekyt to around 10 new sites today to see if I can get listed somewhere.

      Now, I'm thinking about buying a press release submission package from someone in the warrior special offer thread, or maybe just on Fiverr.. or maybe I'll do it myself. Your compelling write up might be handy just thought I'd throw that out there.

      By the way Howie, I can't wait to see you join over at Seekyt! I was looking at your infobarrel product, and it seems that if I had members such as yourself and Jason, I might have an even better chance.

      I've actually thought of this as a tactic - go to competitor sites, find the top members, try to recruit them, look for congruity across sites' top member lists (i.e. the same "top" or "featured" person on more than one site), try even harder to recruit them to Seekyt. I'm not sure about that though.. I think it might be seen as way too spammy. I think if I get just a few members who appreciate referral programs, the word-of-mouth should happen organically, since top referrers are the ones who usually write articles about a site, or have a list of people who they can influence. The formula for viral success is always 1 person tells 10 people, they all tell 10, etc. I just need to find someone capable or interested!
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Howie,

    I'm definitely up for the challenge! InfoPirate is cool, but since it's powered by drigg for drupal, I have inherent issues with it - basically, best reviewer, shetoldme, infopirate, xomba, squidstop, etc. are all clones of each other with a different template. However, Infopirate and Squidstop take the cake in terms of great names. One of the members of Seekyt uses infopirate to, well, bookmark all of his Seekyt (and other web) content using a pirate tone of voice. I think that's just awesome.

    Just so you know, when you visit your profile you can write journals, get your referral link, enter your adsense details, etc.

    I'm glad you like Seekyt. I hope you continue to find it useful.
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      Tyler,

      Now, I can bookmark AND write entire articles there? It seems like sites are typically just exclusive to one or the other (articles vs. bookmarks)...

      Are the two I've submitted so far today along the lines of what you guys are looking for for bookmarks. Some people like to quote 1-2 lines of the article they are bookmarking, however, I prefer not to....

      Originally Posted by seekyt View Post

      Howie,

      I'm definitely up for the challenge! InfoPirate is cool, but since it's powered by drigg for drupal, I have inherent issues with it - basically, best reviewer, shetoldme, infopirate, xomba, squidstop, etc. are all clones of each other with a different template. However, Infopirate and Squidstop take the cake in terms of great names. One of the members of Seekyt uses infopirate to, well, bookmark all of his Seekyt (and other web) content using a pirate tone of voice. I think that's just awesome.

      Just so you know, when you visit your profile you can write journals, get your referral link, enter your adsense details, etc.

      I'm glad you like Seekyt. I hope you continue to find it useful.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Hi Howie,

    Yes, you can bookmark OR write articles. If you want to write an article, you just check the box on submit step 1 and skip entering a URL.

    Your bookmarks are great. I only require 50 characters for your description, and I also prefer when people type a unique description, but it's not necessarily required. Some people mistakenly copy and paste their entire HubPages articles when they bookmark. That's really the only thing I frown upon.
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      Good. I really like to make sure that I'm "doing things right" before I begin investing a significant amount of time in any one place. The last thing I want to do is have an account deleted or banned because I violated a rule that I didn't know existed. Typically, before I jump in, I like to thorough review editorial guidelines, as well...

      Now, it appears like the article location is actually auto-populated on the bookmark subject line once it is initially submitted...is that OK, Tyler?


      Originally Posted by seekyt View Post

      Hi Howie,

      Yes, you can bookmark OR write articles. If you want to write an article, you just check the box on submit step 1 and skip entering a URL.

      Your bookmarks are great. I only require 50 characters for your description, and I also prefer when people type a unique description, but it's not necessarily required. Some people mistakenly copy and paste their entire HubPages articles when they bookmark. That's really the only thing I frown upon.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Yep! For ease of use, the title is auto populated. If you want to change it, you can, but having the title extracted from any page you bookmark is something my members really wanted integrated. More often than not, I only integrate new features when I have a demand for it from 2 or more members within a reasonable time frame. The next thing I'm working on is Google Analytics integration - the most requested feature. It's a lot harder to build than I thought, though!
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      Originally Posted by seekyt View Post

      Yep! For ease of use, the title is auto populated. If you want to change it, you can, but having the title extracted from any page you bookmark is something my members really wanted integrated. More often than not, I only integrate new features when I have a demand for it from 2 or more members within a reasonable time frame. The next thing I'm working on is Google Analytics integration - the most requested feature. It's a lot harder to build than I thought, though!
      Google Analytics would definitely be a great idea to integrate. Squidoo has something similar, which I do really like about there site.

