August 30th, 2010
My friend Dee is building a website called The Best Degrees and one thing he set out to do when he started the site was to establish Points of Difference between the site and all the other run of the mill online college sites out there.
While the site is still waiting on a nice, new design, Dee has shown us one example of how he intends to create a Point of Difference: to make one of the biggest, baddest, most well-researched resources in the niche.
Case in point: A 7000+ word article entitled the Top 25 Online Schools in 2010.
It would have been easy for Dee to have just winged this project and thrown up an article …
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August 25th, 2010
After posting the previous article where I asked “What’s Your Internet Business’ POD?” I realized that post was a little thin and that I had a few more things to say on the topic…
So here are 5 things to consider when trying to establish a POD for your Internet business:
1. Visual Design and Layout
It shouldn’t be your only POD, but you can definitely set yourself apart by presenting a top notch design
2. New Angle On Information
Chances are that you have competitors. Chances also are that there is a standard formula for the navigation structure and content a site in your niche should have. There’s probably a reason for this convention. Don’t throw it out. …
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August 25th, 2010
I’m a big believer that POD is the key to success in today’s world of saturated online niches with an increasingly savvy and mature Internet audience. It’s no longer sufficient to just throw up content and hope your search traffic converts into clicks.
So you might be wondering “what the heck is a POD?” Basically, a POD is a point of difference… something that sets you apart. As a background, here’s a great new article with advice for establishing a POD for your internet business.
The idea behind a POD is to become useful to your audience. A POD not only makes your site more linkworthy (and thus authoritative in Google’s eyes) but it also makes …
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March 11th, 2010
Based on the success I’ve had with College Crunch, I recently hired one of my friends to develop a new, more laser focused, edu affiliate site from scratch called The Best Degrees. I’ve learned a lot by running College Crunch. It’s a big site. Too big. Too unfocused. The conversion rate sucks.
That’s why I wanted to try a site that’s built around the affiliate product. And so we got started on March 1st.
For better or worse, I hadn’t read this news at the time. The gist of the story is that student loan default rates are at an all time high and …
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March 8th, 2010
I’ve run a few really successful social media contests, including one for the site cellphones.org. But my most recent attempt fell flat on its face. Major FAIL.
Good learning experience though. And I was even able to pull together an article from the carnage:
5 Tips For How NOT To Run A Social Media Contest
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