Craigslist – From Little Idea To Big Money

The website devouring the classified industry could hit $100 million in revenue in 2009 with a couple of minor changes, with the old-line newspaper industry helplessly watching from the sidelines.

Craigslist looks like what it is, a site launched years ago as a personal project that never forgot its users. Though the powers that be at Craigslist, founder and customer service rep Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster, aren’t commenting on the story from industry analysts Classified Intelligence (CI), they are pulling in an appreciable amount of money on the famously minimalist site. They could do even better.

CI said in its report on Craigslist that the implementation of its $25 job listing fee in three more locations could boost the company’s revenue into nine-digit territory. Through assessment of Craigslist postings in January and March, CI pegs 2008 revenue for Craigslist at $81 million.

Take the job recruiting fee of $25 Craigslist charges in a handful of major metropolitan areas. Kick it up to $75 across the board (that’s the price in San Francisco), and revenue for 2009 should climb to $150 million for a company based in a Victorian-style house that looks like it saw much better days a half-century ago.

The customer service credo of Craigslist, and its modest appointments both in headquarters and in site design, stand in stark contrast to the glassy offices of the newspapers that bore the brunt of the no frills, no fee approach to classifieds that are a hallmark of the site. Craigslist looks like what it is, a site launched years ago as a personal project that never forgot its users.

Some feel like Craigslist should do more, namely the bombastic VP and general manager of eBay’s classifieds competitor, Kijiji, Jacob Aqraou. He doesn’t care for the dated look of Craigslist, or the English-only listings that have only branched out into other languages in recent months.

As CI noted, the sniping comes across as odd, since eBay happens to own a 25 percent stake in Craigslist. The competition is real, however, with Kijiji, Freecycle, and the Village Voice’s Backpage all trying to present themselves as a better classifieds option.

Although some may dispute Craigslist’s real impact on newspaper classified revenue, one publishing professional cited by CI called Craigslist a catalyst that forced newspapers to reconsider their business models.

There isn’t one cause for newspaper fortunes to be in decline. Craigslist is a popular target, especially since CI said in 2004 that San Francisco newspapers lost as much as $65 million in recruitment ad revenue alone due to the site.

Craigslist simply found a niche where demand existed, and they make as much money as they care to earn. One can imagine how much they would make if they tossed an AdSense ad unit into their templates. But to Newmark and company, such a prospect looks unfathomable.

Craig Newmark’s story is inspiring. He took a little email project and turned it into a multi-million dollar headache for the newspaper industry. Even after all the success, craigslist remains humble, simple, and end-user focused. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, right?

Wake Up Call – People Use the Internet to Shop

Results from a survey conducted by Cambridge-based Internet design and marketing company, Netflare revealed some startling statistics about small businesses and eCommerce.

Stats like:

– 23% of sites hadn’t been updated since their launch leading to inaccurate and obsolete content

– Only 8% even had an eCommerce element to their site

– 25% had no way of tracking online sales

– 38% didn’t have a budget at all for updating their sites

And the survey covered small businesses in 19 different sectors.

So if you run a small business and are starting to feel guilty reading over these stats, this is your wake up call! The amount of people using the Internet to do at least some of their shopping is growing all the time. Do you really want to miss out on all of these potential customers? Nobody said it was going to be easy, but you just can’t neglect your website and expect to get sales.

Not Selling Goods Through Your Site?

If you are selling goods, it’s time to offer them through your website. Not just through your brick and mortar store. Not only will this increase convenience for your customers (they love convenience by the way), it will expand your customer base across the world.

Not Tracking Online Sales?

Don’t you want to know where your sales are coming from? Knowing this will only help you better target your customers in the marketing process.

Not Updating Your Site?

Do not leave out of date content on your site for potential customers to find. I promise you that they will not buy from you if you are still promoting some dated content that isn’t even relevant anymore. It’s just unprofessional, and nobody wants to take a chance buying from someone they’ve never heard of if they can’t even present themselves in a professional manner.

No Budget for Site Updates?

If you don’t have a budget for keeping a website updated, it’s time to reorganize your budget. If you can’t afford to hire your own designer, work with whoever designed your site and learn how to update it yourself. And make sure you have someone available to assist in case your site experiences technical difficulties.

It’s the year 2008. It’s time to start taking the Internet seriously as a way of attracting customers. Why deprive your business of more sales?

Ways RSS Feeds Can Benefit Your Business

Google Reader is one of my favorite features that Google offers because it allows me to read the latest articles and posts from nearly every website and blog that I read on a regular basis all in one place.

This can be a tremendous time-saver and tool to keep you up to date on all of the happenings in your niche, and boost your productivity as a result.