      Do you find that writers on Seekyt contribute alot more bookmarks than articles, articles than bookmarks, or a combination of all? Do some writers do exclusively bookmarks (or exclusively articles)?
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      • Profile picture of the author seekyt
        Seekyt has now integrated Google Analytics. Users can input their Analytics "web property ID" and start tracking all visits on their submissions. Just though I'd update anyone who has been following this thread .

        Here's The Details

        Originally Posted by x3xsolxdierx3x View Post

        Google Analytics would definitely be a great idea to integrate. Squidoo has something similar, which I do really like about there site.

        Do you find that writers on Seekyt contribute alot more bookmarks than articles, articles than bookmarks, or a combination of all? Do some writers do exclusively bookmarks (or exclusively articles)?
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        • Profile picture of the author Devid Farah
          What a great discussion here guys!
          Tyler,i gotta tell ya...i really like your website!
          I read your article "How to Make Money on Seekyt" and I found it extremely interesting!
          Great work buddy!
          I predict a great success for your site....

          Best of luck!
          Devid
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Here is how I would break it down:

    5% of members exclusively submit articles.
    25% of members submit a mix of bookmarks and articles, leaning more toward articles.
    5% submit a mix of bookmarks and articles, leaning more toward bookmarks.
    65% exclusively submit bookmarks.

    Some bookmarks have been known to actually rank and do well in Google, and most articles have been known to rank and do well in Google. However, it is important and interesting to note that the 5% who submit a mix of bookmarks and articles, leaning toward bookmarks, are probably the most active on the site - easily making up more than 40% of all contributions in the last 30 days. They are the superstars of Seekyt so far.

    One one more interesting note, during the month of November, one single article by one single member took 40% of all traffic during the entire month. That traffic has since waned, since the article was specific to the month of November. Still, it shows me the potential of using my site for Traffic, and I've already received a "success story" from that member based on traffic and AdSense earnings. I'm still waiting to get a few more before I open the success stories page.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Ha, talk about Seekyt being social! The bookmark you submitted less than two hours ago about the top 10 christmas toys of all time has already made it to the "all time" page - meaning the bookmarks with most votes. I have a feeling that in a few weeks, it will take a lot more than 5-10 votes to get there, because the voting trend has been exploding.. most things will probably get 5-10 votes - and the stars will get a ton more! At least people are reading your bookmarks, and they really are worth more than just a backlink.
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      Originally Posted by seekyt View Post

      Ha, talk about Seekyt being social! The bookmark you submitted less than two hours ago about the top 10 christmas toys of all time has already made it to the "all time" page - meaning the bookmarks with most votes. I have a feeling that in a few weeks, it will take a lot more than 5-10 votes to get there, because the voting trend has been exploding.. most things will probably get 5-10 votes - and the stars will get a ton more! At least people are reading your bookmarks, and they really are worth more than just a backlink.
      I've been investing alot of time into InfoPirate lately, but, not to bash, but their site has just a few obvious drawbacks that Seekyt appears to be addressing quite nicely. It's interesting to see the level of "interaction" in the site. As I begin to bookmark, I'll definitely start to venture out a bit...voting, commenting, etc....

      I wonder why the voting trend has been exploding? It seems like, on other sites, people could care less about voting up quality content...
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    I think I can only take some of the credit for people being interested. I have said since day one that if Seekyt is going to be labeled as a social website, it needs to be social. People have voted and commented randomly, but a few weeks ago some members decided that it was a good idea to vote and comment on everything they like, possibly based on some information I gave to all members about updated content, and how Google likes pages where content is frequently updated - also how comments are a great way to do that.

