Things Are Looking Up Again

Finally got to speak with our linking strategist about plans for the freshare site. I told him that the linking strategy was going slowly - a lot of tedious work with very few solid results. I wanted to move on to the publicity part of the plan.

We discussed that strategy and what was needed. Then Eric made the best suggestion yet. One that made the wait worthwhile and the consulting fees money well spent. He suggested we put a very specific search engine on our site. One that only features the best bloggers and citizen journalists in our region. Such a search engine would greatly simplify things for visitors who only want information from local bloggers and it would help gel our relationship with those bloggers. We put the engine in the very next day.

This weekend, I'll work on the site announcement for Eric to send out to his contacts. After that, I'm hoping we'll see a readership begin to emerge.

Another Tough Week

Our expert in linking and publicity strategy has pretty much ignored my emails requesting the final conversation and the publicity package I've already paid for. Today I sent out an email reminding him I already paid him (two months ago) and expect an immediate reply. I got one. We are slated to finish up tomorrow. We'll see.

I've also been looking into affiliate programs to see if I can find some webmasters who are interested in selling ads on our employment and classifieds sites. I tried HydraMedia and, after talking to a rep, the program sounded solid. All that was left was for me to sign a credit / financial agreement and an insertion order.

Good thing I read through them first. Hydra wants to check credit anytime (presumably even if we decide to dissolve our business relationship) and they want to use only their figures in determining affiliate payment with no room for discussion if we see an error.

I don't mind a credit check, but unlimited ones? Accessing credit reports can have a negative impact on credit scores. Would you give a stranger that kind of freedom? Probably not. Neither would I.

Using Hydra's numbers for calculating affiliate payment does make sense. But give up my right to challenge those numbers? Never.

I presented these concerns to my rep. So far, she has not replied.

Links

We've spent the last week and a half or so emailing hundreds of web site administrators requesting they link to freshare. While we were extremely busy, productive emails have been hard to come by. We picked up about half a dozen or so links, some unfulfilled promises of links and a lot of unanswered emails.

It's not like we spammed or shotgunned our efforts. We hired an individual who is known in the industry as a links expert. The web administrators we chose were well thought out and were already linking to some of our competitors.

It's tough to keep focused on the task when there is so little success to celebrate. This week, we are going to try to fire up the publicity portion of our campaign. We think that generating a buzz will not only help promote the site, but we will also see an increase in the number of inbound links we receive.

Writing Code

For me, writing the code behind the website was a slow, sometimes painstaking process. I knew a bit of HTML, but precious little about Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and Expression Engine, or EE (the software I chose to power our content management system).

The HTML part was not too bad. Fairly straightforward and not to cumbersome to work with. Mostly, I used HTML to divide up the page, create links, make lists and fairly mundane things.

The real workhorses behind the site are the CSS, which I'll talk about tomorrow, and EE. They perform all the real work.

I read anything I could find, searched the Internet and hung out at forums trying to pick up whatever I could about working with EE. Luckily, someone I hired to put together that piece of the site had laid out enough code that I could follow the logic and improve on it. The gentleman I hired abandoned the project without warning or explanation about halfway through, so I was forced to pick up the pieces from there. Looking back now, he did me a favor because it forced me to learn the program.

Just so you know, Expression Engine is powerful yet inexpensive content management software. The trade off is, the only tech support you get is via their forums, wikis, knowledge base and documentation. But, let me tell you, those folks are fantastic to work with. I posed a lot of questions on the forums and got the help I needed quickly. Day or night. If you are considering content management software, I would highly recommend Expression Engine.

Back to Blogging

Well, it's been quite some time since I last blogged here. But now that the website makeover is complete, I have a little more time to write English instead of xhtml and CSS code. Over the next several days I'll be recounting the process we've gone through in our website transformation.

For example, while I was away from the blog I revised the "YourPanorama" web site twice. The last revision was a complete makeover. Even the name has been changed - to freshare. We pronounce it "fresh air" but you could also say "free share" as some people do because that's accurate, too. It's a citizen journalism site where visitors can share news, opinions and photos in a free exchange of information.

Freshare just seemed more like us. YourPanorama was fine but it was too long and not as descriptive of our project. Luckily, we had not branded YourPanorama to any great extent so we were early enough on in the process to make the switch.

Tomorrow, I'll talk a bit about the code behind the site and some of the resources that I found helpful.