Subscribing to Feeds

It’s all about productivity. If you already subscribe to RSS feeds, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Still, RSS hasn’t quite reached mainstream status, most likely because it is hard to really understand just how helpful it is until you try it first-hand.

So for those that have not tested the RSS waters yet, go register for a feed reader. Again, I use Google Reader myself (it’s convenient if you already have a Google account).

Spend a little time visiting all of the sites and blogs that you read on a regular basis. Also find some that you don’t, but perhaps would if you had the time. On each of these sites/blogs, look for the classic feed icon:

You can usually find it at the top of your browser if a feed is available for the page you are on (in Firefox, it appears on the right-hand side of the address bar). Click it to add the feed to your reader.

Now you have tons of up-to-date articles coming to you in one place that you can check just as easily as your email. Read what you want, skip the rest. Now imagine how much time you will save on a daily basis from not having to surf around.

Offering Feeds

Feeds are not mainstream…yet. Still, you may be surprised at how many people do utilize them. If you operate a blog or a site that runs any kind of articles, you should definitely look into offering feeds. Most blog platforms will feature them anyway.

By not offering feeds, you are missing out on an opportunity to keep customers informed of what your business is up to. You’re missing out on a fantastic promotional tool. When you get subscribers, you don’t have to worry so much about them coming to you, because you’ll be going to them.

Note: FeedBurner is a great way to keep up with subscription stats.

Feed Reading Options

Google Reader is just one of many options you can use to read feeds. Other popular ones include:

1. NewsGator

2. Bloglines

3. Rojo

4. FeedDemon

5. NewzCrawler

6. Omnea Reader

7. Awasu

8. Blog Navigator

9. SharpReader

10. RSS Bandit

Your options are not limited to these. Different readers offer different options, so you may want to do some exploring to find the one most suitable to your needs.

RSS is an invaluable tool for any online business whether you are the reader or the publisher. Try being both to get the most out of the technology.

Do you read or publish RSS feeds? How do you think it has impacted your business?

Domain name for Asia up for grabs

The so-called landrush for the latest domain name suffix – .asia – has begun.

DotAsia, the organisation overseeing the registration, is expecting huge demand for the first domain name extension for the Asia Pacific region.

But some in the industry are concerned about the proliferation of domain name suffixes in recent years.

While others think that the business of buying domain names has become more about protecting brands than promoting them.

Cybersquatting

Work to create the .asia domain began in 2000 with the DotAsia Organisation winning official approval to set up the domain in 2006.

A so-called sunrise period, where companies can reserve domains to match their trademarks, has been ongoing since October.

Now the process has been opened up for anyone to register and the first .asia domains will go live on the internet in March.

Thomas Herbert, a product manager from UK hosting firm and registrar Hostway, believes the nature of buying domain names has changed, largely due to the lucrative businesses of cybersquatting.

“People are willing to pay big money for a domain and with domain name reselling on the increase, it has become a matter of protecting your trademark,” he said.

As well as cybersquatting there can be legitimate battles over suffixes.

For example, in the sunrise period for the .eu domain, there were some 95,000 conflicting claims for domains.

The http://www.polo.eu domain was applied for by car maker Volkswagen, fashion house Ralph Lauren and sweet manufacturer Nestle.

To limit squabbles and cybersquatting this time around, the DotAsia Organisation, has put in place certain rules.

Companies must be already registered in the Asia/Pacific region to qualify and if there are any conflicts of interest, the domain will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Such restrictions are likely to increase as more domain names come online, thinks Mr Herbert.

Leona Chen, spokeswoman for the DotAsia Organisation, anticipated plenty of interest and hoped the suffix could have as significant an impact in Asia as .com has globally.

“We are ready for something big. All of our people and systems are in place and we look forward to the commencement of the .asia landrush,” she said.

Too many?

UK domain name registrar NetNames pointed out that the number of firms registering interest is considerably lower than for the sell-off of the eu domain in April 2006.

“Only 30,780 applications have been filed for .asia domain names so far compared with 330,000 at the same point in the launch of the .eu domain name,” said Jonathan Robinson, chief operating officer of NetNames.

He advised firms to get onboard quickly.

“Once it starts, there’s far less protection for companies’ trademarks and its open season on the .asia domain name for cybersquatters, online speculators and competitors,” he said.

According to a report from Nominet, the overseer of the .uk registry, there is an active market in buying, selling and storing domain names, with sales regularly exceeding £100,000 and peak values reaching more than £1m.

While some of these resales are legitimate there was also a big market for speculators, said Nominet chief executive Lesley Cowley.