    You will likely begin to notice a trend, where very few submissions get only one vote, and some submissions get tons of comments. I think since every time a comment is made, all members involved with that article (the author, and all other commentators) are sent an email telling them a comment has been posted. Of course, you can disable that option in your account settings, but I think that has been part of the success. On average, 30-40 comments are posted per day, which I feel is nothing short of amazing considering the number of members and amount of content. I don't get those kinds of results on Twitter, Facebook, or even Digg to be honest, with more followers on those accounts than members at Seekyt.

    To me, if this trend continues, Seekyt is already a success. If I get the numbers up a bit, there is no end to where we can go with this site. Sure, there are sites like it, and mine is relatively new, but I think our community is easily the best of all, and I would bet everything I have on that.
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      I like what I'm seeing over there. I don't know if it's just me, but, bookmarking almost seems TOO easy. In one day, on InfoPirate, I busted out a good 50 or so bookmarks with ease....granted, I know this depends on the writer and one's time available. With those ad placements, I hate to admit this, but many days my bookmarking revenue exceeds the revenue on articles that took 30min-hour to write. Right now, I have close to 350 articles on InfoBarrel, with most being well over 1,000 words....While I do use those articles for other purposes (affiliations, etc), those ads are so enticing on a bookmark, it's not even funny.

      For awhile, I actually thought I was doing something wrong or dirty by bookmarking other people's content. It seemed as though they had invested alot of time writing them, and, along I came, took 3-5 minutes to write a bookmark, that many times, could actually rank near the original article.


      Originally Posted by seekyt View Post

      I think I can only take some of the credit for people being interested. I have said since day one that if Seekyt is going to be labeled as a social website, it needs to be social. People have voted and commented randomly, but a few weeks ago some members decided that it was a good idea to vote and comment on everything they like, possibly based on some information I gave to all members about updated content, and how Google likes pages where content is frequently updated - also how comments are a great way to do that.

      You will likely begin to notice a trend, where very few submissions get only one vote, and some submissions get tons of comments. I think since every time a comment is made, all members involved with that article (the author, and all other commentators) are sent an email telling them a comment has been posted. Of course, you can disable that option in your account settings, but I think that has been part of the success. On average, 30-40 comments are posted per day, which I feel is nothing short of amazing considering the number of members and amount of content. I don't get those kinds of results on Twitter, Facebook, or even Digg to be honest, with more followers on those accounts than members at Seekyt.

      To me, if this trend continues, Seekyt is already a success. If I get the numbers up a bit, there is no end to where we can go with this site. Sure, there are sites like it, and mine is relatively new, but I think our community is easily the best of all, and I would bet everything I have on that.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Howie, you're doing exactly what I wished everyone did. Social bookmarking, at it's heart, was never meant to be such a platform for self promotion as it has become today. Bookmarking stuff that is simply cool, interesting, or useful it what I recommend, but self-promotion is fine too. If I didn't allow it, I'd be out of business with Seekyt. Just announced in the last few days, even Delicious is going to be finding a new home soon. Yahoo is going to be selling it off, simply because social bookmarking isn't "cool" anymore. Even the creator of the CMS I use to run Seekyt has redirected his own (once very active) bookmarking site to a facebook page. Facebook is the only real form of "social" bookmarking that exists anymore. "Share a cool link with people whom you think might like it." Since Google no longer recognizes bookmarking links (do follow or not) as much of an authority, I believe bookmarking for "traffic" or "SEO" purposes is going to fall out of the ranks in the near future. It's just not worth the effort anymore.

    In fact, I think the next big thing is going to be social "friendmarking" - sign up to a website using your twitter/facebook/friendfeed account, import your friends when needed, and recommend them to the world using tags and descriptions, such as "This person loves rock music and dogs." If a person wants to make a friend, they can sign in, search for someone who loves dogs and rock music, and maybe make a connection on the 3rd party site if they like what they see. If you like this idea, go ahead and try to build it. I had been working at it but scrapped it. I don't know how to get the venture capital required to hire a developer to do exactly what I envision with this concept (WAY beyond my own programming abilities), but I do think this will be one of the next "big" trends. And there are no websites which currently do exactly what I'm mentioning!

