Links.com - New website launched. Did I achieve my objectives?

[richrf]

Well guys, I finally launched Links.com. It is a very simple concept that was suggested to me by a recent college graduate and someone attending college at this time. Just links to humor sites. My objectives were two fold:

1) To get people clicking for links (eventually I can monetize)

2) To keep people coming back?

Did I achieve this with this design? If not, how can I do better?

Thanks for the feedback.

Rich

 

[Duende]

FYI, two things, not sure if it's on my end or not.

I registered and that was fine, quick and easy. Try to submit a URL, and it tells me the answer to the easy math question is wrong, or the words in the box is wrong. I 100% am entering properly and tried several times. Is there an issue there to be looked at?

Also, do you need two ways to verify, both the math question and the words in the box? Just curious.

Take care!

 

[barefoottech]

Hi all,

I implemented many of the comments from this thread and relaunched with better content (which I am still working on).

Rich

To be brutally honest, MATE, you are wasting one of the best domains seen on this forum with that present site.

Get into a partnership with a link broker or advertising company. The potential income is HUGE compared to the CRAP content and comics you have now.

 

[Duende]

Rome wasn't built overnight, he has an idea he's passionate about and he's developing it. Who knows what the future holds. Just because he's starting in a niche doesn't mean it's a waste - as long as he's working on the site, learning and developing and studying the SEO and traffic figures...he's wasting nothing.

 

[Dave]

Auction off keywords to the highest bidder who will then have a permanent lifetime link on the site plus a whole page dedicated to their service/business/website etc.? Then SEO the heck out of those keywords to get high up on Google to actually help towards meriting the keywords that have been bought.

Just a thought.

 

[richrf]

To be brutally honest, MATE, you are wasting one of the best domains seen on this forum with that present site.

Get into a partnership with a link broker or advertising company. The potential income is HUGE compared to the CRAP content and comics you have now.

Hi DJuqa,

Thanks for the comments.

From my own experiments, I think link brokering is probably not the way to go. Links just don't count for much any more - unless they are high traffic links that will bring traffic. This kind of brokering has value but it is very specialized and probably beyond my capabilities at this time.

Advertising on the other hand (another form of link brokering) does have lots of value, and should such an opportunity arise, I would definitely look into it.

As for the site as it stands right now, there has been a mild push in the right direction. Avg time on the site has doubled, bounce has halved, and clicks are up. Nothing to get excited about but at least it is headed in the right direction.

Thanks again for your comments.

Rich

 

[richrf]

Rome wasn't built overnight, he has an idea he's passionate about and he's developing it. Who knows what the future holds. Just because he's starting in a niche doesn't mean it's a waste - as long as he's working on the site, learning and developing and studying the SEO and traffic figures...he's wasting nothing.

Hi again!

Thanks for the support. Yes, I share your views. I am learning, studying and developing and watching traffic and the effects thereof. While I still haven't found the great idea yet, I think I am headed in the right direction.

Appreciate all of your ideas and comments and I am proceeding on developing the other idea that you suggested.

Regards,
Rich

 

[richrf]

Auction off keywords to the highest bidder who will then have a permanent lifetime link on the site plus a whole page dedicated to their service/business/website etc.? Then SEO the heck out of those keywords to get high up on Google to actually help towards meriting the keywords that have been bought.

Just a thought.

Hi DomainManDave,

I think it is a terrific idea however, I do not think my traffic warrants much auction bidding at this time. The key behind Links.com, I believe, is to build traffic and leverage the branding of the name. Right now I am targeting Entertainment and I have other ideas to try to build more traffic. However, traffic does not come easy on the Internet nowadays and somewhere along the line I will have to partner with a high traffic site to build my own and to hopefully provide the reverse to my partner. It appears to be the only way. Google SERPS nowadays are highly sensitive to traffic and avg. time on site so it has to be TRAFFIC, TRAFFIC, TRAFFIC and the old link building techniques just will not do any more. There also has to be terrific content to make people come and linger.

Thanks for your suggestion. I will definitely keep it in mind.

Rich

 

[Erdy]

I visited the site and I'm not impressed. I think the domain is wasted for such a site which has limited use. The domain itself doesn't say funny links. It just says links.com, which is much more general, valuable and covering than just funny links.

You could move the site to the subdomain "funny.links.com" which would be much better. I suggest that you never listen to any suggestion from your college friend. Maybe even stop talking to him. I would.

This domain deserves a much better project. It is such a waste for such a great domain. The website itself looks like it is targeting 5 to 9 year olds. The site looks confused. Nothing is funny about this site. It is even sad, definitely sad. The idea is already too limiting for the name. The execution of the idea is even worse.

I don't see a masterpiece being wasted every day. This is definitely sad. I would say this is the most poorly executed project of the year 2010. There might be still 9 months to go til the end of 2010, but let's be honest, no other project can be any worse than this one.

If you were considering quitting your daytime job and making a living of off this website, don't do it!

 

[richrf]

I visited the site and I'm not impressed. I think the domain is wasted for such a site which has limited use. The domain itself doesn't say funny links. It just says links.com, which is much more general, valuable and covering than just funny links.

You could move the site to the subdomain "funny.links.com" which would be much better. I suggest that you never listen to any suggestion from your college friend. Maybe even stop talking to him. I would.

This domain deserves a much better project. It is such a waste for such a great domain. The website itself looks like it is targeting 5 to 9 year olds. The site looks confused. Nothing is funny about this site. It is even sad, definitely sad. The idea is already too limiting for the name. The execution of the idea is even worse.

I don't see a masterpiece being wasted every day. This is definitely sad. I would say this is the most poorly executed project of the year 2010. There might be still 9 months to go til the end of 2010, but let's be honest, no other project can be any worse than this one.

If you were considering quitting your daytime job and making a living of off this website, don't do it!

Hi,

Thanks for your comments. I greatly appreciate it.

The site was designed for extreme simplicity. Just click and see. It is actually doing much better than I expected given that I am in the raw stages of development and experimentation.

The content was selected from a variety of social networking sites where users gave the content a big thumbs up. I don't try to select links that I think are funny but what others feel are funny. It may be the wrong way to select which is why I am encouraging submissions and will also be implementing a voting system (which of course can always be gamed).

For now, I want to limit the focus though it can grow. I will be implementing a contest pretty soon which will hopefully encourage more interaction.

I am retired and enjoy developing the site that may provide enjoyment to visitors. I think I have a ways to go but initial response by visitors is encouraging but time will tell.

Thanks again for your comments.

Rich

 

[Erdy]

Hi Rich,

Now that you have told me that you are retired domainer who is just trying his luck on a project, I wanted to add that I didn't mean to be too aggressive regarding my previous comments. It's just that I'm also in graphic design business and web development business besides domaining and I just wrote how I felt about the site.

Here are some suggestions:
1. If you need the design improved you can start a design contest at 99designs.com. At the end you will get a photoshop file (not actual web page). Then you need to find a web developer to implement the design.
2. The best place I know to find a good programmer is elance.com. Also guru.com is worth to mention.

I think leaving adding links to visitors is a very good idea. You could not possibly cover 1/1000 of the good links even if it was only for funny website links. Also a voting system is a good idea.

I suggest that you check websites like Delicious

What they do is they pull a list of bookmarks from a users browser and put it on their website. Then they give control to the user on how he wants to share his links.

If I were you I would probably post a project at elance.com for a Delicious clone. You could start with a clone of that site and add even better features with time.

Good Luck
Erdinç