Matt Coddington

I was visiting my old blog, Net Business Blog, (now belonging to Adie Cooke - great guy) when I noticed an interesting little Kontera adlink for Live search.

So here we have a Kontera advertisement for Live search (which I’ve seen a TON of those on sites running Kontera) that is targeting the keyword “Google”. Hm. That’s interesting.

Why the hell would Live be targeting “Google” for their search ads? Unless I’m missing something and this Live search ad is some sort of automated system that simply targets random keywords and pops up a “learn more” search box - in which case this would be a hilarious coincidence.

However, I don’t think it works that way. It looks to me like Live is specifically targeting the keyword “Google” for their Kontera ad campaigns. Okay, so why?

The only reason I can come up with is brand recognition - Live wants to be mentioned (on sites running Kontera) whenever Google is mentioned. And in this case not only is Live mentioned, but the way the ad is setup there is no doubt that it is a search engine.

But that doesn’t seem like much of a reason to me considering there are so many better (more generic) terms Live could be targeting to push search traffic. Terms that people may actually naturally do a search for.

But what do I know?

So I’m a little late for my Halloween post, but hopefully it’s still fresh in everyone’s minds. The company did a little in-office decoration for children of employees, and it was a lot of fun. Many happy faces. And one really ugly hairy one.

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It seems that every blogger in the “make money online” niche is dead set on preaching how important is to quit his or her day job and focus on self-earning 100%. While that may be what many (or even most) people want, it’s not the answer for everyone. Many people may actually enjoy working a 9 to 5 and would like to learn how to better compete in today’s web job market.

I am only 22 years old and have not really been in this industry for very long. When I started I couldn’t afford to go to the seminars, certification courses, etc. I learned everything I know on my own with little to no help from anybody. And although that might give me a great sense of pride, it doesn’t really look good on a resume. So when I decided I was going to start looking for a web design / marketing position within a company, I had to overcome 1) my age and 2) my resume. How did I do that?

I scrapped the resume and wrote a letter instead. In the letter I leveraged the success of my most recent site, Net Business Blog, to demonstrate my knowledge of the web industry. It worked. I got the job I wanted (as well as a ton of interviews with other companies).

If you are a professional or even hobby webmaster working from home but aspiring to get that dream job, maybe you should consider scrapping the resume too. Instead use one (or a few) of your sites as a case study showing your knowledge and ability as it relates to the position you’re applying for. You could also always just attach the resume at the end. Give it a shot. See what happens. It worked for me.

Below is the letter (very slightly edited) I used when I applied for position after position earlier this year. As you can see it’s nothing fancy. It’s just a candid assertion of my skills and experience.

Dear Sir or Madam,

My name is Matt Coddington, and I am a graduating senior at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. I am 22 years old but have been doing website design and creative advertising design for the last 7 years. I have also been doing SEO and various forms of internet marketing for the last 4 years.

I am very familiar with Website Design (full web pages, banner creatives, HTML templates - all using Adobe suite), Search Engine Optimization (White Hat, although I have working knowledge of Black Hat and what *NOT* to do in SEO as well), PPC marketing, Social Media Optimization, Affiliate Marketing, Viral Marketing, E-mail Marketing, Blogging, Domaining, Community-powered Websites (Web 2.0), and much more. All of my work has been for myself or for contract client work. I have never held a permanent position, but that is not due to my lack of knowledge or ability.

Because of my age and lack of formal experience in the industry, I would like to present you with a case study of my work rather than a conventional resume. This case study will be of my most recent website. It is a blog in the online business niche that is only 4 months old yet has already become an authority in the field and gained widespread recognition.

Net Business Blog
http://www.netbusinessblog.com

This blog was started on January 7, 2007 with myself as the webmaster, designer, web tech, marketer, and sole blogger - ie. I didn’t have any help. Since it launched 4 months ago it has acquired a Google PageRank 5, risen to become one of the top 20,000 websites on the net according to Alexa rankings, created a loyal readerbase of over 2,000 readers per day generating over 80,000 page views per month. Of that traffic 38.62% (as of 5/6/2007) is generated by organic search engine results. Much of the the initial traffic came through my unique use of Social Media Marketing. This website was built adhering to W3C standards using the WordPress engine.

On this blog I exercise my knowledge of online business. All of these articles demonstrate my knowledge and experience in the field, many of which apply to the skills required by this position. Here are some of my more popular articles on the subject:

Increasing Your Other
Analyzing Page Views per Visitor by Source
Building a Niche Minisite
How Cost-Effective is SEO?
Optimizing Images for SE Traffic - Is it Worth it?
Link Building Through Design & Link Building Through Theme Distribution
Fight Against Click Fraud Moving Forward

These are just a few examples of my work. I selected these because I think they are most relevant to this position and do a good job of illustrating my basic experience in the industry.

If you would like to see more examples of my work or learn more about me please let me know.

Regards,
Matt Coddington

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Although it’s impossible to know for sure, I would assume Date.com’s glorified landing page that serves as its homepage is right up there at the top of the most profitable landing pages on the net. More profitable than Firefox’s little page?

