(Launching a new web directory, continued from previous posts)
This was the worst period so far, encompassing more trouble with rival sites, face to face sales, dynamic content causing unexpected layout breakages, and unexpected reserves of grim determination…
During this early period I was focusing almost obsessively on how the first few individual users were interacting with the site: so many issues were raised in this early stage, some which could be fixed whenever I got the time, and others which still require more radical reorganisation 6 months later.
I continued advertising, watching the stats, working on the site, and most of all trying to be in contact with people so that I could find out how the site was working and prevent potential members going astray…
Having previously written about the Google Adsense Heatmap, I was keen to try out adsense blocks in more successful locations.
Google Adsense Heatmap: darker colours are ‘hotter’ areas
My first opportunity came with a project of my own to develop a custom Joomla template for a new website about chocolate, ‘I Dream in Chocolate‘.
Website Screenshot showing Adsense positioning
I planned the main Adsense location to take advantage of the areas highlighted in the Google heatmap, and created the Adsense blocks in Joomla using mod_html modules.
I didn’t go for the ‘hottest’ area, which I think is between the main title and content, as I thought this location might be over complicated to manage separately for different content items, and also less nice to look at. The current design adds a kind of white chocolate stripe to the page layout, though it does push the main content down a bit far, especially as I also added a link unit right above the top menu.
By keeping them near the interactive options and menu items, I hoped to take advantage of the visitor’s attention (and mouse) being in that area. At the same time, by using a different style, I have avoided them being actually mistaken for menu items and on site links (which goea against Google’s guidelines).
It does seem to be paying off so far: the following screenshot shows clicks for this new site have already overtaken my more well established site Stairway to Devon, which has the Adsense more out of the way. Bear in mind, many of the page views for the new site will have been caused by me working on it, so it’s actually been more effective than the figures suggest:
Screenshot showing Adsense results for different websites is gone: can’t show the actual numbers - it’s against Google’s rules unfortunately!
Inspired by these more encouraging results, I decided to add some better AdSense locations to this blog while upgrading WordPress at the weekend, following the excellent instructions in this link: ‘Upgrading WordPress‘ and this one: ‘How to add Adsense to your blog‘
Adding AdSense to a Wordpress blog involves editing the Wordpress PHP template files. I had some odd experiences, with AdSense blocks sometimes not appearing in some locations, or only appearing after several minutes (which I think is a delay on the Google setup end). It also required a lot of fiddling about with the CSS. But eventually I was able to get the following units set up:
While upgrading, I also tried setting up the options to ping WordPress’s list of practically everything, which should promote the blog a bit more widely, so I will be interested to see how these changes all work out.
Background: I’ve been launching and promoting a Devon directory, which promotes arts and environmental concerns alongside general clubs, blogs and business listings.
Click this link to view all posts about launching the directory
23/9, continued: Postcard advertising
Having ordered a load of free postcards and business cards from , I was ready to start some more intensive offline advertising.
Decided to start with Totnes, as I feel more nervous in Exmouth with it being my current home town, and also more importantly, it’s nice going there: Totnes is Devon’s most new age and hippyish town, chock full of artists and environmentalists (surely!). Even a newsagent’s in Totnes is probably well-targeted advertising for me.
Background: I’ve been launching and promoting a Devon business directory, which promotes arts and environmental concerns alongside general clubs, blogs and business listings.
View all blog posts about launching the directory.
21 - 23 September 2007
21/9 Continuing testing / correspondence with Joomlapolis forum people about the Community Builder login problems. I find out there is a particular browser setting to accept cookies that is required for login to work. I’m not pleased that people might have to adjust their browser settings to log in, but at least know I know there’s a fix I can tell them about it. I add a help file and a link to it from the login box.
Started looking through the Devon Arts section of Dmoz for likely looking websites to approach for a link swap.
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One of the first things I discovered in Second Life is that you need money to buy land or rent a shop front.
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Background: I’ve been working on a Devon directory, which promotes arts and environmental concerns alongside general clubs, blogs and business listings.
16 - 20 September 2007
16/9 Ordered more free business cards from , some free fridge magnets (same as the business cards), and Post-Its. The redesign of the postcards can wait till I’ve used up the first batch.
Added a link from my family homepage.
Posted a few posts around the Hedir forums and reviewed some websites for them.
Updated my Google Sitemap.
Pleased to see that someone has been looking at my e-cards from Iran!
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Background: I’ve been working on a Devon directory, which promotes arts and environmental concerns alongside general clubs, blogs and business listings.
12-15th September, 2007
12/9 I add a link to my profile in Facebook and my email signatures in Gmail and on the Open University forums (where I’m a student). (I had to install a Firefox extension called Better Gmail to get HTML in my Gmail signature). First review of my site is posted on Hedir (a peer reviewed website directory) - thankfully a good one.
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I have to admire these strange and intricate works of art created by digital artist Alex Dragalescu.
This series of 3D digital portraits inspired by internet security threats was commissioned by the internet security firm MessageLabs.
Subjects include Phishing, the Netsky virus, the Ghost spyware program, Trojanagentil3, Russian 3 spam, and the Storm botnet.
View all blog posts about this local web directory.
Background: I’ve been working on a local Devon business directory, which promotes arts and environmental concerns alongside general clubs, blogs and business listings.
2 - 11 September, 2007:
2/9 Phoned my mother and brother and asked them to add listings. Of course, my mother’s registration email doesn’t arrive. I check and can’t see anything wrong, so to my shame, I assume the problem is something to do with her relatively new email setup, which seems to have problems with spam filtering. I create her membership and she adds a basic listing for a local charity, the Adventure Trust for Girls - thanks mum!
3/9 Emailed 2 friends, 2 former potential customers, a classmate from my business startup programme and also a local woman whose children’s activities I’d been taking the kids to. I offer them every feature free if they’ll help by adding a listing to test it out. They mostly say ‘That email was so long, I’ll read it later’. Nobody adds anything 
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