    Anyway, back to the subject - if you can rank with just bookmarks, more power to you!
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      I haven't yet bookmarked my own articles on Seekyt, however, I think I may eventually mix in a few here and there. Maybe for every 5-10 I bookmark, I may throw in a link to one of my own articles. That seems like a fair enough ratio to not appear like I'm just hammering the site with bookmarks to my own confident. I do feel confident in my own writing that I believe that my other articles ARE articles that others would want to read, however, there is still alot of good content out there on the internet.

      I've been trying to switch it up amongst the many sites that I frequent.

      I did not hear about Delicious...that's quite interesting, indeed.

      Having never actually developed a platform like this on my own, I'm not familiar with CMS either. Is that a rather expensive software/interface used to run Seekyt?

      Do you think that Seekyt could ever, just from the site alone, generate the capital needed to give 'friendmarking' a shot? I know that InfoBarrel isn't even a profitable website yet, and, the huge disparity lies in the fact that the top ranked sites in this industry are raking in millions a month. (I believe it was said that eHow was earning 5-10 million/month. Not sure I need to revisit my story behind why I'd like to see underdogs like Seekyt and Infobarrel succeed in an industry that is dominated by less-than-generous and less-than-transparent business models.)

      Originally Posted by seekyt View Post

      Howie, you're doing exactly what I wished everyone did. Social bookmarking, at it's heart, was never meant to be such a platform for self promotion as it has become today. Bookmarking stuff that is simply cool, interesting, or useful it what I recommend, but self-promotion is fine too. If I didn't allow it, I'd be out of business with Seekyt. Just announced in the last few days, even Delicious is going to be finding a new home soon. Yahoo is going to be selling it off, simply because social bookmarking isn't "cool" anymore. Even the creator of the CMS I use to run Seekyt has redirected his own (once very active) bookmarking site to a facebook page. Facebook is the only real form of "social" bookmarking that exists anymore. "Share a cool link with people whom you think might like it." Since Google no longer recognizes bookmarking links (do follow or not) as much of an authority, I believe bookmarking for "traffic" or "SEO" purposes is going to fall out of the ranks in the near future. It's just not worth the effort anymore.

      In fact, I think the next big thing is going to be social "friendmarking" - sign up to a website using your twitter/facebook/friendfeed account, import your friends when needed, and recommend them to the world using tags and descriptions, such as "This person loves rock music and dogs." If a person wants to make a friend, they can sign in, search for someone who loves dogs and rock music, and maybe make a connection on the 3rd party site if they like what they see. If you like this idea, go ahead and try to build it. I had been working at it but scrapped it. I don't know how to get the venture capital required to hire a developer to do exactly what I envision with this concept (WAY beyond my own programming abilities), but I do think this will be one of the next "big" trends. And there are no websites which currently do exactly what I'm mentioning!

      Anyway, back to the subject - if you can rank with just bookmarks, more power to you!
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    In reply to your first post, I do believe I could generate enough cash over time to get this feature built, but by the time that happened, it will probably have been built by someone else. You know how it goes

    In response to your second post, yes, I wrote that post. I figured that since a lot of the members at Seekyt joined because they knew me at HubPages, they might read my tips too. In fact, I got my first Seekyt member back in June only 30 minutes after I wrote a hub about Seekyt - of course, the site has dramatically changed since then .

    By the way, CMS just stands for content management system. For instance, Wordpress is a CMS. Seekyt is an extension of the Hotaru CMS, a project I'm very proud to have built my website with. Of course, I could have built the same site, with every single feature you could ever imagine (except for a lot of the Social Bookmarking features, such as image thumbnails and auto title scraper) using free, off the shelf stuff from Wordpress. But, I needed a more exclusive way to build my site . Snipsly, for instance, is entirely built on Wordpress using free plugins. I didn't want to be a Snipsly Copy.
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  • Profile picture of the author Daniel Deegan
    Just wanted to put my 2 pence in real quick. Interesting thread and site. A few things stand out to me.

    First what solider said about transparency really caught my attention. I would maybe try and leverage this further somehow. Make people feel like the own part of the site by giving details on how much the site is making, what percentage of that comes from them, ect. I'm NOT saying these are good ideas in themselves but I think this would be a interesting direction to grow the site and make it "cooler".