So maybe the term “landing page” doesn’t really do Date.com justice. It’s much more than that. A lot of time and effort has been put into the inner workings of the site, and it has a lot of nifty little features. But when I arrive at their homepage, all I can see is a landing page.

Is this the best solution? Date.com must know what they’re doing. They’re over 10 years old and are still in business. In the internet world, that means something, right? I can’t help but to think, however, that such an in-your-face attempt to collect data on the user’s first load of the site might be a little too strong. What throws me off a bit more is that the actual introduction to the site and what they do is hidden below the fold in fairly small font. The message is essentially “Give us your information now. Oh and hi we’re a dating site.”

My knee-jerk reaction is to email Date.com and remind them that this is no longer 1997, when the site was founded. The web is changing has changed. People expect instant gratification, and why shouldn’t they? Social networking has taken the dating site to a whole new level - a dating site without being a dating site. Users can interact with each other and form relationships without the pressure of a dating site or the stigma of “having” to use a dating site to meet someone of the opposite sex. Myspace is used as much for hooking up now as it is for finding new bands. Facebook gifts allow you to tell that special someone that you “like like” them without all of the nasty embarrassment. And assuming you would actually prefer a traditional dating site to the newer methods available, what is stopping you from simply hitting up PlentyofFish or a similar dating site that gives you instant access to other member profiles?

And Date.com is still just a landing page.

Flaws aside, the landing page is obviously working. But with a domain like Date.com, what wouldn’t be?

So what’s the point of this post? Hell if I know. I guess if I had to sum it up into one sentence it would go something like this: landing pages work, but they’re not the future.

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It’s hard for a man to admit a weakness, yet here I am spilling my heart out. I am an extremely lazy emailer. Here is a screenshot of my Inbox at the moment:

I’m a lazy bastard. Granted most of those emails are newsletters, MaxBounty spam messages, and other odds and ends. Most of these emails I don’t open because I can tell all the info I need from the title (ie. if it’s someone I want to ignore). But all excuses aside, I really should be on top of my emails. How many possibles leads have I missed in the rubbish I let pile up in my Inbox? Who knows? I hate to think about the money I’ve lost by just simply not keeping my Inbox organized.

At the end of the day, that’s what weaknesses do - they cost you money. My biggest problem is my email. What is yours? Email also? Spending too much time in your feed reader? Refreshing your analytics by the minute?

We all have weaknesses. Acknowledging them is the first step to defeating them and turning that lost cash into some green. I’m going to go ahead and clean up my Inbox, how about you get to work on your weakness too.

I’ve enjoyed the last 2 months of next to no online work. Most of you probably already know I started a “9 to 5″ in Charleston, SC back in August and have since taken a break from my online work. I guess technically since I’m a web designer/marketer I’m still doing online work, but you get what I mean. No clients, no thinking up blog posts, no stress.

But a break is only worthwhile if you come back stronger than ever. Well, here I am.

Big things are about to happen, bitches. Here is a bit of a breakdown of what’s about to be going on.

First off, this blog is going to be monetized. I know, I know, everybody is trying to make a penny off of their personal blog nowadays. Well now I’m going to start doing the same, so shut up. You’re going to see a few paid posts here and there, maybe a paid text link or two, etc. This blog won’t become John Chow. I promise.

Secondly, expect a new site from me THIS MONTH. A brand spanking new site that has been in the making for just about the whole summer is now days away from being ready to launch. There is currently no site like it (although it contains features of many existing sites) and will really really kick ass. So definitely check back for more information on that.

I’m finishing that damn eBook. And I’m doing a second while I’m at it. Expect those next month. If you’re against eBooks, don’t bitch to me about it until you’ve read mine. They’re going to be good. No fluff. Real information. No bonus “reports” or “super secret tools”. Just the good shit.

And that about covers it. I’m back.

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Want to know how you can turn 5 minutes worth of work creating a simple, minimalistic landing page into a $66.8M/yr business? Just ask Mozilla. According to a not entirely recent but still recent enough to be topical article at TC Mozilla pulled in about $66.8M last year with roughly 85% being from the search bar on the default Firefox start page (and embedded in the browser itself).

Ain’t that some shit?

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I told you I wasn’t dead. In case you’re reading this through RSS, my blog has been redesigned (by me) with a cleaner, more functional design. The last one done by Jens (hjalmar) was amazing but just didn’t lend itself to serving up high-content posts. Since I sold NBB I’ve needed an outlet to talk about the industry the way I did earlier this year, but this blog just wasn’t built for it and I didn’t think it would be fair to NBB’s buyer to start a new “make money online” blog. So my solution was to redesign this one with a slightly less visually stunning, but exponentially more functional design.

What do you guys think? Good?

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Morning! I’m not dead and neither is the blog. Updates coming soon.

The honeymoon is over, but at least I almost got hit in the face by a semi on the way home. (image has not been photoshopped)