Another Winter Storm

Well, we're bracing for another major ice storm. This one has the potential to be worse than the storm we experienced a few weeks ago. Already, over half an inch of ice has fallen. The trees are coated and I can hear limbs breaking outside. The precipitation is actually coming down as rain, but it is freezing on contact. Roads are clear, but even that is expected to deteriorate as the night goes on.

I put wood on the deck in the event power is lost and we have to resort to heating with the fireplace. The ground was soft and wet which made it tough to push the wheelbarrow, and the icy rain soaked my jacket and shirt. Plus, the gutter was overflowing from a leaf jam so I had to pull out the ladder and clean that mess. Very difficult to find a place where the ladder did not sink in and when I did get up to the gutter, my hands froze almost instantly from trying to clear the jams. All is well now, though.

Tomorrow and Sunday are threatening to be even worse than today for ice accumulation along with snow accumulations on Sunday. Could be an interesting weekend. I was planning to work on the web site design improvements, and will if the power holds out.

Site Changes Coming

It's time to take the YourPanorama site and give it a major makeover. It has served its purpose well for a couple of months, but the time has come to pretty it up and add some new features while we're at it. In fact, we're even going to change the name of the site to give it a jazzier sound and shorten the number of syllables it takes to accomplish that.

Most of the site re-design work will occur over the weekend, but if you would like to check the progress, just go to: www.yourpanorama.com/newsite/index to see how we're doing. In fact, I would really appreciate any input, comments or advice you would like to post here at Abbozzare about the YourPanorama update.

Designing the Future

We took some time last week, in between the holidays, to lay out plans for YourPanorama. Up until now it seems we were making decisions daily as to what sounded like the right thing to do, which direction to pursue and which means appeared the best way to achieve our goals. The result was that it felt more like we were floundering than setting sail in a prescribed path.

I should have learned a long time ago that a vision and a written plan to realize that vision works best. Did that all the time in my previous life as a manufacturing manager. No reason I can't apply the same technique to this new venture.

Our plans fell into three categories: 1) Improve financial conditions: which includes reducing costs where it makes sense to do so as well as finding and implementing new revenue streams. 2) Increase the number of contributors and visitors to the site: two different, but related activities. Thus far, a small handful of contributors supply all the content to the site. Our plans are to expand this number so that the site is truly participatory. 3) Improve the overall look and feel of the site. By design, we started with a simple layout and a few things we thought were necessary to include. We knew that we would learn and discover what else needed inclusion, what need to go and what design features we wanted to apply. YourPanorama will be constantly changing, so this is an on-going process.

Beginning tomorrow, we will be putting these plans into action and I can't wait. It would be wonderful to see results immediately, but I think we are more likely to see things evolve a little bit every day, then take off rapidly at some future point. We'll see and we'll keep you posted.

Revisions

We've been trying to get some of the local bloggers to take note of YourPanorama to help us promote it and to add some fresh new content to the site. One blogger, Steve from House of Warwick, had suggested that we need to take a closer look at our terms of service. He indicated they made it sound as if we were going to steal ideas and materials from members then market them as our own. Not at all what we want to do. YourPanorama is a community journalism site where we celebrate the ideas of others.

Anyway, I took a look at the terms with a new eye and discovered that Steve was right! The language sounded awful and made us look like devious people. So I changed it today - all of it. Took out four pages worth of repetitive legalese and poorly stated objectives. I'll leave it up to you to see if what is left clearly defines how we treat copyrighted content and what we do not want posted to the site. Our revised terms are here. And I wrote a brief article to include on YourPanorama describing the events that led to the revisions.

Christmas Cheer

If you had no other way to tell what time of year it was, you could nearly pinpoint the date simply by observing Springfield traffic. An alternative method would be to visit the mall or any of the large box stores in town. In either case, the most accurate determination of time would be to have established a reference point a few weeks ago, then make a more recent observation for comparison.

Traffic has thickened significantly, no debate about that. I have a forty mile commute to Springfield and pass a growing line of headlights each evening as I head home. No doubt they are the automobiles of Christmas shoppers making yet another trek to the city's shopping meccas because they still haven't found that one "wow" gift or because Aunt Mable FedEx'd something unexpected so they are obliged by the rules of return giving to find something that Aunt Mable needs even though she did not originally make the cut for the shopping list.