She was concerned that a sudden leap in the number of domain names could leave companies confused as to which ones they need to register for.

“The current process being developed by Icann (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) means there could be a couple of hundred or even thousands of new suffixes to bid for by the end of the year,” she said.

The .asia domain name extends to some 70 countries, from the Middle East to Australia. 60% of the world’s population lives within the Asia-Pacific region and there are 400 million internet users.

Other regional suffixes for Africa and Latin America are expected to follow.

Starting A Small Business Blog

If you run a small business you may want to consider starting your own blog to raise awareness about what you do.

There are some basic strategies you can use to start your blog. Consider who your audience is and write on subjects that will make them want to read your blog. Select a blog service that helps you build traffic and sends alerts if a reader comments on one of your posts.

Use an angle that will be compelling to your readers and at the same time be sincere in your views. Provide links on your blog to other sites that are related to your business and read the other blogs to stay informed about events or news that is happening in your field. Eventually other bloggers will start linking to your blog.

Keep your blog up to date so readers don’t become frustrated with outdated content and will keep returning to see what you are saying. Keep tabs on your traffic to your site and don’t be afraid to try other ideas to capture a larger audience.

Search engines like Google or Yahoo are another part of attracting readers to your blog. To generate traffic, use keywords in your headlines and blog postings that are related to your business.

Use an RSS feed so first time visitors to your blog will comeback again. If you connect readers with your blog’s RSS feed your content will be syndicated whenever you write a new post.

Respond to comments you receive about your blog post even if they are negative or offer a perspective you don’t agree with. Use your own voice and be honest.

The Ultimate Guide to Directory Submissions

Submitting to directories is a great way to build links and increase your search engine rankings. In semi-competitive industries it can produce great results. If you add article creation and social media marketing into the link building equation then you can achieve great results for any industry.

Free or Paid Directories?

When choosing directories going for the paid ones can be better, mainly because the links seem to last a lot longer. Many of the free directories seem to disappear or delete links after a year or so. However, there are a few free directories out there that should always be used – directories that have stood the test of time.

Niche or General Directories?

Submitting to a combination of both niche and general directories is usually a good idea.

For most industries there are a variety of niche directories out there – the best way to find them is through a search engine. Do a search on Google, MSN or Yahoo for directories in your niche area – those that come up in the first few pages of results are usually the best ones to use.

With general directories it’s better to go for those that are more established. The older a directory is, the better.

PageRank – Does It Still Matter?

Because directories are generally quite large, they need a certain amount of PageRank to get all of their pages indexed properly. However a high PageRank isn’t the be-all and end-all. Google’s recent crackdown on directories has made visible PageRank even more irrelevant when it comes to choosing directories. There are directories out there that have no PageRank whatsoever that can offer value.

If a directory is ranking well in the search engines then you can rest assured that it has enough PageRank. If you’re unsure then check how many links it has via Yahoo! Site Explorer or another link popularity checker.

Anchor Text

It’s always best to get the main search phrases that you are targeting in the links to your site. However this isn’t always possible and unfortunately many of the best directories won’t let you do this. Sometimes you can get around this problem by slipping in a search phrase at the end of your company name.

Before submitting, have a good look around a directory and get a feel for what you can and can’t get away with. Some directory owners will let you use a search phrase on its own, whereas others are very strict and will only use your business/website name. In between you have those where you might just be able to slip a search phrase in.

Doing your homework comes in handy – if you try to use a search phrase on its own and they change it to your business/website name then it’s very unlikely you’ll be able to get them to change it to your website name with a search phrase at the end. If you’d submitted it like that in the first place you may have got away with it.

Always try to get one of your search phrases in and vary the anchor text as much as possible – this will appear more natural to the search engines.

Varying Your Description

Many directories will provide you with your own page about your business. If you have the same description on every page across different directory websites, then many of these will be seen as duplicate content by the search engines and your links will get devalued.

To avoid this, write a unique and substantial description for every single directory (200+ characters works best). Make sure the descriptions accurately mirror your products and services and that they read well.

Deep Linking

Many directories allow you to add extra links directly to internal pages of your website. You should take turns in linking to different pages of your website using different variations of the phrases you’re targeting on each page. Using the same anchor text to link to the same page over and over again will appear unnatural to the search engines and this could work against you.

How Many Directories Should You Submit To?

There’s no fixed number of directories that you should get listed in. Work out a 12 month directory submission budget for each site and then do so many each week or month for the full duration.

When you’re building links to your site via directories or any other method, you should do it over time. Submitting to 100 directories in a week and then forgetting about it won’t be as effective as spreading the 100 directory submissions over a 3 month period.

