Microsonic Development

Web traffic; it’s the “money-maker” for many webmasters. But is all traffic really a good thing? Well, this is a topic that isn’t quite “black and white” so to speak. Traffic can have many affects on a site, both positive and negative. Ultimately, good traffic is defined as frequent visitors, or a visitor who buys your product (if you’re selling something). Bad traffic, on the other hand, consists of mostly anything else: spam, abusers, web-surfers, etc.

We will begin by discussing the positive effects of all traffic. Having good traffic, obviously, cannot hurt you. There is no way that comes to mind that I can think of in which good traffic will hurt your site; be it resale value or otherwise (thus its name, “good” traffic). If you’re getting tons of good traffic, your site is booming, and if you ever want to sell it, that raises it’s value!

Now, bad traffic can also have some (temporarily) “positive” effects. If you’re running a site which does not worry about visitor comments spam hits and robots shouldn’t be much of a problem for you. In fact, they may make your stats look great at first glance, and you may even be able to catch a gullible buyer and convincing him or her (by not saying anything more than to look at the visitor count) that the traffic is great! However, for those serious domainers, etc. they will check those stats down to the IP’s of the visits. When they track back all those IP’s to public proxies, and known spam bots they will throw the name back in your face and your sale will fall through.

So in the end, all traffic does not quite turn into good traffic. It is indeed a great factor for any sale of a site, but visitor turn around is what really matters. So when analyzing your own traffic, check as if you were buying your site up and take steps to minimize spam traffic!

Regards,
Dennis M.

Portfolio. The word sometimes lingers in one’s mind, but usually is associated with artwork, or a collection of works from your high school English class. But really, an online portfolio (whether it’s only artwork/graphics or programming) is very important when trying to find interested clients.

Generally, most people can only establish their names by doing quality work at a great price (or in a few cases, great work and advertising at a high price pays off too – but those are the few giants of the web today). Word of mouth is good, but when you have a website, you should be showing off more than that to your potential clients. When a client visits your site (no matter which way – browsing, by accident, referal, etc.) their first opinion is your site itself. From there, they are looking for a giant link or button that says “Portfolio.”

When the user goes to this link, they don’t want to see just links, but they want a thumbnail shot of what to expect, a link to a working example, and a description of the purpose of the work. Now I know I do not have all of those things right now (just yet, anyway), but they are well worth it. Since most users see other works I’ve done (and after speaking to me on MSN) they are always satisfied with what I have to offer, but I am working on my designing skills and a portfolio script which I shall be launching very soon so I can practice what I preach.

So now that everyone understands that a portfolio should be more than just a collection of works you done, everyone can start really presenting themselves effectively. Like I said, soon I will be finishing my portfolio script and perhaps releasing it to the public, so if you are unsure about how to get yours started, that may be a great starting point for you!

Regards,
Dennis M.

So it seems quite often new webmasters are at their wit’s end when the question arises: what features does my site need? Well, this common question can be quickly turned into a daunting test of thought to new and experienced webmasters alike. So how can one even begin to approach this question? Well, why am I asking you? That’s what you’re reading this for .

Alright, so you are creating a new site and are not sure what features you should start packing it with. Well, the most important thing to keep in mind is that the site should always be updated. So if at first you forget some features, don’t rush to get them finished right away; save them for future updates. By keeping sites updated, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, you keep users coming back to your site. Once you have that out of the way, you can move on to deciding site essentials.

Deciding site essential features is an absolutely necessary step to creating a successful site. Consider your site’s purpose, function, and most importantly, what makes it unique. Whatever makes it unique should be the most important feature you first include. Followed by what it does and its purpose. For example, I have created a blog here. So I would not make this site a giant forum and expect people to simply read my blog posts, but rather I setup the blog and add an RSS feed so people can subscribe and stay updated.

So more or less, when a user is trying to figure out what is necessary, those functions that make your site worth viewing are what you need to include. Then, if you feel you’ve forgotten something, add them in for later additions so people have yet another reason to keep coming back to your site! Remember, with the web changing literally every second, one needs to keep their content and sites updated frequently (hmm maybe I should follow my own advice, eh? :p).

Regards,
Dennis M.

Too many domains today are registered and then simply setup as parked pages, or even worse: duplicates of some other big site. This is an atrocious mess. It takes all originality out of the web itself! If one is simply going to reproduce content that another site already has, the reasons to go to multiple websites are lost.

Now, many of you may try to argue: “Your blog has content that can be found elsewhere,” or the great, “Your blog isn’t original either.” Well, the fact of the matter is it’s true; my blog is not original (there are many programming blogs out there), and yes the ideas of my posts can probably be found elsewhere. However, I write my blog to address your (user’s) questions directly focusing on specific questions you may have. Now there is no doubt some of my content is completely unique, but other things (such as my last post) have been posted over and over again. Now why would I do this? Simply to give another perspective, but I digress; duplicating content with hardly any change to it’s original format is what I am talking about and that’s not how this blog operates.

When I say unique content, I don’t mean you must only cover completely unique concepts. In fact, that is not what I am saying at all as you can see by the premisis of this blog. However, you do want to make sure you thoroughly understand your topic and can completely reproduce it yourself with little or no reference (Now be reasonable with yourself. You need to learn somehow anyway, so don’t shun outside sources!). If you can reproduce content all by yourself, it’s generally unique giving your perspective on your topic. As you very well know, people learn differently, so maybe your way of explaining the topic was better than the content giants of slashdot or a site similar in nature.

From an SEO standpoint, however, unique content is very important. It’s what gets your site noticed in the web. More unique content means (generally) more backlinks which lead to more traffic. To the average person, SEO means nothing coherently, but in terms of them ever finding out about your site it means almost everything. Good SEO means it’s easier for the average person to understand navigation of your website (e.g.: using static page links and deep links) and a higher popularity rating on (sometimes) search engines and other sites.

So as you can see, unique content plays a huge role in getting your site recognized. Without a userbase, a website ends up being wasted space on the web with stuff everyone already knows or doesn’t care about. So before you write that next article, make sure you’re not just copy and pasting (for reasons other than plagarism ).

Regards,
Dennis M.