It's not so much the growth in traffic that indicates the season as it is the courtesy level of the drivers involved. Just today I saw someone stop short of an intersection to allow two cars to pull out - one going to the right, the other to the left. Neither driver as much as served up the flash of a palm to say "thanks." Instead they seemed to act as though they were merely collecting on a debt already owed. People are always shifting lanes, cutting others off or generally behaving rudely on the road, but this time of year sure heightens the activity. Lip read a few drivers today and you'll understand what I mean.

It's the same in stores. I used to be a Christmas Eve panic shopper, but have become one of those very organized types that has everything purchased and wrapped before the second week of December. I was in Target a few weeks ago and everyone was friendly. I was checking out the DVD's near the checkouts when a lady offered the unsolicited advice that the same movie cost $2 more at K-Mart and that Target had the best priced DVD around. Later, another lady waiting in the checkout line next to me asked about the merchandise I was holding and I sold her on buying the same thing (if you're reading this, Target, I'll take the standard 15% commission).

Today, it's not like that. I was in Target just a few days ago (not Christmas shopping) and it was like warfare. Wild eyed and frenzied, people bulldozed their carts into aisles without stopping, plowing ahead like tanks ignoring anyone in their paths. Few people spoke except to stammer out the next item on the list or argue about what color sweater to get for dear old Aunt Mable, whose dearness quotient had fallen off considerably since the FedEx guy was at your house. Shaken, battle-weary veterans of Christmas wars, they are. Unable to accept defeat, they push ahead with their mission, refusing to accept the inevitable purchase of Simon gift cards to close out their lists, and for which they will pay dearly with their time as they reach the gift card conclusion only after everyone else has done the same thing and they all find themselves waiting ... waiting ... in the same long checkout lines they have had to endure for days.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but shoppers take note. All this will grow worse before it gets better. The lines will get longer. The fuses will get shorter. The nervousness will grow. But the silver lining is that come Christmas morning, the only thing that will matter is the look on the faces of loved ones when the paper is torn away and the gift illuminates their smiles. It's too bad that it only takes about 15 minutes to tear open what it took about 3000 minutes to buy and wrap. But, chances are, we'll do it all over again next December.

Whose Woods Are These

Actually, I do know whose woods these are and his house isn't in the village, it's on the property. This is where I've gone deer hunting every year for the past fourteen seasons. It's comprised of a couple hundred or so acres with a large pasture, lots of woods, pond, creeks, springs and plenty of deer habitat. Not that I see deer every year or even fill my tag every year. That's not the point. I really enjoy venison, but getting a deer is just a bonus. The real pleasure is derived from witnessing the woods' reawakening after a night's slumber.

I arrive well before first light so I can wrestle my climbing tree stand into position and set it up for the morning - haul up my backpack filled with binoculars, snacks, lunch, a thermos of coffee, extra hat and gloves should the weather turn nasty, and my camera.

Then I wait. Silence. And watch. A hoot owl in the distance momentarily breaks the silence. Quiet again. The gentle crunch of a deer hoof on snow. Silence. A snort. Just checking, testing. I answer. Silence. Then a reply as she snorts back. The gentle crunch continues. The deer I spoke to but could not see ambles off, content. Slowly, cautiously, dawn steps on stage and the flutter of bird wings in flight hushes through the departing silence. The juncos and chickadees begin to sound and take flight. Soon the grey squirrels ramble about, looking for breakfast. They find a nut, sit back and admire it in their hands like some precious gem before taking a bite or burying the prize where they'll never find it again. More birds arrive - bluebirds, cardinals, downy woodpeckers. The air fills with activity. Everyone's hungry and in search of an easy meal. I pour a cup of coffee and munch on some fig bars. Finally, the fox squirrels arise - late as usual - almost yawning as they they scurry up and down trees.

Every year it's the same, yet every year brings something different, too. Sometimes it may be a flock of geese or ducks, or a red fox upset because he detected my scent but did not consider looking up to find me in my stand, or dozens of raccoons perched in trees until wandering off at the crack of dawn.

This year, it was a couple inches of wet snow covering the ground during the second rifle season. That made tracks easy to spot and there were lots of them. All sizes, too, from fawns to buck prints four inches long. Sign was easy to spot and so were deer, at least the few that arrived.

I got my bonus this year, but I am most thankful for being there several mornings this fall as the woods woke up to a rhythm set in motion long before my arrival and destined to repeat itself well after my departure.

Where Are All The People?