The Top 10 Directories

Finally, here’s a list of the top free and paid general directories to get you started.

5 of the best free directories include:

• Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org/)
• World Site Index (http://www.worldsiteindex.com/)
• Domaining.in (http://www.domaining.in/)
• Web World (http://www.webworldindex.com/)
• Search Sight (http://www.searchsight.com/)

5 of the best paid directories include:

• Yahoo! Directory (http://dir.yahoo.com/)
• Best of the Web (http://botw.org/)
• Business.com (http://www.business.com/)
• Aviva (http://www.avivadirectory.com/)
• Ezilon (http://www.ezilon.com/)

Webcredible

10 Ways To Increase Pages Indexed

For a while now webmasters have fretted over why all of the pages of their website are not indexed. As usual there doesn’t seem to be any definite answer. But some things are definite, if not automatic, and some things seem like pretty darn good guesses.

If you know a good way to increase the number, or are certain (or can guess) of a way to get all of a website’s pages crawled, then please join the conversation by letting me know in the comments section.

So, after reading through the forums, blogs, Google’s own guidelines for increasing the number of pages Google indexes and my own experience, here are some of mine (and the community’s) best guesses.

PageRank

It depends a lot on PageRank. The higher your PageRank the more pages that will be indexed. PageRank isn’t a blanket number for all your pages. Each page has its own PageRank. A high PageRank gives the Googlebot more of a reason to return. Matt Cutts confirms, too, that a higher PageRank means a deeper crawl.

Links

Give the Googlebot something to follow. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are golden as the trust is already established.

Internal links can help, too. Link to important pages from your homepage. On content pages link to relevant content on other pages.

Sitemap

A lot of buzz around this one. Some report that a clear, well-structured Sitemap helped get all of their pages indexed. Google’s Webmaster guidelines recommends submitting a Sitemap file, too:

• Tell us all about your pages by submitting a Sitemap file; help us learn which pages are most important to you and how often those pages change.

That page has other advice for improving crawlability, like fixing violations and validating robots.txt.

Some recommend having a Sitemap for every category or section of a site.

Speed

A recent O’Reilly report indicated that page load time and the ease with which the Googlebot can crawl a page may affect how many pages are indexed. The logic is that the faster the Googlebot can crawl, the greater number of pages that can be indexed.

This could involve simplifying the structures and/or navigation of the site. The spiders have difficulty with Flash and Ajax. A text version should be added in those instances.

Google’s crawl caching proxy

Matt Cutts provides diagrams of how Google’s crawl caching proxy at his blog. This was part of the Big Daddy update to make the engine faster. Any one of three indexes may crawl a site and send the information to a remote server, which is accessed by the remaining indexes (like the blog index or the AdSense index) instead of the bots for those indexes physically visiting your site. They will all use the mirror instead.

Verify

Verify the site with Google using the Webmaster tools.

Content, content, content

Make sure content is original. If a verbatim copy of another page, the Googlebot may skip it. Update frequently. This will keep the content fresh. Pages with an older timestamp might be viewed as static, outdated, or already indexed.

Staggered launch

Launching a huge number of pages at once could send off spam signals. In one forum, it is suggested that a webmaster launch a maximum of 5,000 pages per week.

Size matters

If you want tens of millions of pages indexed, your site will probably have to be on an Amazon.com or Microsoft.com level.

Know how your site is found, and tell Google

Find the top queries that lead to your site and remember that anchor text helps in links. Use Google’s tools to see which of your pages are indexed, and if there are violations of some kind. Specify your preferred domain so Google knows what to index.

Top 5 SEO and Link Building Challenges for 2008

Fear has infected the entire Web community — not just link buyers and sellers. Google’s public attack on paid links has caused a flood of scared Webmasters who are scared to link to other sites. Google’s assault on paid links has forced Webmasters to ask: What is a paid link?

Here are the top five trends and challenges SEOs, link builders, and Webmasters face.

1. Webmasters Scared to Link Out

There has always been a segment of Webmasters scared to link out. The number of fearful Webmasters has increased drastically because they’re worried Google will consider it a “paid link.”

What does Google consider a paid link? Here are two real-world scenarios:

• A hotel sends you vouchers for two free nights at their newest chain of suites to reward their “best customers,” generate buzz, and gain links.
• A software company doesn’t charge you their normal consulting rate of $150 an hour for the 15 minutes it took them to fix the problem. You decide to recommend and blog about how great they are.

Linking out is not so black and white anymore.