    The more you can get the community invested emotionally by making them feel its their site not yours the better in my oppinon.

    The second thing I wanted to say was I think you should perhaps improve the visuals and design of the site. It's not as clean or smooth as it could be which takes a way from that web 2.0 sleekness many people have come to expect.

    It's a cool site, hope you do well with it.
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      I know I mentioned it, but it's a bit of a tricky "sell". It's a given that these sites are among some of the most trafficked in the world. Tens of thousands of people join them (motivating people to contribute is an entirely different issue altogether). Unfortunately, few people consider things like business models, offerings, and transparency.

      Those with little understanding of how things work online join simply because it's an opportunity and they see the fact that they can earn money without having their own website. Few people seem to care about the growth, authority, and analytics behind things. Point in case: I could earn more from a high PR Web 2.0 property that gives 30% revenue share than a low PR site that gives 100% revenue share.

      I found an interesting site today, akin to eHow, that was offering the first 27 registered users a 100% revenue share...and, they built in a 'sense of urgency' by using the typically scratch out technique....as people join, they are sure to decrease the membership able to qualify, in order to build in that urgency. They are clearly doing this because they are a new site and they are trying to gain for their site momentum...

      I guess I got off-topic....lol

      So...transparency....I've been screaming to the top of my lungs to the point of annoyance about it. It's a big deal to me, and, it depends on the person if it'll be a big deal to them. I do think success stories trump transparency in most people's minds. If people see "so-and-so is earnings $1,000/month, they are more inclined to not care about transparency..."

      This leads into, like I said earlier, how I strongly believe that some of the bigger sites now have just flat out fabricated those case studies. Playing fairly and ethically is VERY tough in this industry....

      I get a bit of a "high" off of getting in on the ground floor of low PR sites, though. I sacrifice a bit of revenue, I know. Had I posted my 350+ IB articles on, say, HubPages, the high PR could naturally make them earn more. My strategy involves "big picture" things, like growth, community, interaction, functionality of the site, etc...so, explaining it to people is nothing short of tedious.

      Plus, those sites that offer high revenue share, and provide value to the end user, and host Google Adsense, will eventually qualify for an Adsense Premium account.

      Maybe you could someone orchestrate a collective drive towards getting the site to gain a Adsense Premium Account? This would give people a "goal" and a "purpose".....PLUS, the obtainment of one, will immediately make all their current content uploaded THAT much more valuable overnight....


      Originally Posted by Daniel Deegan View Post

      Just wanted to put my 2 pence in real quick. Interesting thread and site. A few things stand out to me.

      First what solider said about transparency really caught my attention. I would maybe try and leverage this further somehow. Make people feel like the own part of the site by giving details on how much the site is making, what percentage of that comes from them, ect. I'm NOT saying these are good ideas in themselves but I think this would be a interesting direction to grow the site and make it "cooler".

      The more you can get the community invested emotionally by making them feel its their site not yours the better in my oppinon.

      The second thing I wanted to say was I think you should perhaps improve the visuals and design of the site. It's not as clean or smooth as it could be which takes a way from that web 2.0 sleekness many people have come to expect.

      It's a cool site, hope you do well with it.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Thanks Daniel. I am about as far away from being a "designer" as it gets. Can you provide any suggestions to the design that you think would help? I appreciate the input.

    In the last few weeks, Seekyt has changed from being entirely black and white to at least having some color and a unique font on post titles. Aside from that, I feel that I'm a little limited.

    What can I do to make the design cleaner or smoother? I want to keep user content in focus as much as possible, so the only thing I'm not willing to do is gigantic headers, static landing pages, etc.

    Also, I have succeeded in getting the site to load in 2.4 seconds according to Webmaster Tools, which is apparently "faster than 65% of all sites." Minifying CSS, JS, and optimizing all the images was a lot harder to do than it sounds. I'd like to keep a fast loading time if possible.

    Are there any shining examples of a web 2.0 feel out there that would be good to model myself after?
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Unfortunately, the way that AdSense works, the only types of revenue sharing sites that would benefit from a premium AdSense account are the ones like Squidoo, where your own AdSense account is not involved.