We've built a great web site, although it does need some tweaking now that we have the initial site running, but we just aren't seeing the level of traffic or participation we had hoped for at this point in time. We are currently looking at new ways to draw attention to the site and to increase visitor's length of stay. Tried Google AdWords, but with little success even after refining our key words. The books all tell us to focus on articles, news releases and viral marketing techniques so we are in the process of implementing our plans in those areas.

Most disappointing has been the lack of solid revenue growth. And, of course, we do have bills and salaries to pay so revenues are very important. We have been running affiliate program links on each page but they require three things to happen: 1) need visitors 2) visitors have to be compelled to click through 3) visitors have to buy something from the spot they click to. I think it may be time to try Google AdSense. That eliminates the third criteria noted above. We have used AdSense with some success on other sites we own so it may be worth implementing here.

I have not given up entirely on affiliate programs, but I do think they would be more successful with significantly higher levels of page views. We downloaded a free piece of php software that allows us to deliver ads in almost any manner we choose including by keywords from articles and other content on the site. That would work similar to AdSense delivery, so it is still on the table as a consideration.

I am convinced that no matter which revenue stream we choose to pursue, it will work. We just need to make a strong effort to drive traffic in order to produce the results we need to see.

Winter Storm

A big winter storm hit the area on Thursday sending temperatures into the teens and dumping anywhere from a trace to our south to 17 inches of snow and ice to our north. We got about two inches of ice and sleet here plus about five inches of snow on top of that. These are a couple shots taken Friday morning after the storm passed. There are a few more photos at YourPanorama.com. Just click on the Photo gallery link on the left sidebar.

Driving was hazardous and, since I live about 35 miles from my office, I decided to work from home rather than risk a wreck. The snow alone would have been all right since my truck is a 4-wheel drive but that won't help in icy conditions. But I did get some work done including a press release announcing the new web site - you can read the release here. I also polished up a few articles that I'll be posting at several article clearinghouse sites hoping that other webmasters will find them, post them on their own sites and link back to YourPanorama.com.

Christmas Lights

Got the Christmas lights finished while the weather was still warm. It was 65 degrees or better this past weekend when I did most of the work. The final touches were completed on Monday night while temps remained near 60 degrees.

I'm glad of it. It was 71 today before the cold front moved through. Within an hour it was in the mid-fifties and still falling. Predictions are for freezing rain, sleet and snow, maybe even thunder-snow, for the next couple of days. All that plus bitter cold air temperatures and wind chills near or below zero make me happy to report I'll be reading a book in front of the fireplace this weekend. Or working on YourPanorama.com.

R & R

Back from a short break over the holiday and the fishing was great. The river was up on Thursday and murky from the rains earlier in the week but the trout were biting anyway. I ventured out in my chest waders and was able to get further out into the current than I thought.

Limited out (5 fish) on Thursday although I caught a total of nine and had to release a couple. A few more released themselves, that is they came loose before I could land them.

On Friday, the river was down about a foot from the previous day and the water was crystal clear. A slight rise was coming through as a damn from one of the upstream lakes was opened. Perfect conditions for trout fishing, but no bites. I cast for about an hour with no results before catching three in as many attempts. Another spell of no bites, then landed two more in quick succession to bag my limit. That's the five from Friday in the photo.

Left for home on Friday evening after dining on catfish at Fred's Fish House in Mountain Home, Arkansas. It's a great place for fish although a little pricey.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. I'm heading off to Calico Rock, Arkansas for a little food, some great trout fishing and a chance to relax a little.

Wrestling with Keywords

I've been trying to come up with a productive campaign using Google AdWords for the new web site, but it's very tough to hone them down to a workable number ... a productive, workable number.

I tried the local market and got few hits. Nationwide presented plenty of hits but they were not quality page views as few people stayed on the site and no one joined as members. We have a regional news site so if Google content ads are shown to people not interested in the local area, they won't stay. One click and they're out of there.

From the data shown in my Google AdWords account, it's difficult to decipher the detail as to where the page impressions are coming from. I know most clicks arrive through Google content, but that is, apparently, not keyword based. I think the ads will work out eventually, but thisis going to require some trial and error.

It Starts .....

We're in the middle of starting up and trying to make a go of a new project at the office. It's a big undertaking and a major new direction for the company. I'll talk about that a lot in this blog - what we tried that worked, what failed, what we could have done better. But I'll also want to take some time to discuss other things on my mind each day. Some funny stuff, some serious stuff and just about anything else that makes this journey through life an interesting voyage.

Something will be going on here every day. Hope you'll stop by once in awhile to see what it is.