Can you find ERT on Google?????

[COBOLdinosaur]

Try:
 mentor written articles
2,590,000 hits....  page ONE  entry number 2 ===>> ERT!!!
On MSN it comes up number one.
 :^)

The number one keyword phrase used by EE is Expert Help.

We can't come close to them on that right now, but try:

Expert help + mentor articles ... We own it over ALL other help sites.  Try it!

Same with Expert Help + mentor tutorials.  Even better!

OUR KEY WORD IS MENTOR.

We own it, we can use it, it is getting us good rankings.  That is the keyword we have to promote, because in combination with other phrases it gives us the top of the search results. Forget the word expert, promote the word Mentor.  You don't need to post links to ERT where it is not allowed if you can get others to think of Mentor when they are doing a search.

I am getting the ERT link posted widely on pages ranging from PR0 up to PR5, and perhaps a couple of PR6s.  If we can get ourselves up to a PR3 or PR4, we will show up at a competitive level for any phrase that includes mentor and one of our other key words.  To get page one for just the word mentor or for expert help, we will need a lot higher PR, but that will only come with time.

So let's build on what we have. Mentor is our word... push it; push it; push it!

We have had over 1400 unique visitors (170 off of Google search result pages) to the site so far in February, but they are not signing up.  I will work on trying to encourage registration, so that we get traffic into the forum instead of just on the content pages, but I think the pattern so far is an indication that the users who are finding us are either not finding what they want in teh forum or are reluctant to register for it.  It appears that most of the visitors look at the forums and some of the topics but don't go any further.

Perhaps wee need more in the forums, but it is difficult to get stuff in there with out users triggering discussions.

Thanks for staying with this while we find our place on the 'net.

 :^)

Cd&

[COBOLdinosaur]

BTW,

Expert help + mentor forums gets us the nuber 11 spot, but we cannot compete with just mentor forums... we get buried.  We need to find a key word pharse for the forums to push them toward the top of some search results.

Cd&

[Esopo]

I've been thinking about this SEO biz for a while (since that thread I started a couple of weeks ago), and I'm not positive about any particular means of increasing our ranks (other than vanilla SEO techniques).

But I was thinking, right now we have little content, but a very powerful problem-solving team. Yet visitors come in and perhaps missjudge the site for its apparent lack of threads.

I'm thinking of a campaign in the lines of "bring a friend over" in which we encourage our current members to invite a friend to join and enjoy the site for all it is worth. It won't be thousands of new members, but a small number of active "thread starters" will let estrangers see more action and more of the good content.

On the same lines we could launch a "start a discussion!" campaign.

I'm sure if we get the right wording on the messages we could inspire members to be more active, not for the sake of SEO but for the sake of knowledge (that just happens to boost SEO as well).

Comments?

[COBOLdinosaur]

Okay now I need some help to figure out what the users are seeing that is not working.  I have been looking at the logs an trying to do a little analysis.

Yesterday Feb 11, a Saturday we set a new record for total number of user online at the same time.  That is IN THE FORUM.  We only keep track of session started from a forum page request.  But we did not get any new registrations.  

Today Feb 12, a Sunday we have hit a new high for total unique visitors in a single day with 164.  At the current pace we will have over two thousand unique visitors in February, but is is trending up and I expect the number will be closer to 3 thousand than to 2.

Sound great, BUT ...  no registrations.  

There is a 50-50 split between entry pages. The forum index and the home page are the entry points.  I suspect most of the forum entries are from registered members and that the newbies are coming in through the home page.  We now have had 200 hits off of Google search results, and we are getting traffic from Matt's site, Batalf's site and the COBOLdinosaur re-directs; plus a small number from links posted on other sites.

It looks like they cross over to the forum off of three content sections: Articles, Tutorials and Tech News.  So they have a look at the forum and then leave without registering and/or posting.

So why; and what do we have to do to change the behaviour?  Before we try to develop a big increase in traffic we need to fix whatever is impeding registrations. In a later post I will outline the things I have done and will be doing to drive traffic to the site, and how everyone can contribute to that effort.

This is posted in a publicly accessed area because if anyone passing by wants to post; please do so. I have set this forum as the only one on the site where unregistered guests can post, and perhaps tell us what they do not like.

I will throw out five theories about possible causes.  If anyone has additional theories please add them.  Then for each possible cause let's find a plan of action that can be done NOW.  There are a lot of long term things that are desirable and that will be added.  We have to deal with today.  The nice new shiny fire truck that will be delivered next month is great but does not help if your house is on fire today.

Theory 1: The user sees nothing of interest on the content side, and visits the forum to verify that they do not like the site and they leave.

Theory 2:  The user visits the forum after seeing and liking the content to see what else is coming.  They do not see much action and assume that the site is not very active, so they leave; perhaps to return or not.

Theory 3: There is something wrong in the registration process that makes it not worth the bother.

Theory 4: The users think the site sucks in general.

