Matt Coddington

It has taken me a total of about a week and a half, but I’ve finally finished the redesign/WordPress upgrade of CreepColony.com. Getting the design done and implemented actually turned out to be the easy part. The difficult task was migrating the tons and tons of content from a 7 year old site from a hard-coded static structure to a dynamic CMS (WordPress). I still have one or two pages to do, but it’s ready for the most part.

Next on the agenda is to upgrade the forum to vBulletin and integrate the new design into that as well. Then I will move into search engine optimization and further improving monetization (I’ve added Kontera and a CJ store, but haven’t spent a ton of time monetizing it).

That will have to wait a week or so, however, because this Saturday I’m getting married. I should be back from the honeymoon next Friday, so then I will start up again working on CreepColony. Don’t expect many updates from me as I will be happily offline after the wedding. I’m going to enjoy my vacation!

I haven’t bought a website in quite a bit, but when StarCraft 2 was announced I started looking around at some of the old fansites that I used to regular back when I ran my first website which was a SC/BW news and downloads site. I discovered that pretty much all of the old juggernauts that ruled StarCraft in 2000 were still the top dogs - not entirely surprising, but refreshing nonetheless since that meant if I did decide to get back into the SC niche that I would already know most of the competition very well.

One of the fansites I regulared was CreepColony.com. It is pretty much the same as it was 7 years ago, with a tiny upgrade - hella traffic. After the announcement of StarCraft 2, CreepColony’s traffic has increased by 211% and is still on the rise! There are now only 2 StarCraft websites that seem to be performing better than it traffic-wise and that is because they just get a ton of search engine traffic. Luckily, I know a bit about SEO, so I believe I can compete with them for that search traffic.

There are a couple problems with the site, however. First off I think it’s pretty clear that the design is extremely ugly. CreepColony was a hobby site for its entire existence, so the design wasn’t a top priority. Now that I’m running it, my first objective is to get a design upgrade. I’ve already finished the design (a snippet is in the image at the top) and will be implementing it soon.

Another problem is that the site is *ALL* hard-coded HTML, so I’ll have to port it all to a CMS (WordPress). This also leaves me with not only a ton of content to move but a *TON* of 301 redirects to do. I’m also a little nervous about moving all of the content to new URL structures because I don’t want to lose what search engine traffic I have, but after reading some articles I think I can safely move the pages and retain the search traffic with 301 redirects. We shall see.

Finally, the site is currently severely under-monetized. There is a single, unblended Adsense block at the top of the page which is the only source of revenue. Because of this I was able to get the site for a great price, but I also don’t really know the revenue potential. With the amount of traffic the site is getting, I really do expect that I can turn a great profit, but it will be a guessing game for a while.

Most people probably consider Jon a little shady - I guess he sort of is. He makes it no secret that he enjoys making money online and is open to doing so in any way possible. He makes a killing running Myspace resource site(s) and has tested with numerous blackhat techniques, including but not limited to arbitrage. So I really wasn’t surprised when I got an email from him telling me about his new project: Buy Blog Comments.

The blogosphere has, not surprisingly, risen in uproar over the new service. The main concerns seem to be 1) this is promoting paid spam (no argument there) and 2) the ones receiving the spam get no compensation (which obviously, they don’t).

Although I don’t support spam, I really don’t think Buy Blog Comments is going to have that negative of an impact on the blogosphere. First off, the comments will *have* to be of at least decent quality of Jon has any hopes of receiving repeat customers. Poorly written or obviously spammy comments will get moderated out by most bloggers leaving Jon in a position of either under-delivering comment volume or spending too much time and money to deliver.

Secondly, this is no different than blatant self-promoting commenters. Why is it that bloggers can recommend people comment on other’s blogs for no reason other than self-promotion and in the same breath say that a paid comment service is wrong? In an ideal world every person who ever comments on someone’s blog is doing so because they have something valuable to share, but in reality a lot of blog commenters are there solely to promote their own sites. This service just saves them time in doing so.