    For premium AdSense to work on a site like Infobarrel or Seekyt, each and every member would have to qualify for premium AdSense in order for premium ads to show up. That's why the biggest site with the deepest ad integration, HubPages (which owns YieldBuild.. meaning their ads are, likely, the most optimized), can't even use premium AdSense ads. I read a figure somewhere that HubPages earns something like $20,000 a day, 90% of which is from AdSense. I'd be amazed to see how much more they would make if they went premium.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Well, although I haven't heard from Killer Startups, I was invited to be featured on "Feed My App" today. That's exciting for the Seekyt community. Woo Hoo!

    Seekyt on Feedmyapp (I would definitely appreciate a retweet or FB like on this page if you have the time)
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Either here or Launch Feed. Those are the only two recent places Seekyt has been listed lately. It's generating a pretty good buzz about Seekyt so far.
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      Originally Posted by seekyt View Post

      Either here or Launch Feed. Those are the only two recent places Seekyt has been listed lately. It's generating a pretty good buzz about Seekyt so far.
      Great stuff. The things I really like about Seekyt make the submission process for bookmarks really seemless: the auto-populating of the title, and the automatic addition of pictures extracted from the article.

      I'm not 100% sure if my Adsense ID is injected the right way, however, because I'm not even seeing impressions (let alone clicks). I do understand that earnings could be very low to inexistent, at least in the early parts of using a site like this, but, after submitting a sizable handful of content, usually there are impressions showing up...

      Any way to check this for me, Tyler? I came across a Hub that said something about adding the "pub-" part, but, the way it is laid out on the site, it makes you think that you JUST add the number part (because it's prefaced by "pub-"....
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  • Profile picture of the author nebraska
    When getting started at InfoBarrel, I noticed that many of the members were inquiring about donating earnings to charity. Many of them seemed to be very interested in that part of all this. If you were to implement this, it may encourage a lot of members to not only write more, but recruit and encourage others to benefit the good by participation.
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      Originally Posted by nebraska View Post

      When getting started at InfoBarrel, I noticed that many of the members were inquiring about donating earnings to charity. Many of them seemed to be very interested in that part of all this. If you were to implement this, it may encourage a lot of members to not only write more, but recruit and encourage others to benefit the good by participation.
      IMHO, integrating just makes a platform look good...like its not all about the money, but, rather, in allowing writers the opportunity to donate to great causes as well. Squidoo has been doing this for a while, and they have a great system integrated....InfoBarrel has a story behind their integration of charities in that one of the owners, Ryan McKenzie, actually has a family member who is affected by the disease of which the first foundation that have integrated supports. (the name of the illness escapes me).

      These sites CAN become multi-million dollar monthly earning sites, and, in this respect, its great to see them give back the way they do.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Hi Howie,

    It appears to me that your AdSense ID is showing up correctly. The old Seekyt required you to enter "pub-" but the new system only takes numbers. If I'm not mistaken, when you enter your AdSense ID, there should be a safeguard which allows numbers only (i.e. an error will pop up if you enter anything other than numbers).

    Now, there is another safeguard, which I'm not sure works 100% (but it seems like it does!), but it should not show any member their own Ads if they are logged in. This is to keep people from losing their account due to an accidental click or something like that.

    If you use Firefox, the way to see if your adsense ID is showing up is to go to one of your submissions, and then click view -> page source to see the html/code for the page. If you scroll down, you'll be able to see which pub-id is loaded. Even though the sharing is 65%, you might see your own id load 8 out of 10 times, or 6 out of 10 times, but after thousands of page impressions, it averages out to 65%.

    I'll be 100% honest with you about earnings.. from what I can tell, 95% of all ad clicks on Seekyt come from visitors who arrived at a certain page from a referring site or search engine. This means, at least at this stage, building backlinks or trying to write SEO optimized content is critical to earning money. For the most part, if a user shows up at Seekyt and decides to browse more than only 1 page of the site, there is only 5% chance that their exit will be from clicking an ad. Members aren't click happy, as far as I can tell.