Theory 5: We are not reaching the right user group and the visitors we are getting simply lack interest in waht we are trying to do.

I think if 3 or 4 were the cause we would know it from snotty complaints, and we have not gotten any.  I suppose 5 can be true, but the referrers we are getting traffic from should be sending users looking for this kind of site.  My gut is that it is one or two; perhaps a combination of both; or perhaps I am just expecting more than I should.  

I think Muso has the right idea in terms of getting members into the forum, but I'm not sure the problem is getting them here, but rather getting them to see something worth registering for.

[Esopo]

- Warning: lengthy post -

I think it is a marketing issue. And this is just a theory that I am making up out of my (so far) limited training in advertising with no real factual backing, but please read on.

We have competitors, plenty of them. What we are offering is a new experience, but visitors come in here and see a forum, a tech forum, one of the many tech forums, except this one doesn't have the large volume others do.

Take me as an example (and I'm sure this is going to sound like everybody's story). I'm interested in technology, the kind of visitor that would want to subscribe to a tech forum. But that is just the case, I already did. I have several memberships in tech forums, I don't need to remember another login name for a site with 10 members and a bunch of empty TAs.

I do have to say, that article I just read on AJAX (compliments to Rod) was pretty darn interesting. So I click on the link to the forum and I see: a forum, and a quite empty one.

So, I depart. Good luck to ya'all, but I'm not asking my precious questions in a place without answers.


THE HUGE PROBLEMS IS:

ERT is not about that. ERT is a totally different thing. This is not your everyday tech forum, nor will you get your everyday tech-forum answers.

It is an IMC problem. (Integrated Marketing Communications)
http://integrated.tmp.com/index.htm

(BTW, that page's layout sucks big time, but is a good intro to the IMC tenants)

Basically,

We have a product, and I'd like to think it is a good one. So what we need to do is organize the way we want to present that product and then make sure we are presenting it correctly at each and every interaction point (anywhere we interact with a client/prospect).


--
Quick IMC analysis:

What are we trying to say? Let's pretend we want to say that ERT is a new approach to tech exchange, a liberal site where we don't care about little problems but about great solutions; a place where everybody is welcome to explore knowledge without fearing dumb Q&A rules.

:: 3 random interaction points (and I’m going to be a bit of a jerk playing a visitor, but for illustration purposes):

1. The homepage
http://www.expertsrt.com/index.php
“More than just a Forum, Articles and Tutorials... a Professional Support Resource”
Sounds techie, means nothing. Sounds like I’m reading it from devshed = just another tech site.
Then a couple of paragraphs about volunteers and pros helping each other (that sounds cool) and then yada,yada,yada we have articles and news – big deal, everybody has articles and news. Then something about members… I don’t know I’m bored already let me click something.

2. The mentors intro
http://www.expertsrt.com/Mentors/
MENTORS! Sounds different I won’t deny it. I see a bunch of blue boxes and a bunch of meaningless web handles. I read some crap about “the most dynamic IT help site on the Internet.” Yeah right, I just read that exact same line at the MSN site. What does it mean anyway? Dynamic? I’m bored, let’s click!

3. The forum entry
http://www.expertsrt.com/phpBB2/
“A Place devoted to collaborative technical education”
What’s this? Oh, a forum; a phpBB forum that claims to be technical. Surprise surprise! The link said forum and that is exactly what this is.


MY SUGGESTION

Let’s clean up the house. We need to have a very, very, very clear idea of the message we want to deliver and then make sure each and every interaction point is playing by our rules instead of sending mix or (even worse) random signals.

Will that help? I truly don’t know. Besides homework and presentations I have not experimented IMC in the real world. But I had an entire class about it and I did get an A on it. According to my teacher (that recently left the school to direct a campaign for a multinational fast-food chain) it works, so I’m thinking maybe we can give it a shot.

[coral1]

*** warning! short answer ***

I have to go with Esopo. #2 is most probably the main reason.
Visitors are expecting the same ol'-same ol', and seeing little action in the forums, leave. They might be back to check later.

Aside from the "re-education" effort, we just need to keep building the forum "databases". Unfortunately, time is the main cure for that.

Time for more  :coffee2:

[COBOLdinosaur]

:oops:

I think Muso has the right idea

should be "I think esopo has the right idea"  I'm not used to agreeing with him.  :wink:

[COBOLdinosaur]

Okay esopo:
#1 home page... give me copy.  I'd like to retain the heading because the keywords in the h1 give us good SEO but we can change anything.  Newsfeeds out?  We can do that .  We have a seperate tech news page and the feeds in both the home page and the on the tech_news page are popular. Show me something.

#2 Mentors.  Those were for intro period only.  The individual profiles of Mentors who have content in articles and Tutorials are popular, most of the rest get ignored. I was planning on replacing the page and the Mentor profiles with Mentor thumbnails now that we have Mentors working in specific Forums that we can link up.  I was planning to expand the page with additonal copy about the Site Builders and some ERT history and philosophy.