Thirdly, I don’t think Buy Blog Comments will ever really get big enough for bloggers to worry about spam invasion. Jon is targeting black hatters with this service, but real black hatters will find more affordable ways to deliver blog comment spam whether it’s through automation (most likely) or a $2/hr employee from the Philippines. Buy Blog Comments just doesn’t come across to me as being cost-effective.

I think the moral of the story, at the end of the day, is that the blogosphere is friggin whiny. Buy Blog Comments *will not* introduce a new dimension of blog spam and it *will not* destroy blog comments as we know it. What harm is being done? Someone is being paid to add thoughtful, relevant comments to a blog. Damn, that’s just awful.

Edit: Just sent out my last invite.

Tony from DJI hooked me up with a Pownce (my profile) invite yesterday. I think he and his invitees have all of his readers covered with invites, so I have 6 to give to whoever comments here. Just comment with your email address and I’ll send one out.

My first impressions of Pownce are that it’s pretty nifty. I was going into it all determined to find massive flaws, but aside from the obnoxious default email notifications it’s really a pretty solid site. Is it better than Twitter? I don’t think they’re really all that comparable. Twitter has the benefit of being open-ended and is already being integrated into other systems such as Facebook. Pownce comes across as a lot more restricted. I could be wrong, but it doesn’t look like Pownce will be like Twitter in that it will be easily integrated into multiple sites, software, etc.

As far as the bonus features that Pownce has over Twitter - picture sending, file sending, etc etc. They’re nice baubles, but they’re little more than baubles. I could, however, see how some people would prefer it over email, Facebook, etc.

At the end of the day Pownce is just a better organized and better constructed Twitter. If this succeeds it won’t only be because Kevin Rose’s name is all over it (although that certainly doesn’t hurt it), but because it’s a prettier, easier to use, and better organized Twitter.

80%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

I heard about this adorable little test from Daniel over at Daily Blog Tips (remember him from the Blogger Face-Off?) If you have a minute to kill then try it out.

It’s official, I have jumped onto the TWERQ boat. I think my formal title is Director of Public Relations or some such fancy phrase, but the long and short of it is that I’m going to be managing the TWERQ Official Blog and doing my best to market and promote this amazing search tool online.

I wrote about TWERQ RC3 on NBB a long long time ago, but I have been watching TWERQ since day 1 … well more like day 13 or 14, but still pretty damn early on. I’ve been hooked with this tool even when it was little more than “tab-based browsing”. It has come a long way since then. TWERQ is now, in my opinion, the most useful search tool on the market and is quickly adding new features.

I have no doubt that TWERQ will be making headlines before long, and I’m excited to be a part of the company while it’s still in its infant stages.

I thought it would be fun to start up a little segment here where I highlight and talk about some sites, blogs, and forums that I read the most and consider a good source of information.

First up, and justifiably so, is Deep Jive Interests, the first RSS I ever subscribed to.

If you have to throw DJI into a specific category it would probably fall into Web 2.0, although Tony talks about much more than just Web 2.0 fads. Rather than being yet another TechCrunch copycat (God knows the world can only handle one Arrington) Tony has separated himself by offering real analytical thought about the world of online applications and internet trends that is quite honestly hard to find anywhere else.

Tony is not a guru. He is, however, one of the smartest people I’ve come across in this industry, and just about everything he writes is well thought out and well argued. It’s refreshing also to read a blog written by someone with some writing (Journalism?) background and who can convey his thoughts so well and in an entertaining fashion. Unfortunately that’s a skill I lack. But I digress.

The only off-putting thing about DJI is its design, but I don’t want to hurt Tony’s feelings since he just had it redesigned. Personally I miss the robot.

Whether you’re deep into the Web 2.0 scene or just a casual bystander of all that is social bookmarking, interactive applications, and new media, you really should consider adding DJI to your feed reader or bookmarks now. Do it.

I was taking a quiz over at CNN called “Do you have what it takes to get rich?” The quiz is adorable, but is not really geared at giving you a magical answer to the question. The point of the quiz is to show you basic facts about making money in any industry. Facts that you know but probably tend to overlook in the hopes that you’ll strike it rich off of some spur of the moment amazing idea or a genius website. The truth is most people get rich through good old fashioned hard work.