    If you think there might be a better ad layout on content pages to maximize earning, I'm all ears

    I love the idea of donating to charity - I will work on that in the not-too-distant future. Thanks for your input.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Update:

    We have been featured on Killer Startups! I am very excited to be able to announce this news.

    If you want, check out the review and click the vote button. It will help Seekyt continue to grow our already great community and audience. Thanks everybody!
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  • Profile picture of the author getsmartt
    Hey Tyler, I kinda lost track of this thread a while back, I'm glad to see you and Howie have been exchanging thoughts and ideas for promoting Seekyt.

    I just jumped over to Killer Startups and voted for you, good luck. Once I have some spare time I plan on getting over to Seekyt and adding some content myself.

    James
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Thanks James! I appreciate the vote, and can't wait to have you on board at Seekyt
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    @Devid, Thank you so much for the compliment. I really appreciate that!

    @Howie, Nope, I didn't know they were a very great source for spreading the word about your brand until you recommended it. I had stumbled upon their website a couple of months ago, and just saw a list of 10 sites with 1 vote each, so I didn't know that they were so credible. I now eat my words, though! Killer startups has sent enough traffic to generate around 10 new Seekyt members, and I even got enough votes to be the top rated startup this week (and even 3 comments!).
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      Originally Posted by seekyt View Post

      @Devid, Thank you so much for the compliment. I really appreciate that!

      @Howie, Nope, I didn't know they were a very great source for spreading the word about your brand until you recommended it. I had stumbled upon their website a couple of months ago, and just saw a list of 10 sites with 1 vote each, so I didn't know that they were so credible. I now eat my words, though! Killer startups has sent enough traffic to generate around 10 new Seekyt members, and I even got enough votes to be the top rated startup this week (and even 3 comments!).
      ALOT of sites they feature are lucky to get more than 1 vote. Some may not have the means to leverage a greater community to vote, as well. Hope those votes keep growing!
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  • Profile picture of the author GrowTallerNiche
    It seems like the hardcore "credit card" "insurance" IMers don't use low PR social bookmarking. It's all the hubbers and infobarrelers who bookmark. You've already got all of those.

    On She Told Me a site with about good PR and 20,000 or so backlinks(God James is a backlink king), the top contributor has "only" contributed 2,000 or so bookmarks.

    Your issue: You already have the social traffic(The InfoHubbers).

    How to get the hardcore IMers who make money(a veritcal)? The problem is these people usually don't like to socialize or write unique content.

    Or how do you convince non-IMers to start submitting? $$$.
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    • Profile picture of the author seekyt
      First, I assure you, I don't have all of the "infohubbers." Seekyt has 700ish members, which is a far cry from the 100,000+ members across those two sites.

      Secondly, social bookmarking is supposed to be a lot more than just a backlink. I know that the majority of those who use social bookmarking sites do so for SEO purposes, but since Google puts so little weight on social bookmarking links anyway, it's unlikely that using those sites as an SEO resource won't be much benefit. The beauty of social bookmarking is sharing links with people who might not otherwise find out about cool sites - something that most Seekyt members have been doing very well!

      Third, Seekyt aims to be a lot more than just social bookmarking - with the ability to write articles with SEO optimized web layouts, Seekyt can be very beneficial far beyond sharing links, videos, etc.

      Fourth, I wouldn't agree that professional or "hardcore" IMers don't like to socialize or write unique content - I would argue the exact opposite. They are the best at writing unique content and socializing, or at least outsourcing that kind of work. If they weren't they wouldn't make money.

      Next, don't get me started on SheToldMe. James is not the master of backlinks - his referral programs and unrealistic revenue sharing programs are. Plus, take a good look at the site - it's confusing, splattered, and full of ads (including non-adsense ads). I wouldn't care about PR - given the choice between the two, I'd pick Seekyt over SheToldMe or Best Reviewer any day when choosing between layouts I think highlight content and the ability to make money the best.