#3 Forum.  Yeah it looks like a forum; a pretty quiet one.  Yeah it is PHPBB. Yeah it is plain looking.  It will be replaced, but not tomorrow.  It will get some new look and feel features over the next couple of weeks but it will still look like a forum.  I am playing with some layout changes; but seperating the PHPBB functionality pieces that I need from the presentation components is not easy because of the way the code is written, so there is no quick fix I can do. I want to make the forum look like it integrates into the rest of the site instead of the site looking like two pieces glued together.  I have managd to use the DB for some content side integration like the registration, and I am getting it relatively seamless for the news feeds. There is no quick fix for the forum, but is is going to get look and feel improvements, now that the functionality and usability issues have pretty much been addressed.

Aside from the "re-education" effort, we just need to keep building the forum "databases".

Okay then let's build the databases.  There is no rule against dup accounts.  Let's create some, post problems from them that are current and of interest to our target market, and start build the next set of articles by going through the steps necessary to get to a solution.

If lack of action is the reason we are not getting signup, then we can remedy it by creating some action. If we can stimulate some registrations that way then we are ready for the next step with targeted ads and reviews.

[Esopo]

As far as the copy (textual content) for the site, let me do some thinking. Part of the problem is defining what ERT is, I think it would be very useful if you write a page on it (I don't think you are interested in keeping it to a paragraph ;) I took a class on copywriting, but I only got a B on that one  :(

A dupe for building the DB,

How about a general-purpose asker. We don´t need to hide its identity either. I remember a time when you started asking Qs for newbies at TOS. Perhaps you can do something like that to get more discussions happening.

Perhaps a new account called "Starter" or something of the sort that goes around starting threads. We'll get the hang of it pretty quickly. As long as the thread is interesting people will keep posting.

And as long as you ask in the webdev areas, at least you'll get a post from me  :D

[Esopo]

BTW,

Congrats on having a first-page keyword!! It takes a bloody while and although it is not neccessarily as big as "paris hilton", it says a lot about the effort so far.

Let me know when you think those RSS feeds are ready to start postig them on the web.

After my initial experiments with NetBulge.com's feed, I got about 5-7 links to my site and I am getting about 50-100 hits a month from some of those feed sites (not bad for a semi-dead feed). I'm sure ERT will do much better than that.

We should also consider start generating news, report-style news. If we can get them into engines such as google and yahoo news, they make a ¡¡¡HUGE!!! difference. The cool thing is that we have the manpower to do it.

[COBOLdinosaur]

Yeah new user Starter sounds good.  We'll see what we can do with that.  I am also going to look at forums we have set up but don't have any action or a Mentor as yet.  We can remove the dead areas and then bring them back later.  I think it is better if we do not have any empty forums.

The RSS interface is just about ready.  The standard category feeds are done, and I am just finishing up the custom feeds.  The custom feeds will require registration, because we have to save the parameters to the database, so that should be some incentive to register.

As to new copy. I'm not sure I have done very well communicating my ideas.  When I wrote about the vision back in the begining of the site, many of you did not seem to understand until you started to see how the relationships and and approach were implemented.

With the home page I tried to do more of a technical description including the mechnics of how the site works.  So if that does not work either what is next? The "Instant answers guaranteed" lies we see on TOS; flashing marquees and dancing girls; a stark technical description?  I'm not the only one who has been on the site and helped build it.  I am not the only one trying to make this work.  I am not the only one who thinks ERT is worth time and effort.

Tell me why you have stayed here folks.  What ever it is you find valuable, is what we want to talk about on the home page because the people we want to come to the site are looking for whatever you found here and whatever is keeping you here.  Tell me what that is, and we can start figuring out how to communicate it.  For each of you there are a thousand out in the cold looking for what we have on this site. How do we tell them they have found it when they get here? Why are you here?

[coral1]

There is no rule against dup accounts. Let's create some, post problems

Son of a Gun.... that might a workaround for one MTD (minor techical difficulty) I have been having.....

I need to chew on this.  I need  :coffee2: !!

[muso]

:oops:

I think Muso has the right idea

should be "I think esopo has the right idea"  I'm not used to agreeing with him.  :wink:

Nah, I think you were right the first time! :-P

Can't think for the life of me what that idea might have been though... hmm... LOL

[COBOLdinosaur]

:sign5:

All ideas are good ideas until the are shown not to work in which case they become good experiments.  :-s

[DRRYAN3]

I'll jump in a little late here and suggest that most of the text on the opening page be removed.  The opening paragraphs are attention grabbing enough that those interested will read more.  When I visit the opening page, it takes me a momemt or two to get my bearings and decide what to click on.

Perhaps the opening page text could end at "There are no ads, no nags, and you won't get spammed, hijacked, or infested with spyware."  The balance could be moved to a secondary page.  I'd also suggest removing the future topics area and the RSS feeds from the opening page.

My two cents from someone still looking for a way to participate a little bit.