2. Overuse and Abuse of NoFollow Tags

With that fear of linking to other sites, many Webmasters are choosing to put a NoFollow tag on all outbound links, including established links that may have been live for years. Those established links could be the very links getting you top rankings.

Just the other day I ran across a well established hosting company that put NoFollow tags on their internal links to main product pages from within their content. Most experienced SEOs understand the value and importance of links from within content.

If an established hosting company uses NoFollows in this way, can we honestly expect average Webmasters to use NoFollow on external links in the proper way?

Plus, search engines change their mind on how they want people to use NoFollows over time. At one time, NoFollow was supposed to be used for blog comments that might be spam. Now they want you to use them on all advertising and to sculpt your PageRank.

Wonder why there is confusion and overuse?

3. Neglected Link Building Destroys Top Rankings

Many sites have enjoyed top rankings for years without being proactive in link development. Once they got top rankings they started to take their rankings for granted. Some feel a sense of “entitlement” to top rankings.

“I am generally finding this sense of entitlement and arrogance among Webmasters who have maintained rankings for some time,” said Benjamin Pfeiffer, president of RankSmart.com. “If they can’t get the rankings, they throw a Google tantrum. This attitude, however, shows their inexperience, as a good SEO would never be so hasty.”

This trend of established sites dropping off the first page will only increase in 2008. The fact is while these sites were enjoying the benefits of top ranking; their competition was being proactive in promoting their site and building links.

Ironically, it’s much easier to maintain top rankings than play catch-up. Yet large enterprises and small and medium-sized businesses treat SEO and link building as a one-time cure.

4. Google Paid Links Assault: Collateral Damage

With every search engine update, there’s always collateral damage. As Google turns up the assault on paid links, some unsuspecting and innocent sites will be wounded.

The average site owner doesn’t keep up with SEO. They’re not reading Matt Cutts’ blog (Google Engineer), SEO sites, or checking for updates to the Google Webmaster Guidelines. They’re busy running their business to support their family.

Most people’s lives don’t revolve around search engines, a fact often forgotten by SEOs and search engines.

In doubt? Consider how many “professional designers” still produce sites that aren’t search engine friendly.

5. Scarcity of Link Building Resources

Anyone who has spent time developing high-quality links knows it’s time consuming and tedious work. Experienced custom link developers have been in high-demand for some time now.

With Google going to battle with paid links, the demand for custom link development will increase, making custom link services even harder to find.

Companies must decide where to allocate finite resources. For companies with larger budgets, it’s easier to outsource link development or take it in-house. Many may reallocate funds from traditional marketing to SEO.

This is harder for companies with smaller budgets. They must make more difficult choices about allocating their limited resources.

This will surely be a challenging and adventurous year. Creative and outside-the-box thinkers will thrive.

As Winston Churchill said, “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.”

Google PageRank Update

Not really a post today more of a question.

Has anyone else noticed a PageRank update?

Some of my sites have seen an increase, with on going from PR 0 to PR 5! This I belive has been down to redirecting older established sites, that are no longer needed, to the new domain – which had only been live for about 3-4 months. Other sites have seen an increase in PR of internal pages.

Yesterday my PageRank bar in Firefox wasn’t working, it was like it had been turned off. I had a look today and saw these changes.

Has anyone else noticed anything?

How to sneak into the YouTube.com popular sections and get thousands of free visitors to your website

There are billions of websites on the net, but YouTube incredibly gets 14% of all Internet traffic.

Below is a cutting edge, and not entirely ethical trick to sneaking onto the most viewed and most popular pages of Youtube.

Step 1 – Create Your Video

You are not going to have success on a video site without a video, so grab a video camera, or your webcam and make your vid. Infact, ideally your video should be an advert for your site, so ensure that you have your website url in big writing.

WARNING: It is best to create a video without any sound. You will see why in step 3.

Step 2 – Upload Your Video

This can take around 15 minutes to upload. Be patient!

Step 3 – Put the video in an iFrame and insert into your website.

You will need a high traffic site for this to work best. What you need to do is put the video in an iFrame, but use zero by zero for its size. This will make it invisible. Then stick it into the footer of your site and each impression on your site will count as a view of the video, thus rocketing it up the Youtube rankings.

Step 4 – Test.

Check to make sure the video is invisible on your site, also check that the amount of views are increasing in Youtube.

Then just sit back and watch as your rankings rocket in Youtube.

Step 5 – Build rewards.

If your video gets a LOT of views, then it could win awards. This will help it rank in all the top 10 sections of Youtube, and this in turn will sky rocket the views even further.

This is a great way to get thousands of extra unique page views per day. This truly is one of the few ways of getting free traffic to your site.