Most of us have an image of entrepreneurs lodged in our heads: hyperactive, visionary, guts of steel. But those who study entrepreneurs say that’s an illusion. “Some have very boring personalities,” says Schramm. Part of the problem, says Kelly Shaver, professor of entrepreneurial studies at the College of Charleston, is that we tend to focus on superachieving outliers. (You could be one-53,000th as successful as Bill Gates and still be a millionaire.) And many books and magazine profiles about entrepreneurs look only at the ones who have already made a fortune. When asked to explain their success, Shaver says, people tend to think back and try to identify some brilliant thing they must have done - and maybe forget about the routine work, their many mistakes or their sheer luck.

That is just one of the nuggets of valuable information in this quiz. This is probably the best article I’ve ever read on CNN not only because it comes in the form of a sexy fabulous quiz but because it’s real, it’s concrete, it’s no fluff, and it actually tells you how to earn your wealth rather than sitting around waiting for it to happen.

Use your common sense. Don’t get lost in delusion. Hard work creates wealth.

A recent post on Jon’s blog (Jon from WickedFire … I don’t think he actually has a last name) is bad linkbait.

Before I get into that post, I just want to say that I hate the term “linkbait”. It’s stupid. It is a buzz word created by gurus in order to package all campaigns geared at generating natural linkbacks into a nice friendly single idea so that the idiot masses could slurp it up and execute it without ever really knowing what it is or why it is done.

The actual practice of link baiting, however, is good (if done right). For example my first big article on NBB about building niche minisites can be considered linkbait in that I wrote it with the intent of acquiring links from outside sources. What is the difference between my linkbait and Jon’s linkbait?

The difference is good linkbait is something worth reading. It delivers *something* to the end user whether it’s information or entertainment. Bad linkbait delivers crap to the user. Jon’s linkbait, for example, is never anything more than lies dressed up in the disguise of “marketing”.

You can succeed with bad linkbait - after all Jon was nothing (wait, scratch that, he was a “super affiliate” according to himself) before he created his famous CJ screenshot. Even better is that he got me to link to his article! But should you resort to bold faced lying in order to generate a couple linkbacks? If you want long-term success, and more importantly respect, then you really should focus on delivering good, quality content to the end user. Not sensationalist bullshit - ironic that Jon’s tagline is “A no BS approach to the art and business of affiliate marketing” when bullshit is all he produces.

But hey, Jon is a marketing genius, and I’m just jealous. What the hell do I know?

Read more…

Wow this blog has been down for quite a while hasn’t it? Well it’s back up now and finally off of iPowerWeb! This was the last site I had hosted with iPower, and I was just waiting for my term with them to expire before moving. My domain was also registered through iPowerWeb so there was a couple weeks of limbo when transferring that I didn’t expect which accounts for the recent downtime. I’m now testing out BlueFur so we’ll see how that goes.

So What’s Going On?

I’m going to be settling back into this blog and updating it more than I have been over the last 2-3 months. As you can see I didn’t bother uploading the old archives, and I don’t plan to.

I’m going to keep it primarily related to my own projects but will start to do opinion pieces on the internet marketing industry as a whole as well as some current events (with my unique take on them of course). I don’t plan on really promoting or commercializing this blog as I did with NBB. The few readers I have here I hope stick around and possibly spread the word about my blog, but I have no real ambition to make this anything more than a personal blog with some tidbits here and there about the internet marketing and web development industries.

As most of you are probably aware, I recently sold NBB on SitePoint. The final price was $13,000 which was about what I expected and certainly enough to make me happy with the sale.

What’s Around the Corner

With NBB gone my design business is now again my only real source of income which is fine for now. My design company has always paid the bills and been my primary job. That does not mean, however, that I don’t have some new sites around the corner.

I’m currently developing two sites in the design arena. One is with David Myers (digit) and the other is a lone venture. I hope to have both of these websites launched by the end of the summer and have them in full gear by Q4. Unfortunately both are in the infant stages so I can’t disclose anything more about them.

So I just wanted to give you guys a little heads up about what’s been going on with me and what you can expect to see from me in the near future. If you’ve taken this blog off your feedreader list please add it back as I will be updating often!