      Finally, there has not been a Google PR update since Seekyt started. According to Yahoo, seekyt has around 3,000 backlinks, and that was BEFORE the referral program. If I'm not mistaken, SheToldMe has a PR 4 - which isn't a "good" PR - it's an average PR. Since Google also doesn't solely rely on PR anymore in determining the weight of a backlink, the page rank of a site is irrelevant to a knowledgeable person - when a site like Seekyt is approached for backlinks, one should use caution. Think about it, even if Seekyt were a PR9 site, it is still just a site full of links. Anyone can join and post a link, therefore, every single link becomes less and less valuable. Bookmarking sites are about as useful as pinging sites - it just helps to get indexed (not to climb the SERPs).
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    I'm resurrecting the dead by commenting here, but for anyone who is interested, I thought I would post some updates:

    In the last two or so weeks since the last post:

    Seekyt has been redesigned with a clean and simple web 2.0 style and has de-cluttered the ads to flow better with pages. The new design has already gained the attention of others who have had nothing but nice things to say.

    Seekyt is drawing close to its' 900th member - a fantastic triumph to say the least.

    There are now limitations on bookmarks - submissions must be at least 200 characters to be published.

    Now, I wonder, what is your opinion on using a service such as RPX (janrain) on a site like this. If you don't know, janrain lets people sign up or sign in using twitter/facebook/etc. accounts. It seems that none of my competitors that I'm aware of have a feature like this. Do you think it's because it doesn't work on a revenue sharing site, or will I actually be one of the first in this industry to do something like this? Using Janrain can make or break your site - so there is a great deal of caution before implementing it. Do you think registrations would really increase enough to justify the risks involved? Is creating new accounts really that much of a hassle, that people would be more inclined to join if they could use a 3rd party account?
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      I'll have to check it out now, Seekyt.

      Originally Posted by seekyt View Post

      I'm resurrecting the dead by commenting here, but for anyone who is interested, I thought I would post some updates:

      In the last two or so weeks since the last post:

      Seekyt has been redesigned with a clean and simple web 2.0 style and has de-cluttered the ads to flow better with pages. The new design has already gained the attention of others who have had nothing but nice things to say.

      Seekyt is drawing close to its' 900th member - a fantastic triumph to say the least.

      There are now limitations on bookmarks - submissions must be at least 200 characters to be published.

      Now, I wonder, what is your opinion on using a service such as RPX (janrain) on a site like this. If you don't know, janrain lets people sign up or sign in using twitter/facebook/etc. accounts. It seems that none of my competitors that I'm aware of have a feature like this. Do you think it's because it doesn't work on a revenue sharing site, or will I actually be one of the first in this industry to do something like this? Using Janrain can make or break your site - so there is a great deal of caution before implementing it. Do you think registrations would really increase enough to justify the risks involved? Is creating new accounts really that much of a hassle, that people would be more inclined to join if they could use a 3rd party account?
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      • Profile picture of the author seekyt
        Cool, let me know what you think.
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  • Profile picture of the author seekyt
    Quick Update And A New Question:

    Seekyt.com has switched to a high-quality-only article website, due to algorithm changes on Google's end which penalize low-quality content sites. No more social bookmarking. Plus, the first three articles any member submits are held for moderation to ensure they are high quality, unique, and not written with the intention of a backlink.

    To make up for it, the revenue sharing model has been redesigned: users now earn 70% on their content, instead of the previous 65%, and continue to earn 25% on their referrals' pages. Plus, Seekyt members can now earn with Amazon ads as well. We have a unique Amazon feature which allows the display of a product specific ad on post pages (under the article), as well as a "search widget" displayed near the "related posts" part of post pages. Users have complete control over whether nor not those ads are displayed on their pages, and can also earn from them with the referral program if their referrals include Amazon ads on their posts.

    I think the algorithm changes have definitely taken place, and 90%+ of our former search engine traffic is gone. Most bookmarks no longer show up in search engine results. I praise Google for trying to make their product (search results) better and more accurate, and in response I'm trying to make Seekyt's product (content) better too. All new content on Seekyt seems to index pretty well..

    So what do you recommend I do to get some of that traffic back? I'd like my members articles to start ranking well and bring that traffic back for them, but with 100's of articles to deal with, I haven't the slightest idea where to start. Would you recommend I attempt some form of article marketing for ALL of those articles? Or maybe I should try to just bookmark all the incoming articles on a few sites to give a slight boost, since there are so many articles to work with? Where should I begin?
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